Chapter 745: Fire Burning the Wilderness

Aside from the city walls, the other structures in Xiao Town basically have to be of earth-and-wood construction. Transporting Cement to Xiao Town is too unrealistic; it would be fine if there were a waterway to take, but by land, one can only rely on people carrying it on their backs or pulling carts. Yet, over such a long distance, how much could be transported at one time? Unless a large number of Laborers from Huaxia did nothing else but transport Cement to Xiao Town every day, this is impossible to do.

Except for some special structures, they can only be built with earth and wood. Actually, houses made purely of wood are also quite good, but they are too time-consuming and labor-intensive, far less convenient than making mud bricks and stacking them up bit by bit.

It is already certain that the precipitation in this place will not be that high, so there is no need to worry about waterproofing or flood prevention. Even if there were a lot of precipitation, it would not matter; the old houses in Huaxia were also made of rammed earth, and they still resisted rainstorms without collapsing easily. Earth houses are not as fragile as one might imagine.

However, if they cannot find suitable soil here to fire Tiles, I am afraid their roofs will only be able to use thatch. Transporting Tiles here from Huaxia or Lema City is only slightly easier than transporting Cement, but Tiles are even more afraid of bumps than Cement; the damage alone along the way might not be small.

Che does not hold high hopes for the future living conditions here. Even for those cities to be built in the future, if they cannot find ore capable of firing Cement and cannot establish their own cement plants, they will likewise face the same problems as Xiao Town.

Therefore, Che naturally intends to stay in Huaxia City for the rest of his life and never leave. He feels that he is also qualified to stay in Huaxia City. Having worked hard for his whole life, running around everywhere, often away from home, and having made so many contributions to Huaxia, what he wants is just to be able to provide a better life for his future, and his children should also stay in Huaxia.

Now, the life of the Shaman is what he envies. It is just a pity that he does not know what the Shaman's situation is. He now has the wealth he should have, the honor he should have, and he has retired. Although his health is a bit poor, he could completely wander around and look at things every day. He does not know why the Shaman never comes out, and his few sons are all a bit like wood, neither having much to say.

Now, the team he leads—the men divided out to chop wood—from chopping to trimming in a day, even if they do not need to pull it to the vicinity of the camp and just throw it in an open area, it is estimated that the wood they can finish in a day does not exceed ten pieces.

After all, he cannot put all the manpower into chopping trees. He has now planned out the approximate outline of the city, but he also needs other engineers to discuss it carefully together. This place is not Che's one-man show; although he is the leader, this does not mean he can decide on such large matters.

Fortunately, according to the results of previous explorations, Baifeng had already made plans long ago. He is just making adjustments on the ground according to Baifeng's plan; he cannot deviate too far from Baifeng's requirements. As for these two cities at present, they are both Baifeng's handiwork, and they are far inferior. If Huaxia were to select the most capable engineer, that would inevitably be Baifeng.

Now he is carrying out construction at locations that have already been determined and cannot be disputed. Che directs some men and women to dig up the earth, then cast mud bricks and place them in the open space to dry. After that, such work almost has to be carried out day after day.

They are also not afraid of running out of soil. Being on the earth plains, there is soil everywhere. Moreover, just like when building Huaxia City, taking soil from nearby not only reduces the workload but can also raise the elevation of the city's location. Even when facing rainstorms and floods, the city has the ability to solve drainage, and the possibility of being flooded will be much smaller.

One after another, the second and third teams arrived. After their team leaders communicated with Che, they all agreed with Che's judgment, so their teams, under Che's unified deployment, did the same work.

When the seventh team arrived, Che decided to start a large-scale operation. So, after discussing with the other engineers, he prepared to burn the land here with fire first to clear away all the weeds, facilitating subsequent construction.

Using fire is the fastest method. If one were to let people clear it bit by bit, who knows how long they would have to wait. So, at Che's command, the erected Tents were dismantled again and, together with their supplies, piled up in the area enclosed by the earth walls.

Then, he had people dig earth trenches a few meters away from the location of the Xiao Town city walls. One reason is to collect soil, as building city walls requires soil; the second is to dig out firebreaks. The grass here is relatively dry, especially those tall grasses; they have already turned yellow this season and catch fire at the slightest touch.

Clearing out firebreaks is also to avoid the nearby woods suffering an undeserved disaster. Once the woods are ignited, they would be like a woman with no rice to cook with when they are building—completely helpless.

This method of setting fire is something they have only kept at the theoretical level and have not truly practiced, so they are not very at ease. Therefore, they cleared the turf in even further locations to ensure that there was no grass that could burn in an area several meters wide.

This is the largest-scale operation in this period of time, so regardless of gender, everyone was doing this work. A team of several thousand people spent half a day clearing out four firebreaks.

Finally, Che and the others determined the wind direction, then took a Fire Tinder and ignited the fire at the upwind position. The fire started very small, then, blown by the wind, it rapidly increased in strength and began to spread quickly in the direction of the wind.

Fortunately, it was not a forest fire. As long as they stood further away, they could still withstand the heat of this grassland burning. In all four directions, everyone held tree branches, ready to extinguish any fire that crossed the boundary at any time. They could not let even a small spark go, otherwise, they would truly have no way to deal with it.

The fire was very obedient, burning only within the firebreaks they had dug, not crossing the boundary by a single bit. Tiny sparks blown by the wind into the distance, before they could exert their own abilities, were quickly stepped out by sharp-eyed humans or beaten out with tree branches. Even more, some held an Iron shovel of soil in their hands; no matter how big the spark, one shovel of soil on it, and it would be extinguished thoroughly at once.

When the fire burned clean and both the open flames and hidden embers were extinguished, the humans dared to step onto the land that was now all black ash. The lower-level leaders of the teams directed the Laborers holding tools to shovel away the grass roots and such that had not been completely burned, leaving nothing behind here.

Che was very satisfied with the area cleared, and subsequently arranged for people to spread a layer of loose soil where they had originally camped to press down the ash, and then set up camp thoroughly.