Lu Zhen smiled mysteriously: "My lord, you see, it's not only a wall, but also an extremely solid wall, just like that." ”

He pointed to the side, where stood a grayish-white wall, of indistinguishable material, about six feet high, less than a foot thick, and six feet long.

The five craftsmen received the order and immediately went into action.

A one-and-a-half-foot-deep foundation had been dug into the ground, and they had made a bargain.

They inserted a wooden plank on each side of the foundation that was six feet wide, six feet high, and one inch thick, and fixed it on the ground. Don't say it's a cup of tea, I'm afraid I won't be able to finish it in a day or two!

But I didn't expect these craftsmen to take out a lot of bamboo pieces, these bamboo pieces are wide and long, deep in color, obviously split from the large bamboo that has accumulated years. These bamboos are pale yellow in color, already sun-dried, and the four pieces are tied into a bunch, and they are very strong.

They inserted these bamboo pieces deep into the foundation, and the thickness of one foot was about six bunches, and the width of six feet added up to more than 100 bunches. Between the two planks there was already a dense forest of bamboo, and then they took out something strange, and when they looked closely, it was a net made of the same long, strong bamboo strips, and they spread a net to the bottom of the foundation, and then fixed another layer about a foot high above, so that the wall, which was about six feet high, was fixed with six layers in total.

In this way, it is like putting together a framework.

Lian Zining stood aside, smiling and looking at it with interest, but he thought of the construction of those giant high-rise buildings on the construction sites of later generations. Isn't that how it came about?

These craftsmen are so skilled that it only takes a third of the time to finish them. Then they said hello, and a large number of people came in small carts pushing bags. The bag was opened, and the contents were poured on the ground, but the bag contained fine sand and finely ground cement powder.

The craftsmen mixed the two things together, poured water on them, mixed them with sticks, and then shoveled them with shovels and filled them directly between the two planks.

Five shovels flew up and down, and in a short time, the two planks were filled up. The rudiments of a wall have been revealed.

Lu Zhen said with a smile: "Now the cement has not completely solidified, and the planks cannot be removed, but as long as it is dried for a day, it is enough." ”

He pointed to the gray-white wall and said to the crowd: "That wall, which was built at this time yesterday, is now extremely strong. ”

Everyone gasped, such a short time, such an easy way, so many people, a wall was built?

To know. If such a wall is built, if it is a stone wall, it will take at least four or five days to build it. And if you use the method of plywood rammed earth. It takes more time. But with this cement, it's a blink of an eye!

Skye walked quickly to the gray-white wall and asked urgently, "Is this wall strong?" ”

"Nature is sturdy!" Lu Zhen said with a smile. Two words were commanded, and after a while. A tall and strong wrestler strode over, still holding a sledgehammer in his hand. The hammer head was the size of a human head, and it was very weighty at first glance.

Lian Zining raised his chin at Chen Tong, Chen Tong understood, stepped forward to take the hammer, his hand sank, and he turned around and said, "It's a real guy, at least thirty catties!" ”

Lian Zining said: "Aren't you known for your strength? Come, smash this wall, with all your might. ”

"Yes, sir!"

Chen Tong responded, spat into the palm of his hand, picked up the sledgehammer, and smashed it towards the wall.

The castration of this hammer is also very violent, with a golden wind, he is actually a little disapproving, according to his strength, even a foot-thick stone can be smashed open, let alone this thing.

only heard Peng's dull loud noise, everyone was buzzing in their ears, only to see Chen Tong's face full of disbelief, the hand holding the sledgehammer had been shattered, and the blood flowed out, but on the wall, there was only a small crack, obviously no big problem.

Chen Tong looked up and down a few times and exclaimed, "No, this thing is harder than a stone?" ”

Lu Zhen said with a smile: "Lord Chen, the stone is brittle, there are bamboo tendons in this thing, naturally it is more difficult to beat, in fact, in terms of hardness, it is not much stronger than the stone." ”

Hong Chao's eyes were straight, Lord Xindao was really a god, this thing that came out was unheard of, but it was extremely strange.

Shi Kai was even more like a treasure, wandering around the wall vigorously, his face full of obsession.

