open sea

Chapter 946
Walking on the official road west of Mexico City, Yang Ce witnessed the highest survival wisdom created by his ancestors when they were displaced during the war-this wisdom is called unity.

At least on the line from Mexico City to Changsheng in the New World, the boundary line is clear but nowhere to be found. It is in the hearts of everyone on the border.

On the other side of the border is Alva Fort, the three bastions built on the official road by the Spanish Duke Alva's garrison in Mexico City to guard against the Ming army's eastward conquest.

On the other side of the border, there are countless villages along the way. These villages occupy a large area and have a prosperous population. The most important thing is the magnificent giant buildings they built with historical features and strong military defense features. , Tulou, Tuwei, Tubao, Tuzhai.

In the historical environment where the Spanish and Ming armies exchanged troops on the border, immigrants from the four provinces of Ming Dynasty moved here. There was a flaming war outside that threatened their livelihood, and the natives whose land was occupied and who were waiting for an opportunity to fight were coveting their property.

In the past, the Hakka people had a history of vigorous migration, but now the turbulent environment and brand-new life have forced immigrants from the four provinces to become new Hakka people.

Traveling thousands of miles across the country, they gather here, forming villages regardless of their hometown. Following the ancient tradition of visiting other places, people gather together as a family and live in one place to love each other.They used local materials and used the more ancient earth ramming technology to build surrounding buildings one after another, one building for each village, and one building for a city.

The shape of the surrounding buildings can be traced back to the architectural style of the cities of the Han Dynasty and the Minyue royal city at that time. The government and military buildings entered the folk as late as the Song and Yuan Dynasties, when the surrounding buildings were mostly square.

To the southeast of the Japanese invasion, in order to fight against the Japanese pirates and defend the clan, a series of circular surrounding buildings were built.

Several concentric ring buildings inside and outside form multiple layers. The circular outer wall is rammed with raw soil for load-bearing. The higher the wall, the thicker the bottom. .

The concentric building is high on the outside and low on the inside, and there are buildings in the building. The inner walls are made of blue bricks or earth bricks to save space. After all, the outer ring building is the main defensive wall. The roof of each building is covered with blue tiles for lighting and ventilation. The defense and defense are all excellent, and the people of the village will gather in it, and make alliances with blood.

In fact, most of the surrounding buildings on the border of Guangli were built by the villagers who hired immigrant craftsmen from Zhangzhou. There are many visionaries among them. According to the policy of the people, under the guidance of Qianhu, two engineers from the Eastern Army, the shape of the surrounding buildings has changed more than that of the southeast of the country.

The most outstanding ones are the gun platform, the tiger platform and the fort, collectively known as the three platforms.

On the surrounding building with a dangerous location, craftsmen choose two or four corners of the outer ring building to add horse-faced walls protruding in the air. The lower floor is equipped with perforations and the upper floor is equipped with shooting platforms, so that immigrants who have bird guns, hard bows and crossbows are in danger. used as defense.

In the surrounding buildings near the official road, in addition to focusing on the defense of the people, shooting towers are also set up for some weapons that the common people do not have, such as tiger towers and fortresses.

Tiger towers are mostly built on the upper floors of the horse-faced walls, which are used to fire tiger squat cannons; forts are mostly built in the middle layer, and are specially used for infantry field artillery; when building the horse-faced walls of forts, cement is added to the materials, and cement is always victorious. The cement factory is made of volcanic ash from Mexico City and burnt seashells. The foundation and columns are built, and the exterior is rammed with raw soil.

It not only saves materials, but also ensures that the wall can withstand the damage of the artillery to the wall.

Forts are usually not used, because the people don’t talk about cannons, a village only has about ten blunderbusses, but the military government has not restricted the people to make their own bows and crossbows, as long as the village captain reports the number of weapons to the military government every quarter. , so immigrants have a large number of projectile hot and cold weapons, but no artillery, rockets.

This is prepared for the officers and soldiers. Once the front line fights, even if the officers and soldiers lose their camps, they can retreat ten miles at most and immediately enter the surrounding buildings along the way to guard. Pulling the Jin field cannon upstairs can start another defensive battle.

Along the way Yang Ce walked, he saw no less than twenty walled buildings along the official road alone. Some of the walled buildings have been built, and some of the walled buildings are only half built. The people still live in small courtyards outside the buildings. There are always people on the watchtower casting curious eyes on the pirate team under his command in strange costumes.

But regardless of whether it was repaired or not, Yang Ce, who has a high military literacy, was worried all the way, because he could feel that he was always under the surveillance of the round fortresses on the north and south sides, and if those surrounding buildings had artillery, they would This official road is just within the maximum range of the artillery on both sides.

If it weren't for the Beiyang cavalry leading the way, Yang Ce might have lost his life when his brothers crossed the Mingxi border.

Sometimes the official road enters the ridge, and when riding on a horse and looking far away, you can see two or three such enclosures on one side of the official road. I don’t know how many buildings are far away from the official road—it’s terrible. !

He has seen many European bastions in the West. Speaking of defense capabilities, he thinks that these buildings are much weaker than those bastions. It's too small.

But what is the problem?
This is a residence.

No general would send one or two thousand or more troops to attack such a residential house, it is meaningless.

But they are here, guarding the official road, and you can't move forward if you don't fight; they are there, guarding every piece of countryside in the New World under the Ming Dynasty, and you can't control every inch of land if you don't fight.

There are hundreds of immigrants and aborigines living in each village. At least according to the official caliber of Yuan Zizhang, the commander of New Spain, there are at least a small regular army and a hundred militiamen on both sides of the official road and in every fence on the border.

Relying on such an earthen building, no three to five hundred people can knock it down?Even if you bring a cannon, firstly, the firepower is limited, secondly, it may not be able to make a gap after the cannon is finished, and thirdly, even if you are lucky enough to make a gap, you will still have to attack the city.

Yang Ce estimated that his commander had the same force as Alba's previous commander in Spain to attack Changsheng from here, but he couldn't find a good solution all the way.

The surrounding building is very time-consuming, and it blocks all the main roads and wilderness. It is very difficult for a large army to go around, and it prevents the opportunity for small troops to disperse and invade; but on the other hand, it provides an excellent attack route for the Ming army. With a wall dragged along, the Ming army could not only resist from the front, but also attack and encircle from the side or even from behind.

Even if you have an army of [-], what can you do? Tulou really can't beat you, but you only need to demolish four or five surrounding buildings and it takes enough time for the Ming army to rush over from Changsheng. Supplies, water and rest, maintain extremely high combat effectiveness and fight you decisively.

More importantly, in Yang Ce's eyes, this kind of fence that rose up all over the land actually controlled by the Ming Dynasty in the New World, and the immigrants spent a lot of manpower and material resources to build it means a kind of spirit. , from now on, no one wants me to leave here.

These dozens or even hundreds of surrounding buildings standing proudly at the waist of the New World are probably the most vigorous immigrant architectural history in the world during the Wanli period.

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)