Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 1426 Cars

Throughout September, except for some wars in the northern grasslands, the territory of Daxia was generally stable, and even the turmoil in the Bohai Sea gradually subsided, which can be described as a scene of peace and prosperity.

On the first day of October, after the Shuowang Great Court Meeting, Zhongshu decreed that the former Privy Council Deputy Envoy of Nanya Privy Council, Shi Feng [-] households, and Lu Guogong Li Tangbin would serve as Privy Envoys;

Liang Hanyong, the commander of [-] households with food seals, Liyang county government, and Rouzhou camp, served as the deputy envoy of Nanya Privy Council.

So far, the two privy envoys of Nan Ya are Zhu Shuzong and Li Tangbin, and the four privy envoys are Hu Zhen, Liang Hanyong, and Wang Bian.

Yang Liang, the envoy of the Golden Sword Army, was also appointed as the envoy of the Flying Dragon Army.

Take Xue Li, the deputy envoy of the Feilong Army, as the envoy of the Golden Sword Army.

From Ma Zhijun's general Shao Zhi as the deputy envoy of the Feilong Army, to the right wing of the Longxiang Army's envoy Ye Like as the Marquis of Yu, the capital of the Feilong Army.

Take Li Congzhang, the Marquis of Yu, the capital of the former Wansheng Yellow-headed Army, as the envoy of the right wing of the Longxiang Army.

After checking, the Luoyan Army still has more than [-] soldiers. Immediately, [-] elite cavalry were selected to make up for the Youguo Army and make it full.

In the various ministries of the Imperial Guard in Beijing, there was a large exchange of personnel.After the exchange is completed, practice rigorously and get familiar with it as soon as possible-at the same time, it is also to dilute the incoming soldiers.

There are still more than 7000 people in the Luoyan Army, and another 8000 people are transferred to the Kelan Army led by Zhou Dewei. This department originally had [-] people, but due to wars, epidemics and other factors, only [-] people are left. For all people.

The remaining 3000 soldiers of the Luoyan Army were temporarily stationed in Dingzhou, and experienced coaches were drawn from various recruiting academies to help them train.

On the second day of October, news came from the south that Zhao Kuangning personally attacked Langzhou and killed Lei Yanxiong.

The Hunan soldiers who sent troops to rescue Langzhou retreated south after hearing that the city had fallen.Taking advantage of the situation, the Yokoye army pursued and captured more than [-] people, and seized more than [-] dendrobium of grain and beans.

The Yokoye Army used to have 2 people, who were stationed in Yuezhou for more than a year, but the number dropped to [-] due to the epidemic.The morale of the army was low, and they repeatedly asked the North to return.The Privy Council ordered him to persist until the new year, when the Tielin Army would go south to replace them. Although the sergeants complained, they didn't dare to do anything for a while.

The tens of thousands of Jingnan soldiers under Zhao Kuangning's tent were reorganized separately, and given the military title "Guangjie".

In the end, Shao Mianren, the governor of Cangzhou, went to Shu, and asked [-] Youzhou households to go to the counties of Cangzhou to build villages and reclaim wasteland.

He served as governor of Cangzhou for more than two years.To be honest, since this state was promoted to Zhengzhou, turmoil has continued, and most of the chaos has been quelled in the past two years.Fortunately, the scale was not very large, and they were suppressed one after another, but he didn't have a good impression of the Cangman, so he asked the court to give him some Youzhou households.

The people of Yandi can fight well. If they live together in groups, it will not be a problem to deal with small-scale unrest.The only hidden danger is that they may rebel with Man Liao, but it is only possible, and it is worth trying.

Shao Shude agreed to his son's request.

He did not have the conditions that other dynasties had when they were first established, that is, they had experienced brutal wars, and there were only ten thousand houses and nine empty houses in various places, leaving only thousands of people, and the resources per capita were abundant.

At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the rebels and warlords from all walks of life were too weak. Huang Chao had already entered the capital, but in the north, his scope of activities was severely restricted.Qin Zongquan made such a fuss, but he couldn't even go east to Bianzhou, so he was beaten back severely.

To put it bluntly, the two of them can only operate within the range of the imperial court's strong control. The feudal towns that are not under the imperial court's control are like wolves and tigers, guarding the borders, which greatly restricts their flow - it's not that they don't want to be bandits, it's because they don't have that ability.

This creates a problem, the population is too large.In the feudal era, this was to affect the longevity of the dynasty.

There is no way but to expand outward.

Zangzhou used to be Zhengzhou, but later it was abolished as Jimizhou. It can be seen that it went through a lot of repetitions during the Tianbao period.

Perhaps because of the pressure from Nanzhao, Tang Xuanzong didn't want the internal turmoil to be too much to cause them to collude with foreign enemies. At the same time, he needed to concentrate on dealing with Tubo, so he acquiesced in their self-government. In order to beat the dog in the water, he wanted to abolish Tubo once and for all, so he didn't want to give Nanzhao a chance.

But Shao Shude drew his sword and looked around, and found that there was not a single opponent around.

It has been seven or eighty years since Tubo collapsed.

More than 30 years ago, Song Wei, Gao Pian and others repeatedly defeated Nanzhao and regained the lost land in Annan and Jiannan, forcing Nanzhao to conscript even men over 15 years old.

A series of failures made Nanzhao dissatisfied. Zheng Maisi took the opportunity to usurp the throne, killed more than [-] members of the Nanzhao royal family, and established the Dachanghe Kingdom.

