The sketch painted on the cave wall showed the terrain outside the cave. The Elder had already recognized it: the cave, Small River, the jungle, and several things that had not originally existed.
Meanwhile, Luo Chong was thinking about how to plan the large open space in front of the cave.
The cave faced north with its back to the south. Starting from the cave entrance, Small River lay more than 900 meters to the east, while the jungle was over 1,000 meters to the north. The jungle also lay about 1,500 meters to the west, in the direction of Baldy's tribe.
That meant this plot of land was enormous—2,400 meters from east to west and about 1,000 meters from north to south. At 667 square meters per mu, the land covered nearly 3,600 mu, equivalent to the area of 333 football fields.
What a fertile field. If they planted all of it with rice, the entire tribe probably could not eat it all even if they ate themselves to death.
Of course, planting rice everywhere was impossible. Not to mention planting the whole area—even figuring out how to plant it was a problem.
Although this place was large, it was all dry land. Rice had to be grown in Paddy Fields. Merely converting all this dry land into Paddy Fields would be a massive project.
With abundant food and a safe environment, the human population would grow geometrically. The original Han Tribe had only 52 people. Adding the nine people they had bought, the six children born during Luo Chong's absence, and the 30 new members from the Tree Tribe, the population now stood at 97. The cave of the Han Tribe was gradually becoming unable to meet their housing needs.
In the future, they would also have to build houses here: a Residential Area, Paddy Fields, chili fields, wild-vegetable fields, a Breeding Farm, pastureland, large warehouses, granaries, a bronze Smelting Area, and a Wood Processing Plant. So many facilities had to fit on this plot of land—they had to plan everything carefully.
The first problem to solve was converting the land into Paddy Fields. Growing rice required a great deal of water, and the pasture needed plenty of water too. Otherwise, how could the grass flourish, and how could they raise those two adorable gluttons?
The best way to turn dry land into Paddy Fields was to dig channels and divert water. That part was relatively easy, but irrigating such a vast area was unrealistic. The channels would have to be widened and deepened until they became a river. That was why an Artificial River was essential—this was what the Han Tribe truly needed.
The simple plan was to build a square town, 400 meters on each side, in the middle of the open land. The Residential Area, Breeding Farm, warehouses, granaries, metal Smelting Area, and Wood Processing Plant would all be placed inside it. The town was expected to provide housing for at least 5,000 people, with an upper limit of 8,000 residents living there together.
That scale was undoubtedly enormous for the current Han Tribe, but Luo Chong had never intended to build it all at once. Even modern real estate projects were built in phases. There was no reason he could not do the same. They could complete it over several years.
They would dig a moat around the 400-meter-square town and use the excavated earth to build the city walls. The walls did not need to be anything fancy. A rammed-earth-and-brick structure would do, with rammed earth inside and a layer of bricks on the outside. This would protect the rammed earth from rain erosion while requiring relatively few bricks, greatly reducing the amount of brick-firing work. There were not many people, after all, so every aspect had to be taken into consideration.
Then, with the moat as the center, they would dig an Artificial River to bring water over from the river. They would also dig a return route so that water from Small River would flow into the moat and then from the moat back into Small River. This would create a huge water network. By digging smaller channels along it, they could irrigate the entire plot.
The moat and Artificial River were planned to be four meters wide. If they diverted the eight-or-nine-meter-wide river to the east, the water volume would remain unchanged, but the river channel would become half as wide. In theory, the water flow in the Artificial River would thus more than double, making it convenient to install hydraulic equipment such as waterwheels.
Digging the Artificial River would produce a great deal of earth, but the earth could not simply be piled up anywhere. The earth from the moat would not need to be transported; it could be rammed into the city walls on the spot. The earth from the Diversion River would be used to fire bricks.
The specific plan was to use the cave as the center line and take 200 meters on either side as the town site. Small River lay 900 meters east of the cave. Subtracting the 200 meters occupied by the town, they would need a Diversion River 700 meters long, four meters wide, and at least four meters deep to bring the water over.
The Phase One Project was to dig through the 700-meter-long Diversion River. The excavated earth would be fired directly into bricks to prepare for the later construction of the city. The city itself could wait, but the water had to be diverted first. They could not delay next year's spring planting. Luo Chong did not want to be carrying water to irrigate the fields when they planted rice next year. For Paddy Fields that required long-term flooding, that was completely impractical.
