Song Juren and Fang Qing once thought that since Zhang Yuan's workshop was located underground, it must be in a gloomy and dim environment, with groups of ghostly craftsmen working hard and sweating profusely. However, when Xiao Huasheng, who led the way, really opened a stone door on the ground in a remote courtyard and led them underground, they felt that the view in front of them suddenly became clear after passing through a corridor.
They saw that in the spacious stone chamber, there were countless air holes and skylights on the top and all sides, and a lot of light was shining in. At first they thought it was empty, but when Mr. Song approached a wall curiously, he found that it was not transparent, but inlaid with crystals!
Knowing how valuable crystals are, he couldn't help but secretly smack his lips, but then he heard the emperor say, "When Prince Lu first built this villa, he claimed that he needed crystals for the temple he built for his birth mother, Concubine De. The Queen Mother thought that these crystals had been stored in the palace treasury for a long time, so she gave them to him. In the end, he used them all here. Just in this stone chamber, tens of thousands of crystals were used."
Fang Qing frowned and was about to say something about his extravagance when his foot was suddenly stepped on. He immediately glared at Mr. Song beside him. The emperor himself commented on Prince Lu, so what's the point of me saying a few words? Feeling aggrieved, he looked around and noticed that there was no damp and hot atmosphere here, and he could even feel the air flowing.
He couldn't help but pull off the sweat towel from his waist, pinched it with two fingers and raised it high. When he confirmed that the sweat towel was swaying slightly in the wind, he immediately exclaimed: "There is wind here?"
"Of course there is wind, otherwise with so many people working here, wouldn't everyone be suffocated?" Peanut glanced at Fang Qing, thinking that he was ignorant. "There is a blast furnace behind here that is specially used for iron forging. I originally wanted to move it underground, but the young master said that iron forging must ensure sufficient air and must not be placed on the ground. He also said something about combustion requiring yang energy or something..."
Peanut didn't notice that he had turned the oxygen Zhang Shou had mentioned to Guan Qiu into Yang Qi, and he said confidently, "The young master also told Guan Qiu to make more use of water power. Fortunately, this Zhang Garden was brought in by the King Lu, so Brother Guan used water power to drive the blower and pumped a lot of fresh air into here. Other machines in this workshop also use water power..."
Although he was learning and applying what he learned, and even made many mistakes, Xiao Huasheng was not afraid to show off in front of the emperor and the two scholars. Although he now lived with Xiao Cheng at Xiao's house most of the time, improving his vocabulary and reciting poems, and going to Tingyu Xiaozhu to listen to operas when he had nothing to do, it did not stop him from peeking at the textbooks distributed by the students of Jiuzhang Hall.
He couldn't understand the math that was too profound, but he secretly memorized some of the simple ones. Seeing that the three people in front of him were listening attentively, he couldn't help but feel very proud.
But the next moment, he heard a clear voice, and then he saw the three people who had just been concentrating on listening to him turned their heads almost at the same time.
"This pedal-operated grinder needs to be improved... Hey, the water flow in this garden is introduced after all, the height difference is not enough, the force is too small, and the water power that can be used is limited... Refined iron and brass are not like jade. What we want to do is not to carve jade, but to grind parts. It is too strenuous to pedal. If it is not improved, one grinder will require two people to operate. Isn't this a waste of manpower?"