Chapter 21: The Golden Dagger Hua Xia Book Library Net

  Watching Liu Shi arrange the workers to build wooden bungalows, Chen An furrowed his brow. The thick and thin wood boards were less than half an inch, building a house quickly, but just like the simple wooden houses in the bandit village of Ma Zei Shan, they couldn't stop the impact of machine gun bullets at all.

  "Can't we make it like the one in Dashiqiao, with earth walls outside and wooden partitions inside?" Chen An asked Liu Shi, pointing to the flat house.

  "We can't make it, at least two hundred houses need to be built, otherwise when the old masters come with many people, there will be no place for them to live. Only by using all wood structure is it possible to complete the task." Liu Shi shook his head and continued, "Moreover, the earth wall structure outside needs a lot of yellow mud, we need to dig from other mountains, just transporting it will take a lot of time, it's even more impossible."

  After walking around the old house for a few rounds, Chen An said slowly, "If not, you arrange the craftsmen to draw out adjacent small houses according to the standard of four households per mu, each with three rooms and one yard. However, we only build the middle yard now, and then build the outer earth wall and the other two rooms later."

  Liu Shi thought for a moment and then raised another question, "Just solving the problem of sleeping and unifying eating is feasible. However, in that case, the empty space in front will not be enough."

  Pointing to the two wings of Xiaoshan, Chen An disagreed, "Aren't we going to surround the entire Xiaoshan? We might as well widen the earth road behind the wall and increase a row of small courtyards. Extend it all the way to the back mountain and build a small shooting range at the foot of the back mountain."

  Liu Shi's eyes lit up, it was indeed feasible, and he immediately got excited to find craftsmen to make a unified plan.

  Chen An hastily patted Liu Shi on the back, "Don't worry, don't worry, I'll have Second Uncle take care of this. You still have other things to attend to."

  Liu Shi stopped in his tracks and looked at his young master with a puzzled expression. Was there something more important than building a house?

  Chen An whispered, "You and Yushan take two or three people to run a trip to Hananzhai, find a hidden mountain, see if there is an opportunity to shoot their boss, let them be in chaos for a while, remember safety first."

  "But I don't know their boss?" Liu Shi was somewhat at a loss.

  "Take that captured bandit leader away, he should recognize him." Chen An chuckled to himself.

  Thinking of that big softie, Liu Shi couldn't help but smile wryly.

  In the village, behind the front line, Hu Zi surrounded a nearly mu of empty land along the mountain, and personally led people to take materials nearby, dig stones and take soil to build walls and house foundations. This will be where Chen's residence is located. Front and back will also be divided into two parts, the front yard for living, the backyard still for military equipment and storage, even need to dig holes.

  After removing nearly three meters of soil and the outermost rock layer, Hu Zi consciously stopped the project.

  The five rooms in the backyard were finished first, and the grain on the carriage was immediately transported in, freeing up transport capacity to rush and pull building materials.

  Hutou arranged for people to build a mud wall around the Chen residence, blocking all lines of sight. At the same time, he secretly took several subordinates from Liaodong and hid behind a grain pile to dig a cave in the mountain himself. The matter of having a cave in the backyard couldn't be seen by others, so naturally only brothers who came from Liaodong could be trusted.

  Just after three days of digging, Hu Zi suddenly found Chen An with a strange expression.

  "What's up?" Chen An, who had been wandering around with nothing to do, saw Hu Zi staring at him blankly and found it strange. During this time, the outer wall of Chenjiazhuang had taken shape, and the sentry posts were already in place, so there was no problem with safety.

  Yesterday, they still pretended to be busy and dealt with the so-called village elders who rushed over in a hurry. It was nothing more than someone sent by the county government to probe around, after all, so many people suddenly expanded their village on the banks of the Malian River, no one knew what it was about.

  However, with Liu Cheng's words and several old villagers who had indeed seen Chen An as a child, they all counted as tenants of the Chen family from Liaodong, so they managed to get through. The head of the village took a big bag of goodies and smiled happily, only reminding the old masters that after they arrived, they should go to the county government to report and re-register their household registration, which actually meant going to pay respects to the county magistrate.

  The imperial court's Baojia system was very strict, with ten households forming a pai, ten pai forming a jia, and ten jia forming a bao. Without an official pass, it was difficult to move even an inch. However, by the end of the Guangxu period, the Baojia system had become merely nominal.

  Chen An took over the two pieces of ore with gray stripes handed over by Hu Zi, and he was very puzzled.

  "Hush, young master," said Hu Zi in a low voice, "this is gold ore."

  What? Gold ore! How is there gold ore here? Chen An was startled and quickly widened his eyes to carefully examine the thing in his hand.

  "One of the brothers who dug the hole had been a clerk in a gold shop for some time and had seen this kind of ore before, so he recognized it," Hu Zi explained. The Gansu Army at that time had existed for nearly thirty years, and after multiple recruitments and expansions, its composition was extremely complex. Basically, it was made up of people from Gansu who had no way out and joined the army voluntarily. There were all kinds of old and young people in the army, like Gao Dafu, who was the doctor of this battalion."

  "Where did it come from? Was it dug up in the mountains?" Chen An was very interested.

  "Yes, digging in just five or six meters, a mineral vein was discovered. Unfortunately, we don't have professional goldsmiths and tools, otherwise we could refine it out. I think to stop digging the hole, wait until later when we have a way to smelt gold, then dig again." Hu Zi felt some regret.