Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

After the Liu brothers left, the father and son strolled in the garden for a while.

Ju Ming suddenly said: "I plan to completely abolish the Xiang army system in Gyeonggi, Henan, and Guanzhong, just like Sichuan. The inspection and courier functions will be retained, and each of these two aspects will have their own ownership. They will no longer be affiliated with the specialized Xiang army establishment. .In addition, we must retain Tsuna’s army.”

"Sichuan has not suffered many natural or man-made disasters, and a large number of Xiang army servants have been resettled," Zhu Guoxiang asked, "Have you thought about how to resettle the three places you mentioned?"

Zhu Ming said: "Divide the fields nearby to reclaim wasteland, and transfer some of them to local officials. In the future, the exemption law will be implemented, and this must be completed in conjunction with the allocation of acres. Therefore, the abolition of the Xiang army is in conjunction with the inventory of land and the allocation of acres. It should not be mixed with Doing it together will definitely cause trouble."

Zhu Guoxiang nodded and said: "Give me a set of regulations, and I will let the local officials implement them. It will be tried out in Gyeonggi and Henan first, and loopholes will be filled and policies fine-tuned. Then it will be expanded to Guanzhong and Huainan."

Ju Ming said: "Once the south is pacified, the two Huaihe Rivers will be the top priority for the reform of the Xiang army. If we can reform there, there will be no problems in the whole country."

The Xiang army in the Song Dynasty was not only used for fighting, they had various responsibilities.

First, transport materials.

Whether it is transporting grain and grass, or various matters of the imperial court, the first consideration is to let the Xiang army do it. Only when there is a shortage of manpower will the civilian men be recruited.

Second, build water conservancy, repair cities, build palaces, and build royal tombs.

This kind of government project also gives priority to the deployment of Xiang troops, and then recruits civilian laborers to supplement according to the amount of the project.

Third, farm and reclaim wasteland.

If farming is needed in border areas or a few internal areas, Xiang troops will be thrown over.

Fourth, for officials to use.

When officials leave the capital under imperial orders, when supervisors inspect local areas, when officials go to work over long distances, or even when officials move and change residences, they can directly use the Xiang army as bodyguards and miscellaneous tasks.

Even if an official's parents die of illness, and the official has important responsibilities and cannot return home, Ding You can apply for Xiang troops to help handle the funeral. In principle, the number of Xiang troops allocated should not exceed 100. Or if an official dies of illness, Xiang troops are sent to escort the body all the way home. In principle, no more than thirty Xiang troops can be allocated.

Or, officials may call Xiang soldiers to serve as handymen, or even let Xiang soldiers serve as officials for free.

Even the lowest deputy chief can command a Xiang army.

At the Zhizhou level, he can command two hundred Xiang troops.

In the Song Dynasty, the border generals even deployed large-scale Xiang troops to cut firewood and burn charcoal without any subsidies, which was equivalent to long-term hard labor, but the charcoal burned was sold by the generals to make money.

This practice was once so popular that the Xiang troops who burned large amounts of charcoal could not bear it and fled directly into the mountains to gather as bandits.

Because there were so many charcoal-burning Xiang troops who fled, the Northern Song Dynasty court had to order a ban, and explicitly prohibited the Xiang troops from engaging in charcoal-burning work.

There are many other messy things to do. Those who can be patrol soldiers and delivery troops are considered very lucky among the Xiang army. They even have to accept tasks such as logging, shipbuilding, brewing, mining, producing weapons, delivering documents, and performing chores in palaces. Anyway, let the Xiang army do whatever they want.

Do you think that the Song Dynasty court was kind-hearted and organized refugees and rebels into Xiang troops whenever something went wrong? So many Xiang troops in the country were maintained by the government for nothing?

Zhang Ruyu, an official of the Southern Song Dynasty, summed it up in eight words: The Song Dynasty has the world, and everyone serves the Xiang army.

It is precisely because the business scope of Xiangjun is too wide and involves too many people that it has been difficult for Ju Ming to comprehensively reform.

In Sichuan, a large number of Xiang army servants were resettled to cultivate wasteland, or even moved to Nanyang and Xiangyang. As a result, the government was often short of manpower. For larger public projects, all civilian workers must be recruited, which greatly tests the governance and coordination abilities of local officials. However, various prefectures and counties in Sichuan are still undergoing major water conservancy projects.

The deep area of ​​​​the reform of the Xiang Army is in the Lianghuai River. To put it bluntly, it is the issue of transportation.

If the Lianghuai Gang Army is abolished, should we establish another Liang Huai Cao Army?

Ju Ming's idea was that the Gang Army should be separated from the Xiang Army and organized into a system with the Delivery Army, specifically responsible for postal and transportation services, and the whole would be placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War. This is a kind of compensation and balance given to the Ministry of War by the Privy Council and the Generalissimo's Office, which have taken away too much power from the Ministry of War.

After resting today, Zhu Ming took Zhang Jinping and Zheng Yuanyi and took a carriage back to the East Palace.

He stopped again when he was almost there. On a whim, he climbed up to the city gate and walked for a while along the imperial city wall.

Genyue in the northwest is really an eyesore. It is almost deserted. A large number of pavilions and pavilions were chopped down to make firewood during the defense of the city, and the stones were also moved away to make falling rocks.

A pile of large and small stones were piled on the city wall. The well-preserved high-grade Taihu stones were auctioned by the government to wealthy households. As for the stones that have been smashed, ordinary people can come and carry them, or they can be wholesaled to builders.

Today's Genyue is overgrown with weeds, and the rare flowers and trees are not taken care of. It just stands so abruptly in the northeast corner of the city.

Maybe it can be cleaned up a little and a few pavilions can be repaired for Tokyo residents to enjoy.

