When Huang Hanxiang took his brothers and rode straight to Bailong Lake, Sun Dezhang, who had already returned to the Gravel Fort, reported to Jiang Jie the beginning and end of his Shiguantun trip in the Thousand Households.

Jiang Jie, who was sitting on the rosewood chair in the study, heard that Xiao Ye had desperately killed all of his small flags with a fire gun in front of everyone, and the eagle eyes under his thick eyebrows suddenly flashed.

He also couldn't imagine that the Simon family would have such a ruthless boy, in order to protect himself, he did not hesitate to use his sergeants to atone for the crime, or the kind that did not leave any hands at all.

"The matter has come to this point, and it can only be revealed here, I hate that Ximen Xiaoye, and don't let the lower officials collect the corpse, otherwise his reputation will be ruined beyond measure," Sun Dezhang, who was sitting with the lower head, ran away in vain with anger and no benefit, and said fiercely.

"Well, if he lets you pick up the corpse, maybe someone will go and fight him that night," after thinking for a while, Jiang Jie waved his hand sullenly, "It's okay, let him stay in Shiguantun, and the Mongolian Tartars won't let him go after the beginning of spring, let's just watch the show,"

By this time, Jiang Jie had already faintly regretted that he should not have sent the Ximen family out of the Gravel Fort so easily, and even regretted that he did not leave him behind when Xiao Ye came to the Gravel Fort again.

Fame and fortune are very popular, if it weren't for the exploits of the Tartar head, Xiao Ye would have died in prison.

Shiguantun, in the dark night, two carrier pigeons flew out from the top of the mountain, perhaps because there was too much low iron ore here, and after the carrier pigeon wandered on the top of the mountain for a few laps, it found its direction and hurriedly went to the southeast.

The guards who were monitoring the two shops saw a carrier pigeon flying out, so they hurriedly left the corner outside the backyard of the shop and hurried to the hundred households.

"No wonder, there is movement on the mountain, and the gravel fort will soon know about it," after listening to the report of the guards, Xiao Ye sat on the kang and smiled cross-legged, "It seems that the new hundred households in the mill are going to be rushed,"

"Brother Xiao, Jiang Qianhu and they won't stop there, you better be careful," Yang Mei'er, who was dressed in a red cotton jacket, leaned against Xiao Ye's side, her eyebrows that had just been twisted were quietly wrinkled under the red candle.

"Well, I'll be careful," Xiao Ye reached out to wrap his arms around Mei'er's waist and spread her forehead with rough fingers, "It's late at night, let's rest,"

The good night was short, and Mei'er also knew her husband's intentions, turned around and blew out the candles, took off her coat and trousers, and blushed and burrowed into the soft quilt; Soon, Xiao Ye's fiery body came up.

was swept up in the red waves, and there was nothing to say all night.

On the second day of the wedding, Xiao Ye got up early, and after washing, he practiced in the yard / family knife technique; Mei'er, who combed the woman's hair in a bun, got up to prepare breakfast for her husband.

In the past, every day, a man brought a food box to a hundred households, and what the sergeants ate on the stove, Xiao Ye would also eat something, but now he has a family to take care of, but the old man of the province has gone on a trip.

Wheat porridge, pickled vegetables, steamed steamed buns, the usual meals in the northwest in winter and spring, after Xiao Ye ate, he called Mei'er, opened the wooden box at the head of the bed, and handed her a roster of five hundred taels of gold, one thousand six hundred taels of silver, and a roster.

"This is the family of a hundred households, the Wang priest is illiterate, unable to manage the accounts, in the future, the official affairs on the mountain, Mei'er, you will be in charge for the time being, the goods in the two shops of Tian and Huang, you can be credited with my seal," Xiao Ye's simple words made Yang Mei'er surprised.

"This, I can show up to take care of the accounts?" The Ming woman is in charge of housework, and the custom of men being outside makes Mei'er already prepared to stay at home, but she didn't expect her husband to be so open-minded, and suddenly her eyes were a little more bright.

Xiao Ye smiled bitterly and handed the roster to Mei'er, "The two slaps on the mountain who can read and write can be counted, I don't worry if you take care of the accounts," To be honest, Mei'er still can't compare to Mei'er in the private school.

