Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters-Chapter 887 - 11 Stirrup Wine
Chapter 887: Chapter 11 Stirrup Wine Chapter 887: Chapter 11 Stirrup Wine Revodan.
As the Piaoqi Troops lined up, Colonel Skul strolled along the banks of St. George River, inspecting this familiar yet unfamiliar city for the last time.
The stone path was shrouded in pale blue smoke, with piles of pine branches and mugwort burning in the middle of the street, filling the air with a strange fragrance—said to ward off the plague.
Huge logs continuously passed through the curtain of smoke, drifting downstream.
The logs were drawn ashore by boatmen, and men wielding axes, having waited a long time, split the branches into firewood, and the thick main trunks were sent into the noisy water-powered sawmill.
Rebuilding homes required timber, and winter heating required fuel.
The Rebels’ government lifted the logging restrictions, and the material and energy accumulated in the forests for hundreds of years were being released anew.
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Skul’s gaze lingered on the huge water wheel on the outside of the workshop—a sawmill was already in use, while five more were under construction.
The crisp sound of horse hooves; Colonel Gessa, riding a black steed, quickly arrived beside Skul.
“What are you looking at?” Gessa asked.
Skul, smelling the pine scent in the air, replied, “Actually, I’m not quite sure.”
Gessa followed Skul’s gaze and couldn’t help but laugh: “Isn’t it just a water wheel?”
“It is a water wheel,” Skul answered. “But it’s not just a water wheel.”
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
The air carried the rhythmic, dull vibrations.
Across the river, Gessa peered and saw towering wooden towers appearing faintly through the mist.
“Hmm, it’s not just a water wheel,” Gessa smacked his lips. “There are pile drivers too.”
On the opposite riverbank, thousands of common people were engaging in something uncommon for winter—building houses.
With the freezing cold complicating construction, these people constructed a large amount of machinery: tower pile drivers, animal-powered cranes, and movable hoists…
They used massive machinery typically reserved for building churches, fortresses, and palaces, but the resulting houses were so rudimentary it was laughable.
What kind of houses were they, really?
Four wooden pillars nailed with wooden boards formed the four walls, and a roof of the same wooden planks finished construction. Rather than calling it a residence, it seemed more like a prison.
Meanwhile, at the construction site across the river.
“Move a bit more towards me!” Mason, his voice hoarse from shouting, waved his arms grandly, directing the crane operator: “That’s good! Lower it down! Slow down!”
The roof hoisted mid-air gradually descended, and once the roof was in place, carpenters with hammers pulled away the supports to secure it.
Unlike the normal housing construction sequence of “first setting up beams, then adding the roof,” Mason’s construction sites preassembled the roofs on the ground, which were then lifted up with cranes.
Initially stunned, the residents of Iron Peak County were now used to such sights.
If anyone thought these houses resembled prisons—they were absolutely correct!
These homes were designed exactly like the barracks Mason had overseen at the labor farm.
Moreover, to further save building materials, Revodan’s barracks adopted a “row house” structure. Here, houses were built next to each other, sharing a wall, thus greatly saving on wood.
Even though the labor farm’s barracks were barely “detached homes,” Revodan’s barracks were even less so than prisoners’ barracks.
Sea Blue’s row houses were made of stone, robust and thick, offering substantial soundproofing.
Revodan’s row-house barracks only had a thin wooden board separating each room; nothing could be blocked from sight.
Yet, the people of Iron Peak County assembling these barracks were eager to move in. Every person exerted their utmost effort, racing against time to build intensively.
Thus, besides the women and children evacuated to Old Town, the majority of those in Revodan from Iron Peak County still only had crude tents that couldn’t ward off the cold.
And the weather was getting colder day by day.
Thus, aesthetics and comfort were not considerations for now.
At the construction site, men, women, elderly, and children—not construction workers by trade—worked in clearly defined roles and orderly fashion.
Anyone who had participated in Revodan’s war preparations could recognize it; these men, women, elderly and children adopted the same organizational structure as during the city’s fortification phase.
Even like during the defense where “who built which section of the wall, defended that same section,” now it was “who built which barracks, would live in those barracks.”
Overseeing the housing projects, Mason looked at the busy construction site and suddenly felt a bit of worry: “This… may well be the most embarrassing work of my life.”
“Your Excellency?” Demon Ongs, half his face covered by a shocking birthmark, sensed something unusual and asked, “Aren’t you pleased? Isn’t the project proceeding smoothly?”
“It’s easy to build,” Mason smacked his lips. “But it will be difficult to take down later.”
“Take down? Why demolish it?” Demon Ongs’s tone was as indifferent as ever. “But if you really want to demolish it, it’s not hard; these wooden barracks could be burned down to nothing with just a fire.”
Mason chuckled bitterly, shaking his head, then suddenly looked startled: “Oh no! These houses… they won’t end up being called ‘Mason Houses,’ will they?”
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“Now then?” Gessa asked Skul. “Do you still think a colonel’s uniform can buy them off?”
Skul, with a serene expression: “At least I’m now completely sure, Captain Montaigne cannot be bought.”
