The village chief guarding the gate took Meng Tian's talisman and looked left and right, and found no problem, so he let him in and called for a young official to guide him.
"Take this official to see the Shaofu Cheng!"
Meng Tian was dressed in ordinary black clothes. He wore neither a crown nor a seal. He went out with only two followers, so others could not tell his identity.
Since arriving at the pickaxe pool, Meng Tian has passed three sentries. Looking at the spear-carrying soldiers patrolling the workshop, he stroked his beard and showed a knowing smile.
"Heifu deserves to be from the military, and this workshop is very well guarded."
Thinking about it, if Heifu can really do what he promised, it will be a great benefit to the country and cannot be leaked easily.
However, judging from the style of setting up camp and guarding, it is somewhat like General Wang Jian's style. It seems that Heifu learned a lot from him.
"General Wang Jian still has a keen eye." Meng Tian sighed.
On the other hand, Meng Tian had seen this bronze-skinned Nanjun boy next to Li You back then, but he didn't recognize that it was actually a piece of black jade hidden in a stone...
Compared with the first attack on Chu four years ago, Meng Tian had gone through a lot of vicissitudes. He was about the same age as the First Emperor, and his temples had already grown a trace of luxuriant hair.
But compared to Li Xin, who was ashamed, sad and angry, his hair turned white in his early thirties, and often vomited blood, what was it?
The defeat almost defeated the two of them, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers lost and seven captains dead. This was the biggest defeat the Qin army had ever experienced since the siege of Handan. If it were any monarch, they would all die.
undoubtedly!
However, His Majesty was kind and gave the two men a chance to atone for their sins. They stayed in Shangjun. A few years later, Meng Tian helped Wang Ben destroy the dynasty, and then followed him to attack the entire country. The two annihilations brought him and Li Xin back to Shao.
The upper position.
Even luckier than Li Xin, who was transferred to Beidi County Guards, Meng Tian was actually recalled to Xianyang by Qin Shihuang! This was a sign of his re-appointment. When Meng Tian came back from Qidi, he was so excited that he walked day and night and went directly to Linguang Palace to have an audience...
The position that Qin Shihuang gave Meng Tian was a young eunuch with a rank of two thousand shi. This is an important position. The "one coin, weights and measures, chariots on the same track, and books with the same text" that will be implemented throughout the world this year and next year will all be carried out by
Master Shaofu! If this can be done well, Meng Tian will be only one step away from Jiu Qing!
But his first errand after taking office was actually to inspect the Hao Po Pond on behalf of the emperor.
"Go and see for me, how is the paper that Shaofu Pobu Cheng said about it?" In Linguang Palace, the emperor read the four seal scripts presented by Li Si, Zhao Gao, Hu Wujing and Cheng Miao.
article, I am still thinking about this matter.
Although it was agreed to give Hei Fu three months, there have been many censors who have recently impeached Hei Fu for his erratic behavior.
Ten thousand yuan, most of which was used to buy rags and linen, I really don’t know what it means.
Hence Meng Tian’s trip to the Hao Po Pond.
…
The workshop was built along the pickaxe pond. The first thing Meng Tian saw after entering was the small artificially built embankment beside the pond, which divided the lake water on the shore into clear and shallow ponds. Half of these ponds were filled with wood.
The other half is soaked with hemp heads, rags, hemp stalks, etc.
Hundreds of people gathered on the shore, chopped up the swollen linen rags with axes, washed them in the water, and then put the washed linen rags on oxcarts and sent them along a straight road.
Deep in the workshop.
Meng Tian discovered that the entire workshop was long and narrow and was built along the Hao River. Every few hundred steps in the middle was a process. Each process was clearly separated, and different craftsmen were responsible for different areas.
"Is this built by the Young Master Prime Minister?" Meng Tian was surprised. He only knew that Heifu had the talent of a school captain, but he didn't know that he really knew how to make craftsmen.
The clerk laughed and said, "The Shaofu Prime Minister just shakes the cattail leaf fan and comes up with ideas everywhere. The specific planning still depends on the Mohists and craftsmen, and Zhang Jun has people build it."
"It turns out he is a hard worker." Meng Tian understood.
When they came to a place that exuded a faint strange smell, the clerk pointed to the broken hemp soaked in the stone pond and said: "This is leaching in lime water."
Folk women often use water from plant ash to degumm the kudzu, so it’s not surprising that Meng Tian is so tired.
The clerk then pointed to the workshop about a hundred steps ahead, with steam and smoke coming out, and said, "That's a cooking place, and all the ground hemp must be boiled first before it can be used."
Meng Tian watched carefully all the way, passing by the steaming earthen stove and steaming barrel, and arriving at the water hammer room full of pounding sounds. The steamed sesame seeds were pounded by the continuous water hammer driven by water power.
