How could there be a topic as soon as they met, Xiao Zheng said: "It's okay to be blunt."

Yan Liben gave a salute and said: "Xiaguan has walked along the construction site, there is a branch in the east of Weinan City that flows into the Yellow River, and its downstream is the Fengling Ferry, if people and goods are ferrying here, it will cost manpower and time, if you cross the tributary to build a bridge here, it can make my Tang Dynasty's national vein unimpeded, Xiaguan still wants to build a bridge somewhere, I have heard for a long time that the great personality is unparalleled in the world, and Xiaguan wants to ask the adults to go over and give you some advice."

Xiao Zheng thought for a while and said: "When I used to survey the route, I walked through that place, and since both of them spoke, then I must be duty-bound."

"I would like to ask if the new drawing methods on the construction site and the paintings on the two screens you placed at the entrance of the city gate were made by the adults themselves?".

"Yes!"

After hearing Xiao Zheng's confirmation, Yan Liben said, "On painting skills, the lower officials are also a little successful, these two painting methods are unheard of and unseen, and they look refreshing, so can you tell the lower officials about this kind of painting skills?" ”。

As soon as he and Xiao Zheng met, they dared to make such a request to Shangguan, which seemed very rude from common sense.

"Second brother, Hugh has to make a mistake" Yan Lide finished saying to his younger brother, and immediately arched his hand to Xiao Zheng and said: "Yuguo Gong, my brother loves painting, and when he sees something he likes, he feels itchy and unbearable, please bear with me if I offend the two big things."

Xiao Zheng had heard of this guy's name, he had been Li Shimin's confidant before and was transferred to the prison craftsman, and Li Shimin was transferred to the Ministry of Industry before he ascended the throne. Both of these brothers are famous painters in history, and it seems that the elder brother is more understanding of people.

Artists, it is inevitable that sometimes they will do something similar to ordinary people, Xiao Zheng said with a smile: "These two painting methods are created in the next but they are both based on arithmetic, if you are interested in the future, you can come to me at any time, we can discuss with each other."

"Then can you teach me now," Yan Liben said with a twinkle in his eyes after hearing this.

"Second brother! Let's go! You don't want to look at what kind of place this is, you have to divide the occasion" Yan Lide was a little anxious, and without waiting for Yan Liben to speak again, he pulled him up and walked out.

"Yu Guogong, wait until you have time to discuss painting skills with Guogong!" This guy was dragged out of the door by his brother, and he twisted his head and quarreled with Xiao Zheng.

Seeing the two of them go out, Du Ruhui smiled and said: "These two brothers are very interesting, my brother is usually a casual person, but this younger brother is loyal and upright, and he doesn't care about people who don't like his eyes, but these two people's Danqing skills should be the first in my Tang Dynasty."

"There are no flaws in the work, but don't ask Yan Liben for paintings."

"Why?" Xiao Zheng asked curiously.

"These two brothers are unique in the world, but they rarely paint people, they used to paint some in the court, and then they made portraits of Li Yuan. I say this, don't let your face get up and down. But then again, with your kid's means, if you can really pick out two paintings, don't forget to bring me a pair too," Du Ruhui said as he approached Xiao Zheng.

"It's not that I haven't seen their paintings, painting the Emperor so big, painting everyone else two circles smaller than him, what kind of figure the Emperor does you and I don't know? It's not such a way to highlight the characters, and when the painting is big, it's prominent? To put it bluntly, it's obvious that the proportions are not harmonious, and I don't see what's good."

"You are a fool's opinion, remember what I told you, don't sleep and forget" Du Ruhui finished speaking and left.

"That's easy, since these two guys are under my hands, they won't be used in vain," Xiao Zheng said to himself.

Early the next morning, Xiao Zheng called the Yan brothers and went straight to Weinan.

Out of the city gate to the roadbed, Xiao Zheng said to the brothers: "In the future, the greening on both sides of the road, and the planting of plants are the door to ask, the landscape stones we transported are of different colors and shapes, how to place them to make them look better, plant some plants on both sides of the road, how to distribute the level and height of these plants, these are closely related to your Danqing skills." After the two of you have finished these things, a monument will be erected, and the names of the two of you will be engraved on it, and your merits will be written" After listening to Xiao Zheng's words, the two brothers lit up without thinking about it, so they responded to this life.

When I arrived in Weinan, because of the construction of roads, the mountains east of Weinan became a large quarry, and several stone-burning kilns were built next to it.

The quarried stones are transported to the river, and the grinding wheels of the water mill grind the stone surface to smooth the surface of the stone as it is chiseled down.

