[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army":3,"chapter-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-24":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","A Little Soldier of the Late Ming Border Army",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1205313,1561,"Chapter 24: Building the Fort","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-24",24,"\u003Cp>The twelfth day of the ninth month of the seventh year of the Chongzhen reign.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By the later calendar this was already early November, and the Start of Winter was only days away — the weather grew ever colder.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou’s plan to recruit military households was also drawing to a close. As of today, according to the final register, Jingbian Fort still on paper had fifty-five resident households, with a total of two hundred and thirty men and women. Of these, one hundred and ten were males — seventy-five adult males and thirty-five young boys. One hundred and twenty were females — eighty-four girls aged thirteen or above and thirty-six young girls under thirteen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou ordered Zhong Rong to enter every one of these people into the register, producing both an original and a duplicate copy. Some of them had originally been outside refugees, and for them he also issued military household certificates, recording their names in the yellow military registers. From now on, their families would be Jingbian Fort military households for generations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jingbian Fort now had fifty-five military households with over two hundred souls — all solid, real numbers — making it one of the larger establishments among the several forts and villages of Shunxiang Fort. For the time being, these people were all living in dugout shelters built on the outer western side of Jingbian Post, and already the area had formed a village settlement.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And with the population quota filled, the construction of Jingbian Fort itself was now imminent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the thirteenth day, Han Chao and Qi Tianliang, on Wang Dou’s orders, went to Dongjiazhuang and Shunxiang Fort to recruit some masons, earthworkers, and carpenters to come and discuss building the fort.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That evening, Han Chao and the other man returned, bringing back seven or eight craftsmen in tattered clothes. Qi Tianliang had already negotiated with them: for wages, besides daily board and lodging, they were to be paid one fen of silver per day. Wang Dou agreed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When these craftsmen saw that Wang Dou had agreed, joy spread across their faces — at last they had a secure source of food for this winter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These men were all from hereditary artisan households and had already taken part in building many forts and towns. Planning and constructing Jingbian Fort was, in truth, a familiar, well-trodden task for them. After circling the area around Jingbian Post for a few days, they quickly produced a design plan for the fort, including the division of streets, the positions of wells, the locations of temples, and the placement of every residence, as well as future defensive works such as the fort walls, the fort gate, and the crenellations and firing ports atop the walls.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the question of siting, their opinion also matched Wang Dou’s: they all decided to build the fort immediately south of Jingbian Post. For one thing, this would give the defense better support; for another, Jingbian Post was originally built on a small raised mound, and the terrain sloped from high to low, which would help the fort’s drainage and prevent future troubles from waterlogging during heavy rains.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The plans were ready, and siting was no problem — the crux was the cost in coin and grain to build the fort.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to Lu Xiangsheng’s calculations, in the Great Ming, building a single beacon tower cost two hundred taels of silver; building a tower platform cost six hundred taels; and building a small fort with a perimeter of a little over one li cost more than seven hundred taels of silver and over six hundred shi of grain. The artisan households’ own estimates were roughly the same.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The planned perimeter of Wang Dou’s future Jingbian Fort was also just over one li, but he did not have over seven hundred taels of silver or over six hundred shi of grain on hand. He could only build the main body of the fort first, keep the details as simple as possible, and gradually think about completing it in the future. Wang Dou actually very much wanted to build Jingbian Fort in the style of a star fort, which would make its defense far stronger. Unfortunately, the cost of that was staggering, and Wang Dou did not have the financial means for it yet — he could only consider it later.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fortunately, the land for building the fort cost nothing, which saved a great deal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The main body of a typical Great Ming military fort consisted of barracks, granaries, fodder yards, armories, and horse yards inside the fort, plus the outer walls, gates, barbicans, corner towers, and moats, and the various garrison forts and villages everywhere were basically the same. But given Wang Dou’s current resources, he could only build the barracks and the walls first; the rest would have to wait.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once Wang Dou made his decision, the craftsmen quickly got busy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First, on the several dozen mu of land south of Jingbian Post, they skillfully marked out several dozen residential foundation plots and laid out access paths and three main streets.