(The third more is delivered!) ）

When more than 4,000 new troops in Shamen Town seized the time to train in the cold of spring in the first month, the construction of the new Shamen Town also entered a climax period. There were more than 10,000 people on the island, in addition to 4,000 young men who were called into the army, as well as the elderly and children, as well as some craftsmen and apprentices who worked in the workshops, and nearly 4,000 women, teenagers and girls joined the army of building the city.

Even many half-aged children and people in their fifties and sixties joined in, and the building of the city was a matter for everyone. However, Li Jing did not say that the people were requisitioned to do this coolie in vain. Historically, the requisitioning of ordinary people to work without compensation has easily intensified the contradictions between the government and the people, and even the effectiveness of the work has been greatly reduced. Li Jing had already ordered that the entire city construction project, from the city wall to the residential area, to the construction of the most rearmost streets, was paid for the workers recruited.

The people who participated in the construction of the city had someone to record the work, and the work was different for different levels of work. Even if the performance is not hard, there is a grade gap in the number of points recorded. All the work can be exchanged for money and silk in the town warehouse at any time, and can also be exchanged for food and cloth and other special life, and can even be kept for the future to buy a new residential house.

Regardless of men, women, and children, remember as much as you do. Even if a child helps carry a basket of soil or a stone, he will write it down truthfully. In addition, the construction site also provided three meals a day, rice and fatty slices, which was enough. Under the stimulus of these conditions, the construction of the entire new city is going very smoothly.

In the past few days, it has attracted many people from the two villages of Taishan Village and Beishan Village on the island to come and join in, and even the poor people in the shantytowns of the four piers have also come. At the beginning, Li Jing sent people to recruit them, but only a few poor men came. But these people spent a day on the construction site. Not only did I eat three meals, but my stomach was round. A mouthful of oil. At the end of the evening, they went to the steward of the construction site to ask for the payment, and they got a hundred dollars smoothly. The next day, not only did they continue to come, but they also called the whole family, the whole family, the neighbors, left and right.

Later, it was spread to ten, ten to hundred, and everyone called for friends, and the number of people building the city on the construction site every day exceeded the 8,000 mark. There are even more and more people coming from several nearby islands, and even people from the land area of Dengzhou are coming by boat.

With so many people, the construction of the new city went very smoothly.

All four walls have been completely demolished, and new walls have been dug up.

In order to improve the defensive power, Li Jing initially positioned the new city wall as a prismatic crown wall of masonry. However, at this time, the city bricks were not cheap, and it was impossible to build a city wall of this scale with all bricks, but the city was built with rammed earth and then covered with bricks.

The whole new city is nearly square, and it is 300 steps long in the north and south. It is two hundred paces from east to west, and a thousand paces from the perimeter. It is about three miles, which is equivalent to one-seventh of Dengzhou City. The walls were made of the most traditional rammed earth walls, which were then clad in bricks.

The rammed earth method adopts the plate construction method, and the plate rammed earth wall is molded with wooden planks, filled with clay and gray stone, and the layers are rammed with pestles to build it.

In order to improve the defensive power, the new city of Shamen Town was built with "Sanhe soil", that is, loess, lime, and sand. Li Jing also adopted the advice of several veteran craftsmen, and also mixed brown sugar and glutinous rice syrup into the soil to increase the hardness of the earthen walls. Such rammed earth walls are difficult to drive into, and they are still intact after hundreds of years of wind and rain.

Li Jing spends half of his days training recruits in the barracks and half of his time on the construction site. The last time the pirates attacked, one of the biggest losses was that there was no intact castle defense. This time, Li Jing plans to build the new city into the most reliable, secure and safe fortress at one time.

The old craftsman pointed to the base of the city wall, which had already begun to make a version of the rammed earth, and said: "In the system of building walls, each wall is three feet thick, and it is nine feet high, and its upper slope is closed, and the thickness is halved; If the height is increased by three feet, the thickness is increased by one foot, and the same is true for the decrease. ”

"According to the general's request, the walls of the new city will be six zhang high. According to the method of building a city, the wall is six zhang high, and the base of the wall is half the height of the city, which is three zhang wide. If the thickness of the city is one-third, the thickness of the city is two zhang. It is obliquely closed, the specific thickness is halved, and the top of the city wall is one zhang thick. Such a castle, the old man is also the first time to build, the day of completion, I am afraid that from now on it is solid, no one can break it, can be guaranteed for a thousand years. ”

In the Tang Dynasty, cities were built mainly with rammed earth walls, as well as adobe brick walls, gable walls and masonry walls. In comparison, gables and masonry walls are the strongest, but pure gables and masonry walls are expensive and not easy to build. The dirt brick city wall is to make the dirt bricks in advance, and then build the bricks, which is faster, but it is not strong enough. The rammed earth wall is made of rammed earth, the most thick, and the thickness of the city wall often reaches one or two zhang thick, rough and resistant.

After careful consideration, Li Jing finally chose the rammed earth wall, but in order to add defensiveness, he asked for a layer of city bricks on the outside of the rammed earth wall. In this way, it is both rough and thick, and sturdy. The triple soil made of loess, lime and sand is also made of glutinous rice pulp, which is made into the most cohesive and strong glutinous rice slurry, and then rammed with the branches of red willow or reed.

