Reclaiming Wasteland: Carefree Mountain Farmer

Chapter 239 Large-scale construction projects
The summer palace was built on a mountain 20 miles from the beach.

The entrance corridor of the Summer Palace is a large square, with eighteen giant elephants carved from white stone on both sides of the passage.

Each giant elephant is 2.5 meters tall, with ivory covered in bright copper powder, wearing armor and a cushion that symbolizes submission, and its eyes are inlaid with various gemstones.

The entire palace rises in layers, with the first layer at the foot of the mountain being the residence of the guards, and the higher one goes, the more prestigious it becomes.

Beijiwu, wearing beach shorts and a white tank top, walked into the palace, his feet in freshly changed natural rubber slippers.

After walking up the steps into the main hall, which covers more than 20,000 square meters, the first thing that Beijiwu saw was a huge hall-like space.

This place is like a giant cave, with light shining in from the outside, allowing you to clearly see the influence of the outside world on this place, yet it is also isolated from the outside world, with a cool temperature like a cave.

The main hall is twenty or thirty meters high, solemn and cold, which is in line with the majesty and grandeur of the imperial court.

Beijiwu took a few steps forward and looked at the eight huge pillars supporting this magnificent hall.

"Is this pillar a concrete sculpture, or is it made of stacked stones?"

Beijiwu walked up to a pillar with a diameter of two meters, and as soon as he touched it, he realized that the material was not stone!

The palace was designed by Beiji Wu, but it was built by craftsmen from the Ministry of Works who had been in charge of royal architecture for generations.

The forty-year-old Shan Xinrong replied, "Your Majesty, this is a giant tree found in the deep forests of Nanzhao."

Beijiwu asked curiously, "Does the Mountain Farming Kingdom have such a huge tree? This tree looks to be two or three meters in diameter and at least thirty-five meters tall. How was it transported here?"

Getting from the seaside to this 40-50 meter high palace is just the last step; the most troublesome part is getting from the deep mountains and forests of Hubei and Hunan provinces to the seaside.

Shan Xinrong had already made preparations, after all, these were things he personally supervised and was responsible for.

Although not a native of Shan Nong, Shan Xinrong, like everyone else, was very afraid of the meticulous emperor.

The emperor was meticulous and liked to understand the principles and the truth. Anyone who dared to deceive or evade the issue would die.

Now that they knew, they naturally dared not take any chances, much less gamble that King Wu would not kill anyone.

Offending King Wu is a capital offense; there is no death penalty without a crime to be committed, and one should not harbor any illusions.

Anyone who thinks they've only made a small mistake will have their whole family in trouble.

If you are doing something for King Wu, especially something that King Wu will personally inquire about, then it must be a very important matter.

"There are many ancient trees that are tens of thousands of years old in the remote mountains of the south, mostly fir trees, and also many giant trees that are eight hundred years old and suitable for building palaces."

"When Emperor Wen of the Wen Dynasty was repairing Luoyang, he ordered people to search for giant trees in various places to build palaces and mausoleums. In recent years, only one in ten giant trees in the north has survived, and many places in the south are sparsely populated. There are still several ancient forests of giant trees."

"After finding suitable timber, they relied on digging canals to divert water, using mud and human and animal power to guide the timber to the nearby river, and then relied on boatmen and trackers to pull it little by little to Qiongzhou."

“Some logs are larger than this, but considering the impact of insect repellency and the sturdiness of the material, we selected more than ten logs of the same species of cedar.”

Looking at the eight pillars in front of him, Beijiwu knew that these eight pillars must have cost a lot of money.

Money was actually the easiest thing to deal with; the most important things were manpower, material resources, and how to cut down and transport these giant trees, which were thicker than beds, intact.

Arctic Wu originally thought that only places like the Americas had giant trees, but now that the South is just beginning to be developed, many places are actually very well preserved because humans don't go there.

In particular, some giant trees with insect-repelling effects can appear in deep mountains and forests where poisonous insects are everywhere.

