Ang Lee had enough reason to believe that there must be a lot of mineral resources under the densely packed hills ahead. It was just that they hadn't been discovered yet. Just like the lime mine, if it wasn't discovered, it would just be a very ordinary hill. But after it was discovered, it would become a lime mine.
The mountain itself was a treasure. Even if there were no special mineral resources, there would always be soil and stones. Various trees and flowers growing on the mountain were very important and useful resources.
After discovering the lime mine, the nearly 100 people in charge of the exploration didn't stop. They still carried out a detailed exploration of various resources in the nearby mountains. Of course, there was also the task of mapping, the terrain, roads, and the distribution of various animals and plants in the mountains. These things had to be figured out in detail because these places were now the territory of the Tang dynasty and were not far from Anzhu City. If they didn't figure it out, they would be negligent.
As a very important transportation hub city of the Tang dynasty in the future, all the situations outside the city must be figured out. Only in this way could they have a plan in mind and make it easier for future planning.
The population of Anzhu City would definitely increase step by step. If the city couldn't accommodate them, then they could only develop the land outside the city. How could they not figure out the situation outside the city?
This temporary city wall wasn't very high. It was about the same as an ordinary city in the Tang dynasty. The width at the top was about 20 feet, and this was the narrowest part. Some parts were about 30 to 40 feet wide, which was the base of the city wall. This was also for better defense.
For example, when the enemy ran to the bottom of the city wall, the soldiers guarding the city had to stretch their whole bodies out of the lookout to see the enemy below. It was very dangerous to do this because they could easily be shot by the enemy attacking the city.
After building a small protruding section of the city wall, this situation could be avoided. The soldiers guarding the city could easily see the enemy running to the bottom of the city wall from the side and shoot them from the side. Alternatively, they could tell the soldiers in the front to accurately throw rolling wood and stones to kill the enemy below the city wall.
The protruding section could be used for defense, while the protruding section could be used to store various defensive materials. After all, defending the city consumed a lot of materials. When facing the threat of the enemy, many materials had to be transported from the bottom of the city wall to the top of the city wall. The best place to store these materials was this small protruding section of the city wall. If these materials were placed on the normal city wall, it would block the road and make it difficult for the soldiers to move. Moreover, it would affect the appearance of the city wall. Some relatively large defensive materials could only be used in a wide area.
Considering the importance of Anzhu City in the future, Li An also decided to deploy cannons at the city gates. Four cannons at each gate should be enough. They were deployed at the protruding positions on both sides of the city gate. Such positions had enough space to store ammunition and various maintenance tools. It was a very good location.
"Do you see it? The road ahead is flat. If the enemy invades, we only need to deploy four cannons at these two positions to blow up the enemy. No matter how many enemies come, we don't have to worry. "
Li An pointed at the two most suitable positions for deploying the cannons and said.
"Assistant Minister Li is right. These two positions are important for guarding the city gate. As long as we deploy cannons, we can stop the enemy from several li away."
"With the might of the Tang Dynasty, no enemy would dare to be the enemy of the Tang Dynasty, unless they don't want to live anymore."
His subordinates were all brimming with confidence and despised all possible enemies.
Anzhu City was close to the territory of the Arabian Empire. One hundred li northwest of the north gate was the border city of the Arabian Empire. However, although the Arabian Empire was a powerful existence in Central Asia, it was nothing in the eyes of the Tang Empire. The Tang Empire only needed to lift a finger to completely destroy this seemingly powerful country.
Therefore, in the view of the civil and military officials of the Tang Dynasty, the Arabian Empire did not have the courage to provoke the powerful Tang Empire, and the other small countries did not have the strength to be enemies with the Tang Empire. As for the bandits and bandits, their fighting strength was even weaker and could not withstand a single blow.
Since the enemy did not dare to invade, deploying powerful cannons seemed superfluous and completely unnecessary.
But Ang Lee did not think so, because he was about to leave Anzhu City for Aden. Aden was a piece of land that the Tang Dynasty had set its eyes on, and Aden had belonged to the Arabian Empire for a long time. If the Tang Empire took over Aden, would it arouse the extreme dissatisfaction of the new Apus dynasty? Would they launch a sneak attack on Anzhu City in revenge?
Although this was only a possibility, he had to guard against it. At the very least, before the Tang Dynasty took over Aden, the defense of Anzhu City had to be taken seriously and there could not be any accidents.
If one city gate needed four cannons, then the five city gates of Anzhu City would need twenty cannons, and several cannons would also be needed for the defense of the harbor. In addition, in addition to the city gate and harbor, there were two gateways on the northwest city wall that would be used for trains in the future. Because the tracks had not been laid yet, the gateways were sealed with two iron fences. This was also a relatively weak part of the city wall, so it also needed to be heavily protected. Four cannons were necessary. In this way, the entire city of Anzhu would need to deploy at least thirty cannons. If the mobile firepower reinforcements were added, it would require the strength of an entire artillery brigade.
Li Feiyu was leading two standard corps, each of which had more than three thousand soldiers. Each corps had an artillery brigade, which was 50 cannons.
If he left an artillery brigade in Anzhu City, one corps would lose the support of cannons, and their combat effectiveness would be greatly reduced. However, Ang Lee planned to leave the whole corps behind.
With the support of the Sky Corps Brigade and the Chariot Brigade, no enemy would be a match for them. Therefore, why would he need to lead too many soldiers to Aden City?
In addition, Ang Lee had recruited a large number of manpower from the surrendered pirates in the Malacca area to expand the army. During the battle, these troops would be at the forefront as cannon fodder, which would greatly reduce the casualty rate of the soldiers from the capital. In short, as long as the Tang Dynasty's army reached the level of a thousand soldiers, it would be almost invincible.
