Back a few days ago, Huang Taiji and his party left Tianjin for the direction of Tangshan. Limited by his lack of knowledge and knowledge, after discovering that the Jurchens were completely unable to compete with the 'revolutionary army' in terms of cultural power, he despised and disgusted the prosperity inside and outside Tianjin. He was even more convinced of the simple view that the Han people would only enjoy and not endure hardship.

But no matter how strong a person is, he has to bow his head in the face of reality......

"As long as we can find the craftsmen of this 'revolutionary army' to produce ordnance, I Dajin can still win everything on the battlefield. No matter how well these Han people build the city, they are not lambs to be slaughtered? After leaving Tianjin, Huang Taiji repeatedly strengthened this concept in his heart, counting himself as cheering himself up. This is also to find a way out of the predicament faced by the Jurchens.

Liu Fucheng led the team to the northeast and soon found the construction site of the 'Tiantang Wooden Rail' project. It was a straight two-lane roadway, one side of which was open to horse-drawn carriages, and the other side was being laid with wooden tracks. Since 200 construction teams were assigned to the more than 100-kilometer project, there were workers working everywhere on the road.

In order to prevent villagers along the route from stealing materials and damaging the road, the road guard team patrols back and forth 24 hours a day.

"The newspaper said that the 'revolutionary army' would spend millions of silver dollars to build the road. They hope to complete it within a year. However, it has recently been reported that due to the lack of construction experience, the budget will be increased, and the construction period may be up to a year and a half. "Liu Fucheng paid special attention to the newspapers of the 'Revolutionary Army', which often appeared with information that could make money.

Huang Taiji stood on the side of the road and watched, and the migrant workers who built the road only thought that these were the rich people who came to see the excitement nearby, and continued to do their own work - Huang Taiji did not understand that he spent millions of silver dollars just to build a road. But he is very clear about the benefits of building roads, whether it is logistics and transportation or army mobilization, roads are very important infrastructure.

"Do you want to take a few craftsmen who can build roads back?" Huang Taiji felt that the road of the 'revolutionary army' was very well built. However, these migrant workers in front of him are shirtless and sweating, and they don't look like capable craftsmen. The person he thinks has the ability to do it himself.

"These are just coolies, not craftsmen." Huang Taiji walked forward silently, and finally saw a man who looked like a foreman. The man shouted loudly, assigned work to the migrant workers, pointed out the shortcomings, and looked at them from time to time with a few pieces of paper with drawings in his hand. "Could this be a craftsman?"

But this craftsman is too young, his mouth is hairless, he is only a teenager, and he is an apprentice at most.

There were dozens of people on the entire construction site, but they couldn't find a single old man who was stable.

Huang Taiji circled around the construction site, wondering how such a seemingly ordinary team could build such a good road? He couldn't help but step forward and ask the 'apprentice' who was so overseer: "Who supervised your way?" ”

"That's me." Sang Quanlai, who is holding the drawings, is also annoying. Recently, the construction of the road has gradually been on the right track, and slowly this spacious road has become a scenic spot, and people continue to visit it. There was also an endless stream of people asking him how to build roads, and everyone wondered why a boy like him of fifteen or sixteen would build roads.

In front of him, there was a person who questioned Sang Quanlai's ability out of nowhere, and he was really angry.

"Is it hard to build roads? It's good to understand the drawings. When Sang Quan said this, he raised his head and raised his chest, and almost said that he had graduated from high school. Nowadays, there are more and more people in the 'revolutionary army' who have completed junior primary education, and perhaps there are still a few people who have graduated from high school, which is enough to boast.

Huang Taiji was hit by such a sentence and was stunned on the spot. He looked at the drawings in Sang Quanlai's hand again, but he couldn't understand them. Sang Quan came to see that his eyes were full of doubts, so he pointed to the drawings and said: "This is the roadbed, there are many layers, and the materials used are different. Alas...... I told you, you don't understand, this is all something that needs to be learned. It's okay, don't get in my way, go aside. ”

In fact, Sang Quanlai himself doesn't understand very well, he relies on rote memorization of some tricks to repair the road, afraid that if he says too much, he will be asked a few words, and he will stop immediately after gaining a little satisfaction.

But when Sang Quan came to look at Huang Taiji again, he found that this person suddenly had a fierce face, staring at himself with gritted teeth, as if he was about to pull out a knife and cut it in the next second. He was frightened, and hurriedly walked away a few steps, thinking to himself, "Why is this person so fierce?" ”

Huang Taiji has grown so big, he has never been humiliated like this, and he is still a half-sized boy who humiliates him. If this is in Shenyang, this kind of Han Nu doesn't even dare to look at him. He could kill this kid with a blow, but he could only force himself to turn his head and leave.

The attendant took a few steps forward and asked in a low voice if he would kill the short-eyed boy later. But Huang Taiji shook his head and walked along the road with a gloomy face. The attendant could only turn his head and glared at Sang Quanlai viciously, and followed. Sang Quanlai was frightened by this group of murderers, but he didn't know that he had turned around in the Ghost Gate, scratched his head and spit on Huang Taiji's back.

From time to time, horse-drawn carts carrying coal run on the two-way lane, which are all produced by several small coal mines that have been built in Tangshan. The population in the direction of Tianjin is growing, and it is necessary to stock up on enough coal to avoid the cold of winter when the weather is warm.

These carriages were pulled by two horses and ran very fast on flat roads. Each carriage is fully loaded with 1.5 tons, which is several times higher than the load of the previous two-wheeled carriage of 3 to 400 kilograms, and the transportation efficiency is greatly increased, but the cost is reduced.

