The rise of the prince

Chapter 429
In Kaiyuan, winter has come, the wind is cold and there are fewer people in the streets and alleys, but the vicinity of Prince Xiao's Mansion is still very lively.

Hundreds of people work here every day, and the sound of shouting and trumpeting is intertwined, and it is full of enthusiasm.

On the northwest side of the palace, a large gray and white low wall and deep ditch is slowly being cast, and many water wheels with steel bearings are gradually standing on the ditch, each of which is almost exactly the same.

The large back mountain on the west side is completely different. It is surrounded by a blue-gray brick wall that has never been seen before. It is more than one foot high, and there are sharp iron pieces standing on the top of the wall. Noisy, outsiders don't know what the palace is doing inside.

In fact, it is the Wangfu Firearms Experimental Site. The large open area behind the mountain is used for firearms experiments. Because the terrain is open and far away from the city, you can feel free to conduct various experiments on the destructive performance of firearms.

The person in charge of the experimental field is Zhao Si, the capital of the new army, Yuhou.

Li Xingzhou has always been very generous to the craftsmen of the palace. For example, Zhao Si was rewarded with at least tens of thousands of taels of silver by King Pingnan, because he kept improving firearms. Everyone in the palace knew about it.

It is said that being rich is a lifelong pursuit of many people, but the prince just rewarded Zhao Si with more than ten thousand!

What kind of concept is that? You must know that Zhao Si was just a well-known carpenter in the capital area before. Apart from being friendly and having a good relationship with the neighbors, there is no other outstanding place, but such a person, in just over a year, has become A hot figure in Beijing.

The wealth of the family and the official position of the Marquis of Yu, all of which without exception reflect the importance that King Pingnan attached to the craftsmanship and new skills of craftsmen.

The reason why Li Xingzhou rewarded Zhao Si at first was that his improvement was worth a thousand gold, and secondly, it was to play the role of buying a horse bone with a thousand catties.

The Song Dynasty was a turning point in Chinese history. In fact, before the Song Dynasty, the development of Chinese technology and technology was very rapid and healthy, such as the four great inventions, the compass in the Warring States Period, papermaking in the Western Han Dynasty, gunpowder in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and woodblock printing in the Tang Dynasty. surgery.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there were many outstanding mathematicians, such as Zu Chongzhi. The biggest impression he gave was that he calculated the pi to be between 3.1415926 and 3.1415927.

In fact, he still has many great achievements in mathematics, such as compiling "Zhushu", and he calculated a return year through shadow calculation to be 365.2428141 days, which is only 46 seconds away from the modern accurate calculation.

At that time, it was more than 400 AD, more than 600 years ago!

It is enough to imagine that the ancients at that time, relying on the changes in shadows and the huge amount of calculations, could accurately calculate a year to seven decimal places.

Song Ci, the prototype of the TV series "Da Song Mentioning the Criminal Officer" does exist, and he did write "Washing the Wrongs" and handed it down to the world.

Realistically and objectively record the characteristics of corpses of various methods of death, and the different phenomena displayed by corpses at different times after death.

For example, if a person is burned alive, there will be ashes in the mouth and trachea. If he is killed and then burned, the cavity and trachea will be relatively clean. It is recorded in "Record of Injustice".

Although there are unreasonable records in the book, the scientific spirit of seeking truth from facts and daring to explore is very rare, but since the Song Dynasty, such spirit has rarely been seen, because it is firmly suppressed by some things, Hard to breathe.

Many people blame Confucius for this matter, but if you think about it carefully, what is it about Confucius?

The Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui, Tang, and Northern Song were all Confucian dynasties that were upright, but why did these dynasties become fertile ground for technological progress and the germination of scientific spirit, while the subsequent dynasties did not have any decent technology? Achievement?

There is no perfect idea or theory in the world, and it is always improving and changing.Han Feizi, who lived hundreds of years away from Confucius, once said that once Confucius died, his disciples were divided into eight families, and each family said that they were the authentic Confucius. Who knows which of them is the authentic inheritor of Confucius’ thought?
This is true for a generation, not to mention hundreds of years later, who can tell what Confucius thought?
Therefore, Han Feizi believes that it is not feasible to go back to the past, but to face the reality and keep pace with the times is the way out.

Similarly, more than 1000 years later, some people took Confucius's words and picked out a sentence out of context to say that "restraining oneself and returning to the rituals" is to make people eliminate human desires.
In the final analysis, it is nothing more than using the saint as an excuse to make profits for others.

