"The sons, like their fathers, are willing to live and die with Gao Yang!"

A few words rang out, Sun Chengzong's dry old eyes were a little moist, he always felt that his son was more than benevolent and not resolute, but he didn't expect that there was such a strong side. Neither father nor son are hypocritical people, and since they have decided to defend the city with their families, they began to change the topic to how to defend the city.

Although Da Lang is far away as an official in Shandong, he still raised thousands of taels of silver for Gao Yang's father, which can come in handy. Hold Gaoyang, this money is a drop in the bucket, and sell everything that can be sold in our family's industry in Baoding Mansion! ”

Sun Jiao's eyes were red, he had sold a lot of fields before repairing the wall, all of them were good paddy fields, and now he was going to sell his industry, which showed what kind of danger he was in his father's eyes.

"How's that Li Xin Cement doing?"

After talking about it, Sun Chengzong remembered the young man he met today. This person can be said to be full of suspicions, but he has always focused on ability, and in this guy, he can feel that vigorous vitality. Sun Ji described in detail the conversation after returning to the museum and the process of going to the county library to check.

"According to the child, this Li Xin is more interested in the fire gun and asks a lot of questions."

Sun Chengzong's eyelids were raised, and there were only two kinds of people who were interested in this thing, one was a rebellious thief, and the other was a strong man who was worried about the world. However, there is probably not one in a million thieves in the world who can understand the importance of firearms.

At noon on the second day, in the courtyard of the county treasury, almost all the leading figures in Gaoyang City arrived, and everyone heard that Sun Ge Lao had found a strange person and made something that could replace rammed earth and wall bricks to build a wall, and they all waited to see the strangeness. However, it has been past noon, the black lacquer gate of the county treasury is still tightly closed, people are a little impatient to wait, there is a good thing to lie on the crack of the door and peek in, only to see that there are two square pillars in the empty courtyard of the county treasury, and then look closely at these two square pillars seem to be nailed into wooden boards. People don't understand, and they speculate wildly.

Suddenly, the door opened from the inside without warning, and a young man in tattered clothes stood under the porch.

"I've been waiting for you for a long time, so please come and visit inside!"

This young man was Li Xin, and everyone rushed into the courtyard to see that the elder of the pavilion and other dignitaries were already sitting under the porch. There was also a pond dug in the courtyard, no, to be precise, a mud pond, because the pool was full of blackened mud. Could this be the legendary cement? Can this mud-like thing replace rammed earth wall tiles? Everyone was skeptical.

Li Xin came to the mud pond and lifted the wooden barrel, filled it with mud, and poured the bucket into the square pillar made of wooden nails. Everyone was puzzled, only to see Li Xin pick up the hammer and knock open the wooden board of the other square pillar a few times, and as the wooden board peeled off, a blue-black square pillar appeared.

It looks like a stone, but it doesn't look like a stone. Sun Chengzong came close and touched it with his hand, and he could already feel the strength of the square pillar, but it didn't seem to be hard enough.

"This is the cement poured just now?" He only thought about it for a moment and understood the meaning of Li Xin's performance just now.

"Exactly, this is the bamboo reinforced concrete made of cement, bamboo tendons, and gravel!"

In this era, aside from the scarcity of raw materials, it is difficult to make steel bars on a large scale in the iron-smelting process. Li Xin has seen on the news in his previous life that some units use bamboo bars instead of steel bars for construction, and there are experts who have demonstrated that the toughness of this thing is very good, and the replacement of steel bars also has a good effect. Therefore, this innovation was brought back to the Ming Dynasty. He plans to wait for the cement to reach its optimum strength before testing its toughness and strength. But such an intuitive display should leave a deep impression on Sun Chengzong!

"This kind of concrete is easy to shape at will, and you only need to nail the mold with a wooden board before pouring, and build bamboo bars into the load-bearing place, and after the pouring is completed, you can reach the maximum strength in a few days." In fact, Li Xin did not tell the truth, this kind of hydraulic cement needs to be cured for up to two months if it wants to reach its maximum strength after solidification. But even if the truth here is explained, people in this era may not be able to understand it, but it is better to come simply and directly.

Lei Xian Ling circled around the square pillar and poked it with his fingers, but it was obviously hurt by the rough surface, and he grinned.

"Can this thing build a city? It doesn't seem very hard! ”

But as soon as the words were spoken, some people raised objections.

"What a strange thing this mud is! With this cement, the foundation of the soil, which would take months for thousands of people to compact, can be built in a day. Li Xin followed the sound and saw a middle-aged man in a green robe and a beard squeezed out of the crowd. He also recognized that this person was the domain of Gaoyang Dian Shilu. I saw Lu Dianshi bowing deeply to Sun Chengzong, and said excitedly: "Today is really an auspicious day, congratulations." Even if there is damage to the city wall, it can be repaired immediately with this mud, and the old view can be restored again in ......

Speaking of this, Lu Dianshi seemed to think of something, and asked eagerly: "I don't know what the raw materials of this thing are?" ”

"Clay, quicklime, gypsum, ......"

Before Li Xin finished his introduction, Lu Dianshi breathed a sigh of relief.

"Great, it's all the usual things. The cabinet department, the county honor, and the feudal clan immediately used this thing to build a wall, and then widened the enemy tower by raising it to three zhang. ”

Li Xin slandered this bearded man on the side, but what is the use of widening it to four zhang, the Tartar ants can attack the city like a siege. Just when everyone was still waiting for something new to show, a soap li ran in in a panic.

"The city, a large number of thieves came to the north of the city, and the inspection ordered the city gate to be closed......"

Rogue? Impossible, Gaoyang is already close to Jingshi, and most of the thieves are basically suppressed by the imperial army south of the Yellow River, how can they come to Gaoyang! But rumors soon spread, and there were even speculations that the Tartars were disguised as thieves. The display of cement had to end here, and Sun Chengzong, Lei Xianling and others hurried to Chengbei District to investigate the military situation. Li Xin also followed under the pretext of inspecting the actual situation of the city wall. When I climbed the tower, I found that there was indeed a large group of people in the north, but on closer inspection, they were all bringing their families with their mouths, neither like thieves nor like Tartars.

Sun Chengzong ordered people to go to investigate, and soon learned the origin of this group of people, who were actually refugees who fled from Gyeonggi County. Lei County's order resolutely opposed the release of refugees into the city, and Sun Chengzong also felt embarrassed, who knew that the refugees did not want to enter the city, but continued to flee south.

The alarm was lifted, and Sun Chengzong came to the refugee team to grab a civilian, "Why do you want to go south if there are no Tartars here?" The refugee said: "Zhuozhou has been besieged to death, Baoding Mansion is the next Zhuozhou, and it is only when I go to the neighboring province of Shandong that I can feel at ease." ”

As it turned out, the faces of the entourage became ugly, and the people had lost confidence in the Ming army in Zhili, which was by no means a good sign. However, Li Xin, who was mixed in the crowd, really wanted to tell them that Shandong was not safe, and the Tartars had plundered Shandong this time, and even the vassal kings in Jinan were captured alive.

The smell of the tartar is getting closer and closer, and the hearts of the people in the city are beginning to become panicked compared to a few days ago, and this emergency encounter with the displaced people made Li Xin be appointed by Sun Chengzong as the general office of the wall construction on the same day, and all the wall construction matters are in one place. This wall repair was funded by the Sun family, and Lei County Ling was reluctant to take care of the matter, so Sun Ji was responsible for it at the beginning. But from today, the position has been changed to Li Xin.

Li Xin was also very nervous, and now he didn't dare to pack a ticket whether the Tartars would attack the city in a month, who knew if his arrival would make some changes in the details of history. The first thing Li Xin did when he took office was to buy the mills in Gaoyang County, as many as he wanted, because the number of mills directly determines the output of cement. At the same time, an order was given to all walls to stop bricklaying.

There was another thing that gave Li Xin a headache, that is, Na Lu Dianshi stuck to him like a plaster, and he had to let him raise the city wall. Li Xin had no choice but to patiently explain to him the detailed plan for the renovation of the city wall, as well as the function of the city wall after the transformation, and then compared it with the heightened city wall, so that Lu Dianshi could judge which was better and which was inferior.

After thinking about it, Lu Dianshi nodded unwillingly and admitted that Li Xin's plan was more clever, but he still refused to leave on the construction site, and Li Xin had no choice but to let it go.

After only three days of preparation, the cement began to enter the stage of large-scale production, and everywhere the clay was dug up, and gypsum, lime, and even broken tiles were collected. Subsequently, a large-scale nail was started outside the city wall to make a mold for pouring the city wall. At that time, most people knew some simple carpentry work, and they were organized according to the established regulations, and the speed was not slow.

In the past few days, Lu Dianshi of the county government has been inseparable from Li Xin, and Li Xin has not been idle, he has changed the mixing ratio of various substances to control the setting time of the cement. Soon, Lu Dianshi discovered Li Xin's doorway in the process of changing the ratio of various materials.

"Mr. Li, why is the weight of gypsum always changing?"

Lu Dianshi actually had the idea of supervising the work in his heart, building a city is a major military event, and the county order is inactive, although he does not enter the history of the canon, he is also an official appointed by the imperial court, so he must take this responsibility. But after a few days, he found that this prisoner, who had been locked up in the Gaoyang County Prison for several months, not only did not have the idea of making money, but also worked as if he was dying, and often stayed up all night, making them feel ashamed of themselves.

Therefore, the initial defensive attitude changed, and he began to discuss various technologies with Li Xin. In fact, the so-called discussion of Lu Dianshi is basically a question and answer between him and Li Xin, just like now.

"The amount of gypsum can determine the initial setting time of cement."

"Oh? Isn't it also said that the faster the cement sets, the better? How to add more? ”

"I don't know that after the cement is mixed, if the initial setting time is too short, it will quickly lose its plasticity, and once it has not been poured at this time, the cement will be wasted."

"I see."

Li Xin has really been annoyed enough by Lu Dianshi in the past few days, and just now he suddenly had a flash of inspiration and thought of a key question, why not make a breakthrough from this guy.

"Master Dianshi, Li Xin has something unclear and wants to ask!"

Although after a few days of contact, Lu Dianshi was still very unaccustomed to Li Xin's rustiness in etiquette, this person was different from ordinary people, and he did not have the slightest reverence for the officials of the yamen. But doing big things is not informal, and he is quite old-fashioned. It has always been Lu Dianshi who asks questions, and he is really faceless, and at this moment, when he heard that this guy who seems to know everything has a question to ask himself, he couldn't help but straighten up and cough dryly.

"Even if you ask, this official knows everything, and he has no end to it!"

Note: The matter of replacing steel bars with bamboo tendons, Lao Jiu specially consulted friends who are engaged in construction, which is feasible, and Japan is using this technology. As for the bamboo tendon and tofu residue on the news, it is completely cement labeled and not good enough.