On the fifth day of March in the sixth year of Jianji, spring sowing has ended.
After the court ended, Shao Shude took a look at the contents of the "group".
Lu Huaizhong, the commander of the Xingzhou camp, gave a brief report on the battlefield situation and requested a new batch of equipment, including arrows, wound medicine, raincloths, etc.
Soldiers and horses from all walks of life have gathered at the foot of Zhenzhou City. After a fierce attack for ten days without success, they began to dig trenches and besiege.
Wansheng Huangtou's army appeared on the battlefield, causing a chaos among the soldiers. Some high-ranking officials and generals wanted to surrender, but they were killed by ordinary soldiers and all their property was taken away.
On Lu Huaizhong's official letter, all the envoys and ministers of the Privy Council had commented. Shao Shude read it, wrote a big "yes", and forwarded it to the Political Affairs Hall, who would supervise the Ministry of Household Affairs to allocate supplies.
After finishing his work, he called Zhou Zhizhong, the medical officer of the Imperial Medical Office.
Zhou Zhizhong is also an old man. He is the disciple of Zhou Lang, a medical officer in the Lingzhou era. He has been practicing medicine for nearly twenty years and has rich experience. He is now one of the four medical supervisors (from the eighth grade) of the Imperial Medical Office.
"Brother, you are so busy collecting statistics on customs and diseases in various states. How did you do what I taught you?" Shao Shude asked.
Chu gave birth to a daughter in October last year. She died of illness two days ago, and the imperial doctor was at a loss. Shao Shude said it was a bacterial or viral infection, and the imperial doctor was at a loss.
He couldn't explain it either.
According to the rule of seeking truth from facts, if you cannot prove something, it is not science, it is a hypothesis. If you want to convince others and make others accept your point of view, you cannot rely on your own power and influence, but must rely on practical science.
in accordance with.
This is a view that he has always instilled in him, and he will not blatantly destroy it.
In fact, he had told Zhou Lang about the concept of bacteria and viruses many years ago, but no one believed it. He could not shut himself in a room like Leeuwenhoek and spent many years hand-polishing various high-tech products.
magnifying glass, and then assembled a microscope. What's more, he didn't even know how to polish the lens.
But fortunately there are craftsmen.
Lenses have a very early history. The earliest physical lens unearthed in the world should be a crystal lens that can magnify objects made by the Assyrian Empire, the successor of the ancient Babylonian civilization, on the eve of its demise (more than 700 BC).
An exquisitely made crystal stone lens with gold ornaments was unearthed from the tomb of Liu Jing, King of Guangling in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It should be a rare object used by the nobles for magnification.
But at this time, Shao Shude searched for a long time and finally found a former Tang Shaofu craftsman who had escaped from the war in Hu County, Jingzhao Prefecture. He could make lenses.
This made him ponder, why was this technology not popularized and almost lost? Is it going to be invented again in a few hundred years? The conclusion is that no market has been created. Without a market, not many people would use it, at best the royal family.
It was just a fancy and cunning plaything in the hands of the nobles, and of course it was easily lost.
Technology without a broad market is destined to have no vitality.
The craftsman was hired with a large sum of money and went to the Shaofu Youshang Department to work as a supervisor from the ninth grade down. He also brought a dozen apprentices and began to polish the lenses.
Their first task was to cooperate with the Imperial Medical Office to polish the lens and then magnify the object in an attempt to discover the bacteria Shao Shude mentioned.
"Your Majesty, there has been no progress yet. Master Mani said that this kind of thing is also available in Dashi, and it is called 'reading stone'. After hearing about it, Zhongshu asked for a few. The Minister of Song and the Minister of Chen liked it very much, and asked the young master to make more
Make some." Zhou Zhizhong replied.
Shao Shude nodded, picked up a bound book from the case, called the palace servants and handed it to Zhou Zhizhong, saying: "This is the food manuscript compiled by the Imperial College. Take a look at it and talk to the craftsmen. You may gain something from it."
Otherwise, you may need to stack two lenses together...that's all, I'll let the Ministry of Internal Affairs do this."
Zhou Zhizhong took the manuscript and looked at it. There were only three words on the cover: "Book of Light", which was neither fish nor fowl.
Of course, Shao Shude feels the same way, just translate the manuscript, that’s it.
He had read this book, and the knowledge points were quite messy and had not been effectively connected. But he had a feeling that if Dashi continued to study it for dozens or hundreds of years, he might be able to perfect the theory and write it into a book.
Historically, in 1015, the Arab scholar Ibn Haitham published the epoch-making optical work "The Book of Light" after systematically studying the local ancient Greek optical knowledge.
This book corrects some misunderstandings in the ancient Greek era. For example, Haitham believed that people can see objects because the light from the objects is reflected into the people's eyes. The Greeks believed that people's eyes emit light and touch it.
to the object, so it can be seen.
This book also mentions the working principles of lenses (including convex lenses and concave lenses), as well as the production of simple magnifying glasses.
