Three Kingdoms

When people from Jiangdong Youwen Division began to carry out a series of activities, various construction sites in southern Sichuan and Sichuan were also busy.

Various materials were stacked high in the factory, and a large number of simple work sheds were filled with workers used to build roads and bridges.

Without the assistance of large-scale equipment, many places today can only rely on manpower.

If it were not for the relatively mature gunpowder production and use conditions, Fei Qian would not dare to talk about opening road infrastructure in the mountains of the southwest.

Fei Qian, who was accustomed to the construction speed of later generations of infrastructure maniacs, felt that Dahan's current construction was somewhat too low-level. However, coupled with a construction team with sufficient gunpowder and skilled craftsmen, it scared the jaws of people of Dahan's current generation. .

Many village leaders and squires from all over the country who had visited the construction site were surprised, even horrified, by the orderly construction site.

Scheduling and overall planning is not a simple issue.

Just like cooking, some people are in a hurry when cooking, some people can do it well but it takes a long time, and only a small number of people can cook it quickly and well.

How many of these local indigenous people in Sichuan and Sichuan have the concept of overall planning?

They didn't even understand why sanitary shacks, simple hospital beds and medical rooms were added to the construction site. At the same time, in order to avoid the unique parasite problem in southern Xinjiang, all domestic water passes through the sedimentation tank and then is directed to the lime pond. After secondary sedimentation, it is boiled for drinking.

To open a road, it is inevitable to invade areas that are originally natural, wild, and uninhabited. In such areas, what is feared is not tigers, leopards, and bears, but insects and bacteria.

For tigers, leopards and bears, if there are too many people, they are just a plate of food. For insects and bacteria, if there are too many people, people are just a plate of food.

In the entire plan for the infrastructure construction of the main artery in Jiaozhi in southern Sichuan, Xu Shu, Zhuge Liang, Xu Huang and others did not want to become fat in one go. Instead, they prepared to develop step by step, centered on villages in various places. Select the node before developing the next section.

A large number of laborers passed through Chang'an and gradually moved to Sichuan and Shu. These laborers include slaves, prisoners, and people who have to sell themselves into labor for certain reasons.

This type of labor was a consumable in the original history. As long as it could be completed, it didn't matter no matter how many people died. However, for the relatively smarter advisers under Fei Qian's rule, labor was not only They are just consumables, but they are also producers and consumers.

In addition to the fixed amount of labor per day, these labors also allow for excess labor in exchange for payment. For example, if a laborer is required to carry fifty cartloads of earth back and forth, then the amount of earthwork exceeding fifty cartloads will become the person's reward for that day.

This kind of move, which was almost too simple in later generations, gave the current laborers of the Han Dynasty an unprecedented initiative, and the speed of development and construction was also accelerated.

At the same time, because labor can be paid, people will naturally want to spend it, and the money spent allows surrounding villages to spontaneously organize various goods for trading, and these goods are not available at all. No more effort is needed to organize transportation and transshipment, because these things are taken care of by people in the surrounding villages.

Roasted bugs, smoked mountain rats, hares and pheasants, rice wine and fruit wine, etc., appear in specific markets every day, tempting the paid laborers to purchase them. Originally, if it was an official order, it would take time and effort to send people to recruit people, and it would also cause public resentment. But now, they are delivered to the door with a smile, and they go back happily with less money than the original recruitment fee.

Then the indigenous people in these villages would take their money to buy things in Han Chinese towns further away. When you buy things needed in the village, you will also buy some raw materials needed to process various food, clothing and other items for the market in these labor camps...

Of course, there are good sides to things, and there are also bad sides to things.

Opening a road requires a very large amount of gunpowder.

Although Xu Huang is the commander-in-chief, it cannot be said that he keeps an eye on the front line every day, and those who carry out explosions on the front line are basically the top soldiers. Among these large-scale soldiers, after the expansion of the project volume, the original experienced grenadiers were obviously not enough, and they were indeed in different directions, one was military and the other was engineering.

So later on, we began to recruit some specialized demolition personnel, who were taught by the original experienced grenadiers. One person led a dozen people to conduct surprise training on gunpowder.

Of course, the quality of these assault training personnel cannot be compared with the original grenadiers. For safety reasons, Xu Huang also deliberately mixed the personnel responsible for gunpowder blasting, forming a backbone with a small number of grenadiers and military police, and then added The blasters who have received these trainings are specifically responsible for blasting key points, especially rocks.

Then these blasted rocks can be used as paving materials...

But if you go up the mountain too much, you will eventually encounter a tiger.

Just some time ago, a convoy transporting gunpowder had an inexplicable explosion. Almost all the forty or fifty people in the entire convoy were wiped out, with no bones left. The few who survived almost became fools. Nothing can be asked.

No one knows exactly what happened during the transportation process.

Maybe it was accidentally ignited, or maybe the black powder ignited spontaneously...

There are many possibilities, but the specific reasons are probably only known to those transport convoys that turned into broken bones.

