After some mental preparation, Li Hongyun finally calmed down and accepted his fate.
"Looking at the bright side, this is no different from building blocks. It's just that the number of blocks is a little more, and it requires a little more patience..."
Li Hongyun did not immediately plunge into the exciting work, but decided to observe it first.
After all, such a large workload cannot be completed in two or three nights.
Even though the game "Dark Sand" has tried its best to reduce some unnecessary workload for players and skip those boring, boring, and repetitive plots, after all, this is a project that mobilized hundreds of thousands of civilians and troops, starting from preparations.
It is a huge project that takes more than ten years to be officially constructed, so no matter how simplified it is, it is still an unimaginably difficult challenge for players.
Since it is so difficult, there is no need to race against time.
Just like long-distance running, the important thing is not how fast you run at the beginning, but how to persist better.
Li Hongyun did not immediately set his sights on the imperial city. Instead, he first moved his sight to the origins of various materials and looked at them with interest.
For him, it was also very interesting to observe these ancient craftsmen cutting down trees and burning paper and gold bricks from this bird's eye view.
He had already taken a glimpse in the air and saw the origin of several main materials.
For example, in the deep mountains and forests of the southwest, a large number of people are cutting down thick golden nanmu, and trying every means to transport these precious wood to the capital by water;
In the southeast, craftsmen fired gold bricks using extremely complex procedures;
In the mountains near the capital, craftsmen are quarrying huge stones and transporting these huge stones into the capital through the ice roads in the cold winter months;
There are also many craftsmen who are constantly excavating earth around the imperial city, piling all kinds of waste materials and excess earth from digging the moat aside, and finally pile it up into a hill.
This mountain is Long Live Mountain, later also called Jingshan. Below it is the Yanchun Pavilion, the palace of the previous emperor. It is said that this was to suppress the luck of the previous dynasty.
Li Hongyun first set his sights on the brick kilns in the southeast where gold bricks were fired.
The so-called gold bricks should actually be called Jing bricks, which means fine square bricks fired for the imperial palace. However, the pronunciations of Jing and Jin are similar, and the value of this kind of bricks is extremely high, and there are even "one tael of gold per brick"
so it was later also called BRIC.
Gold bricks have fine particles and dense texture. They make the sound of gold and stone when struck. There are no pores in the cross section when cut, so they are an excellent building material.
Li Hongyun watched with great interest the entire process of the craftsmen making gold bricks.
These craftsmen must first select the soil. The soil must be sticky but not loose, and powdery but not sandy. After the selection, the soil must be left in the open air for a full year to remove its earthiness. Then the clay will be soaked in water and soaked by many cows.
Tread repeatedly to remove air bubbles from the mud.
Finally, after repeated beating, it is put into a mold, covered with a flat plate, and two people step on it, and finally dried in the shade for more than seven months before being fired in the kiln.
When it is fired in the kiln, it must first be smoked with chaff for a month to remove the moisture, and then chopped firewood, whole firewood and pine branches are burned for a month respectively before it can be released from the kiln.
If six of the batch of gold bricks coming out of the kiln cannot make a sound when struck and break without holes, then the batch of gold bricks will be considered scrap and must be fired again.
In this way, it takes up to two years to go from soil to gold bricks.
Li Hongyun watched these craftsmen start from selecting soil, then put batch after batch of gold bricks into the kiln for firing, then ship those qualified products and continuously transport them to the capital through the Grand Canal.
In the southwest, there are countless craftsmen cutting down suitable golden nanmu in the high mountains.
Golden nanmu was a wood exclusively used by the royal family in ancient times. It has stable performance, durability, mild wood properties and pleasant aroma, so it has been the favorite wood for royal buildings since ancient times.
If it is an ordinary minister, even if he has power over the government and the opposition, using golden nanmu as a building will still be in danger of exceeding the rules.
The growth cycle of golden nanmu is very long. It takes fifty years to enter the vigorous growth period, and it may suddenly stop growing due to various unexpected circumstances. If you plant it yourself, you will suddenly find that it has stopped growing after fifty years. It’s scary to think about it.
collapse.
The growth climate of golden nanmu is also very harsh. It must be at an altitude of about 1,500 meters to 2,000 meters to thrive. Once the climate and altitude are wrong, even if it grows, it will most likely be stunted.
Inferior wood.
These craftsmen and peasants go deep into the mountains and ridges to cut golden nanmu, which is very dangerous.
In the dense forest, you may slip and fall, you may encounter wild beasts, you may get lost, you may also suffer disasters due to sudden flash floods, mudslides, etc...
