In response to the low morale at the Wuliu River Diversion Weir construction site, Han Qian had to make new adjustments to the existing plan.
Han Qian's initial plan was to incorporate the Feng family's slaves into the military household of the Longya Mountain Military Mansion to be established in the future, just like the Taowu Military Mansion collected the hungry people infected with the epidemic.
This will not only ensure that he recruits thousands more generals to fight in Xuzhou, but also re-opens the connection with Jinling in the future. The Longya Mountain Military Mansion can also be directly placed under the jurisdiction of the County Prince's Protector's Mansion.
This was also to show that his original suggestion in front of Emperor Tianyou to make Longya Mountain a vassal territory for the third prince was not an empty talk.
However, when it came to actually doing things, Han Qian found that his ideas would always go astray.
Two years ago, the famine-stricken people outside Jinling City who were infected with the epidemic were already dying and had almost no hope of survival. The Xinli Military Mansion took them in, provided them with food rations, and provided them with medical supplies for treatment.
At this time, no matter how heavy, tiring, or dirty the labor was, the infected and hungry people rarely complained, and their hearts were filled with gratitude.
The military government at least gave them hope. Compared with the previous miserable situation, their situation was actually improved.
The Feng family slaves are now homeless, but they have not suffered the devastation and torture of hunger and cold in a short period of time.
Even if Han Qian directly organized them into military households at this time and recruited strong and brave people for training, most of them may not be willing to suddenly take on heavy physical work that is more difficult than that of the hard labor camp. How could they not be resentful?
Just like the soldiers who were recently forcibly relocated to Junzhou for resettlement, their combat effectiveness and cohesion are not particularly strong.
Han Qian didn't have a few months to throw out Feng's slaves and let them struggle on the line of life and death for a while, but he was worried that if he continued to suppress them forcefully, there would be escapes. And once some slaves fled to Wufeng Mountain to join Feng,
For clan members, the situation is a bit embarrassing.
Will he catch the escaped slaves at that time, or not?
Once this problem arises, the four surnames and the large families who have been attracted by Tanzhou may not continue to remain silent.
Han Qian had no choice but to give up his earlier plan to establish the Longya Mountain Military Palace, announced the establishment of Linjiang County in Longya Mountain, registered all the Feng family slaves and gave them civilian status, and promised each household to have a
If a young man is strong enough to work, after the canal and diversion weir are built, he will be given twenty acres of land and two rooms; if a strong woman is available to work, he will be given ten acres of land and one room.
Han Qian also opened this condition to all refugees who gathered in Xuzhou, so as to attract more strong laborers to enter Linjiang County, greatly reduce the intensity of labor, and also strive to reduce the Wuliu River before the spring water surges.
The diversion weir was built.
Han Qian and his father Han Daoxun have now established themselves in Xuzhou. The four major surnames and the Tanzhou troops at the foot of Zhongfang Mountain are still watching. Naturally, no one will stand up to stop Han Qian from privately casting a seal in Yushu Bay and setting up a new county.
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Even if there is no hope of building the river embankment outside Yushu Bay before summer, as long as Wuliu River can be successfully tamed, 100,000 acres of grain fields along it and the Shah River can still be reclaimed, plus the valleys near Jiuzhai Village,
This is almost enough to recruit six to seven thousand strong laborers.
Of course, previous rumors about gold mines, flooding along Dongting Lake in spring and summer, and a large number of households being forced to move north after May have all caused a large number of people from out of state to flow into Xuzhou.
Even though the temporarily prosperous trade and the expansion of production scale driven by trade absorbed a large number of strong laborers, there were still a large number of refugees stranded on the road without any resettlement.
Han Qian wanted to recruit enough strong laborers to work at this time, so there was no problem.
With so much strong labor, in addition to digging canals and building diversion weirs before summer, it would be enough to build thirty large enclosed houses along the Shahe River and Wuliu River. However, Han Qian had previously reserved
The supplies were consumed twice as fast as expected.
One kilogram of rice a day is barely enough for ordinary people to survive, but strong laborers who do heavy physical work have an astonishing appetite. In the absence of other oil and water, Han Qian currently has to ensure that each of them has three kilograms of food a day, plus
The extra wages, the food stockpiled in advance, and this year's harvest at the Wufeng Mountain Plantation may not be enough to last for four months.
It's just that for Han Qian, this is not an urgent matter for the time being, and it can last until the end of March at least.
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Jiuxi Village is located in a valley in the hinterland of Longya Mountain, almost at the geographical center of Longya Mountain.
Although the mountains around Jiuxi Village are not very high, the terrain is extremely steep and difficult for apes to climb. However, there are intermittent valleys in the north and south. In the middle period of the previous dynasty, the central government had a strong control over Chenxu Prefecture.
