Rice Paddy Transformation Plan

The drawing on the cave wall was a sketch, and Elder could already tell it depicted the area outside the cave: there was the cave, a small river, a jungle, and some things that weren't actually there.

Meanwhile, Luo Chong was thinking about how to plan the large open space in front of the cave.

The cave faced north from the south. Starting from the cave entrance, the small river was over 900 meters to the east, the jungle was over 1000 meters to the north, and the jungle was also about 1500 meters to the west, which was the direction towards Baldy's tribe.

That made the plot of land quite large, 2400 meters long east-west and about 1000 meters wide north-south. At 667 square meters per mu, this land was nearly 3600 mu, equivalent to the size of 333 football fields.

Holy cow, if they planted rice on all of that, the entire tribe probably couldn't finish eating it even if they ate until they died.

Of course, planting rice on all of it was impossible. Not to mention planting it all, right now, even knowing how to plant it was a problem.

You have to understand that even though this area was large, it was all dry land. Rice had to be grown in paddy fields. Just converting this dry land into paddy fields would be a massive undertaking.

With sufficient food and a safe environment, the human population would grow exponentially. The original Han Tribe had only 52 people. Adding the 9 people bought, the 6 children born in the few days Luo Chong was away, and the 30 newly joined Tree Tribe members, the population was now 97. The Han Tribe's cave was gradually becoming unable to meet their living needs.

So in the future, they would also need to build houses on this land: residential areas, rice paddies, chili fields, wild vegetable fields, breeding grounds, pastures, large warehouses, granaries, bronze smelting areas, wood processing plants. So many facilities would need to be placed on this land, so it had to be planned carefully.

The first problem to solve was the conversion of dry land to paddy fields. Growing rice required a lot of water, and pastures also needed a lot of water; otherwise, how could the forage grass have a good harvest, and how could they raise those two adorable Taotie?

The best way to turn dry land into paddy fields was to dig canals and divert water. This was relatively easy. However, it was unrealistic to irrigate such a large area entirely unless the canals were widened and deepened into rivers. Therefore, an artificial river was very necessary; this was what the Han Tribe truly needed.

The simple plan was to build a small square city with sides of 400 meters in the middle of the open space, putting the residential areas, breeding grounds, warehouses, granaries, metal smelting area, and wood processing plant all within this small city. The city was expected to provide living conditions for at least 5000 people, with a maximum capacity of 8000 people living together.

This scale was undoubtedly huge for the current Han Tribe, but Luo Chong didn't plan to build it all at once. Modern real estate development knows how to phase projects; there was no reason Luo Chong wouldn't. It could definitely be completed over several years.

Dig a moat around this 400-meter square city. The earth dug out would be used to build the city walls. The city walls didn't need to be too fancy; a rammed earth and brick structure would suffice. Rammed earth on the inside, covered with a layer of bricks on the outside. This would effectively protect the rammed earth from rain erosion and wouldn't require many bricks, significantly reducing the workload of brick making. Wasn't there a shortage of people? Everything had to be considered.

Then, using the moat as the center, dig an artificial river to divert water from the river, and then dig a return channel. Water from the small river would flow into the moat and then flow back into the small river from the moat. This would form a huge water network. Digging some small channels along this water network would allow for the irrigation of the entire plot.

The planned width of the moat and artificial river was 4 meters. This way, diverting the eight or nine meter wide small river to the east, the water flow would remain the same, but the channel would be half as narrow. So, theoretically, the water flow speed in the artificial river would increase by more than double, which would make it convenient to install some water conservancy facilities, such as water wheels.

Digging the artificial river would produce a lot of earthwork, but the earthwork couldn't be piled up randomly. The earth dug from the moat didn't need to be transported and could be rammed on the spot to build the city. The earth dug from the artificial river used for diverting water would be used to make bricks.

The specific plan was to use the cave as the center line, selecting the city site 200 meters on either side. The small river was 900 meters east of the cave. Subtracting the 200 meters occupied by the small city, this meant a 700-meter long, 4-meter wide, and at least 4-meter deep artificial river was needed to divert the water.

The first phase of the project was to dig through this 700-meter long diversion river. The excavated earthwork would be directly used to make bricks, preparing for the subsequent city construction. The city didn't need to be built in a hurry, but the water had to be diverted first so as not to delay next year's spring planting. He didn't want to have to carry water to irrigate the fields when planting rice next year. For rice paddies that required long-term flooding, that was simply unrealistic.