"How?" Lian Zining laughed: "Lao Hong, Shi Kai, the official is not lying, right?" This cement, is it a good thing? ”

"Good stuff, really good stuff." Hong Chaojiao sighed and said, "My lord's move is beneficial for a thousand years!" ”

Lian Zining smiled faintly and said, "Li Zai Qianqiu doesn't dare to say it, but at least he has to stand in this world!" ”

He turned his head to Shi Kai and said, "Shi Kai, you are Langzhong of the Ministry of Industry, tell me, what is the use of this thing?" ”

"If you go back to adulthood, it's too useful." Shi Kai's eyes lit up and said: "Building cities, building houses, building bridges and paving roads, and building docks, all of them are needed!" ”

"There's no need for that yet." Lian Zining smiled slightly: "Now this official has given you two errands." ”

Shi Kai hurriedly said, "My lord, please speak." ”

"One of them." Lian Zining stretched out a finger: "In the south direction of Zhenyuan Mansion, build the outer city of Zhenyuan Mansion." What is the scale, tentatively set to the east to the Asu River, 30 miles out of the south gate of Zhenyuanfu in the south, 30 miles out of the west wall of Zhenyuanfu in the west, and level in the south city wall of Zhenyuanfu in the north. ”

Shi Kai calculated and exclaimed: "My lord, in this way, this outer city is more than fifty miles from east to west, thirty miles from north to south, and the length of the city wall adds up to more than one hundred and forty miles. ”

"And it also costs a lot of manpower and money." Hong Chaojiao on one side added.

To be honest, he was a little unimpressed with Lian Zining's idea. In his opinion, Zhenyuan Mansion is already big enough. There is no need to build any more, there are still many places in the city that are empty! Why not take advantage of these places. But to build an outer city in the south of the city, isn't it a waste of money and labor?

But he didn't know what Lian Zining really planned in his heart.

The construction of the outer city of Zhenyuan Mansion, Lian Zining had plans in this regard a long time ago, as Hong Chaojiao thought, the current Zhenyuan Mansion is indeed large enough, and there are enough people - the army plus military families, plus those laborers, craftsmen, etc., there are three or four hundred thousand people, these people. Looking at the entire Ming Dynasty, it is only the north and south of Beijing, Yangzhou and Suzhou and other large ports can be reached. But the problem is that among these people, there is not a single ordinary person.

The current Zhenyuan Mansion is an out-and-out military city.

In Lian Zining's planning, here, it is not just to play such a role, but it should be the entire Nuer Gandu Division, three thousand miles north and south of Songjiang. The center of the land of 5,000 miles from east to west is the political, economic, cultural, and commercial center of the entire Guanwai, and even relying on the developed water transportation of Songjiang, it should become the transportation center of the entire northeast.

This vast land with Zhenyuan Mansion as the core. The Han nationality and the ethnic minorities live together and integrate with each other, and the farming civilization and the nomadic civilization and the fishing and hunting civilization collide with each other. Finally, with the large population base of the Han nationality and the strong integration ability. Integrate them all into the Han Chinese. Like a drop of water melted into the sea, spring dreams without a trace. There was no trace of it again.

This seemingly civilized and gentle way is actually a more ruthless strategy than genocide, and because of the mildness of the means, those ethnic minorities will not have the idea of resistance at all, or even have this consciousness, and as they taste the sweetness, they will even take the initiative to integrate and learn the way of life and production of the Han people.

Lian Zining took Wu Yijun as the sharpest spear and laid a good foundation for this piece. What he has to do is not only to keep this foundation, but also to continue to expand outward. What he wants is not to subdue and fear these alien races in the northeast, but to let them disappear without a trace, so that the Han people can become the masters of this land, and let this land, which is the size of eight political envoys combined, become the inherent land of the Han people.

No one can snatch it away!

This is Lian Zining's great wish.

And if you want to do this, the first step is to make the former Xishenwei, now Zhenyuan Mansion, the center of the entire Northeast.

In this regard, Zhenyuan Mansion has an advantage.

From a geopolitical point of view, it is located almost in the center of the entire northeast, and it is not particularly far from the four directions of southeast, northwest and northwest.

In terms of geographical conditions, it is surrounded by mountains and rivers, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and surrounded by vast plains, which is extremely suitable for cultivation and development of agriculture. The Songhua River and the Azov River bring sufficient water sources, making it very convenient to divert water for irrigation, and the development of agriculture makes the Han people relatively dense, and in the surrounding large forests, there are countless wild Jurchens, and the production in them is extremely rich.

And the nautical chart of the whale sea taken out by the Tachibana family made up for the last shortcoming of the development of Zhenyuan Mansion.

Once this route spreads, then far lower than the land transport of sea transport will make a large increase in the number of merchant ships to the Northeast, tracing the Songhua River up to Zhenyuanfu, then Zhenyuanfu will leap into a port similar to Tianjin, Guangzhou, Quanzhou, the resources of the Northeast gather here to transport out, the resources of the outside world are transported in, and then transported to all parts of the Northeast.

This also prompted Lian Zining to speed up the pace of building Zhenyuan Mansion.