Therefore, there has been a saying since ancient times that "a thousand people enter a mountain, and five hundred come out".
After these people cut down suitable golden nanmu, it was almost impossible to transport it out of the mountains by manpower because it was too huge.
The craftsmen first used wooden boards to build a platform on the big tree, and asked the axemen to chop off the branches and leaves of the big tree. Then they used ropes to pull the platform to prevent the big tree from hitting people when it fell.
After cutting down the big tree, the axemen drilled holes in the big tree, and a large number of civilians laid horizontal logs on the ground. They dragged the big tree for a certain distance and then rolled it down the ravine and formed a raft.
When flash floods occur, these rafts are washed down the mountains and into rivers, and then transported through the Yangtze River to the Grand Canal, where they continue to slide along the river and head north to the capital.
The entire journey is more than 1,800 kilometers, and there are officials on duty along the way to prevent the loss of these precious timbers.
These huge timbers, together with the ships transporting gold bricks, grain and various other building materials, passed through the Grand Canal and continued northward.
There are more than 20,000 ships, and the food that hundreds of thousands of civilians and troops need to transport reaches 400 million liters.
Looking down from a high place, you can see countless ships going north along the wide Grand Canal; and behind these ships, there are a large number of various types of wood, either bundled into rafts, or huge single pieces of wood connected with ropes.
, drifting slowly to the north.
That is what the ancients said: "Drifting big trees block the water surface."
In the mountains where white marble is mined, there are also a large number of craftsmen busy at work.
There are more than 10,000 migrant workers and more than 6,000 soldiers here, and on the road to the capital, there are tens of thousands of migrant workers and thousands of mules and other livestock.
The method of quarrying stones is also very primitive. In the absence of heavy machinery, one can only drill holes first, use wooden wedges to knock into the stones, and then burn them with fire and pour water to cause thermal expansion and contraction of the stones, and let the stones expand and contract.
The wooden wedge absorbs water and expands, widening the cracks in the stone.
If the boulder is used as the first perspective, then the whole process becomes more interesting.
One of the huge rocks was originally part of the mountain. It spent an extremely long time here. Even before human beings established civilization, it was quietly buried in the soil, without sorrow or joy.
looking at the world.
But now, countless civilians climbed onto its body and began to use insignificant hammers and chisels to carve out small holes in its body.
This may be just an itch for it, after all, it has seen countless landslides and ground cracks in these long years. But soon, the wooden wedge stretched in along the hole, and the boulders were also burned by fire and water splashed
During the process, I felt some changes in my body.
Huge cracks appeared and quickly became unmanageable.
The civilians continued to use larger wooden blocks to prop up the cracks, until as tens of thousands of people screamed, the huge boulder suddenly slid down the hillside.
Then, this huge rock that had not moved for thousands of years began its journey.
The boulder of more than 200 tons was like a small mountain. At that time, no matter how many people worked there, they could not move it at all.
But soon, these clever craftsmen began to dig wells along the way, pour water into ice, and then use a lot of manpower and animal power to drag them along.
The people dragging it formed a long queue one mile long, and the moving speed of this boulder reached the fastest speed since its birth, less than five miles per day.
Along the way, it saw countless scenes that it had never seen before, and those little ant-like people actually dragged it to its destination bit by bit.
Then, various craftsmen began to carve on it.
According to the color and text of the stone, the craftsmen exerted their talents according to local conditions.
There is a cyan stripe on the lower right side of this boulder, which is exactly where a green dragon is carved; while the left part is pure white, where a white dragon is carved. The two dragons are churning endlessly in the flowing clouds, and the sea water is rushing at the lower end, and the flowing clouds are dazzling.
.
The five-clawed golden dragon soared into the sky, and finally extended all the way to the magnificent palace hall.
Around the imperial city, these civilians and soldiers were also busy.
They demolished the buildings in the previous imperial city and moved the people away. Then they dug out the entire foundation of the previous imperial palace and backfilled it with layers of lime soil mixed with quicklime and clay and broken bricks. They also sprinkled boiled glutinous rice and alum on the foundation as cement.
The mixture eventually makes the foundation very hard.
Further above, there are several layers of floor tiles.
The deepest point of the entire foundation even reaches more than eight meters, completely avoiding potential subsidence risks and making the Forbidden City palace on the foundation as stable as a mountain.
As various materials are continuously transported to the capital, Li Hongyun is almost about to officially start his work.
