Chapter back to Chang'an

At the beginning of August, the imperial court issued an edict to order the eastern capital to stay behind, and the crown prince Zheng Zheng was the ambassador of Fengxiang Town, and the general leader of Fengxiang Town's various matters.

Zheng Zheng thanked the court, and expressed the martial arts envoy Zhang Chengye as the supervisor of Fengxiang Town, and the deputy ambassador of Jiedu; His son Zheng Ningji is the government of Fengxiang Town; The personal guards of the Flying Dragon Army commanded Zhou Rui, Qian De'an, Xiahou Haoyue and other three people for the Mabu army of Fengxiang Town.

In addition, Zhang Qingping, the commander of the right army of the Weiyuan Army, was specially listed as the training envoy of the Weizhou regiment in Fengxiang Town for his meritorious service in pacifying the chaotic army in the Huaqing Palace. He is in charge of the Weizhou regimental training and training of the new army.

Emperor Li Yi allowed Zheng Yi to play and issued an order to reward the generals.

A few days later, the official family sent the envoy to the home of Zhang Zhifang, the right military envoy of the Weiyuan Army, to announce the decree that Princess Changning would marry her son Zhang Qingping, the envoy of the Weizhou regiment, and give a house in Guanghua as the princess's mansion.

After the news spread in the court, there was a lot of discussion in Chang'an City. Among them, the most important is two news, one is that the Zheng clan of the Zheng clan in Yingyang has completely fallen to the faction of King Ji Li Bao.

Because the lintel of the five surnames like Zheng actually betrayed the backbone and ethics of the five surnamed Gaomen because of his power, he really lost the face of the world's high-ranking families, so many people in the court spurned Zheng Zheng's personality.

Among the people who spurned the Zheng family was Cui Xin, the prime minister of the Political Affairs Hall, the youngest son of Cui Xianggong was also implicated and scolded because he had an in-law relationship with Zheng Xianggong's granddaughter, so the angry Cui Xianggong broke off the letter of exchange and broke the marriage contract with the Zheng family.

After hearing the news, Zheng Yan was overjoyed, and she was stunned to pull the nurse Yunniang to jump for half a night before falling asleep. Li Bao, who also got the news, was even more regretful, he had already collected a lot of this young son of the Cui family, it was a pity.

The second is that the right army of the Weiyuan Army made Zhang Zhifang's father noble by his son, and this time he was able to marry King Ji, the power of the Zhang clan can be expected, and the future of the new Weizhou regiment training envoy Zhang Qingping is even more limitless.

In addition, people suddenly noticed a new name from the news in the court, Zhang Chengye. How could this eunuch of the inner palace, who is usually inconspicuous, suddenly be able to take the high position of deputy ambassador of Fengxiang Town? Does he have a relationship with Zheng Jiedu or does he have a relationship with Li Bao, the king of Ji?

Of course, these speculations are meaningless, and now the rumored big celebrity, Zhang Chengye, is kneeling in front of Li Bao, the king of Ji, the eunuch of the inner palace who is over thirty years old, because he is about to leave the town and is excited because he is entrusted with a heavy responsibility.

Li Bao picked up Zhang Chengye and asked him to sit opposite, and there were Zhou Rui, Qian De'an, Xiahou Haoyue and others in the room, all of whom were going to follow Zhang Qingping to Weizhou to take up their posts.

After Zhang Qingping was appointed, he had already gone to Weizhou to take office, Zhang Chengye, Zhou Rui and others belonged to the second batch of people who were promoted, and they all had families to carry, so they set off later.

Li Bao said to everyone: "This to Weizhou, is a starting point for our business, but also our foundation, Weizhou is located between Fengxiang and Tubo, but here Longyou Road throat, is the Silk Road town of Lanzhou's gateway, but this state is more mountainous and hilly, not conducive to farming, so we for Weizhou positioning as a handicraft city. ”

When Li Bao was about to continue, Xiahou Haoyue stopped him, "What does the king mean by the handicraft city?" I don't quite understand. ”

"Da Lang asks well, if you don't understand, just ask, this is what a self-motivated person should look like, you can learn more from him in the future." Li Bao pointed to Zhou Rui and Qian De'an.

Xiahou Haoyue saw that Li Bao praised him so much, and immediately touched his head with his hand, and laughed. The smugness on the black face almost fell to the sky. Zhou Rui and Qian De'an also felt that this guy was very good at playing treasures.

"Is this handicraft city a workshop in our first village, which is specially made to make various items and armor, etc., all of which need to be done manually, so this is called handicraft.

The land in Weizhou is scarce, and when there are more people in the future, we will open more workshops, and sell the items made to us, and our state government will sell these things to the business travelers in thought, and then buy food from other places to feed the workers in our workshops. ”

Li Bao explained his idea in such detail to his henchmen who were about to go to Weizhou, mainly because he couldn't get out of Chang'an City for the time being, and at this time he could only teach his thoughts to smart people like Zhang Chengye and Zhou Ruiqian De'an.

Moreover, Zhang Chengye is loyal, and Li Bao is so impressed by Zhang Chengye in the history books of later generations, that is, this person is very good at farming.

During the five dynasties when the Liang and Jin were fighting for hegemony, the Hedong Army charged outside under the leadership of the Jin king Li Cunqing, and Zhang Chengye worked hard in the rear, and finally the Jin king Li Cunqiao destroyed Zhu Wen's Liang State with the help of Zhang Chengye.

Therefore, Li Bao proposed to Zheng Zheng to let Zhang Chengye serve as the military envoy and serve as the deputy ambassador of Jiedu. But Zhang Chengye's true identity is the history of the Weizhou assassin.

But Zhang Chengye is a eunuch and cannot hold a civil official position like Assassin Shi, fortunately, