Chapter 739: The Construction of Xiao Town Begins

The Engineering Team at Xiao Town has already finished building all the houses along the way. Each location is sufficient for a group of sixty or seventy people to use and live in, and there are even storerooms to pile up supplies. They are not as sturdy as the houses in Huaxia City, but their safety is completely guaranteed.

However, because they are in the mountains, the overall structure is made of earth and wood. They are not yet like the ones in Huaxia at the beginning, where earth foundations were laid to build up walls; the main structure is wood, and the earth mainly serves the purpose of keeping warm and blocking the wind, while also providing a certain degree of concealment.

But this also means they need frequent maintenance; otherwise, not to mention various animals, the structures themselves will slowly loosen and rot over time.

This is also a difficult thing to explain clearly: if a house is left unoccupied for a long time, it is more prone to collapse than a house that is lived in, even if the person living there is too lazy to ever repair it. Baifeng also uses a theory he has heard of to explain this phenomenon, which is that there is "human energy."

Baifeng finds it hard to explain the connection between a house collapsing and whether it is repaired, but he can certainly guarantee that a house lived in for a long time is completely different from one that has been empty for a long time. In the same season and facing the same direction, if you enter a room that has not been lived in for a long time, you will feel a coldness that comes from the inside out—a coldness that is inexplicable—whereas a house lived in for a long time feels much better.

Once the rooms are built and the doors are installed, they use wooden sticks to latch the doors; this can prevent many large animals from entering. Insects are indeed hard to avoid, and many mice or the like might also find their way through and dig into the ground to live, but there will certainly not be a situation where you open the door and a wild boar rushes out.

Because the construction was done in stages, those who finished building first went directly to the site planned for Xiao Town—a stretch of wilderness where trees are relatively sparse due to the soil quality.

The Engineering Team has long been familiar with the situation here and also understands the climate here quite well; although it is not too far from Huaxia City, the climate is already quite different.

The temperature is slightly lower than in Huaxia City, and because the wind blows through, it is not that hot. In places like the Xuanyuan Tribe, the wind feels hot, but the wind here in Xiao Town feels very cool.

However, the precipitation is also much less. It is possible that for dozens of days in a row, one might not see a single rain shower, and after it rains once, one does not know when the next time will be. Summer rainfall is slightly higher, but looking at the whole year, it is far inferior to Huaxia.

This also means that the planting conditions here are not as good as in Huaxia; perhaps they can only plant some drought-resistant and salt-alkali-tolerant crops. The land here looks slightly whitish in the distance, and the turf consists of low grass that does not grow very tall. However, they discovered many wild fruits here, and one type of small fruit that Huaxia calls Agate is everywhere.

Agate is the same as the jujube pit, but because the fruit looks very beautiful, just like agate, it has this name. The jujube pit is only called that when used as medicine; ordinary people would not call that kind of wild berry a jujube pit, as they are not eating the pit.

The Agate on this land just happened to be at the ripening stage, or rather, slightly overripe, having turned completely black. Pick one and taste it—purely sweet without any sourness. It is just that the seeds are a little large; those who find it troublesome just swallow the seeds too. At worst, they will just pass them when they defecate; it doesn't have any effect anyway.

The quantity of wolfberries is even greater, large and small, covering the land as far as the eye can see. When they came last time, they only cleared a small area. Now that they have to plan the entire city and investigate carefully, they discovered that these things are here.

The wolfberries are also just in season, though some that are picked and eaten are extremely bitter and have no sweetness. However, after they are dried, they can all be sent back to Huaxia City.

This time, they did not bring people from the Agriculture Division. According to the plan, they are to wait until they have roughly cleared the land and built a portion of the structures before the people from the Agriculture Division also come for a visit. They are to observe within the planned city whether there are any crops suitable for planting, as well as whether there is suitable land outside the city. It is impossible for a town to have no source of food at all and rely entirely on Huaxia City or Lema City.

A purely industrial city is not feasible in the current Huaxia, especially one relying on mining Saltpeter. If they were mining Iron Ore or copper ore, it might still be possible.

Huaxia's ability to consume Saltpeter will surely reach its limit before long. What does Huaxia need so much Gunpowder for? To blow up a tribe? The remaining uses are for leather processing and ice making.

The reason for building Xiao Town is to protect this strategic material they need—Saltpeter—at the present time and mine it. Once Xiao Town develops, they can continue to use this as a center to develop in further directions. If they were to build such a city out of thin air, it would still be a bit of a burden for Huaxia, but with the presence of Saltpeter, it can compensate Huaxia for a lot, and the other high-ranking officials and ordinary citizens of Huaxia will also find it easier to accept.

The Engineering Team tries their best to choose flat land. Che, the engineer who can make decisions here, measures the land with his own footsteps. He participated in the construction of Lema City from site selection to planning; apart from Baifeng and Zhu, he is the most important one.

But compared to Zhu, he is younger, so this time, because he has the technique and experience, he was sent here. Baifeng has not personally seen Xiao Town; when he came, this place was still covered in Snow and ice, so asking him to design it would be empty talk.

How large the area should be, how high the city walls should be, and what facilities should be inside—Che has to plan them out one by one. He holds a notebook, uses the back of a Laborer as a desk board, and draws bit by bit with a pen, looking up from time to time to see if there are any problems with his planning.

The location of Xiao Town must not be too far from that small stream—or rather, a water source that can barely be called a stream. If water cannot be dug out here in the future, or if the water that is dug out is undrinkable, then that small stream will be the water source for the entire Xiao Town.

Of course, they can also dig water cellars to store water. As long as it rains once, the stored water is enough for a family of three to use simply for more than half a year. They are not worried about drinking water; they are just worried about industrial water. Purifying Saltpeter requires a large amount of water, so relying solely on water cellars is not realistic.

Che feels that the most urgent task now is not to build the city immediately, but to first see if the water volume of this small stream can be expanded. If it is a spring, they can expand the water volume through washing and dredging; otherwise, with just this little bit of water, their team of several thousand people cannot even guarantee their current water usage.