Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 175: Building a New City Outside the Great Wall

The First Division of the Imperial Guards had already left Datong Prefecture and set up camp at the old site of Yulinwei.

No matter how the little prince would retaliate against the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty's own military strategy remained unchanged, that is, following the principle of "if you fight yours, I fight mine". The Ming Dynasty has been carrying out its own strategy of external expansion from beginning to end.

This was because the main goal of the Ming Dynasty at the moment was to build cities outside the Great Wall and to develop minerals and land, rather than to seek opportunities to annihilate the enemy. Therefore, after setting up camp in Yulinwei, the First Division of the Guards did not move to the surrounding areas.

Along with the First Division of the Imperial Guards came the first magistrate of Yulin County, Zhang Cong, and several thousand soldiers and civilians, most of whom were starving people recruited from the Huaiyang area.

And now, they will become the first batch of Han people to settle in Yulin County.

Yulin is located on the east side of Hetao and outside Datong Pass. It is currently an area controlled by Tatars, so Tatars often appear in this area. Therefore, after Zhang Cong arrived in Yulin with thousands of soldiers and civilians and the First Division of the Guards, the first thing he had to do was naturally to build a city and repair roads.

The first step is to build a city.

Zhang Cong used the method of work-for-relief to turn all the hungry people in Huaiyang into laborers and let them directly participate in the city construction work.

The 1st Guards Division was responsible for guarding the new city.

For the city wall, Zhang Cong planned to build it directly with cement concrete.

As for the city, Zhang Cong no longer used cement concrete for construction, after all, the Ming Dynasty's cement production was limited.

Cement concrete was naturally also transported from the capital. These hungry people served as transporters, and it was impossible for them to eat for free along the way.

Even when building the outer city, only bamboo reinforced cement concrete could be used. Reinforced concrete was not possible at the moment, after all, the steel production in the Ming Dynasty was still limited.

Using bamboo as reinforcement and then casting cement concrete can achieve the same strength as reinforced concrete.

Building a city wall with cement concrete is naturally faster than building it with rammed earth, and the efficiency is directly increased by several times. Moreover, the built city wall can quickly solidify and become a hard wall within a day, and after being exposed to air for a long time, it will continue to undergo physical and chemical reactions and become a harder stone.

Within three days, Zhang Cong led all the workers to build an extremely solid outer city wall.

Datong Governor Feng Junxian had received an order from Zhu Houzhao to fully cooperate with Zhang Cong's city-building project in Yulin. Therefore, when the outer city of Yulin was completed, he also came to Yulin City to inspect the construction of the city wall.

In fact, Datong Governor Feng Junxian did not expect Zhang Cong to build the city wall so quickly. He had been an official in the border town for a long time and knew that building a border wall was not a simple project. It was naturally impossible to use all blue bricks as the cost was too high. Generally, blue bricks were only used in important passes and the capital city. Most border walls were half-built with mud and covered with bricks. New cities outside the pass such as Yulin City could only build walls with mud first, and let several workers work together to compact the mortar, hammering out the city wall bit by bit.

But he didn't expect that Zhang Cong had built the outer wall of Yulin City within three days.

It would be more accurate to say that Datong Governor Feng Junxian came to question Zhang Cong rather than to inspect Yulin City. He was worried that a young county magistrate like Zhang Cong was too eager for quick success and did not allow the workers to hammer the mortar hard enough, resulting in insufficient compaction, thus achieving the goal of quickly building the city wall.

However, Feng Junxian knew that if he was sloppy in building the city wall, it would directly lead to the city wall being unable to stop the Tartar cavalry in the future, and even some walls that were not solid enough could be directly chiseled open by the Tartars.

When Governor Feng saw the appearance of the Yulin City wall, he was immediately surprised. He did not expect that the soil used to build the Yulin City wall was so smooth. From a distance, it looked like frozen. Therefore, he could not help but ask Zhang Cong: "Zhang Zhixian! What kind of soil did you use for this wall? Is it solid?"

"In reply to the governor, the cement concrete I use uses fine southern bamboo as reinforcement, which can save a lot of manpower and yet can achieve a more solid effect than mortar. You can try it yourself," Zhang Cong said with a smile.

Datong Governor Feng Junxian was not polite either. He directly pulled out the sword from his personal soldier's waist and slashed it directly on the city wall!
A sonorous sound!
Only a little bit of dirt was splashed on the city wall, leaving a small hole less than half an inch deep, but the steel knife in Governor Feng's hand was broken!

"How is this possible? My personal soldiers are equipped with steel swords that can break armor and break poles, but why are they not as strong as the walls of Yulin City? And I didn't spare any effort!"

Governor Feng was so surprised that he couldn't help but shake his numb knuckles and returned the knife to his personal soldier. The soldier showed a very depressed look on his face. After all, he had worked so hard to become a personal soldier of the governor and had a tempered steel knife, but who knew it was missing a mouth!

Of course, Governor Feng and Zhang Cong didn't care about the feelings of a soldier. What's more, Governor Feng still couldn't believe the result of his experiment. After all, even if the city wall was made entirely of blue bricks, it would take a long time to become very strong. But the Yulin city wall was only three days old!

"Just because a wall is hard doesn't mean it's strong. Ice is sometimes hard, but isn't it still fragile? Rong Shoubei, you are always brave. Go and hit the wall and see!" Governor Feng asked Zhang Cong, "Zhang Zhixian, if my men knock down your wall, you won't mind, will you?"

