Chapter 1004: Take Out the Best Treasure (Part II)

The mountain col where Chengjiaao is located is adjacent to Xishui in the east and Ba River in the west. Comparatively, it is a little closer to Xishui, just a hill to the east. However, this big mountain - five miles up the mountain and five miles down the mountain. It takes five hours to walk from the mountain path to the river.

In the past, the mountain people in the village had no awareness of water transportation at all, and they liked to cross mountains and mountains when entering and leaving the village. The main reason for the formation of this habit is that there were few people in the village and the demand for external transportation was not strong. However, with the development of the village, the external transportation capacity has gradually become a bottleneck for development.

Building roads in mountainous areas was a major project, and it was almost impossible to build a mountain road leading to a nearby county town at the level of productivity and financial resources of the villagers at that time.

If you can't build a road, build a boat – build a simple winding road to the river, and then build an improvised wharf, and you can do it. So, Zhao Xing started the idea of shipbuilding.

At this time, shipbuilding was a very complicated business, and the mortise and tenon joints between the planks were so complex that the mere calculation of their inlays was enough to drive a skilled carpenter crazy. In line with the strategy of being as simple as possible, Zhao Xing directly skipped the mortise and tenon structure and connected the plate with long nails, which reduced the amount of work to a minimum. Unintentionally, he took the road closest to modernity.

The wooden boat has been built, and it has been tested three times before, and this time Zhao Xing plans to go farther and sail all the way to the nearby county seat. If this move is successful, the next step is to mobilize the villagers to build roads, and the improvement of external transportation will definitely change the appearance of the mountainous area.

The wooden boat lay on the shore, and the children began to happily push the boat into the water. They were thrilled by the beautiful scenery depicted by Zhao Xing, and their enthusiasm for work was very high.

To be honest, now this finished ship is more like an open wooden box than a "ship".

Zhao Xing is not a shipbuilding engineer, he built a ship for the first time, and he only managed to make such an ugly shape with great effort.

Fortunately, Zhao Xing is from the information age, and he still remembers several key points in shipbuilding.

He remembered that a shipbuilder needed to build a keel first, so a large tree was sawn down to make a keel up to 15 meters long, and then thick wooden strips were installed on the keel to make ribs, and then boards were nailed between the ribs...... This is the ship built by Zhao Xing!

He knew that if the fastening joints were not tightly connected, the boat would seep into the water, so he made thick teeth between the planks, similar to the grooves on the edges of modern "laminate flooring......

He knew that the planks needed to be dried in the shade to prevent the ship from deforming, so he roasted them over the fire and left them to dry in a shed by the river for a whole year......

He knew that the stern of the ship had to be like a fish's tail to control the direction, and he also knew that the rudder could adjust the direction of the ship, so the boat became a large wooden box with a slightly pointed bow and a slightly narrow stern......

The ship did not have a mast because Zhao Xing would not make a mast......

Fortunately, the current is not turbulent, and the sail becomes dispensable, and sailing is a technical job, and it cannot be mastered after a few years of study. So Zhao Xing gave up his efforts to make sails.

The ship's three trials were all across the muddy water to the opposite shore. On the calm and waveless muddy water, it is not difficult to maneuver inshore, but its cargo capacity is far beyond expectations.

Zhao Xing roughly estimated that it could carry nearly five tons of stones. Thinking that modern flat-bottomed sand boats are even made of cement, but they can pile up goods high and carry fifty or sixty tons of goods, Zhao Xing believes that even such a simple wooden box can transport a month's output from the village at a time.

That's enough.

On the third pole of the day, Zhao Xing pushed the boat down the riverbank. When the snow melted in the spring and the water level was at its highest, a dozen or so students jumped on the boat with shouts of joy......

In fact, it was an extremely risky voyage: a teacher who did not know how to operate a boat, a group of ignorant children, without knowing the hydrological conditions, drove a lonely boat into the spring stream.

The scenery is very beautiful, but Zhao Xing has no time to appreciate it.

Near-shore voyages are not the same thing as long-distance voyages. The wooden boat drifted along the river, and the rushing river made a noisy sound, and the wooden boat rose and fell with it, and the children who had been calm immediately panicked, and they could not stand steadily.

After several people fell into the river in a row, they realized that the river was not deep, and the teacher was fully capable of rescuing them to stabilize their emotions...... But don't count on them.

