Protect Our Chief-Chapter 675 - 80: Drawing Calamity Eastward! Opening up the Wastelands in the Outer Domain (Requesting Monthly Tickets)_3
Within Wang Shouzhe’s plan.
This high-quality foreign cement road named "Shouzhe Road," is over four zhang wide, allowing for the simultaneous passage of five carriages, with a total length of eighty li! If it were on Earth, a mere eighty li-wide cement road wouldn’t be considered a major project.
Yet for the Wang Family, the internal cost budget for this road reached 216,000 Qian Gold, employing three thousand laborers with a construction period of six months.
The "Shouzhe Road" project has a very tight timeline, needing to be completed before the upcoming rainy season. Otherwise, if delayed until March next year, the difficulty of construction will increase drastically.
It will traverse the lands of the Outer Domain, with the end of eighty li being a wide canyon chasm, which is a corridor formation created by parallel mountain ranges.
Whenever developing land in the Outer Domain, one must prioritize building a pass at a canyon chasm. Otherwise, no matter how well the land is developed, it cannot withstand a beast tide, causing incalculable losses.
To be honest, the current construction site for "Shouzhe Pass" is not ideal.
However, after surveying the terrain within a radius of two to three hundred li, the construction site for Shouzhe Pass has already been chosen as the best of the worst options. Other terrains are far inferior to the Shouzhe Pass construction site.
What makes the "Shouzhe Pass" construction site less than ideal is mainly because this canyon corridor is too wide. Compared to the narrowest and best points, the pass has to be constructed to be ten li wide!
A ten li-wide pass! It’s rarely seen in the entire Daqian.
Previously, the Wang Family has always prided itself on the "Zhouxuan Pass," which is only just over a hundred zhang in total width, far less than one li wide.
Thus, it can be seen how grand the yet-to-be-built "Shouzhe Pass" will be. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢
This is also why, for hundreds of years, no family in the vicinity has chosen to develop the Outer Domain beyond Zhouxuan Pass. The difficulty of building such a level of a pass and its costs are by no means something a common Seventh-Grade Noble Family can afford.
In fact, the majority of Sixth-Grade Noble Families are unlikely to build it.
Led by Wang Shouzhe, the Wang Race dares to ambitiously construct the "Shouzhe Pass" due to two reasons: one, their annual revenue is quite high; two, they possess ample concrete construction experience.
After estimating the blueprint budget.
This "Shouzhe Pass," including the Weng City, requires a total of forty million piculs of foreign cement, eighty million piculs of quarried gravel, two million piculs of steel bars made from molten rough iron, and ninety million piculs of high-quality thick stones for wall construction and paving.
The planned personnel involved in this project will reach ten thousand.
Only the construction of "Shouzhe Pass" and its Weng City alone will take ten years in total, with an overall expenditure of about 14 million Qian Gold. This does not include future costs for mounting Divine Power Cannons on Shouzhe Pass.
(Old Ao roughly drew a draft sketch and estimated the workload, material quantities, and costs. Unfortunately, in his youth, Old Ao had unprofessionally worked for one or two years as a project estimator and even took a certification exam, though at that time the exam was fairly simple... hence he has a bit of a compulsive disorder.)
Such vast quantities of construction materials naturally cannot be transported via "Shouzhe Road," firstly because the transportation volume is too large, and secondly because transportation costs are too expensive.
Therefore, before constructing "Shouzhe Pass," the surrounding area must first see the establishment of cement plants, quarries, as well as laborers’ dormitories, etc.
Of course, these are not the biggest difficulties in building infrastructure in the Outer Domain.
The greatest difficulty actually comes from risk and uncertainty. The Wang Family must take advantage of this autumn and winter season to conduct a large-scale cleanup within "Shouzhe Pass," eradicating all dangerous animals and plants.
While constructing "Shouzhe Road," constant patrolling and clearing along the way are necessary to ensure the safety of laborers constructing the road.
Based on all the aforementioned.
It’s truly too demanding to rely solely on the Wang Family for development.
The marriage alliance families, led by the Wang Family, have also joined in this grand development plan. Every family needs to contribute a portion of their manpower and mobilize their subordinates to participate in the labor force, bearing some of the financial burden.
Of course, among them, the Wang Family is contributing the most funds, and among the 150,000 civilians under their rule, they can mobilize the most laborers. The Wang Family is fully committed to this wave of development in the Outer Domain, and will gain the most in future profit shares.
The Wang Family machine is now operating at full speed.
In the Longzuo County City, inside the Celestial Essence Pill Workshop.
As an alchemist the family is focused on cultivating, Wang Shouye is carrying out his task.
"Brother Wen Mountain, thank you for taking the time to refine these one hundred First-Grade ’Antitoxic Pills.’ Here are 2,500 Qian Gold, please accept them."
"Brother Jingfu, thank you for taking the time to refine these two hundred First-Grade ’Healing Pills.’ Here are 4,000 Qian Gold tickets, please accept them. I hope you can spare more time to refine some more."
Developing the Outer Domain is a high-risk and high-uncertainty systematic project; Antitoxic Pills and Healing Pills are indispensable strategic resources. The former can neutralize most lower-grade toxins, while the latter can effectively heal and save lives.
However, such First-Grade Pills are only effective for Qi Refining Realm cultivators and mortals. They almost have no effect on Spirit Platform Realm cultivators. The reason is simple; the leap and transformation of their life level make them stronger, rendering minor toxins and injuries powerless against them.
But if they do get poisoned or injured, then low-tier Antitoxic Pills and Healing Pills will be ineffective.
Therefore, quite a few Third-Grade and Fourth-Grade Detoxification Pills, Creation Pills, and the like must also be prepared. These either need to be refined by Wang Shouye himself or commissioned from other high-tier alchemists.
