November in the Far North is cold, gray and silent, just like a grizzly bear preparing to hibernate. However, the sunshine traveled thousands of miles in an instant, spanning thirty latitudes, and arrived at the kingdom in the lake where the autumn harvest had been completed and it was the festival season.
The Mexica Plateau at this time of year is warm, bright and prosperous, and it is also the most suitable day for mobilizing large-scale manpower. Looking down from a high place, the entire kingdom in the basin and lake area is like a huge and prosperous ant nest, full of people marching, running and busy!
"Yiyayouhe!...Bang!"
With a unified shout, two to three hundred civilians exerted their strength and shouted in unison. They worked in groups of more than a dozen people and simultaneously used ropes to pull up the large wooden stakes in their hands. After a few breaths, the huge wooden pile fell hard again, hitting the newly paved secondary county road, that is, the Sanhe dirt road, making a huge "bang bang" sound! And with the impact of the big wooden piles, a section of the somewhat superficial road surface was also hardened.
"Witness the Lord God! Be careful, tamp repeatedly, and tamp hard! I have tamped the roadbed firmly. It must be so strong that even your little finger cannot be inserted into it! At least two miles must be tamped today. Those who cannot complete it or do not meet the requirements will be whipped. Five strokes, work all night long!”
It was dusty and noisy. The leader of the field, Tai Shishan, carried the village's flag, shouted for instructions, and checked back and forth carefully. According to the instructions of the village priests, they gathered in villages and flag teams, and each village was responsible for a section of the road. And if something goes wrong, they will be held accountable according to the village. When that time comes, he will be the first to be whipped, punished, or even beheaded!
"Damn it! You stupid turkeys! How did you dig the drainage ditches on both sides? They have to be straight, straight! How come you can dig them at an angle and dig into the stones of the roadbed? These are gray and white, you Are you blind and can’t see?!”
Tai Shishan, the leader of the field, stared fiercely at the men digging the canal with one eye. The power that had killed people was so frightening that the other party trembled and could no longer hold the wooden shovel in his hand. Taishishan was originally a Prepecha warrior who joined the army. He was injured during the Northern Expedition and was blinded in one eye by a dog-born, so he withdrew from the kingdom's army. Then, he became the leader of a village directly under the jurisdiction of Hekou County, that is, the de facto village chief.
In the Lake Kingdom, most of the villages are directly in the hands of the kingdom as the old nobles in the countryside have been cleaned up. Many wounded veterans like him became village chiefs or militia captains who managed a village. Because their loyalty is the most reliable and they can control the countryside!
"Lord God, what kind of work are you doing! The priests said that these two ditches are for drainage in the rainy season and they must be dug below the road surface! The ditches must be level with the road and the bottom must be flat so that water can flow! If you gather too much and soak the road for a long time, the roadbed will be destroyed! At that time, not only will you be whipped, but you will also have to rebuild it..."
The leader of the field, Tai Shishan, yelled and cursed a few times before explaining in detail to the villagers. After all, they are all from the same village and can be regarded as his "soldiers", so they should show some mercy. And if it were the patrolling kingdom warriors and temple guards, the whipping would be fatal.
"Look at it all for me, see how I dig it! Remember, you have to work as hard as digging a ditch in the field! ... You stupid turkeys, you spent half a year building it last year, and after planting the field this year, you dug it again I forgot all about it!…”
As he spoke, the leader of the field, Tai Shishan, swung his shovel and dug out a small, straight, level, and deep ditch. Although he was blind in one eye, he was much more energetic at work than the lean peasants. The shovel in his hand was produced by the iron smelting in the Black Rock Mountain in the south of the kingdom. It was distributed to the village by the village priests, and only a few leaders had it.
To be honest, these iron tools are not as strong and durable as bronze tools, but they are definitely better than stone tools. He heard from the priest that the main advantage of this thing is that it is cheap and large in quantity, and there will be more and more of them in the future!
"The Lord God witnesses! That's it, dig for me, dig hard for me! ... Whichever team does well, when they go to the inn for lunch at noon, each person will be rewarded with an extra cake! Cornmeal!"
