Chapter 272 Hanyang City (Please vote and subscribe)
The first month of winter has passed, and the Han tribe has only made one sword and one knife, but other constructions are quite fast, such as the rammed earth city wall.
Rammed earth is a simple and practical technology. The earliest city wall construction in China was made entirely of rammed earth. It only takes 80 people to ram a six-meter-high and 800-meter-long city wall in seven days. The construction speed is amazing, but that kind of city wall is different from the Han tribe. The wall is only more than one meter thick. The amount of work is very different from that of the Han tribe, so the construction speed of the Han tribe is not as fast as theirs.
The city of the Han tribe is 400 meters long, including the thickness of the wall. The original plan is 4 meters wide at the bottom, 2 meters wide at the top, and 5 meters high. The soil used is all dug from the moat, but after Luo Chong's calculations, the soil is still a little insufficient. In addition, the bottom width of the wall is twice as wide as the top width, which makes the angle of the wall too slow, which is not very good for defense.
In order to take these issues into consideration, Luo Chong finally changed the wall to a three-meter-wide bottom, two-and-a-half-meter-wide top, and seven-and-a-half-meter-high wall during construction.
This was done to reduce the amount of earthwork used and to increase the verticality of the wall, making it more difficult for the enemy to climb the wall when attacking the city. It also indirectly increased the height of the wall and the area of the top of the wall, allowing more people to stand on the wall, or to place some large defensive equipment, such as heavy weapons such as crossbows.
Only about 200 slaves participated in the construction of the Han tribe's wall, and some other soldiers were responsible for supervision. This was their first time building a wall, and they were not very skilled. Fortunately, with the ramming cart invented by Luo Chong, the construction speed was a little faster. Now, after several months of hard work, the wall has finally reached the capping stage.
The wall is said to be 7.5 meters high, but the actual height of the rammed earth is only 6 meters high. The remaining 1.5 meters will be covered with a layer of 20-centimeter-thick bricks, leaving 1.3 meters. This 1.3 meters is the additional arrow slits. From the outside, the highest point is only 7.5 meters, but in fact it is only more than 6 meters. It is used to protect the soldiers on the wall.
At the current construction progress, the height of the rammed earth is enough. The floor tiles on the top of the wall are being laid, and the arrow slits are being built. There is
a city gate in the middle of each of the four walls. The city gate is 3.5 meters high and 3 meters wide. It is a vertical rectangle. There are three doors inside and outside, two solid wood double doors that are 10 centimeters thick, and there is also a 30-centimeter-thick solid wood suspension bridge outside. After the suspension bridge is folded up, it will be attached to the outer city wall and can also be used as a door.
There is also a tower above the city gate, which is the city gate fort. This city gate fort is not big, only five meters long and two and a half meters wide, the same width as the top of the wall, four meters high, and only one floor. Two winches are installed inside to retract and release the drawbridge. The height of the entire tower plus the city gate fort is ten meters high.
On both sides of the city gate, there is also a staircase close to the city wall. The staircase is one meter and two meters wide and can accommodate two people walking side by side. In this way, even if someone goes up and down at the same time, they will not be blocked because it is not wide enough, which is convenient for soldiers to quickly go up and down the city wall.
The capping of the city wall made Luo Chong very happy. The tall city wall can bring a sense of security to the tribesmen. The tribesmen are also cheering. They feel extremely proud and happy to live in such an indestructible city. They don’t have to worry about food and clothing, and they are not afraid of foreign enemies. In this era, it is undoubtedly a fairy-like life.
As the city wall gradually took shape, most of the tribesmen who had nothing to do also joined the construction team. They looked forward to the early completion of the city wall. Except for some pregnant women and women who stayed at home to look after their children, the rest of the tribesmen joined the final capping work, moving bricks and building arrow stacks.
The new apprentices in the carpentry group also looked for suitable wood in the wood stacking area to make gates and suspension bridges. Their enthusiasm for work was very high. They felt a sense of accomplishment from personally participating in the construction of the city.
Luo Chong was not idle either. He called the cripple over and customized eight large blue bricks with embossed official script characters, "Han Yang", placed above the four city gates, which was the name of the first city of the Han tribe, "Han Yang".
This name firstly represented that this was the city of the Han tribe, and secondly, it was taken from the meaning of the sun, representing the supreme status of the Han tribe and the rising sun. The rapidly developing Han tribe was like the rising sun, which would get higher and stronger in the future.
After more than ten days, in mid-February in winter, all the construction of the city wall was completed, including stairs and city gates, as well as the drawbridges and wooden doors on all four sides.
In a month and a half, there was a heavy snowfall, and the thickness of the snow in the city square was only ten centimeters, which was not very large compared with the two snowfalls last year, and did not affect the progress of the construction of the Han tribe.
After the city wall was completely completed, Luo Chong assigned new tasks to the 200 slaves to continue building warehouses and breeding farms. Although the weather was cold, Luo Chong did not have any mercy on these former cannibals. They were slaves anyway, and it would be a waste to keep them unused.
Moreover, although Luo Chong forced them to do hard labor, he did not deduct the benefits they should have. Each of these slaves had enough animal skins to cover their entire bodies, and they could eat three meals a day. White salt was also in sufficient supply. Although there was not much meat for them to eat, there was still enough broth. In the cold winter, it was a happy thing to be able to drink a bowl of steaming broth, which they had never eaten in their original cannibal tribe.
Therefore, these slaves were relatively obedient and honest. Anyway, if they worked, they would have food to eat, and if they did not work, they would be beaten. It was impossible for them to escape, especially after they built the city wall themselves. Every city gate was guarded. Even if they did not have shackles, they could not rush out of the city gate.
This tall wall is a safe haven for the Han tribe, but for these slaves, it is an insurmountable cage.
After a month and a half, the carpentry team's windmill was almost ready. Two sets were made in total, which could be installed on a building as big as a warehouse.
The windmill has four blades, each one meter wide and five meters high. When there is no linen cloth, it looks like a huge ladder. In fact, it is similar to a ladder. People can indeed climb up along the skeleton of the blades. A one-meter-wide linen cloth
will be laid on the blades, and there are pulleys and ropes to control the raising and lowering of the linen cloth, just like the sails of a ship. When the windmill needs to rotate, the linen cloth is raised for wind, and when it is not needed, it is lowered. The empty blade skeleton cannot be used for wind and will stop rotating.
(End of this chapter)
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