In the second year of Xingping, a severe drought occurred in Guanzhong, Henan and other places starting last year. Until July of this year, the disaster affected nearly ten million people, and millions of people died or migrated as refugees due to famine and plague.
Compared with the Guandong and Guanxi regions, the Jingzhou region in the south has relatively good weather. It is located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and has abundant rainfall. The drought has not extended here for the time being.
Therefore, a large number of disaster victims from Guanzhong and Henan swarmed to the Nanyang area. If conditions allowed, they migrated further south to the Yangtze River Basin. If conditions were not met, they settled in the Nanyang Basin, resulting in a large increase in the current population of the Nanyang Basin.
Liu Biao adopted Shen Chen's suggestion, and the government provided grain, grass and baggage to temporarily feed the hungry people, and then recruited refugees to start farming in Nanyang. For a time, the entire Nanyang area became full of excitement.
Naturally, this includes the elder Huangmenting who has moved to Xinye.
Originally they only had a thousand people, but according to Shen Chen's instructions, Deng Mao, Deng Zhao and others continued to recruit new refugees for farming. The model they adopted was the manor system, which enclosed large areas of land for intensive farming. With the manor and fortress as a unit, they quickly Expand.
From the time Shen Chen left Huangmenting in May, to July, they had recruited more than 160 households, totaling more than 800 people, opened up more than 4,000 acres of land, and built more than 80 buildings. A new hut.
Although building huts is a bit difficult to explain, it cannot be denied that this new type of retting technology can indeed greatly increase grain production, so it is also constantly being expanded.
On this day, Deng Hong brought some cold food to visit Shen Chen. Song Zhong gave him a half-day holiday, and Shen Chen took his uncle to the back mountain. There was a pavilion and clear spring in the back mountain, with lush greenery and clear spring water flowing from the mountain. Come down and flow through the pavilions.
The grandfather and grandson were sitting cross-legged in the pavilion. Shen Chen watched Deng Hong open the cold food he had brought and asked about the current situation of the clan. Deng Hong had gone back once before and told him the current progress.
When Deng Hong took out all the cold food he had brought and put them on plates, he suddenly caught a glimpse of Shen Chen holding a small wooden utensil in his hand. He couldn't help but curiously asked: "Ah Chen, what is this?"
Shen Chen raised the wooden vessel and said, "Uncle, have you forgotten? This is a keel waterwheel."
Taking advantage of his spare time, he borrowed carpenter tools from his slaves and built it himself. Because the keel waterwheel is essentially a tool with several wooden boards and a large number of wood chips connected together, and a roller is used to pump water, so it is relatively simple to build.
Deng Hong said speechlessly: "You really want me to be famous in my hometown?"
"Uncle, just listen to me and do it."
Shen Chen handed over the small model and started eating with chopsticks.
Deng Hong took the model and looked at it carefully, and found that it was indeed exquisitely made. It could even rotate by flipping the keel wood pieces on it, and using the wheel axle to drive it, it seemed that it could really draw water up.
"This thing is interesting, but it draws too little water."
He turned it around a few times, placed the keel waterwheel model in the nearby stream, and started to crank it by hand. He found that it could indeed draw water, but the amount of water was very small. Even if it was enlarged, the water flow was not very large.
Shen Chen smiled and said: "Actually, there is a waterwheel that uses water power to rotate naturally. It will rotate and draw water by itself when placed in water, but that kind of thing is not suitable for promotion at the moment."
"Why?"
Deng Hong wondered, why not bring out the good stuff?
Shen Chen said: "To prevent the enemy from learning it in the future, our village's retting technology must also be protected. It would be bad if it was learned by others."
This is to create technical barriers, not only fertilizing technology and waterwheel technology, but also stirrup technology, horseshoe technology, smelting technology, construction technology, manufacturing technology, etc. in the future.
When I was studying architectural design, I traveled to many places to explore ancient craftsmanship, and unexpectedly learned a lot of useful things.
Many of them only appeared during the Tang and Song Dynasties, and were popularized on a large scale during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Although they are also from ancient times, the craftsmanship and prosperity during the Ming and Qing Dynasties far surpassed those of the Han and Tang dynasties.
The most typical example is steel production.
According to the analysis of the iron smelting manufacturing industry in the Western Han Dynasty by later archaeologist Professor Li Jinghua, it is believed that the total output of iron and steel in the entire 210-year history of the Western Han Dynasty was 17,855 tons.
In the early Hongwu years of the Ming Dynasty, the total output of official steel reached 9,235 tons. During the Jiajing decade of the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, the annual output of Guangdong alone was 13,500 tons.
Therefore, even if some technologies from the Ming and Qing Dynasties were transferred to the Han Dynasty, the level would still be a dimensionality reduction attack, and the technical content would not be the same.
These technologies will also require a huge force to promote them in the future. If they are learned by others now, it will be almost the same as capitalizing on the enemy. After all, Cao Cao occupied the north and had more than tens of thousands of cavalry?
If everyone learns stirrups and horseshoes, I am afraid that even Jiangdong, which has the natural dangers of the Yangtze River, will not be able to withstand the sharpness of his iron hoofs.
Deng Hong put the keel waterwheel model aside and asked: "Ah Chen, how are your academic progress?"
"Okay"
Shen Chen hesitated for a moment and said: "It's just that the teacher hasn't officially started teaching yet, and now he has almost learned the big seal script and the small seal script."
Deng Hong nodded and said: "The big seal script and the small seal script are the basis. The books handed down from our clan are all written in official script, but many ancient books are written in Qin seal script, so sir, he did it right. I also saw it when I was traveling to study. Learn seal script every day like others."
