Qin Official

Although Heifu told Zhong that "the days will get better and better," as soon as Zhong left, their more prosperous days fell into the trough in vain.

Because the military exercise training is over, the soldiers have to start their main job: corvee service.

Mentioning corvee, many scenes immediately came to Heifu's mind:

The 700,000 prisoners at Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum in Lishan Mountain, the Qin Great Wall stretching for thousands of miles, Wan Xiliang who was buried alive in the Great Wall, and Meng Jiangnu who cried the Great Wall down...

Of course, the prototype of the last story has been around for a long time. It is called "Qiliang's Wife", but it is about something that happened in the Spring and Autumn Period of Qi State, which was later spread and blamed on the Qin Dynasty. After all, "The beauty of the world belongs to Shun, Yu and Zhou Kong; the evil of the world belongs to Jie and Zhou." In the eyes of later generations of scholars, the violent Qin Dynasty's "burning books and entrapping Confucians" was ten thousand times more vicious than Jie and Zhou. Such a cruel thing must be It was you! Just like the Broken Window Law, since the Qin Dynasty was so dark, there would be more people to add to it, and the crimes would become even more numerous.

Although the story is false, the heavy corvee is indeed true. Most of the heroes of the late Qin Dynasty who rose up in rebellion more than ten years later were caused by the corvee.

Therefore, Heifu went to the construction site where he was serving with trepidation and was ten times more cautious than his training.

Fortunately, Chen Baijiang's attitude towards Hei Fu is getting better and better. On their way from the south gate to the east gate, they even chatted with Hei Fu.

He popularized science and said that the highest-level corvee in the Qin State was called the "Yuzhong Fa Zheng". It was a corvee assigned by the capital to go to Xianyang to work. Although King Qin Yingzheng is in his prime, his royal mausoleum, which will be the future Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang, has begun to be built, but the scale of construction is currently small, unlike the later as many as 700,000...

Mentioning Xianyang, Chen Baijiang's eyes sparkled. He never wanted to go to the capital to have a look. Even if he lay on the roadside and took a sneak peek at the king's car, he would be satisfied. See the splendor of Xianyang and feel the glory of the king. That is what every Qin Dynasty The moment that officials look forward to most.

Heifu knew that ten years later, a Sishui pavilion chief wearing a bamboo leather crown and a big beard would also go to Xianyang to serve in Xianyang with the same idea as Chen Baijiang, and shouted "A man should be a man" to Qin Shihuang's chariot. So" the emotion.

In addition, the labor required for civil engineering and transmission that each county levies on its own is called "constant work". There are various types, some of which are repairing fences for forbidden gardens and state-owned pastures, and some of which are building city walls, dams, or expansion projects for counties. County government building.

The last type is temporary corvee, which is not included in the annual "live within your means", that is, the government's financial plan. The project must be approved by the higher-level government, because theoretically, the Qin State does not advocate casual conscription of labor. In "The Way of Being an Official" that Heifu saw in the county jail that day, there is a sentence: "Things are booming from time to time, and orders are slow and urgent." "Zheng" really surprised him.

Unfortunately, Heifu and his team's turn happened to be the heavy work of heavy work, building the city wall...

Originally, the east city of Anlu County was built near Quyang Lake and had no walls. Perhaps considering that there would be war with the Chu State in the future, Anlu, as a border county, must strengthen its defense, so it decided to build an east wall. The report was submitted to the county last year and permission was obtained, so construction began one after another after the autumn harvest. In addition to more than a hundred prisoners working day and night, watchmen had to be called in to build a section every month.

After Chen Baijiang handed over a hundred more soldiers to the "county Sikong" in charge of the project, the task was considered completed.

As the foreman in charge of the project, County Secretary Kong gave Heifu and the others a cold face and announced many prohibitions, such as no cheating, no laziness, etc. Violators will be severely punished.

"If you disobey Sikong despite repeated admonitions, this will be your fate as a prisoner!"

County Secretary Kong frightened them and pointed his finger at a group of people already working on the construction site...

The weather was already very cold in mid-to-late October, but those people were in ragged clothes, wearing ocher-brown prison clothes. The lower clothes could not even cover their bodies. Their hands and feet were red from the cold, but they still had to work non-stop under the supervision of the foreman.

"Brother Heifu, isn't that the merchant Bao who was punished as Cheng Dan for falsely accusing you and me a few days ago?"

Ji Ying's sharp eyes recognized the shambling guy among the prisoners at a glance. He was none other than the merchant Bao who had repaid them with kindness and vengeance!

Bao seemed to have seen the two of them, and was stunned for a moment. He accidentally spilled the basket of soil in his hand, and was immediately whipped. He quickly cried out in pain, lowered his head and continued working. It had only been half a month since we last saw him, and he had completely lost his former wealth. His hair and beard had been shaved, and he looked lonely...

Next, Ji Ying found the three pavilion guards from Huyang Pavilion, who were working together to move a big stone that was in the way. He looked up at Hei Fu and Ji Ying's eyes were full of fear, and all the previous hatred was gone. All gone. Chengdan is the hardest labor, and they have to serve their sentences here for several years.

Finally, they also discovered a Chudi thief who had been captured and sentenced. He had dark tattoos on his face and a wooden clamp around his neck. He was doing heavier work and was shouted around by the foreman.

"Only one was found, where is the other one?"