If you want to become a hub, urban infrastructure is the key.

He was indeed a very far-sighted man, and the plains south of Zhenyuan Mansion as far as the Black Forest, which he had never allowed to be cultivated or used for other purposes, were left for expansion. There are a lot of vacant land in Zhenyuan Mansion, but these vacant land are not enough, and Lian Zining has other uses. In his vision, the inner city of Zhenyuan Mansion in the future, which is now Zhenyuan Mansion, does not allow merchants and citizens to enter casually, and it is a barracks and official mansion, which is a forbidden place. The outer city to be built now is a commercial area and a residential area.

As for how to turn this place into a densely populated commercial city, Lian Zining has already made up his mind in his heart, but it is not enough for outsiders.

As soon as Hong Chaojiao's words came out, Lian Zining knew what he meant, he glanced at Hong Chaojiao, and said lightly: "That's why I asked you to come along, Lao Hong." Together, if you want to build such a great city. How long does it take to have the same specifications as Zhenyuan Mansion? How much manpower? How much money? ”

Hong Chaojiao's heart was excited. also knew that he seemed to be too wide, so he hurriedly answered, and then whispered to Shi Kai for a moment, and said: "If you go back to the adult, if it is the same size as the current city wall of Zhenyuan Mansion, it will take at least 200,000 people to work for more than nine months. The cost of silver must be at least more than one million taels. However, the lower officials see that this cement is so magical, it is estimated that it can still be shortened by two months, and the people don't have to work so hard. is not afraid of being stoned to death like in the past. It's just that the supply of cement and sand must keep up. ”

"Sand is definitely no problem, there are many areas on both sides of our Songhua River that are very suitable for sand mining. Your Ministry of Industry will shoot an official and lead some people to pick sand, as for the cement powder......" Lian Zining glanced at Lu Zhen, Lu Zhen understood, and hurriedly said: "The lower official and the adult have made a military order, and we will supply as much cement powder as we want." If something goes wrong, you want the head of the lower official! ”

"What a military order, you kid." Lian Zining scolded with a smile and slapped him on the head.

He groaned for a moment. "It's time to farm, but it's almost over, so be it." Ten days later, construction began. 100,000 masters were levied from the people, and these were selected near the town's distant mansion. Other than that. There are still 100,000 Jurchen slave soldiers in the tenth guard, and they can also serve, so isn't 200,000 enough? ”

"The money is not a problem, the official will give you 300,000 taels first, and use it, you must remember that the money of these people must be given." Lian Zining glanced at Hong Chaojiao and Shi Kai: "Do you understand?" ”

"Xia Guan is awake." The two responded in unison.

"Well, that's good."

Lian Zining said lightly: "This is the first thing, the construction of the city." The second thing is to build roads. ”

His voice became leisurely: "Seeing that there is another war, our territory is about to expand again." Lao Hong, I have a request for you, you are staring at people, where our army hits, this cement pavement will be repaired! ”

―――――――― Dividing Line――――――――

The county seat of Tuolunwei.

This city, located in the southeast corner of the territory of the general of Liaobei, is one of the richest areas under the jurisdiction of the general of Liaobei because of its proximity to the Songhua River, the vast plains and dense population. At a glance, on the great plain north of the Songjiang River, there are towns and cities scattered one after another, surrounded by large areas of farmland and villages.

It is the richest and most populous, so it is also the most exploited area by Yang Xuezhong.

It sounds good, but it's actually not like that, why is the sky three feet higher? Because the ground is scraped down three feet, who can scrape it? Naturally, it was scraped by Lord Yang Xuezhong Yang.

Bandits are like combs, soldiers are like grates, officials are like shavings, and after Yang Xuezhong's folk wealth is shaved, there is really not much left like a bald man's hair. Those rich gentry are still stronger, and many ordinary people have been forced to have no way to live.

It was after the White Lotus Sect started up that there was the most intense reaction here.

Tens of thousands of ordinary people turned into fierce mobs overnight, broke into the homes of the landlords and gentry, robbed their families of the wealth they had worked hard for generations, killed all the men, and the women were raped × × turns to vent their anger, and some were violently × × to death.

And Xu Hongru's many years of operation here also played a role, almost overnight, the Delunwei changed color, not only the large and small towns were breached, but even the county town of Delunwei, which was guarded by a full 3,000 Ming troops, was easily taken. Because among the officers and soldiers defending the city, thirty percent were already White Lotus Sect disciples.

In the open space outside the county town of Delunwei, countless tents have been built, these tents are very simple, the materials are also varied, and they look colorful from a distance, like a piece of garbage floating on the water.

