The ruler and ministers enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Not until the middle of the night did Li Zhigao, Gao Shao, Yun Puzi, Feng Yi, Kong Xirong, and others depart from Shangyang Garden with slight tipsiness, each returning to their residences.
Luoyang’s old city, including Shangyang Garden where Han Qian resided daily and managed military and political affairs, all sat on the southern bank of the Luo River. But using Luoyang as the national capital, the southern bank’s old city had long since become inadequate.
When finances became slightly more comfortable, Han Qian squeezed money and grain from military funds for new city construction.
Currently, besides the Luoyang National Comprehensive Academy built on the northern bank, the new city mainly relied on the old city, extending eastward and westward along the southern bank of the Luo River.
Relying on the old city’s relatively complete public facilities and the courier station system connecting with various Heluo counties, extending construction of the new city to both flanks kept construction costs at their most economical.
The General Staff Office’s Administrative Department arranged Li Zhigao’s mansion outside Huayang Gate, in a residential district newly built specifically for General Staff Office officials of all ranks.
Su Hongyu had departed earlier with their young son but proceeded directly to Mianchi to wait for Li Zhigao. They arrived together in Luoyang at dusk today. Upon reaching the new mansion, they barely caught their breath, leaving behind their luggage and accompanying personnel before hurrying to Shangyang Garden for the banquet.
Li Dan, just over twenty years old, had enrolled in Luoyang Comprehensive Academy three years ago and had been living in Luoyang all along. He had directly participated in arranging the new residence and personnel.
Luoyang strictly prohibited keeping slaves, servants, or private soldiers. Li Zhigao enjoyed vice-ministerial treatment—the security department would arrange dedicated security forces to protect his and his family’s personal safety, and the General Staff Office would also arrange dedicated attendant officials and service personnel to handle daily trivial matters.
Han Qian had no intention of using such methods to monitor central military ministers. Whether security personnel or attendant officials, they were all chosen and recommended by Li Zhigao himself.
The people he was accustomed to using could all continue serving at his side, merely needing to complete supplementary entry procedures at the security department and Administrative Department, completing the transformation from private clerks to public officials.
Li Zhigao paid no mind to these matters.
The long street was paved with coal cinder stones, and carriage wheels rattled noisily over them—nothing new about that. Yet he observed with great interest the bright lamp posts along the street, making the nighttime street no longer completely pitch black, allowing carriages and horses on the long street to no longer need lanterns for night travel.
Although Li Zhigao observed that currently only Shangyang Garden and the main streets they traveled had installed new street lamps, the main street ran through the entire Luoyang City, about ten li long from east to west. At minimum, four to five hundred street lamps would need to be installed along the street to illuminate the entire long thoroughfare.
Lamp candles seemed commonplace to wealthy households, but remained luxury items for ordinary people.
Even during the previous dynasty’s peak years, only on select major festivals would colored lanterns be hung throughout the long streets.
Ordinarily, only wealthy households or the most prestigious wine houses and brothels would fill their courtyards with lanterns for illumination at night.
Those were the rare bright spots after a prosperous city fell into darkness at nightfall.
Li Zhigao had assumed that with frequent warfare these years, the vast majority of money, grain, and material resources had to be squeezed out as much as possible to meet wartime needs. He never imagined Luoyang’s construction wasn’t as delayed as he’d thought.
“How much lamp oil must this consume in one night?” Li Zhigao asked with emotion.
“Ha, Father should have moved to Luoyang long ago. These are coal stone lamps,” Li Dan laughed. “This substance is produced from quicklime and coal, selling for only one-fifth the price of oil candles. When placed in water, they steadily generate coal stone gas that ignites for illumination, yet are far brighter than lamp candles. The only issue with coal stone is that storage must remain absolutely dry, making them unsuitable for indoor use, but extremely convenient outdoors—this year, several main streets in the city should all be fitted with such street lamps…”
Previously, the Liangzhou forces couldn’t even be considered central elite troops. Although they didn’t stint on providing the finest weapons, some latest technologies and secrets not yet popularized even among main combat brigades couldn’t possibly be voluntarily disclosed to Liangzhou personnel.
Currently, Li Zhigao’s understanding of the New Learning system fell short even of his eldest son Li Zhi, who had studied in Luoyang for over a year, let alone his second son Li Dan, who had specifically settled down to study New Learning at Luoyang Comprehensive Academy.
Previously, according to academy regulations, to prevent letters from being lost and secrets leaked, Li Dan couldn’t mention his studies in correspondence sent to Liangzhou. But now he chattered on incessantly.
Li Zhigao had initially arranged for Li Dan to enter the Military Academy for training while also deliberately having his second son select mechanical engineering, inwardly hoping that one day when the realm returned to peace, his second son Li Dan wouldn’t need to charge into battle, but could do things beneficial to people’s livelihoods instead.
He’d originally thought Li Dan might resist this inwardly, yet unexpectedly Li Dan spoke with animated excitement about the engineering group he currently participated in, which was undertaking a timekeeping clock manufacturing task directly assigned by Han Qian.
“Besides sundials, hourglasses, star observation methods, and such, what else can measure time?” Li Zhigao asked curiously.
Li Dan removed a jade pendant attached to his waist by a silk ribbon, grasped one end of the ribbon, and set the jade pendant swinging, saying, “With fixed ribbon length, the jade pendant’s swing time is constant, unrelated to the amplitude of swing. The timekeeping clock we’re currently constructing uses a pendulum of specific design—with each swing, it triggers a power spring once, moving a small pointer one notch. Large and small pointers connect via gears, ultimately making the large pointer complete one full revolution representing one day’s twelve double-hours! However, the timekeeping clocks we’ve trial-manufactured accumulate an error of nearly one quarter-hour over a day’s operation, but His Lordship requires the error not exceed one-fifteenth of a quarter-hour—what His Lordship calls one minute—so there’s still much to improve…”
Hourglasses and water clocks were no unfamiliar objects. Hearing Li Dan explain it, the principles seemed not so profound, but without seeing how complex the actual structure was, Li Zhigao found it difficult to understand how a timekeeping clock could achieve daily error not exceeding one quarter-hour—yet Han Qian remained unsatisfied with this?
