Chapter 125: The Road to Anyue
After leaving the farming area, Li Yuan came to the steel smelting area under the jurisdiction of some officials.
There are sheds of various sizes built here, which are rather simple, and craftsmen are busy shuttling between them.
Officials are looking at blueprints and discussing new steel with craftsmen.
The new type of steel produced by the Hundred Refining Method was used to make a batch of sophisticated weapons, which played a certain role in the war with the Xu Kingdom.
However, it was also during that battle that An Yue discovered the defects of the new steel from the weapons sent back by the soldiers.
Although the newly tempered steel is tough, it has poor corrosion resistance.
In the short period of about a year when Anyue's soldiers went back and forth, some of the weapons made of new steel were rusted due to erosion by wind and sand.
This issue has become a key research topic for the Craftsmen Department.
Li Yuan walked quietly among the crowd, as if he was completely invisible, and no one noticed his presence at all.
Li Yuan stood behind the official and listened for a while. Amid the craftsmen's discussions, he threw out some information about steel and quenching materials.
Until some craftsmen looked thoughtful, Li Yuan nodded, turned and left.
The officials and some craftsmen shifted their attention from steelmaking methods and material selection to smelting and quenching.
Until they started researching, they couldn't remember who had raised these questions among the crowd.
Just treat it as the direction reached after brainstorming.
After leaving the area where craftsmen were smelting iron, Li Yuan went to Anyue Academy.
There are many specially designated experimental areas here, and many young men from Anyue are doing all kinds of novel things with those students of the Gewu School.
The students of Gewu Academy came to Anyue, and after that discussion, they felt like they had arrived in heaven.
Here, even though people don't understand some of their ideas, they still treat them as aliens.
But the people of Anyue did not discriminate against them. In fact, there was a group of young people in Anyue whose minds were filled with all kinds of novel and bold ideas!
Those ideas seemed to fit perfectly with their "investigation of things" thinking!
They were ridiculed by the outside world as being unorthodox and good for nothing.
But in Anyue, they were valued by the court and allowed to study new things with the young people of Anyue.
One side has wild ideas, the other side has the spirit of persistent exploration and truth-seeking.
When the two sides work together, they supervise and encourage each other, which produces magical results.
As Li Yuan walked quietly, he even saw someone riding on a wooden wheel. With the movement of his hands and feet, the wooden wheel moved forward.
However, the movement was rather difficult, and the "wooden cart" would stop after only a few moves.
"Another world version of...a bicycle?"
Li Yuan was a little dumbfounded.
However, this wooden bicycle has no anklets, the seat is a square wooden board, and the wooden wheels are directly under the seat.
There is also a small wheel at the front and back to stabilize the 'bicycle'.
Li Yuan didn’t care about anything else. He just wanted to ask: Won’t the square seat hurt your legs?
Turning around and walking a few steps, Li Yuan saw a few young men squatting on the ground, quenching something.
Li Yuan stretched his head and looked.
The young men stared intently at the fire in front of them and kept fanning it to increase the flames.
Seeing the translucent molten material in the fire, Li Yuan raised his eyebrows slightly.
These young men burned sand and added lime powder.
That translucent substance turned out to be the prototype of glass.
Of course, it's just a prototype.
The most important thing about firing glass is its stability.
It is difficult for these young people to produce stable glass by just burning sand and lime together without adding other substances to the smelting.
Even if it is burned out, the transparency is not high.
Of course, each step requires young people to explore it on their own.
Li Yuan looked at several new and interesting things one after another and stood at the gate of Anyue Academy for a long time.
After thinking about it, Li Yuan did not interfere.
He could tell young people directly about the existence of rubber and the making of anklets.
He could also tell young people directly that in order to fire glass, substances such as calcite and soda ash are needed to increase its stability.
But, that just told them the shortcut.
The development of civilization and the birth of science and technology require shortcuts; however, they cannot be all shortcuts.
The thinking points provided by Li Yuan are already a very powerful shortcut for this different world and for An Yue.
If all of them were copied, perhaps Anyue would reach its peak within a hundred years.
But that only created an inflated upstart.
The road is still long, don't rush.
Let ordinary people explore on their own, gain experience bit by bit, pass it down from generation to generation, and gradually improve; this is better than sudden growth through indoctrination.
Li Yuan was wandering around and accidentally met Zheng Tai Biao. Facing the other's contemptuous eyes, Li Yuan continued wandering without changing his expression.
"Anshan doesn't support idle people!"
Zheng Tai Biao snorted coldly and left.
Li Yuan simply ignored it and continued strolling around.
Things had been happening one after another before, and it was a rare opportunity to have some free time. Li Yuan naturally wanted to take this opportunity to visit various places in Anshan.
He can use his spiritual sense to scan, which is convenient and quick.
But Li Yuan just wanted to see it with his own eyes.
Finally, Li Yuan inspected Anshan and came to Emperor Anyue's palace.
He strode in.
"Master Mountain God."
The leader of the guards appeared and saluted Li Yuan respectfully.
Li Yuan nodded and patted the leader of the guards on the shoulder.
"What's wrong with you? How did you start to cultivate?"
he asked casually.
The chief of the imperial guards replied respectfully, "After the incident at Xuguo, I went to learn some Taoist techniques."
“The soldiers in the army have also learned something.”
Faced with the concise and to the point words of the leader of the guards, Li Yuan roughly guessed that Emperor Anyue was ambitious and had ideas about the outside world.
All troops are on the short route, this is a preparation for the Asahi Kingdom...
Thinking this, Li Yuan walked into the palace under the respectful gaze of the leader of the guards.
Sitting on the throne in the palace, Emperor Anyue was holding a large wolf-hair brush and writing a few large characters on the stone slab on the table in front of him.
Li Yuan waited quietly, and only approached after Emperor Anyue put down his pen.
"Are you free today, Lord Mountain God?"
When Emperor Anyue saw Li Yuan coming, he nodded and a faint smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.
Li Yuan likes this natural attitude like friends, which makes people feel comfortable and without any sense of estrangement.
"Ji Yu, what are you writing?"
Li Yuan leaned over to take a look and found five large characters written in a flamboyant style on the stone slab of the table.
The Twelve Guards of Anyue.
"What is this?" Li Yuan was curious.
Emperor Anyue sighed softly.
"This plaque is to commemorate the heroic event that my twelve guards entered the capital of Qian Kingdom, but all of them died bravely, leaving only Gu Jian who returned with serious injuries."
Gu Jian is the name of the leader of the guards.
Li Yuan nodded gently:
"They are Anyue's heroes."
Emperor Anyue raised his head and sighed, "Yes. Whether they are guards or soldiers, they are all Anyue's heroes."
Li Yuan tilted his head and saw that there were more than ten plaques and inscriptions of different sizes placed in the corner of the palace.
Written on it were words about military honor, apparently written for the fallen soldiers.
When Anyue's national strength is stabilized, these plaques and inscriptions will be distributed to various places in Anyue, especially the military.
The deeds of heroes should be remembered by future generations.
Emperor Anyue was unwilling to forget these people, nor was Anyue's people willing to forget them.
The two chatted and talked a lot about An Yue's affairs.