The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 46 "Thousand Miles of Ears"

October 10, sunny, Chang'an Royal Academy of Sciences.

"I heard that a while ago, a well-educated scholar from the Qin Dynasty made everyone in Qi State speechless when he refuted it?"

Qi Weiyuan, the Crown Prince of Daqi, reached out to pick up a beaker on the experimental table, looked at the small half bottle of unknown liquid inside with interest, and then gently shook it a few times, and several different colors immediately appeared.

"Your Highness, this is about debating classics and Confucianism. How can those Chinese scholars from Qi State be the opponents of Qin people?" Kong Dingwen, the head of the Royal Academy of Sciences, took two steps forward and carefully took the small beaker filled with liquid from the prince's hand. He came over and put it on the experimental table again, "Those people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should invite those Qin people to the Academy of Sciences and ensure that none of them know how to speak!"

"Don't use these strange and obscene things from your Academy of Sciences to taint the eyes of the learned Confucian scholars of the Qin Dynasty!" Qi Weiyuan smiled and teased: "Dean Kong, I am very curious, are your ancestors descendants of Confucius in Shandong? There is no reason. You have lost your ancestors’ knowledge and come to our country, Qi, to get these messy things!”

"According to my grandfather's mention, our branch is really the descendant of Confucius, but it belongs to a branch as far away as possible. Otherwise, my grandfather would not have been able to live in Penglai and then board the immigration of Qi State. The boat traveled all the way across the ocean to Hanzhou." Kong Dingwen shook his head and said: "As for the knowledge of our ancestors, I am ashamed to say that I really know very little about it. I am afraid that Confucianism such as Jingshi Ziyi is not as good as Chang'an A student in college.”

"Well, it depends on the prosperity of culture. After all, our Qi State has insufficient foundation. Compared with Qin State, it is really far behind." Qi Weiyuan sighed and said: "I'm thinking about next year's cabinet budget. It’s not about leaning a little towards culture, education and Chinese studies. In this way, we can increase support for the development of Qi’s cultural undertakings and prosper the domestic cultural market.”

"Your Highness, Emperor Taizu once said that science and technology are the primary productive forces." Kong Dingwen was immediately anxious after hearing this, "As for the development of the cultural market, let it take its course. Our Qi State has only been in existence for more than 80 years, and its historical heritage is still If it is not profound, even if it is given more support, it may not be able to compare with the Qin State. The ancients said that if you have a solid warehouse, you will know the etiquette, and if you have enough food and clothing, you will know the honor and disgrace. As long as our Qi State's science and technology continue to advance, and the industrial and agricultural economy continues to develop, this style of writing will naturally prosper , there is no need to encourage its growth and artificially promote its development. With all this extra funds, it is better to invest them in our Royal Academy of Sciences. Maybe we can create some beneficial technologies and inventions for our country every year. "

"Dean Kong is suggesting to me that he wants the royal family to increase the budget allocation for the Academy of Sciences next year?" Qi Weiyuan smiled.

"Your Highness is wise." Kong Dingwen said with a smile: "Many of the research projects in electromagnetics, chemicals, metals, smelting, materials, medicine, as well as the improvement of steam engines, internal combustion power, etc. have reached an extremely critical stage and require a lot of manpower and material resources. Provide active support.”

"Dean Kong, although the royal family's annual income has been increasing year after year, various expenses are also extremely huge. Almshouses, mutual aid societies for the disabled, women's aid societies, local and overseas disaster relief aid, royal weddings and funerals, honorary ministers Rewards, whatever does not consume a large amount of royal funds. In this case, your Academy of Sciences also needs to plan carefully and act within its capabilities. Don't just be greedy for more and always ask for an increase in the amount of funding."

"Your Highness, Emperor Taizu once said..."

"Okay, okay..." Qi Weiyuan interrupted Kong Dingwen with a wry smile, "Dean Kong, don't always use Emperor Taizu's words to pressure me. As for next year's allocation amount, the Royal Financial Management Committee We will carefully review and make a ruling based on your research project. Tell me, our royal family earns tens of millions every year, but my father wants to build a Taiyi Palace, but it hasn’t been built in ten years. Isn’t this all because of lack of money? Well!"

"The Taichu Palace is fine, why do we have to build another palace?" Kong Dingwen muttered in a low voice.

"When farmers in the countryside have money, they all know how to build a new house and enjoy themselves. Shouldn't our royal family spend some money to build a palace and a villa to improve the living environment?" Qi Weiyuan said angrily.

By the way, decades ago, when the State of Qi was building the imperial palace in Chang'an, it fully drew on and referred to the layout and design of the Forbidden City in Nanjing and the Forbidden City in Beijing, and added a large number of planning requirements of Emperor Taizu, making the entire Taichu Palace appear grand and grand. , and perfectly integrated with the mountains and rivers geography, it can be called a model of palace construction.

