From Chief to Ball

It doesn't need to be too troublesome to build this road. After clearing the firebreak, I set fire to burn the passage, and carried a large amount of soil and stones from a distance to level the potholes.

A large amount of earthwork was piled up on both sides of the road every thirty steps, and each team assigned an ox cart to roll over the burnt and leveled areas.

The ruts will leave deep pits on the soft ground, and the deep pits will be filled with soil, which can save a lot of time. It is not necessary to make the whole road very hard, just ensure the rut position. As long as the cars are on the same track, the cars can pass.

The road is not built in a day. If there are cars walking every day after it is completed, the ruts will become harder and harder. The earthwork left is to pad the horseshoe marks and ruts.

After this batch is completed, dozens of people will be requisitioned every month to be responsible for the maintenance of the fill. In about three to two years, no tall grass will grow in the ruts, and only those strong plantains can survive.

It took Chen Jian three days to clearly assign the tasks of each team, and he also clearly told these people that the food they received belonged to them, and they did not need to be handed over to the tribe, and they could go to Fangshi to exchange for what they liked.

Although this road is still in the plan, it will be completed one day. Chen Jian returned to the city after distributing these matters.

In the few days after he left, everything in the city was operating normally, which was a good sign, and it proved that the city had gradually started to get on the right track.

Because of the large amount of ore, roads need to be built, and salt boiling, another industry far away from the city, does not require such a large amount of transportation, so Chen Jian just sent people to burn a small road, and used donkeys to transport the boiled salt. Salt, at the same time sent food supplies to the salt village.

Every day, donkeys laden with salt came into the city, were weighed and inspected, and then piled into the warehouse.Then the person in charge prepares the food that needs to be transported back, and let these donkeys carry it back.

There are ships on the wharf transporting various goods to E City every day, and the first batch of caravans to the Acropolis has already set off, transporting relatively light but high-value goods such as salt, sugar, honey, linen, and agricultural tools. , Chen Jian asked them to exchange for slaves.

In addition to going to the Acropolis to exchange slaves, a group of slaves would often be sent to the Yangguan slave market for exchange. After the tribe got the weapons and food from Xiacheng, they could continue to conquer smaller tribes, and their strength increased day by day.

What Chen Jian gave them was crushed wheat grains instead of a single seed. He tried his best to tie the survival of their tribes with exchanging slaves. At the same time, he also promised that if they were retaliated by those tribes, Yangguan would send troops help them.

There are more than a dozen squads of soldiers stationed in Yangguan all the time, and the rule is to rotate every two months. Because it is not too far away from Xiacheng, the problem of supplies is not a big problem.

Those shepherd slaves who escaped from the grassland also made their homes near Yangguan. When they came back, the heads in their hands had already rotted and maggots, but they still did not throw them away. They kept in mind what Chen Jian had said before, and these heads would be The guarantee of their new life.

Chen Jian sent some people to appease them, and fulfilled his original promise. Some of the sheep brought back were given to those people, and half of the remaining sheep were driven back, and the rest were raised in Yangguan. Forage and winter food were provided for the new slaves.

There were more than 200 people who came back, none of them belonged to the same tribe. Chen Jian also saved a lot of trouble and didn't need to think about division and disintegration. These people will become members of Xiacheng as wild people.

These people have been raising horses and sheep on the grassland for a long time, and Chen Jian selected a few people from them to be responsible for raising livestock.

The whole city is like a wind-up toy, running step by step.

More and more rules let the clansmen know what to do and what not to do, and also let the clansmen have new hopes and pursuits after they are full, a spiritual pursuit that transcends the desire for survival and desires to be respected.

The newly stepped road also gradually extended around Xiacheng as the center, connecting the three cities of Xia, E, and Wei together, and at the same time radiating to the tribes in the surrounding mountains and forests.

Chapter 27 The Acropolis

The season when the autumn grass is yellowing is very suitable for travel. There are not so many mosquitoes in summer. The cow pulling the cart can save the effort of flicking its tail. The coachman just flicks his whip occasionally. The old cow knows that the coachman is reluctant to beat him, so he refuses to speed up pace.

On a small road with shallow ruts on the south bank of the Caohe River, a caravan from Xiacheng was heading towards the Acropolis with goods, six ox carts, twenty donkeys carrying goods, and more than a dozen men and women. .

This is the second batch of caravans from Xiacheng to the Acropolis. It is estimated that they will arrive at the Acropolis before the Lidong Festival. Last time, the caravan returned thirty slaves. Become this kind of talking tool.

Along the way the men discussed how this fall was too busy to hold a sports meeting like last year.

The coachman and the people around him muttered, "Ji Xia originally said that there will be a driver this time. The rewards last time were combs and pig-tooth pendants. Now that the city has everything, the rewards this time must be better."

"Even if you don't have those rewards, whoever runs the fastest and shoots the most accurately will know the whole city. Otherwise, there are thousands of people in the city now, so it's not easy for everyone to recognize him. You can also Don't worry, didn't Jixia say that it won't be autumn anymore, it will be in May and June."