From a historical perspective, the construction of the Forbidden City can be said to be an excellently planned systematic project.
It took a total of fourteen years from preparation to completion. Eleven of these years were spent on preliminary preparations, transporting various materials, etc. Construction officially began in the last three years.
In just three years, countless palaces were built, and the commendable details were revealed to the world one by one.
Three years is a long time dimension, but if you take into account the huge amount of work in the entire Forbidden City, then three years is already a very short time.
The various processes can be said to be intricate, and if you are not careful, they may drag each other down and delay the construction period. However, ancient craftsmen were able to arrange the various processes in an orderly manner through very proper arrangements. It must be said that this ability
It is definitely not something that ordinary players can have.
In short, this is a job that Li Hongyun feels he cannot hold onto no matter what, and now he can only choose to believe in the integrity of the production team of "Dark Sand".
Start by laying the floor tiles first.
Various floor tiles of different specifications appeared in Li Hongyun's field of vision. He laid these floor tiles on the corresponding phantoms through his mind, and then various craftsmen would carry the floor tiles to the designated place according to his wishes.
Place it in a stable position and then compact it continuously.
After more than a dozen complicated processes, the gold bricks are not only extremely hard, but also as smooth as jade.
In the process, Li Hongyun gradually discovered that this matter was not as difficult as he imagined.
Because everything happening in front of him can be fast-forwarded at will, and after the same work is completed, it can be completed in batches like "copy and paste".
This is a bit like in some city construction games. To build a road, you only need to select the starting point and drag it to the end point; and as long as a certain area is circled, you can directly fill it with floor tiles.
Therefore, the step of laying floor tiles is not difficult. Although there are various different units such as railings, bridges, white marble steps, etc., it can be completed as long as you are patient.
A lot of repetitive work can be done by copying and pasting. And some specific components only need to be assembled for the first time.
Special attention needs to be paid to some of the special units, such as the previous boulder weighing more than two hundred tons with a five-clawed golden dragon carved on it, which needs to be properly placed in the center of the two rows of stone steps.
Seeing a large number of craftsmen and civilians returning these materials one by one, Li Hongyun felt an inexplicable sense of accomplishment.
During this process, Li Hongyun also saw many construction methods used by ancient craftsmen, which was an eye-opener.
But then, a more difficult challenge came.
Because he is going to start building a large palace.
There are nearly 9,000 houses in the entire Forbidden City. Among them are some small rooms for eunuchs and palace maids, but there are also some very large buildings.
For example, the largest Jinluan Hall, Fengtian Hall, has a construction area of 3,000 square meters and a height of more than 30 meters. It is supported by 72 huge pillars, six of which are gold-wrapped dragon pillars.
In fact, the existing Jinluan Hall is only over 2,000 square meters. This is because Fengtian Hall was often struck by lightning and destroyed by fires after it was built because it was too high. Therefore, it has been repeatedly rebuilt and repaired.
In the process of reconstruction and repair, on the one hand, it was because the national power was declining and it could no longer support such a huge project. On the other hand, it was also possible that it was worried about being struck by lightning again in the future. Therefore, during the reconstruction, both the area and height were reduced from the original ones.
.
What Li Hongyun saw at this time was the scene when Fengtian Temple was first built, so it was still in its most magnificent state.
As the layers of floor tiles are laid, the entire hall has begun to take shape.
Li Hongyun selected a few seemingly large pillars and stood them one by one on the virtual shadow of the drawing.
However, after setting it up, Li Hongyun was a little surprised.
He watched these peasants try their best to erect the huge golden nanmu pillars on the ground, but after careful observation, he found that these pillars did not go deep into the ground, but stood on the ground!
This made Li Hongyun feel very confused, and even wondered if he had missed some steps.
According to modern architectural principles, shouldn't these load-bearing pillars go deep into the ground, the deeper the better?
Because the deeper the load-bearing column, the more stable it will naturally be. Otherwise, if there is a slight earthquake or something, the load-bearing column placed directly on the ground will shake with the whole building, wouldn't it be easy to collapse?
But he looked carefully at the drawing and found that the pillar was standing on the ground and did not go deep into the ground.
With doubts, Li Hongyun continued to piece together the upper part of the pillar.
Li Hongyun still has a basic understanding of mortise and tenon and bracket structures.
The so-called mortise and tenon joint is a connection method that uses concave and convex parts on two structural parts. The protruding part is called a tenon and the recessed part is called a mortise. Some clever mortise and tenon structures do not require the use of any nails or glue.
Keep the two pieces of wood tightly together.