However, in order to show the majesty of the emperor, this palace continued the traditional layout of Chinese palaces, that is, sitting north and facing south, overlooking all living beings.

However, Hanzhou is located south of the equator. With the layout of the palace facing north and south, all the doors and windows of the palaces will be open to the south side facing away from the sun, giving people a dark and depressing feeling.

When it was first built, some people felt it was inappropriate. However, considering the royal traditions of the past dynasties and the fact that many architectural elements and layouts of this palace were designed by Emperor Taizu himself, they chose to keep silent and keep their heads down. The construction is completed.

Two emperors, Taizu and Taizong, successively moved into this palace. Although they both felt that this layout was a bit awkward, neither of them were particularly particular people, so they continued to live here holding their noses.

Of course, the doors and windows of many palace rooms in Taichu Palace use a large amount of transparent glass, which can still ensure sufficient indoor light. During pilgrimage, etiquette, daily office work, and living and resting, there is no need to worry about the dark interior making it difficult to see clearly.

When Emperor Taiping succeeded to the throne, he had the idea of ​​building another palace and planned to build a more spacious residence.

Actually, there were no hard and fast rules for the geographical layout of the palace more than 1000 years ago, and it had to be built in a north-south layout.Then why do most palaces face north and south?

Because the north position is the emperor's position.

"The Duke of Zhou returned to power and became king, and the ministers took their positions in the north."

"Wang Nanxiang, Sangong goes north to the east."

"The Son of Heaven should stand in peace, and when the princes look to the north and see the Son of Heaven, they say "Honor."

The emperor is in the north position, facing south, and the ministers are in the south position, facing north. The north and south positions were originally the positions of the emperor and his ministers in ancient times.In ancient times, the imperial power was strengthened all the way, so the north-south direction representing the throne of the monarch and his ministers would continue to be consolidated.

In the Western Han Dynasty, Chang'an was facing west to east, but from the Eastern Han Dynasty, it became a north-south layout, and it has been this layout in most cases since then.

But there were exceptions in later dynasties.

When Zhao Gou rebuilt the Song Dynasty and established Lin'an as the capital, he built almost the entire palace on Phoenix Mountain - well, this layout should have defensive considerations (after all, Zhao Gou was also afraid of the Jin people), which was to sit South to north layout.

You know, before the Song Dynasty, the layout of the palace in Kaifeng City was from the north to the south. Now that Zhao Gou has arrived, it is from the south to the north. How can we explain this to our ancestors? After all, the north position is the honorary position!
The people of the Southern Song Dynasty had their own way. They developed a set of omen metaphysics. "The mountains come from the northwest, like dragons flying and phoenixes dancing, rising down to Phoenix Mountain...the omens are when the east capital is a mountain."

Just look, no matter which way the palace faces, you can actually find something to talk about.

Later, most of the Mongolian and Yuan capitals also had a south-to-north layout, but what they considered was the development of the water transportation system and economy.

Therefore, the setting and orientation of the palace are closely related to the geographical environment, external environment and policy purposes of the location. The so-called etiquette culture is only one of the influences.

A country like Qi that did not attach much importance to traditional feudal etiquette and culture would naturally have to build a new palace based on the geographical environment of Hanzhou to reflect the charm of a great country.

The north position is respected?

Oh, in this era, strength should be respected!
"Dean Kong,...oh, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!" A senior academician of the Academy of Sciences rushed into the room with an ecstatic look on his face, "Over there in Longyuan County (today's Charlton Town, Toowoomba City) Just received a reply! After coding and translation, it can be confirmed that the information sent by both parties is accurate, word for word. ... The Thousand Miles Ear Project was a success!"

"Your Highness!" Kong Dingwen was overjoyed when he heard this, and turned to look at Prince Qi Weiyuan, "Our Academy of Sciences has finally made the legendary Thousand Miles Ear a reality today!"

"Hahaha..." Qi Weiyuan laughed. He came to the Academy of Sciences today just to witness the successful trial operation of the "Thousand Mile Ears" project.

For decades, from electromagnetic theoretical research to physical development, the "thousand-mile sound transmission" mentioned by Emperor Taizu was finally achieved.As the future successor of the empire, no one understands better than him how positive and significant the successful test of this telegraph machine will be in maintaining Qi's effective rule and continued colonial expansion.

"Big awards!... All researchers on the Thousand Mile Ear project will receive heavy awards from the Royal Science Foundation. Moreover, I also recommend that this project apply for this year's highest Royal Scientific Achievement Award. At that time, His Majesty will personally award them honorary medals to comfort them. achievement."

(End of this chapter)