Ji Ying looked for a long time, but still couldn't find another Chu thief. Looking at the miserable appearance of the prisoners, he said with fear: "Thanks to Mr. Hei's wit that day, otherwise, if we lost the lawsuit, you and I would have lost the battle." If you have to serve Chengdan labor here, it will not be half a month, but three to five years!"

Hei Fu also nodded. Traveling to the Qin Kingdom was indeed a hell-level difficulty dungeon. It does not mean that you will have smooth sailing if you just follow the general trend of the world. As a small person, you have to be careful to avoid all kinds of illegal activities. If you make one mistake, you will be in the abyss, and there will be no second chance at all.

Thinking about it carefully, I was too reckless in training a few days ago and never left myself any way out when betting against others. It seems that I need to be more cautious in the future and not take such risks.

County Sikong didn't talk nonsense to them, and immediately arranged tasks, and each department had its own tasks. So, on this dim winter day, under the supervision of the County Sikong and the urging of the small foremen, more than a hundred watchmen and hundreds of prisoners shuttled through the loess-filled construction site like a group of worker ants, coming and going in a hurry.

Although Heifu was very tall, he could not be idle. He took the large basket of soil passed by the robes and thought to himself: "It turns out that the city walls in this era were not made of bricks..."

He saw in the county town that the foundation and floor of the official temple were paved with bricks, but the city walls of this era were not made of bricks, but of rammed earth.

Building walls with rammed earth is very particular. At the beginning, under the command of the foreman, everyone put together thick wooden boards, and inserted a pillar called a "frame" outside every two wooden boards. There are also ropes tied between these pillars, which are like clamps to fix the wooden boards so that they will not collapse. Thus, four wooden walls were erected to form a long and narrow frame, which looked like the scaffolding used to build buildings in later generations.

It is said that this four-plated city building method was brought to Jianghan by Wu Qi from the Central Plains more than a hundred years ago, eliminating the local backward two-plated wall. Time has passed, and not many locals remember Wu Qi's name. These four editions of the law are probably the only things he left behind in Chu...

The task of Heifu and the others was to constantly shovel soil with the iron catalpas of this era, put them in bamboo baskets, and have people lift them up the wooden walls along the "scaffolding" and fill them with soil. At this time, the results of the training in the previous days were revealed. They passed it on in order, very orderly and efficient.

When it was filled with soil, Cheng Dan and the prisoners were asked to work in groups of three or four to pick up the heavy ramming pestle and smash the loose soil!

Heifu knew that those wooden boards were called "ban" and the ramming pestle was called "building". This process is called ban building. Mencius said that "Fu Shuo was in the ban building", which means that Fu Shuo, the minister of Shang Wuding, also had the hard work of swinging a pestle and pounding earth at the beginning...

"Hey! Hey! Hey!"

As the prisoners shouted slogans again and again, swung the big pestle and smashed it against the soil, the loose dry soil was slowly tamped, becoming more and more rigid, and harder and harder, until the iron shovel was used hard. It couldn't be pried off with a shovel. So water was sprinkled on it and a layer of mud was applied, and a section of the city wall was completed.

After the construction is completed, the scaffolding is removed, and the poles pressed into the rammed earth can also play a reinforcement role.

Heifu still had some doubts about the quality of the city wall. He stabbed the dried walls with a dagger and realized that he had been worrying too much. They were really as hard as stone. Their lifespan may not be as long as that of stone walls, and they will surely become shorter or even disappear due to wind and rain after thousands of years, but their defense is good and they can withstand being bombarded by stones.

Therefore, the best way to attack a city in this era is not to use slings, but to dig tunnels or soak them in water slowly...

Thinking about it carefully, the Great Wall of Qin was actually built with rammed earth, but Heifu calculated it silently in his mind and couldn't help but feel shocked.

There were more than two hundred of them, and after working for several days, they could only build a small section of the city wall.

How long is the Great Wall? Even if it's not as exaggerated as ten thousand miles, it's at least a few thousand miles. How much labor is needed? The transportation and population in Northern Xinjiang are much worse than those in Jianghan. How many people will die?

Later generations say that when Qin built the Great Wall, the dead belonged to each other.

In the past two days, Heifu did witness with his own eyes that a prisoner suddenly collapsed and died, whether due to illness or overwork. He was carried down, but everyone just watched numbly, without any surprise, which shows that this is a common occurrence. thing……

"Be careful not to raise a boy when you give birth to a boy, but use your breasts to feed a girl. If you don't see the corpses leaning on each other under the Great Wall!"

This was not a rumor, but a real folk voice. Thinking of this, Heifu couldn't help but shudder.

He doesn't dare to think about too big ambitions or too far into the future. He just wants to live a good life for himself and his family first and avoid dying in the ravines. He must not be reduced to such a situation!

Therefore, it is better to find a way to upgrade the title to a permanent one as soon as possible. In that case, you can be permanently exempted from hard labor and be able to protect your family.

Just as he was thinking about it, he heard a shrill cry, and the guards all put down their work and looked around. But he saw a man wearing feathers and disheveled hair slowly walking over singing a strange song. He was a local shaman. County Sikong walked behind with a frosty face. Behind him, two foremen held a shirtless man with a tattoo on his face...

"Brother Heifu, he is..."

Before Ji Ying could say anything, Hei Fu recognized him. He was one of the Chu thieves they captured last month. He hadn't seen him in the past few days and didn't know what happened. Now that he has been taken out again, he wonders what he is going to do?

When they got closer, Hei Fu was shocked to find that the Chu robber's left foot was missing from the knee down!