The coachman sighed: "I also know, if only people from Echeng and Weicheng participate, there will be too many people."

"What are you afraid of? How many people in the two cities can drive? It's the civet cats, wolf skins, and the like who can run fast and shoot accurately."

The coachman thought about it, the same thing happened, he couldn't help laughing, hummed a few songs circulating in Xiacheng, unplugged the cork on the gourd, took a sip of corn wine, and slapped his whip hard with his wrist.

The women in the car didn't care much about this, they just curiously gathered around Hong Yu, the leader of the caravan, and asked some women eternal topics.

Red Fish subconsciously touched his lower abdomen, listened to the curious question of the woman next to him, and smiled naturally: "How do I know whose problem it is? I haven't slept with anyone before, and he probably hasn't slept with anyone else either, right?" ? Who knows who has no children because of..."

An older woman whispered a few words in her ear, or her voice was a little louder, which made all the women around her laugh.

While joking, someone walked up to the car and asked Hong Yu, "There are still four or five miles ahead to the house built by the caravan. Are you going to live there today?"

"Then rest there for a night. According to the rules, we have to prepare enough firewood before we leave and put it in the house."

"Ok."

The reason why I asked Red Fish was because of respect, and the reason for respect was not because of Chen Jian, but because she stood up and completed the task of building a stable when no one else dared to take it on.

Today's Xiacheng is like this, whoever can stand out and do something that the clansmen will remember will win the respect of others.

Red Fish enjoys this kind of respect, from a priest of a rival tribe to a bystander in a city that has grown from nothing, until now he has also become a participant.

I don’t know when, the last time when Chen Jian went to conquer the tribes in the north, it was reported that Red Fish arranged the city. Apart from being surprised, the tribesmen felt that this woman was ruthless, because after Chen Jian left During that time, all her former clan members were arranged by her on Luodao and were not allowed to leave for a whole month.

Such words sometimes reached her ears, but she just pretended not to hear them.

In fact, she made this decision because she still cared about her former clansmen. She was worried that the clansmen would rebel when Chen Jian left. It was meaningless, and Chen Jian had promised five years Later, the tribe will be given freedom and a little bit of land.She is a very pragmatic person, and she understands that this is the only way to get the people out of slavery, and the other ways are impossible, so she throws the people and slaves on Luodao, for fear of any trouble.

This is all she can do for her people. Since she didn't want to be a windmill that turns with the wind, she naturally wouldn't say some pleading words when the two of them get along—that way, she would always feel like a bull. The goods on the car, exchanging her body for what she wants, this is something she cannot and does not want to accept.

From burning mountains, painting calligraphy, guarding the city to stables, everything depends on my own mind, so I feel at ease when I eat the corn and wheat flour that rewards myself, and I never feel that it is a kind of charity.

From the beginning, it was just to eat, and gradually gained respect and recognition in the city, and I began to agree with the city.

There are already traces of oneself in the city. Even though the words on the walls are washed away by the rain, they will remain in the minds of the people in the city forever.

This time leading the caravan to the Acropolis, the people in the city did not have any objections. Before leaving, Chen Jian talked to her a lot. This was not a simple exchange.

According to the caravan who went to the Acropolis for the first time, the Acropolis is about 300 miles away from the Caohe River. Because no one has ever walked by, there is no road at all.

Chen Jian sent people to clear a simple road along the route the caravan took for the first time, and built several huts at distances of tens of miles to provide a place for future caravans to stay.

The house is not big, and there are some firewood piled outside, which are all dried in the sun. After the caravan uses them, some trees will be cut down and piled up. When the next batch of caravans arrives, the firewood will be dry.

The solitary house in the wilderness was completely unattended, but when Red Fish saw the hut, he found a few people squatting on the open space beside the hut to make a fire. Obviously there was a lot of dry firewood piled up next to the hut, and there were also firewood inside. Big earthen pots can boil water, but these people use picked branches to bake food there.

Red Fish recognized one of them as Wei Xi who had been to Xiacheng, and he was burning a rabbit there at the moment, and shouted from a distance: "Are you a caravan from Xiacheng?"

"Yeah, it's cold outside, why don't you go inside?"

"This is your house, we can't enter it. We can't burn your firewood. If the owner is not around, if you enter someone else's house casually, that is a violation of the city's laws and you will be punished."

"Now the master has come, I invite you to go in and warm up, is that okay?"

Wei Xi smiled and nodded to express his gratitude. After entering the house, he put the wild things on the ground with some embarrassment and said, "Your food in Xiacheng is delicious, help us to make some."

Red Fish asked the people to pick up the wild animals by the way. Wei Xi warmed up by the fire for a while, and sighed: "Your place is very good. When the cows and donkeys come here, they will have fodder to eat, and the firewood will be dry. This time, you What goods did you bring?"

"They are all commonly used. Are you here to hunt?"

"Yeah, it will be Lidong in two days. My brother wants to sacrifice to heaven to celebrate this year's good harvest. I will chase a deer for my brother. If you go with me, you can just see the Lidong Festival when we sacrifice to God. You Is this caravan leader?"