Chapter 103: Online Road Construction
Over the next few days, the villagers of Zhengjia Village bustled with activity. Each morning, as the sun began its ascent, they gathered at the entrance of Gao Family Fortress, and once the sun was fully awake, they boarded Solar Car No. 2, heading to Zhengjia Village.
Of course, this was only what Li Daoxuan observed. He couldn't perceive their inner thoughts: "Every morning, the Rooster Star Official wakes the sun, and we take the immortal carriage the Heavenly Lord borrowed from the Rooster Star Official to go home and farm. Ah, each day unfolds with such an audacious flourish. Even the old fella of an emperor wouldn't have an immortal carriage to ride on his way to the fields!"
In reality, the newly enthroned Chongzhen Emperor was a young man, not an old fella at all, but this detail was beyond their scope of consideration.
After observing for a day, Li Daoxuan noticed something: only a quarter of Zhengjia Village's farmland was being utilized.
It turned out that Zhengjia Village originally had far more people than Gao Family Village, and its farmland was twice as extensive. When Zheng Yanfu joined Wang Er's rebellion, he conscripted most of the Zhengjia Village population. These people had either died in various battles or were currently labor reform prisoners in Gao Family Village.
The fields belonging to these "lost" villagers lay completely fallow, with no one to sow them. The remaining twenty-odd villagers, being proper and law-abiding, didn't occupy others' land, only cultivating their own. Consequently, the utilization rate of the farmland was quite poor.
Such waste could not be tolerated.
Li Daoxuan summoned Gao Yiye and San Shier, tasking them with resolving the issue of idle farmland.
San Shier had handled such matters adeptly during his time as a strategist, so he was quite proficient. First, he took a headcount of Zhengjia Village's remaining population and their land deeds. Then, he went through the labor reform prisoners to identify any who were originally from Zhengjia Village and how many land deeds they still held.
But now, Gao Family Village had grown strong and confident enough not to wait for the imperial court to act. San Shier dispatched his clerk, Tan Liwen, to Zhengjia Village to survey the land. He then offered these "unclaimed lands" as "rent-free loans" to the twenty-odd villagers of Zhengjia Village. Naturally, the labor reform prisoners received none of it.
With this distribution, the Zhengjia villagers effectively received more than double the amount of usable land out of thin air. They were ecstatic, cultivating their fields with frenzied enthusiasm.
This sight also made the labor reform prisoners incredibly envious. Those who had already resigned themselves to a lifetime of labor reform secretly vowed in their hearts: *I must perform well, finish my labor reform early, regain my civilian status, and then, the next time there's such a good opportunity to borrow land rent-free, it will be my turn.*
At this moment, Li Daoxuan was pondering another matter: the Solar Car's ride on the official roads was still too bumpy, severely affecting travel efficiency. In the future, if more villages were to open up in his field of view, these dilapidated official roads would seriously hinder the progress of his miniature world.
It seemed an old saying needed to be put into action.
To get rich, first build roads.
Li Daoxuan went downstairs, crossed two streets, and arrived at a small construction site where the sidewalk was being dug up and rebuilt. He didn't understand why this particular sidewalk was constantly under construction—repaired, dug up, dug up, repaired, and then dug up again. This cycle had repeated for years...
Shamelessly, he sidled over and handed a bottle of drink to an old worker sitting on the site, chuckling, "Uncle, a wall in my house is damaged, and I need a tiny bit of cement for repairs. But buying a whole bag at the construction market is too much and wasteful. Could I take just a little bit from your site? Just a small amount."
The old worker smiled warmly and said, "A little bit is fine. Go on, quick, before the foreman sees you."
Li Daoxuan thanked the old worker, pulled out two small plastic bags, filled one with a tiny packet of cement and the other with sand, then quickly slipped away. Reaping this small benefit felt quite satisfying.
Back home, just as he was about to place the cement into the diorama box for the villagers to use, he suddenly realized that road construction was a massive undertaking. Gao Family Village had too few people; there simply wasn't enough manpower for such a task. How long would it take to build a three-kilometer road?
Never mind, I'll handle the first road myself. I've wanted to try something like this for a while anyway, it seems quite interesting.
He found an unused plastic box, looked up instructions for using cement online, and mixed cement and sand with water in the correct proportions. He stirred vigorously in the box, and in no time, a small batch of cement was ready.
Then, reaching into the diorama box, he clicked the "East" and "North" buttons a few times, adjusting his perspective to be further from the village. He took a small metal scraper and, with a few swift scrapes on the ground, cleared away dead trees, weeds, and scattered stones, carving out a new path alongside the official road...
The "guide to building cement roads in rural areas" he found online was incredibly complex, with a myriad of strange steps. Li Daoxuan couldn't bother with all of them. He simply sprayed some water to keep the road surface moist and made sure to create expansion joints, ignoring everything else. He poured the cement and smoothed it with a plastic sheet.
He personally constructed a road in the diorama box, six *li* (three kilometers) long and five *zhang* (fifteen meters) wide. In reality, this was merely a narrow strip of cement, 7.5 centimeters wide and 15 meters long in the modern world, which took hardly any time at all. He finished it with a few swift motions.
If this project had been left to the miniature people, who knew how long it would have taken.
The Heavenly Lord, playing the role of a diligent foreman, happily laid down the cement.
"Ah, ah, look! The Heavenly Lord is performing celestial magic again!"
Just as Li Daoxuan was working as a cement layer, a group of villagers ran over, eager to witness the spectacle. They stood in the distance, watching with wide eyes as a massive "metal plate" scraped across the ground with a resounding rumble, cleaving mountains and shattering stone, its divine might limitless, forcibly carving out a new path next to the official road.
Then, gray slurry poured down from the sky, filling the newly formed path. The thick, peculiar gray mud spread for several *li*, and that strange "metal plate" scraped back and forth over it, smoothing it as slick as a water's surface.
The villagers stared, dumbfounded. "This... this celestial magic from the Heavenly Lord, we don't understand it. What exactly is he doing?"
After much discussion, Gao Yiye walked over. "The Heavenly Lord has bestowed upon us a road connecting Gao Family Village and Zhengjia Village. For seven days, no one is allowed near this road. It can only be used after seven days. Do you all understand? If anyone dares to violate the Heavenly Lord's decree, hmph..."
She pouted slightly and huffed, not fierce at all, rather adorable. But the sentence remained unfinished, the punishment unspoken, and that was precisely what made it so terrifying, transforming her otherwise adorable expression into something menacing.
The villagers quickly replied, "We wouldn't dare, we wouldn't dare. Who would dare defy the Heavenly Lord's decree?"
Gao Yiye pointed a finger at the labor reform prisoners. "Bring a squad of labor reform prisoners. Have them take wooden planks and level the road surface. Then, have them patrol back and forth alongside the immortal road. Forget people, for seven days, not even a single mouse or rabbit is allowed on that road. If you catch one, beat it to death!"
The villagers broke into a sweat. "Saintess, it's been dry for years! The mice and rabbits are practically all dead, don't worry!"
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