How much is the monthly consumption of food on the mountain, how much is the ratio of digging charcoal in Jiming Village to exchange for grain, etc., after Xiao Ye carefully explained to Mei'er, he no longer cares about these logistical chores; Mei'er and Uncle Wang discussed things, and they were much better than themselves.

There is no doubt about employing people, no suspicion is used, hand over money and food, Xiao Ye only looks at the result, and then changes it if it doesn't work.

After Shiguantun experienced an unusual wedding, the next day it was normal again, the coal was transported into the tunli by car, and next to the coal pile behind the land temple, two old military households distributed a basket of coal according to the needs of each family's population.

Although the cold wind is still in the morning and evening, the weather is getting warmer, especially in the middle of the day, and you can sweat in a leather jacket.

The mill also ushered in a large number of quarried stones, large bags of stone powder that were simply crushed, poured into the central stone mill, and a ox pulled the stone mill to slowly turn in circles; To the surprise of the craftsman sergeant, the speed at which the yellow plaster was ground out was much faster than before.

Large bundles of fine branches and wet sand were also collected by craftsmen and sent to the mill.

Huang Hanxiang Xiaoqi went to Bailong Lake, Xiao Ye recruited nine sergeants again in Tunli, and selected a flag officer from the guards to make up for it. In the future, the selection of flag officers will be based on personal guards, and this is also a common practice in the border army.

Fortunately, Xiao Ye chose the flag officer, and the capable one was the best, so that the sergeants did not have much complaint; If you want to get more money, you have to practice your skills well.

Xiao Ye, who had been training with five small flags, constantly urged Huang Deshan and Tian Fangjun to ask for a large amount of sulfur, saltpeter, and lead on credit, and began to hoard white paper and silk cotton coats every night.

Looking at the gloomy faces of the hundred households, the military households in Shiguantun also cheered up one by one, and even the children formed a team to collect vine and grass kernels in addition to studying.

The second dragon raised its head in February, and there were still a few days before the sting, but the originally withered yellow vine grass on the stone mountain had already turned green in large areas after a thin drizzle.

Even the Coptis tree in front of the Land Temple, the green leaves are inadvertently the size of a child's palm, swaying in the breeze.

Seeing that with the help of Wang Dali, Mei'er took care of things in the tun well, Xiao Ye took out another roster and cautiously handed it to Mei'er, "Mei'er, I still have some brothers here, you have to worry about their food,"

Flipping through the roster, when Huang Hanxiang's name appeared in Yang Mei'er's sight, she suddenly realized, no wonder the families of the ten sergeants saw that they were more and more respectful, and they didn't complain.

Yu Shan, Du Ding, the names of a total of one hundred and twelve people, most of whom she didn't know, but Xiao Ye could have so many sergeants in her hands, Mei'er was still surprised; No wonder my husband always complains that the food is not enough, and he still owes grain and cloth on credit in the shop, so there is a gap here.

"With them, the gold and silver in my hand are only three months' worth of, and Li Langzhong's medicinal materials there are not enough," took out a small abacus, Mei'er crackled and calculated for a while, and the conclusion she came to made Xiao Ye have a headache.

It seems that the vanity mirror and white stunned paper are still a few nights wasted, but the vanity mirror also requires gold, silver, and mercury, and what he lacks in his hand is these.

Xiao Ye walked out of the hundred households depressed and came to the military house outside the mill, where Wang Dali was digging a foundation pit on the ground with a team of small flags.

After the ground was hard and frozen, a large pile of wild grass lit a fire, and after the ground was softened, the sergeants used iron picks and axes to cut through the rubble, revealing the wet ground, and digging the foundation much easier.

On the abandoned winter filling field, taking advantage of the warm temperature at noon, large pieces of yellow plaster stone were also formed in the wooden mold; In Wang Dali's opinion, these stones, mixed with stones and branches, were already extremely hard and boxy, and they were really good materials for building walls.

