The top brass of the Perak Army originally thought that it would be very difficult to cultivate 20,000 acres of wasteland within 20 days. Unexpectedly, the results of the inventory at the end of the day were surprising - 30,000 acres! According to what Li Shuang, who is in charge of government affairs, said at the Tuntian Commendation Conference, this achievement was hard-won. The reason why so much cultivated land can be reclaimed is not only that the land reclaimed this time was originally fertile land more than ten years ago, but also benefited from high-quality iron farm tools and effective organization, and also benefited from the hardships endured by the soldiers and civilians under the rule of the Perak Army. Hard work and high morale. Ouyang Xuan personally announced the commendation decision and awarded awards to the commended personnel. The winners include not only blacksmiths who produce farm tools, but also agricultural technicians and managers, and even more farmers who turn plows and turn the soil. The representative figure is Yang San who invented the "Yang San Farming Method" - now he has been appointed as the flower farmer. The person in charge of agricultural technology at Guoshan Reclamation Site.
As soon as the fielding outside the mountain ended, the Pili Army devoted their energy to the construction of Hengyuan Fort. Because spring in Jiguan Mountain Area is about half a month later than outside the mountain, it is now the time for farming. Since 60,000 acres of newly cultivated land were opened in the mountains, in addition to the labor force from each village, people from factories and mines still needed to be mobilized to help with farming. Therefore, not many migrant workers were mobilized to participate in the construction of Hengyuan Fort. However, despite this, the number of people involved in the Hengyuan Fort project still reached 3,000. In addition to the 500 workers from the construction company and the 1,500 migrant workers who were transferred, a thousand soldiers from the Perak Army were also transferred - all required to participate in the construction of the fort as long as there was no military mission. These three thousand people are only construction personnel. If the production and transportation of cement, stone, wood and other materials are included, the number of people will be even larger.
The reason why Ouyang Xuan invested such a huge amount of manpower and material resources in building Hengyuan Fort was that he knew that the Sichuan battlefield of Song and Mongolia was about to undergo great changes. If the window period for development down the mountain was missed, the Pili Army would be locked in the mountains. The envoy sent by Pan Tongzhi dared to threaten Ouyang Xuan because Pu Zhezhi was in a good situation to attack Chengdu and was confident that he could defeat the Mongolian army in Xichuan within a few days and even drive the Mongols out of Sichuan. But Ouyang Xuan, who was familiar with this period of history, knew that after Liu Heima occupied Chengdu, the Mongolian Khan Mengge sent Atahu to guard Chengdu. Atahu relied on Meng Ge's favor and did not pay attention to Liu Heima at all, which led to internal discord in the Xichuan Mongolian army. It is true that the Song army killed Ah Dahu in a street battle in Chengdu, and it was true that they even briefly drove the Mongolian army out of Chengdu. This was a reflection of the Sichuan officers and soldiers. The death of the arrogant Adahu allowed the Mongolian army to have no internal strife. Coupled with the reinforcements from Wang Shixian's troops of the Mongolian army stationed in northern Sichuan and the Niulin troops of the Mongolian army campaigning in eastern Sichuan, Pu Zhezhi's tens of thousands of officers and soldiers were defeated. Defeated, they had to retreat to the line along the river in eastern Sichuan and southern Sichuan, while the state capitals in western Sichuan fell into the hands of the Mongols. The top priority of the Pili Army is to build Hengyuan Fort into an impregnable military fortress, so that it can gradually control western Sichuan and make the land of Tianfu, a fertile land, the base of the anti-Mongolian cause.