Zhu Ming had an idea and thought of Astronomy Academy.

An observatory can be built on the top of Genyue. Even if the capital is moved in the future, the observatory here does not need to be moved. It can be compared with the astronomical observation data in Luoyang.

Those astronomical officials in the Song Dynasty often made false claims, and the emperor had to establish the Hanlin Academy of Astronomy. The original intention was for Si Tianjian and the Astronomical Academy to supervise each other, but as a result, the old and new astronomical departments worked together to fabricate observation data to fool the emperor.

Nowadays, the new Ming Dynasty has merged Si Tianjian and Tianwen Yuan, and eliminated two-thirds of the incompetent people. The name of the new organization is "Tianwen Yuan".

Ju Ming left the city wall and planned to visit the Astronomical Academy.

Zheng Yuanyi was not interested in that stuff, but Zhang Jinping was very interested. Many of her relatives like to engage in technology. Not only did her ancestors improve the wet copper smelting process, but her cousin also invented the jigsaw puzzle a few years ago.

When the prince arrived in person, everyone in the Astronomical Academy was in a state of panic.

After hearing the news, Huang Shang, the envoy of the hospital, came to greet him with a bit of resentment in his enthusiasm. This old champion of the previous dynasty was first thrown by Song Huizong to compile Taoist scriptures, and now he was hired by Ju Ming to manage astronomy, but he had always wanted to be a political officer.

"How's the pendulum clock doing?" Zhu Ming asked casually.

Huang Shang said: "It's almost done."

Ju Ming nodded: "Go and have a look."

The Northern Song Dynasty's water transport instrument platform and the discussion and manufacturing scales are still placed in the yamen of the Astronomical Academy. These two are astronomical measuring devices, and the clock attribute is incidental.

After the father and son took over Tokyo, they quickly merged and streamlined the astronomical institutions and asked Huang Shang to lead the development of mechanical clocks.

The chief engineer of the R\u0026D team is Wang Daoshi, who created the "Discussion and Manufacturing Jiheng Institute". Several scholars from Yangzhou brought by Zhu Guoxiang who liked to study physics also joined this scientific team. Some craftsmen were seconded from the Ministry of Industry, and the entire team totaled about thirty people.

The overall idea was provided by Ju Ming.

No clockwork is needed, a heavy hammer is used as power, and a pendulum is used to keep time.

After this kind of pendulum clock was invented by Galileo, it had no major shortcomings except that it was too big and inconvenient to move. Even in the Internet age, there are still many "retro" people who put this kind of clock at home to tell time, and take videos and post them online to show off.

But Ju Ming only saw the appearance and knew the basic working principles, but did not understand the specific internal structure at all.

Taoist Wang was squatting in the room doing research. When he learned that Ju Ming was coming, he quickly led his team to greet him: "Meet the prince, meet the princess!"

Ju Ming smiled kindly in return. Compared with other officials, his smile at this time was the most sincere: "No need to be formal, how is the development going?"

Taoist Wang said: "It's basically completed, but some small changes need to be made."

Although the water-borne instrument platform of the Song Dynasty and Galileo's heavy-weight pendulum clock both required the use of an escapement for adjustment. However, the escapements of the two are very different in design, so Wang Daoshi has to redesign them.

There were more than one heavy hammer clock, and each one was as tall as a person. Taoist Wang asked his assistants to dismantle all the casings.

Taoist Wang pointed to one of them and explained in detail: "The heavy hammer drives the ratchet, and the gear teeth push open the pawl of the pivot balance (axis center), causing the pivot balance to rotate through an angle. The pawl under the pivot balance just turns over. Blocking the lower gear teeth. The ratchet wheel continues to rotate and pushes it away again, and the pivot balance returns to its original position, thus completing a swing..."

Ju Ming understood everything through explanation and demonstration.

Taoist Wang continued: "The device that swings horizontally above is called Tianquan. It was originally used to adjust the speed. I was really embarrassed and did not use the single pendulum mentioned by the prince. As a result, although this horizontal pendulum can also be adjusted, I use the dripper every day. The calculation with the sundial has a huge error."

Ju Ming smiled and did not criticize.

The isochrony of a pendulum is simple to say, but extremely complicated to explain in detail. It is normal for Taoist Wang not to follow what Ju Ming said.

And according to the heavy hammer idea provided by Ju Ming, Wang Taoist was able to study the horizontal swing clock, which is already considered very capable.

Taoist Wang pointed to the pendulum clock next to him: "Later, I made several large pendulums and tested them for three days while staring at the drip. The period of the pendulum has nothing to do with the amplitude of the pendulum, but only the length of the cycloid. The specific adjustment of the speed is The pivotal balance device is still being compared slowly and repeatedly as to how many heavenly gates (the action points in the escapement that block the swing rope) are set up to be the most punctual.”

"Use a sundial to test, how big is the error now?" Zhu Ming asked.

Taoist Wang replied: "The error of one month is about two quarters of an hour."

Ju Ming nodded in approval: "It's extremely accurate."

Taoist Wang said: "It can be improved further."

Sundials in ancient prefectures and counties were not very precise, and the error could reach fifteen minutes a day.

However, the sundials used by the astronomical department of the central court were extremely accurate, with an error of no more than 20 seconds per day.

There was already a term for hours in the Song Dynasty. Ju Ming said: "Follow the old rules for hours. You can divide one hour into sixty parts, each part being one minute. You can make another minute hand to calculate the minutes."

Taoist Wang opened his mouth wide, but finally bowed his head and said, "Yes!"

Adding a minute hand is not as simple as it sounds.

The leader opens his mouth, but the subordinates run away and break their legs.

When Taoist Wang completes the minute hand system, it will be time for him to create the timekeeping system.