Moreover, this structure is not only stable, but also maintains a certain degree of flexibility and is durable.
Metal is easy to rust or oxidize, and glue is easy to lose its stickiness, so many modern furniture will fall apart within a few decades. But furniture made with mortise and tenon structure is still strong and durable even after more than a hundred years.
If the mortise and tenon are regarded as the basic units of protrusions and depressions in building blocks, then the bracket is a special structure composed of several basic units.
To put it simply, various beams are stacked layer by layer on the columns to continuously expand the stress-bearing area and finally support the roof.
Li Hongyun has seen the structure of Dougong. After all, many modern buildings also use the red Dougong shape in order to show their cultural heritage. But seeing it is one thing. It is another thing to build Dougong by yourself.
On the more than 70 huge golden nanmu pillars of Fengtian Hall, each pillar has a bracket structure, and between the brackets, various beams are connected to each other, which together support the entire roof.
The basic structure of a dougong alone uses dozens of different sizes and shapes of wood, and these structures also have names.
The game developers of "Dark Sand" mercifully only allow players to assemble relatively large structures. As for the more detailed parts, they can allow players to automatically complete them after assembling the rough structure.
But even so, Li Hongyun still felt that his head was as big as a bucket and his whole body collapsed.
"These parts...look exactly the same!"
Although there is a ghost shadow, the ghost shadow is a state that has been assembled after all. Various lines are densely packed and layered. If you want to accurately find the corresponding parts in reality through the appearance of the claws and claws that have been assembled, this is
It's definitely quite a frustrating thing.
For example, among the components, there are many kinds of "fighting", and they also have various names, such as united fighting, interactive fighting, loose fighting, etc.
But from the appearance point of view, Li Hongyun can hardly see any difference between them.
If you look carefully, you will find that they seem to be different in size. The interactive bucket is the longest, the united bucket is the second, and the scattered bucket is the shortest.
However, this difference is very small. If you take them out and compare them individually, you may be able to tell them apart. However, once they are thrown into a huge building complex, you will not be able to tell who is who.
"Forget it, let's work hard to achieve miracles!
"Anyway, the mortise and tenon joints are just one carrot and one hole. One tenon and one joint. If you insert them in, it should be enough to raise the roof."
Li Hongyun decided to leave his destiny to his own luck again and began to put it together.
Fortunately, after the first bracket structure is assembled, this structure becomes a directly accessible part and can be applied to other pillars as a whole.
Immediately afterwards, Li Hongyun began to build roofs, lay tiles, and build exterior walls on these bracket structures.
On the periphery of these huge buildings, craftsmen and civilians built tall wooden scaffolding and began to do various decoration work. For example, there is a pair of dragon kisses at both ends of the main ridge of the roof of Fengtian Temple, which is more than three meters high and two meters wide.
It weighs about four tons and is composed of 13 glazed components.
In addition, there are various complex and exquisite murals and other decorations.
There are many details like this. They are either for pure beauty, or they also have special functional uses in addition to beauty.
With the rapid enrichment of various details, a huge prototype of Fengtian Temple was initially revealed in front of Li Hongyun.
"It doesn't seem that difficult?"
Li Hongyun witnessed such a huge building gradually being completed in front of him, and a sense of pride that "this is it" arose spontaneously.
Fengtian Palace is the largest palace in the entire Forbidden City. As long as it can be built, thousands of palaces will definitely be built in the future. It is just a matter of time.
However, just when Li Hongyun wanted to enter the Fengtian Temple to take a good look at his masterpiece of building blocks, an accident happened.
The craftsmen and soldiers who were still busy in the Forbidden City all disappeared out of thin air, and then the entire ground began to rumble and tremble!
Li Hongyun was startled: "What is going on?"
He didn't have time to think too much, because the entire Fengtian Temple began to shake in the violent tremors, the tiles trembled and made a crisp collision sound, and all kinds of rubble and dust fell.
"earthquake?"
Li Hongyun quickly realized that this was probably not a real event in history. After all, he had never heard of an earthquake during the construction of the Forbidden City. It was probably a special test arranged in this trial fantasy.
"I followed the drawings, so there should be no problem...
"Bar?"
Before Li Hongyun could say the word "ba", he saw somewhere on the Fengtian Hall suddenly collapse out of thin air. Then, as if it triggered some kind of chain reaction, other brackets also collapsed one after another, along with the thick
The load-bearing column also fell to one side!
Large amounts of dust were raised.
