On the morning of the next day, Empress Dowager Zhang issued an edict, naming the regent Li Ye as the emperor's heir, and at the same time continued to serve as the regent of the country.
This means that Li Ye became the official heir to the throne of the Tang Dynasty and the only heir, taking the most critical step for him to ascend to the throne.
At the same time, Li Ye was leading several important ministers outside the East City to inspect the city expansion construction.
The construction of Chang'an's city expansion has begun for several months. In addition to the early land reclamation and land leveling, the construction of the city wall has now begun. The foundation is currently being laid. The Ba River is full of stone-carrying ships.
A large amount of granite was transported from Lantian County. The masons chiseled them into large square stones and laid them into the dug and compacted gullies of the city wall to form the foundation.
Building a city wall is very particular. A layer of cobblestones is laid at the bottom. The soil on and around the foundation must be cooked, mixed with lime, and then covered with soil, flattened and compacted. This ensures that grass will not grow on the foundation and there will be no rats.
A snake digging a hole is like building a Tang straight road.
After laying the three-foot-thick strips of stone, bricks were laid using glutinous rice slurry mixed with lime as mortar. The bricks are also made of large fired green bricks, which are very strong and durable. They make a metallic sound when struck and are guaranteed to last for hundreds of years.
immortal.
Li Ye stood on the head of the east city with his hands folded. Thousands of people were busy building the city wall in the distance, and to the south was the sparkling Qujiang Pool. The expansion of the city did not involve Qujiang Pool, but extended eastwards to the north of Qujiang Pool.
Next to him, Li Xian, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, introduced to Li Ye: "Your Highness, the original plan was to build the outer city and then demolish the inner city wall, but now it is generally required that the inner wall not be demolished, and Chang'an is divided into the inner city and the outer city."
Li Ye smiled and asked: "Has it been discussed in the political hall?"
Wei Jiansu next to him smiled and said: "Reporting to Your Highness, we have discussed it in the political affairs hall and everyone unanimously agreed that the inner city wall should not be demolished, but we hope to open a few more gates."
Li Ye nodded, "I will not interfere in whether the city wall should be demolished or not. It will be decided by the political hall, but I hope we can pool our wisdom and consider it more carefully."
Wei Jiansu bowed and said, "Wei Chen understands!"
At this time, there was a noise in the distance, and hundreds of people were seen approaching in the distance with wooden sticks and hoes, shouting all the way, the crowd was passionate, and rushed to obstruct the craftsmen's construction.
Li Ye's face sank, "What's going on?"
Li Xian sighed, "These are farmers whose land was expropriated. The government bought their land at a price of 100 guan per mu. At the same time, the government promised that each household would be given two acres of homeland in the future. At that time, they all happily took the money and demolished it. Later,
I don’t know who encouraged them, saying that if the land was sold at a loss, it would be worth thousands of acres if it was turned into residential land in the city, and then they started to make trouble."
Li Ye frowned, "How long have you been making trouble?"
"Two months! We come here almost every day. Today there are not many people. A few days ago, thousands of people came with relatives and friends, and it was so noisy!"
Li Ye's face became increasingly ugly and he asked coldly: "Aren't they just asking for money?"
"No matter what money you ask for, the money has already been given to them. Wei Chen has confirmed that it has been given to every household."
"If they make trouble like this, will the county government not care about it?"
Li Xian shook his head, "Of course I came to take care of it, but the government officials couldn't beat them. Every time they came to take care of it, they beat them up."
Li Ye took out the gold medal and handed it to the guards behind him, "Go and notify the inner guards to come and arrest them. All of them will be caught in the inner guard offices. Each of them will be beaten with fifty sticks. If anyone dares to cause trouble, he will be directly exiled to the Lingnan Army!"
Not long after, thousands of inner guard cavalry rushed in, full of murderous intent. They stepped forward and smashed over a dozen of the most noisy ones with iron bars, beating them until their bones and muscles were broken. They lay on the ground wailing, and hundreds of others were beaten.
They were all frightened and squatted on the ground with their heads in their hands, not daring to move. They were escorted away by the internal guards obediently.
The senior officials in the political hall were dumbfounded. When the county government officials came out, they were not like this. They all fought hard and beat the government officials to a bloody head and fled in panic. But when the internal guards came, it was different.