"That's it."
Shen Chen felt relieved. Zhuge Liang and Deng Hong both said so, so it should be right.
He had never had a great Confucian from the Han Dynasty as his teacher before, and he didn't understand why Song Zhong only taught him calligraphy and not text. But now it seems that they still had their intentions.
The two chatted for a while, and Shen Chen told Deng Hong that when he returned to the clan next time, he must remember to ask the clansmen to build the manor as soon as possible, and at the same time, according to his arrangements, train more soldiers and horses, smelt more steel, and make more porcelain.
According to what Zhou Lin told him last year, if everything goes well, he will go to Jiangdong again this year. At that time, the two parties agreed that if they passed through Xiangyang, he would send someone to Nanyang to find Shen Chen.
At that time, in addition to selling ship technology to Zhou Lin, Shen Chen also needed to sell him the exquisite porcelain produced by Huangmenting in the blast furnace cave.
The white porcelain of the Han Dynasty is indeed good, but it is still inferior to the three-color porcelain of the Tang Dynasty. It must be favored by dignitaries everywhere.
In the afternoon, after Deng Hong left, Shen Chen went to the atrium where Song Zhong usually stayed.
It rained a few days ago, so Song Zhong did not post his books. Instead, he devoted himself to teaching Shen Chen for the first time. But instead of teaching him how to read, he first taught him how to read bamboo slips.
After teaching him the big and small seal scripts before, he now knows the characters on the bamboo slips and can read them, but he doesn't understand what the words mean.
But Song Zhong understood it, so every time he read a sentence, Song Zhong told him which book and volume it was, and asked him to remember it clearly in the future and not to forget it.
After a few days like this, Shen Chen remembered many books, many of which were famous works that were lost to later generations. Any volume will be priceless two thousand years later.
After arriving in the courtyard, I saw Song Zhong flipping books again.
The weather has become clearer again since yesterday, and the sun has dispersed the dark clouds, bringing intense heat to the earth.
After all, it is only July now, and it is said to be the beginning of autumn, but in fact the temperature is very high. The drought is still there in the north, and the heat is constantly high in the south.
"Master."
After Shen Chen came over, he bowed to Song Zhong first.
Seeing him coming, Song Zhong smiled and said: "Ah Chen, you're here just in time. Go get that volume of "Tai Gong·Mou Pian·Shu Volume"."
The direction of the finger is a scroll of bamboo slips that is relatively far away, but it only has a general direction.
Shen Chen carefully walked through the ocean of bamboo slips, came to that location, searched around in the sea of books, and finally found the volume "Tai Gong".
The so-called "Tai Gong" is the "Six Tao", which is called "Tai Gong's Art of War" in full.
Among the cultural relics unearthed by later generations, people have only found 61 chapters of "Tai Gong", totaling about 20,000 words.
However, "Tai Gong's Art of War" was not lost in the Han Dynasty. There are 237 chapters in total, each chapter has one to several volumes, and the total number of words reaches more than 100,000.
So why was it so difficult to publish books in the Han Dynasty?
Not only are the classics circulated by hundreds of schools of thought during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods not lost, but also the annotations of each school. From the Western Han Dynasty to the present, four hundred years ago, countless famous texts were written by countless great Confucian scholars.
In an era without paper, this resulted in the creation of a large number of classics and tons of bamboo slips.
Each roll of bamboo slips takes up a small area when rolled up, but takes up a lot of space when spread out. They have to be turned over frequently, so it is very troublesome.
Shen Chen has been helping Song Zhong publish books for the past month and a half. The progress is now almost completed. He has published tens of thousands of books in total, but this is only less than one thousandth of the world's classics.
It is said that at the peak of Taixue and Hongdu sects' collections, millions of volumes of books were collected. The emperor had to send thousands of Confucian scholars to participate in the book publishing conference every few years, such as editing, inspection, and publishing of books, so that those books could be published. The book has been improved again.
It is a pity that Dong Zhuo caught fire in the end. Except for Cai Yong and other great scholars who took some away, most of the books were drowned in the flames of Luoyang.
"Master, we have been posting books for more than a month. I already know the big and small seal scripts. When are you going to teach?"
While Shen Chen was helping Song Zhong work, he couldn't help but ask.
Song Zhong smiled and said: "Don't rush, don't rush. The basis of teaching is that you have to know which books these are before you can read them well. Once these books are finished, we can start the class."
"oh."
Shen Chen responded and then asked: "How many boxes of books do we have?"
Song Zhong smiled again and said: "It's coming, it's coming."
"That's good."
Shen Chen felt relieved and suddenly asked strangely: "Master, where is Mr. Zhongxuan? Why haven't you seen him in the past two days?"
Song Zhong said: "He went down the mountain."
"Going down the mountain?"
"Yes, people have to visit relatives and friends."
"Oh, that's true, but didn't he help us post books before?"
"Yes, there is someone to replace him now, so he is no longer needed."
"Has someone replaced him?"
Shen Chen suddenly realized the seriousness of the matter. He raised his head from the sea of books, widened his eyes, pointed at himself and said, "Sir, the person who replaces him can't be me."
Song Zhong nodded seriously: "Yes, that's right. Wang Can is short in stature, so it's easy to help lay out the books and turn them over after the sun has dried enough. You are shorter than him and can easily walk in the cracks, so you are naturally more suitable than him. Already."
Shen Chen felt numb at that time.
Who told him that Song Zhong was testing him?
To engage in child labor is to engage in child labor, and you can say it so grandly.
No wonder Song Zhong didn't teach him at all these days, instead he was treating him like a beast.