A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 24 Building a Castle
September [-]th in the seventh year of Chongzhen.

At this time, it was already the beginning of November in the Gregorian calendar of later generations, and the beginning of winter would begin in a few days, and the weather was getting colder and colder.

Wang Dou's plan to recruit military households is also coming to an end. As of today, according to the final statistics, there are 55 households in Jingbianbao, 230 men and women.Among them, 110 were men, 75 were adults, and 35 were young men.There are 120 women, 13 women over 84 years old, and 13 young girls under 36 years old.

These people, Wang Dou, ordered Zhong Rong to register them one by one, and issue two original and copy copies. Some of them belonged to refugees from outside. He also issued military account cards for them, and recorded their names in the yellow book of military registration. They were all military households of Jingbian Fort.

There are currently 55 military households in Jingbian Fort with more than 200 people, all of which are real numbers. Among the several forts in Shunxiang Fort, it is considered relatively large.For the time being, these people lived in Diwozi, which was built outside the west side of Jingbiandun, and for a while, a village and town had been formed here.

With the full recruitment of the population, the construction of Jingbian Fort is imminent.

On the [-]th, under the order of Wang Dou, Han Chao and Qi Tianliang went to Dongjiazhuang and Shunxiang Fort to recruit some masons and carpenters to discuss the construction of the fort.

In the evening of that day, Han and Chao came back, bringing back seven or eight craftsmen in ragged clothes.Qi Tianliang had already negotiated with them. In terms of wages, in addition to daily board and lodging, he needed to give one penny per day, and Wang Dou agreed to them.

Seeing that Wang Dou agreed, these craftsmen were all overjoyed, and the food for this winter was finally settled.

These people are craftsmen for generations, and have participated in the construction of many castles. The construction and planning of Jingbian Fort is actually something they are familiar with.After wandering around Jingbiandun for a few days, they quickly took out the design plan of the castle, including the division of streets, the location of wells, the location of temples and the locations of various houses, as well as the future fort walls, fort gates and There are defensive facilities such as stacking holes and perforations on the fort wall.

In terms of site selection, their opinions also agreed with Wang Dou's. They both decided to build the fort along the south direction of Jingbiandun. Firstly, this way of defense is more reliable. Secondly, Jingbiandun was originally built on a raised hill. On the top, the terrain is from high to low, which is conducive to the drainage of the castle to prevent future rain and waterlogging.

The blueprint is ready, and the site selection is not a problem. The key is the cost of building the castle.

According to Lu Xiangsheng’s calculations, in Daming, it takes 200 taels of silver to build a fire road pier, 600 taels of silver to build a tower, more than 700 taels of silver and more than 600 shi of grain to build a small castle with a circumference of more than one mile.The calculations of those craftsmen are roughly the same.

Wang Dou's future Jingbian Fort is planned to have a perimeter of just over one mile, but he doesn't have more than 700 taels of silver and more than 600 stones of grain, so he can only build some main parts of the castle first, and keep the details simple and simple. The future is slow. Slow to think about perfection.In fact, Wang Dou really wanted to build Jingbian Fort into a bastion style, so that the defense would be stronger, but unfortunately the cost was astonishing, Wang Dou did not have the financial resources for the time being, so he had to wait and see in the future.

Fortunately, the land for building the fort does not require money, which saves a lot.

The main body of a general military fort in the Ming Dynasty is the barracks, granary, fodder field, arsenal, and horse farm in the city, plus the outer city walls, city gates, urns, turrets, and moats.However, according to Wang Dou's current financial resources, the barracks and the city wall can only be built first, and the rest can be said slowly.

After Wang Dou's decision, soon, those craftsmen got busy.

First of all, in the tens of acres of land to the south of Jingbiandun, they skillfully marked out dozens of base houses, and separated travel roads and three main streets.

Later, at the end of the central axis in the west, the craftsmen immediately marked out the location of a temple. The local soldiers and civilians in Baoan generally call the temple at this location "Zhengwang Temple".Then another area is marked out at the intersection of the street, where the "Mawang Temple" will be built in the future, a high stage will also be built here, and the "Laoye Temple" will be built opposite the stage. Build a "Niangniang Temple".

In addition, in the east of the city, a few pieces of land should be set aside to build future temples to honor military achievements, such as Qishou Temple, Xianzhong Temple, and Baozhong Temple.In addition, in the center of the main street of each street, there will be places to build various market squares and archways.

This kind of planning was the regular layout of the military forts and civilian forts in the Ming Dynasty at that time. Naturally, it was impossible for Wang Dou to change it without authorization, and he couldn't change it. To be honest, Wang Dou's later generations knew nothing about architecture.

Wang Dou also expressed his understanding of the construction sites of various temples marked out by the craftsmen in the first place. This was the spiritual food of the soldiers and civilians at that time.Entertainment is scarce in this world, what entertainment can there be besides worshiping temples and watching operas?I think that when I was young in my future generations, being able to go to the theater to watch plays was the greatest enjoyment.

The general layout of Jingbian Fort is like this, and it is time to start construction.Wang Dou ordered that all the residents of Jingbian Fort, except children, all men and women go to battle together, and everyone must work hard to build their own homes.

For a time, the residents of Jingbian Fort, men and women, were all carrying hoes, dustpans, and baskets, just digging and picking soil around the fort.Even the children are sensible to help.

However, the construction of fort walls and barracks can be rammed with loess, and the soil can be taken from the local area. There is no need for materials and money, only some food and labor are needed, and some money is unavoidable.

For example, the foundations of houses and city walls in the city need stone materials, and these stone materials are also required to be hard and not easy to weather, and bluestone is the best.In particular, the foundations of the city walls need to be five feet deep and one foot four feet wide. The foundation of a circle of the city wall requires a lot of stone materials.

