Start with Baihuguan

Chapter 532 Daming's First Cement Road
A group of people followed Li Huan out of the capital quickly, and then ran in a certain direction.

It was almost tea time, and a group of people walked on the official road. Because they went on patrol in private, there was no martial law on the official road, and there was no loess pad.

Although the autumn in September is not as hot as summer, it is windy. It just so happens that there is a strong wind blowing at this moment, so the places where it passes, the road is full of smoke and dust.

That is to say, after leaving the imperial city, the emperor, Wang Yangming and others got into the carriage, otherwise, the smoke and dust would be billowing, and everyone would be covered in wind and dust.

But this is the way it is in this era. The people from Dongchang and Jinyiwei who secretly guarded the surrounding area looked like they were in the dust.

This is still an official road. Over the years, the road surface has been trampled on for a long time, but the loess road is a loess road. No matter how strong the trample is, it cannot withstand a heavy rain. One can imagine.

Sitting in the carriage, even if the driver who controls the carriage is a good driver, he tried his best to control the speed of the horse, trying to stabilize the body and prevent the carriage from bumping so much.

But as a result of the poor road conditions, the carriage still seemed very bumpy, that is to say, everyone was already used to such a situation, so sitting in the carriage did not feel much.

Suddenly, the carriage jolted slightly, and Zhu Houzhao and Wang Yangming, who were sitting in the middle of the carriage, could clearly feel that the carriage below them seemed to have become extremely stable all of a sudden.

At the same time, there was a sound of surprise outside the carriage.

The sound of surprise naturally came from the people of Dongchang and Jinyiwei who followed the carriage and guarded the surroundings. These people seemed to see something that surprised people, and they couldn't control their emotions one by one. .

Although the voices of these people were very low, Zhu Houzhao and Wang Yangming, who couldn't help but sit in the carriage, were both strong practitioners of martial arts, so the movement outside could not be concealed from their keen senses.

The monarchs and ministers couldn't help but glance at each other, something must have happened outside, otherwise, those people would never have such a big reaction.

Subconsciously, the two monarchs and ministers looked at Li Huan who was sitting on the side. Li Huan had said that he would give them a surprise earlier. The first thing that the two thought of was that the movement had something to do with Li Huan in all likelihood.

Li Huan noticed the gazes of the two, and a slight smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

At the same time, Zhu Houzhao said, "Li Qing, isn't everyone's reaction the surprise you want to give us?"

Li Huan smiled slightly when he heard this, and said loudly, "Stop!"

Soon Wang Yangming and Zhu Houzhao could feel that the carriage that was driving smoothly stopped slowly, while Li Huan said to them, "Your Majesty, why don't you follow me to watch the Wang Pavilion!"

The emperor stepped out of the carriage first, followed by Li Huan and Wang Yangming.

And when Zhu Houzhao got off the carriage and got down on the ground, the first thing he felt was the thick and smooth road under his feet, almost instinctively, Zhu Houzhao subconsciously looked at his feet.

As a result, after seeing it, Zhu Houzhao couldn't help opening his eyes wide, with a bit of astonishment and surprise on his face.

He saw that what he was stepping on was an extremely flat ground. This negative was extremely flat, and it looked faintly gray, and it was not the loess ground in his impression at all.

Subconsciously, he stepped on it slightly, but as a result, there was not even a speck of dust on the ground under his feet, which was like a huge blue-gray boulder.

"This……"

Looking into the distance along the blue-gray road under your feet, you can see a flat road with a width of more than one foot in front of you, stretching all the way to the distance, and you can't see the end at a glance.

Seeing this scene, Zhu Houzhao was stunned, with a wonderful look on his face.

It was not only Zhu Houzhao who immediately noticed the strangeness of the road under his feet, but also Wang Yangming, Yang Tinghe and others who got out of the carriage together with Li Huan, as well as the British Duke Zhang Lun and Cheng Guogong Zhu who got out of the carriage behind them. Fu and other nobles of the state also looked at the ground under their feet with great curiosity.