After hammering a thousand times, it turned into a thick paste...
The clerk said that this level is called beating. The viscous pulp is transported to dozens of large stone troughs at the back and mixed with clean water. Some people in short brown clothes hold smooth square bamboo sieves to lighten the pulp in the water.
Pick up gently.
Meng Tian stopped and looked at it for a while, and it could be seen that their techniques were not very skillful, and they often had to try many times before they could get a moderately thick and evenly distributed paper film.
Among them, the ones who are fast and accurate are actually a few gray-haired old people...
"The elders also come to serve as corvees?" Meng Tian frowned and looked at Zaoli.
"The superior has misunderstood."
The clerk quickly explained: "This process is called fishing for pulp, and it is the most important. However, there are not many craftsmen who can do it well. The Shaofu Cheng came up with an idea and hired a few people to fish in bamboo baskets in the pickaxe pond and the Weishui River.
The old fisherman who makes a living is able to catch fish steadily and well! The ten cents a day is really worth it!"
Meng Tian looked around and saw that the rags and linen heads that the Xianyang people had originally thought were caused by Hei Fu's hysteria were put into the process meticulously, and he was looking forward to the final product more and more.
"Where are Shaofu Cheng and others?"
The workshop was very long, and after Meng Tian walked for a while, he was almost at the end, and neither Hei Fu nor Zhang Han was seen.
"Right ahead."
The clerk pointed to the front and said, "The fortune teller has calculated according to the diary. Today happens to be the day when the first batch of paper is dried. All the officials are waiting there!"
Meng Tian saw it. After walking through the stone ponds soaked in paper pulp, he saw a light yellow ocean...
…
The harvested paper film was exposed together with the bamboo sieve together. It was a good day today, the blue sky was open, and the autumn sun shone unreservedly on the high ground beside the pool. Hundreds of bamboo sieves absorbed the heat of the sun.
The water slowly evaporates and rises, leaving only a thin, dry piece of paper...
The craftsman carefully peeled off the exposed hemp paper, pressed it with square stones, stacked it together, and sent it to the table.
Zhang Han, Cheng Mo, and even Zhang Cang and others were all crowded around the case. Heifu stood in the middle. He held a smooth pebble in his hand and calendered the wrinkled paper. After the calendering,
I wiped it gently on the paper with my hand. Although the back was still rough, with even visible pockmarks and cloth clinging to it, the front was at least a little smoother.
"It's done..."
After more than a month of hard work, he finally got results. Hei Fu was very happy. He rubbed his hands and was about to try writing on this piece of hemp paper when a small official took a tall middle-aged man with a thick beard on his chin and tiger eyes and a swallow forehead.
The young man was brought before them.
"Shaofu Cheng, this is an official from the Shaofu. He said he was here to inspect on the orders of the Shaofu's supervisor."
When Hei Fu took a look, he felt that this person looked familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen him before. Zhang Han had already stepped forward and bowed: "General Meng!"
"General Meng" Heifu was stunned, and the clerk was so frightened that he fell down.
How many Meng generals are there in the world? Heifu immediately realized that it was Meng Tian whom he had seen a few times from a distance when he first attacked Chu!
"Excuse me, gentlemen."
Meng Tian bowed his hands to everyone and said: "Tianchu was appointed as the young eunuch of the Shaofu. On His Majesty's orders, he came to the Hao Po Pond to inspect."
While talking, he also walked to the case, picked up the light yellow hemp paper, and after squeezing it, it was as smooth as silk cloth. It was made of rags and hemp heads, so the cost was not high, so he praised it.
: "Sen Shaofu Cheng, is this paper?"
"Exactly!"
Heifu answered with his mouth, but made calculations in his heart.
In terms of political origins, he was promoted by Li Si and his son. Because of the first attack on Chu Mengtian and making Li You the queen, Li and Meng were not on good terms. Logically speaking, he should not get too close to Meng.
But on the other hand, when he attacked Chu for the first time, he was regarded as a subordinate of Meng Tian; when he attacked Chu for the second time, he was in the Meng Wu army; when he came to Xianyang to serve as the household commander of Zhonglang, Meng Yi happened to be the general of Zhonglang; now he was transferred to Shao
Mansion, Meng Tian actually became the young eunuch of the Shaofu again...
"I am really destined to be with the Meng family!"
Heifu secretly complained, feeling that his behavior was too cold and inappropriate, and it would be more appropriate to be a normal subordinate.
So Heifu said solemnly: "I have been ordered by Your Majesty to make paper here. Now that the paper has begun to be completed, I should try it with pen and ink."
He raised his hands and offered a brush.
"The new slips must be matched with a new pen, as well as the paper. We are planning to use the pen made by the master in Yanmen, Shangjun, to write calligraphy. Since the general is here in person, the subordinates dare to ask the master to write the inscriptions and try it!