After Emperor Chongzhen approved the construction of the city, the construction of the new city officially began, and the construction soldiers immediately began to get busy.

In order to burn more bricks as soon as possible, Zhu Cihong added ten brick-burning caves nearby, and the brick-burning soldiers and homeless people were also divided into two shifts, working day and night.

The construction of the city requires a large number of manpower, and there is no shortage of manpower here, and after a period of recuperation, the original dishes on the faces of the displaced people have become a little ruddy.

Zhu Cihong planned to use work for relief, so that these displaced people would all work to repair the city wall, and those who did not work would have nothing to eat. But then I think about it, even if some lazy people don't work, can they really not be fed?

Not to mention that these lazy people are passive and slack off on the union to influence others and deviate from the good atmosphere, Zhu Cihong is more worried that some people secretly incite the emotions of the displaced people and resist the imperial court, after all, not all people are people.

In the end, Zhu Cihong decided to be completely voluntary, and those who were willing to participate in the construction of the city were to increase their daily meals from the original two to three meals, and the new meal also had three taels of meat, and clean clothes to wear. Moreover, after the establishment of the city, they have the right to live in the new city, and those who did not participate in the construction of the city have no right to settle down in the new city in the future.

High-intensity labor requires a lot of rice and meat, so Zhu Cihong added food and meat to those who were willing to build the city, just because he was afraid that some people would lose their bodies and crush their bodies.

At present, Zhu Cihong is not short of money, and the more than one million taels of silver he got from the rich merchants in the capital are enough for him to squander. As for the rest, he naturally won't hand it over, and he has to use it to develop his own power.

Seeing such a good treatment, many people are willing to participate in the construction of the city, the essence of the Chinese is still hardworking, they want to rely on their own hands to build their homes, want to rely on their own work to obtain survival and dignity.

Of course, the most important thing in the world is people who are lazy and lazy, and there are many people who feel that they have food and drink every day, and what work they have to do, and they have no money to take. Besides, the new city has been built, and then go in and build a shack.

The scribes sent by Shuntianfu quickly counted the population, and there were 120,000 homeless people and beggars here, more than 70,000 men, of which more than 40,000 were young and strong. In addition, there are more than 5,000 orphans under the age of 15, most of whom are boys.

Nearly 100,000 people, including women, were given a wooden plaque with their name written on it as a proof of identity for their future settlement.

Those who were able to travel thousands of miles from Shaanxi and Henan to the capital naturally suffered a lot along the way, and most of the people who were able to persevere in hunger were men, and those women and children were basically the families of these men.

Not all of the displaced people rushed to the capital, most of them went to other places on the way to live in other places that were safe after all, and some died on the way. Many places have been suffering from disasters all year round and are very poor, and they are unwilling to accept the displaced people, so the government saw the displaced people coming, and closed the city gates early.

These homeless people could only continue to go north, thinking that the capital was at the foot of the Son of Heaven, and the emperor could not close the city gate and keep them away. Therefore, many people have a glimmer of hope and go north with difficulty, so that they have the situation in front of them.

Zhu Cihong found a professional person to explore the terrain, and finally chose the location of the new city a few miles away from the porridge factory, and built a city with a circumference of 50 miles, with a budget of 100,000 taels of silver. It is equivalent to the size of half of the city of Beijing, and can accommodate a population of four or five hundred thousand.

Although it is half the size of Beijing City, if it is built, it will definitely not be able to compare with Beijing City. Zhu Cihong's early planning was only the city wall, roads in the city and simple residential houses, as for other things, it had to be developed slowly over time.

Zhu Cihong ordered most of the porridge factories to be moved to the vicinity of the area where the city was built, leaving only ten porridge factories in their place to provide food for those who did not want to build the city. The new porridge factory, where meat was eaten every day, and temporary brick barracks were built around it for these people to live.

On the second day after settling in, under the leadership of the construction soldiers, they began to get busy. Their main job was to build the walls, and the homeless people helped carry bricks, timber and Chitose mud.

On the foundation of the new city, there are a large number of men and women carrying dustpans and baskets to carry soil back and forth, some construction soldiers are directing men to stir and Chitose mud, and some construction soldiers are directing men to burn kilns and move bricks.

100,000 people built the city together, and the scene was in full swing, which was very spectacular.

In the planning and calculation of Zhu Cihong and the construction soldiers, the circumference of the new city is 50 miles, the city wall is 10 meters high, and the city foundation is 5 meters thick. There is a city gate on all sides, and the city tower is built on the gate, and the urn city is set outside, and there is a moat again.

Beijing is surrounded by many cities, Changping in the north, Shunyi in the northeast, Tongzhou in the east, Daxing in the south, Wanping in the west, and Fangshan Liangxiang in the southwest. There are city guards in all directions, but not in the southeast, which is why Emperor Chongzhen and the cabinet approved Zhu Cihong to build a city in this direction.

The streets and alleys in the new city are paved with gravel and manually flattened, and drainage ditches are set up on both sides, paved with open bricks, and reinforced with Chitose mud. In this way, it is easy to drain water when it rains, and there is no danger of rain and waterlogging.

At the same time, a well was dug in each of the five places in the east, west, north, south and middle of the new city for residents to drink.

Some of the land in the city was used to build barracks, and the kind that was connected together was similar to the shops of later generations. If residents do not want to live in barracks in the future, they can buy land from the new city government and build their own houses on the divided plots.

With the design of Zhu Cihong and the construction soldiers, the displaced people only need to work hard, Zhu Cihong and others estimated that it will take about two or three months to build the new city, mainly because there are too many people, much faster than the ordinary construction of the city.

Zhu Cihong also opened up a piece of land suitable for cultivation not far from the new city, and distributed it to these displaced people in the form of leases, so that they could really settle down in the new city.

If there is no land and no work, sooner or later they will starve to death, and the problem of displaced people will not be completely solved.

With the crown prince settling down, and in order to build his own home, although the daily work is very heavy, everyone is very motivated, and everyone's face is full of happiness.

During this period, Zhu Cihong reported to Emperor Chongzhen, requesting that the people of Xincheng be exempted from paying taxes for two years, and that the land taxes would be levied from the third year, and the income from the land taxes would be handed over to the internal treasury.

Originally, the land of Xincheng was in the record of Shuntianfu, and it was the imperial village of Zhu Cihong as the crown prince. In the Ming Dynasty, the emperor, the empress dowager, and the crown prince all had their own imperial estates, and the income was controlled by eunuchs and at the discretion of the court.

However, Zhu Cihong did not plan to ask for these fields, and directly gave the benefits to Chongzhen. Of course, he didn't give it away for nothing, and he also took the opportunity to make some requests, hoping that this emperor Laozi could make it convenient for him in the face of money, such as the appointment of officials in Xincheng in the future, which will be recommended by him first.

Zhu Cihong worries that the new city will be governed by a group of corrupt officials, and it will not be long before the phenomenon of land annexation and multiple taxes will still appear, and new displaced people will appear again, and his original intention of establishing the new city will become meaningless.

Zhu Cihong was not worried that recommending officials would arouse the suspicion of Emperor Chongzhen, because at that time, the phenomenon of officials being recommended by Shangguan was very common, and it was also one of the main bases for promotion, which was the so-called promotion.