Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 114
March 1590, 11 AD.

The weather in Wuzhai Fort has cooled down. In the past few days, there will be some light snow or sleet in Wuzhai Fort from time to time.But at this time, inside and outside of Wuzhai Fort, it was full of heat, and the peasants, like ants, were busy picking earth and pushing bricks.

In the midst of the busyness, looking around, these ragged native peasants are working very hard. In this year, there are not many places where you can find a stable place to eat and live. was driven away.

Considering that these refugees generally have a difficult life when they come to Wuzhaibao, Huang Laifu still uses his own experience in running a farm. In the first month, these refugees are provided with food, and after the end of the month, when the monthly silver is issued, they will be given food. They eat their own.

Eating white rice and hot noodles every day, trying to eat as much as possible for each meal, and eating meat every 10 days, this decision naturally made thousands of refugees feel grateful.When they were wandering around, they had already seen too much of the cold world, and their senses became increasingly numb, but in Wuzhai Fort, they felt the warmth of life for the first time.Many people have made up their minds that they must stay in Wuzhai Fort in the future and take root here.

Regarding the management of these peasant husbands, Huang Laifu ordered the Wuzhaibao Construction Bureau to count the number of refugee peasant husbands according to the common experience in various places in Ming Dynasty. After counting the number of refugee peasant husbands, every ten households were classified as a Jia, and they were asked to elect one-year-old elders as Jia leaders. , Every ten armors are compiled into a mile, and one person is appointed as the head of the mile.And built countless diwozi areas outside the fort, so that these peasants can settle down.

The expansion of Wuzhai Fort this time, because it has been extended to seven miles in circumference, has included most of the factories outside the fort, which reassures merchants that their workshops will be much safer with the protection of the city wall in the future. up.

Of course, with the arrival of a large number of refugees, there must be mud and sand, fish and dragons mixed together.For most of the family members of the refugees, they mostly do some tertiary industry outside the fort, such as helping people wash clothes, transport coal, etc., or they work in various workshops in Wuzhai Fort.These people belong to the peaceful and good people.

But there are also some rogue proletarians. These people, instead of working hard and living a stable life, are doing things like stealing, cheating, and bullying men and women.Huang Laifu would not be polite to these people. When he found one, he was easily beaten with sticks, and then he was driven out of Wuzhaibao.

Now, Wuzhaibao soldiers are patrolling inside and outside the fort every day to guard against criminals.In Huang Laifu's arrangement for the Wuzhai Fort army, soldiers from two hundred households guarded the city gate and looked at the beacon tower every day.There is another sergeant of the general banner patrolling the streets, and the rest are trained on the barracks playground, which is replaced every three days.

Now the sergeants in Wuzhaibao have all put on brand-new Daming winter clothes, a set of brand-new mandarin duck battle jackets, cowhide combat shoes, military trousers, sergeant fur hats, etc. , Coupled with the rigorous daily training of the sergeants in the past few months, every move is full of heroism, and the eyes of many girls and daughters-in-law are shining.

These Wuzhaibao sergeants in the eyes of outsiders are all young and aggressive, and all of them are tall and strong, full of vigor, and the weapons in their hands are bright and well maintained, and they are shining coldly. When the queue of people marched solemnly and neatly inside and outside the Wuzhai Fort, the momentum was really amazing.Compared with the old, weak and remnant soldiers in other places, the flagging bean sprout-like guard army is really refreshing and awe-inspiring.

As the saying goes, bandits pass like washing, and soldiers pass like grates.In various parts of Ming Dynasty, the relationship between the army and the people has always been tense, and the camps in the guards are full of all kinds of prostitutes. These people are not good at fighting, but they are terrible at bullying the common people.In the thousands of years of ancient China, only the Yue family army and the Qi family army were truly welcome by the common people.

In Wuzhai Fort, everyone who came to Wuzhai Fort to do business or work for food always had two things that were not used to.One is that Wuzhai Fort is too clean. Walking on the street, there are too many rules. You can’t do whatever you want. If you spit or throw garbage, you will be fined a penny. .Those who dare to attack the managers of the Wuzhaibao City Administration Bureau will be punished with ten army sticks and even kicked out of Wuzhaibao.

Another point is that Taiqiu, the military men of Wuzhai Fort, did nothing wrong. They spoke kindly, behaved politely, and bought and sold fairly, which made many people who just came to Wuzhai Fort suspicious and uncomfortable.

According to Huang Laifu's military discipline regulations, the soldiers of Wuzhai Fort, first, must not harass the local military households in Wuzhai Fort. This is understandable. Wuzhai Fort was originally a military fort. The local children of Zhaibao, how can they harm their own folks?Second, the Anfen Han people outside Wuzhai Fort cannot be harassed without reason, and those who violate it will be punished with military discipline.This point, in the current environment of Ming Dynasty, made many people unable to understand. How can soldiers be called soldiers if they don't worry about the common people?

Of course, don't think that the army of Wuzhaibao can be negligent and disrespectful just like that.Huang Laifu is not a rigid person. He stipulates that if anyone shows hostility to the army of Wuzhai Fort, takes an unfriendly posture, and threatens the safety of the Wuzhai Fort army, they must immediately launch a severe counterattack. Whether you are armed in your hands, throwing stones can hurt people, right?