This is very helpless, and there are not many good solutions. The only way is to reduce the amount of transportation each time and transport it in small quantities and multiple times. In this way, even if something happens, it may only destroy one car, but not the whole car. The entire convoy.

In addition to problems during transportation, there are also dumb guns.

Squibs are the most common problem encountered during blasting, but if they are not handled properly, people will die.

Sometimes the gunpowder failed to explode because it was damp.

If it really can't explode, it's still hard to say. I'm most afraid that the fuse will get damp and burn slower than normal. The blaster will see that it didn't explode for a long time, and then passed...

Problems like this appear almost every few days. Of course, it’s not just about blasting, because the quality of the personnel themselves is very poor, coupled with their own neglect of safety, even if there are relevant safety regulations, safety accidents occur from time to time.

Or it could be various accidents, anyway, basically there are injuries every day.

Basically no one cares about small wounds. For big wounds, it depends on whether God will give you another chance. However, as the temperature gradually rises, the number of bacteria and fungi in the jungle is obviously much higher, and it is humid. A warm environment is a paradise for these bacteria and fungi, and a hell for those injured.

Even a small wound may become infected and inflamed later on, and once it enters the stage of sepsis, it is basically doomed and even gods will be hard-pressed to save it.

Especially when opening up areas that were previously uninhabited, casualties will suddenly increase.

The topography along the central Jiaozhi line in southern Sichuan and Sichuan is relatively complex, and the natural environment is even worse. Sometimes we do a good job, but then suddenly there are falling rocks, fallen trees, landslides, etc., causing many casualties.

At the same time, the leeches in the woods are going crazy as the temperature rises. The labor itself does not have the same equipment as mountain soldiers, and coupled with heavy physical labor, even if they repeatedly claim to pay attention to leeches, their blood is boiling while working, and a group of people attracts a large area of ​​leeches around them. come over.

In front of flesh and blood, even if you apply simple herbal medicine, it will not last long. Many laborers are bitten by leeches. Those who know a little bit can smoke it and apply it with salt, but those who don't understand it will directly pull it...

Later, when work started every day, a pile of bonfires would be lit to disperse mosquitoes and leeches. It had some effect, but in areas where the smoke was not covered or was relatively thin, there were still many people working in the labor camp. The trick is not only blood loss, but also easy to get infected with germs and make you sick.

There are no specific anti-inflammatories, just herbal remedies.

However, general herbal medicines often have no way to deal with inflammation, especially acute inflammation.

Unavoidable casualties occurred.

Such a death is more demoralizing than a blasting accident.

Because the wounded whined all day long, it also made the uninjured laborers feel timid. For these laborers who did not know a few Chinese characters, they had no idea that these injuries were caused by bacterial and fungal infections. See When these patients experience hallucinations due to fever, most workers easily assume that they have been exposed to some strange event, or that they have been lowered by something, or possessed by some kind of poisonous insect. …

As for the military lord Sima inside the construction site, even if he knows the real situation, it is very troublesome to decipher these incomprehensible remarks. These laborers are not from the same place. They speak in local dialects and cannot say that they go to work every day. Should a mouthpiece be given to the laborer while working, or should a piece of cloth be used to cover the laborer's mouth?

So these situations were reported to Xu Huang.

Xu Huang also had a headache.

Later, Xu Shu found out about it and sent a letter with a few words on it, "Gods from the five directions can rest in peace."

Later, Taoist priests from the Five Directions God Sect came.

First, we searched for the cemetery, checked the feng shui, checked the tomb, determined the location, and held a big Dharma ceremony during the burial. Don't mention it, once the Dharma conference is over, everything has stopped. There is no news spreading everywhere, and the wounded who are still injured and may not survive will no longer talk nonsense all day long, and they can still explain when they are sober. Let’s talk about the funeral and so on...

The cemetery faces the road and is not sealed or mounded. It only covers the ground with stone tablets and writes the names of the deceased. If there is no name, just write the title of the deceased. At the front, there are five tablets of the Five Directions Catholic Church. The incense burner made of stone was surrounded by some transplanted trees, and combined with the green mountains and green mountains in the distance, let alone the living people looking at it, even the dead felt extremely satisfied when they lay down.

The Taoist priests of the Five Directions God Sect have said that this is their "profession". Although this land is not the best, it may not be able to bring blessings to future generations, riches and honors, etc., but at least it can bring peace to the deceased. There is no question of resting in peace and requiem in peace.

In fact, this is not a completely unreasonable superstition. If the cemetery is chosen in a cold and humid place, it may not really be able to raise any zombies, but it is possible to raise a bunch of fungi, bacteria, venomous snakes and insects, and then wait for future generations to clean the tomb every year. A mild insect bite, a serious infection with unknown germs...

Therefore, this Taoist priest from the Five Directions God Sect is not completely incompetent. It is just because he does not understand the officialdom, so he was pushed to a remote place in the countryside.

Although it gave comfort to the laborers after their death, it could not completely prevent the casualties of the laborers when building roads and bridges. Later, Xu Huang even began to send soldiers to the labor queues, and dedicated people were responsible for keeping an eye on safety matters. Every day in the morning and at the end of the work day, special announcements were made about what happened, which more or less prevented the casualty rate from continuing to rise.