The second phase of the project was the excavation of the moat, with a total length of 1600 meters on all four sides, 4 meters wide, and 4 meters deep. However, this was not urgent. Anyway, the cave could still accommodate everyone for now, so there was no need to push so hard.

The third phase was the ramming of the city walls. The city walls were planned to be trapezoidal with a base width of 4 meters, a top width of 2 meters, and a height of 5 meters, with four city gates, one on each side. The outer side of the wall top would have a one and a half meter high battlement, with a wooden fence on the inside. This way, it would look 6.5 meters high from the outside and 5 meters high from the inside. The 2-meter wide wall top could easily accommodate 3 people walking side by side.

With such a thick and tall city wall, plus the 4-meter wide moat outside, in this era, absolutely no one could attack and get in.

Actually, people weren't the most terrifying. Luo Chong's main defense was against fierce beasts. In case another Terror Bird or Saber-toothed Tiger came running, if it was just a simple 2-meter high brick wall, that wasn't even as tall as a Terror Bird; what good would it do? Luo Chong didn't want the tragedy of children playing in the city suddenly having a Terror Bird jump over the wall and eat them, or some fierce beast breaking through the wall.

What were walls for? Walls were for defense.

The fourth phase of the project was the 700-meter long return water river. The earth dug out could be made into small bricks to build houses and various facilities in the city.

The entire project was expected to be completed within 3 years at the latest, otherwise Luo Chong worried that the cave wouldn't be able to accommodate everyone.

Damn it, if he had a large excavator, digging this total of 3000 meters of small river would only take at most half a month, while Luo Chong needed 3 years, emmm.

The four-meter thickness of the city walls was within the 400-meter range, which meant the actual area inside the city was a square with sides of 396 meters.

Inside the city, there would be four 15-meter wide main roads crossing each other in a 'well' shape, dividing the area into 9 sections, arranged like a nine-square grid. The center would be a plaza for sacrifices or gatherings, and also for drying rice.

The housing structure would all be single-story brick and tile houses, each occupying 100 square meters, which is a 10m x 10m small square.

The houses would face south from the north. The 4.5-meter wide, 10-meter long space could be divided into 3 rooms. Subtracting the thickness of the walls, each room would be 3 meters wide and 4 meters long, about the same size as modern single-story houses.

The two ends would be bedrooms, and the middle would be the kitchen and dining area. The bedrooms at both ends would be built with heated kang beds, connected to the stove in the middle kitchen. As long as the stove in the middle was kept burning, it could provide heat to the bedrooms at both ends simultaneously.

The rooms would all have large communal beds like heated kang beds. Each bedroom was expected to accommodate at least 5 people.

One such house could accommodate one adult man and two or three adult women, plus six or seven children, at least 10 people per household. This allocation was unavoidable; adult men needed to hunt, and too many died or were injured, causing a severe imbalance in the ratio.

The remaining 5.5-meter wide, 10-meter long yard could have a thatched shed or a small storage room built to store firewood, food, tools, or weapons, and also a toilet. This was entirely up to personal preference, they could make it however they liked.

Within the 400-meter long and wide city walls, excluding the four 15-meter wide main roads in a 'well' shape, there would also be a 16-meter wide ring road. Adding the 4-meter thickness of the city walls, the outer area would occupy a total width of 20 meters. The net size, without counting the wall thickness, is equivalent to a four-lane road today.

This would divide the area into 9 square sections with sides of 110 meters. Vertically, 11 rows of 10-meter square brick houses could be arranged. A 5-meter wide alley would be left between every two rows. A total of 9 rows could be arranged, with 11 houses per row, so one section would have 99 houses. With at least 10 people per household, one section could accommodate 1000 people.

Of the nine sections in the city, except for the middle one which would not have houses and would be left as a plaza, the outer eight sections could be built this way. Therefore, this city could accommodate a maximum of 8000 people.

However, Luo Chong didn't plan to have people live in all eight sections. He didn't even have 100 people now, so he wouldn't build that many houses at once. He would build them as the population grew.

According to Luo Chong's budget, the city only needed to house 5000 people. The remaining four sections would be built as a warehouse area, a metallurgy area, a breeding area, and a carpentry area, respectively.

The nine city sections would be built in phases, slowly over more than a decade.

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