Chapter 328: Ash Ash Ash Ash Ash
A new day began at Moncruz Estate when the first rays of morning sun shone on the camp's flagpole.

Although yesterday's march was tiring, the Black Hats, the War Monks and the engineers did not slack off and immediately began the intensive and orderly construction work.

At the edge of the estate, bag after bag of mortar was unloaded from vehicles by engineers and local villagers.

After being taught a lesson by Laurent yesterday, the steward of Drachma no longer dared to act wildly towards the engineers, but he still maintained the same attitude when facing the local villagers.

He already knew that many of the engineers were retired masters, and if he accidentally offended them, he would definitely be in trouble.

These new masters are unreasonable. How can they make the old masters work?
"Quick! Bring those stones here! You dogs!" Drachma loudly commanded the local villagers, "We need more mortar!"

When he saw any villagers slacking off, he would pull out a rattan stick and beat them severely.

The villagers took off the sacks filled with mortar powder from their shoulders, revealing their bare backs.

It is hard to imagine how they could carry such heavy sacks with their skinny bodies.

After the mortar powder is delivered, it is poured into a large wooden barrel in the ratio of 35 pounds of water, 68 pounds of mortar, 124 pounds of sand, and 252 pounds of gravel.

Then several villagers and engineers used shovels and wooden sticks to stir the mortar evenly, mixing it with sand, gravel and water. The original yellowish-brown mortar gradually turned into khaki.

Once the mortar concrete is mixed, pour it into a small wooden barrel, place it on a bullock cart, and pull it to the vicinity of the Moncruz camp.

About twenty villagers pushed carts and transported mortar concrete to the foundation.

The villagers and engineers worked together to dig out the foundation in the ground, tamping it down with sledgehammers and driving two fir stakes every three steps.

Since there was no time to make wooden prefabricated boards, they used branches, shrubs and vines to weave a mesh structure between wooden stakes, and then applied mud to solidify to form a temporary formwork.

Anyway, the purpose of the mortar wall is to block the enemy, so it doesn’t matter if it’s a little ugly.

Another good thing about mortar is that it can be used without weeks of curing, but it requires the nature priest to be more careful.

Anyway, every Holy Gunner is a natural priest, so they have no shortage of manpower.

Standing on a wooden scaffolding more than one person tall, the engineers poured buckets of mortar concrete into the scaffold.

On each section of the wall, there were several warrior monks holding wooden sticks, thrusting them into the semi-solidified mortar concrete with sweat on their foreheads, muttering to themselves.

This is plastering the wall and casting a spell to reinforce it.

Laurent, who had just finished his shift and was eating, sat down under the awning and drank a large pot of water. He then said with a look of despair: "Isn't this just playing with ashes? How can it be more tiring than going to the battlefield?"

"Who said it wasn't? The main thing is that we have to rush the work." Another division captain lay on the ground without caring, "Hey, didn't we see some cavalry scouting this way yesterday? What's going on?"

Momli had two dark circles under his eyes: "Don't mention it. I led three divisions to guard for a whole night, but I didn't see a single hair."

"Is there some conspiracy behind this?" Laurent struggled to get up. "Could they be using the tactic of wearing out the enemy?"

Coleman, half covered in dirt, came over and just heard Laurent's words. He scratched his head, and dandruff and mud and snow fell down like snow: "Would stupid knights use this tactic?"

Seeing Coleman in such a mess, a familiar division captain asked, "Boss Coleman, what's wrong with you?"

"Stop talking, the template is bursting." Coleman complained to Jourdan, "Is there really no more wood? This template is bursting quite frequently."

Jourdan tore at his sunburned arms and said, "I've sent people to the nearby forest to cut down the trees. There's still time."

"Then why do you think the knights didn't come?"

Several division captains and corps commanders looked at each other, but still couldn't figure out each other's intentions. They were all prepared to fight while carrying out construction.

What does it mean that you didn't come? Are you shy?
"Who cares? Those arrogant fools will cry even if they want to after our fortress is built!"

These officers, who were originally dressed neatly and brightly, now looked like clay figures.

People like Laurent, who are good at doing things meticulously, still have the energy to chat a little, but the other division captains can't even say a word.

Standing under the pergola, the entire ruins of Moncruz Castle have become a large construction site. But at a speed visible to the naked eye, walls of light khaki are spreading along the ruins of the original castle.

These low walls were not completely connected together, but crossed front and back with gaps in the middle to prevent the knights from breaking through the low walls and directly attacking the enemy.

If you talk about short, these walls are not short at all.

Considering that the imperial war horses are all third or fourth generation mixed-breed war horses, each horse can jump two meters, and an armored knight on its back can also jump one and a half meters.

Under the influence of the magic of walking on flat ground, they can ignore trenches and horse traps.

Therefore, when designing the trench, Horn had to set the height of the trench wall at two meters and pile half a meter of sandbags inside to facilitate the shooting of the Holy Sharpshooters.

This temporary fortress was designed by Deszka and Witte and was modeled after a bastion.

But since there were no cannons and the knights themselves didn't have any, they only had to think about how to maximize the power of the clockwork gun.

These temporary walls and shelters are divided into three platforms through the mound - ground level, mound level and castle level, which is equivalent to a concentric hollow pentagon.

The total length of the first layer of the wall is 350 meters, the total length of the second layer is 300 meters, and the total length of the third layer is 250 meters. The flat area is approximately 12 acres, which is about the same as a football field.

A protruding triangular gun platform is built at each corner of the pentagon, allowing the clockwork gun to fire from any angle.

The three-layer structure design allows the ground layer and the mound layer to be fired simultaneously when the cavalry charges.

If the ground layer is breached, the spearmen will cover the rear, the holy musketeers will be on the mound layer, and the musketeers will cover the spearmen on the second layer.

When the knights feinted to attack the second floor, the second and third floors could fire the holy guns at the same time.

Three lines of defense, layers of defense.

Under ideal circumstances, taking into account losses, the estimated cost is 92 tons of mortar, 168 tons of sand, and 340 tons of crushed stone.

The mortar was transported from the rear of Fort Joan of Arc, and 70 trucks made three trips to deliver all the mortar powder.

As for sand and gravel, they are more common building materials and are all available locally.

Several legion commanders decided to purchase gravel and sand at a price of 2 dinars per truck, which was 1.5 to 2 times higher than the normal price.

After the first villager who received the money appeared, all the labor force from the surrounding area was mobilized.

Their total annual output was less than 300 dinars, and half of it was taken away by knights, stewards and village heads.

You can earn 2 dinars for transporting a truckload of gravel and sand. If you can make six trips a day, that's 12 dinars, which is a huge profit.

As for the local laborers who do not have cars, they are provided with two meals and paid half a dinar per day.

Moreover, this money is not given to the village head and the housekeeper, but is distributed by a special legion clerk.

Every time a truckload of goods was transported and every day of work, the clerk would hand the money to the villagers.

Regardless of whether the village head and housekeepers would use tricks and robbery in the future, at least the basic trust between the villagers has been established.

Compared with the engineers and villagers who were working hard to dig sand and push carts, it was good enough for these officers to have time to rest and enjoy a moment of peace.

Unfortunately, this peace cannot last long.

"Captain Laurent, is Captain Laurent here?"

"What's wrong?" Laurent finally asked incoherently, holding the bread in his mouth.

"The support collapsed! All the mortar leaked out!"

"...I, cough cough cough...I'll fuck you, goat!" Laurent swallowed the bread hard and trotted over. "Take me there, where is it?"

(End of this chapter)