Chapter 140: Impregnable Bronze Bastion
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The stone wall, built up layer by layer, was simple, crude, and exceedingly ugly—but it was not finished yet.
Once the gaps had been filled with mortar, so that every stone was encased in concrete, the work would be complete.
It was still ugly, still rough, but everyone present could now clearly see the enormous advantages of building walls with concrete!
The workers handling the task were highly skilled. A novice certainly could not match them, but the process itself did not appear to require much technical expertise.
Any reasonably clever person could probably learn it in half a day!
Most importantly, there were no particularly strict requirements for the stones used as filler. Odd shapes and varying sizes were no problem at all!
Even if the stones did not fit together smoothly, that did not matter. The concrete would fill the gaps.
The entire process took so little time that, in everyone’s eyes, it was not even enough to chisel a single hole in an ordinary dressed stone.
“Is this the cement Master Zhao brought out earlier?”
“Once this mortar sets, it becomes incredibly hard!”
“This is a divine tool for building houses, repairing cities, and constructing embankments!”
The officials and wealthy landowners crowded around the newly built stone wall, discussing it animatedly. Excitement shone in every pair of eyes.
This was precisely the effect Zhao Hengyi had wanted. For this very reason, he had specifically instructed the workers to use irregular, uncut stones. If they had used only red bricks or dressed stone, the astonishing advantage of cement in embankment construction would never have been apparent.
For repairing river embankments, strength was what mattered. Appearance came second.
This industrial product, destined to transform the face of the entire world, might seem rugged or even ugly in the eyes of the gentry—or, more precisely, the educated class—but that was beside the point. Once cement revealed its formidable power, everyone would make the most honest choice of all: the choice dictated by their own bodies.
Even with every stone wrapped in mortar, the wall still looked extremely coarse. Its surface rose and fell unevenly, and it was far from neat. Nevertheless, the stone wall had undeniably been completed.
All the officials and wealthy landowners present had to do now was wait quietly for the cement—the most crucial component of the wall—to harden.
Taking advantage of the interval, Zhao Hengyi explained the process to them. One hour after the wall had been completed marked the cement’s initial setting; twelve hours later came its final setting. At that stage, the concrete was still soft enough for anyone to poke a hole in it with ease.
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The following several hours marked the beginning of hardening, the process by which the concrete formed from mixed cement truly became solid.
During hardening, the concrete had to be watered constantly for curing. Even in the modern world, whose technology was countless strides ahead of the Great Yan Kingdom, this step was indispensable whenever concrete was used.
In the northern regions, where the weather was especially dry, straw mats even had to be laid over the slowly hardening concrete before it was watered, in order to preserve its moisture for as long as possible.
Zhao Hengyi’s words made the officials and wealthy landowners’ eyes shine. This new kind of mortar, called cement, actually thrived on water!
If everything he said was true, then this stuff had practically been created specifically for building embankments!
Inside the normally deserted, dilapidated temple, a group of pampered officials and gentry surrounded the rough, ugly stone wall, examining it again and again as though they meant to find flowers growing inside it.
After explaining everything clearly, Zhao Hengyi led his people into the barely weatherproof room. He had traveled through the rain, accompanied County Magistrate Liu on an inspection of the river embankment, and then demonstrated the use of cement. Having been busy without rest back in the village, Master Zhao was exhausted and needed a good sleep.
As for the fact that the county magistrate himself was still outside—well, Master Zhao was a baron of Cangwu County, after all. A proper nobleman. He hardly needed to concern himself with a mere county magistrate!
Zhao Hengyi, as the proprietor, could sleep, but the skilled workers responsible for transporting the cement and building the wall could not. The officials and wealthy landowners surrounded them, bombarding them with questions.
Before they left, the village had given them careful instructions. Afterward, their master had repeatedly reminded them of what to say. The workers could not compare with those old foxes when it came to schemes and stratagems, but regarding the effects and uses of cement, they were free to speak as much as they wished.
However, whenever anyone tried to fish indirectly for information about other matters concerning Elm Bay, the workers instantly became mute, refusing to utter a single word.
In the end, at County Magistrate Liu Rui’s suggestion, everyone dispersed to rest. Each household left only one or two people behind to keep watch beside the concrete stone wall.
Early the next morning, everyone once again gathered around the wall. To their astonishment, they discovered that the concrete had truly hardened!
Someone tried scraping it with a fingernail, only to remove a little powder—and damage his own nail in the process.
It could not be scraped off at all!
The officials and wealthy landowners were overjoyed. With such a divine tool for building embankments, it would be exceedingly difficult for the riverbanks of Dangyang County to burst this year!
The speed at which this new mortar set and hardened was especially astonishing.
The workers from Elm Bay really did pour water over the stone wall, leaving everyone present marveling in wonder. The young man doing the watering grew so nervous that the hand holding the ladle trembled slightly.
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Not everyone present knew nothing about construction. Quite a few had considerable knowledge, especially among the officials.
A county government could, in fact, be regarded as a miniature, simplified version of the imperial court. Any function an ordinary person could think of was represented there in some corresponding form.
As for matters unknown to ordinary people, a small county town had no need to maintain such institutions.
The minor assistant officials responsible for supervising and repairing various buildings, as well as overseeing all kinds of civil engineering projects, were clearly professionals who knew their trade. Before this, several wealthy landowners had secretly contacted one of them and asked him to evaluate the new mortar in secret.
Now, after the stone wall had been drenched with water, the county magistrate turned toward the assistant official who understood construction.
Since that was the case, the man stepped forward without hesitation.
He took out a small hammer he carried with him and gently tapped the wet stone wall. To his surprise, the wall remained solid.
It was exactly as Master Zhao had said the previous day: this cement thrived on water!
If the wall had been built with ordinary rammed earth, then after only one night, contact with water would inevitably have softened it. The newly built wall might even have collapsed.
To set and harden in a single night—truly miraculous!
Even glutinous-rice mortar, which had caused the wealthy and illustrious Suzhou Prefecture to make a fool of itself, generally required around ten days of undisturbed setting before it hardened. And for glutinous-rice mortar to display the great reputation it had earned—to truly withstand blows from the outside—it often took an entire year.
Whether ordinary rammed earth or glutinous-rice mortar, neither could possibly compare with the cement Master Zhao had produced!
“Everyone, this cement truly is a divine tool for flood control and embankment construction!”
County Magistrate Liu Rui, who had been quietly worried all along and had therefore maintained a low profile, finally broke into a broad smile.
“Now that we possess such a divine tool, let us discuss how to repair the river embankment in Dangyang County!
“You all have clansmen and farmland here in Dangyang County. Since I have promised to substitute labor for taxes, surely none of you intends to seize this opportunity to transform the embankment along the Willow River into an impregnable bulwark—one that will remain free of breaches for a hundred years, even a thousand?”
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