After tossing for a long time, the boat was re-attached to the shore and drifted down the water, so that the children were in the mood to enjoy the scenery on the shore. But at this time, Zhao Xing wanted to cry without tears.

Zhao Xing's planning for this first voyage was an effort to integrate into the outside world. Chengjiaao is a mountain village suitable for seclusion, but not for development. Coming from the modern society, he knows the importance of information exchange, and only by constantly communicating with the outside world can Cheng Jiaao fully integrate into this era.

He has been in this world for three years, and for three years, he has been hiding in Cheng Jiaao to carefully test the outside world. Now that the wound had been licked, he was eager to see the outside world.

Although the life in the mountain house is very idyllic, but "Party A and Party B" has revealed this truth, the superior life of the master misses the life of the educated youth when he joined the queue, but when he really arrived in the village and stole all the chickens in the village, what he missed most was to return to his original life.

Zhao Xing is in this mood now.

For this era, Zhao Xing is an outsider; However, for the people of the Song Dynasty, Cheng Jiaao was also an outsider in this era. So Zhao Xing must get out of Chengjiaao.

He seemed to be in a bit of a hurry, expecting the mountain boys to become familiar with the boat at once, which now seemed so ridiculous.

The boat struggled around the mountain cols, and in the evening, Xishui County could be seen in front of it.

Xishui was originally called Xishui, changed to "Xishui" in the Southern Liang Dynasty, and was also called Lanxi in the Tang Dynasty, and Qishui in the Song Dynasty. Zhao Xing likes to continue to call it by the name "Xishui" because the "Hubei map" he has on hand is still marked with Xishui.

Qishui is a county-level unit under the jurisdiction of Huangzhou. Along the Xishui, the end of the river happens to be Huangzhou Mansion. At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, Huaixi was on the front line, and the Southern Song Dynasty set up the Huaixi Xuanfu Division and built Qizhou City in Qichun, so "Qizhou" appeared......

It is said that there is a famous doctor named Pang Anshi living in Qishui County. Although Zhao Xing has gradually gotten rid of the identity of a "famous doctor" and often appears as a "teacher", as the original "ravine doctor", he has a natural sense of timidity towards the "famous doctor of the county", for fear of being caught and asked about medical theory, so as to expose his true face, so he never entered Qi (Xishui) County in the past.

But now he has to go into the county, and the Xishui Wharf is on the edge of the city. The children's skill in handling the boat disrupted his plan, and he had to direct the children to sail the boat into the dock.

As the ship docked, the boatmen were watching the odd ship. The boat is very long, the shape is very strange, its appearance subverted the inherent concept of the boatmen, they could not imagine that such a large wooden box with a pointed bottom can actually move, but it is still driven by a few dolls who do not know how to operate the boat at all, seeing the children in a hurry, they can't help but jump into the water, wading in the boat to help the children dock the boat.

"Hey, a few children, who haven't grown their hair, are also coming to rob us of our jobs?" A young boatman teased. He was about to say a few more words, when he saw Zhao Xing at the stern of the boat, he immediately stopped talking.

This person's popularity is extraordinary, and he looks like a reader, but he doesn't dare to laugh easily. After waiting for a while, seeing that Zhao Xing was not displeased, they fixed the boat and asked the child in a low voice: "What kind of boat is this, so weird?" Who made it? ”

The children's answer was full of pride: "We made it, the drawings drawn by the teacher, we made it ourselves!" ”

"Look at these children, you can get it!" The boatmen exclaimed in unison.

Zhao Xing wondered, is this ship very strange?

He didn't know that the length and width ratio of the ships at that time was very small, such as the Song ship "Nanhai No. 1", which was salvaged out of the water, with a length of more than 26 meters and a width of more than 10 meters, with a length-to-width ratio of about 2.5:1. The length-to-width ratio of the ship he built was close to 7:1, the shape of the shuttle, and the whole body was streamlined, which is beautiful in modern times, but it does not conform to the aesthetics of the era.