Everyone is not a fool. The strangeness of the road under their feet naturally attracted their attention at the first time. Even the British Duke Zhang Lun bent down and stroked the ground gently with his hands, as if to check something, and then He punched the ground hard again, with a look of shock on his face, and exclaimed in his mouth: "This... how is this possible, even if it is a stone, it is impossible to have such a complete, such a large stone. ah!"

Zhang Lun's reaction was naturally noticed by everyone. They each checked the situation on the road under their feet in their own way, but after some investigation, everyone was stunned.

They can all find that the road under their feet is extremely smooth, and its hardness is comparable to that of the bluestone pavement they have seen. The key point is that the bluestone pavement is completely polished piece by piece by human power. There is never much bluestone paving that is different.

But this time, the road under their feet was completely integrated. At first glance, it was at least several feet long, and there were no gaps in the road as wide as a piece of road. If the road under their feet was paved with bluestone-like stones, then This stone is also amazing.

The key is to look at the road stretching to the distance, and it is extremely regular. Anyway, they don't believe that so many extremely flat stones can be collected in the mountains.

Li Huan did not open his mouth, but instead led the crowd to walk on the smooth concrete road, and the crowd did not rush to ask questions, but instead followed Li Huan all the way, walking and watching for a long time. When it's time for a cup of tea, there is a huge venue at the end of the road ahead.

This site occupies an extremely vast area, and there are rows of sheds, which seem to be sheltering the things under the sheds from wind and rain.

Zhu Houzhao said in surprise: "If I remember correctly, this place should have been a Huangzhuang before!"

Gao Feng, the eunuch serving the emperor, said sharply at the side: "Your Majesty, this place was indeed a Huangzhuang before, but after the establishment of the Daming Royal Trading Company, this Huangzhuang was also assigned to the trading company."

And Li Huan took Gao Feng's words, and explained to the emperor with a smile on his face: "After this place was assigned to a commercial bank, it was converted into a large warehouse by the commercial bank, where a lot of goods are stored. goods."

Zhu Houzhao nodded slightly, his eyes fell on Li Huan, he saw that Li Huan was looking at the extremely hard road under his feet, like a road paved with bluestones, and said: "If my guess is right, Li Qing, you want to give it to me. Surprise should be the road under my feet, to be honest, I was really surprised."

Li Huan said with a light smile: "Your Majesty's words are correct. I invite Your Majesty and you all to come here, just to show everyone the simple road that Li ordered people to pave within three days!"

Wang Yangming and others on the side were stunned when they heard the words, and then they realized that Yang Yiqing, the Minister of the Ministry of War who had been an official in the local area for many years, was even more shocked: "What, Qin Guogong, you said that this road is for you to order people within three days. It was built? And it’s a simple road?”

Yang Yiqing directly asked everyone's questions, not only Yang Yiqing, everyone was shocked by Li Huan's words, they really didn't expect Li Huan to tell them that what they saw was very extraordinary The road was actually built in just three days.

As if thinking of something, Wang Yangming subconsciously said, "I don't know how many peasants Duke Qin used to build this road? How much did it cost?"

Now the Ming Dynasty has abolished labor, but whenever the Ming court wants to carry out any project, it will directly use money or food to recruit young people to work, and directly pay the money and food.

So when he heard that Li Huan built such an extraordinary-looking road within three days, although Wang Yangming, as the chief assistant of the cabinet, was extremely surprised, what he thought of was that this road was built within three days. How much money was spent and how much labor was used.

Zhu Fu stroked his beard and said, "If I want this old man to come and see, I'm afraid it will take at least thousands of civilians to pave such a road in such a short period of time..."

When everyone heard what Zhu Fu said, they also showed their approval. Anyway, in their opinion, since there is so much time, it must be due to the strength of the number of people.

