There is nothing that can be achieved overnight. It is just a matter of experimenting with an idea and slowly improving it to make a certain product mature.
Iron is already being used in the current era, and iron has already appeared in the Yin and Shang Dynasties. Its shortcomings were too obvious to replace bronze as the mainstream for making various tools.
As for which country has the largest amount of iron smelting now, it is actually the Chu State in the south. They used the iron-clad technology on farm tools around 700 BC, but it was not fully promoted for some reasons.
The Chu State made attempts and improvements, but the Central Plains countries still used a large number of purely wooden agricultural tools, and even if there were bronze agricultural tools, they were very few.
"The iron smelting experiment takes time, maybe I can try something else first?" Zhiyao understood that it could not be completed in a short time, so she gave the craftsmen some ideas and began to think about papermaking.
When it comes to inviting me to be a guest at Zhishi, Zhiyao is a kind of beheader. The formal process requires Zhizong to personally meet me, give him enough respect, and then make relevant arrangements.
In the same way, Zhiyao is currently not qualified to take Zigong as a retainer, and still needs the head of the Zhi family to come and hold the acceptance ceremony.
The Spring and Autumn period attaches great importance to the sense of ceremony. There are its own rituals for welcoming guests, and there are certain procedures for accepting retainers.
The process of accepting retainers is mainly a publicity function, so that everyone knows that someone is a retainer of Zhishi from a certain day, and can exercise certain rights on behalf of Zhishi.
"If it is too long, it will be kept for three years; if it is short or one year old, it will not be kept for a long time." Laozi said.
He himself was not willing to come to Jin, and he came reluctantly. How could he be willing to stay for a long time?
Zhiyao was not annoyed, and said with a smile: "There are good talents here, and Dan Zi will enjoy them."
If Confucius is a person who likes to teach others, Lao Tzu is actually similar. When they see raw jade, they want to carve it into beautiful jade.
I shook my head and said, "My skills are of little use to the people of Jin."
The Jin State is not a country that pursues "rituals", which leads to the Jin people having little interest in "rituals" and preferring knowledge that is easy to learn and has quick results.
Laozi studied "rituals" very deeply, so much so that Confucius traveled thousands of miles to visit him several times to study.
In addition, Lao Tzu has already begun to study nature, and for the time being he has not thought about the related scholarship of "governing by doing nothing".
When it comes to "governing by doing nothing", many people will misunderstand and think that governing by doing nothing means letting things go and not caring about anything. However, this understanding is wrong.
After all, Zhiyao is a "experienced person". Taking the Western Han Dynasty as an example of governing the country with the core concepts of Taoism, anyone who understands history can say that the Western Han Dynasty allowed Li Shu to do nothing.
The fact is that from Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty to Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, the mandatory national policies issued repeatedly were not too many, and they could always be adjusted correctly at critical moments.
In the true sense, "governing by doing nothing" means governing the country with systems, using systems to constrain the behavior of subjects, and all subjects abide by the legal system.
To put it bluntly, it is to formulate a large framework without intervening too much, so that people can give full play to their creativity, achieve self-realization, and move toward nobility and glory.
Therefore, "inaction" does not mean doing nothing, but not acting rashly.
Zhiyao also understood that the Jin State was not suitable for "ruling by doing nothing". He adopted the idea of "governing by doing nothing" in formulating the system and encouraged people to use their brains to increase productivity.
Jin's military fruitism was very good for the late Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It was the promotion of those ideas that made Jin become a country that could tap more of its own potential.
Later, didn’t Shang Yang learn from Jin’s military-fruitarian national policy and come up with his own strategy for farming and warfare?
Therefore, Jin's military fruitism lacked two things. The first was to announce clear channels for advancement (titles), and the second was to realize that ordinary people could become land and slaves of superiors.
Lao Tzu said more bluntly: "If there is no uncut jade, it will be difficult for you to stay even one year old."
In my opinion, the Jin people are too warlike, and the Jin people that I can see are really too busy, so busy that they even walk in a hurry.
For a person who advocates being close to nature, especially if he is a bit lazy, it makes him feel uncomfortable when he sees other people doing everything in a hurry.
"Now that Dan is here, if Gongsun has any orders, he will obey them and make it clear." Laozi said.
Recently, in addition to studying smelting, Zhiyao has also done another thing, which is to build a "school".
This is a place used for teaching. Its main structure is made of wood. The space inside is very large, with rows of tables and seats lined up.
In order to make the lecturers comfortable and teach more intuitively, Zhiyao also provided a blackboard and chalk.
If I gained anything from my visit to Zhishi, it was definitely the blackboard and chalk, and I also had some opinions on the unseen tables and chairs used by the students in the lectures.
Nowadays, sitting on one's knees is the mainstream. If I insist on emphasizing, sitting upright is the posture that a scholar should have.
Zhi's students sit with their buttocks on chairs, their legs can be placed naturally on the ground, and their hands can be placed on the table. The first time I saw them, I thought they were weird.
Seeing my resolute attitude, Zhiyao really didn't understand why she wasn't considerate enough.
During these days, Zhiyao not only responded to my requests, but also provided favorable accommodation and food.
There are various kinds of delicious food every day and people are serving you all the time. How can I still feel dissatisfied?
Zhiyao thought about it and made some explicit requests to me.
"The art of governance?" Lao Tzu was obviously stunned and murmured: "Tao has a form, and everything has its own laws. Difficult things in the world must be done in the easy way, and major things in the world must be done in the details. Do it before it is not there, and govern it before it is chaotic.
…”
At this moment, I couldn't imagine how the young Zhiyao could say those words worth savoring. He even felt that a door to immortality had been opened to him, and the more he thought about it, the more excited he became.
Seeing that I was stunned, Zhiyao knew that once a scholar fell into his own academic world, it would be difficult to extricate himself, so he said goodbye and continued busy with his own affairs.
Smelting iron requires time to slowly experiment, and Zhiyao felt it was time to conduct another experiment.
He came to a courtyard.
Many pools have been dug in this yard, which have been used to store water. Different materials are soaked in each pool.
Some pools are soaked with bark, hemp heads and poor cloth, while others are soaked with rattan, bamboo and wheat straw.
"I need to make a tool for crushing materials first..." Zhiyao thinks this is not difficult.
Of course, there were pounding tools in the Spring and Autumn Period, but they were a bit too primitive. When people pounded rice, they used a piece of wood to pound it again and again.
What Zhiyao wants to make is a tool based on the principle of leverage. Its production is not complicated. It just has a fulcrum as a resistance arm, and a piece of wood placed on the fulcrum as a power arm.
Do you know the seesaw? In fact, it is a similar thing. When used to pound things, you need to get a mallet on one end, and the power arm can move up and down to pound things.
Zhiyao is only the conductor, the real people doing the work are the craftsmen of the Zhi family.
"Why did I make this thing now? If I had made it earlier, it would have freed up a lot of labor!" Zhiyao slapped herself on the forehead.
Do you know how troublesome rice pounding is right now? If there are many people in the family, it would not be enough for one woman to do nothing all day just to pound rice. It would require several women to work together, and the efficiency is still very slow.
Zhiyao's eyes became very bright, thinking: "I may not be able to participate in family decision-making. Repeatedly making tools that are beneficial to the family can improve the productivity of the old Zhiyao family. Isn't it a credit? As long as my grandfather and father are not stupid.