Capital Datang

"Father, take two steps forward!" Li Yin said to Li Shimin with a smile on his face while holding a ruler without scale.This is a small school yard in the imperial palace. Apart from their father and son, Duan Lun, who is the minister of the Ministry of Industry, is beside him. But seeing his reluctance, he can guess that he was dragged by Li Yin. here.

"Liulang, is it necessary for you to do this?" Li Shimin walked forward a few steps with a smile, and asked Li Yin as he walked.As soon as he came to court today, his son entered the palace, and he insisted on dragging him to do some measurements. Although he couldn't think of Li Yin's intention to do such a thing, it was still an act of making a name for himself, so he also expressed Show some interest.

"Your Majesty's words are right, and the old minister also thinks His Royal Highness King Qi is unnecessary!" Duan Lun is not an outsider, and has a very good relationship with Li Yin, so he doesn't care much about what he says, and there are still a lot of things waiting for him to deal with in the Ministry of Industry. , I really don't want to mess around with Li Yin here.

"Father and uncle don't know something. It's not that I'm fooling around. It's related to the future development of industry and commerce, so don't underestimate this matter!" Li Yin still explained with a smile.

A few days ago, he and Changsun Wuji reached an agreement on the throne, waiting for the opportunity to push Li Zhi to the stage, and he also warned the other party to assist Li Zhi honestly, and don't have any other ideas.This made Changsun Wuji very angry, but in the end he was overwhelmed by Li Yin's momentum and strength.Capital Datang 218

But after the matter of Changsun Wuji was settled, Li Yin felt a headache about another matter, and he discovered this matter by accident.Although nothing can be seen now, it may cause great inconvenience in the future.That's why Li Yin made up his mind to solve this hidden danger this year.

After Li Shimin took a few steps on the school field, a series of footprints immediately appeared behind him. Li Yin stepped forward with a blank ruler, measured the distance between each footprint one by one, and handed it to the person next to him.Let it take an average value, and then multiply this average value by two to get the distance of one step.Here is an explanation.In ancient times, one step refers to the distance after the two legs are taken alternately. Only one foot is called a step, and two steps are called a step.

The person next to him calculated the distance of one step.Marked on the blank ruler again, and then cut off the excess part of the ruler, and then handed the ruler to Li Yin, only to see that he was holding the ruler that had not been marked yet, and his face showed excitement "Se", bowed and said to Li Shimin: "Father, this is the new length unit of the Tang Dynasty. In order to distinguish it from the current length unit, I decided to call it the imperial step, or the public step!"

In order to get Li Shimin to agree to his next move, Li Yin.The words are flattering to the other party, anyway, it is just a unit of length, it is also called a meter, and it is also called a step, there is no big difference at all.

at the previous Winter Games.Especially in bicycle competitions, Li Yin accidentally discovered a problem, that is, bicycles damaged in competitions can rarely be replaced at will like later generations, and expert craftsmen must customize parts for the lost bicycles before they can be used again .

This discovery surprised Li Yin very much.After he took a special look at it, he realized that there are different manufacturers of bicycles, and each factory has its own specifications, and even the bicycles produced by the same manufacturer have different specifications.This is mainly because the production process of bicycles is extremely irregular. An experienced master master leads a group of apprentices. From the selection of bicycle materials to the final installation and commissioning, these people are responsible for everything. The bicycles produced by the master craftsmen have slight differences, and it is difficult to use common parts between them.

Regarding this discovery, Li Yin originally wanted to introduce the assembly line work of later generations, but later found that it would not work at all, because there is still one of the most basic problems, that is, the non-standard weights and measures.Originally, Li Yin thought that since Qin Shihuang unified weights and measures, ancient China should be unified in this respect, but after learning about it, he discovered that it was not the case at all.

Speaking of which, our ancestors didn’t know what to think. Weights and measures are such a basic thing, but they have been changed over and over again. Although the name may not have changed, the meaning it represents has undergone tremendous changes. Even each dynasty has its own weights and measures.For example, let’s take the unit of length, Chi, as an example. This unit existed as early as the Shang Dynasty, and it is equivalent to about [-] centimeters in later generations. New establishments had to increase a little on the basis of the original one foot to show that they were different from the previous dynasties. By the time of the Tang Dynasty, one foot had reached [-] centimeters.Moreover, the country was only established for a few decades during the Zhenguan period, and the size of the former Sui Dynasty is still used in many places, so the length represented by a chi may have different lengths across the country.

This is true of the simplest units of length, not to mention units of area, volume, and weight.There is no uniform and standardized weights and measures, let alone a unified industrial standard, so Li Yin's assembly line is out of the question.

