Datang Nongsheng

Chapter 205 The Habit of Using Your Brain

Different from the starvation everywhere in Guanzhong, after entering June in Shuozhou, all kinds of crops are growing very well, and various infrastructures are constantly being improved under the leadership of brothers Ma Lin, Zhang Quan, Wang Fu and Wang Gui. However, Another crisis is looming here.

Li Jing finally came back from the Western Regions, accompanied by hundreds of caravans from the Western Regions, the number of them exceeded [-], and the goods they brought were assorted, no less than a thousand kinds. Not only did they earn profits from the price difference of the goods themselves, but they also earned a huge amount of interest money.

This result proves that Ma Zhou's suggestion last year had an effect, and it was surprisingly good. However, these good news cannot cover up the bad news, that is, Jieli and Tuli have won in the Western Regions, and Jieli won and occupied the Yumen Pass. To the west, Dunhuang, Yiwu and parts of Gaochang Kingdom, together with Tuyuhun, completely blocked the road to the west of Datang.

And Tuli, who fled eastward with a remnant of [-] to [-] troops, has reached the border of Shuozhou, and is likely to threaten the land of Shuozhou, which has only [-] troops.

These two guys have now received the news of the severe drought in Guanzhong and Li Xiaochang's rebellion, and they are starting to take advantage of Li Shimin's desperation to seek some benefits.

Jieli has taken in many Tuli tribes, as well as people who plundered from the Western Regions. There are more than [-] riders in total. They have tested the defense of Yumen Pass many times. If it is not that their nomads are not suitable for launching southward wars in summer, Xieli really wanted to take this opportunity to avenge his shame.

"Tuli is really a useless coward. He was defeated so quickly, but there is no need to send troops to Shuozhou to guard against him. Let the Wang family fight with him for a while. In addition, he ordered Cheng Zhijie to be the general manager of the Longyou Road Army, leading the left and right forces." Guards and horses, go to Yumen Pass to garrison."

Early in the morning, after meeting with Li Jing, Li Shimin immediately issued this order. At this moment, he felt that it was a clever strategy for Sun Xiangfu to trick Wang into farming on the grassland.

Of course, he didn't send troops to Shuozhou not because the Wang family was the first line of defense in Shuozhou. At this time, he will go to war with the passively defensive Datang, which is likely to be attacked from three sides. What he needs more is self-cultivation, to stabilize the relationship with Huihe and Xue Yantuo.

As for Jieli, who has been exhausted from fighting for two consecutive years, in Li Shimin's view, he is tired of being a veteran soldier. Although there are more than [-] soldiers, he is unbearable. he.However, the timing of his choice was too good. The catastrophe in Guanzhong and how to feed the people are Li Shimin's headaches now, not to mention organizing an expeditionary army.

Li Jing, as the most outstanding military strategist in the Tang Dynasty, of course not only brought back such a little news, the main purpose of his westward trip this time was to train soldiers, so what he reported to Li Shimin was mainly about the situation of military training.

The first problem mentioned is that the war horses are unusable. He traveled for a whole year, and the distance was more than ten thousand miles. Even with one person and two horses, the hooves of the horses were worn out during the year's march. Therefore, Even though Li Jing brought back [-] cavalry, their war horses had already been replaced halfway through. Fortunately, war horses were not expensive for the nomads in the west. Instead, let these five thousand soldiers have horses to ride back to Chang'an.

Secondly, he explained the importance of doing business with the Western Regions. He knew from the on-the-spot investigation that the folk arts and crafts of the countries in the Western Regions were generally weaker than that of the Tang Dynasty, and that the Tang Dynasty could gain huge benefits by doing business with them.

Moreover, there are a lot of strategic materials that the Tang Dynasty needs in short supply. High-quality iron ore is one of them. Countries to the west of Gaochang are rich in iron ore. This kind of iron is the best for forging weapons. Li Jing this time He brought back a lot. If Xieli occupied the westward channel for a long time, it would definitely cause damage to Datang’s industry and commerce. Once Jieli went west and wiped out several countries in the Western Regions, his strength would increase greatly. It's hard to deal with him.

Therefore, Li Jing's suggestion is that Xieli must be eradicated as soon as possible.

After receiving Li Jing's suggestion, Li Shimin hated that the drought came at an untimely time. If not, he would be able to raise an army to wipe out Xieli this year. Now, the locust plague in Guanzhong and the plague are rampant. Even if he wants to fight Xieli again, he must first solve it. own internal problems.