The geographical location of Hengyuan Town with mountains and rivers is extremely conducive to commercial activities. I can only imagine how prosperous it was back then. When the village was first built, transportation was the first priority. The village was surrounded by flat plains for several miles. Hengyuan Fort did not choose the location of the old village, but chose a location closer to Qianshan. The relocation was not only due to the serious damage to the old village, but also because the new location was close to the mountains, making it easier to defend and harder to attack. The newly built Hengyuan Fort is located on a high platform on the west bank of the Wenjing River. It is adjacent to the towering mountains to the north, only a few dozen meters away from the mountain entrance, and close to the surging river to the west. The enemy could only attack the city wall from the east and south. For this reason, the Perak Army not only designed the east and south city walls to be wider and thicker, but also reinforced them with steel bars at key locations.
According to the design plan, Yokohara Fort is also divided into an inner city and an outer city, but it is not a traditional square shape. Instead, it has been improved by combining the advantages of the bastion and designed into a hexagonal shape. The outer city wall is 200 meters long on each side, with a total length of 1,200 meters. The wall is nine meters high, and the average thickness is six meters wide at the bottom and four meters wide at the top. The inner city wall is 60 meters on each side, also six meters wide at the bottom and four meters wide at the top. , but the wall is three to twelve meters higher than the outer city wall. The height difference between the inner and outer city walls allows the artillery to form echelon firepower. The foundations of the inner and outer city walls were excavated several meters deep and then backfilled with stones and tamped, and then paved with strips of stone. The city walls were poured into a one-meter-thick frame of cement concrete, and the interior was filled with rammed earth. In fact, if the city wall was entirely poured into cement concrete, it would definitely be stronger, but the cement production capacity of the Pili Army simply cannot meet such a large amount of work. Even according to the current design plan, the cement inventory of the industrial company in the early months plus full production during this period is only barely enough. Not only was the consumption of cement and stone huge, but the demand for steel was also staggering. The city gate alone required thousands of kilograms of steel. The outer city has four gates, southeast and northwest, while the inner city has only two gates, the north gate and the south gate. These gates are all wrapped in thick wood with iron plates. Each door weighs more than a thousand pounds, especially the two southeast gates. The iron plate alone weighs more than a thousand kilograms and requires more than ten people to use a winch to pull it apart.
Hengyuan Fort also does not have traditional city defense facilities such as arrow towers, horse faces, and urns. It only has a suspension bridge to pass through the moat. In fact, the moat was just a by-product of fortification, city wall filling, and other excavation and sand excavation projects. Unexpectedly, as the excavation became larger and larger, it was simply expanded into a moat of 20 meters wide and 5 meters deep. It is better to say that it is a moat than a moat. Because when the Yokoyuan Fort was designed, it was specifically located on a high platform considering flood control factors, so it was impossible to divert water into the moat. The most important thing that distinguishes Hengyuan Fort from the traditional city is the additional roof on the city wall. This is an important experience of the Pili Army in using the artillery on the walls of Liuliba and Wanjiabao. The Perak Army discovered that artillery, as the most important weapon for city defense, was not only prone to priority attacks from the enemy, but was also afraid of bad weather such as rain. Therefore, in the design plan, front parapets and cement frame roofs were built on both the inner and outer city walls. It is used to block rainwater and also to protect against enemy arrows and siege equipment.
Foreign aid channels were crucial in the battle to defend the city, and Yokoyuan Fort designed two supply channels. There is a water supply channel all the way. After leaving the west gate of the fortress and walking down the river embankment for more than ten meters, you will find the dock. The Wenjing River emerges from the mountain and forms a bay here. The river surface is wide and the water flow is gentle. It is not only suitable for transporting ships and even naval warships. There was no room for maneuver, so a pier was also built while building the fort. However, the river section in the mountains upstream of the pier has fast currents and lots of rocks, making it impossible for boats to sail. Boats can only come upstream from the downstream. The other supply channel is the mountain road leading to Wanjiaping. Since it is only a few dozen meters away from the mountain pass, the artillery on the city wall can easily destroy enemies trying to block the mountain pass, so the possibility of being cut off is extremely low. However, to ensure nothing goes wrong, a secret tunnel was designed from the fort to the mountain pass so that enemies trying to block the mountain pass could be attacked from behind.