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, at the far end of the central axis on the due west side, the craftsmen immediately marked out the site for a temple — the soldiers and civilians of Baoan Prefecture generally called the temple in this position the “True King Temple.” At a street intersection they also marked out a plot where a “Horse King Temple” would be built in the future, and a tall opera stage would also be built there; opposite the stage a “Lord Guan Temple” would be built. In addition, at the southern end of the fort a “Goddess Temple” would be built.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Apart from these, on the eastern side of the fort, several plots were to be reserved for building shrines and temples to honor military merit in the future, such as the Banner Longevity Temple, the Loyalty Manifest Shrine, and the Honor the Loyal Shrine. Moreover, at the heart of each main street, spaces were to be left for building various market arcades and memorial arches.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This kind of layout was the conventional arrangement for military and civilian forts in the various frontier garrisons of the Great Ming at the time. Wang Dou naturally could not arbitrarily change it, nor was he capable of doing so. To be honest, in his later life Wang Dou had known nothing at all about architecture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And Wang Dou understood why the craftsmen immediately marked out sites for various temples — these were the spiritual sustenance of the soldiers and civilians of the time. In this world, entertainment was scarce; apart from visiting temples and watching operas, what other amusement was there? He recalled that when he was small in his later life, being able to go to the opera stage to watch a play had been his greatest pleasure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Such was the general layout of Jingbian Fort. Now it was time to start work. With a single order from Wang Dou, all the residents of Jingbian Fort — except the children — every man and woman, pitched in together. Everyone had to work hard to build their own home.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For a time, the residents of Jingbian Fort, men and women alike, all took up hoes and carried dustpans and baskets on shoulder poles, going to the perimeter of the fort to dig earth and carry it with all their might. Even the children sensibly helped out at the side.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, the fort walls and barracks could be built by ramming yellow earth, using soil taken on the spot, which required no material costs — only the expense of food and labor. But some costs were unavoidable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example, the foundations of the residences inside the fort and the foundations of the walls all required stone, and this stone had to be hard and resistant to weathering — blue stone was best. In particular, the foundations for building the fort walls all needed to be five chi deep and one zhang four chi wide. Over the full circuit of the wall foundations, the amount of stone required was very large.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then there was well-digging — the first priority in building a fort. Several dozen households could not all go to the river to carry drinking water. A small fort needed at least three wells. The groundwater was fairly abundant everywhere in Baoan Prefecture, so wells generally struck water at a little over twenty zhang, and the water was mostly clear, cold, and sweet. It was said that in some places in Shanxi and Shaanxi, wells had to be sunk thirty to forty zhang deep, or even fifty to sixty zhang, before water was seen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet even if the wells were only a little over twenty zhang deep, to prevent collapse they still had to be lined with brick and stone, so the amount of stone needed for these deep wells was also considerable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The land around Jingbian Fort was open and empty, with nowhere to quarry stone. They could only go to the hills around Luanzhuang or Shunxiang Fort to quarry. In fact, Luanzhuang was closer to Jingbian Fort, but that area was under the jurisdiction of Wubao and belonged to a different battalion from Shunxiang Fort, so they could only go to the hills around Shunxiang Fort to quarry.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The quarry there was a long way from Jingbian Fort, so the costs of quarrying and transport would presumably be very high. Moreover, besides stone, the roof beams for the various barracks and storehouses also required timber — another very large expense.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou sent out over twenty able-bodied men, led by Han Chao, to quarry stone in the hills of Shunxiang Fort. To make transporting the stone easier, he also went to Shunxiang Fort and hired several mule, horse, and ox carts. He required Han Chao to quarry as much stone as possible to supply the foundations of the barracks and the stone needed for the wells. As for paving the streets and the outer wall foundations, those could be dealt with gradually later.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the same time, Wang Dou made another trip to Dongjiazhuang to ask the Squad Commander Zhang Gui for support with some timber. Zhang Gui said that providing it free of charge was very difficult, but he happened to have a batch of idle timber on hand that he could sell to Wang Dou at a cheaper price.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou agreed. A few days later, the Squad Commander Hong Qiu of Dongjiazhuang led several dozen military households from the village, making them carry the timber on their shoulders, huffing and puffing all the way on foot from Dongjiazhuang. That fellow would not even part with a mule cart and used only human labor to carry the timber. Watching those Dongjiazhuang military households, so exhausted they were about to collapse, Wang Dou was speechless for a long while.