Chapter 137: The whole family, young and old, in one go
Nighttime castle construction has many classic examples in historical novels, such as building a city by watering and freezing ice at night, or Kinoshita Tōkichirō building rafts from logs and floating them downstream to construct Mata Castle overnight. However, these examples are either folk tales or fictionalized accounts, and it’s hard to say if they truly happened in history.
It’s highly likely that the story of Kinoshita Tōkichirō building Mata Castle overnight is fabricated. This story originated from a picture book called “Taikōki,” and was later copied into “Buko Yawa.” The former is a storybook from the Edo period, while the latter has been judged as false history by most scholars in the Modern Era, with many parts being pure fabrication that don’t align with archaeological evidence at all.
Most importantly, Yuan Ye had asked A Man during casual conversations and discovered that Mata Castle already existed. Her grandfather had visited it several times when he was young, and the castle still stands today as an important forward outpost for the Saito Family to defend against the Oda Family.
Therefore, “nighttime castle construction” is basically bragging, a gimmick in historical novels with almost no practical application in the real world. This is especially true after Yuan Ye surveyed the site and found that he needed to build a fortress on the mountain, two small fortresses by the river, and a castle between the mountain and the river as a defensive core, ideally with some smaller fortresses to fill in the gaps, to ensure the absolute safety of the port.
Simply put, he needed to build a short “Great Wall” to have the capital to fiercely fight against the behemoth Imagawa Family, and to have the capital to protect the port without being besieged and killed by the enemy.
This scale of construction would be terrifying in ancient times. After surveying the site several times, Yuan Ye returned and spun around like a donkey on a millstone for a long time, then took a large group of laborers and set sail. This time, they traveled west all the way to Kaishi District before landing in a desolate place and plunging into the Mount Ise Range.
A few days later, he brought back a little less than half a boatload of volcanic ash, volcanic slag, and a small amount of mixed tuff and porous rock.
With the castle construction techniques of this era, chiseling stone for foundations, piling earth for walls, and felling trees for buildings, it would take at least three to five months to complete a castle, and one to two years was not uncommon. Such a long construction period would be enough for the Imagawa Family to drive him out to sea three to five times.
Therefore, classical castle construction methods are definitely not feasible. He felt that direct casting would be better. Only then would he have a chance to have a defensible position that could withstand severe tests before the Imagawa Family arrived.
If he wanted to cast buildings, he would need concrete, and to use concrete, he would need cement. And to produce cement in this era, there was probably only volcanic ash cement as an option.
This is not a new invention; it has existed since before the Common Era.
A well-known structure, such as the Pantheon in Rome, built between 27-25 BCE and rebuilt in 120 CE, boasts the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, with a diameter of 43.3 meters. Its material was “Roman concrete,” a mixture of pumice, porous volcanic rock, volcanic ash, and lime. It is lightweight yet strong, and has remained intact for two thousand years, making it a famous tourist attraction in modern Rome.
Famous structures like the Colosseum also utilized concrete. The foundation used dense concrete, made from volcanic ash cement and limestone, capable of supporting the Colosseum’s immense weight. The arches and domes used lightweight concrete, such as lightweight pumice concrete, which is concrete based on volcanic ash cement with lightweight aggregates like pumice added. This ensured structural stability while reducing overall weight.
This structure still exists today. Although more than half of it has collapsed, it has little to do with the building materials. It can still be said to have stood for two thousand years without falling, making it very sturdy.
Furthermore, structures like the ancient city of Pompeii, the ancient Roman baths, and the ancient Roman aqueducts stretching for tens of kilometers all extensively used volcanic ash cement and volcanic ash concrete. History has already proven the reliability and convenience of this building material.
At least, that’s what middle school textbooks say.
Yuan Ye felt he could learn from the Romans and use volcanic ash cement. This way, he wouldn’t have to quarry stone or build layer by layer, saving a lot of time and greatly increasing construction speed. Building with earth walls is not simple; the soil is very particular, requiring a mixture of different soils, various binding materials, and constant tamping layer by layer, otherwise, it wouldn’t stand or be sturdy enough, making construction very time-consuming.
In short, volcanic ash cement was the only way forward. Yuan Ye brought people to steal more than half a boatload of volcanic ash and began experimenting with formulating volcanic ash cement. This material had been used on a large scale since before the Common Era, and its formula was very simple: just mix volcanic ash and lime. Depending on the composition of the volcanic ash, the ratio was approximately 3:1 or 2:1.
Once mixed, it became primitive volcanic ash cement. Then, mixing the cement with suitable aggregate, such as porous rock, also from volcanic eruptions, or simply adding river sand and pebbles, would create concrete.
Next, it would be constrained by a bamboo and wood frame, filled with water, covered with wet burlap during its setting period to cool it and prevent cracking, and after about a week of waiting, the desired “prefabricated parts” would be obtained.