This knowledge was not spread to the East, but was communicated with the West. After absorbing and digesting it, Europeans produced the world's first microscope five hundred years later - made by an optician. At that time, China was the Ming Dynasty.
In the middle of the dynasty, communication with the outside world was insufficient, and it gradually began to fall behind.
After Shao Shude read this book, he sighed in his heart. Haitham was able to write this book because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Before him, the corresponding knowledge had been studied a lot by predecessors and many theories had been put forward.
, he finally organized, improved, corrected, and wrote the book.
"Go back and take your time and watch." Shao Shude waved his hand and said: "The Tang Dynasty is magnificent and colorful, with prosperous culture, attracting all nations to come to court. Daxia will not be worse than the Tang Dynasty. But I don't want you to be too arrogant and arrogant. In this world It is very big. Even a small Tibetan country has its merits. We must be realistic and learn from others’ good points. If you don’t know this manuscript, you will be shocked when you read it. The great cannibals have already studied it so deeply. Yes. They may be inferior to China in some aspects, but they are worse than China in others. Don’t be arrogant. China is vast, and although it is vast and rich in resources, it is not much worse than others. That’s it.”
"Yes. I will retire." Zhou Zhizhong held the book and slowly retreated.
Shao Shude tapped the table again, and after a long time he said: "Pass an order to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to run the school."
This idea has actually been around for a long time. Now that the imperial court has allocated funds to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we should hurry up and do it.
This school is not just an educational institution, but more precisely, an industry-university-research institution.
Technology must have a market and be promoted in depth. Chinese people have learned this lesson of blood and tears countless times since ancient times.
The waterwheel from the Sui Dynasty was reinvented in the Ming Dynasty, it’s so funny!
Taking optics as an example, the market actually exists.
For old and dim-eyed officials, nobles, and wealthy businessmen, glasses are a necessity. Historically, in 1352, the Italians invented glasses. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, they were introduced to China via Nanyang. Optical shops appeared in Suzhou, proving the demand.
It's not small.
But what needs to be solved urgently is the cost issue.
If the cost of a new technology is too high, it is still not suitable for promotion, there will be no market, and it will eventually disappear.
Cost is something that is easily overlooked.
Some people subconsciously believe that as long as something is made, it will be popular.
Manufacturing costs, service life, working reliability, promotion channels, after-sales maintenance, etc., are all very important. They all determine the fate of new technologies and new products, and determine whether they will gradually disappear from our lives after they are invented.
life and be reinvented hundreds of years later.
The cost of glasses made of crystal will not be low, and they will eventually only be spread among the wealthy class, unless there is glass - and it must be mass-produced cheap glass. Expensive glass is no different from crystal.
However, for now, the wealthy market alone seems to be able to ensure that glasses will not disappear. After all, Europeans did not have glasses in the first place.
First, slowly maintain the optical market and expand the number of employees as much as possible. With more people, the technology can be maintained and even further developed - the number of employees is very critical. In theory, the more people in this industry, the better.
The technology is more easily passed on.
Shao Shude promotes new things and tries not to use administrative orders, government investment, or forced implementation. Instead, he uses market guidance and uses market demand to naturally stimulate industry.
The routines of the optical market are essentially no different from wool.
Of course, behind the business, what he cares more about is maintaining cultural and technological ties with the West (Central Asia, West Asia, and Europe).
Working behind closed doors is a dead end and will gradually fall behind foreign countries. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, faced with the endless new knowledge and new technologies emerging from the West, there was a lack of communication and ignorance. The gap was gradually widened. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the gap had become astonishingly large.
the point.
From this perspective, Shao Shude felt that the importance of the Western Regions had risen several levels.
Central Asia and West Asia are a large group of farming and commercial countries. In fact, they are quite prosperous culturally. They have many innovative things and have their own unique skills. The Tubo people relied on the smelting technology obtained from Central Asia to produce soldiers and armors that were completely different.
Those countries that lost to the Tang Dynasty were not actually lagging behind.
If it were not for the devastating natural disasters brought by the Mongols, which seriously regressed the civilizations of Central Asia and West Asia, history might have taken a different direction.
Shao Shude felt that it was necessary to maintain the existence of these countries, communicate with the Central Plains, and exchange what they had. Everyone should learn together, promote each other, and make progress with each other. Let them look eastward and go eastward, at least with Europe and China.
Maintaining a balance in communication and not favoring one side may be a great thing that can change the future of the entire nation.
There is a limit to what travelers can do. When there are millions of civilized people in the West who were not destroyed by the barbaric Mongols doing research and learning, and then communicating with the East, the benefits to the progress of social civilization may be greater than a hundred travelers.
Still big.
Thinking of this, he couldn't sit still and felt deeply that there was not much time.
"Chu Shenping!" Shao Shude shouted.
"I'm here." Chu Shen entered from the palace with his flat-top helmet and armor in hand.
"Summon Yin'an Zhi'erlang and follow me south to Zhenzhou for inspection." Shao Shude ordered.
"Yes!" Chu Shenping immediately agreed without any nonsense.