Chapter 554 Luo Chong's Child (Please vote and subscribe)
Luo Chong continued his tour of the county. After all, this is his own territory, and it is necessary to see how it is developing.
The next stop is Danshan County. When Luo Chong arrived here, he was very satisfied with the progress of the construction here.
There is a small plain under the hillside south of Tuoguling. About 27 kilometers to the east is the Rushui River. Further south is a large forest. The location of Danshan County is located on the battlefield where the Fire Tribe once fought.
The two guys in charge of the construction of Danshan County are Hu Mancang and Chai Duoduo, as well as the civilian clerks transferred from Hanyang City. The general managers here are Hu and Chai. To be precise, this is a team, because Luo Chong can't find a more suitable candidate to be the chief officer at present.
Luo Chong originally asked these two soldiers to come and preside over the construction work. The main consideration was that Danshan County needed to dig an artificial river. The amount of work was relatively large. It would be too slow to rely on local people to do it. So Luo Chong mobilized 500 slaves here, but there must be soldiers to guard and supervise their work, so he directly asked these two soldiers to come and take charge of guarding the slaves and presiding over the construction work.
The county seat of Danshan County is a rectangular city, 500 meters wide and 800 meters long. There is no moat around it, so the city wall is relatively high, with a base of ten meters high. There are gatehouses and watchtowers at the four gates and four corners. With these buildings, the highest point is 15 meters high.
More importantly, this city is different from most cities in the Han tribe. This is a city with earth-covered brick structure, which is the same as the city wall of Hanyang City. Most other county towns are built with pure rammed earth structure.
This behavior may also be caused by the fact that the two military commanders are in charge and they never forget to think from the perspective of fighting.
Another reason is that because it is necessary to dig an artificial river here, a lot of soil was dug out. This soil can only be used to build the city and cannot be used up. It cannot be piled up anywhere. After all, both sides of the artificial river will be farmland in the future. How can you pile so many large piles of soil in the fields? How can you grow food?
So they simply burned all the soil into bricks and used them to build city walls and houses inside. Therefore, Danshan County is not good at other things, but the city walls and houses have been built long ago. However, farmland has not been reclaimed much so far, and the source of food still depends on Luo Chong to use tax grain to supply them, but the breeding industry here is well developed, and the people are not short of meat.
These newly built county towns have a common feature, that is, they are larger than Hanyang City. When Hanyang City was designed and built, it was a bit small because of population and other reasons. The city of 400 meters long and wide does not even have a modern primary school. It is really aggrieved to develop later.
Another important difference between Danshan County and other cities is that the houses here are uniformly built with red bricks, which is unique in the Han tribe.
Danshan County is far from the river and lacks water resources. Daily drinking water and construction can be directly obtained by digging wells in the local area. This is not difficult, and the Han tribe already has experience. However, if you want to irrigate farmland on a large scale, you cannot do without rivers and canals. The artificial river in Danshan County is also a water conservancy project set up for irrigating farmland.
For the same reason, there is no water to cool the brick kiln, and there is no way to make blue bricks. There are wells, but it is too inefficient to carry buckets of water to the top of the kiln by manpower. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of no place for soil to accumulate, Hu Chai and the others proposed to build a brick kiln. However, when there was a lack of water resources, Luo Chong directly asked them to build a tunnel-type red brick kiln, which does not require water and is directly air-cooled.
Although the quality is not as strong as blue bricks, it is still no problem to use it for decades. What will happen after decades, who can tell? At worst, rebuild it at that time. Maybe Danshan County will be expanded again at that time. Who can say for sure?
However, the bricks used to build the city walls and government offices were all blue bricks. The brick kiln was near the river. Although it was more troublesome to transport, it would be better to use less bricks and more wood. Anyway, there was a forest not far away, so there was no shortage of wood and firewood.
When Luo Chong came, the city walls and more than 400 houses had already been built, and the government offices in the city were still under construction. The rest were still vacant land for the time being, but a temporary breeding farm had been planned there, mainly for antelopes. The women would drive the sheep out of the city every day to eat wild grass on the plains outside the city, and then drive the sheep back home at night. They were well raised, so there was no shortage of meat and fur here, but only food.