The entire process was very simple, with almost no technical content. After the “prefabricated parts” were made, Yuan Ye personally hit them with a hammer more than a dozen times before they barely broke, confirming that middle school textbooks were more reliable than Japanese historical records and were not deceiving people. This was indeed a very good building material. The only drawback was its sensitivity to cold; this cement could not be used in extremely cold regions as it would become very brittle. However, it didn’t matter, as the Chita Peninsula was warmer than Nagoya. The lowest winter temperature rarely dropped below zero, and water didn’t even freeze, so the cement wouldn’t freeze.
The building materials were secured, and they were excellent building materials for this era. Yuan Ye felt confident. By this time, the Lunar New Year was over, and he unhesitatingly mobilized everyone in Wanjin, announcing the construction of a castle in Wanjin, starting the construction of numerous lime kilns to burn lime madly, and searching everywhere for easily excavatable volcanic ash layers. Wherever found, they would dig and transport the volcanic ash by the boatload to Wanjin. If the transport capacity was insufficient, they would pay islanders to help transport it with their fishing boats.
The local lords of the Lower Four Districts of Owari did not interfere. He had saved so many wounded soldiers before, accumulating some goodwill. They were merely digging up useless soil from their territories, where no grain could be grown. It was not a big deal, and no one paid it any mind. Some local lords, like the Maeda Family, were even cooperative. Since they were idle in winter anyway, they were willing to mobilize their villagers to help him dig and transport the soil onto the boats, earning a little money from it.
Oda Nobunaga learned of this immediately but did not intervene. Yuan Ye’s willingness to become a local lord in Owari was something he welcomed. To become a local lord, one naturally had to build a castle; this was the norm throughout Japan at this time, with over fifteen thousand “castle lords” of various sizes. Yuan Ye’s actions were reasonable, and he paid little attention to it, completely ignoring it.
Consequently, boatloads of volcanic ash, volcanic slag, tuff, porous rock, and pumice were brought to Wanjin, either finely sifted, ground finely in mills, or roughly crushed by hand, and finally mixed into bags of volcanic ash cement and concrete, gradually filling Wanjin’s warehouses and approaching the earthwork volume calculated by Yuan Ye.
He even built a small fortress on a small scale in Wanjin as a trial, allowing the internal affairs officials to experience being “foremen” and resolving some messy minor issues in advance to ensure smoother operations when the actual work began.
Endo Chiyo, Maeshima Shichiro, and other internal affairs officials were also very cooperative. Wanjin now had a population of four to five thousand, making it a local power. They had long wanted to propose building a castle, but now that Yuan Ye had started without their suggestion, they were naturally very enthusiastic. They made all the preparations for castle construction, organized personnel according to Yuan Ye’s requirements, established a command system and responsible persons at each level, and began to stockpile wood, bamboo, and grains, while also searching for carpenters to make molds according to Yuan Ye’s specifications and cast a small number of prefabricated parts.
Yu Da was also working to expand the fleet and actively liaising with the islanders with whom a preliminary trust relationship had been established, hiring them to form a temporary maritime transport team.
From late winter to early spring, except for the necessary production personnel in the workshops, the entire Wanjin was mobilized. Everyone was kept busy by Yuan Ye, running around frantically. If it weren’t for the complete absence of agricultural production here, the labor force truly couldn’t have been concentrated so effectively, and the workers wouldn’t have been so focused.
Of course, the New Army did not neglect training, as this was the top priority. They were not required to work, and even during this period of increasing labor shortage, new recruits continued to join the army, preparing for the upcoming long-term combat.
This was Yuan Ye’s desperate gamble for freedom, independence, and his own true territory. He had been patiently managing for over a year, even resorting to outright robbery for manpower, all for this very moment.
Even if his strength was greatly depleted and half his men died, he would establish a foothold on the Chita Peninsula, forcing the Imagawa Family to tolerate his existence and become an independent Minor Daimyo!
However, to increase the success rate, the timing of action was still lacking. Oda Nobunaga was somewhat neurotic; if his entire family were to charge into the Chita Peninsula, and Oda Nobunaga suddenly reacted neurotically and attacked him from behind, it would be problematic.
Therefore, even though everything was prepared, he did not rush to act. On one hand, he waited for the weather to warm up a bit, as it was purely outdoor construction, and the current weather was still somewhat cold, which could easily lead to widespread illness and injury. On the other hand, he waited for Oda Nobunaga to make a move first. Oda Nobunaga had failed to capture Kiyosu Castle last year and was certainly unwilling to give up, so he had been preparing for war. Yuan Ye felt that Oda Nobunaga was about to make another move.
As long as Oda Nobunaga went to attack Kiyosu Castle and couldn’t spare his hand to attack Yuan Ye’s base for a while, he would take his entire family to the Chita Peninsula to build a castle.
He patiently waited for another ten-odd days and finally received an urgent report from A Man: Oda Nobunaga, without even mobilizing the local lords of the Lower Four Districts of Owari, led only his direct forces to attack Kiyosu Castle, seemingly a highly covert operation.
Yuan Ye did not hesitate. Even if there wasn’t enough time to figure out what Oda Nobunaga intended to do, he gave the order, commanding the fleet to set sail directly for the Chita Peninsula!
He intended to build the Great Wall within half a month, making the Imagawa Family bleed at the foot of the city!
