Volume 1 Chushan Bandits Chapter 70: Name and Reality
Hearing that Xu Huai wanted to build the blacksmith furnace in Jinshagou, Liu Qiong'er asked doubtfully:
"Why?"
Now we are fully committed to building a new village on the east slope of Lion Camel Ridge. Manpower and supplies are in short supply. The east slope of Lion Camel Ridge is close to the Lutai villages. It only takes two or three miles of rugged mountain roads to deliver supplies from the Lutai north village to the new village. However, there is not even a decent path on the Jinshagou side.
Before, Xu Wujiang and others were forced to hide in Jinshagou, carrying 100 to 200 kilograms of food every three to five days, which was not a big problem. But Xu Huai now said that he wanted to build a blacksmith furnace in Jinshagou. In addition to the materials needed for the initial construction and the houses where the craftsmen lived, they would have to transport raw and cooked iron materials regularly , and build cellars nearby to burn charcoal. It would be impossible to solve the supply problem by carrying 200 to 300 kilograms of food every three to five days.
If we want to find a place near Jinshagou to build a defensive village, the cost will be even greater.
"I say that a cunning rabbit should have three burrows. Do you believe it?" Xu Huai asked with a smile.
"I don't believe it." Liu Qiong'er said.
"I'm telling you that if you don't start a new business in Jinshagou, your title as the Third Chief is just a fake. Do you believe it?" Xu Huai asked.
"As if I am happy to be the third leader?" Liu Qiong'er glanced at Xu Huai with her beautiful eyes and asked, "Are you worried that Xu Wufu is so generous because he is sure that he will be able to control Xuwujiang in the future, and you and Xu Wufu will inevitably have disagreements..."
Xu Huai nodded and said, "Yes, I do have this concern, but the main thing is that we can decide for ourselves whatever we do in Jinshagou, right? If we were in Lion Camel Ridge or Xiema Mountain, there would always be many inconveniences if we disagree with others."
"The key is that there is no reason to convince them." Liu Qiong'er said.
"Women can be a little willful, especially since you are a beautiful woman who calls yourself 'Chushan Yaksha Fox'." Xu Huai said with a smile.
"I can find an excuse to insist on staying in Jinshagou, but what about the money and food?" Liu Qiong'er said, "I spent more than 500 strings of cash to build the new camp at Lion Camel Ridge. Now it's impossible to get it back. I only have 100 strings of cash left. As long as Xu Wufu and the others hold on to the money bag and don't give me money and food, what can I accomplish even if I'm willful?"
"There is gold sand at the bottom of Jinshagou Creek." Xu Huai said.
"Oh," Liu Qiong'er couldn't help but sneer, saying, "A strong laborer standing in the stream to pan for gold, can he exchange it for two kilograms of food a day? The soft stream at the bottom of Jinshagou Creek can be used to pan for gold sand. There are few villages and clans who don't know about this for hundreds of years. But in recent years, except for those who really can't find a way to make a living, who would go there to pan for gold?"
"..."Xu Huai smiled but said nothing.
"Do you have any method that can make one person do the work of several people?" Liu Qiong'er couldn't help but ask curiously.
"Didn't Uncle Seventeen and his men recruit fifty or sixty remaining bandits? Since these people were abandoned by Pan Chenghu as a diversionary force, most of them should be old, weak, sick and disabled. If they were all left in Xiema Mountain, they would actually be of no use. You pick out a dozen or twenty of the most useless ones and recruit them to Jinshagou as the foundation. These people will be enough in the early stage!" Xu Huai said, "As for the method of obtaining gold, I will naturally teach you so that your name, Yaksha Fox, will be more famous!"
…
…
Xu Huai and Liu Qiong'er walked back to the rear camp, which only had a dozen simple huts. Xu Wuqi and Zhou Jing were in charge of leading the tribe's soldiers and needed to patrol to prevent the remnants of bandits who had fled to the mountains from invading Yuhuangling. They had already left.