A 100-mile-long overland post road was built that passed through Jiuxi Village and crossed Longshan Ya. It connected to Chenyang County in Chenzhou in the north, and went out of Longya Mountain along Wuliu River in the south, all the way to the mouth of Yushu Bay.
Although the old Xi Village is abandoned, this ancient post road is hidden among shrubs and grass, and occasionally business travelers pass by.
Of course, even if the old Xi Village was abandoned, the wooden houses in the village would have been burned to ashes by fire, but the stone walls surrounding the village for four to five miles are generally still intact and can still be used for defense.
In fact, the Xi clan had also mined the coal fields and iron mines that Ji Xiyao was ordered to mine in Longya Mountain in the early years, and they were located within four or five miles of the old Xi Village.
Of course, it is also possible that the ancestors of the Xi family discovered that there was coal and iron ore in Longya Mountain, so they built the village nearby. According to Xi Chang's memory, the Xi family had long mastered the art of coal mining and iron smelting.
He was once very strong, but he fell down after several changes.
If Han Qian hadn't wanted to borrow the power of the Xi clan, the Xi clan could have been extinct at this time.
Although Han Qian planned to build Linjiang County where the Shahe River enters the Yuanjiang River, this was only after the Wuliu River Diversion Weir was completed and the fields on both sides of the Shahe River were almost reclaimed. However, the current conditions are rudimentary, and at the same time, he must beware of the Chenzhou area north of Longya Mountain.
Due to changes in the forces of the surname, he even had to be on guard against Tanzhou's troops and the Suyuan River coming over. He wanted to place the newly built Linjiang County seat in the old Xi Village, and officially changed the old Xi Village to Longya City.
Han Qian led Lin Zongjing, Zhao Wuji, Xi Faer and 200 soldiers to settle in Longya City. In addition to personally supervising the production of various kilns and factories, he could also monitor the movements in Chenyang County at the northern foot of Longya Mountain.
From Jiuxi Village, go north along the ancient post road, more than ten miles to the north, the streams and rivers coming out of the northern foot of Longya Mountain converge into the Chen River, which flows into the Yuanshui River through the south side of Chenyang County, forty miles away.
After the Yuanjiang River passes there, it has to go around the mountains for another two to three hundred miles before returning to Yushu Bay at the southern foot of Longya Mountain.
When the fleet passed through Chenzhou for the last time, Chenzhou did not have time to react, or in other words, facing the fleet's powerful armed guards at the time, Chenzhou would rather pretend to be an idiot.
However, after the fleet passed by, at the same time, a message about "absconding" also arrived in Chenzhou. Even if it was to prevent the Han family and his son from having an affair with Chenzhou, the Chenzhou native surnames who really controlled the military and political power could not make targeted adjustments.
deployment of troops.
In particular, Han Qian led 5,000 to 6,000 troops into the southern foot of Longya Mountain, and Chenzhou also gathered 5 to 600 troops at Jiming Village, at the northern foot of Longya Mountain, where the ancient post road intersects with Chenshui.
Jiming Village is the territory of the Xi family, a native of Chenzhou, and is only twelve or three miles away from Longya City.
The Chenzhou Xi clan and the Xuzhou Xi clan, with Yuzhou Bingcao Canjun Xizhen as their clan leader, were a branch more than a hundred years ago. They were a line separated from the late previous dynasty.
He succeeded to the position of magistrate of Chenyang County and was an important figure in Chenzhou.
Although a cliff named Laolongtou south of Jiming Village is the real boundary between Xuzhou and Chenzhou, the Fan people controlled by the Xi clan have almost occupied a large area of valley south of Laolongtou for cultivation, and they are still there
A village was built.
It's just that at present, the Chenzhou Xi family does not have the strength to ignore the existence of several local surnames in Xuzhou and directly occupy the old Xi village.
Just as the Chenzhou Xi clan was on guard against Han Qian's unusual movements, Han Qian also had to be on guard against the Chenzhou Xi clan.
In fact, Han Qian chose to establish his foothold in Longya Mountain to be closer to the local surnames in Chenzhou, while the Fanzhai under the jurisdiction of the four surnames of Feng, Xi, Xiang, and Yang in Xuzhou is mainly distributed outside Qianyang City.
The mountains and rivers in the south.
On this day, Xi Rong and Zhao Ting'er led 30 households and more than 200 slaves brought from Yandangji to live in Longya City. They also brought a lot of livestock, chickens and ducks from Wufeng Mountain.
The ruins of Longya City were much livelier.
Xi Rong didn't spend much time in Jiuxi Village when she was young, but she still had an impression of the nearby mountains and rivers. Although most of the buildings in the village were burned to ashes, the walls of the village with withered wormwood still remained.
Her childhood memories were filled with emotions.
"My lord, my lord, what you said can be done!"
Xi Rong climbed up to the wall of the village, which was somewhat deep and shallow, as she had not yet had the energy to repair it. She saw Du Junyi holding an iron bar, stumbling from the iron smelting yard behind the village, dancing and running towards the same standing
Han Qian shouted while looking at the surrounding mountains from the wall of the village.