The road stretches and expands little by little.

However, this does not mean that these forests, which may have been uninhabited for hundreds or thousands of years, will easily succumb to humans. Shortly after the arrival of summer, the number of mosquitoes increased sharply, and then the epidemic occurred.

For later generations, there is a complete set of plans to deal with malaria caused by mosquitoes. But the problem is that in the Han Dynasty, except for Fei Qian himself who may have some impression of malaria, most ordinary people do not know what causes malaria. , and what kind of treatment is needed.

If we follow the customary practice of the feudal dynasty, the construction period is the first priority, and human life is a consumable. The dead are even better than the patients, because the patients still need more or less care, and the dead directly ask for replenishment. .

But in Xu Huang's case, he understood that the value of these labors was not just for paving the cornerstones of the road. Some of these labors were skilled brickworkers and carpenters. How big is the gap between being ignorant and confused, and then becoming proficient and able to be regarded as half a craftsman?

At first, Xu Huang thought it was a common disease, so he ordered the construction to be suspended and thoroughly cleaned. According to the previous epidemic prevention methods, he dug ditches, spread lime, burned mugwort, took medicated baths, and drank decoction. However, this set of measures could not cure the disease. General bacteria and fungi do have some effect, but for malaria where the main source of transmission is mosquitoes, the effect is not very great.

After a few days, a large-scale outbreak of malaria began in a certain camp.

It started with a few people a day, and then it became more than a dozen or dozens of people a day. The small sanitary shed on the construction site was immediately filled up, and the transmission characteristics of mosquitoes in summer made it possible for other healthy people even if they were not in contact with the sick person. Direct contact can also lead to infection.

The number of people getting sick is increasing day by day. Many people have poor resistance due to poor physical health and fatigue from road construction. The mortality rate is rising again. From one or two deaths at the beginning, it has progressed to three or four deaths every day. Later, There were seven or eight or more than a dozen people.

According to the requirements, people who died due to the epidemic could not be buried directly, but had to be burned. In most cases, the wood for burning did not even have time to dry, but was poured with kerosene and burned.

There are constantly new patients every day, and patients who continue to die, causing great panic to break out again in this labor site. Rumors that entering the mountains have offended the mountain gods inevitably arise. In fact, to a certain extent, this is not a "rumor". After all, those who were first infected were the laborers who went into the mountains to clear forests and build roads.

The morale inside the construction site continues to decline, as if there is fear everywhere.

Some of the military lords in charge of the construction site, Sima, were more knowledgeable and followed Xu Huang's instructions to comfort the laborers, continue the adjustment work, and promote epidemic control, while some were impatient, even after receiving Xu Huang's instructions, they still felt that they had their own ideas. That's right. After all, it's the labor that dies in hard work, and it's your own achievement to complete the progress of the project.

The conflicts that had been somewhat relaxed began to intensify. Only after Xu Huang received the information did he realize that some aspects were already very serious.

There was a dispute between the laborers and the soldiers at the construction site. They believed that the soldiers wanted them to die, which led to greater riots. Under the dual fear of the epidemic and despair, many laborers finally lost their minds and used hammers, shovels, etc. There was a hand-to-hand fight with the soldiers, and many people died...

When Xu Huang and his soldiers arrived at the construction site where the riot occurred, everything was over.

The dead soldiers may not understand why they suddenly became so crazy when they were just submissive workers yesterday, and those crazy workers also don't know why things developed into the current situation.

Some laborers fled into the mountains, but it was obvious that the vast majority of these laborers who escaped into the mountains would die in the primitive mountain forests, without even leaving their bones. Even the elite mountain soldiers around Xu Huang did not dare to go into the mountains alone without any equipment and preparations, let alone these laborers who had little knowledge of the mountains and forests to begin with?

Other laborers were dumbfounded by the terrible situation after the incident. When Xu Huang and others came, they had no desire to resist. It was like the courage and anger of the laborers, after they had been vented, All that was left was an empty shell, even his consciousness was lost.

Xu Huang frowned and looked at these laborers, then waved his hand and ordered them all to be killed and buried on the spot.

Whether innocent or intentional, the facts of these labor riots are before us.

The rule of the feudal class is not for reasoning.

But for such a construction site, the disappearance of everything from soldiers to laborers, whether on paper or physically, has had a moderate impact on other construction sites. Even the indigenous people in the surrounding villages have begun to pay attention to the construction. There was some discussion in Sandow.

It's said to be from mountain gods, it's said to be poisonous, it's said to be poisonous, it's all there.

Under such circumstances, Xu Shu and Xu Huang agreed that they could only temporarily stop heading south, at least avoid the summer period first, and wait until autumn and winter before continuing, and at the same time send people to deal with the newly emerged In the event of an epidemic, specialized doctors will be dispatched to conduct research.

At the same time, Xu Shu and Xu Huang also need to be sure. They must find out whether there is interference from others...