From Chief to Ball

Chen Jian checked the nearby hills, and led a few tribesmen to the top of the hill, which was densely covered with oak trees.In the past, these oak trees could not be cut down casually, and the tribe still needed to eat acorns to survive the harsh winter. They had a kind of reverence and worship for nature, but they had forgotten the trees that saved their lives in winter.

"After the new slaves arrive, build a ditch leading down the mountain here. It must be straight. I will send a few children who have learned well in the school to help you measure it."

"After repairing, cut down the trees on the mountain, and trim the branches on the top of the mountain to make logs. Use water in the ditches when the weather is cold, and put all the logs down along the ditch after freezing. When you put the logs, you Don't come here, if there is a blockage, let the slaves unblock it."

The mine officer frowned and said, "Winter is not very cold for a long time, and it can freeze for more than a month at most. You can't cut much wood in a month."

"It can also be chopped at ordinary times. Usually, after cutting, it is piled up on the top of the mountain, and it can be put down in the coldest days of winter. Now the mountain is full of trees, which cannot be rolled down. It takes a lot of manpower to resist it. At most I can I can allocate 140 slaves to you, and I can't get any more."

The mine officer thought about it for a while, and felt that this method was indeed very good. Usually, it didn’t take much effort to pile it on the top of the mountain. It’s just that after such a high and steep mountain freezes, the speed of the logs will be extremely fast. How much to die.

"Slaves are very expensive. The slaves bought from those tribes in the Northeast need more and more food, and each slave can do a lot of work by living one more day. All we pay is some food and acorns. This point must be made clear, allowing the slaves to live one more day is to allow the clansmen to get more benefits."

"There are more than 140 people, don't make such a mess again, at most five people will die every month, if there are more, you are really unqualified as a mine officer, no matter what you have to let each slave work for two years on average .Otherwise I might as well throw them all to grow wheat beans and corn."

The mine officer was a little confused about how the year was calculated. Chen Jian explained: "Copper can be exchanged for corn, and slaves can also grow it. They can live as long as five times that of planting corn. The slaves who plant corn can live on average. Ten years, so these miners have to live for two years, otherwise the tribe will definitely not allow us to continue mining in the future, and when the mine is shut down, what can you, a miner, do?"

After saying these words, the mine officer wiped his sweat and nodded without hesitation: "I will pay attention in the future, try not to die so many."

"After one year, if there are fewer than five slaves who died, I will give you some rewards. You should also think about how to reduce the number of slave deaths. If the death continues like this, the city will really not be able to bear it. "

After thinking for a while, Chen Jian said again: "Also, those injured slaves should not be thrown out to feed the wolves. If they can be cured, they will be cured. Without legs, they can weave sacks, and without hands, they can drive wheat fields away." Birds in the house."

The mine officer pointed to the slaves locked in the room and said, "Where are those people?"

Chen Jian looked at those huts. It was impossible to use the sixty or seventy slaves held here.They don't know how to stand still, but they would rather curse and perish together. It is dangerous to put this kind of slaves in Xia City. They must be exchanged for new slaves, and new norms will be used to reduce the number of deaths and improve efficiency.

"Those people... go to another city to exchange food, and you don't care about these things. I will arrange new slaves for you. Don't tell those people in the city about the riots here, you know The fewer people there, the better."

Standing on the top of the mountain, Chen Jian looked into the distance, but he couldn't see the city of E and Acropolis, but he had already found a place for these slaves who knew how to resist. Maybe after the seventeen people came back, they could talk to them again. Tell the real truth, and then sell.

The success of these sold slaves will not have any impact on Xia City: under the constraints of the rules of the times, slaves have only two paths.Either flee back to the forest and continue to live in a cave, or become a slave owner. Until the productivity develops to a certain level, one cannot escape from this circle.

Xiacheng's current position is very embarrassing. If he wants to integrate into the cultural circle without moving his family to the east, he can only go south or east. There must be a hole in these two directions, no matter what the method is.And this requires an opportunity.

Chapter 24 Pros and cons

It is always a long time to plan for the future, Chen Jian just thought about it temporarily, there are still a lot of things to deal with.

Winter is coming soon, and the problem of timber has been temporarily solved. Even though there is no river, the problem of timber transportation has been solved by the method I came up with.

The mine has also taken shape. A total of two deep pits have been dug as the entrance to the mine, and the distance between the wooden supports is also increasing day by day.

These tribesmen not only strive to let the slaves work earlier in order to improve efficiency, but also learned to dig wells during the work, which is of great significance to the development of the city. In the future, several villages must be arranged in the north and south of the Caohe Valley. There must be river water.

A well with a wooden structure requires too much engineering, while a well with a masonry structure requires a bonded structure, and it cannot be built after the digging is completed, but the bricks are squeezed in from the top, which is a bit like a castle in the air.

Chen Jian just knew that without seeing it with his own eyes, he couldn't figure out how to build it, and couldn't figure out how to keep those bricks from falling.

There were only a few masons with two brushes in the city. Chen Jian didn't dare to take the risk and put them all in the well. Talents are precious nowadays, let alone masons, even if they can harvest wheat quickly in Xiacheng Anyone with a little bit is already counted as a talent.

The clansmen who were digging the mine didn't quite understand the principle, so they couldn't put forward any constructive suggestions, so they could only use wooden supports for reinforcement according to Chen Jian's request.

The clansmen don't need to dig too deep, they just need to make a model, and the rest will be followed by slaves who will continue to dig into the veins according to this method.

