A caravan with the Dadewang business arrived in Julu, but the leader was Zhang Shiwen wearing the team leader's clothes, while the real shopkeeper Wang Quan wore the official robe of the commander of the third-rank guard, and brought more than 20 servants to the caravan. Also, Zhao Xiancheng, the shopkeeper of the Hangzhou branch of Dadewang, was also the shopkeeper of the Dadewang Hangzhou. Because Zhao had the identity of a student of the Imperial College in Nanjing and a scholar, it was much more convenient to do things. Once a local official came to ask, it would be much more convenient to have a scholar beside him.

"The boss, will the boss come too?" Zhang Shiwen asked.

"Yes, it was my elder brother who asked me to come here to wait for him." Wang Quan replied.

Wang Quan, who first arrived at Julu, asked the caravan to set up camp in the location chosen by Li Guodong, and then began to set up a porridge shed to recruit refugees.

The Ming Dynasty's control over the Central Plains was quite strong. After Xiong Wencan served as prime ministers of the five provinces, the Ming army won consecutive battles. Li Zicheng and other bandit troops were besieged by Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting, and suffered heavy losses. Xiong Wencan adopted a two-pronged approach to encirclement and suppression and recruitment. Liu Guoneng, Zhang Tianlin, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai and others surrendered to the Ming Dynasty one after another, leaving only Li Zicheng to lead the remnants to huddle in the mountainous area at the junction of Sichuan and Shaanxi.

Because Zhang Xianzhong accepted the court's amnesty, Lu Xiangsheng never pursued Li Guodong's secretly helped Zhang Xianzhong again.

Although the bandits in the Central Plains disappeared and the Julu area was under the control of the Ming Dynasty, the bandits left traces and could not be erased for a short time. Along the way, there were thousands of miles of naked land and hunger everywhere. Except for a few cities that had not been broken by the bandits, the farmland that was originally harvested turned into wasteland, and the crops were not harvested. The small villages we encountered along the way were even more empty. The caravan set out from Huai'an and crossed the Yellow River, and walked west along the north bank of the Yellow River. Before he arrived at Julu, he had already taken in more than 5,000 refugees.

"I'm here, I'm here, everyone can settle down here." When he arrived at the Jiazhuang location designated by Li Guodong for Wang Quan, Wang Quan asked the caravan and the refugees to stop moving forward.

The same principle as the expedition after autumn, Wang Quan took the caravan out to build the Julu fortifications, which was also the departure after autumn. There was enough food to provide to the refugees rescued along the way.

After the team stopped, the caravan men cut down wood and collected hay with the help of refugees. The straw huts were built up and piled up stoves on the ground with stones. The caravan men moved iron pots and grain from the caravan men. Just when everything was ready, Wang Quancai discovered that there was a very important thing missing - water to cook.

There was a severe drought in North China and the rivers were dry. Vagrants and caravans ran around for several miles, but no water source was found.

"It seems that you can only dig a well first to obtain water." Zhang Shiwen said.

When the construction started, the refugees and the guys simply ate a few bites of dry food and started digging wells.

It takes several days to dig a well. Within these days, Wang Quan sent people to the Hakka River dozens of miles away to collect water. Because the journey is long, the water collected can only provide basic drinking and cannot be used to make porridge. In the past few days, everyone can only eat dry food to satisfy their hunger.

Everyone picked up firewood and the flames were high. It took them only three days to dig out five wells that could produce water. The buckets of water were put into the well, and a bucket of ice was lifted up.

With the water source, the iron pot is mounted on the stove, and the porridge sheds emit an attractive fragrance.

The porridge is made of mixed rice, millet, corn flour, sweet potatoes and other grains, and is divided into thin porridge and thick porridge that cannot be poured into chopsticks. There are new refugees who are already hungry and dying. First, pour the porridge in with thin porridge and then feed them with thick porridge. At least half of the people can be saved; all the refugees who are about to fall out can be rescued.

Wang Quan had no idea why Li Guodong wanted to treat refugees in Julu. He believed that Li Guodong did not want those refugees to starve to death or become bandits. If these refugees were not rescued, they would have to fall to the point where people could eat people. In the end, the men who survived by chance would become the source of soldiers of the bandits and become cannon fodders.

In fact, Li Guodong was preparing to build a city in Jiazhuang, Julu, because the purpose was not to prevent refugees from becoming bandits, but to deal with the Qing army!

Refugees came to join one after another, some of them were refugees who were truly harmed by the bandits, and some of the bandits were separated from the bandits. Since the bandits were disbanded, some bandits were separated from the bandits, and they were drafting bandits nearby. However, there was almost nothing to rob in the surrounding villages. This place was not far from Daming Mansion, and the scattered bandits did not dare to do too much, so they mixed into the team of hungry people.

Even the bandits were taken as planned and organized into the refugee team. Naturally, a few bandits who were honest and robbed food with women, children, elderly and weak. The remaining bandits saw that Wang Quan's servants and caravan guards were strong and strong, and they were all elite soldiers in a hundred battles, so they did not dare to have any other thoughts.

Not far from the northwest direction, a burst of rapid horse hooves sounded.

"Brother! It's Big Brother!" Wang Quan was delighted when he saw the banner of the small team of more than 100 people.

The one who came was Li Guodong, who only brought him one hundred nights to help. At present, Li Guodong's military garrison was in Xiangling. There was no order from the court, so he was not allowed to dispatch troops privately, so he could only take him for one hundred nights to leave the garrison. Those who reported to the court for one hundred nights were servants, and they brought a certain number of servants to travel, which did not violate the court's laws and regulations.

After Li Guodong arrived, he immediately began to personally direct the refugees and prepare to build their new home.

"Dear fellow villagers, I came here to let you build your own home! Everyone, work hard, first of all, you must build your own house." Li Guodong stood on the stage and opened his voice to announce to everyone.

"Thank you, General!"

"We are grateful to the general for his great kindness!"

Since it was to build their own nests, the refugees worked very hard. Under Li Guodong's personal command, the refugees began to dig the foundation and then filled the stones into the foundation. While digging the foundation, brick kilns were built around. The built brick kilns were smoked day and night, and furnaces of blue bricks were sent out from the brick kilns.

A few days later, another convoy came to Julu and unloaded bags of thick leather oil paper bags from the car. These paper bags looked very heavy.

"These are building materials, new-style lime, which is as hard as the stone after being dried." Li Guodong introduced the function of this object to the refugees.

After the paper bag is opened, mix it with the loess sand and gravel, mix it evenly, use this item to glue the green bricks piece by piece, and finally apply a layer on the outside of the brick wall. A few days later, the new lime was dried, and people found that the wall became as hard as the stone!

Strangely, the brick wall is double-layered, with a hard blue brick wall on the outside, with soil filled in the middle, and a blue brick wall on the inside. The walls of this kind of house are very thick and as strong as the city wall. There are windows on all sides. However, except for the larger windows on the south, the windows on the east and north sides are very small, which is more like shooting holes than windows.

The roofs of these houses were not built with traditional wooden beams and tiles, but were built into flat-topped houses. After the four exterior walls were erected, under the command of Li Guodong, people nailed a layer of wooden boards on the roof, supported by wooden pillars, and finally placed iron bars on the roof boards, and then put gravels into the mixture of new lime and loess sand and gravel and water, and then poured on the roof. After drying, the roof was completed.

"The house on the outer floor is a single-story bungalow; the inner floor creates two floors; the middle one is built into three floors." Li Guodong directed the refugees to build the house.
Chapter completed!