"There is nothing left and right, so the pharmacist will hand over the iron ore to the smelting workshop in Xingfu Village to forge some high-quality weapons!"

Since we can't fight, we can only focus on the present. The quarantined Sun Xiangfu and Li Chunfeng are the most important thing to deal with the plague. Li Shimin wants to wait here and know the news as soon as possible. At the same time, he wants to know more about Xingfu Village The essence of various craftsmanship and management, so he brought Li Jing to the smelting workshop.

After the iron was introduced to the Central Plains during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it quickly became a hot item that warriors rushed to buy. However, Li Shimin brought Li Jing to the smelting workshop, not to see how they smelted iron. I understand that he has been infected by the atmosphere here. Whether it is farming or working in various workshops, the people here are willing to find ways to make all the processes simple and efficient. People who are good at finding and solving problems are the best. Once certain processes are improved and become time-saving and labor-saving, those who propose improvement plans will be rewarded generously.

When Li Jing encountered a problem, Li Shimin wanted to hand over the problem to the peasant children of Xingfu Village to solve it.

Soon, he found Ma Sai, who had previously forged the Uzi steel knife, to forge the iron knife for Li Jing.

The smelting workshop uses coking coal as fuel, and it is very easy to melt iron and iron. Marseille made the knife embryo mold according to the style required by Li Jing. After the iron ore was melted, the knife embryo was quickly formed in the mold, and after cooling, it was handed over to the blacksmith for repeated forging. When Marseille was able to get away, Li Shimin asked whether the war horse could not be used, and whether the workshop could develop some utensils to solve this problem.

But Ma Sai smiled when he heard the words, and took out a crescent-shaped iron block and said, "The village chief said that the horses in the village ran back and forth from Shuozhou to Luoyang, and many of the horses' toes were cracked and unusable. I'm waiting to develop an iron shoe that can be worn by horses, no, it's almost ready."

Don’t underestimate the design of a horseshoe. People who have never seen the finished prototype need to go through repeated research to get it out. The curved shape of the horseshoe in Masai’s hand is similar to that of a horseshoe, but it cannot be fixed at first. On the horse's toe, I thought of some ways to make it into a groove shape, leaving holes for nails to penetrate, and then, after several trials, it was still easy to fall off.

Finally, they thought of the kind of threaded opening for water pipe connection, and then thought of getting a screw to fix the horseshoe. At the level of this period, it is really not so easy to make small screws, but this technology is difficult. It was broken by the people in the smelting workshop within a few days, and the small iron bars were twisted with thick steel jaws, and the speed of getting screws was much faster than that of hand-carving.

It's just that this kind of horseshoe screwed on by screws is difficult to remove after being damaged, and can only be fixed by adding a new layer of iron underneath. This is still a bit imperfect in the eyes of the people in the smelting workshop. Avoiding the damage caused by the direct friction between the horny horseshoe and the ground, it should be able to greatly reduce the damage and loss of horses caused by the wear and tear of the horseshoe.

Inventions like horseshoes are nothing in the workshop of Xingfu Village. When Ma Sai was nailing horseshoes to Li Jing's war horse, a craftsman brought a new-style saddle. hook.

"What's the use of this big hook?"

"General Li, this hook is called the Victory Hook, and it is used to hang weapons. In this way, when marching, the cavalry does not need to separate one hand to hold the weapon, and the control of the horse will be more stable and fast. And when fighting After rushing through the formation with the lance, you can quickly hang the lance on this hook, and switch to the more efficient saber to kill the enemy."

Hearing this, Li Jing's eyes lit up a little, and he hurriedly asked his soldiers to fetch their weapons, and put them on the back of the war horse equipped with horseshoes and new-style saddles.

The war horse with horseshoes running on the cement road of Xingfu Village made a sound of gold and iron. Li Jing on the horseback kept changing the lance and saber, and found it very convenient. After running around the concrete road, Li Jing got off his horse and said, "Your Majesty, with these designs, the combat power of our Great Tang cavalry can be increased by at least [-] to [-] percent."

Hearing this, Li Shimin was overjoyed. He knew that Li Jing would never be full of words. If he said [-]% to [-]%, then it would be [-]% to [-]%. The function of the horseshoe is not only to protect the horseshoe. After a long time of training, the cavalry can be controlled freely.

