More than 200 people are digging wells and forging iron. What will happen to the remaining labor force?
If some people are working and some are idle, everyone will feel that it is unfair, and then it will be impossible to manage.
Of course Huang Yi must be as basic and fair as possible.
Everyone must train combat skills, and everyone must participate in collective labor.
The cold weather prevents land reclamation without affecting logging and limestone mining.
If you have free time at this time, of course you need to reserve a large amount of wood for building houses in the coming year and raw materials for firing cement and lime.
Huang Yi had already thought about it and mobilized at least half of the men over ten years old to build lime kilns and cement plants after the spring plowing.
After the cement is produced, anti-corrosion treated bamboo strips are used instead of steel bars to build concrete dams and city walls, saving time, effort, cost and improving sturdiness.
It has been proven by later generations that bamboo bars increase the strength of concrete. They are definitely not as good as steel bars, but they are cost-effective.
Moreover, if the price of steel in the Ming Dynasty at this time is based on the ratio of silver to later generations, it is simply sky-high, and it is impossible to afford to build city walls and dams.
In the absence of a strong castle, careful precautions must be taken.
When encountering an enemy attack, he will definitely use the terrain to maneuver around. It is necessary to visit every mountain here. Besides, Huang Yi has to practice equestrian hard anyway.
The day after he arrived at the base area, he went out to check the terrain, accompanied by Huang Dayong, Zhang Dong, and Hu Xiaochuan.
The reason why I like to take Zhang Dong with me is because this young man is extremely gifted in languages. He can understand and speak Mongolian, Jurchen, and several northern Chinese dialects.
Nowadays, Zhang Dong is the best at learning Mandarin, has basically mastered the Chinese pinyin, and his accent is almost the same as that of Huang Yi.
Huang Yi and the four of them walked upstream along the frozen river.
There are three mountain passes leading to this basin in summer, and two more in winter, which are the entrance and exit of an unknown river originating deep in the mountains.
Huang Yi doesn't know the name of this river, or whether it will still exist in 2021.
Simply gave it the name "Unnamed River".
Huang Yi's purpose of walking upstream of the "Nameless River" was to take a look at the river course and wonder if a dam could be built to control the water volume so as to facilitate the construction of water conservancy machinery.
There is another even more important factor. Frequent natural disasters in the late Ming Dynasty led to sharp declines in harvests, triggered hunger, and led to rebellions among farmers who could no longer survive.
Natural disasters may not be irresistible. The biggest disaster in the late Ming Dynasty was actually military disaster.
With weapons and wars raging everywhere, who can build water conservancy facilities? Without a stable environment, who can safely carry water, fertilize and serve crops?
Therefore, three-point natural disasters will be infinitely amplified due to military disasters, and eventually turn into nothing.
Snow water, spring water, and rainwater from the Yanshan Mountains converge to form the "Nameless River", forming several wetlands in the northwest and northeast of Zhangjiakou.
Huang Yi wanted to ensure that the acres of land reclaimed by him and the Han people would be harvested despite drought and floods through small watershed management.
It is necessary to build dams to store water.
Huang Yi accidentally discovered two ragged people while observing with a telescope.
The last time I went to Zhangjiakou, I climbed up and searched, and I found mountain people many times, which is not surprising.
With time this time, Huang Yi decided to contact the mountain people and organize the mountain people within a radius of fifty miles if possible.
All beginnings are hard!
The mountain people were very vigilant and found that Huang Yi and others were trying to approach them. They ran away immediately. They ran very fast. The mountain road was rugged and it was impossible to ride a horse. Huang Yi did not chase them.
But Huang Yi climbed up and searched with binoculars, and found three thatched houses in a mountain col.
In order to prevent the mountain people from leaving their belongings and fleeing into the mountains, Huang Yi did not rush into the col.
Instead, I drew a big smiling face on a big rock in front of the mountain using blackened branches, and put a small bag of about half a catty of salt on the rock.
The next day, Huang Yi took Huang Dayong and others to the mountain col again.
This time Huang Yi came directly to the hut and loudly said word for word: "I... am... Han, and I have no... malicious intent!"
The door opened, and a young man held a hunting fork. A strong man rushed out with a hunting bow fully strung and nocked. A woman appeared at the door with three children in her arms, looking terrified.
Huang Dayong immediately raised his leather shield and stopped him in front of Huang Yi. He often walked on mountain roads, and the iron shield was too heavy and inconvenient, so he only brought his leather shield.
Hu Xiaochuan had already bent his bow and aimed his arrow at the young man in front of the house.
Zhang Dong's reaction was half a beat slow, but in order to show off his performance, he ran forward, opened his arms, and said loudly:
"We...have no...malice!"
He was more powerful, and he actually spoke in Chinese, Mongolian, and Jurchen.
"Go away, we don't want your things."
As he said that, the young man threw out a small sheepskin bag, which was exactly the one Huang Yi left yesterday.
Of course Huang Yi refused to leave after hearing the Chinese language. He asked, "Are you Han too?"
"So what?"
"Don't be afraid, we won't hurt you, let alone steal your food."
"Our family has no food! We only have one life! Even if you want to kill us, you must leave at least one life behind!"
Forehead! The resistance is quite serious! It seems that we need to be patient and do mass work.
Huang Yi smiled and said: "We really don't have any ill intentions. Not only will we not steal your food, we can also send you a sheep and a bag of food."
"We don't want it!"
"Then what do you want? It doesn't matter, we can sit down and talk!"
"You go, go far away."
"I'm afraid this won't work. You should have seen that more than a thousand people have come and we will settle and farm there in the future."
It was obvious that the strong man had discovered Huang Yi's men a long time ago and had been peeping. He was debating whether to take his family and escape into the mountains.
The reason why he didn't leave was that he hoped Huang Yi's people would be able to leave after a while.
He said: "If you don't leave, we will leave, but not today..."
Huang Yi interrupted before he could finish: "You don't need to leave. Besides, there are children in this freezing and snowy environment. How can we survive away from home?"
"You want to capture our family as slaves?"
"You're overthinking it. I don't have such thoughts. I just want to be a good neighbor with your family."
"I do not believe!"
"Then tell me, how can I make you believe it?"
It was obvious that the strong man was not good at words, and he was suddenly speechless.
Huang Yi came prepared, and besides, he was fully armed, so he was not afraid of being shot by a hunting bow with limited damage.
He asked Zhang Dong to take out the two prepared pancakes and two small pieces of cooked yellow mutton from his arms, and took them himself and slowly walked forward.
The strong man kept saying: "Don't come over here, I'm going to shoot an arrow!"
Huang Yi turned a deaf ear and kept walking, and said to Huang Dayong, who was about to stop him: "Don't worry, we really don't have any malicious intentions. He can't shoot arrows."
"Master, let the young one pass!" Zhang Dong said.
"No need, you all stay where you are, I'll go check on the children."
