Reincarnated as Genghis Khan's Grandson, I Will Not Let It Fall-Chapter 79: What Winter Made

The survey rope was down.

That was the first thing Batu noticed from the near edge. The foundation lines had been marks on felt since the start of winter. Now they were rope and pins on the actual ground, four rectangles pulled from the blueprint onto the earth in exact proportion, each corner and interval marked and the rope run taut between them.

Three buildings at the north end of the site, the largest at the center flanked by smaller buildings to the east and west. A fourth rectangle further south for the market area, pinned but not yet detailed.

He walked the south face of the central rectangle. At the corner he crouched and sighted down the rope. It was straight.

Khulgen was a step behind him.

The timber staging area ran along the western edge. Weeks of prisoner labor had worn the track from the river margin into the frozen earth, the surface packed and dark from the foot traffic.

The timber was organized in groups. Load-bearing pieces on one side, framing timber on the other, each type scored at the end with a mark to distinguish it.

A man was working through the load-bearing stack when Batu arrived at it. The construction-experienced prisoner, the one who had been directing the organization from before.

He pressed a palm against the broad surface of each piece, reading for moisture the snow melt had driven into the wood. Three pieces he pulled out and stacked separately. He did not look up.

Batu stood for a moment and walked on.

The stone was sorted in the same pattern. Flat river stone for footings in one pile. Smaller rubble for fill beside it.

A tighter pile of larger squared pieces in the far corner, heavier and cleaner, for corner work.

The depot keeper was at the near edge of that pile with a count log, his stylus moving steadily across the felt. He had started the count on the second day of winter labor and continued it without instruction.

Batu read both men and what they had produced without anyone standing over them.

The flood line ran around the full perimeter of the planned construction zone. Each peg driven at the elevation he had read on the bark of the old trees, the mark the spring flood reached before receding.

Every building in the plan sat above it.

A drainage cut ran from the northern face in a long diagonal, graded to carry water away from the footings before it could pool.

"The test digs," Batu said.

"Eastern side came back clean," Khulgen said. "Water table runs well below the flood level there. Wells go in on that side when the ground opens fully." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

A pause.

"The north face is hard clay under the frost. When the freeze breaks completely, that face needs picks. It starts last."

"The kiln."

"Pins are in fifty meters out. Clay deposit nearby, already opened. We can build the kiln structure this week and fire the first brick load before the craftsmen arrive."

A briefer pause.

"Framing for the administrative building goes first. The storage buildings follow in the second cycle."

"The southern edge breaks this week," Batu said.

"It does."

He walked to the far end and stood. The frost was retreating faster here than on any other side, the surface giving slightly under his boots at each step.

The frozen layer was thin now. When it released, the foundation trench began here, and that building went up on the frame the trench would hold.

The wolf’s track seal needed a permanent seat before summer. Before the army went west and spent years there.

At the southeast corner he turned and looked north across the full site.

Four building outlines, a drainage cut, a kiln site, a clay deposit and a track worn into the earth by winter foot traffic, and two men producing organized work in separate corners of the same ground.

He ran it forward.

A building with a record room. A market area where merchant traffic moved under the wolf’s track seal. A relay point between the main camp and Dorbei’s territory.

An administrative center that functioned when the man who built it was weeks away.

That last one was the point. It had to function without him in it.

He turned back to Khulgen.

They walked north toward the camp fence. The open ground between the site and the perimeter was still firm underfoot in the shaded stretches.

"Mahmud holds the civil accounts while I’m east," Batu said. "Material contracts, labor records, every piece of silver that moves through it goes through his desk first."

"Understood."

"The man in the staging area directs the construction. Give him a formal assignment before we move."

Khulgen said he would.

"Orel stays on tribute tallies and the census work. Dorbei’s reports come to you before the formal ledger. The Borte-Qol channel stays with you. Every civil matter carrying the wolf’s track seal runs through you before it moves."

A step passed before Khulgen answered.

"The limits between what requires your mark directly and what I can carry on my own authority. I’ll need that in writing before you leave."

"You’ll have it." Batu kept his eyes forward.

"The southern clans are still submitting. The census is running in the Bashkir reaches. The tribute framework is in Mahmud’s hands but not yet distributed. Dorbei’s reports will come north faster when spring opens the routes. The work multiply as the territory grows."

He kept walking.

"You’ve been holding all of them since the first night. The title names what that already is."

He said it.

"Ikh Jarghuchi. Great Judge. Chief Administrator of the Jochid Ulus."

Khulgen said nothing for three strides.

"Mahmud reports to you," Batu continued. "Orel reports to you. Census riders in the field report to you. Dorbei’s submissions come to you before the record accepts them. That authority is yours to use within the boundary we put in writing."

"Torghul," Khulgen said.

"Torghul commands the tumens. His authority doesn’t cross into yours. Where supply touches both, that runs the way it’s run since the narrows. You hold the accounts. He holds the riders."

They reached the fence.

Khulgen stopped and looked back at the site. The outlines were visible from there in the morning light, the drainage stakes running toward the channel.

"I’ll have the boundary document on your table before the horse lines close," he said.

He turned and went into the camp.

Batu stayed at the fence.

The man had moved to the framing stack and was reading it the same way, palm flat on each broad surface, working along the row.

The depot keeper’s stylus was still moving across his count log.

On the outer edge of that outline, the groundwork riders had their picks up.

The first test cut of the foundation trench was open. Six inches deep where the frost had released enough to allow it, no further.

The line held the pins and rope exactly.

The Ikh Jarghuchi had his authority and his task.

The first mark was in the earth.

He would be east before the last trench opened.