Getting Married

Shen Jingchuan had Hu Tieniu lead the way to the mountain stronghold where they had previously stayed.

From a distance, the mountain stronghold is indeed situated in a treacherous location, backed by a cliff and surrounded by sheer cliffs on three sides, with only one road leading to the top of the mountain.

The mountain path is three or four meters wide. Some sections are naturally formed, while others are man-made. It winds its way up the mountainside and is not steep, but there is only one such path.

At the end of the path was a heavy wooden door, not particularly eye-catching, with a simple gatehouse built on top for people to stand guard. The stockade wall, on the other hand, looked quite sturdy, with no signs of collapse.

Pushing open the door, Shen Jingchuan's vision suddenly opened up.

The mountaintop was a large, flat open space, much wider than he had expected. It reminded him of a video he had seen of Baodu Gu in Shandong, where the mountaintop was as flat as a neat plateau.

Further in, they even found water—a spring seeped from the cracks in the rocks behind the cliff, flowing down the rock face. In this year of severe drought, the flow was not large, but it never stopped, and a clear pool accumulated at the bottom, overflowing into the mountain stream.

Shen Jingchuan sighed inwardly. This was truly a natural bandit's den, an excellent stronghold for survival. He considered the situation and decided that he had to keep this place. If he were to encounter any major upheaval in the future, this would be his last resort.

He turned to Hu Tieniu and said:

"I'll bring over some building materials later and fix this place up properly. This will be our last stronghold; if anything goes wrong, we'll retreat here."

He estimated that it was nearly 600 meters in diameter. Now, only some dilapidated houses remain on the mountain, along with several large tracts of farmland.

If planned properly, two- or three-story buildings could easily house tens of thousands of people.

Moreover, there was a readily available water source, and he could transport food from the modern world at any time. No matter who besieged it, they couldn't kill it. He made up his mind that this place had to be built properly.

Before leaving, he specifically instructed Hu Tieniu:

"There's a secluded ravine at the foot of the mountain, next to the official road. It's in a remote location, and nobody goes there. From now on, I'll have all the building materials unloaded in that ravine. You'll lead people there on time to carry them up the mountain."

Hu Tieniu had been reprimanded by Shen Jingchuan several times and was already used to his ways, so he simply agreed without asking any unnecessary questions.

For the next month or so, every time Shen Jingchuan transmigrated, he would first go around to that secluded mountain hollow at the foot of the mountain to make sure no one was around before unloading the building materials such as steel bars, cement, and building templates from his space, piling them up neatly, and then having Hu Tieniu bring people down to move them.

The people on the mountain only knew that every time they went to the valley, they would see piles of building materials. No one could figure out which road Young Master Shen took or how he transported them. They just felt that this young master's abilities were unfathomable, and they were filled with awe and dared not ask any questions.

During this period, the inns at the foot of the mountain were almost completed. Only a few craftsmen remained to do the finishing touches, while most of the remaining young and strong were transferred to the mountain to help repair the village walls and build new houses.

It was during this time that the reputation of the camp for providing food and lodging and ensuring that everyone had a full meal spread along the official road to the surrounding areas.

This great famine has lasted for almost a year. Most of the refugees who have survived until now are strong and healthy young men. Most of the elderly, weak, women and children have perished on the way to escape the famine. At first, only a few people came to seek refuge, but later more and more people came in groups.

At first, Shen Jingchuan thought he had enough manpower and didn't want to take on more, but later, seeing how miserable the disaster victims were, he couldn't bear to let them slowly disappear from this world.

Since he had made up his mind to build the stronghold, having more manpower would never be a bad thing, so he simply decided to take in more people. He had plenty of money to buy grain locally, and if that wasn't enough, he could bring in people from the modern world. This number of people was no problem for him at all.

Time flies, and the Lunar New Year is just around the corner.

More than 5,000 refugees have come to join them in recent days. Shen Jingchuan officially named the mountain Azure Cloud Stronghold. He chose this name to deliberately distinguish it from ordinary bandit strongholds that rob and plunder.