Xu Bosong, Xu Zhongyu and Xu Wufu stayed here to discuss things with Xu Wujiang, Su Laochang and Xu Guanshan.
Xu Wufu and the others didn't care much about Liu Qiong'er's leaving just now and her coming back with Xu Huai, and they didn't intend to ask them for advice.
From this, Liu Qiong'er could also see that they didn't care much about her, the so-called third leader of the village.
Liu Qiong'er felt somewhat resentful, but she was even more determined to follow Xu Huai's advice and decide to start a new business in Jinshagou. She immediately sat beside Xu Huai and listened to their discussion.
In addition to discussing many details such as the construction of a new village, the reclamation of Lion Camel Ridge, and the opening of mountain roads, the land in Yuhuang Ridge is scarce and the population is large. Hundreds of young and middle-aged people have been forced to go out to make a living. Before, Xu Wufu only gathered back the clan members who were related to the clan's business in Biyang and Huaiyuan.
There are still more tribesmen scattered outside to make a living, but Xu Wufu has no reason and no power to order them all to return to Yuhuangling.
However, when the situation is critical, these clansmen are one of the indispensable backbone forces of the Xu family.
Xu Wufu was troubled by how to call these tribesmen back to Yuhuangling.
Liu Qiong'er listened to them discussing several excuses, but none of them seemed feasible. She laughed and said, "Seeing how worried you are about this, do you want me, a woman, to give you some advice?"
"Miss Liu, if you have any ideas, please feel free to give me some advice." Xu Wufu was a patient person. At this time, he was able to bow to Xu Wujiang, so he naturally did not hesitate to ask Liu Qiong'er for advice.
"If Xu's family takes out money and expands the scale of reclamation of Lion Camel Ridge, won't they have an excuse to call back the young and strong people who are making a living outside to Lutai Village?" Liu Qiong'er said, "The reclamation of the new village on the east slope of Lion Camel Ridge and the nearby mountain fields is currently only arranged on a small scale of more than a hundred families, which does not require much manpower and material resources. But if a new village is also built in Jinshagou at the same time, and a large water storage pond is built between Yuhuang Ridge and Lion Camel Ridge to reclaim and irrigate 3,000 to 4,000 acres of mountain fields in the mountain valley, will Xu's family have enough reason to call back all the young and strong people who are making a living outside, and can also legitimately purchase a large amount of food, ironware and other materials from outside for storage?"
"The valley between Yuhuang Ridge and Lion Camel Ridge is steep and rocky. In the summer, mountain torrents pour down. How can we build large ponds to store water and reclaim farmland? Isn't Miss Liu taking it for granted?" Although everyone finally accepted Liu Qiong'er's statement, Liu Qiong'er directly encouraged Xu Huai to assassinate Guo Caoling without saying a word in advance. Su Laochang still felt uncomfortable and his tone of voice was still stiff.
Xu Wufu, Xu Bosong and Xu Zhongyu looked at each other and shook their heads, simply to express that Liu Qiong'er's self-proclaimed ability to make decisions and plans was somewhat armchair, and her knowledge of the art of governing the world was limited.
Xu Wukun, Xu Wuliang and others had heard Xu Huai talk about the rolling dam, so when they saw Liu Qiong'er bring it up at this time, they just looked at each other and didn't point out the secret.
"……snort!"
Liu Qiong'er snorted coldly, picked up the paper and ink on the desk, and sketched the mountain valley between Yuhuang Ridge and Shituo Ridge. She also added rolling dams in places where the terrain was easy.
Liu Qiong'er is good at playing the piano, chess, calligraphy and painting. She could draw a simple topographical sketch very accurately with just a few strokes.
Liu Qiong'er threw the pen and said proudly: "You can build a rolling dam according to my method..."
"Can this rolling dam be built this way?" Su Laochang asked hesitantly.
