The First Division of the Guards had already left Datong Prefecture and set up camp at the old Yulin Guard site.

No matter how the little prince will retaliate against the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty's own military strategy remains unchanged, that is, following the principle of "beating you, I will beat me", the Ming Dynasty has been carrying out its own external expansion strategy from beginning to end.

Because the main purpose of the Ming Dynasty now was to build a city outside the pass, carry out mineral development and land development, rather than seeking opportunities to annihilate the enemy, the First Division of the Guards did not move around after setting up camp in Yulin Guards.

Those who came to Yulin Guard with the First Division of the Guards also Zhang Cong, the first magistrate of Yulin County, and tens of thousands of scholars and people. Most of these scholars and people were hungry people recruited from the Huaiyang area.

Now, they will become the first Han people to settle in Yulin County.

Yulin is located on the east side of Hetao and outside Datong Pass. It is currently an area controlled by Tatars, so Tatars often appear in this area. Therefore, after Zhang Cong arrived in Yulin with tens of thousands of scholars and the First Division of the Guards, the first thing he had to do was naturally to build cities and roads.

The first is to build a city.

Zhang Cong turned all these hungry people in Huaiyang into migrant workers by using labor instead of relief, allowing them to directly participate in the construction of the city.

The First Division of the Guards is responsible for guarding the new city.

Regarding the city wall, Zhang Cong planned to directly use cement concrete to build it.

In the city, Zhang Cong no longer uses cement concrete to build it, after all, the cement production of Ming Dynasty was limited.

The cement concrete was naturally transported from the capital. These hungry people took on the role of transporters and it was impossible for them to have a free meal along the way.

Even when building outer cities, bamboo-rooted concrete can only be used, and reinforced concrete is impossible for a while. After all, the output of steel in the Ming Dynasty is still limited.

Using bamboo as the muscles and bones and then casting cement concrete can also achieve the same strength as reinforced concrete.

The speed of building a city wall with cement concrete is naturally faster than that of using compacted three-combined soil, and the efficiency is directly improved several times. Moreover, the built city wall can quickly solidify in one day and become a hard city wall. It will continue to undergo physical and chemical reactions after long-term exposure of the air, and become a harder stone object.

Within three days, Zhang Cong led all migrant workers to build an extremely strong outer city wall.

Datong Governor Feng Junxian had already received a decree from Zhu Houzhao that he would fully cooperate with Zhang Cong's construction project in Yulin. Therefore, when he was completed in the outer city of Yulin City, he also came to Yulin City to inspect the construction of Yulin City's walls.

In fact, the governor of Datong, Feng Junxian, did not expect that Zhang Cong would repair the city wall so quickly. He had been an official in the border town for a long time. He knew that the construction of the border wall was not a simple project, and it was naturally impossible to use all the blue bricks. The cost was too high. Generally, only important passes and Kyoto City used blue bricks. Most of the border walls were half-built outsourcing bricks. New cities like Yulin City could only use soil to build the walls first, so that several migrant workers could work together to consolidate the three-combination soil, and hammer them a little bit to compact the city walls.

But he didn't expect that Zhang Cong built the outer wall of Yulin City within three days.

Datong Governor Feng Junxian said that he was here to inspect Yulin City, but rather to question Zhang Cong. He was worried that a young county magistrate like Zhang Cong was too eager for quick success and did not let migrant workers hammer the three-member soil hard, which made the compaction level not high enough, thus achieving the goal of rapid casting of the city wall.

However, Feng Junxian knew that once he was scammering when building the city wall, it would directly lead to the city wall being unable to stop the Tartar cavalry in the future, and even some of the city walls that were not compacted enough could be directly chiseled open by the Tartars.

But when Governor Feng saw the appearance of the Yulin City wall, he was surprised. He did not expect that the soil built by Yulin City was so smooth, and it looked like ice from a distance. Therefore, he couldn't help but ask Zhang Cong: "Magistrate Zhang! What kind of soil is used for your city wall? Can it be firm?"

"When I returned to Futai, the cement concrete used by the Xiaguan was made of the southern bamboo as the tendon, which could save a lot of manpower, but it could achieve a more solid effect than the three-metal soil. You can try it yourself when you comfort the Tai," Zhang Cong said with a smile.

Datong Governor Feng Junxian was not polite either. He pulled out the sword from his personal soldiers' waists and slashed them directly on the city wall!

A clanging sound!

The city walls only splashed with shaved soil, leaving a small mouth less than half an inch deep, but the steel knife in Governor Feng’s hand was missing!

"How is this possible! My personal soldiers are equipped with a hundred-fighting steel knife! But the armor-breaking pole is not as hard as the Yulin City Wall! And I don't care about my efforts!"

Governor Feng was extremely surprised and couldn't help but shake his numb tiger's mouth and return the knife to his personal soldiers. His personal soldiers showed a depressed look on his face. After all, he finally became a governor's personal soldiers. With the Hundred-Made Steel Knife, but who knew he had no mouth!

Of course, Governor Feng and Zhang Cong didn't care about the feelings of a soldier. Moreover, Governor Feng still couldn't believe the results of his experiment just now. After all, even the city wall made of blue bricks would take a long time to become very hard, but the Yulin city wall has only been three days!