Xiao Ye has been smart since he was a child, and he likes to think about things, otherwise he would not have quickly figured out the characteristics of stone grinding; However, since Boss Mei, who was hired by Jiang Jie, had the sharp head knife and the knife wind swept across his neck, Xiao Ye, who had escaped death, became sensitive and suspicious, and his heart gradually hardened.

If not, he doesn't know when he will die under Jiang Jie's knife, and there are still his younger siblings and Mei'er behind him, how will they live then.

"Uncle Wang, repair the high wall here as soon as possible, leaving only one exit," Standing in the wasteland outside the military house, Xiao Ye gestured to the surrounding terrain and carefully admonished Wang Dali.

"Baihu, the weather is still a little cold now, the yellow plaster solidifies too slowly, and we don't have enough manpower," Wang Dali wrinkled his old face, and his rough hands kept rubbing, "What is the height of this wall?" ”

"One zhang three, no matter how high it is, the more systematic it is, I will send you a small flag with manpower, the most important thing on the mountain now is this stone fort," Xiao Ye thought about it, it was a big deal to hand over the team that collected wood to Wang Dali, and the other teams couldn't move.

The rectangular stone fort with a circumference of nearly 1,200 steps is a stronghold on the stone mountain, as long as the stone fort can be defended, the others can be abandoned. The most important thing is that the mill in the stone castle must not be left to fail.

Of course, the stone mill that seemed to be already heavy to a thousand catties, Xiao Ye couldn't think of anyone who could pull it away.

However, although Wang Dali had already commanded fifty men and began to build the stone fort wall day and night, Xiao Ye was still not very satisfied, so he transferred three small flags and joined the ranks of the construction project. Even the old craftsmen in the tun couldn't stop coming to help.

As for Hanjuan and their children, they were driven far away by the craftsmen, and they went to pick up the kernels for money boringly.

The remaining two teams of small flags began to patrol around the mountain in shifts, and the formation of the battle formation drill on the training ground was temporarily stopped.

The thick wooden tripod and a long thick wooden lever were turned into sharp weapons that could easily mobilize the stucco and stones in the hands of the craftsman sergeant, and five or six people could move the regular stones weighing four or five hundred catties in the mould filling yard a hundred steps away to the foundation pit.

After moving the tripod several times, the first square block of plaster, under the shouting of Wang Dali, was finally hoisted into the eight-foot-deep pit of the wall, and a cart of prepared slurry plaster was also pushed out by the craftsman.

Speaking of the long wooden rafters on this tripod, it is still the martial arts of Jiming Village, and he was inspired to bring it up; He took three sergeants and returned to Jiming Village from afar, and from the ruins of the ancestral hall that had collapsed, he found this two-foot thigh-thick wood and dragged it back with a war horse.

For this reason, Xiao Ye specially rewarded Shangwu with a military crossbow, but this kid was so happy that he spent all day shooting rabbits and pheasants in the wilderness, and he also abandoned the work of digging charcoal.

Shang Shetian also received two stones of grain, which can be regarded as compensation for Jiming Village. Xiao Baihu, who refused to take advantage, made the hunters admire it very much.

Under the astonished observation of Huang Deshan and Tian Fangjun, the earthy yellow fort wall continued to increase at an incredible speed every day, until six days later, on the eighth day of the first lunar month, the mill stone castle had begun to look like it.

At the suggestion of several mason-turned-sergeants, Wang Dali not only built steps behind the fort wall to reach the top of the wall, but also repaired platforms at the four corners of the wall, on which the sergeants could stand guard against the battlements.

At the top of the wall, which was two steps wide, craftsmen used small stucco stones that were hoisted up to build a half-man-high chest guard, so that the patrolling sergeants could even dodge the arrows behind them, and they were not afraid of falling down.

On the day of the completion of the stone fort wall, which closely protected the military house and the mill, a row of ten stone houses against the wall in the fort was also covered with artemisia grass roofs, and the fire kang and ground were also quickly tidied up. Here, there are new 100 houses.

In the stone fort, the mill is in the center, along the fort wall in the west is a row of military houses and stove houses, and in the east is a hundred courtyards and two guest rooms.

grain depots and warehouses in the north, and stables in the south; The walls of the fort are too high, and although the slanting sunlight is no longer visible in the morning, it is safe to do so.

