Just as the knife took two guards and two craftsmen, pulling the pack horse and the carriage, and entered the cave, Xiao Yezheng was directing a dozen young craftsmen to remove the large pile of charcoal and pile it in the corner of the stone castle and cover it with artemisia grass.

A few men in the house, although they don't understand why Baihu wants to move the charcoal, but the distance is not very far, and they need it when cooking, and they can push the wheelbarrow to pull some over, and it doesn't cost much.

The craftsmen in the stone fort have already begun to assemble, according to the arrangement of Wang Dali and Wang Qing, transport the yellow plaster accumulated in the warehouse to the outside of the fort, take the mold, and make the plaster stone on the spot.

Transporting sand and gravel, transporting water, and the horse road outside the stone fort is lively again, and the stucco stones with the formwork are also solidifying rapidly.

"Peng, Peng Peng," on the hill to the south, Ma Gui and a group of craftsmen, under the guidance of Li Xin'an, began to blow up a long foundation with geotechnical bombs, and the foundation pit dug here will be connected to the stone fort after the stone wall is built in the future.

This stone wall encloses a large circle in the northeast, north and south directions of the stone fort, and almost encloses the low hill to the east.

That's right, the main task of the logistics team at present is to expand the Madao Stone Fort, and more than double the size of the stone fort on the mountainside, which will not only build a large number of military houses and houses, but also have a short cross street, built along the gentle slope; Even the drainage ditches on both sides of the street, Li Xin'an thought of it.

This stone fort built on the mountain, after being widened, has greatly exceeded the area of Shiguantun.

Three hours later, the knife returned to the mill with two wagons and four large iron crates; The length and width of the iron box exceed the export limit; There was no way, Xiao Ye, who had been waiting here for a long time, could only ask the craftsman to open the box and move the iron guys inside and the small round pot out of the cave in the same way.

Walking in the cave is fast, but it is much faster than going up to Shiguantun on the ground.

Outside the room, more than a dozen children were jumping around, followed by Hanjuan and a few older girls, watching from afar, frolicking and pointing at the messy iron shelves in the open space.

"Open the coarse cloth, yes, take it all off, you can take it back later, let the mother-in-law sew a mat or something, it's very strong," beckoned to the craftsmen who were nimble, Xiao Ye asked them to assemble the iron shelves one by one, the long screws, the delicate nuts, and two wrenches with two ends open, but it opened the craftsmen's eyes.

The wrist-thick steel shelf was very heavy in the hand, and it seemed to be painted with a layer of black paint, but it was not visible at all in the sun; The first time I saw a craftsman like this, I smacked my lips again and again.

After screwing the last screw on the slanted concave lid of the four sun stoves, Xiao Ye waved his hand to drive the craftsman away, stepped forward by himself, adjusted the angle towards the sun, and then removed the coarse cloth covered in the groove of the pot lid.

The black and faint erected lid of the pot does not look big, only two feet round, and in the sun, the round bracket in front of the lid does not show anything unusual.

In front of everyone's eyes, Xiao Ye took a wooden stick the thickness of his fingers from the side, and put it in the middle of the circle of the bracket with his hand; The outer skin of the wooden stick that had just been stretched out quickly turned black, and in the blink of an eye, smoke burst out of the ground, and then the flames were lit.

"Wow, it's on fire, it's on fire," the onlookers screamed, and the craftsmen and a few men were dumbfounded.

"Come, Lao Li, bring out a pot of water," under Xiao Ye's instructions, the young man Lao Li and another companion, the two of them carried out a large pot and poured a bucket of water into it.

When the cool clean water in the pot began to heat up, the guys had already circled around the four sun stoves for more than a dozen times, and they couldn't find the place to light the fire.

"Okay, don't look for it," Xiao Ye didn't explain much, in fact, he also knew what it was, and he didn't know why, so he didn't know the reason.

"In the future, when the weather is fine, you can use this sun stove to boil water for cooking, and on rainy days, you can still cook on the stove," told them about the use of the sun stove and warned them not to touch the place with their hands, Xiao Ye turned around and was about to leave.

"Lord Baihu," Lao Li hurriedly stopped Xiao Ye, his face flushed with excitement, "What kind of sun cooker is this, can you come a few more, the room is too busy,"

Not to mention the sergeants in the stone castle now, there are more than 100 craftsmen, plus family members and children, a total of nearly 300 people open their mouths, even if those craftsmen's families come to help, they can't leave.

