Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 36 Preparations
From the beginning of winter in October to December, the weather in Nanyang this year became colder and snow began to fall.

The construction work on the surface of the village has basically been completed.

The ancient villagers were good at farming and building houses. These are basic life skills that everyone should learn.

Every household started to get busy, and Shen Chen also gave guidance at this time. From the foundation to the construction work, the whole clan had a population in the early thousand and there were about 200 households, and two to three hundred houses had to be built.

Seeing that the cold winter was approaching, Wang Yi and Deng Qi also helped organize the villagers around Xinye to help them work. Huang Menting specially gave some wages to them in order to thank them.

It was originally a county government and township organization, and the surrounding villagers thought it was a corvee service. They didn't expect that there would be wages, which greatly increased their enthusiasm, and the construction speed was also very fast. The house was built in a month.

The next step is to dig cellars, tunnels, farmland and water canals. Now the villagers are still in the stage of sitting and eating. That is to say, Shen Chen bought a lot of food and grass materials from Mi Zhu, and sold some of them at a high price when he passed through Peiguo. Otherwise, they So poor that there is only food left for the winter.

In addition to the construction of the village, Shen Chen also started to prepare for the construction of Qionglong. The tunnels are actually easy to dig.

From the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, if the siege was not going well when marching and fighting, tunnels were often dug, and a passage could be dug out within two or three days.

However, the design of Qionglong is in the hills and depressions. How to design, construction materials, area size, etc. are all problems.

Although this thing existed in the Han Dynasty, whether the soil quality in Xiliang is the same as that in Kanto, whether it can be built according to the gourds, and built like the Qionglong cages Shen Chen saw in his previous life are all difficult problems.

Finally, after thinking for a long time, Shen Chen decided to build a cave dwelling by burning paper bricks, building them with bricks, and then pasting the walls with rammed earth on the outside, and covering them with lime mortar to increase the viscosity.

This was the technology for making city walls at that time, even inferior to ordinary county walls, because ordinary city walls are made of rammed earth without bricks.

The so-called Qin bricks and Han tiles, although bricks have appeared in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States.

But the firing technology is not very good. After Shen Chen worked as a designer, he has seen all kinds of buildings. He also found relics of the original cave dwellings and blast furnaces in the early years of the founding of our country in some rural areas.

Although it cannot be compared with the industrial civilization of the new era of later generations, these technologies are all products of the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties, representing the peak level of the feudal period.

At least in the Han Dynasty, the bricks and porcelain produced by the caves designed by Shen Chen were more refined and durable, and the iron ware fired in the blast furnace was of very good quality and could remove more impurities.

But this is just an idea, because the most important thing now is the survival of the village and the guarantee of basic construction.

So at present, the work on the surface of the village is completed, the houses are built, the huts are repaired, and then the canals are dug and the fields are reclaimed. Every household must redistribute the land.

If you stand on the hillside and look at it, you will see hundreds of brand new houses scattered for several miles.

This design work is not a simple matter, because the land must be close to the house, otherwise it is inconvenient to cultivate, and it also needs to take into account other functions such as planting vegetables and breeding.

If all the villagers are gathered together, it will be difficult to divide the land.

The fields are far and near, and the villagers who are assigned to far fields must have complaints, so the construction can only be scattered.

Fortunately, there is nothing else in the plain, except that the land is large. Although the villagers live separately, they have also carried out unified planning and resettlement work one by one.

It was not until the spring of January of the following year that Shen Chen began to plan to cast cave dwellings and build blast furnaces after the basic construction of the countryside was completed.

According to the agreement between him and Liu Biao, he will not go to Xiangyang until the clan is completely resettled. Now it is just the beginning of land reclamation, and a lot of agricultural tools, seeds and other materials are needed, so there is plenty of time.

Deng Hong went to Xiangyang again to find a way to buy some production tools, but it was not enough, so he finally approached Liu Biao for help.

These things are all strategic materials, which are too expensive on the market, and only Liu Biao has a lot of them in his treasury, so he can only go to him with a cheeky face.

Liu Biao was quite generous and gave them some supplies, so that the villagers of Huangmenting could finally start production.

Shen Chen asked the villagers to collect animal feces, bones, human feces, burnt plant ash, platycodon ash, and the excrement produced by humans and animals must be pulled into the hut, and a certain proportion of water was added to produce feces.

After two or three months of fermentation and brewing, to be honest, it is difficult for the villagers to bear these tastes.

Since there was no composting technology before the Southern Song Dynasty, they used to get their excrement and urine done in the wild. Now they put the hut at home, which really makes them feel a little uncomfortable.

But Shen Chen said that using such retting fertilizer can increase soil fertility and increase grain production.Therefore, when the villagers were suspicious, they could only follow his orders. Every household dug thatched huts and irrigated the land with manure.

By spring, the villagers of Huangmenting Township had reclaimed more than 1 mu of land, dug out some fish ponds, purchased some pigs, cattle, sheep and livestock, and finally started a new life.

