Chapter 458: Chasing the Central Plains (Twenty-six)

Author: Xianren Grass Tofu Milk

Chapter 458: Chasing the Central Plains (Twenty-six)

Four years later

Autumn of the 185th year of Yanhou (395)

Over the past four years, the situation in the Central Plains has become increasingly unpredictable.

Tuoba Gui, the monarch of the Wei Kingdom, defeated Rouran and captured more than one million livestock, including more than one hundred thousand horses, and his strength instantly increased.

As a middleman, the Khitan also made a lot of money. A large number of cattle, sheep, horses and livestock from Wei entered the Khitan, and then was resold by the Khitan to Yan State. A large number of Yan State's equipment were equipped with iron armor, iron tools, wool cloth, salt, sugar and other daily necessities entered the Khitan, and then resold by the Khitan to Wei State.

By working as a middleman, Khitan entered a period of rapid development.

Tuoba Wei was ambitious and was unwilling to buy luxury goods such as nectar wine from Yan. All livestock were used to buy basic daily necessities, including iron armor.

This is completely contrary to the Dajin court in the south. The royal families of Dajin were not interested in weapons and equipment, nor were they interested in daily necessities. Anyway, the north was busy with a chaotic battle and had no time to beat them, so there was no need to improve their strength. Moreover, they could not starve to death, and those who were starving to death were all people at the bottom, so there was no need to use daily necessities.

Therefore, the luxury goods of Yan State were mainly consumed by the Jin Dynasty. Nectar wine became the standard for every child of the Jin Dynasty family. If anyone does not drink some nectar wine when discussing metaphysics, it is a manifestation of lack of cultural literacy.

When Tuoba Wei was ambitious, the struggle between the royal family and the aristocratic families of the Great Jin court was unprecedentedly fierce. In this struggle, the lower-class people became victims and suffered tragically. A huge civil rebellion was brewing.

In Guanzhong, Yao Xing defeated Fu Deng, Yao Qin entered a period of development, and Yao Xing vigorously built Buddhist temples in Guanzhong to stabilize people's hearts.

After Murong Chui destroyed Zhai Wei, he began to attack the Qingzhou area of ​​Jin State. Jin State was busy with internal struggle and had no time to take care of Qingzhou that had just been recovered.

Not only were the Central Plains wars frequent, but in the north of Yan State, the already dying Goguryeo actually gave birth to a majestic lord. This majestic lord was named "Tan De (King Haotai/Guangkuotu King)". He completely conquered Beiwoju to the north and annexed part of the Sushen tribe. His strength grew rapidly, and his population grew to 100,000 in a short period of time, saving Goguryeo, which was on the verge of destruction.

But that's the end. For a long time, Goguryeo was busy digesting these newly conquered populations.

Moreover, Goguryeo's main enemy was Fuyu. Fuyu had been a dog for the Wang family for hundreds of years and had been engaged in slave trade with the Wang family for hundreds of years. Throughout the ages, the King of Fuyu would sell his criminals in his country to Yan State as slaves, or to capture Sushen slaves in the north to sell them to Yan State.

After several years of rest and recuperation, the Yan Kingdom in Liaodong has recovered the losses suffered in the Shanhaiguan War and the war to eliminate pirates. The 94-year-old Yan Hu died last month. His great-granddaughter Su Lan ascended the throne and changed it to the Yan family, called "Yan Lan" and "Yan Hou Lan".

Yan Lan is already thirty years old, but she is still unmarried. The succession of Junhou seems to be interrupted again.

The Yan King’s family has had many interruptions in inheritance, not only the succession of the king and the lords, but also the inheritance of the city lords often interrupt.

However, the [Designated Inheritance Law] implemented by Yan State, a noble appointed an heir, so when there are no descendants, one person can be selected from the side branches to become the heir.

It is worth noting that since the Yan State implements monogamy, there is a difference between legitimate and illegitimate.

If a monogamous system of multiple concubines is implemented, it will be opposed by female nobles. If a monogamous system of multiple male favors is implemented, it will be opposed by male nobles. Therefore, in order to prevent a family from having civil war, everyone took a step back and implemented monogamy.

The system of Yan State was always born through checks and balances and compromises, and is rarely determined by a certain person's will.

Yandu

Yan Houlan’s 30th birthday is underway. In order to celebrate his birthday, Yan Houlan applied for funds from the parliament to hold a massive [Gentleman Meeting].

In the [Gentleman Club] event, talents from all over the country of Yan can compete for gentlemen's arts, and women can conduct textiles, needlework, and painting. In addition to these elegant arts, they also include things that are looked down upon by scholars, such as carpentry, inventions, cooking skills, etc.

The Yan version of the gentleman's arts include: horse riding, driving, archery, melee fighting, military exercises, arithmetic, music, chess skills, etc.