A large amount of wood and mud were used to reinforce the entrance of the mine, the ground was leveled in the mine that was not dug deep, and a layer of logs was laid as the ground, but it was not known what these logs were used for.

Chen Jian plans to make some wooden bucket mine carts in the future to save labor as much as possible. Wooden bucket mine carts are not technically difficult now. If possible, it is best to use wooden rails, which can save more effort.

Not by horses, horses can't walk on sleepers, but these slaves can push mine carts.It is not easy to realize on paper, and he knows that this matter must be practiced. Chen Jian thinks that there should be no technical difficulty, but he does not know whether it can be done in practice, and there may be more problems. All this is just a temporary Plan, he will go back and discuss with those clansmen who smelt copper ore and make bullock carts.

After the entrances of the two mines were basically completed, Chen Jian asked his tribe to build a few houses here, and he led some people along the valley to survey the road here.

There is no road in the world, and if there are many people walking, it will become a road. Chen Jian has witnessed all these occurrences and changes with his own eyes. After half a year of trampling by the slaves who carried the mines, a winding path that can accommodate one person leads to the distance. .

On the top of the mountain, I looked at the trend of the valley. If this road is rebuilt, the distance can be shortened by seven or eight miles.

The roads of this era are not the same as those of later generations. They are not flat, but should be concave and concave.

The middle is higher, and the two ruts are very low, just to allow the wheels to be in the ruts. This is also the reason why the cars were required to be on the same track after Qin unified the six kingdoms.

Because the wheels bear most of the weight, unless the entire road is hard when repaired, otherwise the oxen and horses will definitely press the road out of the ruts after passing by. .

And before the appearance of horseshoes, too hard roads would cause damage to the hooves of cows and horses, which is one of the reasons why straight roads and hard roads cannot be built.

I took a few people to measure it with a rope. This road needs to be repaired six feet wide. People walk on both sides and cars pass in the middle. It can only be a one-way street.

The whole road to be built is about [-] miles long. It passes through the valley without digging up mountains and rocks. It only needs to burn down the trees along the way and use soil to pad it a little higher.

Now that it is decided to expand the scale of the mine, there must be such a road to transport the ore out.

The best choice is to smelt directly here. In the previous Shang and Zhou dynasties, the capital was moved several times to find new copper mines, but that was on the premise of having enough population. Now the city has a small population and wealth, and one move of the capital can make The city cannot recover within three years.

There are no rivers here, the heavy metals in the groundwater must exceed the standard, and the nearby land is not suitable for farming. There is no advantage except being close to the mine.

A road that is forty miles long does not need to be built very hard. For a city with a population of several thousand and a large number of slaves, it is not a huge project.

The fastest way is to divide the road into several sections according to the population of each tribe, and each tribe completes a part. Sixteen Chinese tribes plus a dozen wild tribes, each tribe is divided into 800 meters of road, one month It can be completed, and a batch of food can be saved. It is the obligation of each tribe to let them complete it, and there will not be much resistance.

It's just that this shortcoming is a long-term hidden danger. Chen Jian is trying his best to weaken the rights of the tribal leaders and try to divide and disintegrate the various tribes. If this kind of thing is distributed according to the tribes, it will definitely strengthen the rights of the tribe leaders and make the tribes The connection between is more closely.

Another way is to use the power of the city chiefs to conscript the population of various tribes, and use the common property to provide food in groups of 400 people.

400 people is the limit of the long-term work that the city can support, and with the addition of people who deliver food and security, a total of nearly 500 people are needed, and these people need a certain amount of time to adjust after they are dispersed, at least a ten-day period. They are familiar with the new, army-like organization.

In such a rotation, the entire city cannot have large-scale military mobilization until the road is completed, and it is necessary to take out enough grain and some other goods from the public property as rewards for overfulfillment.

After thinking about it, Chen Jian still decided to use the second method. The tribal leader can no longer have a certain degree of organizational and appealing power, but it will consume a lot of food and a certain amount of support from the tribe.

Tribal disintegration is not something that can be done just by talking about it. It takes a long process to get used to the existence of the family and family production. It can only be guided and cannot be enforced, otherwise it will be counterproductive.

This kind of ideological change cannot be completed overnight, and the development of productive forces needs to keep up with it. It is necessary to ensure the survival of family members based on the small family unit: fine seeds, metal farm tools, and cattle farming are necessary, or Divide slaves into families.

In this process of transition, tribes may not be disintegrated into families, but a deformed planned society under the control of city leaders and officials can be used for rapid transition. Planned society is a social system suitable for rapid catch-up, and the concentrated use of population can ensure Completion of some major projects.It is the most efficient social structure under the premise that the city is small in scale and its own city is the most technologically advanced.

And this kind of excessive, it is necessary to make the tribe familiar with this new way of life and work that does not require tribal leaders from the details of eating, drinking, fighting, fighting and working.

Considering the population and the large amount of food that each tribe needs to requisition, Chen Jian frowned, and there must be losses in everything.

Chapter 25 Population

After returning to Xia City, Chen Jian looked at the population statistics Yu Qian'er had made before, and prepared to select the people who went to build the road.

The statistics made by Yuqian'er are very simple. They are separated according to each tribe, drawn a map according to the matrilineal line, and arranged in order of age.

The names of the clansmen are generally common things. They are named after things, and the surnames already have graphic characters. Most of the names, Yu Qian'er, can't write them yet, so they can only draw them.

It's not because she was slow to learn, but because characters like poplar and oak tree can only be distinguished by drawing leaves, and these are the names of most tribesmen.