Although Zhang Cong was only a county magistrate, he was appointed by the emperor himself. Feng Junxian also knew that he was a favorite of the emperor, so he naturally did not dare to treat Zhang Cong with contempt just because he was a superior. However, Zhang Cong still replied calmly:

"You can just let people ram the wall, even more people can ram it, even artillery can be used to bombard it, it will be a good opportunity to test the strength of the city wall."

Governor Feng was naturally reluctant to use the cannon for fun, but he still asked his garrison commander Rong, who had supernatural powers, to try to crash into the city wall.

Garrison commander Rong used all his strength and after a running start of several dozen steps, he crashed directly into the Yulin city wall.

boom!
The Yulin city wall still stands as solid as a rock.

Guard Rong was thrown directly to the ground. The reaction force made him dizzy and he felt as if he was hit hard in the shoulder.

Governor Feng then ordered a dozen strong personal soldiers to attack the city wall together, but the wall of Yulin still stood firm.

At this point, Governor Feng had to believe in the solidity of Yulin's city wall. However, he suddenly grabbed Zhang Cong's collar in excitement, changed his gentle attitude just now, and almost roared, asking:

"Since the capital has such magical soil, why didn't it use it in the border towns earlier? If it had been used earlier, how could the Tartars easily break into our newly built castle near Datong in the 18th year of Hongzhi and massacre no less than 3,000 of our border residents? That's more than 3,000 lives!"

Zhang Cong did not expect that the Feng governor would suddenly become so excited. After the Feng governor finished yelling and loosened his collar, he straightened his official robe and said:
"You may not know, Governor, that this wall-building material is called cement, a new product of the Royal Industrial Company. There is not much cement produced now. Part of it is used to repair the road from Datong to the capital, so that it can be used to transport grain and recover Hetao in the future. The other part is brought by me to build a new city outside the Great Wall. Therefore, it cannot be used in all border towns!"

After hearing Zhang Cong's explanation, Governor Feng regained some composure. He suddenly realized that he seemed to have lost his mind just now, and he couldn't help but bow to Zhang Cong and said:
"Forgive me! I just behaved a little bit out of control! I just couldn't stand the tragic scene of the Han people being slaughtered by the Tartars in the past! If we had such a magical tool for building a city earlier, we wouldn't have let the Tartars block the gate as if they were returning home, and we wouldn't have wasted so much money and manpower on this city wall."

"I understand the Governor's painstaking efforts! But His Majesty has said that it is better to attack than to defend. Bandits cannot be prevented. The great Ming Dynasty should have a strong army to open up the borders, rather than spending the benefit of the people to defend the nine borders!
Now, Yulin City is just the first step to open up the benefits outside the Great Wall. Next, Dongsheng, Zhenlu and other cities will appear one after another! Now I have an unwelcome request. I beg the governor to gather the soldiers and civilians in Datong to repair the road from Yulin to Datong, so that the food, livestock and ore from Yulin can be transported to Datong in the future!"

Zhang Cong then explained why he made such a suggestion. The reason was that the Yulin area was close to the river and had a flat terrain, so the land was fertile and rich in minerals. Datong was a fortress of the Ming Dynasty and had a large number of military and civilians. When Yulin really developed in the future, it could serve as a food and mineral supply base for Datong.

Governor Feng nodded. The imperial court intended to recover Hetao and build a city outside the city wall, so he naturally could not disobey it. He also knew that once Yulin was built as a city, it would become the gateway to Datong Youwei. The road would naturally need to be renovated and widened, not only to facilitate the replenishment of military supplies, but also to facilitate mutual support in the future.

"There are many auxiliary soldiers in Datong Prefecture. Although they cannot fight in battle, they can still build roads. Rather than letting them sit idle and receive food for nothing, it is better to let them do some work. I agree! However, I want you to submit a petition with me, requesting the court to allow Datong to manufacture cement to strengthen the border town!"

Governor Feng was still obsessed with the cement mentioned by Zhang Cong. What he wanted to do most now was to ask the court to allow him to hire someone in Datong Prefecture to develop cement. He believed that as long as cement was used in the border town of Datong, the border defense of Datong would be strengthened several times. Even if the Tartar cavalry of 100,000 came to attack, he would no longer be afraid.

However, Governor Feng did not know whether cement was something that the central government had banned from being produced in order to control local border towns. So in order to get the emperor's approval, he wanted Zhang Cong, the emperor's favorite, to submit a petition with him.

Zhang Cong did not reject Governor Feng's proposal because he knew that the court only restricted the cement manufacturing areas to avoid polluting the waters and affecting the vitality of the mountains and rivers, but did not restrict local and private cement manufacturing.

Governor Feng returned to Datong with the memorial he and Zhang Cong had written jointly.

Zhang Cong continued to devote himself to the construction of Yulin City.

The streets and buildings in the city were naturally no longer built with cement, but were directly compacted with soil. Even the main streets were only paved with stone slabs.

However, these migrant workers are still working very hard.

Because Zhang Cong had already told them clearly that they would resettle here, and the court would allocate arable land outside Yulin City to them, and both men and women would have a share.

Thanks to the book friend Distant Mountain for the 100000 starting coins reward, which gave this book an additional leader. Thank you to the book friend Smuggling Aircraft Carrier for the 1000 starting coins reward, which helped the leader to update the book. I will update the book this weekend because the author has a job and it is the end of the year, so to words a day is already the limit. I can update the book only when I have more free time on weekends. So I will update the book on weekends. Thank you for your support. You are the motivation for me to keep going. Although the subscription is dropping and the performance is still far from that of other authors, I am still very happy that someone rewards me and votes for me every day. In the later stage of Emperor's writing, the plot may become less exciting because the plot is too broad, and the plot of farming increases. I try my best to write something different, fresh, and exciting.

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(End of this chapter)