Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1218 Epilogue : Xie Xueshi’s influence is still increasing
Yellow River, passenger ship.

Zhu Shirong was invited to attend a meeting in Luoyang. Only scholars from the eastern and western capitals attended this temporary chemistry conference.

Those further away need not come but may express their opinions by telegram.

The scholar on the same ship with him was called Shi Fu, also known by his courtesy name Bailu. He was not a chemist, but a railway engineer from Beijing.

"Brother Bailu, are you coming to Beijing now to be promoted and transferred back to the Ministry of Works?" Zhu Shirong asked.

Shi Fu said: "The court intends to build a railway and restart the Zhen (Ding) Tai (Yuan) line plan."

"Technological breakthrough?" Zhu Shirong asked in surprise.

Shi Fu said: "Prince Consort Xie invented a kind of Qin cement. I heard that the quality is better and more stable. The court asked us to go to Luoyang for inspection and see if it can be used in railway bridge construction."

Zhu Shirong laughed in silence: "It's Mr. Xie again. I went to Luoyang for the meeting this time because of his new paper."

The "Real Tai Railway" that Shi Fu mentioned is exactly the "ShiTai Railway" in another time and space - from Shijiazhuang to Taiyuan.

Taizong wanted to build it in his later years, but the construction was too difficult and it has been delayed until now.

Over the past 20 years, engineers have conducted many field surveys and changed more than a dozen plans. But the best plan is still a headache. A railway less than 1000 miles long requires more than tunnels to be dug and more than railway bridges to be built.

At that time, it was very expensive to build a railway bridge because the strength of cement was not enough. Therefore, reinforced concrete was not used, but traditional bridge-building materials were used.

The river is too wide to build a railway bridge.

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty's plan for national transportation has always been to connect the country's waterways with railways. When encountering rivers that are too wide or too deep, railway bridges are often not built. Railways and train stations are built on both sides, and ships are used to transfer goods and passengers in between.

The super-long railway leading to the Western Regions is also intermittent.

For example, there is no railway in the Xingxing Gorge area where the terrain is complex.

The Gansu train can only go to the oasis closest to the ancient Yumen Pass, and then it is transported by camel or mule. Then 170 miles southeast of Yizhou (Hami), take the train again and go west through Hami, Turpan and other places.

The east, north and south of the Ili River Valley are blocked by mountains, and camels, mules and horses are also needed for transportation. Then, inside the Ili River Valley, take the train again to the Seven Rivers Protectorate.

The railway to the northern grasslands is similar.

The first section is from Beijing to Zhangjiakou, which is the route of the Zhan Tianyou zigzag railway.

Zhan Tianyou's herringbone railway design was a move forced upon him by the lack of time and funds. When Emperor Dingtai ordered the construction, he did not care about the time and funds. He dug tunnels where necessary and simply cut off a piece of the mountain where it was difficult to dig tunnels.

"Shanxi has a lot of coal. If we want to export it, we must build railways." Shi Fu sighed.

Shanxi currently has only one railway running through the Fenhe River Valley. It is quite convenient to transport coal to Shaanxi, but it is difficult to transport it to provinces with greater demand for coal.

Emperor Dingtai built two super-long railways and fought several wars, which emptied the national treasury and even had to issue national bonds to ease the financial pressure. Now that the Ming Dynasty's finances are slightly more abundant, the ministers of the cabinet and the government are going to build railways again.

The first route is from Taiyuan to Zhending.

The second route is from Jincheng to Jiaozuo.

They were all built along the Eight Passes of Taihang Mountain, where the geographical conditions were extremely complex.

But we have to repair it no matter how difficult it is, and we have to transport the coal from Shanxi!

Next, we need to build a railway from Beijing to Liaoyang to connect the Northeast with North China. The reason why we didn't build that part before is because there are swamps all over the western part of Liaoning.

Now it can be repaired.

Water conservancy projects and population growth in western Liaoning reduced the area of ​​swamps, providing reliable conditions for railway construction. Xie Yan's improved cement also greatly reduced the cost of railway bridge construction.

Today, all the ministers in the central government treat Xie Yan as a treasure. What they value is not the balance and chemistry, but the Qin cement that has been repeatedly verified by the Ministry of Industry!
Over the past two months, officials from the Ministry of Works have repeatedly traveled to the southern suburbs to test the various properties of cement in various ways.

