There are many buildings with hard tops on the top of Shule City, and all of them are very grand. The dome-shaped flat-roofed houses are located on low terrain. The terrain of the city is high in the north and low in the south. The residence of the Shule garrison envoy is sparse.
The Lejun Administration Office and the Shule Governor's Mansion are both located in the north of the city. They are almost side by side, but their architectural styles are very different, with spires, domes, and mountain tops.
Chui Lu walked through the crowd and arrived outside the gate of the governor's residence. He was patiently waiting for a group of people to chat with General Li when the ugly follower Feng Changqing in the queue suddenly waved to him.
He led the horse over suspiciously, putting his two heads together and muttering.
"Let's go in through the back door. General Li will probably have to deal with these people at the front door for a long time."
"That's right, I listened for a long time and didn't find a single useful word."
Feng Changqing said from the side: "These words are useless to you, but they are useful to them. These polite words in the officialdom can quickly shorten the distance. Let's leave without saying anything."
They walked around the two alleys of the mansion wall and moved to the back door, which was an inverted-chamber-style entrance hall with a small dome and a small arch. It was now wide open. Entering was the backyard of the mansion. To the northwest were two rows of stables.
There are more than a dozen horse troughs.
Chuulu was not surprised by this. When he was in Chang'an, Shi Xin Khan's mansion was much bigger than this. Unfortunately, it was now empty and empty, and it would be dilapidated in two years. Thinking of this place, he shed tears of sadness.
Feng Changqing led the horse into the stable, then stood in the yard with his chest crossed and said, "It's a shame to have such a big yard. We should open up a place to set up a draftsman's target and practice martial arts."
Chuulu nodded with deep understanding.
At this moment, in the front yard, Li Siye had just sent away a group of Shule Town officials, leaving only Zhao Chongxuan behind. The two of them entered the hall and sat opposite each other in front of the table.
"I just came to take office and I don't know much about the situation in Shule Army. General Zhao often serves here. Please give me your advice."
Zhao Chongxun hurriedly crossed his hands and said: "I don't dare, general, but I have an assignment, so Chongxun doesn't dare to resign."
"That being the case, in a few days I will go on a tour with General Zhao to inspect the cities, forts, beacons and post stations under the jurisdiction of the Shule Army."
Zhao Chongxun hesitated for a moment, thinking that the road was not close. Shule Town had the largest jurisdiction among the four towns in Anxi, with fifteen states under its jurisdiction. There were also five or six states with garrison guards, and the furthest away was Congling.
The journey through the mountains was difficult, so he must have really wanted to see them all.
Li Siye seemed to have guessed what Zhao Chongxuan was thinking, and said with a smile: "There is no need to go to Congling. Except for Congling, you should take a look at all the places where troops are stationed. I will have a good idea."
"That's fine," Zhao Chongxun said with a slightly red face and crossed his hands, "I'll go down and get ready."
"What else are you preparing?" Li Siye said with his hands behind his hands: "You and I each have one horse and only bring a few days of dry food and fresh water, and at most a few followers are enough."
"Okay, I will do as you please."
Zhao Chongxun stood up and crossed his arms to say goodbye. Li Siye stood up to see him off and stopped at the stone lamp in the yard. Zhao Junshi turned around again and saluted, then took two steps back and walked around the willow tree at the door to leave.
Li Siye turned around and walked back to the main hall. He lowered his head and thought slowly. He suddenly looked up and saw the screen placed at the back of the hall. It was a shelf made of poplar wood. There was a plain white silk cloth sandwiched in the middle of the shelf. He could vaguely see it against the light.
opposite.
He took off the short knife from the belt around his waist, pried open the wooden frame with mortise and tenon, and pulled off the white silk cloth. The Twelve Nianglian stepped into the hall and saw that Li Siye was about to attack the furniture and hurriedly stepped forward.
He stopped me in front of me: "Li Lang, it's a good screen, why did you destroy it?"
"I want to use this piece of white silk."
Twelve Niang said slightly angrily: "If you want white silk, I can go to the market and buy you one. I also want to ask a painter to paint a picture of Chang'an spring scene on this screen."
While tearing the silk cloth, he said: "This screen is not grand enough and is not worthy of the beauty of Twelve Niangs. When I hire a carpenter to make a bigger one for you in the future, I will paint the Taizhen Temple of Chang'an Xiudefang on it."