There is also well drilling, which is the first priority of building a fort. It is impossible for dozens of households to go to the river to fetch water for drinking. A small fort needs at least three wells. The groundwater sources in Baoan Prefecture are abundant, so wells usually need to be drilled. Water can come out from more than twenty feet, and the water quality is mostly clear and sweet. I heard that in some places in Shanxi and Shaanxi, wells need to be drilled to a depth of thirty or forty feet, or even fifty or sixty feet to see water.

However, even if the well is only drilled to a depth of more than [-] feet, in order to avoid subsidence, it still needs to be built with bricks and stones, so the amount of stones used in deep wells is also quite a lot.

The land around Jingbian Fort is empty, and there is nowhere to quarry stones. You can only go to Luanzhuang or the mountains around Shunxiang Fort to quarry. In fact, Luanzhuang is closer to Jingbian Fort, but it is under the jurisdiction of Wubao, which is different from Shunxiang. Forts are different thousand households, and they can only be picked in the surrounding mountains of Shunxiang Fort.

The quarry there is far away from the Jingbianbao Road, so the mining and transportation costs must be very high. In addition to stone materials, wood is also required for the construction of roof beams in barracks and warehouses, which is also a large expense.

Wang Dou sent more than [-] men under the leadership of the Han Dynasty to quarry stones on the mountain of Shunxiangbao.He asked South Korea to extract as much stone as possible to supply the foundations of the barracks and the stones needed for drilling wells. As for the paving of the streets and the foundation of the city wall outside, let's talk about it later.

At the same time, Wang Dou went to Dongjiazhuang again, and asked Zhang Gui, the team manager, to support some wood. Zhang Gui said that it would be very difficult to support, but he happened to have a batch of spare wood in his hand, which he could sell to Wang at a cheaper price. fight.

Wang Dou agreed, and a few days later, Hong Qiu, the general banner of Dongjiazhuang, led dozens of military households in the village, and asked them to fight against the wood, walking all the way from Dongjiazhuang. Use, just use manpower to resist wood.Looking at the military households in Dongjiazhuang who were about to collapse from exhaustion, Wang Dou was speechless for a while.

Hong Qiu is a rough man, nearly forty years old, with full cheeks and beard. He looked at the hot scene in front of him, patted Wang Dou on the shoulder, and said with emotion: "Brother Wang Dou, brother really convinced you, independent construction Fort, what can be done.”

Wang Dou could only smile wryly, and built the fort independently, to put it lightly, the hard work involved is not enough for outsiders to understand.

After Hong Qiu received Wang Dou's wood money, he didn't say anything else, but asked Wang Dou to give his soldiers a full meal. Wang Dou didn't say anything, and let the soldiers go to eat. The householders got up in spirit like a tiger descending the mountain.

……

On September 25th, the seventh year of Chongzhen.

Today is the day when the first well in Jingbian Fort came out of water. After several craftsmen worked hard to dig and repair the well, the well was finally completed.

The well is about twenty feet deep, and the water quality is relatively shallow. The bottom of the well is paved with fine sand, the walls of the well are built with bluestone, and the outside is surrounded by gravel.When the first bucket of water was pulled up, the surrounding military households burst into cheers for a while, and after tasting it again, the well water was clear and sweet, far superior to other forts.

All the military households smiled happily, especially some refugees from other places who joined the military households. Many of them had suffered from drinking water all their lives. Seeing such good water, many of them shed tears.In the end, the repaired well was called "Wanggong Well" by the people to commemorate Wang Dou's kindness.

After the well was built, the soldiers and civilians in Dongjiazhuang nearby heard about it, and some people came to watch it, and all of them were envious after watching it.

In addition to this well, through the daily efforts of more than 100 adult men and women in Tianjing Border Fort, several barracks, warehouses, and forage fields in the fort have gradually become large-scale. Although they are simple, they can at least shelter from wind and rain.Everyone moved out of the diwozi one after another and lived in the barracks. This winter is finally not too cold.

The foundation of the outer city wall is still under construction, and the inside of Jingbian Fort is still messy. The streets marked out are still covered with mud, stones, wood and all kinds of rubbish are everywhere, but there is finally a castle. It took shape.

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Old White Bull:
It’s time to go to Sanjiang, thank you for your support.

Also go back to the book friends of the Great Tang Dynasty: the price of silver in Chapter 23 is based on real historical data at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Pork costs 15 Wen per catty, a large cow costs 250 Wen, and a calf costs 16 Wen.In the [-]th year of Chongzhen, heavy rains hit Jiaxing Prefecture in Zhejiang Province, and the price of rice rose to six taels a stone, and pigs rose to seven taels a mouthful, which was comparable to the price of cattle.

In addition, in the Ming Dynasty, slaughtering farm cattle was a serious crime, and even sick cattle or dying cattle had to be reported to the government for approval before slaughtering.No one buys cattle to eat, and it doesn't make sense how much a cow weighs more than a stone of rice.

Back to Tiantian-Focus on book friends: In the north of the Ming Dynasty at that time, paying two buckets of tax per mu of land was already very heavy. At that time, the yield of wheat was only seven or eight buckets per mu, and the good fertile land only produced more than one stone of grain After a year, after calculating all kinds of costs, the surplus food is barely enough for an old family's snacks. If there is a disaster, they will have to sell their sons and daughters or become refugees.I asked the protagonist to requisition two buckets of grain per mu in the future, and asked if readers would blame the protagonist for being too ruthless. I didn't expect you to be more ruthless than me.

Huihehe Shuyou: Please refer to Chapter 3 of this book for this question.

(End of this chapter)