"Towering ancient trees" and "large enough to cover an ox"—these are all ancient times now, so there is no shortage of ancient trees.

Furthermore, in recent years, the mountain farmers have generally been resettled in centralized locations, so ordinary people do not have the opportunity to build private houses, which has protected many trees.

Cement buildings are better at waterproofing, earthquake resistance, cold protection, and moisture protection than wooden houses. In addition, the style of the mountain farmers naturally changed the demand for wood.

Furthermore, while ordinary trees are manageable, exceptionally large timbers require immense manpower and resources, making them unaffordable for most. Most importantly, the titles of princes in various regions have been abolished, and royal families have been subdued by the Arctic military.

After the peak market demand collapsed, ordinary people simply couldn't afford to enjoy such giant trees.

These trees are most likely not ten thousand years old; even a thousand years is probably an exaggeration.

But whether it's a thousand years old or ten thousand years old, and whether it's ancient or modern, it's not something that ordinary people can just cut down casually.

Protecting these giant trees is quite simple: just count their number and prohibit others from using them.

These giant trees, which are two to three meters thick and may be over forty meters tall, require dozens of people just to cut them down.

Including transportation and construction, it could only be used legitimately when building palaces for the emperor; at other times, it was at most used to make coffins from scraps.

However, since cremation and burial are the common practices among mountain farmers, there is almost no need for coffins.

Southerners who want to get their hands on this kind of wood have nowhere to show it off, and it can easily lead to their deaths.

Arctic Martial did not inquire about the specific location of the wood or the protective measures taken.

Wherever there is more large timber needed in the future, that place will become public land.

In addition to arable land, Beijiwu has tens of millions of square kilometers of forest, mountain, and grassland.

Apart from Qiongzhou Island beneath his feet, the surrounding Annam and even the entire Indochina Peninsula and the South Pacific islands, Arctic Wu claims it as his own, and no one dares to object.

Not to mention Annam province, even Linyi district of Champa is part of the territory of the Northern Wu.

Liu Jingshun was merely sent to manage and suppress the slaves in other areas; neither he nor his men had any sense of being the protagonists.

Annam province has been separated from China many times in history, but all of these separations occurred during periods of decline for the central dynasties.

Nowadays, the Central Plains army can reach their doorstep in a day, and the navy can bomb the coastal areas into ruins at any time.

The Kingdom of Linyi was destroyed by the mountain farmers, and Liu Jingshun was a witness to this.

When attacking other places later, they also relied on the support of the mountain farmers.

These foreign tribes were well aware of just how formidable the mountain farmers were.

The world belongs to the Arctic Martial Arts. Although the Arctic Martial Arts only designated a portion of the area as public property, in reality, everyone's life, death, land, houses, and family belong to the Arctic Martial Arts.

After visiting the Summer Palace and settling in, Beijiwu became greedy and wanted more.

“Build the Mountain and Water Palace in Wulingyuan, Wuling County, Lianghu Province.”

“Choose a scenic spot near Lingnan to build the Hundred Flowers Palace.”

“Build the Sacred Tree Palace in a forest with towering trees in the southwestern province.”

Bei Jiwu acted on his thoughts immediately, and fearing he might forget, he instructed his subordinates to order the governors of the three provinces to begin the operation.

Compared to the cost of building the Great Wall and military expenses, building a few palaces in the Arctic region wouldn't cost much, and it was all done by their own people, with the main force being the mountain farmers.

There are so many palaces that you can skip visiting, but you can't miss them.

They had more money than they could spend; the money they had spent on buying land and rewarding generals had almost all been recouped, and they also brought in a lot of money from the annual tea and porcelain trade from abroad.

I'm almost thirty and I still don't know how to enjoy life. I can't leave all the good things to my descendants.

Arctic Wu began large-scale construction, recklessly messing around on its own territory, leaving its mark and scent.

(End of this chapter)