When the dust dispersed, when Li Hongyun looked at Fengtian Hall again, he realized that the hall where he had devoted so much effort had turned into ruins.
The wood was crooked and rubble was everywhere. The originally majestic hall seemed to have been slapped by a giant from top to bottom and turned into a two-dimensional structure.
"Why is this happening..."
Li Hongyun was confused and a little confused.
Logically speaking, he put it together according to the drawings, so there shouldn't be any structural flaws, right?
Is it because the pillars did not penetrate deep into the foundation?
That's not right. This is how it is drawn on the drawing. If you take it upon yourself to drive the pillars deep into the foundation, it may cause more serious consequences.
"Could it be that those three types of fighting are used incorrectly?
"Mortise and tenon joints are about a tight fit, and there are strict requirements on size. The three types of buckets seem to have only slight differences in size. If a large-sized bucket is placed in a small position, it may not be visible on the surface.
But the gap left will definitely be larger than the one reserved in the design.
"The structures of the brackets are all copied and pasted. If there is a problem with one bracket, it means that other brackets will also have problems...
"In this case, when an earthquake strikes, the original structure will have weak points, and a chain reaction will occur, which will naturally cause the entire structure to collapse.
"It seems that at this time, we can't think about miracles with great strength. Let's just follow the drawings and put them together..."
Li Hongyun couldn't help but admire the wisdom of the ancients.
In ancient times, it was quite incredible to build such a building covering an area of several thousand square meters and several stories high without using any nails or glue.
Moreover, this building must also have good shock absorption capabilities, which is even more incredible.
Many modern reinforced concrete buildings cannot withstand earthquakes, let alone ancient buildings?
Just because Li Hongyun failed to do a small detail, it triggered a chain reaction and caused extremely serious consequences.
If this were placed in ancient times, if the palace built collapsed and the emperor was buried inside, it would have to be a case of Ling Chi and the nine tribes being killed, right?
It is even more amazing that these ancient architectural masters not only built such a complex structure, but also made the various components fit together tightly and have strong earthquake resistance.
Li Hongyun continued to build the Temple of Heaven from scratch.
After the previous "semi-successful" experience, the speed of fighting this time was much faster.
But Li Hongyun was somewhat puzzled: before, only a few arches were not installed properly, and the entire hall collapsed into ruins after a slight earthquake. So what if these arches are installed this time?
The pillars haven't even penetrated into the foundation. Shouldn't they collapse anyway?
Finally, after a lot of hard work, Fengtian Hall was built again.
This time, Li Hongyun did not improvise, but steadily installed various main components according to the virtual shadow from a close perspective.
Layers upon layers, quite comforting.
Craftsmen and peasants once again completed the details of the hall.
Li Hongyun looked down from a high-altitude perspective, and saw people as big as ants walking back and forth on the scaffolding. The sun rose and set in the sky. After a long time, the entire Fengtian Temple was built again.
The ground began to rumble and tremble again!
Li Hongyun looked at it nervously.
Although he still doubted whether this hall could withstand a high-level earthquake, he did not want to see his hard work return to zero again, let alone start it all over again.
Soon, the entire Fengtian Temple began to tremble violently again, and the tiles on the eaves also made a clear crashing sound.
However, the persistence time this time was obviously longer than last time, which shows that Li Hongyun's meticulousness had an effect.
But this is obviously not the end.
Li Hongyun clearly felt that the earthquake level was still rising!
The entire Fengtian Hall shook even more violently. Li Hongyun could even clearly see the pillars and brackets inside the hall trembling together. The entire huge palace was like a trembling giant.
Especially those load-bearing columns, because they failed to penetrate deep into the foundation, they were like dancing on the square stone slab below, constantly shaking and moving.
Although the movement was not large, this kind of thing still frightened Li Hongyun.
Finally, even the brick walls surrounding Fengtian Hall collapsed!
In ancient buildings, brick walls are not actually load-bearing, but serve as curtains to protect them from wind and rain. However, these bricks are also made of blue bricks, which are strong and strong.
Even the brick walls collapsed, which shows how powerful this earthquake was.
But Li Hongyun watched helplessly as the entire Fengtian Temple seemed to be moving and shaking. There were constant collision sounds between different bracket structures, and it seemed that the entire Fengtian Temple would collapse in the next second. Unexpectedly, until the earthquake stopped,
None of this happened.
The main structure of Fengtian Temple actually survived such a huge earthquake, with only a few brick walls falling down!
"How is this done..."
Li Hongyun looked at everything in front of him in disbelief and felt unable to understand.
