Li An saw very clearly that these carpenters who were responsible for building the arrow tower had significantly accelerated their work, and a few carpenters even forcibly pulled over their own half-grown children who were playing next to them and let them be responsible for the work, so that the speed of work could be increased by a notch.

In short, under the stimulus of great profits, the enthusiasm and ability of these carpenters have been mobilized to the maximum level, and there is certainly a 50 percent acceleration in the work.

However, this is hard for the children who are playing, they have a good time, and suddenly they are called to do coolies, they are not willing to work, they will naturally choose to fight, but the struggle will not have any effect, in exchange for a burst of scolding and whipping.

These rough old men in the countryside are unambiguous when they do their work, and in the same way, when they beat up children, they are even more unambiguous, and they are very heavy, as if they are not their own.

Seeing these children being beaten like this, Li An suspected that the children in this village were not born to their own fathers, but were all the children of Lao Wang next door, otherwise, how could they be beaten so hard?

The children are so pitiful, after being beaten and scolded, not only can they not give their opinions, but they also have to continue to listen to the opinions of the beating elders and help them with their work.

"Poor children!"

Li An shook his head and sighed.

These children will be the pearls of their parents' palms and the flowers of the motherland in the future generations, and no one will bear to beat and scold them, and their parents can't wait to hold them in the palm of their hands and hold them in their mouths.

And in this era, the children in this place are too pitiful, but Li An can't do anything, because the folk customs here have been formed, and it is impossible to change, how can the people's minds be so easy to change, even if it is an economically developed later generation, in many rural areas, there is also serious domestic violence, beating and scolding children.

"If you don't raise it, it's your father's fault, and your father hurts her children when she beats them, why should Li Shilang feel sorry for them?"

The subordinates are also old-fashioned, and they don't think there is anything wrong with these villagers beating the children, after all, it is the children who are disobedient first, and they should be beaten.

Ang Lee didn't want to argue with his subordinates about this topic, people of different eras are unlikely to have the same ideology, and besides, it is his subordinates, once he gets angry, the other party will not speak, but he will not agree with Ang Lee's new era ideas in his heart.

At dusk, a large piece of timber had been piled up in the village, which was cut down and sold to the Tang Dynasty by the villagers.

Logging at night is dangerous, but in order to make more money, these villagers are not afraid of danger, and after they return home, after a simple meal, they take half a cart of firewood to the forest, and it seems that they will not stop cutting until midnight.

The carpenter villagers who were responsible for the construction of the arrow tower could not sit still when they saw that the logging villagers were working so hard, and after returning home to eat, they went out with braziers and firewood, preparing to work all night to try to complete the construction of the arrow tower as soon as possible.

Seeing the villagers working so hard, Li An was overjoyed, with these hard-working villagers, there was no need to worry about the lack of manpower to build the port.

Before dark, it was necessary to leave the village and return to the port station, after all, the barracks in this village were too simple for a high-ranking official like Ang Lee.

As for the large amount of wood piled up in the village, they can only wait for tomorrow to send soldiers and horses to carry it, these villagers are busy making money, so they will not bother them, otherwise, if the transportation fee is not as much as the tree felling, they should be unwilling, in addition, there are so many soldiers and horses in the Tang Dynasty, the carriage and manpower are enough, and the distance is only a dozen miles, you can use a cart to transport, you can also use a power car, so the efficiency of transportation will be higher.

Because he was not in a hurry to go back, Ang Lee chose to return on horseback, so that he could better feel the scenery along the way, and even better check the terrain by the way, and design the port expansion plan in the future.

The village carpenter worked so hard, which gave Li Ang reason to believe that tomorrow, the nine arrow towers might be completed, and he would definitely inspect them again tomorrow.

Li An's energy is limited, and it is impossible to pay attention to too many aspects, such as the surrounding thirty villages, Li An can personally take care of only one village, and the rest of the villages can only rely on the one hundred Tang army soldiers and horses stationed, in addition, among several important villages, more mobile mountain search soldiers and horses are stationed to reinforce the places where abnormal situations occur.

