Chapter 281: Longyan Battle Record (IV)

At noon the next day, that string of boats came back from downstream Jinshan Town and arrived at Longyan's Nanmen Dock.

Over thirty construction personnel transferred from Dayuan disembarked; the core of this team was two engineering Transmigrators.

The two of them had a division of labor.

One would take his men and laborers to build a dock outside Nanmen. Considering that large amounts of machinery, personnel, and bulk cargo would be loaded and unloaded here in the future, the dock needed major expansion — not only a timber-pile passenger dock, but at least one rock-and-steel-bar cargo dock had to be built as well.

The other fellow, who had once dug river sand, was responsible for leading laborers to dredge the river channel. Just as they were stepping onto the Longyan dock, a Seabed Scoop downstream on the Jiulong River had already begun operations.

Water management was a major undertaking.

In a mountain backwater like Longyan, if the water management wasn't handled properly in the 17th century, forget about any mining. This era had no national highways or expressways to transport ore — everything depended on water transport.

Medieval-era waterways had one characteristic: large water volumes, but poor navigation conditions. Whenever a river or stream hit a bend where the current slowed, it would always silt up into maddening terrain like shallows and sandbars.

In addition, some nail-household reefs in the river were also a major hazard for boats.

In later generations, this situation was rare. The waterways of a certain infrastructure-crazy nation were packed with all kinds of sand-dredging boats, the channels already dug so deep the bottom couldn't be seen, and the government was cracking down on illegal dredging and over-mining.

But 17th-century Longyan here wasn't so lucky. It would take a long time for the Seabed Scoop to dig its way up from the Jiulong River, so upstream Longyan also needed to start work simultaneously, using manpower to clear out the Road Blocking Tigers.

This project was still very urgent. Right now, larger boats could only dock at downstream Jinshan Town; all supplies had to be transferred to smaller boats just to reach Longyan — transport efficiency was far too low.

Dredging the channel was only the preliminary task. Next came an even more formidable assignment: reservoirs.

Fujian, this place — it rains constantly all year round, never a moment's rest. The mountainous region of Western Fujian is even more so; the rainfall is extremely heavy.

Under these climatic conditions, the primitive mountain waterways were naturally plagued by endless disasters — mountain floods and mudslides without cease. So building reservoirs was a must. Even if it was solely to regulate water volume, reduce disasters, and guarantee year-round transport for ore boats, reservoirs had to be built. They didn't need to be huge; a chain of reservoirs would do.

The subsequent reservoir projects would begin after the dock and dredging works were completed. By then, the large numbers of laborers who had been broken in during the early phase could be put to use.

In later generations, this area around Longyan had the Bingxi Reservoir, but no one knew how much the 17th-century mountain and river terrain had changed, so survey work would proceed after the bandit suppression campaign was finished — with the land full of bandits, there was no way to build reservoirs.

In short, the coming year 1629 was the Transmigration Nation's "Year of Reservoir Construction." The Transmigrators, who had the infrastructure-crazy gene in their bones, were going to build reservoirs not only in the foothills of Western Fujian, but also upstream on the Tainan plain.

The former would guarantee industry; the latter would guarantee agriculture.

Also arriving on the same boats were many camphorwood chests and burlap sacks. Inside the chests were the original, unmodified Redwood Type 38 Rifles that Cao Chuan had brought from later generations; the sacks held rice and salt.

The camphorwood chests were quickly delivered into the Rear Palace, while the burlap sacks stayed at the dock. A row of work sheds would be set up on the dock today, and these goods would soon be paid out as wages in the future.

After getting their hands on the familiar firearms, the soldiers quickly began cleaning their old buddies. Of course, according to the plan, these guns could not be revealed in front of the Ming people. And the day they made their appearance would be the day the bandits kicked the bucket.

Lin Dajin squatted under a tree not far from the Rear Palace gate, scratching at the lice on his head with one hand while staring fixedly at the Rear Palace's main gate.

At the gate stood four soldiers holding knives, spears, and bird blunderbusses — posture straight, physiques brawny and powerful, bodies radiating killing intent.

This troop of soldiers who had appeared out of nowhere yesterday brought endless gossip to the ancient, tranquil county seat of Longyan. In fact, many people didn't think they were government troops at all — green crossover short jackets, long trousers, heavy leather boots; this bizarre getup was nothing like the Great Ming soldiers who wore padded jackets.

It wasn't until the yamen runners and clerks of the County Yamen were off duty that people learned from their mouths that these men were subordinates of a great general who had accepted recruitment and amnesty at sea, dispatched to Longyan to suppress bandits.

That very evening, stories from the "Water Margin" began circulating from the mouths of the old scholars, and the storytellers in the county seat, naturally keeping up with market trends, all began urgently brushing up on the episodes between Fang La and Song Jiang.

Lin Dajin had come outside the Rear Palace gate today with his eye on that old hen.

Inside a basket woven from fine bamboo strips, a plump old hen sat with its eyes closed, resting. And after Lin Dajin had stared blankly from under the tree for half a watch, he finally gritted his teeth and stood up, carrying the bamboo basket and walking step by step toward the main gate.

The sentry on duty quickly noticed this Ming person — dressed in tatters, short, dark, and thin, with an honest, simple-looking face.

"What's your business?"

Hearing the shouted question, Lin Dajin instinctively stopped in his tracks, and then after a fierce internal struggle, he timidly shuffled forward a few more steps, then extended the bamboo basket in his hands and pointed at the old hen.

