Yang Fan is not short of money, so he naturally wants to live better. Even though it was on the front line of Jiuyuan City. He still asked his family's transportation team to ship a set of wooden prefabricated houses.
For this kind of house, a cement and stone platform is laid on the ground first. Then make wooden components and finally assemble the three-story building.
The design drawings use modern style wooden villas from North America and Canada.
The thermal insulation rate of wood is higher than that of masonry structures, making it warm in winter and cool in summer.
It’s just that wood is too expensive in modern society and ordinary people cannot afford it.
There is plenty of wood in this era. Xincheng used woodworking machines driven by steam engines to process the components according to the drawings. The water is then transported to Jishuitan and disembarked. Change to a small train and transfer to Zhangjiakou. Finally, it was transported to the Yellow River in a caravan, and then transferred to a steam tug to be transported to Jiuyuan City.
Now there are Mongolian horsemen everywhere outside Jiuyuan City, and land transportation has been cut off. The last section of supplies to Jiuyuan City can only be transported by water.
Desert Mongolia is not the Monan Mongolia that has gone into decline. They have been fighting with various ethnic groups in the turbulent land of the Western Regions for hundreds of years. Their combat experience, command ability and combat effectiveness cannot be underestimated.
The Desert Mongolian leader who came to Hecheng first, and the Taijis of the Heshuote tribe had already begun to intercept the battlefield of Jiuyuan City. Battlefield interdiction refers to the temporary "shielding" of the target battlefield through elite cavalry units.
Block the connection between the battlefield and surrounding combat areas, block external support, and cut off the enemy's logistics transportation and supplies. Place the target area in a relatively isolated environment.
This will provide better battlefield conditions and help our side achieve its combat objectives in the area.
From the moment the Heshuote cavalry appeared outside the city, Yang Fan felt deeply that before the war, the atmosphere was full of storms.
This morning, Yang Fan got up from his comfortable bed, opened the floor-to-ceiling glass grille door, and walked to the balcony. While brushing his teeth with a toothbrush, he looked far to the south at the busy Yellow River wharf.
Although it was not long before dawn, there was a huge crowd of people there, and a large number of coolies were unloading the goods. Steamboats were being replenished with coal and water. There are also breakfast stalls on the street that come in the middle of the night, selling various snacks.
Yang Fan looked happy with the new life, this is what a city should be like.
This modernly designed all-wooden villa is very comfortable to live in.
Yang Fan built the villa between the south of the city and the Yellow River dock. Previously, when the city walls were covered with stones, the walls on the east and west sides were extended southward into the Yellow River. It is equivalent to including the part from the south of the city to the river.
Jiuyuan City continued to expand by 50% to the south. Because this new urban area is relatively safe, it is mainly provided for residence by non-military personnel.
Yang Fan and his regiment of servants, material warehouses, field hospitals, civil servants, factory guards, eunuchs sent by Chongzhen, and the remaining 60,000 civilians were stationed here.
The 45,000 people and 20,000 regiment training personnel in the Beijing camp, as well as the more than 10,000 people who stayed here in the early stage of operations, are all stationed in the restored Jiuyuan City.
Although this was an ancient city during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Han people had long since abandoned it. Ethnic minorities don't know how to build and maintain, so most of the buildings in the city have collapsed.
Only some nomads set up tents and the like to live in the city. The rammed earth city wall is also full of collapsed gaps.
Yang Fan estimated that the confrontation between him and Mongolia in Mongolia would not be too short, and the outcome of this war to determine Mongolia's fate would not be decided soon.
He simply built Jiuyuan City well. It relied on the Yellow River and water transportation was convenient. In the future, the railway will also be built here, and it can be used as an important support base in the northwest region.
Yang Fan arranged for the garrisoned Beijing Camp to carry out extensive construction. The main purpose is to clean up all the remaining architectural remains in the city and re-plan the streets and functional areas. Build sewers, build public toilets. Wells were dug in the city to provide clean drinking water.
[In view of the general environment,
Because this is a grassland, there is a lack of trees to build houses. Just like using stones to build city walls, a large number of stones and cement are used to build houses.
because
Because there is no shortage of coal here, Yang Fan also built many new brick kilns in Nancheng. Coal is used to fire solid clay bricks. Most of the buildings in the city are built with stone foundations and bricks. The construction speed is very fast.
In the past six months, not only the city wall has been completed. And most of the houses in the city are capped.
The North City became a garrison city, while the South City, although small, became a civilian city.
Gradually, various weapons manufacturing workshops serving the military, restaurants, grocery stores, and various service businesses have sprung up here.