At the same time, Shen Chen summoned the villagers to continue to work overtime after everyone finished their work every evening, digging caves and building blast furnaces in the mountains behind the col.

With caves and blast furnaces, you can fire kiln bricks, porcelain, and smelt steel to create better farm tools and weapons.

Fortunately, coal is widely distributed in any province in my country, but Shanxi, Henan, and Shandong are the provinces with the largest output, not to say that other provinces do not have it.

There are also coal mines in the Nanyang Basin, near the Shahe River where the elders of Huangmenting Township live. It is not a big mine, but it is enough.

During the day, Shen Chen asked everyone to continue to cultivate the farmland and irrigate the millet seedlings with manure.In the evening, kiln bricks and porcelain were fired in cave dwellings, and the ironware of the entire clan was collected and re-smelted for blacksmiths to make.

However, all the farm tools that were built were ordinary farm tools, and no curved plows, water drums, or keel waterwheels were invented.

Because it is used for paddy fields, the planting method in the Nanyang Basin is similar to that of the Yellow River Basin, mainly dry fields, spring millet and autumn wheat, too much water will kill the millet and wheat seedlings.

After more than three months in this way, the millet seedlings finally grew. After careful cultivation and irrigation, the millet seedlings planted in Huangmenting were full and huge, and the yield increased by 40%, which was higher than any period in previous years. high.

This news immediately cheered up the villagers and cheered them up. Some dissatisfaction with Shen Chen's request disappeared completely, and the rest began to blindly worship and believe in him like a heavenly being.

However, Shen Chen knew that the 40% increase in production this time was due to the sufficient soil strength and the first use of the retting technology, and the subsequent production would decline year by year and eventually stabilize.

According to the knowledge he learned from collecting wind before, if chemical fertilizers are not used, the light retting technology can increase the yield of crops by 20%, which is usually between 10% and 20%. Only chemical fertilizers are truly revolutionary products.

By April, the entire village has basically taken shape.The villagers have also settled down, and the tunnels, dark forts, and Qionglong are also being constructed in an orderly manner, and everything is on the right track.

Liu Biao said before that Deng Hong will go to Xiangyang to take up his post after their clans are resettled, and now is the time.

Before departure, Shen Chen held another meeting.

This time it was not in the shack at the foot of the mountain, but in Deng's newly built ancestral hall. This time he even sat in the main seat, and several uncles next to him sat on the lower head.

Shen Chen looked around, and first said: "Uncles, now that the clan has settled down, my sixth uncle and I are going to Xiangyang. However, Nanyang is not peaceful. If we want the clan to stand in the world, we will not let our lives be in the hands of others. , you have to grow up yourself.”

Deng Mao asked, "Ah Chen, what are your plans?"

"I plan to train."

Shen Chen said: "I built tunnels, dark forts, and qionglong to prevent people from attacking our village. Now there are bandits everywhere in Nanyang. If we are rich in production, we may be robbed. How can we not have the power to protect ourselves?"

Deng Maowei: "For military training, the village strongmen have to practice all day long, but everyone has to take care of the farmland, so where is the time?"

This is a big problem.

There were only a little over 1000 people in Huangmenting, especially after Cao Ren’s night attack, more than 200 people were killed or injured. Except for the more than 100 people gathered in Zhuangyang, the other 100 people were all young villagers. This is a huge challenge for the clan. hit.

Now 50% of the working population of the entire clan is between the ages of 200 and [-], and only [-]% if women are excluded, and even fewer are suitable for military training, accounting for only [-]%, or about [-] people.

These people were members of the tribe before, and it was okay to train briefly to protect the tribe when they migrated south.But after they settle down, they have to become the main labor force in the village.

If they are trained as soldiers, who will farm the land?

Shen Chen had considered this issue long ago, and said in a deep voice: "So I don't plan to raise all my clansmen as soldiers, I only train 50 people, one soldier for every [-] civilians, fully armed, carefully trained, and must be brave to die and fight Only those who are brave and brave can have the strength to fight."

Deng Mao hesitated: "Fifty people? What's the use? Besides, we have been entrusted by Liu Jingzhou to train rural soldiers. Is this necessary?"

"It's necessary to develop."

Shen Chen firmly said: "There are many remnants of the Yellow Turban hiding in the mountains near Nanyang. We can take in the refugees, first attack from small forces, relocate the people, and promote it with our model. Gradually occupy the surrounding fields, gather the people into the city, and grow step by step. Now there are 50 people, and it will be 500 people, 5000 people every day, and we will see who dares to commit crimes!"

Deng Mao and the others looked at each other.

This grandson of theirs has a lot of ambition, but now that he is at ease, he suddenly wants everyone to train soldiers, and he doesn't know if the villagers will be willing.

However, unlike the villagers who are small and safe, they have read a few books and have some knowledge.

I also understand that in this troubled world, if you don't control your own power, any prince can send a thousand or two thousand soldiers to wipe out their entire clan. Therefore, seeing that Shen Chen has great ideas and ambitions, he didn't try to dissuade him. Let him do it.

(End of this chapter)