Returning to the port, Ang Lee saw the wounded soldiers again, as well as the five captured pirates.

"What the hell is going on?"

Ang Lee asked.

"Li Shilang, there is a group of 30 pirates who want to go to the village to find food, and there was a fierce battle with our soldiers and horses, three people were shot and killed by our army, and the rest fled, after that, our army sent 50 people to launch a pursuit, captured five pirates who were wounded by arrows, and the rest of the more than 20 people all fled and disappeared, and three of our army were wounded by arrows, all of them are here."

The subordinate replied.

Li An opened his mouth to comfort the three soldiers who had been wounded by the arrow, told them to go down to recuperate, and then with a wave of his hand, he asked his subordinates to take the five prisoners into a makeshift prison.

"More than 30 remnants of pirates, and more than 20 people have escaped, can't you catch up?"

Ang Lee was a little angry.

The subordinate said: "Li Shilang, these pirates are in the mountains and forests all the year round, they are more familiar with the terrain than us, they are not equipped with armor, they are all lightly armed, so they run faster than rabbits, they really can't catch up, and they actually have a way to get rid of dog tracking, and it is useless to raise dogs." ”

"Oh, these pirates are so powerful, this is too godly! I can't even track the dog. ”

Ang Lee couldn't believe it.

The subordinate thought for a moment and said, "Li Shilang, these pirates seem to have adopted a special method, they sprayed pepper on the leaves of passing trees, and the dog's nose failed after smelling the pepper, and they could no longer smell the smell of these pirates. ”

"Not bad! These guys are really good, and they can come up with such a good way, it seems that I underestimate them. ”

Li An said.

"Li Shilang don't have to worry, the pirates took the initiative to go to the villages to find food, which is enough to show that their food reserves are running out, and our soldiers and horses have controlled all the villages, and a large amount of grain will never be transported out of these villages, and the pirates will not be supplied for a long time, and they will soon starve to death in the mountains and forests."

The subordinate spoke comfortingly.

Li An felt that the time had come, and said: "Immediately issue a reward order, all the people of the village, as long as they can provide information about the pirates, the Tang Dynasty will give a heavy reward." ”

At this moment, the nearby villages already belong to the Tang Dynasty, they are not the people of the West Tianzhu, but the people of the Tang Empire, they have the responsibility and obligation to help the Tang Dynasty to annihilate the remaining pirates, besides, they can also get great rewards and benefits.

Ang Lee believed that as long as the reward was posted, the people of the nearby villages would definitely have someone to provide the information they knew for the reward.

After all, the performance of the Tang Dynasty soldiers and horses in the past two days has been very good, and there is no money for the villagers to work, after establishing an image of integrity, the local villagers have trusted the Tang Dynasty soldiers and horses, in addition, they are all simple people, and they do feel that it is wrong to be pirates and rob merchants.

At this moment, Anzhu Prefecture has not yet been recognized by the imperial court, but this is a matter of time before it is a matter of time, and what Li An has to do now is to build Anzhu Prefecture as soon as possible.

The capital of Anzhu Prefecture is naturally Anzhu City, and the location of this city is in the port, which can be regarded as a harbor city.

Harbour City is different from inland cities, which are surrounded by four walls, while Harbour City has three walls, with a port on the seaside side, which has the great advantage of being a hub for land trade and at the same time, as a hub for maritime trade.

Naturally, the pressure of defense was also greater, both to defend against enemy attacks on land and to defend against threats from the sea.

Fortunately, the strength of the Tang Empire is extremely strong, as long as a few cannons are erected on the city wall, and a few more cannons are erected on the lighthouse of the harbor, in this way, the threat in both directions of water and land will be solved.

When Xi Tianzhu controlled here, he only built a few buildings, and did not build the port wall, so it was easily captured by pirates, and when the pirates operated here, they also did not build the city wall, only some houses, such houses, were destroyed by the artillery fire of the Tang army.