"My lord's water mill can solve our big help, Xia Guan thought that grinding the stone would cost a lot of manpower and material resources, but I didn't expect it to be solved by the Lord in this way, Xia Guan admired!" Yan Lide said admiringly.

When he arrived at the kiln, Lao Zhang Shun had become the old leader of dozens of kilns, and everyone shouted Grandpa Zhang wherever he went, he had the ability to burn bricks, and what was even worse was that he was still the old man who had personally farmed with the new emperor, and he was no longer the poor tenant of the past.

When Xiao Zheng saw him, Lao Zhang Shun was jumping at the door of the kiln and scolding, and some young men who were working carried some gray stone-like things from the kiln on their backs and threw them out.

As soon as he asked what the situation was, Lao Zhang Shun opened his mouth angrily.

"These little rabbit cubs don't listen to the old man, I have long told them that the stones in Beishan are too mixed, although they can't burn lime when they leave the kiln, they just don't listen! I went to another kiln, and when I came back, they were greedy to save some effort, and they put the stone in and burned it long before I was there. I'll let you be lazy, and if you don't put the stones from this kiln on again and burn them today, no one will want to eat."

These old people are good everywhere on weekdays, and once they pay attention to their skills, they don't recognize their relatives, and they have no affection to talk about.

Xiao Zheng saw that the powder carried out by the people was a little familiar, called a folk man, took the burned stone from the basket and pinched it with his hand, and his heart suddenly became excited.

"Stop, where did you dump the stuff from this kiln?" Stopping a young man, he asked.

"Back to my lord, we're going to dump these things in that puddle not far away."

"Come with me!"

When he came to the edge of a pond, he looked at the fallen gray lump thing and kicked it with his foot, turned his head and laughed and laughed at the young men who were working: "You lazy thieves are good, you steal well!" Haha......".

I'm so happy, if I'm not mistaken, this is cement, this is a treasure that I got by accident.

Let Lao Zhang Shun take himself to the small mountain not far away to take a look, Lao Zhang Shun pointed to the hill and said: "The owner of this place is a lot of clay, and the stone color is not bad, but it is too time-consuming to pick it out, otherwise it is also a good material for burning lime."

"Old man, you listen to me, but let's improve the method, you first pound the burned limestone into a fine powder, and mix the clay here according to different ratios, remember the quantity first, and send someone to mix it into mud and form lumps after mixing with water, you let them then put it into the lime kiln according to this method and calcinate it, I won't leave today, let's get this thing well, and everyone who works will be rewarded with a hundred dollars today, haha......."

After the kiln was opened the next morning, let the workers grind the sintered lumps into powder, and Xiao Zheng added water and sand under the noses of everyone, made a tofu cube and put it in the sun to dry, and at noon to eat, handed the knotted pieces to Lao Zhang Shun.

Old Zhang Shun pinched it with his hand, fell the stone, saw that it was not broken, and was very unconvinced to find a hammer and smashed it open, seeing this old Zhang Shun exclaimed: "Owner, what is this, it didn't take long for this mud-like thing to be harder than a stone?" ”。

"Lao Zhang, this thing is called cement, don't spread the formula, don't burn lime in the future, but this cement can't be damp after the kiln, you burn this thing more, and then see if there is clay and limestone near other kilns, a few more kilns to burn, I have a lot of use."

After finishing this side, I went to the upstream of Fengling Ferry, and looked at the river surface of this tributary is very wide, and it is about 60 meters under the visual inspection.

Standing on the shore, Yan Lide said to Xiao Zheng: "If you use a boat to cross, it is okay, but it is a great obstacle to the transportation of goods and people, Xiaguan wants to build a bridge here, but the river is turbulent and difficult to stand, Xiaguan has sent someone to see, there are only two shoals in the middle that can be repaired, and the pier is just in a straight line, which is a good place to repair the bridge."

"How wide is the river?" Xiao Zheng asked.

"Twenty-one zhang, the place where the two sides meet the shore is easy to do, but the middle two religions should cross thirteen zhang. Li Chun master of the Sui Dynasty is already the top person in my bridge, the Zhaozhou Bridge built spans 12 zhang, it took five years to complete, we can't wait in time, and this place is not suitable for building bridges with stones."

Xiao Zheng glanced at the two protruding shoals in the river and asked, "Are you sure that those two places can build bridge piers?" ”。

"It's definitely no problem to make bridge piers, the lower official guarantees with his head," Yan Liben patted his chest and said.

looked at Yan Liben and said with a smile: "I like to draw, today I will teach you how to draw the picture of this bridge, and also teach you how to repair it, Master Li Chun uses stones, we use iron to repair, let's see who can ...... fast."