Businessmen are some of the most adventurous people in the world. As long as there is enough profit, they dare to take all risks.
There are so many Beijing-based officers and soldiers stationed here in Jiuyuan City, and their military pay is sufficient, and the arrears of the previous ten years have been repaid. All of them are quite wealthy.
They have spending power. Therefore, a large number of merchants came here to open shops to serve the officers and soldiers of the Beijing camp. While it was convenient for the officers and soldiers, I also made a lot of money.
Especially after Yang Fan held the auction in Dongsheng City, the merchants of the Ming Dynasty were completely enlightened.
They discovered that there were so many business opportunities on the grassland. War is not just about losing money. Didn't Uncle Dingyuan turn war into a good business to make money?
After they made a huge profit at Dongsheng's auction, they sent family members one after another to open shops here and buy furs, medicinal materials, and livestock. In particular, the army sold captured horses and cattle.
As a result, Nancheng became increasingly prosperous. Various bathhouses, restaurants, pharmacies, and even brothels have popped up. Supplying the city with fuel such as dried cow dung, firewood and coal, and supplying vegetables, grains and non-staple food has also become a big business.
Yang Fan wanted to stockpile enough supplies for the winter before the Yellow River froze. Whether it was brought by the court or merchants, he would buy it at a price.
Under Yang Fan's management, this ancient city, which had been abandoned for hundreds of years, became more and more popular, and it actually had the appearance of being blocked in the south of the Yangtze River.
Winter outside the Great Wall is very cold. Yang Fan didn't know how long the battle would last, so he had to plan ahead.
Only by building the city well can the army survive the winter safely. Building a city requires a lot of materials. This also gives these businessmen countless business opportunities.
After the construction of Jiuyuan City, Yang Fan was actually in an invincible position.
As long as he doesn't wander around, he is basically not afraid of the Mongols attacking Jiuyuan City.
There are so many soldiers and civilians, plus such a large and strong stone wall. In this era it is very difficult to break.
What's more, there is also the Yellow River water transportation to rely on. The railway now reaches Zhangjiakou. It is not impossible to reach this point before the end of the year.
Now, several new quarries have been built along the Yanshan Railway, and stone crushing equipment driven by steam engines has also been installed. Every day, mountains can be opened with explosives and crushed with rock crushers, providing a huge amount of gravel.
The materials needed for railway construction can be transported quickly and in large quantities through the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway.
The efficiency now is much better than using horse-drawn carriages and ox-carts before.
At this time, the advantages of narrow-gauge railways being easy to build, low investment, and fast project progress were reflected. The train pulls ties, rails, gravel. Fix a section and move on. Then lay another section. This cycle continues towards Guihua City.
Steam engines with bulldozers and rollers leveled the land ahead. After the roadbed is repaired, ballast ladders are laid, and then a vibrating machine driven by a steam engine is used to vibrate the roadbed to make the ballast gravel tighter.
Finally, workers unloaded the sleepers and rails from the train and completed the laying.
There are no decent rivers on the grassland, just plain plains. So the track laying speed is very fast.
Originally, Yang Fan planned to put the civil servants, factory guards, and father-in-law in Guihua City. After all, the rear is relatively safe. However, the previous series of victories had already made these people red-eyed.
In today's Ming Dynasty, military merit is not easy to achieve. Especially the military exploits of Mao Zedong and Donglu. Seeing the overwhelming military achievements coming from Yang Fan's side, they were like flies seeing blood, and they were so anxious that their claws almost stretched out of their throats.
usually
If you attack the enemy and behead more than a hundred people, it will be considered a great victory. Unlike Yang Fan's place, it was common to annihilate thousands of enemies in one battle. In decisive battles, tens of thousands of enemies were killed.
They cried and shouted that they wanted to live and die with the army. Claiming that the emperor sent them here to fight, not to hide behind and enjoy. They must not chill the hearts of the soldiers of the three armies.
Yang Fan was helpless. Seeing how persistent they were, he could only let them follow them to Jiuyuan City.
Now, more than 100,000 people from Mongolia in the desert have gathered on the Houtao Grassland, more than 300 miles away from here. Millions of cattle and sheep were driven there. There are also 100,000 herdsmen grazing their cattle.
This is the advantage of nomadic people. Wherever they go, they take their cattle, sheep, livestock, old, young, women and children with them.
Houtao has fertile land, close to the Yellow River, with a humid climate and lush pasture. It is more than enough to feed two to three hundred thousand herdsmen.