Especially corrosion resistance!
The cement that was popular before not only lacked strength, but also had poor corrosion resistance, and was prone to problems if soaked in water for a long time.

Shi Fu said with emotion: "If Qin's cement can really be used to build railway bridges, then Prince Consort Xie is truly a peerless national talent, and he is even qualified to be awarded the title of Jade Scholar. You may not know that the most expensive part of building railways nowadays is not the rails, but the bridges and tunnels!"

Zhu Shirong laughed in silence: "Brother Bailu may not know what Mr. Xie's paper means. He put forward three definitions, a conjecture, and the standard expression of molecular formulas and chemical equations. If these are approved, anyone who studies chemistry in the future will be his disciple. Haha, I am also his disciple."

"Such a big impact?" Shi Fu asked in surprise.

Zhu Shirong said: "Confucian works are divided into classics and sutras. Xie Xueshi's work is equivalent to the classics, and our future research results will either be annotations to the classics or sutras around the classics."

"He is only seventeen years old." Shi Fu couldn't imagine it.

"There are people in the world who seem to be born with knowledge," Zhu Shirong said. "Didn't Emperor Taizong also master the Six Classics before he was twenty? Many of the theories left by Emperor Taizu remain unsolved mysteries to this day."

……

Mr. Xie, who is born with knowledge, lives a carefree and comfortable life.

I only teach two classes during the day, and spend the rest of the time reading books and writing handouts for chemistry classes.

The night is even happier than a fairy.

Since Xie Yan cleaned up the princess's house, Zhu Tangxi seemed to have opened the door to a new world, and every time she was ashamed, she was excited. After only two days, the princess learned to help Xie Yan.

Now, these two moves have evolved into a combination of male and female skills.

"Sister, can you do it on your knees today?" Xie Yan asked.

Zhu Tangxi, who was providing assistance, looked up in confusion: "Am I not kneeling?"

Xie Yan smiled evilly and said, "It's not kneeling on the bed, but kneeling on the ground."

"You only know how to humiliate me. How can a princess kneel down to her husband?" Zhu Tangxi was both ashamed and annoyed.

"Forget it then." Xie Yan looked a little disappointed.

Zhu Tangxi couldn't bear to see her lover like this, fearing that her man would be wronged, so she said shyly, "Close your eyes and don't look!"

"Okay, I definitely won't watch it." Xie Yan was so happy that he turned over and sat on the edge of the bed.

Soon, the first princess to kneel down to her husband since the founding of the Ming Dynasty was born.

Xie Yan was so excited that he was in great spirits all night.

As a result, he didn't get up the next day. Qingluan urged him several times, and he didn't even have time to eat breakfast before going to school. After sending Xie Yan to the carriage, Qingluan returned to the dormitory and asked curiously, "Your Highness, why did you make a fuss again last night? It hasn't happened since the wedding."

Zhu Tangxi was catching up on his sleep, and blushed when he mentioned this: "Don't ask!"

"Oh."

Qingluan thought: Even if you don’t tell me, I will know it later.

Xie Yan was yawning while sitting in the carriage. He fell asleep before leaving the city. When he woke up again, he had already arrived at school.

This reminded him of when he was a construction worker, he would go to bed at midnight the night before and rush to the construction site with sleepy eyes the next day. The only difference is that he used to play games, but now he plays princesses.

Princesses are still better, they are much more attractive than the two-dimensional paper people.

"Thank you, Master!"

"Professor He!"

After getting off the carriage, I walked a few steps before I met a school teacher who bowed and greeted me.

Xie Yan returned gifts to teachers and students along the way and finally arrived at the office.

The teaching assistant had already made tea and even arranged the newspapers, with the more important news spread out at the top for easy reading.

It’s a pity that there’s no female teaching assistant, so it lacks a lot of interest.

Xie Yan didn't want to do anything to the female teaching assistant, but he wanted to replace her with a beautiful woman because she would be more pleasing to the eye.

Alas, Xie Laoliu has become more and more depraved.

Today we are still talking about the content of the previous few days. We didn’t talk about molecules and atoms at all. We just changed the lectures to two classes.

It is entirely possible to ask the teaching assistant to give the lecture, but the school year has just begun and Xie Yan must get to know his students first.