All of a sudden, he became honest, and he was really afraid of authority but not moral.
Li Ye didn't bother to explain, turned around and walked down the city.
Li Ye then came to the Engineering School again. This was the second time he came to the Engineering School after returning from Youzhou. The last time he came was to inquire about the progress of the steam engine. He was almost successful and needed to wait patiently for a while.
Today he is here to inspect the development of materials. There is a Copper and Iron Materials Institute within the School of Engineering. Although it is within the School of Engineering, it is under the Ordnance Supervision.
The Institute of Copper and Iron Materials has more than 300 students, seven professors and more than 30 craftsmen, who are responsible for researching various new iron materials and copper alloys.
Their latest achievement was to refine a batch of high-quality strong steel, that is, high-carbon steel, which was used to create thousands of three-pointed two-edged knives, which were extremely sharp and could be compared to Mo Dao.
Some of the internal guards have already equipped themselves with these three-pointed, two-edged knives, and tens of thousands of them will be made for use by the frontier troops.
This kind of strong steel is of great significance. It is as sharp as the Mo Dao, but its cost is much lower than that of the Mo Dao. It can be promoted on a large scale, and it will double the combat effectiveness of the Tang army.
You can imagine that if you cut off the enemy's sword in one confrontation, the battlefield will become one-sided.
The chief officer of the Copper and Iron Materials Institute was Du Wensheng, who was also the Young Superintendent of Ordnance Supervision. He took Li Ye and other senior officials to the testing room and handed Li Ye two copper tubes.
"Your Highness, please see, your Highness mentioned the copper pipe last time, and we made it!"
Li Ye was overjoyed. He quickly took the copper pipe and took a closer look. The two copper pipes were both about the thickness of an egg. One was a seamed copper pipe and the other was a seamless copper pipe. The seamed copper pipe was easier to roll into a tube and then poured.
The copper liquid is welded, but the seamless copper pipe is difficult and needs to be formed at one time.
"How was this copper pipe made?" Li Ye asked, pointing to the seamless copper pipe.
"First, we made a tubular sand mold and poured it with copper water at one time. We made ten tubes in total. Only this tube passed the standard, and the others had trachoma."
Li Ye nodded and asked again: "Who made the mold?"
Du Wensheng smiled and said: "Reporting to Your Highness, we asked the craftsmen from the Bureau of Firearms to make the shell molds for iron fire mines."
Li Ye suddenly realized that the craftsmen who made iron fire thunders in the Firearms Bureau were the best craftsmen in the Tang Dynasty, including making molds, shells, nitroglycerin and explosives, etc. Among them, the craftsmen who made the molds turned out to be making outer molds for copper coins. They
The molds made are of extremely high quality and can basically be cast and molded in one go.
The copper pipe was very smooth and had obviously been polished. Du Wensheng handed Li Ye a magnifying glass, and Li Ye used the magnifying glass to look at the copper pipe carefully. Sure enough, he did not see a single trachoma.
Wei Jiansu stood aside and couldn't help but ask: "What can your Highness do with copper pipes?"
Li Ye smiled and said: "In the future, the territory of the Tang Dynasty will become wider and wider, but our army will not be enough. There is only one way. One person can be used as ten people. If a hundred soldiers are stationed in one place, they can deal with thousands."
What does human rebellion rely on? It depends on firearms, powerful firearms. This copper pipe will make a very powerful firearm in the future."
After finishing speaking, Li Ye said to Du Wensheng: "Success alone is only the first step. I want to be like them making iron fire thunder shells, eight out of ten are successful, and eight out of ten copper tubes are successful. That is the real success."
success!"
"I understand. Beizu is going to invite these old craftsmen to give lectures to train young craftsmen. In addition, they will record their techniques and know-how in pictures and texts."
Li Ye said happily: "You are right. Many of the excellent technologies of our ancestors have disappeared because they were not passed down. It is completely correct to record them with pictures and texts, but the awareness of confidentiality must be strengthened, especially military secrets.
It must be strictly controlled.”
"His Highness's teachings, I will remember them!"
"In addition, this kind of patchwork pipe is also useful."
Li Ye pointed to the seamed copper pipe: "I also need this kind of pipe, but it is not a thin pipe, but a big and thick pipe. I will draw a drawing later and you can try it."