Hearing the reward of a "cornmeal cake", the men who built the road swallowed their saliva and gained more strength in their hands. In the past two years, under the guidance of the village priest, manure has been piled, farm tools have been used, and some canals have been built. Not only has more farmland been opened, but the harvest has also increased significantly by 20 to 30%. This time when we went out to build roads, we opened the village barn, and each person was able to eat three meals a day, including pumpkin and refried beans. But the tortillas that were always only given to the samurai were only available to the team that did a good job.
"Ahem! Lord God, such a big smoke is still choking!..."
A gust of wind blew by, bringing with it the black smoke of firewood and a faint, choking smell. Tai Shishan, the leader of the field, lowered his head, covered his mouth and nose, and coughed several times. His one eye was so choked that he was about to shed tears. He quickly circled around to avoid the leeward direction, and then came hundreds of steps away to a group of busy civilians with their mouths and noses covered, their heads lowered.
"Ahem! Have your cooked ashes been burned?"
"It's coming, it's coming! Boss, look, the white limestone is swollen, and the big stones are cracked into small pieces... I think it will be burned until the evening, let it cool overnight, and then it can be used tomorrow!"
"What! Do you have to wait until tomorrow?"
"Yes! It's the order of the priest, and he's the kind of man with two words on his clothes!"
"Huh? It's the order of the divine priest... That's okay! They say one thing after another. Although I don't understand it, it should be taught by His Majesty. It must make sense..."
Hearing this, Tai Shishan, the leader of the field, scratched his head and looked at the site in front of him where slaked lime was being fired. I saw large piles of limestone blocks or powder piled by the farmers into the shape of a hill, with a small opening for a fire in the center. There were even more than one such huge ash pile, all smoking at the same time.
Looking carefully, there are firewood piled in these small openings at this moment, lighting a medium-sized fire, and continuing to roast the surrounding limestone. From time to time, a farmer would carefully use a long wooden clamp to add firewood to the fire in the middle.
"Huh? Is the white limestone swollen? Where can you tell it's swollen?... Well... the big stones are indeed cracked, and this pile of small gravels is just like clinker for road construction!..."
The burned hydrated lime is the most important binder in the construction of Sanhe dirt roads. It reacts with the clay in the soil to make the soil particles more tightly bonded, making the road stronger and more durable. Similarly, slaked lime can also improve the waterproofing ability of the road, reduce soil erosion, and prevent weeds from growing. Therefore, in a rainy lake kingdom, much more hydrated lime is added to road construction than in arid places! This is also the experience and insights discovered by the Shenqi priests after the road was built last year and experienced a rainy season, and it was quickly promoted everywhere.
"When ordinary white limestone is burned, it turns into cooked ashes that can be used to build roads... Phew! It's really the power of the Lord God. Praise the Lord God!"
】
In Central America, which has frequent volcanic activity, there are large reserves of limestone and abundant output. This kind of white-gray stone couldn't be more common.
The leader of the field, Tai Shishan, looked at it for a while and became so hot that he started to sweat. He looked at the peasants around him, who were also sweating profusely, as if they were fished out of the water.
"Where's the water?"
"Boss, there! It's covered with a lid. It was fetched from the well of the inn in the morning and brought by wheelbarrow!"
"Gudu! Gudu!"
Tai Shishan, the leader of the field, left the ashes of the fire and strode to a row of large wooden barrels. He opened the lid, picked up a wooden ladle, scooped out the cool well water, and drank it in large gulps. Some salt was added to this cool well water, which made it quite refreshing to drink. It was also one of the several regulations required by the kingdom.
"Praise the Lord God! You have done a good job! This job of burning ashes is not easy. When we come to the inn for dinner later, everyone will add a pancake!"
"Ah! Can you eat pancakes?... Praise the Lord God! Praise the boss!..."
"Haha! And praise Your Majesty!"
"Yes! Praise Your Majesty!"
Tai Shishan, the leader of the field, drank the water and made another batch of pancakes. Then he strode towards the post station four or five miles away. The sun was almost in the sky, and it was getting a bit hot. After doing hard work for a long time, everyone is probably too tired to have any energy. He had to quickly check on the lunch meal and see how it was prepared. After all, there are hundreds of young men in the village! This meal alone required twenty people to cook and consumed several hundred kilograms of grain.
"We're almost there! This new inn is so enviably tight!..."