Xiao Ye looked at Lao Li helplessly, shook his head and left, you can't supply cooked rice in your room, so you can cook it twice, and if you don't have the trouble of Wang vigorously looking for you, this official can't help.

Even if there is a solar cooker, there are three other places waiting for it, and Xiao Ye can't do one thing over the other.

After the knife was brought through the road once, Cui Hongyuan's flag team took over the transportation of materials in the tunnel, and transported a cart of materials along the long tunnel back to the armory in the stone fort; At the exit of the mill, guards with their own knives waited for them to show their heads.

When the familiar iron boxes were carried onto the wheelbarrow outside the mill and transported into the armory not far away, the confidence of the guards, who had lost many projectiles on their bodies, swelled again.

According to the order of priority, the arms supply pro-guard is the first, and the other family guards, who have to hold the warrant of the hundred households, or the slip/son stamped by the wife, and Ma Gui, who is in charge of the key to the armory, can open the armory and issue weapons and materials.

The key to the civilian material warehouse is in charge of Wang Qing, and the accounts are checked every ten years, following the method used by Tian Xiuxiu.

The guards of the pro-guard team were not easy to replenish for a while, only about 20 people brought by Daozi and Sun Xiaoming, but the 100-person team under Wang Meng and Zuo Shi was already full of people, and after the original flag team in the stone fort was integrated, there were still nearly 100 sergeants left, who were sent to the Galen tribe.

Most of these nearly 100 sergeants were drawn from Bailong Lake, and there were some familiar Tartar soldiers, who were just able to form a second team of 100 people in the Cailun tribe, and the centurion Xiao Ye had already selected, it was Lei Xiaoqing, the flag officer of Yuanshi Guantun.

Liu Xiaohou, the flag officer, went to the night owl guard, and the scout team there was exactly what he wanted; And Hao Yongliang's calm personality made Xiao Ye reluctant to let go and stayed by his side temporarily.

Even if he only has the military knowledge of a logistics officer, Xiao Ye also knows that there will be artillery in Shimo in the future, and since Hao Yongliang can beat his sergeants and trained guns and grenades, even Xiao Liuzi and other guards are ashamed, so he can't go far.

That's right, the third hundred-man team of the Gailuo tribe is an artillery team that mainly uses artillery.

Guarding the Madao Stone Fort, Xiao Ye kept taking out a large number of firearms from the stone mill, and after transporting them out of the cave, they were immediately distributed to the two hundred-man teams around him, and the arms transported to Bailong Lake and Eagle Claw Fort were also carried out quickly.

As for the personal guards around him, they were armed to the teeth, each with a protective suit close to the body, at least a revolver/gun, a rifle, five earth-shattering thunderbolts, one hundred and twenty rounds of projectiles, and a hunting knife; If you like to use a crossbow, you can take short arrows at will, as long as you can hold them, no one cares how much you have in your backpack.

Wang Meng and Zuo Shi's hundred-man team, due to the shortage of rifle bullets, most of the guards were rear-loading guns/guns, but Xiao Ye gave a lot of gun grenades.

As for civilian supplies, Xiao Ye only took a small amount and hoarded them in the warehouse.

The stone fort with the road loose on the outside and tight on the inside, the craftsmen busy outside the stone fort, the guards patrolling the fort wall, and the armed guards waiting in the military house are all waiting for the smoke and dust to rise from the south.

The sergeants recommended by the Galen tribe, Eagle Claw Fort, and Bailong Lake began to assemble at Madao Stone Fort, and the sergeant Dabi at the end of the month began again.

"Peng, Peng," "Boom, boom," "Boom, boom," the muffled sound of shotguns, fire/gunfire, crisp rifles, short/gunshots, and the explosion of grenades and thunder thunder rang out all day in the col outside the stone fort.

Xiao Ye and Xin Weilin looked at the map on the table, the two studied it for several days, and finally came to the conclusion that if the Ming army wanted to come to find trouble, it would definitely come over to Qingfeng Valley, south of the horse road, and it would be difficult to march a large group of people, let alone the heavy artillery.

However, whether the Ming army dared to risk a conflict with the Tartars and kill them from the grassland, Xiao Ye did not know, and Xin Weilin did not dare to guarantee it.

Speculation is speculation, Xiao Ye, who did not trade with merchants, soon encountered a big problem, the people in the stone castle ate horses and chewed, and there was not much food; Not only here, but also Eagle Claw Fort, Bailong Lake, and the Galen tribe, there are not many reserves of grain and green salt.