For this situation, Li Yin had to start from the most basic aspects, preparing to formulate a set of industrial-specific weights and measures, but this matter requires the participation of the Ministry of Industry. Although Li Yin has a good relationship with Duan Lun, in this case In fact, he was not sure about convincing the other party, so he put his idea on Li Shimin, and set the length unit according to the other party's step as the standard, so today's scene came about.

"Your Highness, we already have weights and measures in the Tang Dynasty, and the people have already adapted to it. There is no need to use a new set of weights and measures!" Duan Lun still objected, mainly because the current weights and measures have been accepted by most people. However, if another set is launched hastily, it may cause confusion in the market and cause unnecessary trouble to their Ministry of Industry.

"Uncle, you have misunderstood. My set of weights and measures is not for civilian use, but for industrial production. It does not conflict with the original weights and measures." Li Yin explained with a smile.The situation he mentioned is very common. For example, when buying things in later generations, although the standard unit of weight is the kilogram, the Chinese people still generally use the unit of the catty, which does not have much impact.

"Then I can't figure it out, why not just use the original weights and measures in industry?" Duan Lun asked.

"Uncle, don't you find that the original weights and measures are too complicated? Take the units of scale as an example, there are baht, two, catty, jun, stone and other units, and the carry between them is very complicated. Among them, 24 baht is one tael , 16 taels is one jin, thirty jins is one jun, and four jun is one stone. The carry between these units is different, and the calculation is very complicated. In addition, the units of degree and quantity also have this kind of problem. Industrial production It takes a lot of calculations, and the old weights and measures simply can't meet this requirement, so I had to come up with a new set of weights and measures..."

When Li Yin said this, he briefly introduced the weights and measures that he thought of. It is actually very simple to say, and most of them refer to the units of later generations. , and all of them are based on the decimal system. In fact, the meters of later generations are replaced by steps, and the distance of one step is set as the length of Li Shimin's one step.With the unit of length, the volume is even easier, as long as the concept of cube is introduced. As for the weight, Li Yin multiplied one catty in Tang Dynasty by two and named it kilogram. The reason for this is that the catty in Tang Dynasty was too large It is too small, and it is very inconvenient in the calculation of some industrial products. One thousand kilograms is one ton, one kilogram is equal to ten metric taels, etc.

Among these units of measurement, the decimal system is uniformly used, and the original quaternary, octal, hexadecimal, and even 24-ary systems are all thrown away, which makes calculations much easier, and in order to make industrial production easy to calculate and To improve the accuracy, in particular, some large and small units have been added, such as tons and millisteps.

After listening to the new type of weights and measures introduced by Li Yin, Li Shimin and Duan Lun also fell into contemplation. Although they have long been used to the old-style weights and measures, they have to say that the set of weights and measures proposed by Li Yin is indeed easier to understand. All of them are unified decimal system. If you understand one type, you will understand the other types naturally.

"Duan Qing, what do you think?" Li Shimin pondered for a while, but he didn't take the lead in expressing his opinion. Instead, he asked Duan Lun's opinion first.

"This..." Duan Lun also hesitated for a while. He clearly knew that the new weights and measures are indeed much more convenient than the old ones, but when he thought of promoting them, he felt a headache. Datang is so big, even if it is only for industrial promotion, That's enough to keep him busy.Capital Datang 218

"Uncle, in fact, it is not difficult to promote the new weights and measures, especially in the industry. As long as the Ministry of Industry issues a formal regulation to release the new weights and measures, and compel all industries under the Ministry of Industry to use them, then I will convince everyone Industry associations, let them take the lead in promoting it in the industry, so that both the government and the people have an example to refer to, and other industries will not be able to change at that time!" Seeing Duan Lun's appearance, Li Yin immediately understood that the other party was There was nothing to worry about, so he immediately began to persuade.

When Duan Lun heard that Li Yin took the initiative to help him share a lot of work, he no longer had any worries, and immediately made a decision: "Even so, the old minister has no objections, but weights and measures are of great importance, Liu Lang, when you are promoting , must be careful, absolutely not reckless!"

For Duan Lun's instructions, Li Min naturally nodded and agreed. In fact, he didn't need to be reminded by the other party. Li Yin also knew that weights and measures are very important, and the promotion of weights and measures is not a matter of a day or two. He has long been prepared for a protracted war.

After agreeing on this matter, Duan Lun and Li Yin made an appointment for a detailed discussion. After all, the two of them wanted to work together, so naturally they had to communicate further. Then Duan Lun hurried back to the Ministry of Industry to attend to his work.And Li Yin stayed with Li Shimin for a while, and then he was about to leave, but before leaving, he borrowed something from Li Shimin. . . )