Even Zhu Houzhao, the emperor, showed the same look, but Li Huan shook his head slowly when he was thinking in everyone's mind, and just said lightly: "In order to build this cement road about a thousand feet long, probably It took 100 manpower, plus labor and raw materials, it cost about 600 taels of silver!"

One thousand zhang is about 3000 meters, which is about six miles. It took 100 manpower for three days to repair such a distance with cement. To be honest, Li Huan is not very satisfied with the speed. Ten meters of roads were built.

There is also the question of the cost. The six-mile road costs almost 600 taels of silver, which means that a mile of road costs 100 taels of silver.

A mile of concrete road costs about 100 taels of silver, which is not small at all. If it is a 100-mile road, it will be [-] million taels. With the land area of ​​Daming, if it is really open to build roads, it will be more than As for the tens of thousands of miles of roads, I am afraid that if we really want to repair all the official roads in various places, at least hundreds of thousands of miles of roads will need to be repaired. If this is the case, the gold and silver needed will be as much as tens of millions of taels! .

On the other hand, Zhu Houzhao, Wang Yangming and others who were on the side were shocked when they heard Li Huan's words.

Wang Yangming, who was in charge of the cabinet, was even more surprised and said: "Duke Qin, you said that to build this road that is about six miles away, only about a hundred people were used in three days, and it cost about 600 taels of silver?"

Li Huan nodded slightly, frowned and said: "If you do the math, it costs hundreds of taels of silver for a mile, which is indeed a bit high!"

While Li Huan was muttering softly, Wang Yangming at the side took a deep breath and looked at Li Huan and said, "According to Duke Qin's words, this road was not repaired with stones excavated from the mountains?"

Li Huan nodded and said: "That's natural. If the stones excavated from the mountain were really used, the labor and cost would be too high. These are all repaired with the cement researched by the supervisor."

While speaking, Li Huan beckoned to the prison guards who were waiting respectfully in front of him: "And bring a jar of cement over here."

Soon, several strong and strong men came over carrying a large tank with the mouth of the tank sealed.

Everyone's eyes naturally fell on the big vat that was carried by everyone, while Li Huan stepped forward, stretched out his hand to open the sealed port, and what suddenly appeared in everyone's eyes was a vat of green water. Gray powder, which looks like wheat bran.

Yang Yiqing took a step forward and subconsciously stretched out his hand to pinch a handful of cement powder, then brought it to Li Huan's astonished eyes, stuck out his tongue and licked it lightly, tasted it, and finally shook his head: "This is not Something like glutinous rice..."

Only then did Li Huan react when he heard the words, and explained with a light cough: "Everyone, this is made of ore in the mountains like steelmaking. This thing will melt when it meets water, just like water is like mud, but this thing has extremely strong properties. If you spread scholars’ stones on the ground and then pour the material, it will solidify like a solid stone in just two or three days.”

Although when they saw the cyan powder in the vat, everyone vaguely guessed that these things might have something to do with the road under their feet, but after hearing what Li Huan said, everyone was still surprised.

Yang Yiqing even asked: "Is it really so miraculous?"

Li Huan laughed loudly and said: "If you don't believe me, you might as well come with me and have a look."

While speaking, Li Huan led the crowd to the distance. When they arrived here, they saw a group of people sweating profusely leveling the ground there, and another group of people separated and rolled the heavy stone rollers across the ground, rolling the leveled ground. The ground was extremely solid and flat, and a group of people behind them pushed a cart to spread a pile of wet and muddy stones on the flat ground, and then pushed the stones flat.

Then a group of people dumped loads of things that looked like sticky blue mud on the stones. After a while, the blue mud evenly covered the stones, and then someone stepped forward to take those things that looked like sticky blue mud. The mud-like thing was smoothed out little by little, and gradually an extremely flat but wet blue ground appeared in everyone's eyes. At first glance, it was exactly the same as the roads they walked on just now.

【Ask for a monthly ticket】

(End of this chapter)