"The hard wall does not mean it is firm. The ice is sometimes very hard, but isn't it still fragile? Rong Jian, you have always been brave, you can try hitting the city wall!"

Governor Feng said and asked Zhang Cong: "County Zhang, if my official's people collapsed your city wall, you wouldn't mind."

Although Zhang Cong was just a magistrate, he was appointed by the emperor himself. Feng Junxian knew that he was the emperor's favorite minister, so naturally he did not dare to be disrespectful to Zhang Cong just because he was a Shangguan. However, Zhang Cong still replied calmly:

"Even if you are stroking the platform, you can hit more people, even if you are bombarded with artillery, you can try the solidity of the city wall."

Governor Feng naturally couldn't bear to use the cannons to play with, but he still asked his commander Rong, who was born with divine power, to hit the city wall to try it.

Rong Jianjie used all his strength to run dozens of steps away and directly crashed into the Yulin City Wall.

Bang!

The Yulin City Wall is still firmly standing in place like a rock.

Rong Shoujie was directly bounced to the ground. Under the reaction force, he was dizzy and felt like someone was punched on his shoulder.

Governor Feng asked more than ten strong personal soldiers to collide with him, but the Yulin City Wall still stood firm.

Now, Governor Feng had to believe in the firmness of the Yulin City Wall. However, he suddenly grabbed Zhang Cong's clothes excitedly, changed his gentle attitude just now, and asked almost roaring:

"Since the capital has such magical soil, why not use it in border towns early! If it were used in border towns early, in the 18th year of Hongzhi, how could the Tatars easily destroy the new castle near Datong, and kill me with no less than 3,000 border residents! That would be more than 3,000 lives!"

Zhang Cong didn't expect that Governor Feng would suddenly be so excited. After Governor Feng finished yelling and letting go of his clothes, he tidied up his official robe:

"I don't know anything about Futai. This wall-building object is called cement. It is a new product of the Royal Industrial Company. There is not much cement produced now. Some of it is used to build the road from Datong to the capital to transport grain to recover Hetao in the future. The other part is brought by Xiaguan to build a new city outside the border. Therefore, it is not possible to use it all in the border towns!"

After hearing Zhang Cong's explanation, Governor Feng recovered his calmness. He realized that he seemed to have lost his mind just now, and he couldn't help but bow to Zhang Cong and said:

"Forgive me! I just behaved a little inappropriately! I really thought about the tragic situation of being slaughtered by the Tartars in the past and couldn't stand it for a while! If there was such a magical artifact in building a city, why would the Tartars be locked up as if they were back home? They wouldn't have spent so much financial resources on this city wall."

"The emperor understands the painstaking efforts of raising the Taiwan Strait! However, Your Majesty said that it is better to attack than defend, and bandits cannot defend against it. The glorious Ming Dynasty should have the benefits of a strong army to drive outside the border, and should not spend the benefits of the people to stick to the nine borders!

Now, Yulin City is just the first step to gain benefits outside the Great Wall. Next, there will be Dongsheng, Zhenlu and other cities that will appear one after another! Now the Xiaguan has a reluctant request, begging the Futai Lord to summon the military and civilians in Datong to repair the road from Yulin to Datong, so as to transport the food, animals and ore from Yulin to Datong in the future!"

As Zhang Cong said, he explained why he suggested this. The reason was that the Yulin area was surrounded by rivers and had stable terrain, the land was fertile and minerals were abundant. Datong was a fortress of the Ming Dynasty and had many military and civilians. When Yulin really developed in the future, it could be used as Datong's grain and mineral supply base.

Governor Feng nodded. The court intended to recover Hetao and build a city outside the wall. Naturally, he could not violate it. Moreover, he knew that once Yulin was built, it would become the gateway to the right guard of Datong. The roads would naturally be renovated and widened, not only to facilitate the replenishment of military supplies, but also to facilitate mutual support in the future.

"There are many auxiliary soldiers in Datong Prefecture. Although they cannot go to battle to kill the enemy, they can build roads. Instead of letting them have white-collar food idle, it is better to let them do their work. I agree! However, I want you to submit a memorial with me, asking the court to allow Datong to make cement to strengthen the border town!"

Governor Feng was still obsessed with the cement mentioned by Zhang Cong. What he wanted most now was to ask the court to allow him to ask someone to develop cement in Datong Prefecture. He believed that as long as Datong border town was used with cement, the border preparations of Datong border town would be strengthened several times. Even if the Tartars attacked, he would no longer be afraid.

But Governor Feng didn't know if cement was now a thing that the central court prohibited from burning in order to control local border towns. So in order to get His Majesty the Emperor to allow him, he wanted Zhang Cong, the emperor's favorite minister, to submit a memorial with him.

Zhang Cong did not refuse Governor Feng's proposal because he knew that the court only restricted the cement manufacturing areas to avoid polluting waters and affecting the essence of mountains and rivers, but did not restrict local and private cement manufacturing.

Governor Feng returned to Datong with the memorial written jointly with Zhang Cong.

Zhang Cong continued to devote himself to the construction of Yulin City.

Naturally, the construction of streets and buildings in the city no longer uses cement, but is directly tamped with soil, and even the main streets only have some stones to lay.

However, these migrant workers are still working very hard.
Chapter completed!