He selected 800 able-bodied men to train heavy infantry, while the remaining elderly, women, and children were assigned to various logistical tasks. The entire village had its own responsibilities, essentially creating a situation where everyone was a soldier.

Construction of Azure Cloud Stronghold has never stopped, and the village walls have been completely built.

Because the area is surrounded by cliffs on three sides, the section where the wall needs to be built is only about 200 meters long. The wall is 6 meters high, with the middle filled with rammed earth and the two sides covered with neat bluestones carved by stonemasons. The joints are then sealed with cement. A gate tower was also built above the gate.

The newly built two-story house is now enough for half of the people to live in. The rest of the people are temporarily living in the tents that Shen Jingchuan brought from the modern world. In a few days, everyone will be able to move into the new house.

He then gathered the carpenters and blacksmiths in the village, took out his own design drawings, and combined them with the local crossbow-making skills of the craftsmen, using the spring steel sheets he brought from modern times as the core of the crossbow.

With readily available steel parts as a base, the process of forging steel blanks is eliminated, and the crossbow manufacturing progress is not slow, with an average of more than a dozen finished products produced per day.

The inn opposite the Wild Goose Tomb by the official road at the foot of the mountain had already opened. It was located in the suburbs, very close to Yuxi Prefecture. Most travelers stopped there for a rest, and there were very few people staying at the inn.

Some guests who came from afar specifically because of the reputation of the Wild Goose Tomb stayed overnight, but the revenue from food was mediocre.

Shen Jingchuan selected some decent-looking women from the village to manage the inn, and also found a few cooks with decent skills to take charge of the cooking. He managed to organize and operate the inn properly. Although the income was not high, it was enough to maintain daily operations.

The Lin Household's carriage workshop had already officially started production, and they had even opened a shop on the street in the city, specializing in selling the four-wheeled carriages they had made.

This vehicle became an instant hit as soon as it hit the market. It is stable, has a large carrying capacity, and is much better than traditional two-wheeled horse-drawn carriages. Orders are piling up, and workshops are working day and night to keep up with the demand.

Shen Jingchuan has never put his custom-made top-of-the-line titanium alloy four-wheeled carriage up for sale.

More than forty top-of-the-line titanium alloy carriages, commissioned by Modern, have been produced. Factory Director Zhou continues production according to the contract, and they are all stored in Shen Jingchuan's warehouse.

Because he could only travel through the area once a day, and all transport capacity was prioritized for building materials for Azure Cloud Stronghold, the horse-drawn carriages took up too much space, so they hadn't been used to transport materials here.

The carriages sold on the market are all made of ordinary steel; the core precision parts were brought from the modern era by him and then assembled and processed by workshop craftsmen.

Goods-carrying wagons are priced at 200 taels each, while passenger wagons sell for 280 taels each. Even though the prices are much higher than ordinary wagons, they are sold out as soon as they come off the production line, and there is no worry about selling them.

Business was booming, and Shen Jingchuan and Lin Qingyao's marriage was progressing smoothly to the fourth step – betrothal, also known as sending betrothal gifts.

According to the marriage process in another world, the six rites are: betrothal, asking the name, accepting auspicious gifts, presenting betrothal gifts, setting the wedding date, and the wedding ceremony. First, betrothal gifts are presented to establish the engagement, then both parties agree on the wedding date. On the wedding day, the bride's family will carry her dowry through the door.

The betrothal gifts prepared by Shen Jingchuan were considered very generous by the people of this other world. In addition to the usual silk and silver, the most eye-catching items were six shiny, life-sized glass mirrors and twenty exquisite pocket watches, among other rare gifts.

He also had two custom-made titanium four-wheeled carriages from Modern. In addition, he added fifty sets of titanium armor.

The betrothal gifts were given, and the "setting the date" ceremony was performed. The wedding day was set for the sixteenth day of the second month of the following year. There was no other reason than what the fortune teller had said.