Volume 4: Gathering of Sages Chapter 545: The Real Prosperity
Song Juren and Fang Qing once thought that since Zhang Yuan's workshop was located underground, it must be in a gloomy and dim environment, with groups of ghostly craftsmen working hard and sweating profusely. However, when Xiao Huasheng, who led the way, really opened a stone door on the ground in a remote courtyard and led them underground, they felt that the road ahead suddenly opened up after passing through a corridor.
They saw that in the spacious stone chamber, there were countless air holes and skylights on the top and all sides, and a lot of light was shining in. At first they thought it was empty, but when Mr. Song approached a wall curiously, he found that it was not transparent, but inlaid with crystals!
Knowing how valuable crystals are, he couldn't help but secretly smack his lips, but then he heard the emperor say, "When Prince Lu first built this villa, he claimed that he needed crystals for the temple built for his birth mother, Concubine De. The Queen Mother thought that these crystals had been stored in the palace treasury for a long time, so she gave them to him. In the end, he used them all here. Just in this stone chamber, tens of thousands of crystals were used."
Fang Qing frowned and was about to say something about his extravagance when his foot was suddenly stepped on. He immediately glared at Mr. Song beside him. The emperor himself commented on Prince Lu, so what's the point of me saying a few words? Feeling aggrieved, he looked around and noticed that there was no damp and hot atmosphere here, and he could even feel the air flowing.
He couldn't help but pull off the sweat towel from his waist, pinched it with two fingers and raised it high. When he confirmed that the sweat towel was swaying slightly in the wind, he immediately exclaimed: "There is wind here?"
"Of course there is wind, otherwise with so many people working here, wouldn't everyone be suffocated?" Peanut glanced at Fang Qing, thinking that he was ignorant. "There is a blast furnace behind here that is specially used for iron making. I originally wanted to move it underground, but the young master said that iron making must ensure sufficient air and must never be placed on the ground. He also said something about combustion requiring yang energy or something..."
Little Peanut didn't notice that he had turned the oxygen Zhang Shou had mentioned to Guan Qiu into Yang Qi, and he said confidently, "The young master also told Guan Qiu to make more use of water power. Fortunately, this Zhang Garden was brought in by the King Lu, so Brother Guan used water power to drive the blower and pumped a lot of fresh air into here. Other machines in this workshop also use water power..."
Although he was learning and applying what he learned, and even made many mistakes, Xiao Huasheng was not afraid to show off in front of the emperor and the two scholars. Although he now lived with Xiao Cheng at Xiao's house most of the time, improving his vocabulary and reciting poems, and going to Tingyu Xiaozhu to listen to operas when he had nothing to do, it did not stop him from peeking at the textbooks distributed by the students of Jiuzhang Hall.
He couldn't understand the math that was too profound, but he secretly memorized some of the simple ones. Seeing that the three people in front of him were listening attentively, he couldn't help but feel very proud.
But the next moment, he heard a clear voice, and then he saw the three people who had just been concentrating on listening to him turned their heads almost at the same time.
"This pedal-operated grinder needs to be improved... Hey, the water flow in this garden is introduced after all, the height difference is not enough, the force is too small, and the water power that can be used is limited... Refined iron and brass are not like jade. What we want to do is not to carve jade, but to grind parts. It's too strenuous to pedal. If it is not improved, two people will be required to operate a grinder. Isn't this a waste of manpower?"
“Although the first pendulum clock was completed, it was made entirely of hand-polished parts, with a high scrap rate and was not precise. Therefore, even if the sample was sent to the palace, it still needed to be improved. Although the second one used mass-produced parts, the precision was sufficient, but the scrap rate of the parts was still too high… Even if it could really be sold at a high price, the yield rate was very important!”
"It would be great if we had the natural rubber that Brother Zhang mentioned. In that case, the huge force of boiling water would be more useful than the water and wind power that would run out from time to time!"
Seeing the young man with a greasy face running around being called by this person and that person, sometimes giving instructions and sometimes complaining about something, Song Juren and Fang Qing couldn't help but feel suspicious, but then they just heard Xiao Huasheng say: "This is Brother Guan that the young master admires the most. He said that the emperor praised him as a great craftsman. He likes to ask why, is eager to learn, and likes to get his hands dirty..."
He praised Guan Qiu with a lot of compliments in one breath, totally ignoring the fact that the master craftsman he was referring to did not even notice the uninvited guests and was still busy.