This kind of sign also began to appear in Jingguo.

In fact, Li Xingzhou has already noticed the signs in his heart. He thinks that he can change the direction of the world, but at least he will not let him be implicated in the palace.

In late October, the cement ditch was officially open to water at the border of Nanwang Palace in Xinping!

The water is drawn from the big river in the east of the city, and enters the large reservoir on the hilltop on the east side of the palace through a canal made of cement bricks. The pool is about two hundred steps in size.

When needed, the three sluice gates on the top of the mountain are opened one by one to release the water, and then enter the three-meter-deep and 1.5-meter-wide cement canal, rushing down from the top of the back mountain with the potential energy of gravity, pushing a row of water trucks placed in the canal on the flat ground at the foot of the mountain, and finally flowing into the front of the palace. The river water flows out of the city and re-enters the river downstream.

This is a huge project with a length of more than ten miles and a coverage area of ​​several miles. Zhu Rong is responsible for it. However, due to the existence of cement that is not afraid of water, and more than half of the water wheels are ready-made, it is easier to realize.

Since then, the hydraulic power of the palace has become controllable, and then the gravitational potential energy has become even greater.Pull up the water gate when you want to use it, and put it down when it is not in use.If it rains and the water level rises sharply, then the upper channel of the reservoir can be cut off without being affected.

On the day when the canal was completed and started construction, the palace held a grand ceremony, with lanterns and festoons, and a grand banquet.

Not only all the officials in the palace, Shiyu, Yan Yu, Yan Kun, and Qifang all rushed back from various places, even the prime minister Wang Tong, the privy envoy Zhong Daoyu, the Kaiyuan mansion Yin He Zhao, the household envoy Tang Zhouwei, and the Hanlin University scholar. Chen Yu, Zhao Guanghua, Commander of the Guard Ma Jun, and Bao Zheng, the Tong Zhi of Honglu Temple, were also invited by the mistress of the palace, Gillian, to the banquet.

Ordinary people only think it is lively and majestic, and admire King Pingnan in their hearts, but many people see it as unusual because there are too many characters.

Needless to say, Wang Yue, Zhong Daoyu is old, but he is still a privy envoy, and Tang Zhouwei is one of the chief officials of the three divisions. With Zhao Guanghua and others, it is almost a third of the imperial court.

Naturally, they will not pay attention to what King Pingnan built, and they are not interested, because in their view, it is just a gimmick. It doesn't matter what it is.

The air in winter is getting colder and colder, and the controllable water wheel began to rotate rapidly day and night, driving many workshops, and the storage of "Xiaosteel" in the palace treasury is increasing day by day. In addition to casting cannons and Suifa guns, some of them are cast into farm tools. The new products of Wangfu flowed to various places.

The word-of-mouth response is getting better and better, everything is expected, how can it be bad, because it is tool steel grade steel!

All the major merchants came to the door one after another, relying on relationships and giving money and gifts, wanting to take over the farm tools business from the Wangfu, but Li Xingzhou had already explained the poetry, other things can be wholesaled, produced by the Wangfu, and the major merchants help sell. The interests of the palace can be maximized.

But only the special agricultural tools of the Wangfu would rather not be profitable, and must be sold by the Wangfu himself, and not wholesaled to major merchants.

Because as an agricultural country, farm tools are the lifeblood of the people. If they fall into the hands of merchants, they will definitely increase the price at any cost.

Li Xingzhou wants to make money, but he does not lack that money. In this way, a large number of useful and affordable agricultural tools first flowed into Jingxi Road, Jingdong East Road, Jingdong Dongxi Road and other large areas of the Wangfu, and then sold to Suzhou and Luzhou with the big ship south. , Guazhou, Jiangnan East Road, Jiangnan West Road, Jiannan Road, Fuzhou and other places.

The word of mouth of Pingnan Palace also began to spread widely.

Food is the most important thing for the people. For farming countries, the significance of farm tools is immeasurable. King Pingnan's move is to benefit the people all over the world.

So that in Suzhou, Luzhou, and Guazhou, which were rescued by King Pingnan before, and even on Jiannan Road, which is very close to them, some people spontaneously began to set up shrines for King Pingnan.

What's more interesting is that some merchants from Bashu who came to the capital also mentioned that some people in the middle of Shu also built a shrine for King Pingnan when they were doing business with the palace.

(End of this chapter)