This morning, I taught the "Si Qi Class", which ranks third among the 80 classes in the outer dormitory.

Li Dunshi is in the Siqi class. He is of average appearance, but he is diligent, down-to-earth and willing to learn, so he still has hope of being promoted to the inner dormitory.

"Not bad," Xie Yan walked into the classroom, glanced at it and praised, "It's worthy of being the third-ranked class in the outer dormitory. There was no fighting before class. You study hard, and I teach hard. I wish you all a bright future."

"Student greets the teacher!"

Twenty-five students bowed in unison.

The students are obedient and eager to learn, which makes teachers feel happy.

Xie Yan sat on the podium, asked the students to introduce themselves, and then began to repeat what he had said in the past few days.

As they were talking, someone came in and waited outside the door.

When the class was over, someone outside the door came in immediately: "Mr. Xie, Peng Zhixue wants to see you."

Zhixue means principal, which is the abbreviation and honorific title for the governor of Taixue.

Xie Yan quickly arrived at the principal's office.

Peng Huanzhi personally made tea for him, said some polite words, and gradually got to the point: "I heard that Master Xie asked the students in the outer dormitories to close their books and listen to the class?"

"Yes," Xie Yan said, "A lot of the content in the previous chemistry textbooks has been overturned in the past few months."

Peng Huanzhi asked, "Does Mr. Xie plan to teach the students from the outer dormitory about molecules and atoms?"

Xie Yan nodded: "We will talk about that later this month."

"Can the students from other dormitories understand it?" Peng Huanzhi asked.

Xie Yan said: "As long as they study hard, they will definitely understand."

Peng Huanzhi said, "I understand. I will transfer the students who come to the Ming Dynasty from the vassal states to study from Xie Xueshi's class."

"Are you afraid that my knowledge will spread overseas?" Xie Yan said with a smile, "I'm afraid it's impossible to prevent it. Even academic journals are sold to other countries by businessmen."

Peng Huanzhi said: "We have to defend ourselves even if we can't."

"It would be better to ban students from vassal states from studying science in the Ming Dynasty," said Xie Yan.

Peng Huanzhi smiled and said, "That's not necessary. Most of the students from the vassal states first lay the foundation in Biyong, at least mastering Chinese characters and Chinese. Then they study in the outer dormitory, which is enough for them to be promoted for a few years. If they cannot be promoted in four years, they will be expelled."

Okay, Xie Yan finally understood.

No teacher would teach cutting-edge courses to students from other dormitories, so it was up to the students from other vassal states to learn however they wanted. Xie Yan was an exception, which was a bit of a break in the rules.

Xie Yan asked: "What if there are really students from vassal states who are talented and are admitted to the inner chambers?"

Peng Huanzhi said: "There were two in the past, one was a Japanese nobleman, and the other was a Chola nobleman (a mixture of Indian aborigines and Aryans). The governor of the Imperial College personally talked to them, and finally they brought their wives to Nanjing and Guangzhou to settle down. Both of them made contributions to the academic studies of the Ming Dynasty."

This is picking the best.

Those who could come to the Ming Dynasty from overseas vassal states to study were either the descendants of the powerful or the descendants of wealthy merchants. Most of them just lived a lazy life, and those who were willing to study would be dazzled by the world of pleasure.

Those who can be drawn from the outer house to the inner house must be extremely talented and determined. Such people can be directly absorbed as the citizens of the Ming Dynasty.

Don’t want to bring your wife and children to Ming Dynasty?
Then you'd better not study in Taixue Neisheshe!
"Is Mr. Xie going to attend the Chemistry Conference tomorrow?" Peng Huanzhi asked again.

Xie Yan nodded and said, "Yes. Maybe the future chemistry textbooks will also be revised according to the results of tomorrow's meeting. But revising textbooks is not a one-day job. More experimental results are needed to provide content."

Peng Huanzhi began to think.

Xie Yan added: "In fact, there is no need to be wary of those vassal state students. The basic knowledge of molecules and atoms may become the content of the imperial examination in just a few years. By then, not all students in the Imperial College will learn it."

"Oh, I see." Peng Huanzhi had a headache.

Although he didn't know much about chemistry, he had heard about Xie Yan's new paper and was planning to have Xie Yan teach the top students in Shangshe.

(End of this chapter)