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Chapter 904


At the first glance of the territory, the old iron spear fell in love with it.

Green hills, green water, and land by the river.

"This is the lord of Shangluo County, and the hundred miles of land along the Xuanhe River are your fiefdoms."

Li Chao looked at the clear Xuanshui River in front of him, and he also liked it very much.

The mountains are high and the forests are dense, but there are also many rivers and streams.

Although there is less land than the plains of Hebei, there is still a lot of arable land in the valley and riverbank, and it is even an undeveloped virgin land.

The Xuan River is a large tributary of the Luan River, but the section of the river in front of it is not deep.

The river beach is very wide, but the water is very shallow, the river is 100 zhang wide, but only the middle of the river about ten zhang has water, the water is not deep, now at this time, the river surface has begun to melt ice, that is, up to the knee or so.

A herb picker who is familiar with this terrain acts as a guide and introduces Li Chao that when it rains heavily in summer, there will be a brief rise in water, and the river will be deeper at that time, and most of the time the water is not deep.

"Can I sail?"

Li Chao asked.

Along the way, although the mountains and rivers are beautiful, Li Chao also found a problem, that is, the traffic here is really not good.

After all, this is the Yanshan Mountain Range, and there is the second highest peak of Yanshan Mountain nearby.

The mountains are high and densely forested, and they are sparsely populated, and being outside the Great Wall means that it is inaccessible.

In ancient times, mountain roads were difficult to travel, and more people had to rely on river transportation.

However, when Li Chao looked at the river, it was knee-deep, and he could see the stones at the bottom of the river when he stood far away.

"From the upstream downstream, you can go down the river in small boats, or you can just release the boat.

Along the river can go all the way to the river, but there will be a lot of dangerous shoals.

But if you go up from the downstream, it is more difficult, and those dangerous shoals have to be stretched. ” Because this is outside the Guan, there were few people living here in the past, there was no security, and it was easy to be attacked by the Hu people.

Only those herb pickers and hunters will come, and they usually come by rowing boats, and when they encounter dangerous shoals, they will directly carry the boats ashore and go around.

When you go back, you can carry the goods and go down the river, which is also convenient.

After listening to the guide's confirmation, Li Chao was a little disappointed.

It seems that this river has limited transportation capacity, and small boats and small rows are equivalent to a horse-drawn carriage.

Don't count on a bigger boat, but it's okay, although you can only cross a small boat, but a small boat still has many advantages over a horse-drawn carriage.

When we reached the river, there were boats waiting.

"Steward Wang asked me to wait here, saying that Xiangguo and Lao Linggong are coming."

It was a man from the Li family who got off the boat, or a lord of the Shangluo County Duke.

"Where the castle was built, show us the way in front of our heads."

Li Chao and his party had a lot of people, and they came with an army of 20,000, and the first stop was to go to the territory castle first.

It has been several months since the Shangluo County Princesses began planning last year and recruited craftsmen and civilians.

A guy led the way, and Li Chao led the team up the river.

The castle of the lord chosen by the craftsman was not in Qinglong Town in the later generations, but in Shuangshanzi.

Qinglong Town is not on the edge of the Qinglong River, but dozens of miles away from the Qinglong River.

Shuangshanzi, on the other hand, is on the side of the Qinglong River, which is a large river valley.

The craftsman directly chose the location in the center of this territory, surrounded by mountains and rivers.

The city is built according to the water, which is the habit of Chinese city building, and it is really good to choose this location to build the city.

But now it's not called Shuangshanzi.

The Qinglong River has made several bends here, like a winding dragon, and the green river water looks really like a green dragon.

Water is the source of life, and rivers are the mother of humanity.

Only with good water can we give birth to excellent people.

"Arrived" The guy pointed to the front and shouted.

The front suddenly opened up a lot, surrounded by mountains, a very open river valley.

The two rivers meet here to form a Y-shape.

The castle is located on the north bank of the right tributary that joins the Xuan River.

Nestled against the mountains and by the water.

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"This address is well chosen, you look at that land, the north pillow mountain, the south of the river, especially the river has an arc, so that if this land is a month and a half."

The steward in charge of the construction of the realm hurried in.

"The widest from east to west is five miles, and the longest from north to south is three miles, and the whole is a half-moon shape."

The castle is still under construction, a large construction site, and sheds everywhere.

There are quite a few people, thousands of them.

These men were both builders and recruited people of the territory.

When the lord's castle is built, then build a tunzhuang village and reclaim the tuntian.

According to Steward Wang, they finally chose this location, and they also took a fancy to the terrain and location here.

Surrounded by mountains and rivers, a large flat land, it is good to build a castle, and the land here is just right for cultivation.

In addition, the river in front is a tributary of Xuanshui, which is not wide, and it is also shallower than Xuanshui, so it is convenient to cross the river.

Li Chao is very satisfied with this.

Dad is also very satisfied, this place is beautiful, and I liked it at first sight.

"What is the name of this river?"

Li Chao asked, in later generations, this river should be a river.