"Uh… for the troops."

Lin Dajin stood there woodenly.

"Selling a chicken?"

Lin Dajin nodded.

"Not bad, not bad. Looks like the masses of Longyan have good judgment." The duty Squad Leader chuckled as he cracked a joke, then ordered a sentry to take Lin Dajin to the side gate.

Lin Dajin naturally knew the Rear Palace's side gate — every resident of Longyan County, men and women, young and old, had been to the Rear Palace; they were all familiar with the layout.

The side gate also had a sentry. Once inside the side gate, across the passageway was a row of wing rooms. Now this row of wing rooms had been converted into a kitchen and mess hall. When Lin Dajin reached the kitchen door, several people, hearing the noise, came out from inside.

Among these people were cooks wearing white aprons, still holding cleavers in their hands, and also Wei Yuan, holding a chicken drumstick and gnawing on it with relish.

Although he had already seen Wei Yuan's figure on the dock yesterday, Lin Dajin, who was only 1.6 meters tall, was so frightened at this close encounter with the giant spirit that he shuddered.

"Don't be afraid. Here to sell a chicken, huh? Heh heh, this is a first. Fellow villager, what's your name?"

"Lord, I'm called Lin Dajin."

"Hmm, a good name — it has an honest ring to it. Don't be afraid; when we buy things here, we pay."

After Wei Yuan finished speaking, he signaled the cook to take the chicken, then sent someone to call the quartermaster over to pay.

Taking out his phone and pulling up the "Commodity Price Guide for Various Regions of the Ming Nation" issued by the Logistics Department for a glance, Wei Yuan instructed the quartermaster who had hurried over to pay Lin Dajin 5 mace of silver.

The guide was meant as a reference for units like Wei Yuan's that were deep behind enemy lines and lacked local price data. The baseline prices in it were compiled from some historical materials — for example, old hens: the "Wanshu Zaji" from the Ming dynasty's Wanli Era recorded a live, fat chicken priced at 4 mace of silver.

Considering that Longyan was a mountainous area, the price of an old hen was certain to be no higher than the 4 mace of silver in the city, so Wei Yuan calculated 5 mace of silver for this chicken.

The facts proved that 5 mace of silver was definitely higher than the local price for an old hen, because after Lin Dajin bit hard into that piece of pure white broken silver, he suddenly turned around and ran off like a streak of smoke.

And Wei Yuan and the others, staring dumbfounded as Lin Dajin ran out the door, couldn't help but burst into roaring laughter.

The matter wasn't over.

Not long after, Lin Dajin came back, panting heavily — this time he was carrying a back-basket on his shoulder, and inside were five old hens.

"Look, look — see what this society has forced the farmers to become. Selling a single chicken, and he had to test the waters first." As Wei Yuan watched the quartermaster settle accounts with Lin Dajin with satisfaction, he didn't forget to give his gawking men an ideological talk. "Tell me, are the common folk of Dayuan this afraid of soldiers?"

"Not a single one is afraid — but plenty of them rip us off." At this topic, the soldiers immediately began venting all at once.

"Exactly. Every month when we get paid, those shops along Chikan Avenue start having discounts again."

"They raise the prices first, then discount them, alright? Boss Ma's shop is the worst — looks like lots of promotions, but actually there's no real deal."

"A whole flurry of moves fierce as a tiger, and in the end the discount is twenty-five cents."

Lin Dajin, listening on one side to these Vice Lords saying things he couldn't understand, blissfully received the silver for the five chickens on the other. This time, after getting the silver, not only did he not run, he even knelt and kowtowed to Wei Yuan.

Wei Yuan looked at this simple, honest farmer with a sincere face who could barely stammer out his words, and couldn't help but heave a long sigh. Then he told Lin Dajin that from now on, he could go to the nearby villages to buy up some vegetables and live poultry, then carry them here to sell.

Lin Dajin, full of gratitude, carried his bamboo basket and left.

And after that, Lin Dajin truly set out on the path of a vegetable peddler, gathering chickens, ducks, live fowl, and vegetables from the surrounding stockades every day, then selling them all to the Rear Palace.

Lin Dajin's fate was merely a single splash of a wave, noticed by few. And with the arrival of the Red Spear Camp, the tranquil county seat of Longyan could never return to its former peace — one unprecedented event after another continuously blew the minds of the Ming People wide open, and the ancient city, now walking the path of industrialization, grew increasingly bustling and prosperous day by day.

On the fifth day after Wei Yuan and the others arrived in Longyan, over a hundred laborers from Jinshan Town gave the locals yet another eye-opening sight.

A boiler was carried by these laborers from Jinshan all the way to Longyan.

Along the entire journey, the laborers used wooden stakes as rollers and hauled it with sheer manpower; a mountain path of less than eighty li, over a hundred men took a full three days to drag this "big iron chest" to the county seat of Longyan.

The moment the boiler was carried to the gates of the Rear Palace, more than half the county town's residents surged out to watch the spectacle; for a time, a sea of people gathered before the Rear Palace gates, and in the end, Wei Yuan had no choice but to dispatch a large number of soldiers armed with blades and spears to maintain order. Chapter content is being restored, please visit again later. To chat with more like-minded friends about "Traveling to the Ming Dynasty," follow WeChat " or " and chat about your favorite books with more book friends.