my wonderful zoo

Chapter 39

Chen Fu finally returned to Dongguan. He accepted death and believed that Chen Xun could not defeat the forces that coveted Chenjiazhuang.

In Chen Fu's view, those forces have been accumulated for generations, and how many years has it been since Chenjiazhuang developed?How can it be compared?
On February 25, the construction of the village wall in Chenjiazhuang began.

First, the line was drawn. Several families blocked the construction path of the village wall. Chen Xun spent a day persuading these Chen clan members to agree to the relocation and expropriated the cultivated land in the village wall. The villagers owned it for themselves. Some compensation was given to the farmland and it was replaced outside the village. The land rented by the Han people in the north belonged to Chen Xun.

In order to make enough bricks and stones to build the village walls, the brick kiln in Chenjiazhuang was expanded twice, and four new brick kilns were planned.The expansion of brick kilns led to insufficient coal combustion, which forced people to increase orders in coal kilns in Qingyuan.

After mobilizing his whole body and starting to build the village wall, Chen Xun finally understood what a big project is. Manpower is needed in all aspects. For a while, the manpower in Chenjiazhuang was simply not enough, and there were gaps everywhere.

In addition to the lack of people, money is also being spent like water.

All kinds of purchases cost money, and the workers also had to be paid wages. In addition, the food was taken care of on the construction site. The more you worked, the more you ate. The consumption of previously stored food accelerated sharply.

Chen Luyou persuaded, saying that the village wall was built for Chenjiazhuang himself, and workers should not be paid. Everyone should contribute.But Chen Xun understands that the work efficiency is completely different between giving money and not giving money.

Because Zhuang people did not have Chen Xun's urgent feelings and needs, if there was no system to pay wages according to the workload, it is estimated that everyone would work hard, and the work that could be completed in one month would be delayed for three to five months.

The extra time is a cost to Chen Xun, but it is not cost-effective.

Moreover, this time the construction was done at the doorstep of the house, so the wages were already low, and workers’ wages accounted for a very small proportion of the cost of the village wall.

After working on the construction site for four or five days, I slowly straightened things out so that Chen Lu could manage independently.

In the past four or five days, both Dongguan County and Guangzhou Prefecture seemed very "quiet". Lezhi never returned to Dongguan since he went to Guangzhou. Chenjiazhuang's spies in Guangzhou could only track Lezhi and visit Wang Si everywhere every day, because there was no Chen Xun, the spy who broke into the official's mansion, knew nothing about the content of their discussion.

Fortunately, there is no movement among the Forbidden Army, Hunan Army, Turkish Army and Archers in Guangzhou, and they should still be in the planning stage.

While the Guangzhou Prefecture stood still, the Ke Lei Department on Lantau Island could no longer hold back.

On the one hand, the food brought by Ke Lei's troops this time is almost exhausted, and Chenjiazhuang cannot send food there. Who knows if there is anyone out there watching Chenjiazhuang's every move.

On the other hand, if the pirates left behind on Penghu Island are not suppressed by the main force led by Ke Lei for a long time, trouble will easily occur.Moreover, if the main force of pirates led by Ke Lei is away for a long time, Penghu will be easily taken advantage of by foreign enemies.

You know, there are a considerable number of Chenjiazhuang people on Penghu Island now, and Chen Xun's third uncle, Chen Shou, is on the island.

These days, Ke Lei writes at least one letter a day to report his status to Chen Xun.

So far, the captive Yanhu has stabilized, knowing that he will not die, and the pirates still care about eating, they are a little relieved and cooperated a lot.

All the salt-making equipment on Lantau Island has been looted.

Ke Lei also led people to attack the Daxi Mountain Island area. This time they were fully prepared and surrounded by all parties. Almost no one escaped. Almost all the villages in Yanhu that were targeted were completely taken over by the pirates.

These people are now all concentrated on Lantau Island and consume huge amounts of food.

Seeing that there was no movement from the anti-piracy troops in Guangzhou Prefecture, Chen Xun could only order Ke Lei to retreat, and all the captured Yanhu were brought back to Penghu Island.

In order to support the construction of Penghu Island, Chen Xun ordered Chaozhou, Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou and other Chen's trading branches to purchase all kinds of materials and transport them to Penghu. Fortunately, there was carrier pigeon communication, otherwise such large-scale command would have been impossible. It takes ten days and a half to deliver the letter.

In addition to material support, Chen Xun also ordered each branch to purchase a large number of long-term workers (indentured slaves, debt slaves) with various skills from the mainland and send them to Penghu.

Now the entire Penghu is a big construction site.

According to Chen Xun's order, Chen Shou should build the most basic residential facilities in Penghu before the arrival of the typhoon season, so that all people who come to Penghu can have a house to live in during a typhoon.There are only more than two months left before the arrival of the typhoon season, and time is running out.

The money Chen's business has earned over the years, with the construction of Penghu and Chenjiazhuang Wall, is like a big hole being opened from the bottom of a water tank, and the stored water flows out.

According to regulations, each business branch must send an account statement to Chenjiazhuang every month. It is estimated that the account statements of each branch in the first month will be very ugly.

"Do you want to tell those hungry people that their families are in Penghu?" Lu Hui saw many hungry people crying secretly these days. When he asked, he found out that they were worried about their families, and some of them wanted to go back to Lantau Island to visit.

"Wait, wait until this storm passes." Chen Xun did not agree.

People of this era are used to seeing separation between life and death, and their ability to withstand such things is much stronger than that of people in later generations.

Just like what is sung in that song:

"The day before is getting slower

Cars, horses, and mail are slow
Life is only enough to love one person"

The slow speed of information transmission determines that people in this era are more patient.

Unlike later generations, when no one answers the phone, you will think about all kinds of things. If you come back late at night, you will be worried and unable to sleep.

In this day and age, if a family member travels far away, the tolerance for late return can be measured in months.

After all, there is no way.

The matter of Chenjiazhuang has not yet come to an end, everyone's personal needs have to be pressed, and we can only wait!

On February [-]st, I finally got a free day.

Chen Xun came to Nanyuan Campus again to watch the training of the guards.

The training content of Chenjiazhuang's personal guards is very close to the training of the People's Liberation Army of later generations.
Basic training such as long-distance running, cross-country running, weight-bearing cross-country running, obstacle running, push-ups, sit-ups, horizontal bars, parallel bars, queues, battle formations, etc.

Training on spears, swords, shields, bows, crossbows, muskets and other equipment.

The focus is different depending on the type of arms.

This is just the training content on the school field. There is also at least an hour of indoor cultural classes every day, including literacy, learning commands, war flags, war drums, and simple tactics.

The above are the training content of soldiers.

For officers, there is also a small stove for extra meals. After dark at night, they light up lamps and boil oil to continue learning advanced tactics, strategies and battle cases, including map recognition, drawing, reconnaissance, management, command, etc.

After more than ten years of development, the training system of the Chenjiazhuang Guards has been very complete.

The training at Haiwei is different, but they are similar. They all aim at defeating the enemy and preserving themselves, and strive to improve the combat effectiveness and survivability of their own troops.

"Lang Jun, can we just passively wait for Guangzhou to take action before we can respond?" Lu Hui asked.

The guards' nerves couldn't stay tense for a long time, and they would be full of energy, then weaken again, and then be exhausted. Lu Hui was worried that if the guards' nerves were tense for a long time, they would lose their energy when the enemy really came.

(End of this chapter)