"Why not? Each rolling dam is only three or four feet high. With the financial resources of the Xu family, it is quite easy to build. If the rainwater stored in the stream exceeds three or four feet high, it will be discharged to the next pond, rolling down one level at a time, hence the name 'rolling water'. In this way, the water storage scale of each level of pond will be controlled, and there is no need to worry about the low rolling dam being crushed. The amount of water intercepted by more than ten or twenty rolling dams from top to bottom is considerable enough. More importantly , there are heavy rains in summer, but after the rolling dams intercept the flow layer by layer and slow down the water flow, it will be difficult to form mountain torrents that harm the fields and houses in the valley..." said Liu Qiong'er.
Several generations of the Xu family have reclaimed Yuhuangling and the surrounding mountains, especially in the reclamation of mountains, and have accumulated a lot of experience in the construction of ponds. This is why it was not difficult for Xu Wufu, Xu Bosong, Xu Zhongyu and Su Laochang to understand the magic of the method taught by Liu Qiong'er.
Seeing that Xu Wufu and the others were indeed interested, Liu Qiong'er said proudly:
"If this fails, all the wasted money and grain will be blamed on me, Liu Qiong'er. In addition to having an excuse to summon the young and strong back to Yuhuangling, the completion of these rolling dams will, on the one hand, give the Xu family an extra 3,000 to 4,000 acres of fertile land, and on the other hand, the Lutai villages and the Lion Camel Ridge will form a closer whole, without the risk of external enemies spying on them. This plan is given to the Xu family for free, so that you won't look down on women anymore!"
The shallow rolling dams built between the mountain valleys not only store rainwater in a graded manner for irrigation and daily needs, but also serve as roads connecting Yuhuangling and Shituoling when there is no stream water flowing down from upstream when the weather is clear and there is no rain.
Even though Xu Guanshan, Xu Bosong, Xu Zhongyu and others didn't know much about the defense of the city, they could see the benefits of it.
Otherwise, before the powerful enemy arrived at Yuhuang Ridge, as long as they kept an eye on the mouth of Qingliu Creek, it would be easy to cut off the connection between the new village on the east slope of Shituo Ridge and Lutai Village.
"Mr. Xu has indeed been negligent, please don't blame me, Miss Liu." Xu Wufu apologized .
"Master Xu, please don't say such cheap words. Help me build a new village in Jinshagou, which shows your sincerity." Liu Qiong'er said to Xu Wufu.
"Jinshagou is a bit remote, right?" said Xu Wufu.
"Jinshagou is one of the gateways to Xiema Mountain. No matter how difficult it is, we should build a camp here to prevent powerful enemies from infiltrating from here in the future," Liu Qiong'er said. "Also, if I, the third camp leader, go to manage a camp alone, I won't be looked down upon by you. I'm also going to say this today. If you don't allow me, don't expect me to give you any advice in the future!"
"Miss Liu, what you said means that we should all work together. Miss Liu, you want to build a village in Jinshagou and help Xu's family to make up for the gaps. How can we not allow it?" Xu Wufu said slyly, "But if we want to build so many rolling dams between Yuhuang Ridge and Shituo Ridge, the money and food consumed will be a lot. What's more, there are too many things that need to be taken care of one by one. There is no spare energy to take care of Jinshagou in a short time. Miss Liu, don't worry, as long as Xu's family has a little more money, you can ask for people or money and food, just say it."
"I don't need the Xu family to provide money and food. Xu Wujiang recruited some remnants of the bandits yesterday and gave me the ten or twenty old, weak and sick ones that he despised the most. In addition, the young and strong people of the Xu family have returned home. You just need to allow me to hire them to work here," Liu Qiong'er stared at Xu Wufu with a tense face and asked in a somewhat unfriendly tone, "I have said this, will the head of the Xu family still refuse to allow it?"
"Look at what Miss Liu said, how could I refuse?" Having been forced into a corner by Liu Qiong'er, and not being able to see through her true colors, Xu Wufu could not turn his face away, so he could only bite the bullet and agree...