Twelve Niang raised the corners of her lips and snorted. She took the initiative to help Li Siye gather the silk cloth and asked, "What do you want this silk cloth for?"
"Of course, we need to draw an accurate and detailed map, at least to draw Shule City and the surrounding areas." All the maps of the Anxi Protectorate were drawn by people, and they are not precise, and some places are even
He wanted to take advantage of this time to visit various cities with Zhao Chongxuan and draw a complete picture of the defense and geographical conditions of the Shule area.
However, Twelve Mother's concern was not here. She slightly closed her eyelashes and asked quietly: "Are you leaving the house and going out of the city again? Are there any important things that have not been done before leaving the city?"
Li Siye took a deep breath and answered the question seriously: "There is indeed something important that has not yet been done. It is a lifelong event for Twelve Niang and I. However, I just took office and rushed to get married to have a double happiness. It will make people think that
I harmed the public for my own personal gain, which resulted in a bad reputation."
He pinched his thumb and little finger to comfort Twelve Niangs: "Wait until I take care of this trivial matter in Shule Town, and then I can come back and handle our big things with peace of mind."
Li Siye has already mentioned this, and Twelve Niang is too embarrassed to mention it again. She has recently been reciting Ban Zhao's "Female Commandments" and learning to be a good wife and mother in advance. Just like what the housekeeper Wu in the mansion said
, a woman who does not have a mother-in-law suppressing her head should put a steelyard in her heart and clarify her position and responsibilities.
Of course, these words were not coined by a vulgar woman like Aunt Wu. When she was young, Aunt Wu once served as a maid in a branch of the Cui family in Qinghe. She once heard an old grandmother named Zheng scolding her granddaughter-in-law, and she said this with great aura.
These words made Aunt Wu remember them as the words of a sage for a lifetime. Decades later, Aunt Wu forgot many things, but she could not forget these words, and she never forgot to show off that she had worked in the house of the Cui family in Qinghe.
Li Siye rolled up the white silk with four bamboo sticks as a scroll, and ordered his servants to call Feng Changqing over. He stood in front of the hall and asked him: "Do you brag that you are very talented and can draw maps?"
"Of course I can draw. In the past, my grandfather and I used charcoal as a pen to draw the map of Hu City on the city tower of Hu City. It is certainly not a problem for me."
Li Siye waved his hand: "A small Hu city is nothing. What I want you to draw is a map of the entire Shule Town area. The map needs to be precise and the location is accurate. Every mountain, every river, every beacon, and even
The location of every station and every well must be drawn, and the error must be no less than five feet."
Feng Changqing solemnly crossed his hands and said: "General, you can't teach me this. Chang Qing once read the fragments of "Yugong Regional Map" by Pei Xiu, the prime minister of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and he also knew a little about the six aspects of cartography.
The second is called quasi-looking, so it is the correct relationship between each other. The third is called Daoli, so it is the number of determination. The fourth is called high and low, the fifth is called Fangxie, and the sixth is roundabout. This is
Each of the three is adapted to the local conditions, so the differences in risk are also different."
"If this is the case, I'll be relieved. I'll travel with you in three to five days and be responsible for redrawing the Shule defense map." After Li Siye finished speaking, he threw the scroll in Feng Changqing's hand, "This is the silk cloth of the map.
, you can bring it with you and prepare your horse to travel with me tomorrow."
Feng Changqing held the silk cloth in both hands and said hesitantly: "If you are just surveying the map within the jurisdiction of Shule Town, I can use the method of recording squares. However, to measure the mileage, you need to use a recording cart."
, in the entire Tang Dynasty, there was only the Yellow Riding Department in Taipu Temple. If you don’t have a mileage recorder, you can use the method of walking and visual inspection, but the accuracy is far behind."
The squares drawn in this note are actually the scale commonly used in modern maps. Lines are used to draw a grid on the map, and the map is drawn by dividing an inch into ten miles or a hundred miles. It was Pei Xiu of the Jin Dynasty who first proposed the method of drawing squares.
It is not easy to pass it down. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty when Confucianism was prevalent and practical knowledge was shelved, it was already remarkable that one person in a million knew this cartographic method. I have to say that Chang Qing's knowledge was really profound, which made Li Siye think.