Taking the jade pendant and observing its swing from inside the carriage with the naked eye, the time of each swing truly did seem related to the ribbon length and had nothing to do with the swing amplitude—completely different from what he’d naturally imagined. He wondered what profound principles this contained.
“This is caused by the gravitational force that affects all things,” as the carriage moved slowly, Li Dan said with animated excitement. “Father arrived in Luoyang two months too late. Two months ago, the academy’s Chongxue Hall was completed with an inauguration ceremony. His Lordship, the State Consort, and Noble Consort Shu all attended in person. To celebrate Chongxue Hall’s completion, Princess Yunhe specially conducted two demonstration experiments. One involved dropping two iron balls differing tenfold in weight from the ten-zhang flying eaves of Chongxue Hall, asking observing officials and citizens to guess which ball would land first, even permitting wagering. His Lordship and the two consorts all placed bets. Father, guess what His Lordship wagered…”
“Your father doesn’t know the principles, but according to my thinking, the vast majority would certainly assume the heavy ball would touch ground first, so His Lordship must have done the opposite,” Li Zhigao said.
“Father is wrong. His Lordship wagered on the heavy ball touching ground first. The two consorts wagered both balls would land simultaneously, leaving those who wanted to follow suit dumbfounded,” Li Dan said.
“Then that must mean they landed simultaneously,” Li Zhigao said.
“If Father had arrived in Luoyang earlier, betting would have truly paid off, but countless people on site were deceived by His Lordship and complained bitterly,” Li Dan said with a laugh. “But nobody thought about it—all the various principles of gravitational force were proposed by His Lordship himself. How could His Lordship possibly tell everyone an obvious answer?”
“What was the other demonstration experiment?” Seeing Li Dan full of admiration for Han Qian, Li Zhigao asked with a smile.
“In Luoyang City, the vast majority of people don’t believe the air we normally breathe has tremendous pressure,” Li Dan said. “Princess Yunhe produced two copper hemispheres that could be separated or joined together. After joining them, the air inside the copper sphere was evacuated. With a reward of ten gold pieces, she invited strong and brave men from His Lordship’s guard forces to pull the two hemispheres apart—does Father think anyone obtained this reward?”
“Seeing your expression, I can guess no one obtained the reward,” Li Zhigao said with a laugh.
Watching Li Dan speak with such animation about the various New Learning he’d encountered at the academy these years, he couldn’t help sighing with emotion about why people like Chen Jitang would abandon positions of supreme authority to willingly remain in Donghu presiding over Liyang Comprehensive Academy, absorbed in New Learning.
At this time, what Great Liang lacked was no longer war materials, nor manufacturing methods ahead of the era—what was lacking remained people.
After all, when Han Qian established himself in Xuzhou, his administered population took quite a few years to exceed two hundred thousand. Based in western Huai and established, by the first year of Taihe, the population barely reached one million seven to eight hundred thousand. Subsequently, after assuming the Great Liang State Consort position, stabilizing the Heluo situation, recovering Xingyang, achieving the great victory at Zhiguan Ridge, and recovering Guanzhong, the total population rapidly increased step by step, crossing the ten million threshold.
In the past, even without material shortages, Li Zhigao would have suggested that having just recovered Guanzhong, they wait two more years for their governing foundation in Guanzhong to stabilize before launching troops toward southern Jin for a new round of offensives.
However, Great Liang’s so-called lack of people was also relative.
Having experienced these years of warfare, Guanzhong’s local power structures would be shattered and fragmented. Yet Luoyang could completely bypass support from local power structures, directly dispatching hundreds of officials, supplemented by Intelligence Bureau personnel previously infiltrated and some retired warriors and veterans from the military, to build up the administrative framework of provinces, prefectures, counties, and townships.
As for talented personnel in engineering and New Learning, Great Liang’s accumulation over these years—not to mention in quality, in quantity alone—was something Chu, Shu, Mongol, and other national powers couldn’t catch up to even at full gallop.
Returning to the new residence, seeing Su Hongyu just sending Chun Shisanniang aboard a carriage, he laughed: “After years apart, have you still not finished catching up after all these hours?”
“If not for remembering that you and Hongyu are also reunited after long separation, I would have pulled Hongyu out of Yunchun Brewery to talk by candlelight through the night,” Chun Shisanniang said. She also asked about Li Zhigao going to the prison to visit Lu Qingxia, Zhou Yuan, and the others—she wanted to go along to see them.
“In a couple days, or perhaps you and Hongyu should first go see Lady Yao and Xishui to counsel them?”
The campaign toward southern Jin had already entered the preparation phase. Gao Shao and Han Yuanqi had to rush to Xuzhou and Donghu to take up their posts. Not knowing when Tian Cheng could arrive in Luoyang, with Jing Hao convalescing from illness, the General Staff Office could only be supported by him first. Many affairs required handover with Gao Shao and Han Yuanqi.
He still needed to seize time to visit Feng Liao, Guo Rong, Gu Qian, Zhou Daoyuan, Han Daoming, Zhu Juezhong, Yuan Guowei, Chen Youjian, and other important court ministers one by one, to straighten out the relationships between the General Staff Office and the Left and Right Secretariat Offices, the Censorate, and the Council of Deliberation. Who knew how long it would take before he could spare time to visit the prison.