Food is the foundation of everything, and without food, people are unstable, let alone others; Xiao Ye's biggest headache is that he doesn't have a safe food channel.

After waiting anxiously for more than ten days, seeing that the southernmost stone wall of the stone castle had been repaired to half the height, and there was still no shadow of the Ming army, Xiao Ye stood on the castle wall strangely, looked around with a telescope for a long time, and shook his head incomprehensibly.

How did he know that Shiguantun and Laoyangkoutun Fort were attacked, and the sergeants suffered heavy casualties, and the missing ones were even more alarming, which had alarmed the Suzhou guard, even if Zhang Zhong was a supervisor sent by the imperial court and was in power, he had to take care of the other generals in the guard, as well as the kind-hearted Jinyi guard.

These people, although they are far away at the border, but which one of them has something to do with the Beijing Division, those bigwigs in the court, from time to time to play a few books for the emperor, he can't eat and walk away.

In the wilderness of the border army, he is high, but in the eyes of the young son of heaven, or even in the hearts of the court officials, he is not even a pug, once he angers the son of heaven and the big man, the time has come for him to reveal his true form.

There was no way, in order to appease the commanders and envoys, collude with the Jinyi Guard, and the local government, Zhang Zhong could be said to have given up his capital and scattered more than half of the materials he copied from Xiao Ye, but he didn't get much.

As for Ximen Xiaoye, who made him hate him so much, he couldn't move now. The news from the thousand households of the gravel fort has to be pressed.

It is rumored that Ximen Xiaoye colluded with the Tartars, not only killed military households, robbed the population, and even destroyed a military compound in Shiguantun to vent his personal anger. If Xiao Ye hid on the grassland and didn't say anything, he wouldn't be able to sleep, the biting dog wouldn't bark, and he would have to send Jinyi Guards again.

Why, the news of the old sheep's royal shop was transmitted back to the capital by him, he had to set it up, and he could earn a lot of money for the emperor's inner court, so that he could have a bright future; And the official store set up under Shiguantun is also a tax card, which is the money bag of the big guys.

The ones who are called big guys are the officials with heads and faces in the Suzhou Weili, as well as the oil officials such as local county orders, and the rich businessmen are not allowed to be on the stage.

He didn't think that Jinyiwei cooperated with his orders this time, so You Guda and Xue Shanbiao became his friends, and without a large amount of input, they wouldn't even send a wrestler.

Ximen Xiao ran away at night, Fuguilou was slaughtered inexplicably, Zhang Zhong has been really troubled these days.

In the study filled with sandalwood, a piece of silk was spread on the mahogany desk, and a bright pocket watch was placed on it.

There are no goods from the Persians, and the royal shop is simply a joke, where do birds not, where to go to the tax, to find those craftsmen? After that year, I'm afraid I haven't been able to buy one of my own jade wrenches, it's just chicken ribs.

"Hey, that little thing, you can't be in a hurry, things have to be slow, you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry," although his heart was a little blocked, Zhang Zhong was a master who had seen the world, and he understood that he couldn't eat hot tofu in a hurry.

"The Persians were murdered in Gansu Town, but they asked the merchants to go to Zhouyuan, otherwise once the Persians stayed away, they would have no face,"

"The Chamber of Commerce in Gansu Town is really not a good thing, the merchants know the copper smell in their eyes, but the emperor doesn't know it?"

After thinking about it, Zhang Zhong, after thinking about it, decided in the end, for the sake of money, he didn't care about Ximen Xiaoye's disobedience first, and annoyed the Tartars there in Ma Dao, but the gains outweighed the losses.

There are many people in the border towns, the families and merchants in the hinterland, and the Tartars are secretly involved in the transaction, Xiao Ye can hide in the Madao Stone Fort and get along with the grassland tribes, Zhang Zhong is not unusual.

Now not only can he not move Xiao Ye, but he also persuaded Xue Shanbiao of the thousands of households that the three brocade guards should have died in vain.

"Come on," called the little eunuch waiting outside the study, Zhang Zhong pondered for a moment, "You go to find the head of the Chamber of Commerce, it is the third boy of the Huang family, let him contact Madao Stone Fort, see if he can dredge the Persian trade route and resume trading with Gansu Town,"

"Of course, the goods must be paid in the official store and the imperial store before they can enter Gansu Town," After speaking, Zhang Zhong waved his hand and let the little eunuch go down. He is the head snake here, even if he is not here, he has to do this to replace him, and it is no good who wants to worry about it.