It is obvious that the tent has been artificially divided into more than a dozen areas, all of which are separated by open space, and each tent area is large enough to accommodate thousands of people. At this moment, there was a burst of noise in the tent area, and countless White Lotus disciples gathered together to drink wine, eat meat, and laugh. Everyone's face showed an undisguised excitement, and what appeared in their eyes was a kind of confused madness that didn't know the way forward.

Confused and crazy, it is a true portrayal of the psychology of the millions of White Lotus Cultists in this land.

They went with the flow, followed the crowd to get into trouble, followed the crowd to kill, followed the crowd to burn and loot, and they were really happy for a while, but they soon found that they didn't know where their future was. It's happy, but it's far away from home, and I'm afraid that the fields at home are already going to be abandoned, right? Follow the army farther and farther, but where is the leader?

On the outskirts of the tent area, thousands of soldiers in black armor stood by, and their expressions were fierce, and they knew at a glance that they were definitely different from those stragglers. On the chest of everyone's black armor, a snow-white lotus flower was embroidered, which was very dazzling.

On the head of the Acropolis, the crimson banner of the former Ming Dynasty has long disappeared, replaced by the banner of the White Lotus Sect, which is a black banner, but in the center is embroidered with a white lotus. Such an image is in line with the White Lotus Sect's doctrine that the White Lotus begins with filth and shines brightly in the world.

Under the banner, there are standing armor soldiers wearing black armor embroidered with white lotus flowers on their chests, and in the city, all commercial activities have long been stopped, and no idle people on the street are allowed to walk.

The plaque at the entrance of the county yamen has been replaced and has become the 'White Lotus Palace', which means that this is the other palace of the earthly travelers of the childless old mother, which shows that Xu Hongru has great ambitions, not only defining himself as the agent of the Holy Sect among the people, but also claiming to be the emperor himself.

In an attic in the backyard of the county government, the window was ajar, Xu Hongru wore a white robe for a while, wearing a gold forehead, and the center of the eyebrows was inlaid with a small white jade lotus, the jade quality is the best Hetian jade, and the carving is also extremely exquisite, which is obviously a rare treasure. His long hair was slightly tied with a hairpin, and he had three long beards on his chin, and a gust of wind blew, and his robe flew in the wind. Although his appearance is not as good as his face and his face is dark, he relies on clothes, so that he is extraordinarily chic and elegant, like a person among the gods.

This is the highest point in the city, standing here, the city has an unobstructed view, seeing the countless black-armored guards, Xu Hongru's face is full of self-satisfaction.

He is justifiably proud and proud.

The incident was only a little more than a month, and the White Lotus Sect had already occupied more than seventy percent of the land under the jurisdiction of the general of Liaobei, and the vast and fertile area within a radius of hundreds of miles was within his own control. And the cult has exploded to more than 1.5 million, of which there are more than 500,000 strong men who can be armed!

At the sound of an order, the crowd rose up, and the stirring of the world changed color and clouds.

The taste of power made Xu Hongru feel intoxicated, and his heart was also fluttering, and he even had a feeling that he was now leading the hundreds of thousands of troops under his command to break through the pass and enter the south, and it was not impossible to directly take the Ming Dynasty to sit down!

"How many rebels have there been throughout the ages? How many more people can do what I did in the middle of a month! Chen Sheng and Wu Guang started in Daze Township, but gathered only 800 people; After Lvlin Red Mei captured Chang'an, Fang Zi gathered 300,000; It was the ancestors of the Ming Sect who instigated the Yellow River to rebel against the world, and it was only 130,000 people! Wake up to the power of the world, drunk and lying on the knees of beautiful women, it's nothing more than that, right? ”

"Drunk lying on the knees of beauty, knees of beauty...... Hahaha"

A smug smile appeared on Xu Hongru's face, and he stroked his beard and thought leisurely.

Thinking of this, Xu Hongru couldn't help but turn around and look.

This was supposed to be a woman's boudoir, very elegantly furnished, there was a small table on the side of the window, on which was also placed a yaoqin, a rosewood stepping bed, now the curtain was tied with a golden hook, the pillow was in a mess, and a woman was kneeling on it wearing only a small coat. She is tall, her body is full of bruises, red and swollen, she looks quite handsome and soft, only twenty-eight years old, but her face is still covered with tears, like a pear flower with rain, which makes people look at it, and can't help but give birth to a look of pity for me.

Seeing Xu Hongru looking over, the woman quickly showed a flattering expression on her face.

Xu Hongru, who watched this scene, felt a fever in his heart again, and his lower body was as hard as a pestle. (To be continued.) )