Chapter 47 Road Construction
After the autumn harvest, before heavy snow closed the mountains, Richard and his slaves began to build roads.
Although it is a simple gravel road, the Haaland territory is a mountainous and hilly landform, and building roads is very labor-intensive.
Counting more than 3,000 old and weak people, it took more than 40 days to build a 30-kilometer road.
The road is about four meters wide, and drainage ditches more than one meter deep are dug on both sides. Road protection trees have been transplanted on both sides of the drainage ditch.
Now the road from Fort William to Wayao Village has been built.
The road between Wayao Village and Vicksburg has also been built for more than ten kilometers.
Now the road has been built to the vicinity of the No. 2 Reclamation Camp, and there are only 20 kilometers left from Vicksburg.
The remaining 20 kilometers of roads are relatively easy to repair.
There are only two mountains that are three to four hundred meters high, and the rest are hills of one to two hundred meters, dozens of meters high, and almost ten kilometers of flat road.
The southernmost ten-kilometer road is located in the Baronial Territory of Stopa. Building roads in the Baronial Territory of Stopa requires the cooperation of Baron Sophia.
Based on Richard's understanding of Sophia, she would never object to this matter, and would even send slaves to cooperate with Richard in building the road.
The first snowfall of this year was relatively late. It was in mid-November that the heavy snow arrived, about a month later than normal.
After the snowfall, Richard realized that the climate was cold and no longer suitable for field work.
Richard asked the elderly and children to go home and rest. The strong slaves still needed to work and go to the brick kiln to burn bricks.
By this fall, workers in the brick kiln were still making progress in their brick-burning technology, and were able to bake 100,000 bricks at a time, with a success rate of about 40%.
In one month, the brick kiln can bake one million bricks.
Despite this, there are still gaps in the bricks.
Especially the construction of Fort William seems to be a bottomless pit, and there are never enough bricks.
Seeing the surge in brick production, Powell decided to cover the city wall with a layer of bricks.
The city wall built before had a stone foundation and clay wall. Although it was very strong, it was not beautiful.
Wrapped with a layer of bricks, it looks much more beautiful and can also enhance defense.
The output of the brick kilns has now doubled, and houses for slaves have been built.
Richard decided to support Powell, and by November of this year, one-sixth of the brick-clad city wall had been built.
"Master Richard, Bobby has improved the production process again. I want you to go to the brick kiln to have a look and give you some pointers on the process."
Richard was having a meeting with Powell in Fort William to formulate a project schedule. A slave walked over quickly and respectfully said Bowed to the two noble lords and said in a low voice.
Bobby is the deputy director of the brick kiln factory and a former slave. In the production of the brick kiln, Bobby stood out from the crowd of slaves.
He improved the technology several times and increased the production efficiency of the brick kiln. He won Richard's approval and got rid of his slavery and regained his freedom.
Richard originally planned to follow Bobby's example and appoint him as the director of the brick kiln factory.
But Bobby is not good at management. Although he is very smart, he lacks the ability to communicate with others, so Richard can only be appointed as the deputy director in charge of production at the brick kiln factory to work with the director Rooney.
Rooney is a free citizen of Black River Castle. He has served the Harland family for many years and is Mrs. Olla's business assistant.
The two worked well together in the brick kiln factory. In the past two years, the efficiency of the brick kiln factory has been continuously improved, which has well supported the construction of the territory.
"It seems that Bobby and Rooney have a conflict. He asked me to go to the brick kiln. On the surface, he wanted me to teach him about the craftsmanship. But secretly, he probably wanted me to stand up for him and gain my support." Although the slave did not say it explicitly, the hidden little secret Richard's thoughts were clear.
When people get along with each other, there will inevitably be conflicts of one kind or another. As long as it is not for personal reasons, Richard is not willing to pursue it.
If there were no contradictions below and vented out of one nostril, Richard would doubt the loyalty of the subordinates.
Moreover, in this world where great power belongs to oneself, the intrigues between ordinary people cannot come to the fore.
If you make too much noise and arouse Richard's resentment, you will be asking for trouble.
It is difficult for nobles to be punished for killing ordinary people.
Richard is self-aware. Although he often played in the brick kiln when he was a child, he was very familiar with the structure of the kiln and built the brick kiln by imitating cats and tigers, but he did not understand the brick-burning process at all.
Richard couldn't figure out how to place the bricks, the temperature, time, and heat of burning the bricks, and all the details of the craftsmanship.
Even my uncle who runs a brick kiln has a rough idea of the craftsmanship, otherwise he wouldn't have spent a lot of money to hire masters who stack bricks and make fires.
Poppy, on the other hand, is very talented in this area. He has fired hundreds of kiln bricks in the past two years and accumulated profound experience. Otherwise, he has been able to improve the process many times and increase the success rate of brick firing to about 40%.
In the previous life of Blue Star, if the ignition master fired bricks with such a success rate, the boss would be beaten to death.
But in the Dawn Continent, Poppy is already the best talent.
According to Richard's understanding, there is no wheeled brick kiln factory in Chenxi Continent.
The wheeled brick kiln factory in Harland Territory has a productivity equivalent to ten ordinary brick kilns.
In the entire Heihe County, including the territory directly under the royal family, more than a dozen baronies have established six brick kilns.
The output of a brick kiln factory in Harland Territory is about twice that of other nobles in Heihe County.
Ordinary brick kilns are considered advanced productivity in Chenxi Continent.
Those who mastered brick-making techniques were noble lords.
In this world, the nobility has an extremely serious monopoly on knowledge, and they only communicate within the family.
Knowledge spreads very slowly, and those who possess it cherish it.
From history, Richard has never found a saint like Confucius who spread knowledge and recruited many disciples.
In a territory as large as Grant Kingdom and with such a large population, there were only very few church schools.
The knowledge taught in church schools usually focuses on simple knowledge such as writing and arithmetic.
When the Stopa family had an accident and lost the books recording the production process, they couldn't find a solution.
This is the common situation in Chenxi Continent.
If you want to change the status quo and get rid of people's deep-rooted perceptions, the only way is violent revolution.
The Dawn Continent has extraordinary power. Unless you can become a powerful god and far surpass your opponents, you will have the power to change the world.
Even the goddess of dawn is not alone in this plane.
Therefore, Richard can only start from himself and try not to act too out of line. However, the stereotyped views in his previous life sometimes still make him incompatible with this world.
(End of chapter)