Because there was no water source, there was no way to irrigate the land. Although a lot of fields had been reclaimed near the city, they were only planted with some vegetables now, and they were all using well water.
In other words, when Danshan County could produce food, it mainly depended on when the artificial river would be connected to the water.
In order to save time and allow the people to have land to plant as soon as possible, the artificial river excavation plan formulated by Luo Chong was divided into several stages and carried out in batches.
For example, at the beginning, a canal one and a half meters deep and four meters wide was dug to divert water first, and local agricultural production was started as soon as possible. After the newly established county town was stable, there would be plenty of time in the future to slowly widen and deepen the 27-kilometer-long artificial river year by year until the river could be used for ships. This was a very long plan. It
was just because the river was too long, so the first phase of the project had not been completed so far. After Hu Chai and the others met Luo Chong, they reported that the first phase of the artificial river would definitely be completed before winter this year. Well, it cannot be called an artificial river now, it should be called a canal. The canal should be dug before winter, and water should be diverted first, so that food can be planted in the spring of next year.
In the end, the two men applied for food subsidies from Luo Chong again. They did not need other subsidies, so they did not ask for them.
After noting the food shortage in Danshan County, Luo Chong set off for home again, first returning to Hanyang City to take a look, and then to the capital of Ruyang County and Sitong County for inspection.
To be honest, Luo Chong was not such a homesick person before, but since he and Xiaodie and Zhan Ying consummated their marriages, he couldn't help but miss his wives when he didn't see them for a while.
The three of them were in good health and had no problems, so after Luo Chong's efforts, the two of them were pregnant at the same time. Since there were people at home that he cared about, it was natural for him to go back often to see them.
The two women who were only two months pregnant had no visible bulges on their bellies. The reason why Luo Chong concluded that they were both pregnant was because they did not have their period (￣︶￣)↗. . .
Luo Chong had already told them not to do heavy work, such as fetching water from the well, chopping firewood, etc. He had them do proper exercise, or make clothes at home, and occasionally visit the textile workshop in the city. After learning about the situation, the mother-in-law Shang often went to the house to take a look.
Luo Chong also specially spent money to hire four middle-aged single women who were rescued by the Fire Tribe. He paid them wages and asked them to take care of Xiaodie and Zhan Ying at home, do some work such as chopping firewood, fetching water and cooking. Sometimes Xiaodie and Zhan Ying would also cook or feed chickens at home.
Luo Chong had been a human for two lifetimes, and this was the first time he had his own child. Although he was not a virgin before his death in his previous life, he had never been married and had children, so he was quite nervous and excited. Xiaodie and Zhan Ying were the same.
They were both giving birth for the first time, and they were pregnant with the leader's children. Moreover, compared with other people, they were also women of relatively old childbearing age. In addition, the special identity of the leader's wife attracted a lot of attention and congratulations. The two were very happy, and even the whole Hanyang City was beaming with joy.
The tribesmen were looking forward to the birth of two little lives, hoping that there would be a child as smart as the leader, who would continue to lead them to grow and develop in the future, making the Han tribe stronger and stronger, and the living standards better and better.
After spending a day at home with the two ladies, Luo Chong set off again to Ruyang County, which was separated by a river. This was the largest single city in the entire Han tribe. The length and width of the city were both one kilometer, and it had been built for a year and a half. It was considered a relatively early city with a large population, and the output had long been self-sufficient. In addition to the supply of salt and iron, everything else was available here.
However, the construction progress of Ruyang City is still not fast. After all, the area is there. This time Luo Chong came to see how the capital of Ruyang County has developed now. Although it is not far from Hanyang City, Luo Chong has not been here much. This time he went there to see how Shu Da's business is doing and whether he has made any money.
The city structure of Ruyang City is relatively unique in the Han tribe. This city not only has a city wall, but also a moat. However, the moat here is relatively large compared to the moat of Hanyang City.
The moat of Hanyang City basically surrounds the bottom of the city wall, and is at most half a meter away from the base of the wall. It is no problem to say that the moat is close to the city wall. It also played a big role in the previous siege and defense.