"I need a few boatmen", Zhao Xing interjected: "Going upstream, the children can't cope, but we need to sail the boat back, which of you is free, I'll hire him." ”

A man dressed as a captain jumped on the boat, shook his body from side to side, felt the stability of the ship, and immediately became even more shocked: "This ship is stable...... No wonder a few ignorant children can sail it to the water. ”

Zhao Xing stood behind the boat and smiled. The boatman on the shore coughed dryly and accosted the child: "Where are you from?" We can't fly at night tonight, how about we leave tomorrow? ”

"We belong to Cheng Jiaao", the children finished speaking, turning their faces to Zhao Xing. Zhao Xing replied: "Then let's stay, is there a place to stay near the wharf?" …… 50 Wen per person, walk together, come back when the lamp is held, and do not run around. ”

The children let out cheers, and the ship's 40-year-old captain stopped to inspect and asked, "Cheng Jiaao?" That ten-family village also fiddled with the boat? ”

Zhao Xing's heart was full of a sense of failure, and he finally understood that no matter how simple a boat is, it is a technical job. Without the help of the boatmen, the boat may not be able to return to its starting point - sailing against the current, and more skills are needed. He sighed and walked out of the stern, and said to himself helplessly: "Wrong, it seems that I was wrong...... Well, you have a good eye on this ship, how much do you need to be paid, say? ”

The boatmen looked at Zhao Xing suspiciously, and one of the young boatmen pulled the sleeve of the penny master and said softly: "Cheng Jiaao, I heard that Cheng Jiaao has a new teacher, my lady mentioned it earlier, could it be this showman?" ”

Zhao Xing didn't answer, he looked at the boatman suspiciously, but at this time, the children had already preemptively asked: "How do you know the name of my teacher?" ”

Cut! This sentence confirmed the boatman's speculation.

Because Zhao Xing's origin is mysterious, Cheng Tong issued a gag order to the Cheng clan early on, prohibiting the clansmen from talking about Zhao Xing in front of outsiders. Zhao Xing knew Cheng Tong's order, so he was puzzled - the spread of information in ancient times shouldn't be so fast!

The penny master immediately bowed his hand respectfully to Zhao Xing, crossed his hand without leaving the square inch, and replied respectfully: "Xiao Lao'er's neighbor, who married Xiao Niang into Cheng's family last year, gave birth to Xiao Niang at the beginning of the year. The mother-in-law next door rushed to give birth. I heard her say that Cheng Jiaao invited a teacher, this teacher is very capable, and the doll will plan for the Cheng family...... It turned out to be Mr. The little old man is polite. ”

This is a kind of etiquette, which is to bow and say a blessing - similar to the Japanese who bow and shout "hey". And "forked hands do not leave the square inch" is also a Song Dynasty etiquette, which refers to the natural cross-stacking of two hands on the chest. This etiquette is often seen when listening, to show that you are listening respectfully.

Zhao Xing shook his head: The paper really can't contain the fire. With the passage of time, he will inevitably be frequently mentioned by outsiders, and it is useless to continue to "be cautious in words and deeds", and now he needs a new identity.

What identity should I use?

Zhao Xing stepped ashore and walked aimlessly along the street. The penny master hurriedly guided him all the way and took him to the inn. People of all colors along the way rushed home in the twilight. However, there was a strange man: an old man, who seemed a little crazy, who had no intention of going home, kept tugging at the sleeves of passers-by, whether high or low, and nagging them, some stopped to talk to him, others brushed away.

The children found Zhao Xing's gaze, they were more curious, and they didn't learn to control it, and before Zhao Xing could speak, Cheng Shuang, the son of Cheng Lao Wu, pointed to the crazy old man and asked the boatman: "Who is that?" What happened to him? ”

The master glanced at it, and immediately led the child into the alley, and replied disapprovingly as he walked: "It's nothing, that old man is a guest of Doctor Pang, and he often comes to Xishui, and every time he goes to the street like crazy, grabbing passers-by, and asking people to tell ghost stories."

When the passer-by finished telling the story, there was no more story to tell, and he said, 'You can make one'...... Later, everyone avoided him. Only some uninformed people were caught by him...... Ah, he must be telling him ghost stories again. ”

Zhao Xing paused for a moment, wanting to look back, but immediately kept up with the children's pace.

Isn't this Pu Songling in the Song Dynasty? …… Oh, no. Pu Songling was in the Qing Dynasty, and he should have imitated this person's behavior in the Qing Dynasty - who is this? Is it famous? Why did Pu Songling imitate him?