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hong Qiu was a rough, hearty man nearing forty, with a full cheek of curly whiskers. He looked at the scene of bustling activity before him, clapped Wang Dou on the shoulder, and said with deep feeling, “Brother Wang Dou, your elder brother truly admires you. Building a fort on your own — achieving what others cannot.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou could only smile bitterly. Building a fort on his own — it sounded easy, but the toil involved was truly something hard to explain to outsiders.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After Hong Qiu collected the money for the timber, he said nothing else, only asking that Wang Dou give the military households under him a full meal. Wang Dou said nothing and simply let those military households go and eat. Immediately, those military households perked up like tigers descending a mountain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The twenty-fifth day of the ninth month of the seventh year of the Chongzhen reign.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Today was the day the first well in Jingbian Fort produced water. After several days of hard digging and lining by the craftsmen, this well was at last completed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The well was a little over twenty zhang deep; the water was fairly shallow and of good quality. The bottom was spread with fine sand, the walls were lined with blue stone, and the outside was surrounded with crushed rock. When the first bucket of water was drawn up, the military households gathered around to watch burst into thunderous cheers. When they tasted it, the well water was clear, cold, and sweet — far superior to that of other forts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The military households beamed with joy. In particular, some of the outside refugees who had joined the military households had suffered from drinking-water hardships their whole lives. Seeing such good water, many shed tears. In the end, this finished well was named by everyone “Lord Wang’s Well,” in gratitude for Wang Dou’s kindness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And after this well was completed, when the soldiers and civilians of nearby Dongjiazhuang heard of it, some even came over to see it, and after seeing it, all clicked their tongues in envy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Besides this well, thanks to the daily efforts of over a hundred adult men and women of Jingbian Fort over these days, several barracks, storehouses, and a fodder yard inside the fort had gradually taken shape. Though crude, they could at least shelter from wind and rain. One after another, people moved out of the dugout shelters and into the barracks and residences. This winter, at least, would not be too cold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The outer wall foundations were still under construction. At this time, the inside of Jingbian Fort was still dirty and chaotic; the several streets laid out were still all mud, and everywhere there were stones, timber, and all sorts of rubbish and debris. But at last it had the embryonic form of a fort.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>※※※\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Old White Ox:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>We’ve made it onto the Three Rivers list — thank you all for your support.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A reply to the reader Eternal Tang Empire: The silver prices for rice, flour, plow oxen, and the like in Chapter 23 are based on real historical sources from the late Ming. Note: In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, in Neihuang County, Henan, a dou of rice cost seven hundred cash, a dou of beans cost four hundred cash, pork was two hundred fifty cash per jin, a large ox cost seven thousand cash, and a small ox cost four thousand cash. In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Jiaxing Prefecture in Zhejiang suffered disastrous heavy rains; the price of rice rose to six taels per shi, and a pig rose to seven taels per head — equivalent to the price of an ox.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Furthermore, throughout the Ming dynasty, slaughtering a plow ox was a major crime. Even if a family had a sick ox or one near death, they had to report it to the authorities and get approval before slaughtering it. No one bought plow oxen to eat. Comparing how much heavier an ox is than a shi of rice is really meaningless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A reply to the reader Paying Attention Every Day: In the northern parts of the Ming at that time, paying two dou of tax grain per mu was already very heavy taxation. Back then, wheat yielded only seven or eight dou per mu, and even top-grade fertile land produced only a little over one shi of grain. After a year, once all the various costs were accounted for, the leftover grain was barely enough to feed a whole family. The slightest natural disaster or man-made calamity, and they would have to sell their children or become refugees. I had the protagonist levy two dou per mu in the future, and I even wondered whether readers would blame the protagonist for being too harsh — I never imagined you would be even harsher than me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A reply to the reader He He: For this question, please see Chapter 3 of this book.\u003C\u002Fp>",2641,"2026-06-03T14:05:19.908Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","dbf5f1a780e6f881a9c2e28422849fd738a59e69b11606932085fcae8597e713","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-25","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-23",896,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fa-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-cover.jpg"]