The Fourth Prince, who was carried by Hua Qi and sneaked in from another entrance, felt like a thief at this time, excited and terrified.
Seeing about 20 or 30 people operating various strange machines not far away, he couldn't help but whispered in Hua Qi's ear: "Uncle Hua Qi, is this the teacher's workshop? Why can't I understand what they are doing?"
"I don't understand it either." Hua Qi shrugged and gave a very straightforward answer.
The Fourth Prince stopped talking immediately after hearing this. Although he couldn't see the expression of the person behind him, he knew that the little guy behind him must be dumbfounded. He smiled and said, "Your teacher is a very strange person. Even the eldest lady, who is his future wife, may not really understand him, let alone others."
"The only person in this workshop who can understand him is probably that little Guan Qiu, and even he can only understand part of it. I wonder if your teacher's teacher is some great man who has traveled overseas and is truly well-read. He is much better than those so-called erudite guys in the court and among the people."
"That's why Grand Tutor Ge defended your teacher so much. He even blocked people's doubts about your teacher's lineage. To be honest, no one expected that this could be achieved based on Taizu's relics." Even the emperor didn't expect it!
The emperor really didn't expect that in just less than a year , Zhang Shou actually dismantled the strange timer he took out from Taizu's secret box, and actually copied something - although one was extremely small and the other was extremely large, and the shapes were completely different, but the most basic thing, that is, the movement of the disc was the same.
When Xiao Huasheng came forward and called Guan Qiu, Guan Qiu, after seeing him, although he didn't know who he was, he just bowed and saluted, but didn't ask anything more, as if he didn't care at all, and took him and the others to the pendulum clock. He knew that this young craftsman was actually a stubborn person, and his eyes were quickly attracted by the pendulum clock that was the same as the one Hua Qi secretly sent to the palace before.
He watched the pendulum swing back and forth, and then saw Guan Qiu open the lid on top, showing him the simple and even shabby structure without any precautions. Even though he had seen more complex and sophisticated things, he still couldn't help but be amazed.
The emperor immediately asked, "How does this compare to the pendulum clock that was sent to the palace before? Is it more accurate?"
Guan Qiu answered very straightforwardly: "It's not as accurate as the pendulum clock sent to the palace, but the outer shell has some prettier patterns." His words were very simple and clear, without any affectation at all.
"The pendulum clock that was sent to the palace was made of a batch of parts that were forged and polished by several of the best craftsmen using grinders and other machines. They were all carefully selected. They were all the best blacksmiths and carpenters, but now these parts are of lower quality, because although they are also made using grinders and other machines, the machines are not good enough, and the craftsmanship is not good enough, so the accuracy of the parts is not consistent and needs to be adjusted."
"So the accuracy of these pendulum clocks varies. Some are even a few seconds slower per day. According to what Brother Zhang taught me, there are 7,200 seconds in an hour, which is really not accurate enough..."
When he said the machine was not good enough and the precision was not high enough, Guan Qiu's face was full of seriousness, and he was sighing in his heart. When he said that he would use the machine to make the metal parts needed for the machine itself, and then assemble them to make more machines, Song Juren and Xiao Huasheng would be fine, but Fang Qing's eyes lit up.
The young man, who was considered by his own Zhaoming Academy's headmaster Yue to be a stubborn person who read too much and often said the wrong things to offend others, could not help but ask, "This machine is also made by a machine, just like a hammer needs a hammer to hit it?"
"Well, that's not the case. Hammers are cast, not like swords that need to be forged." Guan Qiu didn't quite understand what Fang Qing meant by that expression. In fact, even though he had never seen the emperor, he knew that the person who was brought here was an important figure, but he was not as timid as ordinary people when they saw an important figure, but instead seemed very calm.
At this point, he explained seriously: "In fact, to put it simply, it is just like a chicken laying an egg, and then an egg laying a chicken. The chicken laid the egg, but then the chicken hatched, and then the chicken laid the egg again... Scholars often think that it is a difficult question to answer whether the chicken or the egg came first, but in my opinion, the chicken must have come first."
"Just like these machines, the first parts they made were hard to completely match the blueprints, so they were almost all weird. So, the same must be true for chickens. The first thing they laid might not be eggs, but something else, but they could still hatch chickens. Brother Zhang said that organisms are constantly evolving, and today's domestic chickens are different from the wild chickens back then."