"In the past, people here called Xuanshui Qinglong River, called this tributary Huanglong River, legend has it that there were two dragons before, Huanglong was violent, often flooded, and harmed people a lot.

Later, Qinglong looked for Huanglong's theory, Huanglong attacked Qinglong instead, and the two dragons fought, and in the end both were defeated, Qinglong killed Huanglong, but later Huanglong was also seriously injured and died.

After the death of the two dragons, they became two rivers, so later generations called them the Qinglong River and the Huanglong River. ” Li Chao smiled, this story is full of mythology, but if you study it carefully, you can also see something.

The Qinglong River is green, and the Huanglong River, the water is muddy, it may be the reason for frequent flash floods, the two rivers converge, you can see that the water of the Qinglong River is greener, so someone has come up with such a mythical story.

But the name is really good, Qinglong River, Huanglong River.

"Well, let's keep calling it from now on."

The two rivers meet here, and the valley here is much wider, the river is wider, and the water is deeper.

"There are a lot of fish and shrimp in this river, and we build a city here and fish from the river, which can save a lot of food, so as not to be transported from Hebei with hard work."

"That's a good thing."

There are many fish in the water here, which greatly reduces the pressure on food, and looking at the three-forked river, it also makes it convenient to transport here.

The foundation of the castle has been laid, and the next step is to build the house.

The castle was designed by Li Chao himself, a stone castle that is not too big, but the defensive function is absolutely strong, this is still a prismatic fortress, and the castle is a foundation, so that the whole castle is on a one-zhang high earthen platform.

This kind of Taicheng, in fact, has a bit of the architectural characteristics of the Han Dynasty, such as Cao Cao's Tongque Terrace, which is such a Taicheng.

Many of the castles of the Europeans were built on hills, and later forts would also deliberately build a pedestal, so that the castle and the side formed a slope, which greatly increased the defensive performance.

"It took a lot of man-hours to build this foundation, and without it, the castle would have progressed much faster."

The steward said.

Raising the foundations of the entire castle is no small task.

"It won't be in vain."

On the one hand, it can enhance the defensive performance, and on the other hand, it can also avoid waterlogging in the castle and can effectively drain water.

After all, it is close to mountains and rivers, close to rivers.

"Is there any difficulty in building the castle?"

"It's okay, it's just that it's difficult to take the stone."

Li Chao thought for a while, "Let's build a brick cellar, I'll let someone transport cement over, and then I will directly use bricks."

As for the stones to be used for the foundation of the wall, I will give you some gunpowder, and it will be much more convenient to blow up the mountain and take the stones directly. ” Ordinary stones are quite backward, and even primitive methods such as boiling water by fire are used.

Now that there is gunpowder, it must be much simpler and more effective.

Of course, it is faster to build a brick cellar to burn bricks.

Compared with quarrying, burning bricks is more technical, but Li Ji of the Li family has built that the technology of burning bricks, burning cement and burning lime is very advanced, and with technology, burning bricks is faster and more labor-saving than directly quarrying stones.

However, it is still very expensive to build a castle privately, and the most important thing is the lack of labor.

Therefore, Li Chao could not build a big castle, but could only build a small castle.

It's not actually a city, it's just a castle, which can accommodate two or three thousand people in wartime, and in peacetime, it lives in a castle, and those craftsmen, at most there is a cross street, and dozens of shops are opened.

Most of the people still had to live outside the castle.

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When the castle is repaired, there will be some houses and so on.

This is also taking into account the cost.

"By the time the winter comes, it will definitely be repaired."

The king's steward whispered.

"It's been too long, first hurry up and repair the castle, build the outer wall first, then repair the main body of the castle, and then the barracks, warehouses, shops, etc. in the fort."

"But it's already spring, and we have to prepare for spring ploughing."

Li Chao said, "You can measure and distribute the land to the people who have been recruited, but this year we are not in a hurry to cultivate, we will build the castle first, and then hire the people to help build the city, pay them salaries and provide rations, I believe they will be willing, by the way, exempt them from the land rent for three years." ” "However, this tax will also be collected by the imperial court."

"Then we will pay one-third to the court on their behalf, and we will not collect our share."

The Li family is not short of money, now the territory has not been built, there is no business or anything, the tax on that bit of land is only three melons and two dates, Li Chao still attaches more importance to the defense of the castle.

If the territory is gone, it is really gone.

Dad felt that the castle designed by Li Chao was a bit too big.

"It's good to build a few houses, what's the use."

In his opinion, it would be good to build a bigger village, make a street in the city, build some shops, and all will live.

"Dad, this is the northern frontier, outside the Great Wall, and the north is the Hu people, so I have to guard against it."

Even if the Khitan and Xi people are weak, those chiefs may not dare to mess around, but they can't protect these Hu people below them, if the nearby Hu people are in trouble, or they are greedy, who can guarantee that they will not come to grab it.

"Then listen to you."

Dad thought about it, and finally listened to Li Chao's opinion.

His title, castle, and territory will still be passed on to his youngest son Li Yue in the future, so there is nothing wrong with being safe. t1706231537: