"Ancestral hall?" Merlin was a little confused. There were many architectural fanatics among the senators. Some wanted to build the Soviet Palace, some wanted to build the Congress Hall, and some wanted to build their own holiday villas, manors, castles, museums, and palaces.
…
But no one wants to build an ancestral temple. The elders are not interested in this symbol of patriarchal society. Some of the elders may want to be "gods", but just being an "ancestor" is not attractive to everyone.
"Well, what's the use of the ancestral hall?"
Zhao Yingong said with a very solemn expression: "Of course it is to enshrine my ancestors of the Song Dynasty."
"I understand." Mei Lin understood that Zhao Yingong was preparing to confirm his identity as a descendant of the Zhao Song clan.
He originally planned to build this ancestral hall to worship the "ancestors" by the West Lake, but it was not realized due to land prices and the Foreign Intelligence Service's disapproval of such a ostentatious display.
"I don't know much about ancient architecture. The ancestral hall must be built according to ancient forms, otherwise it won't look solemn. There is also an issue of exceeding the regulations. Local craftsmen must be used to build Phoenix Villa. Don't report it to you."
Merlin was a little worried.
Zhao Yingong said: "I have already asked someone to draw the design - don't worry, it will definitely not exceed the limit. I asked people from the History Research Office of the Grand Library and Master Wang to take a look at it."
Mei Lin agreed. Anyway, he only wanted to build houses. However, he immediately put forward a counter-condition: asking Zhao Yingong to come forward and keep Zhou Dongtian for a while, and wait until he finished handling the matters at hand before setting off - he wanted to go to Nanjing with Zhou Dongtian.
.
"We've all arrived in the south of the Yangtze River. It would be a pity not to go to Nanjing. I must go and observe the 'dragon panning and tiger sitting' method in Nanjing..."
Of course Zhao Yingong knew what he was thinking, and smiled implicitly: "I will definitely convince Lao Zhou."
Zhou Dongtian was responsible for taking Mei Lin to Nanjing. Hangzhou was also very comfortable. He could stay for a few more days, eat, sleep, and do some internal political review work. The population of Hangzhou Station had increased a lot, except for children.
Many slaves also came, and these people had to undergo appropriate secret examinations and evaluations.
Without the other party's knowledge, it is obviously not possible to put on an interrogation posture - otherwise the news about the presence of several strange people in Zhao's house will spread widely. The inspection team moved in in the name of Zhao Yingong's friends, and they cannot act beyond the scope of friends.
.Zhou Dongtian has been trained in body language. He can tell general clues by just saying a few words casually and observing the other person's expressions and movements.
As an "advisor" to the General Administration of Political Security, he contacted and observed every slave, especially to see if they had any special behavior: as long as a spy starts his activities, he will inevitably reveal distinctive clues.
A few days later, he confirmed that there were no spies among the indigenous personnel recruited at the entire Hangzhou station. As for the reliability of the indigenous personnel, it was impossible to judge in a short time. However, except for the bearers who had a little charlatanism, most of the servants were loyal and honest people.
It is relatively easy to form a common chain of interests with Hangzhou Station. As for how reliable they can develop in the future, it depends on Zhao Yingong's own ability to win over them.
But loyalty must first form a community of interests. Zhou Dongtian believes that no matter how strong a person's control ability is, he can never become the "queen" or "mastermind" of the Zerg. Regardless of whether it is real interests or illusory interests, loyalty
It still needs to be built on the basis of common interests.
Zhao Yingong's main method was to start with children. In addition to orphans taken in from the streets and markets, he also organized all the children of slaves.
These children ranged from five or six to thirteen or fourteen years old. Zhao Yingong asked Sun Wangcai to give all the slaves' children pocket money and send them to a private school in the abandoned garden. He also planned to have all the children stay in a centralized place after the Phoenix Villa was completed.
Live a complete collective life: eat, live, study and work together, and thoroughly educate them on culture and outlook on life.
It is not easy to change adults, but children are blank slates. No matter how they draw, they are under Zhao Yingong's control. First, start by controlling the children's hearts, and their parents will not be able to escape. Their parents will be slaves.
People are basically uneducated and cannot have any influence on their children. They will only shed tears of gratitude for the actions of their masters.
About half of the slaves Zhao Yingong took in had children - he preferred the whole family to single slaves. People with children had greater survival pressure and greater worries. This kind of people had a
In a safe and stable environment, there won't be many other ideas, and a little favor can make them give up. And children are the most effective hostages for most people.
The land preparation work for Phoenix Mountain Villa was quickly completed. Sun Wangcai and Cai Shi bought more than 2,000 acres of land in Phoenix Mountain: the price was not high. Most of the land was barren mountainous land, and the land by the river below the mountain was sandy.
, and there is sometimes the danger of waterlogging, and the value of both official and private land is not high. The cost of buying all the land and getting the deed done is less than five hundred taels of silver, both public and private.
Zhao Yingong hired a wooden cabinet - the so-called wooden cabinet was an ancient construction company that specialized in undertaking construction projects. The leader of the wooden cabinet was a Dongyang carpenter. He didn't understand the architectural drawings Mei Lin brought out: It's not that the ancients didn't have architectural drawings.
But craftsmen who generally build houses seldom use it. Moreover, the buildings designed by Merlin are considered "illegal" in their opinion. When building houses, carpenters follow the "Building Method". What are the structures and sizes of various types of houses?
, the appearance... almost all have certain routines,
The carpenter looked at Meilin's drawings for a long time and then said: "It's not difficult to build a house, but it's strange that the house looks like this. Do all houses in Guangli build like this?"
Merlin himself felt that the house he designed was still in the "ancient architectural style", but the structure and space management of the house were designed according to modern architectural principles. Unexpectedly, the other party found it strange. If this is the case, wouldn't it be a bastion-style building?
Weirder?
He said cautiously: "We build houses like this in Sanshui. I heard that some styles were introduced from overseas."
"What an eye-opener." The carpenter muttered as he watched, "Guest! I advise you to follow the French style. I'm afraid others will laugh at you if you build a house like this..."
The two sides had a small argument over this issue. The carpenter felt that building such a unique "Guangli style" house would make people laugh. Of course, Merlin had to stick to his own architectural philosophy - after all, the house in the villa should serve practical purposes.
, cannot adapt to the so-called "French style". The architecture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties is certainly beautiful and tasteful, but it is very poor in terms of comfort and space utilization. Of course, he must adhere to the direction of advanced construction technology in this time and space.
In the end, it was built according to Meilin's drawings - the construction project of Phoenix Villa is not small in scale, and it is a big deal for wooden cabinets. No matter how persistent the old carpenter is in the "Construction Method", he will not struggle with money.
What puzzled the old carpenter the most was the underground ditch and water supply system on the design drawing - of course he was not unaware of this. Many small towns and even villages in the south of the Yangtze River had complete and reliable drainage systems, but he had never seen such a design.
"Luxury". According to his idea, since it is just a villa, there is no need for complicated drainage at all. Just set up a few drainage stone gutters in the courtyard of the mansion. There is no need to dig such a large area, and almost one person can fit in it.
Walking ditches. As for water supply, it is enough to dig a few wells in the courtyard of the villa - there are several mountain springs on the foundation. After dredging, a well circle is built to form a ready-made well. The water quality is good and the water is enough. Why bother to build another well on the hillside?
Build such complex drainage ditches and water storage ponds?
Bricks, tiles, and lime were supplied by local kilns, and wood was shipped from Dongyang, Quzhou and other places. There are broken walls and ruins everywhere on Fenghuang Mountain, which also provided a considerable part of the building materials, especially stone.
When cleaning up the broken bricks and tiles, a large number of tiles and glazed tiles from the Song Dynasty were cleaned up. Zhao Yingong's caretakers gathered them all to pile them up - he planned to use these materials to build the Zhao Song royal ancestral hall. Of course, those that were obviously illegal could not be used, so he had to first
Keep it.
The progress of the project is not fast - the gap between Meilin's architectural concepts and methods and this time and space is too big, and it takes a lot of time to communicate with the people at the wooden cabinet every day. The purchase and delivery of building materials is also very slow. It has only been two weeks since the construction started.
Not a word. Meilin was used to Lingao's efficiency and felt very unhappy with the slow pace of the local area. And he was afraid that he would be delayed for too long on the project, so Zhou Dongtian couldn't wait to leave and set off.
"I will definitely bring my own engineering team to work in the future. The natives can only work as laborers." Merlin would complain every day after coming off the construction site, "They always think our approach is too weird. They also keep telling me that it is pure.
It’s a waste of money. Some people just think I’m a fool!”
Zhao Yingong comforted him: "This is the generation gap of the times. Wasn't it the same thing when you brought naturalized migrant workers to build a house?"
Apart from these, generally speaking, the layout of the Phoenix Villa designed by Mei Lin is still traditional. The main residential building of the Villa is located at the foothills of Phoenix Mountain, facing Tsquirrel Bay and backed by Wansong Ridge. The Villa itself is common in this time and space.
The forts in the countryside are well built and have a certain degree of defense.
The villa residence itself is surrounded by walls and covers an area of 8 acres. There are multiple courtyards distributed. It includes the Hangzhou Station headquarters, Zhao Yingong's residence, Hangzhou Station guest house, residential settlements for Hangzhou Station staff and slaves, schools and dormitories.
Warehouse etc.
Several acres of construction reserve land are circled outside the residence - to be used to build quarantine camps, factories and several residential areas in the future - to house workers in farms and factories. They are at a certain distance from the villa residence, but are mutually exclusive.
They are connected by roads and share a drainage and water supply system.