Huang Laifu is very disgusted with the so-called behavior of countering dangerous incidents after we can't bear it and restrain ourselves. Huang Laifu believes that this kind of behavior is condoning crimes and conniving the expansion of the situation. Why not eliminate the danger immediately? How about waiting until the situation expands?
His principle is to eliminate dangers and threats as soon as possible, and protect the safety of his soldiers as much as possible.If the sergeants can't even protect themselves, how can they protect the safety of the common people?
For the heroic army of Wuzhai Fort, the military households of Wuzhai Fort are naturally full of pride, these are their own children.With them around, everyone in Wuzhaibao feels safe.

For the Wuzhaibao sergeants, they are also full of pride.In Wuzhai Fort, soldiers are very respected. They are treated well and have a high status, especially military dependents, because they often receive various benefits.Huang Laifu also often organizes some activities to support and labor the military, so that these military dependents, when they walk outside, talk about their children with others, they will have a special face.It's a custom that good men don't serve as soldiers, and good iron doesn't hammer nails.In Wuzhai Fort, it does not exist at all.

Of course, it is not easy to enter the army of Wuzhai Fort, that is truly one in a million.The current farms in Wuzhaibao, due to the slack season, these villagers, while helping the new farms to reclaim wasteland and build various farms, they also need to carry out some basic drills.Now the soldiers of Wuzhai Fort are selected from various farms in Wuzhai Fort.

Owning the army and the farm also made Huang Laifu's position in Wuzhaibao extremely stable.

In ancient society, holding a knife in one hand and holding the land in the other is the kingly way.

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The expansion of Wuzhaibao City this time requires a large amount of cement and blue bricks.

The use of cement in the urban construction of Wuzhai Fort was the result of Huang Laifu's proposal. Of course, those craftsmen had nothing to say. Who would dare to question the opinion of the guard?
And Mr. Andaishan from the Ministry of Industry, after seeing the solid and flat concrete streets in Wuzhai Fort, he also thinks that this kind of thing is very good, cheap and good quality, strong and sturdy, and it is an excellent crop for various buildings.After actually building a section of the city wall, Mr. Andaishan planned to write a letter to the Ministry of Industry to promote the cement produced in Wuzhai Fort.Of course, this is also the result of the hundreds of taels he received from Huang Laifu.

Thanks to this opportunity of building the city, the Dawuzhaibao Cement Factory has expanded, attracting a large number of workers, and the cement produced every day is continuously transported to the construction site in the fort.The result of all parties is that Huang Laifu made more than half of his investment this time by selling cement alone.

There are many materials needed to build the city of Wuzhai Fort this time, and blue bricks are one of them.

The filling in the city wall is a mixture of soil, sand and lime, and the outside is covered with city bricks.If you want to have blue bricks, you have to fire them.

Daming brick kilns have advanced technology, and the green bricks fired are neat and heavy.In the Ming Dynasty at this time, a brick kiln for firing city bricks must have three elements: soil, water and fuel.

The soil needs loess with high viscosity and less impurities.The construction of brick kilns also requires abundant water resources, because the raw material for burning bricks is adobe, which is extracted from water, loess and mud. Therefore, the first requirement for building brick kilns is to be close to water sources.

The area around Zhangjiaping near the Dawuzhaibao Cement Factory meets this condition. Therefore, during these times, near the Dawuzhaibao Cement Factory, Mr. Andaishan from the Ministry of Industry directed some craftsmen to establish a There are a total of [-] brick kilns in the large-scale and spectacular brick kiln group.

Among these brick kilns, all belong to the horseshoe kiln.The kiln is equipped with a kiln wall, a kiln fire door, a flue and a kiln bed.The diameter of the upper mouth is four meters, and the depth is two meters. There is a wide fire channel at the bottom of the brick kiln.Thirteen layers of bricks can be stacked inside, with about 180 bricks per layer.Because of the reasonable structure of the brick kiln, none of the bricks inside cannot be burned by fire, and none of them has been burned.This made Huang Laifu admire the kiln firing technology of Daming at that time.

Finally, the brick kiln must have sufficient fuel.Because adobes can only be made into bricks after being fired, fuel is indispensable. Of course, Huang Laifu would not be so stupid as to use the forest trees of Wuzhai Fort to burn. He always uses coal.

It takes 560 to 2000 degrees Celsius to fire such a large green brick, and the firing cycle is seven days. It takes about eight tons of coal to fire a kiln of bricks.Based on this standard, [-] brick kilns need [-] tons of coal to burn one brick.Each kiln burns four kilns per month, consuming more than [-] tons of coal.

If the entire construction period is counted... this is a huge number.

It needs so much coal, which is a huge business opportunity. Although Wuzhaibao does not produce coal, there are plenty of coal in the nearby states and counties. Therefore, during these times, countless merchants see opportunities and rush to buy from nearby states. The county transported coal, which made them a lot of money.

And among the civilian husbands hired by these merchants, many of them also have the opportunity to eat and work invisibly.

(End of this chapter)