Regarding the standard of wheelbase, the Tang Empire did not impose mandatory regulations on the public. In theory, you can build a carriage as wide as you like.
But most of today's carriages are not built by private individuals. Many of them are built by carriage companies. Even if they are not good, they are built by carriage workshops. The carriages they build have specifications. Unless there are special needs, otherwise, for the market, the carriages they build are also
Like the official carriage, the starting wheelbase is 1.4 meters.
After all, carriages are built for use, and most of them still need to run on national highways. If you make it too big, it won't be able to run.
Therefore, under this influence, in fact, private carriages generally use a wheelbase of 1.4 meters.
This resulted in the fact that although there were various wheelbases for carriages in the Tang Empire, 1.4 meters was a popular standard.
Whether it is a large number of military carriages, or civilian freight two-wheeled or four-wheeled carriages, or ordinary two-wheeled or even four-wheeled carriages used by wealthy people, the wheelbase is always one meter and four.
Therefore, the width of the official roads in the Tang Empire was also determined based on the wheelbase of a carriage of 1.4 meters. The wheelbase plus the necessary pedestrian space made the width of an ordinary official road equal to two meters. Of course, this is actually
This is just an ideal standard. In some mountainous areas where construction is difficult, the width of the official road is often only about 1.56 meters.
However, it must not be lower than 1.4 meters. If it is lower than 1.4 meters, it is an unqualified official, and the officials in charge will be criticized.
Some official roads are four meters wide because some official roads need to accommodate two carriages traveling side by side.
There are also official roads that exceed four meters, but they are relatively few, and they are not strictly required. Some are for military needs, such as the official roads from Tianjin to Youzhou City, and then to Xuanfu and Datong Prefecture.
, which is a typical military requirement. The minimum standard is six meters. Some road sections can even reach more than ten meters, and the road condition is quite good!
On the one hand, this is due to military needs, and on the other hand, this area belongs to the northern plain terrain, making it easy to build roads.
As for inland areas, if there is no military demand, they are mainly areas with flat terrain and low construction difficulty. At the same time, the local finances are relatively good, and if there is also this transportation demand, then wider official roads will be built.
, such as the official road from Shanghai to Hangzhou, which is a six-meter avenue, which is spacious and has a solid and flat road surface.
Northern Zhejiang and Jiangnan are both areas where there is no shortage of money, and this area is a plain area where construction is easy. More importantly, there is a huge demand for material transportation, which is why there is such a six-meter-wide official road.
Generally speaking, the official roads of the Tang Empire were still in the stage of large-scale construction. Many official roads continued to use the official roads of the pre-Ming Dynasty, which were said to be two meters and four meters in standard. However, in fact, many places did not carry out the construction at all.
As for expansion, currently there are only some projects that are easy to build, have military needs, or have relatively loose local finances, and have completed official road expansion and new construction projects.
However, even some sections of the road are still official roads built in the former Ming Dynasty, but they are still usable, just not that easy to use.
Among the four supervision teams, some of them took boats to go south along the Yangtze River, and then went north through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, while others directly crossed the Yangtze River and then went north by land. They all took boats or horse-drawn carriages, and even took direct rides on some sections of the road.
They are riding horses, so the speed of the supervision team is also very fast.
This is not going to work soon. They have to rush to their respective mission destinations to supervise local officials in flood prevention and control. If it is too late, it will be a big trouble.
Li Xuan attaches great importance to this flood control. The leaders of these four supervision groups are all the third-rank censors of Qiandu of the Inspectorate, and they have been given certain temporary powers. The censors of Qiandu,
In the Inspectorate, they are the officials who usually inspect the provinces, not ordinary officials.
When they went to the local area, they were able to greatly intimidate local officials.
The Inspectorate is responsible for the 'inspection' aspect, while guidance is provided by officials sent by other parts of the cabinet, including officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry and other departments, to guide local officials in technical details on flood prevention.
Fight floods.
After the supervision team went to various provinces, Jinling City was not idle either. Many ministers began to mobilize a large amount of various materials to go north, especially the vital food, which was the top priority.
The Tang Dynasty Grain Corporation, which is responsible for providing and carrying some of the tasks, issued an order and asked its provincial highway branches to prepare a large amount of grain as well as ships and carriages for transporting grain, and then a large amount of grain began to be transported to the north.
And go to strengthen local food reserves for timely disaster relief.
Of course, although Datang Grain Corporation is an enterprise under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises and a very typical policy enterprise, it is still an enterprise operating according to a business model. Although they provide so much grain, the official still has to pay.
.
It's just that you don't have to give it immediately, you can owe it, and the price is only the lowest cost price.
Food is transported north, and other materials are also transported north one after another.
Although the flood has not yet come, the Tang Empire has mobilized almost half of the empire to prepare for flood control.
On May 3rd, in Fucheng, Huai'an Prefecture, Ji Lingda, a Taoist from Jiangbei Province, looked at the report in his hand and the heavy rain falling outside. His intuition told him that he was in big trouble this time.