Pieces of plates were sandwiched up from the templates, and countless men and women of the city construction workers used iron nests to heat up the loess and stir-fry it into soil. Another person took a wall sieve and sifted the soil and built a plate. There is a special stirring to mix cooked king and lime, sand into a triple soil. There is also a special soil to pick up the soil and pour it into the building plate, and then someone specially holds a ramming pestle to tamp the soil over and over again. In addition, there are some women who hold large clappers and small clappers and follow behind. The whole process is very cumbersome, with dozens or hundreds of processes. However, there are more than a dozen old craftsmen on the construction site, and there are many experienced craftsmen to guide them, and everything is in an orderly manner.

Looking at more than a dozen old craftsmen strictly inspecting the processes one by one, Li Jing also sighed in his heart, building a city is so complicated. It was so complicated that even the soil for building the city had to be fried in a hot pan, and the old craftsman reached out and grabbed a handful of the fried soil in his hand. His hand clenched tightly, and the soil in his hand formed a ball, and after he looked at it, he threw the soil on the ground again, and the ball of soil fell to the ground and scattered.

The old craftsman explained to Li Jing, "The control of the water content in the soil during ramming is the key to ensuring the quality of the earthen wall. The water content is too small, the soil is sticky, and the rammed earth wall is loose and obviously not strong; If the water content is too much, the soil wall cannot be tamped, and the wall is easy to shrink and crack after the water evaporates. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly control the construction process. According to experience, the cooked soil can be compacted to form a clump, and it will be scattered even if the moisture is suitable. ”

Li Jing watched all the way and gained a lot of knowledge.

The construction of the four walls was started at the same time, the pedestal of the width of three zhang has been completed, and the workers have built a rammed earth and built a city wall nearly one zhang high. Li Jing saw that the foot of the wall was also made of pebbles, which, according to the craftsman, was to prevent rainwater from soaking.

The whole city wall is gradually thinned from the bottom to the top, the outer skin is slightly divided, and the inner skin is retreated in layers, and each layer is thinned by 3 to 5 inches, so that it is more stable in structure and reduces the weight of the wall. In order to increase the integrity of the wall, the earthen wall is also reinforced, that is, a "wall bone" is set in the horizontal direction. The practice is to split the bamboo into long bamboo pieces more than one inch wide, as bamboo tendons sandwiched in the rammed earth wall, the height of the wall is placed every three or four inches of a layer of bamboo tendons, and its horizontal spacing is about 6 to 7 inches. Because the upper and lower fangs are staggered between each layer in the ramming to avoid through joints, the integrity of the wall is greatly enhanced by adding the tie of the wall bone and drag bone.

In addition, ramming is carried out in stages and in an orderly manner, usually divided into stages of ramming: the first stage of ramming eight editions, each version is one foot three, and then stop for half a month, the second stage of the wall to dry to a certain extent, you can repeat the first stage of ramming method, ramming the second eight editions, so until the top layer. In this way, the ramming of the wall in stages makes the wall more sufficiently strong, and it takes three months to complete the entire rammed earth stage of the city wall.

After the rammed earth wall is built, there is no need to wait, and the earth wall can be brick-clad immediately. The city bricks used are larger and stronger than the bricks of ordinary houses, and as early as the beginning, Li Jing has invited brick kiln craftsmen to make bricks and burn bricks at the foot of Phoenix Mountain. After the earthen wall was rammed, the bricks were basically burned. In addition, when wrapping bricks, it is necessary to specially collect glutinous rice mortar made of lime, sand, and glutinous rice pulp to bond the brick wall. According to the craftsmen, this glutinous rice mortar has been used in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and its performance is beyond that of ordinary mortar, stronger than pure lime mortar, extremely strong, and more resistant to water.

The shape of the city wall is not built into a square at all, but according to Li Jing's requirements and drawings, the city wall is built into a crown prismatic city wall with countless faces, which greatly improves the defensive performance of the city wall. In addition to the four gate towers on the city gate, several three-zhang high arrow towers will be built on the city wall, and corner towers will also be built.

In addition to the four city gates in the south, east and northwest, four urn cities will be built to protect the city gates, and those four urn cities will also be built into four small crown fortresses in full accordance with Li Jing's requirements. Then, around the entire new city, a moat ten zhang wide and two zhang deep will be excavated, and living water will be introduced from the foot of Phoenix Mountain.

Six zhang high, the base is three zhang, the city is two thick, and the top of the city is also one zhang wide. As soon as the new city wall is completed, it can be done in pairs of sevens, or even pairs of tens. As long as the 4,000 soldiers and horses in Shamen Town retreat to the city, hoard enough food, and equip the city with crossbow beds, strong bows and hard crossbows, even if more than 30,000 or even 50,000 soldiers and horses come to attack, they will definitely be able to support more than a year. With such a fortress, even if Shamen Town is surrounded by Feng Zhang and Wang Jin, Li Jing will not be afraid at all.

"It only takes half a year, and the castle can be completed in half a year!" The old craftsman looked at the new city that had begun to emerge, and said with an excited face.

Li Jing shook his head: "I only give you three months, and after three months, I will not only require the completion of the main wall of the new city, but also the city gate tower, corner tower, arrow tower, female wall, urn city, moat, etc. In addition, the residential areas, office areas, warehouse areas, barracks areas, workshop areas, square urban areas, streets, bathhouses, pharmacies, public toilets and shops in the planning and layout of the city must be completed within half a year at the latest. If you don't have enough money, I'll pull it out for you, if you don't have enough people, I'll recruit you, and if the materials are not enough, I'll send someone to buy it immediately. However, I only give you so much time. ‘

Several craftsmen and the town generals who were responsible for building the city couldn't help but look at each other, this requirement can be described as a bit harsh. However, everyone knows Li Jing's character, and the words have already been spoken, so there is no room for bargaining, so they can only find a way to do it seriously. (To be continued.) )