Jiuli Town is divided into two parts: Zhenbu and Qiang Village.
The Qiang Village was built by the Qiao family two hundred years ago after they wrested this valley land from the tribes that had previously settled here. The village is surrounded by mountains and rivers and occupies a higher terrain. There are large sloping areas on both sides close to Dadu.
water, pinewood creek.
In the early years, more than a thousand people of the Qiao family lived together in a Qiang stronghold. However, after more than two hundred years of multiplication and the annexation of some small tribes, the number of people increased tenfold, and the narrow Qiang stronghold was no longer sufficient.
The poor and ruined Qiang people could only build earthen huts and huts to live outside the Qiang Village, occupying almost the slopes on both sides of the Qiang Village near Dadu River and Songlin River, forming today's town and port structure.
Of course, the Qiao family also successively built more than a dozen large and small Qiang villages in the surrounding valleys, almost completely occupying the area between Daxiang Ridge and Mile Ridge that is easy to live and cultivate.
At this time, the Qiang village was mainly occupied by tribal leaders and their direct descendants.
In addition to the traditional green pine hair (pine needle) roofs, most of the houses in the village are built with blue bricks, making the entire village look like a miniature mountain city near the water.
The village wall was rebuilt for the last time, and the whole body was built with strips of stone. The size of the village did not expand much, but it became stronger and stronger. It was like a strong fortress guarding the strategic place where Dadu River and Songlin River meet.
The Dadu River meanders between the mountains of the southern Qionglai Mountains. The upper reaches have a large drop, the waterway is narrow, the water is turbulent and dangerous, and there are many dangerous shoals and reefs, making it inaccessible to boats all year round.
Therefore, Jiuli Town is also the most important land and water transfer place in the upper reaches of Dadu River, and the most important land route is along the right bank of Songlin River to the northwest and deep into the Mile Ridge, passing through Conghua Linping and other places, and entering the entire Qionglai
The western foothills of the mountains are the eastern edge of Dajianlu.
All these determine the extremely important status of Jiuli Town.
Qiao Guanyuan's Lizhou Governor's Mansion is the most prominent and largest building complex among the Qiang villages.
Zhu Zhi walked into the Qiang Village from the Dongzhai Gate, and his view was no longer blocked by the wall. He could clearly see that the Governor's Mansion was roughly divided into five floors, with hundreds of houses built side by side along the mountain. To put it bluntly, the Governor's Mansion in Lizhou
It is the private residence of Qiao Guanyuan as the leader of the tribe. In addition to the family living there, it is also the place where Qiao Guanyuan convenes the chiefs to handle tribal affairs.
Walking into the banquet hall of the Governor's Mansion and sitting down, Zhu Zhi sat under the candlelight and straight to the point proposed that he would choose a place outside the Qiang Village to build the Sihu Hall.
The construction of the Sihu Hall does not require donations of money and food from the Qingqiang tribes, but Zhu Zhi hopes that the Qingqiang tribes can support the Sihu Hall in hiring labor from various ministries and purchasing the necessary materials for the construction of the Sihu Hall - the Sihu Hall even
There are also plans to build lumberyards, lime cellars, and brick cellars in the mountains, and consider hiring Han craftsmen from Jiazhou and other places into the mountains.
Rather than setting aside a courtyard from the Qiao family's governor's office for Zhu Zhi and hundreds of wolf-like soldiers to move in and handle official affairs, Zhu Zhi proposed to build another Sihu Hall office outside the Qiang village.
, is undoubtedly a choice that is easier for tribal leaders such as Qiao Guanyuan to accept.
On the one hand, they have received Confucian culture education since childhood and have been in close contact with Jiazhou. They have even traveled to Chengdu, Yuzhou and other places. They know that the Central Plains is vast and rich in resources, and Jiuli Town is nothing compared to it.
The ability to fight against court orders.
They also knew very well that the reason why the court imposed restrictions on the Qingqiang tribes was purely for the convenience of governance, and they did not expect to collect much grain from the mountains.
On the other hand, they also know very well that ordinary people do not have the opportunity to receive education, and the poor mountains and rivers restrict their pace. Most of the people are closed and conservative. Even if the tribal leaders do not secretly obstruct them, the honest people rarely deal with the Han people directly.
, let alone accepting employment from the Sihu Office.
Furthermore, the slightly flat areas outside the Qiang Village have either been built with houses or reclaimed into terraced slopes for farming. If the Sihu Office really wants to find a place to build a government office, it will have to negotiate and deal with it, right?
In the view of Qiao Guanyuan and others, even if they did not obstruct it secretly, as long as they did not cooperate so actively, the Sihu Hall Office would not know that it would take several years to complete the project, let alone the later administration.
They feel that having such a long period of buffering time is enough to slowly wait and see the situation.
After the initial meeting, both the host and the guest were happy. Qiao Guanyuan also vacated a courtyard in the village that night as a temporary residence for Zhu Zhi and others.
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The slightly flatter land on the right bank of Songlin Creek was occupied by Qiang people, either building houses or cultivating crops. Zhu Zhi went directly to the left bank, east of the mouth of Songlin Creek, and designated a highland near the water as the site for the construction of the Sihu Hall.
Place.
This highland is extremely narrow, with steep mountain ridges in the northeast. There is a slope to the north that leads to Yedu on the left bank of Songlin Creek, but to the east there are steep cliffs facing the Dadu River, and below the cliff is the raging river——
Such a place was uninhabited and uncultivated, so Zhu Zhi wanted to use it to build the Sihu Hall. Qiao Guanyuan and other tribal leaders naturally had no objections, and even generously allocated a large area of steep slopes to the left and right for Zhu Zhi to use as he pleased.