The report in his hand was urgently sent from the capital. In addition to the weather forecast from the Royal Institute of Technology, there was also an imperial edict. The imperial edict required him to pay close attention to the weather and take measures to prevent and control floods. It also said that the local garrison
It will provide assistance for flood prevention and relief work.
If it only rains locally, then it is not a big problem. Although Huai'an Prefecture is in the Huaihe River Basin, it is in the lower reaches. If there is not a lot of floods in the middle and upper reaches, it just rains heavily locally. The flood control dams in various places in Huai'an Prefecture can still handle it.
living.
However, this time it rains not only in Huai'an Prefecture, but also in the entire Central Plains, especially in Henan. It is expected that there will also be large-scale heavy rains. This rainwater will collect into the Yellow River and continue to flow.
Along the river, it hits the dams on both sides, and if it rains locally, floods are inevitable.
Immediately, Ji Lingda called over his subordinate officials and ordered them to go down. The subordinate state governments immediately organized flood prevention and relief work. In order to reduce the time wasted by holding meetings and discussions, he went directly, and the orders were directly conveyed to all counties and towns.
Subordinate states, prefectures and counties do not need to hold meetings to discuss matters, they can just follow the instructions.
And his instructions are very clear, that is, all localities must immediately organize flood prevention and relief work, mobilize and recruit local people to urgently strengthen dikes, dredge rivers, and at the same time transfer people in flood-prone areas to safe areas.
No matter whether it rains in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, or whether it rains in other places, it is always right to be careful. What's more, there are clear instructions from above to prevent and fight floods. In the end, even if it is nothing,
, it was a false alarm, but no one would accuse him of wasting manpower and material resources.
Following Ji Lingda's order, all the prefectures and counties under Huai'an Prefecture quickly moved into action.
Although the Tang Empire was founded more than ten years ago, the unification of China only happened in the past seven or eight years. The empire is in the early stages of its founding, and its administrative efficiency is quite high. It cannot be said that it will be the same as those dynasties that were established a hundred years after its founding.
After the mid-term period, the entire regime fell into a period of laziness, with many messy problems.
Nowadays, in the local government offices of the Tang Empire, most of the officials are working hard for promotion and political achievements, because everyone is not stupid. They all know that in the early years of the founding of the country, it is the easiest time to get ahead. In a few decades,
, after the class is solidified, it will not be so easy.
Of course, a large part of the reason for the high administrative efficiency is that most of the civil servants in the Tang Empire today are officials trained by themselves. These officials have learned all kinds of modern knowledge, so they have just entered the officialdom and have no practical experience.
But the theoretical foundation is basically there, and with a little training, you will be a qualified official.
Today's scholars and even officials in the Tang Empire are not those scholars who only knew how to do it in the past!
The same scholars, the scholars of the former Ming Dynasty and the scholars of the Tang Dynasty, have become completely different concepts. Of course, the people are still the same group of people, but the things they have learned are different.
Jiangbei Province took the lead in starting flood control work, while Henan Province was a few days later. There was no way, no matter how fast it was to rush 300 miles or even 500 miles, it would still take time!
By the time the Post Office delivered the imperial edict to Henan, it was already several days later.
But the strange thing is that when Xiao Baoguan, the governor of Henan Province, saw this urgent report and the imperial edict, he felt a little weird!
Want to prevent floods?
Could it be that my eyesight is wrong?
The sunshine outside is very strong. Even though it is early May, there are already signs of midsummer in June and July.
In such sunny weather, you asked us to start flood prevention and control, and we took action immediately without any delay. At the same time, the scale was very large, and the entire province had to be mobilized.
This is so good, how could there be a flood?
However, despite some doubts in his heart, he had to pay attention to the weather forecast of the Royal Institute of Technology. After all, this was the Royal Institute of Technology, and every report they submitted could not be taken lightly.
Not to mention, the weather forecast was accompanied by an imperial edict.
The imperial edict clearly stated that he should immediately mobilize the entire province for flood control.
Now that there is a report and an imperial decree, even if he does not believe that there will be heavy rains in the next month, he still has to do it honestly, otherwise, let alone his official hat, he will not be able to save his head 100%...
…
Disobeying an order is a serious crime, even the death penalty is the lightest, and it is very likely that your family will be affected!
Today's Tang Empire still retains the joint sitting system. For certain crimes, "if one person commits a crime, the whole family will be executed."
Therefore, regardless of whether he believed it or not, he had to follow the instructions of the imperial decree honestly. Therefore, as soon as he received the imperial decree, he did not dare to delay at all, and immediately ordered the entire province to mobilize for flood control.
And coincidentally, he had just ordered to mobilize all the people for flood control that day. It started to rain in the evening of the next day. It was just light raindrops at first, but it got heavier and heavier in the middle of the night!
That night, Xiao Baoguan, the governor of Henan Province, stayed up all night because the rain was so heavy!