Qin Official

"Prince Censor, if you go further, you will reach the last barrier of this trip." The official in black ran to the car to report.

Supervisor Shi Linglu nodded, closed the bamboo slips on his knees, and asked: "Which captain's camp is this?"

"It's Lieutenant Li You, commanding the soldiers and civilians of Nanjun. He sent Army Commander Zhang Han to supervise the work."

"Li You, Zhang Han?"

Linglu pondered for a moment and said secretly: "Li Younai is the son of Tingwei Li Si. He became the chief of Zuo Shu at a young age and was in charge of the military affairs of a county. The king has high hopes for it. And Zhang Han is an official of the Shaofu and has always been capable. known as."

"I wonder if the turrets built by these two men are any different?"

Turning his head on the chariot, Linglu could clearly see that on the horizon with withered vegetation was a fortress that was more than ten feet high and stretched for hundreds of miles. It is like a big yellow curtain, artificially dividing the Huaibei Plain, with Qin in the west and Chu in the east. Every hundred steps, there is a turret more than two feet high standing on the barrier, with drums and flags on it, and a group of fully armed soldiers manning crossbows, standing guard on it vigilantly.

This was the fifth day after Linglu set out. He was originally a supervisor, subordinate to the Yushi Mansion, and was placed in the county. He was responsible for supervising officials and reporting directly to the King of Qin. Together with the county lieutenant, he restrained the extremely powerful county guard. .

The censor also has the responsibility of supervising the administration of various Cao Cao in the county, as well as recommending talents found in the local area to the central government. During the war, Linglu, as the "Censor of Chen County", had to change his identity and serve as Wang Jian's envoy to supervise the projects on the front line. , the progress of canal transportation.

The entire barrier is divided into thirty sections, each section is basically five to ten miles long. One mile in Qin State is 300 paces, so three turrets must be built for each mile.

Along the way, Linglu was not satisfied with the quality of the entire project. Perhaps it was because of the soil quality. In his eyes, these hastily built barriers and turrets were really poor. Turrets, in particular, require greater rigidity than ramparts. But Linglu let people just pick at it with their spears, and a large piece of the rammed earth on the turret would fall off. Some military commanders built turrets with adobe, mixed with straw and branches to increase the strength of the bond. Just barely passed the test.

"But if the Chu army comes to attack and destroy this turret with flying rocks, it will not be difficult!"

The so-called flying stone is a catapult. It was made by Fan Li during the Wuyue struggle for hegemony. It has always been a commonly used instrument for siege and defense and barrier battles. It is not effective against thick city walls, but it is the nemesis of turrets and watchtowers.

Linglu could imagine that when the Chu army came to attack in large numbers, they only needed to send flying rocks weighing ten kilograms and hit them several times before the fragile turret collapsed...

Therefore, he had very strict requirements on the quality of the turrets, punished several military commanders in succession, and asked them to lead civilians to re-reinforce the turrets.

Along the way, the censor, who knew a lot about civil engineering, had a gloomy face. It wasn't until he arrived at the southernmost section where Nanjun soldiers were responsible that he showed a surprised expression.

The ramparts in charge of the Nanjun citizens were no different from the ones he had seen before, but at the first glance of the more than ten turrets from a distance, Linglu discovered what was unusual about them...

Looking from hundreds of steps away, the red-yellow turrets were tall and thick. After getting closer, Linglu discovered that the bottoms were made of large pebbles or stones.

"This is to prevent rainwater from soaking and making the foundation of the turret unstable." Zhang Han, the military commander in charge of this section, hurriedly came to greet him and explained at the side.

"Dry-built with pebbles, it won't be pried open?"

A clerk next to Linglu asked, but Linglu glared at him: "Didn't you notice that these big pebbles were deliberately turned with the big end inward and the small end outward?"

Linglu was not a layman who didn't know anything. On the contrary, he also worked in Shaofu for a period of time and even participated in the excavation of Zheng Guo Canal.

He knew very well that after the thick rammed earth wall was pressed against the base of the wall, it would be extremely difficult to pry the big pebbles away from the outside.

Sure enough, after a few people pried it away with iron shovels for a long time, the pebble foundations didn't move at all...

Such a turret foundation would not be easy even if the Chu army came close and wanted to quickly destroy it with holes.

Linglu was quite satisfied. He raised his head again and touched the outer wall of the turret. It was hard and dry. This was what surprised him the most. The turret looked like stone, and it was more flexible, allowing people to knock it with iron tools. Smashing it, it made the sound of gold and stone! It takes a lot of effort to break through the wall. Where can such good soil come from around here?

"This is the three combined soils."

Zhang Han explained his doubts and invited a black-faced leader over: "We also used ordinary loess to ram it at first, but due to poor soil quality, the turrets we built were fragile. Fortunately, Mr. Hei The leader taught me how to build houses in his hometown..."

"oh?"

This was new, and Ling Lu became interested and asked Hei Fu and Zhang Han to explain it in detail.

"Mix common loess, fired mirage ash, and river sand together, and this is Sanhe soil."

Heifu said it was easy, but the project in the past half month was not easy. First, the workers had to pound the loess finely and ferment it to become mature soil, and then dig fine river sand from the nearby river. Transported across miles of distance.

