I am one year older than Chongzhen

Chapter 79 The Nameless River

More than 200 people are digging wells and iron, what about the rest of the workforce?
Some people work and some people idle will make everyone feel unfair, and then it will be impossible to manage.

Of course, Huang Yi must try his best to be as fair as possible.

Everyone has to train fighting skills, and everyone has to participate in collective labor.

The freezing weather makes it impossible to open up wasteland without affecting logging and limestone mining.

At this time, if you have time to spare, of course you need to reserve a large amount of wood for building houses in the coming year, and raw materials for firing cement and lime.

Huang Yi had already thought about it, and mobilized at least half of the men over the age of ten to build lime kilns and cement plants after being busy with spring plowing.

After the cement is produced, the anti-corrosion treated bamboo strips are used instead of steel bars to build concrete dams and city walls, which saves time and effort, saves cost and improves the firmness.

The strength of concrete reinforced by bamboo bars has been verified by later generations. It is definitely not as good as steel bars, but it is cost-effective.

Moreover, at this time, if the price of steel in Daming is based on the ratio of silver to later generations, it is simply sky-high, and it is simply unaffordable to build city walls and dams.

If you don't get a strong castle, you must be careful and strictly guard against it.

When encountering an enemy attack, he will definitely use the terrain to maneuver. It is necessary to walk every hill here, and Huang Yi has to practice equestrianism anyway.

The second day after he came to the base area, he came out to check the terrain, accompanied by Huang Dayong, Zhang Dong, and Hu Xiaochuan.

The reason why I like to take Zhang Dong with me is because this young man is very talented in languages. He can understand and speak Mongolian, Jurchen, and several northern Chinese dialects.

Now Zhang Dong is the best at learning Mandarin, basically mastered the Chinese pinyin, and his accent is almost the same as Huang Yi.

The four of Huang Yi walked upstream along the frozen river.

There are three mountain passes leading to this basin in summer, and there will be two more in winter, which are the entrance and exit of the unknown river originating from the depths of the mountain.

Huang Yi didn't know the name of the river, nor did he know if the river still existed in [-].

Simply gave it the name "Wuming River".

The purpose of Huang Yi's trip to the upper reaches of the "Wuming River" is to see the river course, thinking about whether it is possible to build a dam to control the water volume, so as to facilitate the construction of water conservancy machinery.

There is another more important point. The frequent occurrence of natural disasters in the late Ming Dynasty led to a sharp drop in harvests, causing starvation and rebellion by farmers who could not survive.

Natural disasters may not be irresistible. The biggest disaster in the late Ming Dynasty was actually a military disaster.

With swords and soldiers raging everywhere, who can build water conservancy facilities?Without a stable environment, who can carry water, fertilize and serve crops with peace of mind?
Therefore, three-point natural disasters will be infinitely magnified due to military disasters, and eventually turn into failure.

Snow water, spring water, and rainwater from the Yanshan Mountains converge into the "Unknown River", forming several wetlands in the northwest and northeast of Zhangjiakou.

Huang Yi thought about ensuring the harvest of the fields reclaimed by the Han people through the management of small watersheds.

It is necessary to build dams to store water.

When Huang Yi observed with a telescope, he accidentally found two ragged people.

The last time I went to Zhangjiakou to search, I found mountain people many times, which is not surprising.

This time, when he had time, Huang Yi decided to contact the mountain people and, if possible, organize the mountain people within a radius of [-] miles.

All beginnings are hard!

The mountain people were very vigilant, and found that Huang Yi and the others were trying to approach the two of them, and ran away immediately, running fast, the mountain road was rugged and unable to ride a horse, Huang Yi did not chase.

But Huang Yideng searched with a telescope and found three thatched huts in a mountain depression.

In order to prevent the mountain people from abandoning their belongings and fleeing into the deep mountains, Huang Yi did not enter the col rashly.

Instead, a big smiling face was drawn on a big rock in front of the col with blackened branches, and a small bag of about half a catty of salt was placed on the rock.

The next day, Huang Yi took Huang Dayong and the others to the col again.

This time Huang Yi came directly to the hut and said loudly, "I... am... a Han Chinese, and I have no... malice!"

The door opened, a young man with a hunting fork, a middle-aged man rushed out with a hunting bow full of strings and arrows, and a woman with three children in her arms appeared at the door with a look of panic.

Huang Dayong immediately raised the leather shield to stop Huang Yi. He often walked on mountain roads, and the iron shield was too heavy and inconvenient, so he only brought the leather shield.

Hu Xiaochuan had already bent his bow and set his arrows at the young man in front of the house.

Zhang Dong's reaction was half a beat slow, but in order to earn performance, he ran to the front and opened his arms, and said loudly:

"We...have no... malice!"

He is so powerful that he actually spoke in Chinese, Mongolian, and Jurchen.

"You go, we don't want your things."

As he said that, the young man threw out a small sheepskin bag, which was exactly the one Huang Yi left behind yesterday.

Of course Huang Yi refused to leave after hearing Chinese. He asked, "Are you also Han Chinese?"

"So what?"

"Don't be afraid, we won't hurt you, let alone grab your food."

"Our family has no food! Only one life! If you want to kill us, you must leave at least one life!"

Forehead!The resistance is quite serious!It seems that we have to show patience to do mass work.

Huang Yi smiled and said, "We really have no malicious intentions. Not only will we not steal your food, but we can also give you a sheep and a bag of food."

"We don't!"

"Then what do you want, it doesn't matter, we can sit down and talk!"

"Go, go far away."

"I'm afraid it won't work. You should have seen that we have more than 1000 people here, and we will settle down and farm there in the future."

Obviously, the middle-aged man had discovered Huang Yi's men a long time ago, had been peeping, and was debating whether to take his family into the mountains.

The reason why he didn't leave was that he hoped that Huang Yi's people could leave after a while.

He said: "If you don't go, we will go, but not today..."

Huang Yi didn't wait for him to finish and interrupted: "You don't need to go, besides, it's a world of ice and snow, and there are children, how can you survive away from home?"

"Are you trying to capture our family as slaves?"

"You think too much, I don't have such an idea, I just want to be a good neighbor to your family."

"I do not believe!"

"Then tell me, how can I convince you?"

It was obvious that the strong man was not good at words, and suddenly he was at a loss for words.

Huang Yi came prepared, and he was fully armed, so he was not afraid of being shot by a hunting bow with limited lethality.

He asked Zhang Dong to take out the prepared two pancakes and two small pieces of cooked yellow mutton from his arms, and he took them and walked forward slowly.

The strong man said repeatedly: "Don't come over, I'm going to shoot an arrow!"

Huang Yi turned a deaf ear and kept walking, and said to Huang Dayong who was about to stop him: "Don't worry, we really have no malicious intentions, he can't shoot arrows."

"Master, let the little one go!" Zhang Dong said.

"No need, you all stay where you are, I'll go and see some children."

(End of this chapter)