After the Emperor Chongzhen approved the construction of the new city, the construction of the new city officially began, and the construction soldiers immediately began to get busy.
In order to burn more Ming bricks as soon as possible, Zhu Cixuan once added ten brick burning caves nearby. The brick burning construction soldiers and refugees also worked in two shifts day and night.
A large number of people are needed to build the city. There is no shortage of people here. After a period of recuperation, the original color of the refugees' faces has become somewhat ruddy.
Zhu Cixuan planned to give work as a relief, and let these refugees all work to build the city wall. Those who didn't work had no food. But when I think about it later, even if some lazy people don't work, they can't really eat without food?
Not to mention that these lazy people will influence other people by slacking off their work. Zhu Cixuan is more worried that some people secretly incite the feelings of refugees and oppose the Imperial Court. After all, not all people are human.
Finally, Zhu Cixuan decided that those who were willing to participate in the construction of the city were willing to add two meals to three meals every day. The new meal also included three or two pairs of meat and clean clothes. In addition, people who have not participated in the construction of the city will have no right to settle down in the new city in the future.
High intensity labor requires a large amount of rice and meat, so Zhu Cixuan added food and meat to those who are willing to build a city, for fear that some people will not be able to support themselves and collapse their bodies.
At present, Zhu Cixuan doesn't need money. The more than one million taels of silver from the rich merchants in the capital is enough for him to spend. As for the rest, of course, he will not hand it in, but must use it to develop his own power.
Seeing such good treatment, many people are willing to participate in the construction of the city. The essence of the Chinese people is hard working. They want to build their homes by their own hands, and they want to live and dignity by their own work.
Of course, the most important thing in the world is people who are lazy and eat. Many people think that they have food and drink every day. What else do they do? They don't have money to take. Besides, once the new town is built, you can just go in and build a shack.
The civil servants sent by Shuntian Mansion quickly counted the population. There were 120000 refugees and beggars, and more than 70000 men, including more than 40000 young people. In addition, there are more than 5000 orphans under the age of 15, most of whom are boys.
Nearly 100000 people, including women, are willing to participate in the construction of the city. Each person will be given a wooden card with his or her name as an identity certificate for settling down in the future.
Those who can come to the capital from Shaanxi, Henan and other places from thousands of miles away naturally suffered a lot along the way. Most of the people who can persist in hunger are men, and those women and children are basically their families.
Not all the refugees went to the capital. Most of them went to other safe places to live on the way, and some died on the way. Many places suffer from disasters all the year round and are very poor. They are unwilling to accept refugees. When the government sees refugees coming, it closes the city gate early.
These refugees can only continue to move northward eagerly, thinking that the capital is under the feet of the emperor, and the emperor can't close the city gate to shut them down. Therefore, many people are holding a glimmer of hope and going north with difficulty, so that the current situation can be seen.
Zhu Cixuan found a professional person to explore the terrain, and finally chose the location of the new town a few miles away from the porridge factory to build a city with a circumference of 50 miles, and the budget cost was 100000 taels of silver. It is equivalent to half of Beijing, and can accommodate a population of 450000.
Although it is half the size of Beijing, if it is built, it will certainly not be comparable to Beijing. Zhu Cixuan's early planning was only about the city walls, roads in the city and simple residential buildings. As for other things, they had to develop slowly over time.
Zhu Cixuan ordered people to move most of the porridge factories to the area where the city was built, leaving only ten porridge factories in place to provide food for those who did not want to build the city. The new porridge factory has meat to eat every day, and temporary barracks made of bricks and tiles have been built around it for these people to live in.
The next day after settling down, under the leadership of the construction soldiers, they began to get busy. Their main job is to build the city wall, and the refugees help to move bricks, transport wood and millennium mud.
On the foundation of the new town, there are a large number of men and women carrying dustpans and baskets to and fro transporting soil. Some construction soldiers are commanding men to stir and move millennium mud, while others are commanding men to burn kilns and move bricks.
One hundred thousand people built the city together, and the scene was very spectacular.
In the planning and calculation of Zhu Cixuan and the construction soldiers, the perimeter of the new city is 50 miles, the wall is 10 meters high, and the foundation is 5 meters thick. There is a city gate on the four sides, on which a city tower is built, an urn is set outside, and a moat is built.
Beijing is surrounded by many cities, including Changping in the north, Shunyi in the northeast, Tongzhou in the east, Daxing in the south, Wanping in the west and Fangshan in the southwest. There are city arches in all directions, but not in the southeast, which is why Emperor Chongzhen and the cabinet approved Zhu Cixuan to build a city in this direction.
The streets and alleys in the new city are paved with crushed stones and manually flattened. Drainage ditches are set on both sides, paved with exposed bricks and reinforced with millennium mud. In this way, when it rains, it is easy to drain water, and there is no danger of waterlogging.
At the same time, a well will be drilled in five places in the new city, one in the east, one in the west, one in the north, and one in the south, for residents to drink.
Some land in the city is used to build barracks, which are connected together, similar to the shops of later generations. If residents do not want to live in barracks in the future, they can buy land from the New Town government and build their own houses on the divided land.
With the design of Zhu Cixuan and the construction soldiers, the refugees only need to work hard. Zhu Cixuan and others estimated that it would take two or three months to build the new city. The main reason is that there are too many people and it is much faster than the ordinary city.
Zhu Cixuan opened up a piece of land suitable for farming not far from the new city, and distributed it to these refugees in the form of lease, so that they could really settle down in the new city.
If there is no land and no job, they will starve sooner or later, and the problem of refugees will not be solved completely.
With the settling down of the Crown Prince and the purpose of building their own homes, although the daily work is heavy, everyone is energetic and happy.
During this period, Zhu Cixuan reported to the Emperor Chongzhen and asked for exemption from taxes for two years for the people in the new city. The land tax was collected from the third year, and all the land taxes were paid by internal funds.
Originally, the land of Xincheng was recorded in Shuntian Mansion as the imperial villa of Zhu Cigui as the crown prince. In the Ming Dynasty, the emperor, the empress dowager, and the crown prince all had their own imperial manor. Their income was in the charge of eunuchs and at the disposal of the court.
However, Zhu Cixuan did not intend to ask for these land taxes, and directly gave the benefits to Chongzhen. Of course, he didn't give it away in vain. He also took the opportunity to make some requests, hoping that the emperor could make himself convenient in the face of money. For example, he would give priority to the appointment of officials in the new town in the future.
Zhu Cixuan was worried that the new city would be governed by a group of corrupt officials. Soon, land mergers and multi tax phenomenon would still appear, and new refugees would also appear again. His original intention of establishing the new city would become meaningless.
Zhu Cixuan was not worried that the recommendation of officials would arouse the suspicion of Emperor Chongzhen, because at that time, it was very common for Shangguan to recommend officials, which was one of the main reasons for promotion. This was called promotion.