The next half an hour of the meeting went by with Jazum explaining to Alexander the various operational and situational challenges he was facing, while Alexander gave them some of his own input.
These nuggets of insight made the artisans feel their eyes had been opened and they began to feel that Alexander might not be the divine son of Gaia, but the divine son of Azeyma, the god of metal, iron, and craftsmanship.
They had already been astounded by the magical powder called cement and its ability to seamlessly bind anything to it and now this expertise by Alexander helped to ‘cement’ this thought even more.
But for Alexander, the questions asked by these people were just elementary questions, mainly concerned about the proper setting of the cement, something Alexander believed these men would be able to answer themselves in a couple of months.
As they had never done this before, naturally, they were unsure about how to treat the structure made using this material, particularly about how long to water the structure, something Alexander as a materials engineer knew very well and recited to them from his heart.
Done with this little troubleshooting, Alexander nodded understandingly to Jazum and said, “Prioritize the cement kilns. Once we have that everything can start. And use any leftover cement to make more and more brink kilns. Ten is too small.”
The brick kilns were also made with stone and cement as mud kilns would take too long, and the twenty brick kilns (two were needed per batch) that Jazum constructed meant a maximum weekly production of only twenty thousand bricks, which came to a daily production of around three thousand bricks.
This was nothing, as for context, a four-walled room of 3 meters by 3 meters would need eighteen hundred bricks (1800) and could be done in a day by four men.
“Pasha, I can do a lot more if I have more men. The few thousand under me is barely enough.” Jazum pleaded to relieve the labor shortage.
The people assigned to Jazum were all already occupied with their own jobs, making bricks, hauling sand from the nearby beaches, crushing limestone, and cleaning the dug clay from all types of rocks, roots, and stones. thus leaving Jazum with almost no spare manpower to expand his operations.
Alexander understood the chronic manpower the stonemason faced and assented to his request, “In a month winter will settle in and the peasants will have nothing to do. I will assign all of them to you for two months.” .𝒄𝒐𝒎
“Thank you, my lord, thank you,” Jazum was ecstatic at this new injection of labor.
Although two months was a bit too short for his liking, but still Jazum believed in his mind that with this new manpower, he would be able to prove himself more useful to Alexander and thus snatch himself a noble title.
And if Jazum would prove himself worthy, Alexander would have no problem giving him land and rank.
He had plans to improve his infrastructure by a thousand years through various huge mega-projects and he knew that this cement was his trump card to achieve this.
Thus anyone that could boost its production would gain Alexander’s favor.
But what Jaazum was unaware of was that just hard work alone would not be enough for him to get much far along the road.
Loyalty to Alexander was paramount too.
And this was, even more, the case for something as revolutionary as cement.
And for that reason, Alexander had decided to keep its manufacturing method strictly confidential.
Every day Alexander would make the raw slurry using his trusted slaves and servants and then send it to the blacksmiths by horse-cart.
In this way, although the blacksmiths knew the ingredients of the powder, as Alexander would task them with collecting them, they didn’t know of the proper composition.
In addition, once the clinkers were formed, they would be moved to a secured location and as far as the blacksmiths were concerned be crushed to powder.
They were kept unaware of the addition of the gypsum or its percentage, as this was procured and stored by oblivious slaves who thought they were just crushing and mixing ordinary rocks with white rocks.
Although gypsum was only a small percentage of the cement, it was critical to the manufacturing process, as it was this mineral that made cement into cement.
Without it, the cement would immediately harden once mixed with water and make the whole thing pretty useless.
Consequently, by controlling the amount of gypsum in the cement, one could control the setting time of the cement, and thus vary many of the properties of the cement.
Alexander had given Camius instructions to strictly secure the formulae for the cement and to make sure none of the slaves ever met any of the artisans.
Of course, Alexander was very much aware that such a secret would be impossible to keep hidden for too long, especially when he intended to mass produce the stuff by employing a few thousand or ten thousand staff.
But he would damn well try.
With the promise that the cement production would begin in a week and brick production set to ramp up, happy Alexander decided to ask them about the construction projects on which he would use these materials.
“Have you made blueprints about the things I asked?” He asked the next to last person in the room, a man who had kept himself quiet till now, Uzak.
The buff, bald man who was another expert stonemason hastily endeavored to answer Alexander, “The sewage system design is done. We just need the materials. Same with the aqueducts. And we can start on the roads but we don’t have the men.”
The chronic shortage of men was a constant headache for Alexander.
The twenty thousand slaves that he had bought from Pasha Farzah were scheduled to arrive in late January, almost three months from now and so for now he would have to make do with what he got.
“Where are we using our men?” Alexander asked with a small frown, hoping to find a way to scrap something up from the bottom of the barrel.
“The twenty thousand are in the field, some are in the military, some with Jazum, and many are in the quarry, while the rest are cutting trees and preparing the wood for the houses you ordered. There’s no more,” Came the quick answer, a trace of helplessness attached to it.
“Hmmm, what about the women and children? What are they doing?” Alexander asked, stroking his chin and thinking he might have found a way.
“That….they are at home,” Uzak slowly spelled out the obvious, unsure why Alexander was asking about this.
“Then take them to make the roads. We are giving them two meals a day anyway, so what are they doing idling at home?” Alexander gave the order.
“That…” Uzak was a bit uncomfortable employing women in men’s work.
But facing the harsh reality, he knew he had to accept, “As you command, Pasha.”
Alexander’s roads were nothing like the men had ever built.
All roads in Adhania were just dirt roads that had been hammered into a flat, compact shape.
But Alexander’s roads were magnitudes more complex.
First, he instructed a wide area to be cleared of any vegetation and to remove the topsoil until a solid soil base was found.
Then markings using wooden planks were to be placed along the curb to mark the chosen width of the road
Next, large stones would be placed between the curbs to serve as the foundations of the roads.
On top of them would come a layer of smaller rocks all mixed up with fine aggregates to fill the gaps.
Finally, a layer of concrete would cover everything up, making a smooth, pristine road.
Seeing Uzak’s consent, Alexander then advised, “There should be ten to fifteen thousand of them. Have them dig the curbs and fill them as per the blueprints I gave you. Do you have enough stone and gravel??”
This time fortunately the answer was affirmative as Uzak reported, “Yes. Because Zanzan was the main supply hub for the war, it had large stocks of ores and stones in its warehouses, used to construct fortifications on the front lines. Juzam has also been using them.”
Alexander had chosen Zanzan because of its mines and thus this news wasn’t too surprising to him.
But he knew that the stocks would not last forever, especially as construction was scheduled to ramp up very soon, and thus instructed, “Hmm, okay. Uzak, you are to oversee the quarries’ stone production and make sure they can keep up with demand. We will need very much very soon.”
“Yes, my lord,” Uzak saluted.
Then Alexander returned to Harun, “Harun, you are to assign nine thousand to the limestone mine and the rest to the iron mine. Also, you are to map all the different ore deposits in the area.”
“As you wish, Pasha,” Harun followed the same gesture as Uzak.
And at last, Alexander greeted the last person in the room, the carpenter- Diaogosis