Yan Houlan (Su Lan) wants to combine the wisdom of all talents in the Qin State, promote the further development of technology, and enhance the overall strength of Yan State.

Even if you invent some tricks and tricks for fun, you can also get rewards.

This [Gentleman Meeting] started to be promoted nationwide a year ago, and everyone can participate, but in order to prevent the simplicity of the situation, participants need to write a reason for participating in advance.

Those who can’t write can be written by literate people, so most ordinary people cannot participate.

But Su Lan also gave ordinary people the opportunity to ask officials from all over the country to find people with wonderful ideas among the people and report these wonderful ideas to Yandu. If Yandu passes the review, both this official and that person can be rewarded.

Yan Houlan did not believe that Chinese sentiment could make the people innovate actively. Compared with this sentiment, she believed in interests more and used real benefits to tempt the people to innovate technology, rather than using the so-called Chinese sentiment and benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness to encourage the people.

An ordinary rural woman improved her textile methods, making her textile efficiency more efficient than that of ordinary people. This is also considered a technological development and can also be rewarded.

An ordinary farmer himself summarized a standardized farming process, which slightly improved the efficiency of farming. This is also considered a technological development and can also be rewarded.

A tailor made a very innovative and eye-catching dress. This is also a technological development and reward.

An explorer, he discovered better spice routes, which are also technological developments and rewards.

There was even a prostitute who proposed a love posture with a higher chance of pregnancy, which was also considered a technological development and was also rewarded.

But today's highlights are not these, but Ji Yulong's earth arc and the "bamboo fireworks" jointly created by the medical team and the craftsman team.

Since breaking Xingfan City, Ji Yulong has traveled all over the country for some time and has made a new calendar for Yan State. Because the north and south span of Yan State is too large, he made a shocking discovery, that is, the earth may be round!

Since the traditional calendar of the Central Plains was formulated during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, it has been more than 500 years and has long been outdated. (Because there is a deviation between the earth's revolution and rotation, a little error occurs every year. As this error accumulates for a long time, it will accumulate into a lot, resulting in the obsolete calendar. For example, the previous calendar wrote that there is a lot of rain in these days, but because the deviation is too large, not only does there be no rain in these days, but it is very drought. This will greatly affect normal agricultural production activities, so a new calendar needs to be formulated every few hundred years.)

In order to formulate a more accurate new calendar, Ji Yulong began to observe from the northernmost fur island of Yan (Sakhalin Island) and came to the southernmost Xingfan City (Jakarta). He found that the further south, the angle of the sun became more vertical. Moreover, when he arrived at Xingfan Island, the sun, which was originally located in the south, actually ran to the north.

The sun is always in the south, which is everyone's consensus, after all, no one has been to the southern hemisphere before.

But now, because the north-south span of Yan State's territory is too large, this consensus is being broken.

Based on his new discoveries, Ji Yulong conducted various conjectures and experiments. After several years of hard thinking and field investigation, he finally came up with a conjecture: our earth may be round or arc-shaped, but it is not flat anyway, otherwise these changes in the sun's angle cannot be explained.

However, his conjecture was just a conjecture, and no one was willing to believe it. Even Mozi in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period had guessed that the earth might be round, but Mozi was also just a conjecture.

Unlike Mozi, although Mozi guessed that the earth was round, he only had guesses and did not leave any evidence for his guesses to come.

Ji Yulong used the sun's angle as evidence and is now looking for more evidence to prove his bold conjecture.

The earth may be round, which is a major discovery in Yan State, and another major discovery is the "bamboo fireworks".

Subsequently, several craftsmen and doctors brought their latest achievements, which were their efforts for more than 30 years.

As early as more than 30 years ago, the gunpowder of Yan State could have produced a very powerful explosion effect. Now, after more than 30 years of research and development, new progress has finally been made.

The craftsman took a bamboo tube, the bottom of the bamboo tube was sealed, and the top of the bamboo tube was filled with many broken sand and gravel, and a rope connected to the hollow part of the bamboo tube.

As the rope was ignited, with a "bang", smoke came out of the bamboo tube, and many red sparks appeared on the starry sky at night, and these sparks were the ignited gunpowder.

However, the current bamboo tube fireworks are just a creation, which is very imperfect. The bamboo tube can only be used once and will be scrapped. Sometimes the rope is lit, but the gunpowder inside does not respond. Sometimes the rope is lit, and the gunpowder inside directly explodes the bamboo tube and cannot rise to the sky.

The craftsmen brought a hundred bamboo fireworks. There were less than five bamboo fireworks that could rise to the sky. Among the remaining ninety-five, forty-one exploded, and fifty-four did not respond at all.

"All craftsmen and doctors who are involved in the production of bamboo fireworks will be rewarded!" Yan Houlan likes this new toy that can release brilliant sparks in the sky.
Chapter completed!