Unlike the lime kiln, brick kiln, and coal crushing yard, Han Qian had earlier ordered Ji Xiyao to build the ironmaking yard directly behind Longya City. In order to facilitate the use of water drainage and hydraulic forging hammers and sufficient water, he even did not hesitate to open the ironworks in the previous two months.
A two-mile-long narrow canal was dug to lead the water from a natural mountain lake in the mountains to the ironworks behind Longya City.
After Han Qian arrived in Xuzhou, he directly sent armored soldiers to guard the iron smelting field. The craftsmen, craftsmen and their families were all concentrated in Longya City and were not allowed to enter or exit at will. The current purpose was to prevent anyone from leaking secrets.
Xi Rong stayed in Qianyang City these days and didn't know what magic method Han Qian taught Du Junyi. He actually asked Du Junyi, a Confucian scholar from a poetry and calligraphy family half a year ago, to dress like an old craftsman and hold an iron
Tiao You danced like a treasure.
Du Junyi was too lazy to go around to the east and enter Longya City through the village gate. He directly touched the rugged pits on the outside of the village wall, climbed up to the top of the two-foot-high wall, and handed the iron bar in his hand to Han Qian.
Han Qian used a little force to bend the iron bar that was one finger thick and half a palm wide. When he saw that no iron slag peeled off after bending, it was indeed a piece of fine soft iron steel. He was very happy and said: "This is
You and I will remember the Dharma in our minds, don’t put it down on paper and ink for the time being.”
Large-scale steel casting and iron-making consume a lot of charcoal. Han Qian and even the officials in the prince's palace are thinking about replacing expensive charcoal with much cheaper briquettes.
Xuzhou seems to be densely covered with forests, but cutting firewood for firewood is much more laborious than mining coal, not to mention that it takes three or four kilograms of firewood to burn one kilogram of charcoal.
However, when untreated coal is used to cast steel, the iron tools and steel structural parts cast are brittle and easily broken, and are of inferior quality compared to the crude steel produced by the current steel-frying process.
If you want to further use it for forging and making steel, the entire iron bar may turn into iron slag and peel off, and nothing will be gained in the end.
Han Qian has been thinking about this issue and thought of the key points in Jinling, but he was afraid of leaking the secret, so he waited until Xuzhou to conduct the experiment.
In fact, the idea is very simple. At that time, wealthy people used charcoal for heating instead of directly using firewood. The main reason is that charcoal is flammable, smokeless, and light.
The reason why charcoal is smokeless means that during the carbonization process of wood in the kiln, the impurities that will burn and produce thick smoke have been removed to a considerable extent.
When people in the world called coal coal or coal, they had no idea how the dark combustible stone in the ground was formed. But thousands of years later, most primary school students can easily answer this question.
To put it bluntly, coal is derived from plants buried underground and evolved over millions of years. It is no different from the main component of firewood.
In Jinling City, Han Qian thought of trying to burn charcoal to deal with coal. However, in this process, the colorless and odorless highly toxic carbon gas must be dealt with. It cannot be done in the courtyard, so it must be built in an open area.
Charcoal burning kiln.
If Han Qian really wanted to put coal cakes or coal stones into a charcoal kiln to smolder on a large scale, the noise would be relatively loud, which would easily attract the attention of the outside world, so he could only wait until Xuzhou to conduct experiments.
Coal is dug out of Longya Mountain. After preliminary washing with water, it is put into a charcoal-burning kiln and smoldering. Water is introduced into the kiln to extinguish the remaining fire, and the washed and smoldering coal is taken out for iron-making.
Forging steel parts, the same process is compared with using charcoal.
Chen Jitang was responsible for assisting Lin Haizheng in supervising the construction of the Wuliu River water diversion weir and exploring new coal washing methods and iron smelting methods, so Han Qian handed it over to Du Junyi.
A year ago, Du Junyi was a weak scholar because his father was kidnapped and surrendered to the Liang Army during the Jingxiang War. After the war, he was liquidated. Du Junyi, his brothers and his mother were sent to a hard labor camp as slaves. Finally, because the Du family was young,
The sister was given to Han Qian by the third prince and was rescued.
Du Junyi read poetry and books, knew medicine and music, and was a standard Confucian scholar in the world. When he came to Han Qian's side, he first helped copy the books in Jinyun Tower, and later helped Han Qian compile "The Book of Tianxianshi" and also participated in it.
Chen Jitang couldn't get away from the construction of the Yandangji brewery and forging house at this time, and he could also handle the affairs at the ironworks.
After all, the current iron-making process does not have insurmountable obstacles for Confucian scholars who know and can be practical. Du Junyi himself did not expect that it would only take half a month to verify that the method taught by the master is indeed feasible.