However, the two large piles of coal and ore directly opposite the mill seemed a bit nondescript, but Xiao Ye didn't care at all, just looking for simplicity and speed.

At the exit of the narrow stone fort, Wang Dali and a few old men worked hard to make twenty triangular stone strips with plaster, and placed them on both sides of the exit.

In case of urgency, these five-foot-long and sixty-pound stone bars are messily blocked at the exit, and a few more post-loading guns are placed on the fort wall, and two boxes of earth-shaking thunder are put to see which one dares to break in.

At noon on the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar, after the plaster floor in the stone castle dried out, the newly built 100 households moved into the owner, Xiao Ye's secret warehouse, which had been emptied last night; The guards of the treasury are still some Uncle Kun of Muna.

Hundreds of households, a hall on both sides of the wings, the inner room of the wing room has a fire kang, the right inner room is placed with a large cabinet of marriage beds, tables and chairs, now the weather is still cold, Xiao Ye is a small couple, naturally they sleep in the left room, and the right room is occupied by Hanjuan.

His own courtyard was given to Wang Dali, but when persuading Yang Tianshou, the old father-in-law refused to leave the courtyard he was used to, and according to his words, he imprisoned himself in the stone castle, which was a crime.

Yang Tianshou, who was accustomed to teaching in private schools, instinctively did not want to see the stone castle with a strong military smell.

When the sergeant with the firearm on his back appeared on the wall of the stone fort, Huang Deshan and Tian Fangjun, the two shopkeepers, were already dumbfounded; They also couldn't imagine that with the stones made of yellow plaster, a stone castle with all kinds of organs, although it was not large, the speed of construction was really too fast.

After more than ten days of hard work, the number of people was only forty or fifty, plus some old craftsmen, who completed the project of others for half a year, and the hundred households of Ximen also lived in it smoothly.

"Congratulations, Brother Huang, your Huang family's business can be regarded as a big loss," Tian Fangjun, who was full of envy, pointed to the stone castle that had just been built, and said hello to Huang Deshan loudly.

"Where, hey, hey, it's just a fluke to meet Ximen Baihu, your Tian family's silk cotton coat is also a unique business," Huang Deshan, whose eyes were smiling, was now waiting for it to get dark, and then the pigeon letter could be sent.

The young master of his own family has a unique vision, and he knows that the plaster paving is solid, and it is okay to build a small stone house, but the third young master can't imagine building a castle with plaster.

How did he know that if it weren't for the shortage of raw materials on the mountain, Wang Dali and they would not have suggested using plaster to build the fort wall, after all, they had been accustomed to using bricks, stone strips and glutinous rice pulp for most of their lives to build the fort wall.

The most conspicuous commanding heights on the stone mountain at present is this tall fort wall, and the sergeants who rotate on duty day and night in Tunli also retreat to the stone fort with monoculars; The daily chores of Shiguan Tunli were taken over by Wang Si and Mei'er, and they were restored to the state of civil encirclement.

Even the dark fort guarding the gate of the tun, the sergeants inside were revoked by Xiao Ye, Wang Dali's subordinates were shortaged, and the state of manpower shortage may last for a long time.

After a sparse spring rain, the rocky mountains are full of greenery, which is more intense than the other hills in the distance; However, as the sound of fighting on the training ground sounded, the old man in the tun was once again worried about the rattan grass that began to climb the wall.

Fortunately, with Li Langzhong's guidance, the boys with sharp hands and feet, after the old man burned incense and bowed to the three coptis trees, carefully cut off a dozen slender branches from the branches with a sickle, carefully inserted them outside their stone house, and poured a few spoonfuls of water.

Not surprisingly, the green leaves carried on these branches soon shone brightly in the sun, and the vine grass on the back wall of the stone house obviously stopped spreading.

And Li Langzhong, who harvested the fruit of Coptis chinensis in late autumn last year, finally grinded a new medicinal powder, mixed with the skin of the vine grass kernel, and applied it to a kid who broke his calf, and the effect was obviously better than ordinary herbs.