This is nothing, the most troublesome thing is the firing of "mirage ash". Mirage ash is also called oyster ash. When oyster shells are calcined, a product similar to lime can be obtained. In the Qin State, this kind of material was used in everything from building palaces and bridges to building houses and ditches. It is said that it was more prosperous on the coast of Yanqi.

Although common sense tells Heifu that similar products can be obtained by firing limestone, but where can we find limestone on the deep front? Anyway, there were only a dozen or so turrets that needed to be built, so some were fired using the traditional method from oyster shells from Ru River and its tributaries. Due to the limited quantity, these mirage ash only accounted for one-fifth of the proportion of Sanhe soil.

After the three are mixed together, they must be continuously beaten and turned with a mallet, and then stacked and left for a period of time to allow them to fuse and ferment. After a few days, they can be used as building materials.

The construction process still involves building with rammed earth, but it requires continuous sprinkling of water, wet ash, and alternate ramming to solidify the three-piece soil. At the same time, some gravel was added for reinforcement. After thousands of people worked for half a month, the building was built in front of us. This sturdy turret has better performance than ordinary turrets.

The more Ling Lu listened, the brighter his eyes became. Finally, he waved his hand and ordered someone to use the slingshot used in the army to throw flying stones at a turret built with three-tone earth!

The aim of the flying stone weapon was very low, but the first blow was too high and barely missed the side of the turret. The second blow was also deflected. It was not until the third blow that the stone weighing more than ten kilograms hit the target. The middle part of the turret!

A turret is different from a city wall. Flying stones are its nemesis. If it were an ordinary turret, a large piece of it would have collapsed. However, this turret made of three-component soil did not move at all. When everyone rushed to the side and took a look, they all gasped. It turned out that the stone only smashed off a palm-sized wall, leaving a small groove...

Heifu's anxious heart was finally relieved. Although the strength of the three-in-one earth turret was far inferior to the earth buildings he saw in later generations because of the insufficient proportion of lime, it had at least withstood the test.

His hometown in his previous life was in the south, and there was an ancient earth building in the town, which was built with Sanhe earth. I heard that in addition to loess, lime, river sand, glutinous rice soup, egg white, shell powder, gum, brown sugar and other things must be added. To be exaggerated, the earth building made in this way is simply invulnerable!

In his previous life, Heifu heard some old people say that during the early wars, someone tried to break down the building with cannonballs, but the result was that the shell only made a few small dents in the earthen building. And in that special ten years, someone tried to demolish an earthen building. As a result, they used swords, guns and sticks to prevent it from being demolished. Finally, dozens of kilograms of explosives were used to blow it up, and a piece of it collapsed...

It can be seen that its resistance function is so strong that it can be said to be unprecedented in this era! With the strength and accuracy of the catapults, it would probably take more than ten of them and half a day to destroy one.

However, there are advantages and disadvantages. The biggest problem of Sanhetu is that the cost is too high. Even without the addition of glutinous rice soup, egg whites, etc., it is still two or three times that of ordinary turrets...

So, when Ling Luxiao asked them with interest how much manpower and time they spent, Zhang Han and Heifu also cleverly apologized to Ling Lu: "I dare to say to the censor, these more than ten turrets, the hours of work used , the manpower required is more than that of ordinary turrets..."

But Linglu didn't care: "The turrets are used to defend against enemies. What's the use of building a turret that can collapse in one blow?"

"Old General Wang ordered us to build a strong wall to defend it. What is a strong wall?" He once again patted the Sanhe rammed earth turret fondly: "This is called a strong wall!"

His face changed from the gloom he had been having for the past few days, and he praised Heifu and Zhang Han endlessly, and even said that he would ask for credit from General Wang on their behalf! Zhang Han also glanced at Hei Fu, feeling quite grateful.

"This building made of three-piece rammed earth is simply indestructible! If it can be generalized and used in other places..."

As a censor from Xianyang, Linglu knew that King Qin's plan was not only to destroy Chu, but also to conquer the whole world. The king also showed great interest in the seemingly desolate and barbaric places around Kyushu when looking at the maps.

"Everywhere you go, there are those who are loyal to you!"

This sentence sounds so thrilling and exciting.

The role of the turrets and fortresses built by these three combined earths in the battle to destroy Chu was actually very limited, but the future prospects are very promising!

Linglu was thinking very far, but at this moment, a fierce drumbeat broke his thoughts!

"Dong-dong-dong-dong!"

The drums beat rapidly, ringing from every turret, deafening! The soldiers above were still holding the flag and waving it desperately!

The civilians were a little panicked, but the Qin soldiers who had been waiting for a long time in armor and weapons couldn't help but feel refreshed!

"Light the beacon!"

Under Heifu's order, the soldiers immediately lit the dry dung and firewood that had been prepared on the turret. The thick smoke billowed, and with the north wind, it drifted diagonally to the blue winter sky...

Soon, countless black smoke rose from the two hundred-mile-long Qin Army barrier from south to north, telling hundreds of thousands of Qin troops along the line a message:

"The Chu people are coming!"

ps: I have to think about the follow-up plot tonight, so I will update it tomorrow. By the way, because there is another alliance leader, I currently owe 8_% chapters.