Huang Taiji originally wanted to move forward by car. But the road guards immediately told them to leave the road and not to block the passage of the freight wagons, saying that it was some kind of 'traffic control'. Huang Taiji could only get out of the way and stand on the side of the road, counting how many vehicles had run on the road in an hour. In the end, it was determined that a coal carriage would run over in half an hour, and the overall transportation volume was still relatively large.

Liu remembered that the newspaper said that it was one every half an hour, but now it is half an hour. Not to mention how much coal was transported, there were more than a hundred wagons alone. "Liu Fucheng calculated carefully, the cost of this carriage alone is thousands of taels of silver." Looking at the posture of the 'revolutionary army', there will only be more wagons and more coal in the future. ”

"What does the 'revolutionary army' want so much coal for?" Huang Taiji was puzzled again. He looked at Gu Yuanwei and tried to find an answer. But Gu Yuanwei didn't know, so he could only guess: "Probably for the winter." ”

"That's right, it's for the winter." Liu Fucheng said: "The houses built in Tianjin now are more special than in the past. The walls are thick and hollow in the middle, which is said to keep you warm. But a house is made of many times more masonry than in the past. Newly built houses have at least two floors, and there are many three-storey ones. All of them have ondols that can be used to light a fire. This is the coal that burns. ”

Although Huang Taiji did not know that the end of the Ming Dynasty was the Xiaoice River period, he knew that a large number of weak slaves would freeze to death in winter. It is precisely because the low-level slaves have become consumables that the Jurchens must constantly acquire new sturdy slaves, and must keep plundering everywhere. Because of this, it is difficult for Jiannu to train a large number of skilled slaves.

A slave society is a truly cannibalistic society.

Just by keeping warm, it can be seen that the 'revolutionary army' takes great care of the bottom. If it only served a small number of nobles, it would not need so much coal at all. Huang Taiji nodded at this and said, "Fushun also has coal, and when I go back, I will order people to mine more, so that those minions can have a better life." ”

Huang Taiji said it simply, but Gu Yuanwei stopped talking. He noticed that the tools used by the migrant workers were very good, shovels, hoes, shovels, crowbars, etc., all of which were made of metal. In contrast, most of the Jurchen slaves still use wooden tools, and the efficiency varies greatly - does using wooden tools to dig coal make the slaves' lives better or sader? It's hard to say.

In addition, digging coal is heavy manual labor, and the slaves must be fed and fed, otherwise there will be a large number of dead people. It's hard to say whether the Jurchens are so kind, this management ability alone is a challenge - these are these questions, Gu Yuanwei can't say them to his face.

Due to the closure of the road, the 'Tiantang Wooden Rail' is closed to outsiders. Huang Taiji's 'inspection group' could only take small roads, slowly advancing from a large number of villages and towns along the way, and did not go far for three or four days. However, walking slowly like this, Huang Taiji still found something strange.

Due to the large number of construction workers who need to eat, drink and lazar, staple foods such as rice and wheat can be transported from the rear, and vegetables, fish and meat are often purchased locally. After seeing the food of the migrant workers on the construction site, Huang Taiji and others exclaimed and couldn't believe it - not to mention that the Jurchens fed the slaves, even the Han landlords raised long-term workers and ate at most rice, and meat was extremely rare.

Farmers often prepare a small jar of lard at home, and eat bibimbap when they have to plough the land, plant seedlings and harvest and other heavy work, so as to ensure physical strength, otherwise they will really die of exhaustion. But the food at the construction site of the 'revolutionary army' was too good, and even Huang Taiji felt that it was too much. What made him even more puzzled was that the farmers near the construction site were happy to send their chickens and ducks.

Every construction site is a small bazaar, and the people who can work on the construction site are like rich people. They receive a monthly salary and have the ability to spend. Although most of them are also poor and reluctant to spend money. But as long as they buy some of the necessary necessities, they can create a prosperous market.

On every construction site, you can see farmers who are carrying the burden of buying vegetables, and the foreman on the construction site will bargain with them. There will also be one or two shouting merchants, selling all kinds of cheapest goods and providing services to migrant workers. There are even prostitutes who can be cool once for a few cents, and they solicit business everywhere, and they do it behind the trees in the field.

In addition to a large number of building materials purchased, the salary expenditure of the 'Tiantang Wooden Rail', which costs hundreds of thousands of millions of silver dollars, is also a large one. With the help of migrant workers on the construction site, the money is scattered to all corners of society, which greatly improves economic development. Let the people at the bottom naturally attach themselves to the 'revolutionary army'.

"Why are all farmers here? And what about the gentry in the countryside? In Gu Yuanwei's impression, this kind of money-making thing must be organized by the gentry, village elders, patriarchs, and officials who are entrenched in the countryside. Categorically did not let the single-door detached mud legs take advantage of this.

"There are no more gentry." Liu Fucheng lamented: "Either I escaped, or I died." This is the most ruthless aspect of the 'revolutionary army', which mercilessly sends troops to kill people like mowing grass.

I couldn't understand it before, and I always felt that this 'revolutionary army' would not last long without the support of the gentry. But now there are no gentry, and there are no more people who dare to resist them. Those mud legs don't know how happy they are when they get the benefits, and the ministers of the DPRK and China bluntly say that they can't understand it. Hehe...... where do they not understand? They clearly don't want to see it. ”

After Liu Fucheng finished speaking, Gu Yuanwei was silent. Only Huang Taiji looked at the small construction site, the small bazaar, and those mud legs who were happy for a few cents, and sighed again and again and said: "This is governing the country!" ”