After the Tang army was stationed, the building of the harbor was rebuilt, and the lighthouse was given priority to the construction of the lighthouse according to Li An's requirements, as for the city wall, there were not so many materials for the time being, and Li An had not thought about the location of the city wall yet, so this Anzhu City did not have a city wall, and it has never been.

However, in the era of the Tang Dynasty, a city can not be without a city wall, so the defense capacity will be greatly reduced, although the Tang Dynasty has invented artillery, but other countries do not have artillery, so it is still necessary to build a city wall.

Even the Japanese in later generations, after learning that the Chinese guerrillas did not have artillery, did they build a large number of artillery towers to achieve the goal of occupation and control.

Therefore, no matter what, this city wall will be built, and Li An has recently been investigating to determine where the city wall will be built.

If the area of the city wall is too small, there will be too few houses and streets in the city, and if the city area is too large, the pressure to defend the city wall will be great, and in the case of a small population, the city wall will be so large and what to do, it will look very deserted.

How to build the city wall, Li An must seriously consider, not a trace of carelessness and sloppiness, after all, in the future, this will be the dual hub of Datang land and sea, and the geographical location is much more important than the Lion State.

Near the northwest location, there is a large piece of land, which is the most suitable for the construction of a railway station, and for the sake of safety and convenience, the railway station is undoubtedly the most suitable to be built in the city, so the city wall must be extended on the flat land in the northwest.

Li An still has a lot of time to think about the city wall, don't be too anxious, and the most urgent thing at the moment is the problem of building materials, no matter what kind of construction, it is inseparable from building materials, wood, broken stone, sand, cement, these building materials are very important.

At present, there are a large number of trees around the harbor, the problem of timber is relatively easy to solve, and there are many stones in the mountains, as long as the nearby villagers are responsible for supplying them, the problem is not big.

Sand seems to be everywhere, especially if there is a beach by the sea, there is too much sand in it, but you can't use sea sand for construction.

Because the sand in the ocean is salty, the salt will corrode the steel bars in the concrete, causing the steel bars to become smaller and smaller, thus losing their vital supporting role.

In addition, after the stiffness rusts, it will expand the surrounding concrete, causing cracks, and even causing the concrete on the surface to fall off.

In short, for the safety of the building, the sand must not be used from the seaside, but from the river.

Fortunately, the harbor itself has a river passing through it, and there are quite a few tributaries of the river, and in the location of the gentler current, there is a large amount of sand, which can be used for construction.

As long as a certain price is given, the people of the nearby villages will definitely be willing to pan for sand, so that the continuous supply of sand can well meet the needs of port construction.

But one of the most important materials for building buildings is cement, which is the most important thing, without which all modern buildings cannot be built.

The manufacture of cement requires lime ore veins, and in the vicinity of the harbor, Ang Lee's subordinates have not yet discovered lime mines, so the desire to produce cement in the local vicinity cannot be realized for the time being.

Fortunately, there is a cement production workshop in Anshi Prefecture, thousands of miles away, and it is possible to send more transport ships to transport cement resources, and use large ships to transport it, and the unit cement cost will not be very high.

Moreover, several ships of cement had already been transported long before Ang Lee arrived at this seaport, otherwise the lighthouse of the port would not have been able to start construction at all.

Of course, in order to better reduce the cost of construction, it is also very necessary to find lime mines in the local area, and can never give up, after all, the future construction of this port is very large, and the demand for building materials is not ordinary, and foreign aid alone is not enough.

Steel materials are not available locally, and there is no steel bar in Anshi Prefecture, however, farther away in Malacca, there have been merchants who have begun to make steel bars, and they have begun to sell, these businessmen's eyes are very poisonous, knowing that the Tang Dynasty is going to carry out large-scale construction overseas, steel bar materials are indispensable, as long as they make iron ingots produced by iron ore into steel bars, they must not be sad to sell.

Li An knew that the port needed to be built, so when he set off from Anshizhou, he brought a lot of steel bars, and now they have begun to use them, but this amount is far from enough, and the steel bars needed for the later construction of this port are too much, and they need to continue to buy from Malacca.