"Let's go to the north and take a look."
Li An led his Civil and Military Officials to walk north along the city wall. The feeling of walking on flat ground was completely different from walking on the city wall. This was because the view was completely different. Standing on the city wall, one could have a panoramic view of the entire Anzhu City. This was a very comfortable feeling.
At the doorway, everyone stopped.
First, this place was special. There were two doorways below, which would be used to connect to the train in the future. Second, there was no good road ahead. The city wall was not completely built. Not far from the doorway was the eastern city wall. The eastern city wall was not finished yet. Not only were there no bricks on the top, but there was also a big gap in height. The eastern city wall had to be built to the same height as the northern city wall before they could lay the floor tiles. Finally, they could lay the parapet and the inner wall.
In order to improve the defense of the parapet wall, the material of the parapet wall was not ordinary bricks, but concrete with higher strength. Even without the role of steel bars, the structural strength of concrete was higher than ordinary bricks. Moreover, the flexibility of concrete was better. When the parapet wall was built, the thicker part could be thicker, and the thinner part could be made thinner, so that the parapet wall could play a better role.
Generally, the thickness of the parapet was the same. It was built by two layers of bricks little by little. But the structure of the concrete parapet was more interesting. Like the city wall, there was a small protrusion at intervals. The protruding parapet was thicker than the ordinary parapet. The protruding parapet was thinner than the ordinary brick parapet, but even the thinner part was stronger than the ordinary brick parapet. The thicker part was even more powerful. All cold weapons could not destroy it. Even if they used the artillery weapons of the Tang dynasty, it would take a lot of ammunition to completely destroy it.
Li An was very confident in the parapets he designed. Whether it was in terms of beauty or defense, the new parapets were much better than the old parapets. Looking from a distance outside the city, the new parapets had a sense of layering.
Under Ang Lee's feet were two doorways. The two doorways were not far from each other. The width of each doorway was only two steps wider than the width of the train. The height of each doorway was one person's height higher than the top of the train to ensure the absolute safety of the train.
The reason why he chose to build two relatively small doorways instead of one that was twice the size was naturally because of safety factors.
Opening a hole in the city wall itself would reduce the defensive power of the city wall. If the two lanes were placed in a doorway, the doorway would be too wide, and the arch at the top would be too wide. The strength of supporting the bricks above the city wall would be reduced. After a long time, under the action of the stress, it was very likely that the wall would collapse. However, the two small doorways were different. Because they were relatively narrow, the supporting force of the arch structure was greater, and it was less likely to collapse. The amount of work required was also relatively small.
In addition, in case the doorways were occupied by the enemy, a large doorway was more convenient for the enemy's heavy equipment to enter. The effect of two small doorways was much worse, and it was easier to be blocked.
Therefore, no matter how one considered it, building two relatively independent doorways was better than building a single doorway.
The trains of later generations also followed this principle. When they encountered a mountain, the tunnels dug could only allow a single train to pass through. Sometimes, the distance between the two tunnels was relatively far. It was normal for the distance to be a few kilometers.
This was because if the width of the tunnel was doubled, the height would have to be doubled correspondingly. Only in this way could the semicircle at the top of the tunnel have enough width to decompose the stress and protect the tunnel from collapse. But if the width and height were doubled, the cross-sectional area would increase by four times. In other words, the amount of earth and stone needed to dig the tunnel would increase by four times. In this way, the project would be twice as expensive as digging two small tunnels. Only a fool would choose to dig a large tunnel.
Another point was that the tunnel excavated in the later generations was the modern shield tunneling machine, which was a cylindrical machine. The head of the machine was equipped with many hard blades, so it could excavate the tunnel while moving forward. The efficiency was much higher than manual excavation. However, it was very difficult to build a large shield tunneling machine. The technical requirements were very high. It was difficult enough to build a shield tunneling machine that could dig a single carriageway. If one wanted to build a shield tunneling machine with double the diameter, the difficulty would increase by many times. The cost and other aspects would also increase, so it was not advisable.
With the current technological level of the Tang Empire, it was impossible to build a shield tunneling machine. Digging tunnels still required manpower. But whether it was manpower or machines, the less earth and stone, the better. If manpower was used to dig tunnels, two separate small tunnels would be dug.
There was a small staircase next to the doorway. Ang Lee and his civil and military officials walked down the stairs and came to the side of the doorway.
Because the iron fence was locked, no one could enter or leave the city through the doorway. However, the defensive power of the iron fence was very limited. Therefore, there were iron fences at both the inside and outside of the city. In addition, there was a small two-story building near the doorway, which could accommodate 30 to 50 people. In the future, when this place was opened, it naturally needed to be guarded day and night. The doorway had to be guarded both inside and outside the city. There also had to be guards on top of the city wall to ensure safety. At least, they had to prevent people from entering the doorway and causing a certain amount of danger.
The doorway would be opened in one or two years at most along with the opening of the railway. At that time, the iron fence would be removed, and there would be cars coming and going near the doorway as a transportation hub. In the future, there would be a lot of trains passing through the doorway, and they would be very frequent.
After staying near the two doorways for a long time, Ang Lee and his civil and military officials did not rush back to the city gate. Instead, they walked along the inner city wall all the way to the south. They wanted to walk around the city wall and inspect the entire city wall.
However, considering that the distance of one week from the city wall was a little too far, and some of the officials were relatively old, so naturally, they couldn't keep walking. Riding horses became a very good choice. Riding on the back of a horse all the way was very effective.
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