They just wanted Zhu Zhi to suffer more in this dangerous place, delay it for a few years, or even fail to build the Sihu Hall in the end, so they were all happy.
Li Qidu was impatient and wanted to send someone back to Jiazhou City to inform Qian Yunshu, but what he and Qiao Guanyuan did not expect was that this place had been carefully selected by Su Qiucheng and others.
Jiuli Town is located near the intersection of Dadu River and Songlin River. The terrain slopes toward the river from both sides, and the closer to the river, the gentler the slope.
It is now the end of the flood season, and large areas of gentle slopes have been submerged by rising river water, forming an open water area that is more than several miles wide near Jiuli Town.
However, after the flood season and entering the dry season, the river channel in the Jiuli Town section of the Dadu River will narrow to less than 20 feet, and large sloping areas will emerge from the water.
The south side of where Sihu Hall is located is about 700 to 800 paces long, and the stone slope 300 to 400 paces wide will withdraw from the water after the flood season.
The terrain of this stone slope is not low either. During the flood season, it is only submerged less than a foot below the water surface at most. At this time, there is even a small section above the water surface, like a stone island in the rapids.
In addition to the extremely stable stone slope foundation, which is convenient for building retaining walls, before Songlin Creek merges into Dadu River, it forms a V-shaped bay on the northeast side of Jiuli Town, which can greatly buffer the rapid water flow from upstream during the flood season - these
All of them form the basis for building a large-scale material distribution base on the left bank of Songlin River without occupying Jiuli Town.
In addition, going east from Sihu Hall, although there are many steep slopes and overhanging walls, and there are no ready-made passages, it is about seventeen or eight miles from here to the east to the residence of another Qingqiang tribe called Moduo Village.
The distance is the key point where great efforts will be made to build a plank road near the water.
After the plank road is completed, in addition to saving 60 to 70 miles of tortuous miles compared to crossing the off-shore Zhuping by land, more importantly, the Dadu River in this section has a narrow and sharp bay, and the water flow is extremely turbulent in the flood season.
Only after the plank road is built can hundreds of trackers be organized during the flood season to forcibly pull boats through this section of the stream through fiber ropes and into the Jiuli Town area.
The Yangtze River crossing the Xiazhou section is also extremely dangerous. If a boat wants to go upstream, it has to be forcibly dragged by hundreds of trackers before it can successfully reach Fengjie.
Daxiang Ridge, the remaining branch of the southern chain of Qionglai Mountain, lies between Longyou and Jiuli. Although the distance between the two places is less than 200 miles of rugged mountainous terrain, the supplies transported only by people on horseback are extremely limited.
Beijing and Xiangzhou have no way to invest manpower and material resources in the Qionglai Mountains without restrictions, but they must try their best to find ways to more efficiently transfer materials between stations through boats - the materials that the remaining Khitan forces need to replenish will be available for a long time.
The main materials inside will be grain, salt, ironware, and tea. The materials transported out will mainly be wool, cashmere, horses, furs, and medicinal materials. The amount can be as little as tens of thousands of stones per year. The entire journey across Daxiangling and Maitreya Ridge is carried by people and horses.
Carrying the burden is still too strenuous.
Now, while the Qingqiang tribes are not too wary, Su Qiucheng and the others need to gnaw the hardest bone first.
In addition, the lumberyard, lime kiln, and brick kiln are located at a node upstream of Pine Forest Creek. Later, a transfer yard and ferry for lumber, lime, and green bricks will be built at the same time.
Although the war in Rucai is tight, and the limited elites have to be used on the edge of the sword, there is no way to send too many to Qionglai Mountain. What Beijing and Xiangxiang currently lack most are the troops who have received certain training, can endure hardships, and are not afraid of leaving their hometowns.
Station troops.
Su Qiucheng did not expect to be able to hire many Qiang laborers from Qionglai Mountain in the early stage. As long as the leaders of various tribes acquiesced in recruiting Han craftsmen to work in the mountains, more than 2,000 troops who had already been dispersed to Shu and were on standby would gradually enter Qionglai Mountain to take charge of the department.
The construction of household halls, stone slope protection walls, plank roads, lumberyards, and lime kilns; at the same time, nearly 3,000 troops set out from Jingzhou to march westward in batches after receiving the news...
Zhu Zhi carried the imperial decree to Qionglai Mountain to take up the post of Lizhou Sihu, but the Qingqiang and Qiang tribes did not take warning and did not immediately unite to resist.
When Zhu Zhi was preparing to build the Sihu Hall, the Qiao family and other clans all thought this was an opportunity to delay, and even thought of making some small profits from selling grain, wood, lime and other materials.
When they saw thousands of skilled craftsmen entering Qionglai Mountain, Qiao realized that Zhu Zhi did not want to build a Sihu Hall at all, but a Sihu City, but they had no reasonable excuse to stop it, let alone
Dare to stop and destroy.
The Qiao family in Jiuli Town and the nearby river valleys has a total of tens of thousands of tribesmen, with less than 3,000 young people.
Now Zhu Zhi carried the imperial decree and directly entered the heart of the Qiao family to build the Sihu Hall (or Sihu City) with the consent of the Qiao family. In name, there were only a hundred elite soldiers, but in fact there were five or six thousand.
Strong men who can be organized at any time, they are thinking of uniting with other tribes to stop them. Are they afraid that if the news leaks out, Zhu Zhi will take a preemptive strike and eliminate them as a rebellion?
What's more, in their opinion, all this is the court's intention...