However, such things as usurping the throne and killing the royal family of the previous dynasty will eventually lose the hearts of the people, and Nanzhao's domestic turmoil continues.A few years ago, Zheng Maisi built the Puming Temple to pay homage to the Nanzhao royal family in order to invite people's hearts.This year, ten thousand iron Buddhas were cast to pray for the royal family of Nanzhao—it is really hard to say how much effect these crocodile tears have.

Tubo and Nanzhao were not to be feared, Khitan was also killed, and the Uighur Empire of the Grassland collapsed earlier than the Tang Dynasty.

Shao Shude discovered that his external situation was even better than that in the early Ming Dynasty.After all, there was still a Northern Yuan during Zhu Yuanzhang's period, and he severely damaged Xu Da's Northern Expeditionary Army on the grassland.The impact of this battle was far-reaching, and it directly changed the national policy of the Ming Dynasty. It can be seen that the loss was very large.

The only opponent he can call Beiyuan now is probably the Gaochang Uighur.They are the remnants of the Uyghur Empire. Because of the usurpation of the throne, they were split into two parts, one in the east of Congling and the other in the west of Congling, fighting each other.

There's really no threat.

So Shao Shude agreed to his son's request, focusing on cleaning up the barbarians in Zangzhou, gradually reorganizing the households of Qimin, and at the same time relocating the people in Hebei to settle down and change customs.

Of course he did not forget Banzhou.Luo Taiwang became the governor and still led his own village, but it was impossible for Yang Duan's tribe to be handed over to him.Even if there are repetitions, there will be resolute suppression and registration of households.

With the national power of the imperial court, it is not a big problem to get two states at once.

******
On the fifth day of October, Shao Shude came to a certain factory on the outskirts of Ji County again, and took a horse-drawn carriage to circle around.

Yes, the steerable wagon was complete.

Honestly, it feels really good.

Compared with two-wheeled carriages, the advantages of four-wheeled carriages are very obvious.

First of all, the payload is very large, and it can pull heavier and more cargo, and it can be faster.

Secondly, it is also very friendly to the draft horse.The shaft of the two-wheeled carriage is framed on the horse, which is very burdensome, and the horse is easily fatigued and has a shorter life span.

Third, when you stop or change the horse, the horse is gone, you have to put something under the shaft, and the carriage cannot stop there naturally.

In short, once you take a four-wheeled carriage, you don't think much of a two-wheeled carriage.

The four-wheeled carriage project jointly promoted by the Shaofu and the Ministry of Internal Affairs produced a total of two vehicles with different models.

In terms of structure, the first one was Shao Shude's premise, and it was made by Shaofu.The upper gear is used to manually adjust the speed of the wheels on both sides to ensure that it can turn.

He tried it, and he can turn normally, and the speed is not slow, which feels very good.

Of course, he just went around and didn't know how long the service life of the hand-made gears and sliding bearings was.Maybe it will wear out after a few days?
The second car is a completely different design idea.

It is done independently by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs does not have as many artisan resources as the Shaofu, and the level is not good, so it took a different approach and proposed a new idea: that is, two front wheels are mounted on one frame, and two rear wheels are mounted on another frame. The rear vehicle frame is installed above the front vehicle frame, and the middle is connected by an axle.

To put it bluntly, this is like stacking two two-wheeled carriages together, which is a very ingenious idea - the four-wheeled carriages in Europe in the early years were in this shape.

After Shao Shude thought about it, he still ordered the second car.

A cost, always a cost.

He doesn't like things specially made by skilled craftsmen.After all, there are many craftsmen of this level, and the cost of asking them to make things is very high, their energy is also limited, and the output will be very low.

Things that cannot be produced in large quantities and at low cost cannot be promoted, and their meaning will be greatly reduced.

Like the second type of four-wheeled carriage, to be honest, the craftsmen of Heizi Shiwei will make it after some research. The level that can be accepted by ordinary people is low enough to be popularized.

Things that cannot be popularized will inevitably disappear in the end and become museum exhibits and future generations' talk, but they cannot make their own contributions to production and life.

"The four-wheeled carriage, I like the one made by the Ministry of Internal Affairs." Shao Shude bent down, inspected the structure carefully, and said, "Perhaps, we can recruit craftsmen and set up a separate workshop?"

Zhao Zhi, the young supervisor of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, responded immediately: "Your Majesty, do you want to build cars and sell them?"

Because of the various requirements of the saints, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is really very sensitive to making money now. Whenever a new thing comes out, the first thing to do is to figure out whether it can make money and how much money it can make.

"Aren't you selling it for fun?" Shao Shude said with a smile: "The Ministry of Internal Affairs has specialized in this car for ten years. Within ten years, only the Ministry of Internal Affairs can build it. If anyone builds it secretly, I will send him to central Guizhou. Ten years later, all Let go, anyone can make it."

"The minister obeys the order." Zhao Zhi responded.

He can see that the use of this kind of car is still relatively narrow, and it can only be used in places with first-class national roads, which greatly limits the demand.

In the past ten years, there is a high probability that it was mainly made for the Privy Council and the Ministry of War. The market for military supplies and logistics is very good.In addition, there are Tianjia and the government, and their needs are not small.

Ten years later, the mileage of first-class national highways will be even more astonishing, and even the conditions of post roads that are not first-class national highways will be greatly improved, and the market will be even bigger. make money.

When there is really no money to make, it is time to quit this business.

"It seems that you guessed it too..." Shao Shude stood up and said with a smile: "This thing is closely related to the first-class national road. Let's go, get in the car, and you and I will go to the first-class national road together."

The first-class national highway was originally only available in Henan, but a short section between Beiping Prefecture and Changping County happened to be repaired, just in time for a test drive.

(End of this chapter)