Such a simple analogy made even Peanut stunned, but Fang Qing could not help but say, "According to what you said, this really fits the cycle of Tai Chi, the way of endless life! Someone in our Zhaoming Academy once divided a piece of land into the shape of a Tai Chi diagram, and then planted two pieces of Yin and Yang. It is said that the yield per mu has also increased a lot..."
If Zhang Shou were here, he would nod with a smile on his face, make some random comments, and then complain in his heart that this is metaphysics, not science, so don't bring it to the ridicule of the Fang family. However, when Zhang Shou was not there, Guan Qiu's reaction was much more straightforward.
"Using the Tai Chi diagram to build houses and walls can play a role in defending against bandits and robbers, but in a truly chaotic world with soldiers everywhere, the most useful layer of fortresses is the outer fort. Otherwise, if a large number of soldiers really break in, even if the inside is a maze, it will not be able to withstand a fire. Moreover, it is unrealistic to use the Tai Chi diagram to grow crops to increase production."
Without waiting for Fang Qing to refute, Guan Qiu said seriously: "If this gentleman really thinks so, why not mark out a piece of land in Zhang Garden to make it into the shape of a Tai Chi diagram, and then try growing vegetables yourself? Anyway, there is a lot of vacant land at home, and doing experiments yourself is much more useful than listening to empty talk from others."
Seeing Fang Qing dumbfounded at first and then actually going aside to deep thought, the emperor was both angry and amused. He thought that this young scholar who the Fourth Prince had complained about and questioned the Third Prince's cheating was really a stubborn nerd.
However, he was more interested in what Guan Qiu had just said, so he immediately "inspected" the machines again, which were more than double the number Hua Qi had told him. He listened carefully to Guan Qiu's introduction of how these things had been improved time and time again, and when he heard what Guan Qiu said unintentionally, he was moved.
"Brother Zhang said that machines are for people's service, to liberate people's labor, to enable more people to read and write, to design more and better machines, and then to liberate more people from repetitive labor, so that they can design more and better machines. This cycle repeats itself, and that is the true prosperity."
"When people are bound to the land to work, it is definitely not a good era. Because only when productivity is extremely backward, people have to face the loess and work hard every day to support themselves."
Guan Qiu did not notice the emperor's expression. When he arrived in front of a grinder that was being dismantled and repaired, he personally bent over to inspect and discuss it, completely forgetting that there was an important person beside him.
When he stood up again, he wiped his dirty hands and smiled at the emperor. The smile was clear and pure, just like his serious eyes at that moment.
"When I was learning from a master, my master didn't like me. He thought I was a man of many questions and didn't know how to do the craft. If I wasn't good at drawing, I would have been sent back home. But Brother Zhang not only didn't find me annoying, but also taught me many things I had never thought of. He also told me that if I learned math, physics and chemistry well, I would not be afraid to travel the world."
Hua Qi, who was carrying the Fourth Prince on his back, had already quietly come over. When the Fourth Prince heard Guan Qiu relay Zhang Shou's words, he couldn't help but reveal an extremely subtle expression. Especially when he saw Guan Qiu holding a booklet and flipping it open in front of his father, and then talking about gravity and the motion period formula of a simple pendulum vibration... He couldn't help but stare at it.
The four princes who had a certain foundation in mathematics were like this. Mr. Song glanced at Fang Qing who was thinking about how to use the Tai Chi diagram to farm, and suddenly envied this guy for avoiding a painful baptism. And Xiaohuasheng was even more of a math, physics and chemistry expert as Zhang Shou said. At this time, listening to Guan Qiu's words, his face was even more bitter than a bitter gourd.
In contrast, as a student of Ge Yong, the emperor could learn Ge Yong's new mathematics by himself and teach his two young sons. Although he had some difficulty listening, he still understood the key points of Guan Qiu's words. He raised his eyebrows and said directly: "So, you estimated the length and period of this pendulum by taking the square root of the vertical form written in Ge Yong's new mathematics?"
"Yes, it's very difficult. When I first started learning it, I almost felt like my head was going to explode. But practice makes perfect, and now I know how to take square roots. But the square root calculation of the pendulum length cannot be copied directly, because the formula for the vibration of the simple pendulum is an ideal condition. In addition, Brother Zhang said that the acceleration due to gravity is actually an estimated value, and there are slight differences in different places, so it needs to be adjusted..."
Listening to Guan Qiu's endless chatter, the Fourth Prince stole a glance at everyone below his father, and saw that everyone was beginning to be at a loss. At that moment, he, who had been feeling a little self-pitying recently, suddenly relaxed. Even his father didn't understand, let alone him?
