One of Einstein's famous explanations of the "theory of relativity" is, "If you sit next to a hot stove, time passes very slowly; But when you sit next to a beautiful lady, time flies", and the same applies to the city of Beijing, the most important capital of the Ming Dynasty. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

If you look at it from the perspective of Xiao Mu's later modern society, and measure it by the speed of cars and subways, then Beijing City at this time in the Ming Dynasty was really pitifully small, and it took less than an hour to drive around - of course, on the premise of not getting stuck in traffic.

But with the traffic level of Daming's time and space, measured by horse-drawn carriages or even direct walking, Daming's capital is indeed very large, since the capital is already so big, then the time spent on a circle outside the capital is naturally indispensable.

In fact, Xiao Mu spent a morning and was not able to finish reading the places outside the capital that were suitable for camping, and he didn't even reach a third of the workload, but he didn't have time to continue watching, because a morning was already a long time for him, the king of a country, and before the afternoon, he had to go back to the palace and inquire about the situation of the war on the front line. Although he didn't have any understanding of ancient warfare, Xiao Mu, as the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, even if he sat there without saying a word, watching his courtiers work, he could make them feel confident in their hearts, and if the emperor was not there, the ministers would feel a little unfocused when they did things.

All in all, although Xiao Mu doesn't know anything, his identity itself is extremely symbolic, and having him in charge can undoubtedly give great confidence to the courtiers who are preparing to consolidate the city's defenses and collect reports on the battle ahead.

In fact, Xiao Mu did not find nothing during this morning, at least he and Wang Zaijin found a very suitable place for the besieging side to camp - probably a place not far from the Guangqu Gate of the capital, according to Wang Zaijin's many years of military experience, if you want to attack the capital from the east, it is most suitable to camp here.

Wang Zaijin's meaning was expressed very clearly, and he almost didn't directly say "If I lead the troops to attack the capital, I will definitely camp here", after all, Wang Zaijin, as the secretary of the Ming Dynasty's military department, is naturally not stupid, and it is impossible to say this kind of words that are suspected of being disobedient and easy to give people a handle.

However, Wang Zaijin's meaning had been clearly expressed to Xiao Mu, and Xiao Mu also realized that this was indeed a very suitable place for implementing his "genius plan", so he immediately ordered to secretly bury gunpowder here, do a good job of camouflage, and at the same time send people to dig around here, and be sure to dig up all the surrounding five miles beyond recognition.

After giving such important instructions, Xiao Mu ordered Wang Zaijin to send people to continue to find other suitable locations for the besieging side to camp, and follow the same process to bury gunpowder and dig the ground.

Then Xiao Mu took Wang Zaijin back to the capital again, and then returned to the palace - similar to Xiao Mu as the backbone of all ministers just now, Wang Zaijin is also equivalent to the backbone of the entire military department, naturally it is impossible to wander around outside the city all day, or to return to the city to deal with the military information transmitted from the front line.

In the next two or three days, almost all the soldiers of the Beijing camp, as well as the able-bodied refugees who fled to Beijing, were all "lucky" to participate in the emperor's "genius plan" in turn-except for a number of suitable camping locations that were finally determined to be the most core and secret, and it was necessary to send reliable subordinates to secretly bury gunpowder. Almost all the other places around the capital have been dug up, and if it weren't for the fact that it's already autumn, if it weren't for the fact that these places around the capital weren't farmland in the first place, this huge earthwork would undoubtedly look like a collective ploughing of the ground during spring ploughing.

However, in the time and space of the Ming Dynasty, the cost of human resources is undoubtedly frighteningly low, or in other words, although Xiao Mu's "genius plan" has a huge amount of work, it did not cost much silver taels in the end--after all, the soldiers of the Beijing camp themselves have military salaries, and they naturally don't have to pay for pulling them out to work, but it is just to raise the food standard for their three meals a day, and in fact, because the capital has begun to prepare for war and actively consolidate the city defense, the food standard of the soldiers in the capital should have been raised. Therefore, this part of the cost will also be spent even if Xiao Mu's plan is not implemented.

So in fact, the real additional cost in the implementation of Xiao Mu's plan is only the cost of hiring those refugees who have fled, and the cost of this item is also frighteningly low, because these people themselves are refugees who have nothing, as long as they are given some food, they will rush to come and work for you, and they will work hard, for fear of losing this hard-won errand to support themselves or even support their wives and children.

And then again, even if such a huge project is not carried out, if Xiao Mu knew about the existence of refugees around the capital, in the humanitarian principle of later generations, he would still allocate funds for relief, so from this point of view, even the cost of hiring refugees to work is actually not the cost of this earthwork.

After a period of calculation and analysis, in the end, it can be said that the real cost is probably only the gunpowder that has been buried in the places where various things have been encamped, and packed in wooden boxes - these gunpowder are undoubtedly strategic materials, and if there is no war, they will not have any value in the warehouse, and since it is now a war, there is no need to save, after all, they are only useful when there is a war.

Speaking of gunpowder, in fact, there is another source of cost in this plan, that is, the wooden boxes used to hold these gunpowder-ready-made wooden boxes are certainly far from enough, so in order to carry out Xiao Mu's plan, he did not deliberately improvise a batch of wooden boxes with rough workmanship that can only meet some basic needs, and are used to hold those gunpowder that will be damp if buried directly in the soil.

Therefore, these two days are very good two days for all the carpenters in the capital, everyone has received a lot of business, and even some inferior goods or scraps that cannot be disposed of in the coffin shop have also been used.