Everyone was too full to eat anymore, so they put down their chopsticks and started talking.
Even Zhang, who was usually rather slovenly, couldn't stand seeing piles of poop in the city all the time.
After everyone had finished speaking, Gu Shouxin said, "I've been revising some regulations recently. One of them is that no one in the city is allowed to urinate or defecate anywhere. Every day, there will be yamen runners patrolling four areas. If someone is caught, they will be fined silver. If they don't have silver, they will be punished by sweeping the city. If someone builds a latrine in the city, the punishment for being caught will be washing all the city's public latrines."
Gu Xin thought for a moment and asked, "Dad, Mom, if everyone in the city goes to the latrines built by the government office to relieve themselves, the area around the latrines will still smell! If there are latrines, we need to build a latrine. It doesn't feel very good to have a latrine in the city!"
Gu Nian snapped her fingers: "That's alright. We can build the outhouse not far from the city wall and build a drainage channel. Then we can dig out the latrines outside the city and build the outhouses on top of them. I've already finished the cement, right? When the craftsmen come, we can add convenient latrines."
Cai Xiaolian chimed in, "Chunlan, go to the study and get that bag of documents from the second shelf of the bookshelf."
Only Cai Xiaolian and Gu Ren present could understand it.
Cai Xiaolian had always wanted to do something big, and had already discussed the issue of urban sewage with Gu Nian, Gu Ren, and Peng Yizhu. It hadn't been finalized yet, but since Gu Xin brought it up today, she could share it with everyone.
A moment later, the maid Chunlan came over with a file bag containing drawings by Cai Xiaolian, who was originally planning to design a toilet for the house first.
Everyone was amazed after seeing it, marveling at how it could be done.
Upon seeing this, Gu Shouxin immediately ordered his servant to fetch the blueprints of Kuncheng from his office. The whole family stopped eating and gathered around another round table to discuss where the public latrines in the city should be located.
Kuncheng is not very square, but the main road between the east and west city gates divides the city into north and south sections, and a street runs horizontally through the middle of the main road, dividing the city into east and west sections.
Kuncheng now consists of four regions: Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast.
The northwest area contains the Peng family mansion and restaurants, while the rest of the area is empty. Because it is close to the west gate, there are relatively few residents, just the Peng family. The southwest area is the trading area and the western camp of the Peng family army, and there are no residents there either.
In the southeastern district, there was a brothel called Jieyouge near the Kun River, along with some commoners' residences, a few general stores, and a vegetable market. The northeastern district housed the county government, military dependents, and the residences of some wealthy merchants from the Great Zhou Dynasty who participated in transactions.
Looking at the overall picture, there are more people in the southeast and northeast regions, where everyone's daily activities take place. In the southwest and northwest regions, besides the Peng family, there are the Peng family army, as well as merchants from several countries in the restaurants and trading areas.
Finally, after unanimous discussion, the Gu family decided to build four public latrines in Kuncheng, one for men and one for women, one for each district.
Each outhouse had twelve holes, one for men and one for women. Each outhouse had a pit dug underneath it, and the wastewater was piped out halfway through. Outside the city, there was a large latrine.
The location outside the city was to be chosen by Uncle Gu. He knew best which location was most convenient for the land he had reclaimed.
Gu Nian was instantly filled with fighting spirit; this was like building infrastructure in ancient times!
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