Emperor Shuang: The counterattack started from the Gaopingling Incident Chapter 372: Ma Juns request for an audience, papermaking, and the progress of the repeating trebuchet
Chapter 372: Ma Juns request for an audience, papermaking, and the progress of the repeating trebuchet
As soon as Cao Shuang arrived at the door of the west hall, Ma Jun stood up from the banquet, bowed his hands and said, "Servant, I pay my respects to the Prime Minister."
Cao Shuang smiled and waved his hand and asked, "Deheng doesn't need to be polite. No one else is here today, but Deheng has made progress in what he is doing?" After saying that, he sat down at the banquet where the host was seated.
According to the Chinese Confucian ethical concept, there is a distinction between superior and inferior, and there is an order between elder and younger, which is reflected in the rules that need to be paid attention to when seated.
The ancients seated themselves on the right side, where the guest and master were seated, sitting in the west and facing the east.
Teachers in private schools and servants of bureaucrats are all called "Xibin", also known as "Xixi", and the master is called "Dongjia".
Therefore, the ancients respected the teacher who teaches and resolves doubts as "teacher".
So where is the main seat on the table?
According to the ancient Chinese etiquette system, south is respected and north is humble. People's seats are divided into north and south and cannot be overridden.
The most typical example is that the monarch of a country must sit north and face south.
In fact, in ancient Chinese etiquette, there are two types of seat hierarchy: monarch and minister and guest of honor.
The monarch and his ministers are mainly in the north-south direction. The monarch takes the south as his sole position, that is, he respects the emperor from the south and his ministers from the north.
The host-guest etiquette takes the east-west direction. Out of respect for the guests, the host sits in the east seat; and asks the guests to sit in the west seat, that is, sitting facing the east.
In our daily life, the seat facing south is the front seat.
This seat of honor must be reserved for the senior person in the family when gatherings of relatives and friends.
Of course, in life, everyone does not distinguish seats based on direction, but defines the seat facing the door as the top seat.
When sitting at the same table, the elders and leaders should be given the upper seat, the seat facing away from the door should be the lower seat, usually the seat of the younger generation, and the left and right seats should be ordinary seats, which can be arranged by the host.
In Chinese history, which pays great attention to etiquette, there are many records about seating arrangements.
As recorded in "Historical Records: Biography of Lian Po and Lin Xiangru":
"Once (Zhao) Kuo becomes a general and faces eastward, no military officer dares to look up to him."
Zhao Kuo, who was good at talking about military affairs on paper, sat on his throne facing east and looked down upon other military officials, vividly portraying the boastful and arrogant Zhao Kuo.
Another example is recorded in "Book of Han·Biography of Wang Ling": Xiang Yu placed Wang Ling's mother in the army. When Wang Ling's envoy came, Xiang Yu asked Wang Ling's mother to sit facing east, so that the envoy could see that he was facing the Queen Mother.
It is respectful, and this is used to summon the king's tomb. From this, it can be seen that if you sit in the west and face the east, it is the upper seat.
Therefore, guests and teachers should be seated in seats facing west to show respect.
Ma Deheng said slowly: "Excuse me, Prime Minister. The trebuchet developed by the paper reformed by the Prime Minister has already achieved some results. I came here today to report it to the Prime Minister for inspection."
Ma Jun carefully took out the softer, whiter and more productive paper wrapped in the brocade handkerchief from his arms, as well as some colored paper, coated paper, stuffed paper and other processed papers.
Cao Shuang took the paper wrapped in brocade handkerchief from Ma Jun's hand, then carefully rubbed each piece in his hand, examined it, then placed the paper on the table, rubbed some ink, and dipped his pen into the ink.
, with the official characters written on it to unify the world, although it is not as good as Cai Yong and Zhong Yao, two famous calligraphers in recent years.
But he could still barely see through it. After all, he had been practicing under the guidance of Bai Lingjun for several months since he came to this world in early January, and it was quite effective.
The fonts at this time were mainly official script, but seal script, regular script, and cursive script were also used.
The official script basically evolved from the seal script. It mainly changed the round strokes of the seal script into square folds, which made the writing speed faster. It is difficult to draw round strokes when writing on wooden slips with lacquer.
Seal script is the general term for large seal script and small seal script. Large seal script includes nail bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, Zhou inscriptions, and Six Kingdoms scripts. They preserve the obvious characteristics of ancient hieroglyphics.
Small seal script, also known as "Qin seal script", is the common script of the Qin Dynasty. It is a simplified font of large seal script. It is characterized by a uniform and neat shape, and the font is easier to write than Zhenwen.
Regular script is also called Zhengshu or Zhenshu. It is characterized by its square shape and straight strokes, which can be used as a model.
Cursive script appeared earlier. In the early Han Dynasty, it was a font formed due to people's careless writing of official script.
After Cao Shuang finished writing, he nodded and said: "The quality of this paper is good, much better than Caihou's paper. Deheng has made great contributions to our Wei Dynasty and even the whole world. He is indeed one of the few skilled craftsmen in our Wei Dynasty!"
"
Ma Jun returned to the banquet and sat down and said happily: "No, I don't dare to take credit. All of this is the credit of the Prime Minister. Without the paper making equipment movable curtain bed paper mold conceived by the Prime Minister, it would not have been possible to repeatedly fish out thousands of paper molds."
A piece of wet paper to improve work efficiency,
Moreover, in terms of processing and manufacturing technology, after strengthening the alkali cooking and pounding, the quality of the paper can be greatly improved, and it can be made into a variety of processed papers. It is really a good thing that benefits the country and the people. The prime minister is really talented.
"
Cao Shuang coughed dryly and said, "Well, I've said it before. This is not my fault. I got it from an expert hermit."
Ma Jun asked eagerly: "May I ask, Prime Minister, where is this hermit master now? I would like to visit him in the future and ask for his advice."
Cao Shuang replied covertly: "This is a bit difficult to deal with. After all, the master Shenlong has never seen his head and tail. I can't find where he is wandering for a while."
Ma Jun said with some disappointment: "Well, if the Prime Minister has news about the hermit master in the future, he must send someone to inform Yu Pu as soon as possible so that he can go and meet with him."
Cao Shuang then replied: "Don't worry, Deheng, if there is any news about that person, I will inform you as soon as possible." Cao Shuang thought to himself, you can wait, after all, he doesn't know when such a person will arrive.
will appear, and such people simply do not exist. If they do exist, they are far away and right in front of us!
Ma Jun clasped his fists and said, "Thank you so much, Prime Minister. No matter when that master appears again in the future, I can wait. After all, such a master is just like Gui Guzi before, who is hard to come by."
Cao Shuang picked up the tea cup on the table and took a few sips and said: "Well, what Deheng said is that such a person is worth waiting a little longer, as long as you are willing to wait."
Ma Jun continued to say happily: "The second happy thing I want to report today is that the trebuchet has been successfully developed after several months of hard work by the servant and his men. But if the Prime Minister wants to test it,
We still have to go to a small town next to Jinyong City. We can't use it here, and it's impossible to transport large equipment like trebuchets here."
Cao Shuang nodded and said, "Let's go and have a look now."
Then Cao Shuang ordered the soldiers at the door: "Go and prepare some horses and call a group of soldiers in the mansion. I am going to Ajiucheng."