One advantage of this design is that it can increase the distance between the attackers and the city wall. Originally, they could attack directly under the city wall, but now it has become more difficult to put a ladder on the city wall because there is a moat under the base of the wall.
However, such a design has very strict requirements on the city wall, because the rammed earth city wall is afraid of water and is easily softened and collapsed, so the city wall near the river must be covered with a layer of blue bricks, and a large amount of quicklime and charcoal must be added to the rammed earth to keep it dry. Even the moat must be paved with blue bricks or other waterproof materials before the water is passed, in order to keep the city wall dry.
However, Ruyang County was not designed in this way. The circumference of Ruyang County's city wall is four kilometers. Not counting the towers, corner towers, and watchtowers, the base alone is twelve meters high, the thickness of the bottom of the city wall is ten meters, and the top of the wall is six meters wide, which can be used to set up large-scale military equipment such as bed crossbows.
For such a huge project, if the bricks are wrapped with earth, the construction progress will be too slow. It is not that the bricks wrapped with earth cannot be waterproof, so the moat cannot be dug close to the city wall.
Therefore, the moat in Ruyang County is on a parallel line 100 meters away from the city wall. In the open space between the city wall and the moat, except for the walkways for the four city gates, the rest of the area is planted with tall sisal, and the planting is very dense, equivalent to a plant-type barbed wire isolation belt.
This defense arrangement is different from that of Hanyang City. Although the moat is not close to the city wall, but 100 meters away, in order to build the city and houses on the spot, the moat was dug very wide, 10 meters wide, and very deep, filled with water.
So if the enemy wants to attack, they must force a crossing of the river 100 meters away from the city wall, and this distance is just within the precise range of the archers on the city wall. As long as there are enough archers and arrows on the city wall, Luo Chong can say with confidence that, let alone attacking Ruyang City, it is estimated that the enemy will not even be able to cross the moat and will all die in the river. This is a typical half-crossing attack, taking advantage of the enemy halfway through the river to hit them hard.
Even if some enemies managed to swim across the moat, there was still a 100-meter-wide sisal isolation belt from the city wall. This thing was as dense as barbed wire. Even if they used steel knives to cut along the way, it would take some effort, and they would have to withstand the blows from the archers on the city wall, not to mention that it was difficult for the enemy to obtain steel knives.
Moreover, when the enemy passed through the sisal isolation belt and came to the bottom of the wall, they could not climb up without a ladder. Even if there was a ladder, the defenders on the city wall were not idle. It was impossible for anyone to attack the city wall, let alone enter through the city gate. At that time, they would directly use bricks and sandbags to fill the city gate hole tightly. Even if a group of giant apes came to attack, they could not rely on brute force to enter the city gate from the outside.
Rat Daba managed this place very well. The dock outside the city was bustling with small boats traveling between Hanyang and Ruyang, carrying various goods and materials. There were many boatmen and strong men who were carrying heavy loads shouting, and some people visiting relatives. It seemed very lively.
The buildings in the city are also diverse, with roads paved with blue bricks or stones. The roads in the city are not all the same. There are blue bricks and red bricks in the houses. The homesteads of the nobles are larger, and some people even built two-story wooden buildings at home.
Since Ruyang City is more than four times larger than Hanyang City, the streets in the city are also very wide. There are also some shops built on both sides of the streets with wood and bricks. The large ones can be used as inns and restaurants, and the small ones can be used as noodle shops or pancake shops.
The assets of these shops are all owned by the Ruyang County Government, which earns some fiscal revenue by collecting rent. Of course, they can be sold, but no one can afford it at the moment. Perhaps only Shu Da and Luo Chong in the Han tribe can consider it with their own pockets.
In addition to the civilian shops, there is a tall blue brick building called the "Great Han Empire Bank" between the government office area and the shops. Hanyang City is too small to build a bank, so a large one was built in Ruyang County. It not only has a business department in the front and an office area in the back, but also an independent courtyard in the middle and a large vault in the basement, which is responsible for providing currency transactions for five or six surrounding counties.
(End of this chapter)
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