However, due to the rapid wear and tear of the horseshoe, the replacement of the horse will be accelerated, which will greatly increase the economic and time costs of horse training. You must know that the life of a horse is very long. As long as there are no injuries, riding It is not a problem to ride for decades. Once the war horses of the Tang Dynasty are equipped with horseshoes, a lot of money can be saved in training new horses every year. The old horses are used to the army and are more suitable for the battlefield. Well-equipped and well-trained old horses are of great help to the agility of the cavalry to change formations and charge, and the increase in the number of cavalry will be much faster. In this era, when the country is strong and the country is weak, it is often at these points that the army has sufficient mobility and has A country with expeditionary capabilities is considered a powerful country.

Li Jing suggested to reward the smelting craftsmen in Xingfu Village. The poor Li Shimin waved his sleeves and rewarded all the craftsmen involved in making horseshoes and new-style saddles. Ma Sai and others were not very happy when they received the rewards. , because they are already very rich, and ten pennies is nothing to them, but they are a little annoyed that Li Shimin always comes to disturb their work these days.

"Your Majesty, the craftsmen in our Xingfu Village workshop are not much better than the craftsmen who will be in charge of the court's Ministry of Industry. They can actually make these things, but why didn't they make them, but we can?
Because we are good at using our brains and thinking. The village chief once said that the progress of all civilizations comes from thinking. You only need to let the craftsmen of the imperial court use their brains. They will certainly be able to create more beneficial to the development of the country like us. something came out.

That, horseshoes and new-style saddles, as well as this iron war knife, you can have them mass-produced by the generals of the imperial court. The alloy technology that Caomin will study next is very complicated, so I will not accompany you. "

Li Shimin was dumbfounded when he heard the words, and so was Li Jing. They had never seen such an arrogant craftsman. The one in front of him was the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, and he dared to issue an order to expel guests.

But soon, Li Shimin came out of the smelting workshop with a thoughtful look on his face.

You must know that martial arts prevailed in the early Tang Dynasty, but Confucianism was not the same as it was in the Song and Ming Dynasties. Through Marseille's words, Li Shimin was already considering the issue of the status of workers. There are many scholars, but does Datang really need the knowledge monopolized by them?

Not necessarily, the knowledge that can feed and clothe the people of the Tang Dynasty, make the Tang army powerful, and increase production efficiency may be even more important. Why don't I use a large number of people who understand this knowledge as officials to break the family's control of the government?
With this idea, what Li Shimin needs to consider is what to do to achieve this idea. Xiao Yu once said that scholars would oppose any other class of officials as officials, and changing the views of scholars is the key.

After thinking for a long time, Li Shimin had a lot of new ideas about the imperial examination system that had not yet been restored in the Tang Dynasty. Perhaps influenced by the atmosphere of Xingfu Village, he began to like to use his brain to figure out how to address and solve problems.

It is not easy to change the discrimination of scholars against other classes, so why not open up a channel for ordinary people to become scholars?

The imperial examination system should be reformed. It should be divided into different subjects. Any subject with certain basic cultural knowledge can pass different professional assessments and obtain the status of a scholar. Of course, Confucian students have to give them some privileges. Several positions of prime ministers who discuss politics are specially reserved for them, and those who take an engineering degree to become an official can only be officials of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

As soon as this idea was born, it was out of control in Li Shimin's mind. In history, Li Shimin was the originator of perfecting the imperial examination. , Ming medicine and other more than 50 subjects, but because many subjects were not taken seriously, they were gradually abolished later, but now it is different. Li Shimin, who has figured out that professionals should be used in professional affairs, will definitely put himself The system conceived is firmly implemented.

He won't be so stupid as to appoint a Confucian scholar who doesn't understand manufacturing techniques to manage the Ministry of Industry, or a Confucian scholar who doesn't understand criminal names and laws to manage the Ministry of Punishment. Of course, there are more professional knowledge like Xingfu Village. People who understand these professional knowledge are required to be officials in order to truly manage them.

So, on this day, he asked several humerus ministers to discuss for a long time. After brainstorming, a more complete and complete imperial examination system gradually took shape. Of course, the current system is only considering the design. He has to wait until the internal and external troubles are resolved and the country is stabilized. He has never been an impatient person. One of the main reasons why he managed Zhenguan Prosperity after making a decision.

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(End of this chapter)