The Phase Two Project was digging the moat. Its four sides would total 1,600 meters, with a width of four meters and a depth of four meters. But this was not urgent. The cave could still accommodate everyone for now, so there was no need to push themselves that hard.
The third phase was to ram the city walls into place. The walls were planned as trapezoids, four meters wide at the base, two meters wide at the top, and five meters high, with four gates—one on each side. The outside of the wall top would have 1.5-meter-high crenellations, while the inside would use wooden fencing. From outside, the wall would appear 6.5 meters high; from inside, it would be five meters high. Its two-meter-wide top could easily accommodate three people walking abreast.
With such thick, towering walls and a four-meter-wide moat outside them, no one in this era could possibly break into the city.
Actually, humans were not the most frightening threat. Luo Chong was mainly guarding against wild beasts. What if another Terror Bird or Saber-toothed Tiger came running over? If there were merely a two-meter-high brick wall, it would not even be as tall as a Terror Bird. What use would it be? Luo Chong did not want the tragedy of children playing inside the city when a Terror Bird suddenly leaped over the wall and ate one of them—or some other beast breaking through the wall.
What were walls for? Walls were for defense.
The Phase Four Project was the 700-meter-long Backwater River. The excavated earth could be fired into small bricks for constructing the houses and various facilities inside the city.
The entire project was expected to be completed within three years at the latest. Otherwise, Luo Chong feared the cave would no longer be able to hold everyone.
Damn it. If they had a large excavator, digging this river, which was 3,000 meters long in total, would take at most half a month. Luo Chong, however, needed three years. Emmm.
The four-meter thickness of the city walls occupied the outer 400-meter perimeter. In other words, the actual area inside the city was a square measuring 396 meters on each side.
Inside the city, four main roads, each 15 meters wide, intersected in pairs to form a Chinese-jing-shaped grid, dividing it into nine sections. It looked like a nine-square grid. The center would be a plaza for sacrifices and gatherings, and they could also dry Paddy Rice there.
All the residences would be one-story brick-and-tile houses. Each household would occupy 100 square meters—a small square ten meters by ten meters.
The houses would face south with their backs to the north. A space 4.5 meters wide and ten meters long could be divided into three rooms. After subtracting the wall thickness, each room would be three meters wide and four meters long, about the same size as a modern single-story house.
The rooms at either end would be bedrooms, while the middle one would be a kitchen combined with a dining room. The bedrooms at both ends would be built with Heated Beds connected to the kitchen stove. As long as the stove in the middle kept burning, it could heat both bedrooms at once.
The rooms would all have large, Heated Bed-like sleeping platforms. Each bedroom was expected to accommodate at least five people.
Such a house could accommodate one adult man, two or three adult women, and another six or seven children—at least ten people per household. There was no helping it. The adult men had to hunt, and so many had died or been injured that the ratio had become severely unbalanced.
The remaining yard, 5.5 meters wide and ten meters long, could hold a thatched shed or a small storeroom for firewood, food, tools, or weapons, along with a toilet. This was entirely up to the residents. They could arrange it however they liked.
Within the city walls, which were 400 meters long and wide, there were four main roads in the 15-meter-wide grid, as well as a 16-meter-wide ring road around the city. Including the four-meter thickness of the walls, the outer perimeter occupied a total width of 20 meters. Excluding the wall thickness, the clear dimensions were equivalent to a modern four-lane road.
This divided the city into nine square sections, each 110 meters on a side. In each vertical row, eleven ten-meter-square brick houses could fit, with a five-meter-wide alley between every two rows. Nine rows could fit in total, making eleven households per row and 99 households in one section. With at least ten people per household, one section could house 1,000 people.
Of the city's nine sections, the central one would be left as a plaza instead of being built up, while the eight outer sections could all be constructed this way. Thus, the city could house up to 8,000 people.
But Luo Chong had never expected all eight sections to be occupied. He did not even have 100 people yet, so there was no need to build all the houses at once. They could build more when the population increased.
According to Luo Chong's calculations, housing 5,000 people in the city would be enough. The remaining four sections would become a warehouse district, Smelting Area, Breeding Area, and woodworking district.
The nine urban sections would be built in batches, taking more than a decade to complete at a leisurely pace.
~
~
~
~
~
I say the words "Please vote" twice every day.
I know you will only show it through your actions.
I will keep updating for a lifetime and hold fast to my perseverance.
It is never too late to give your all.
Before you continue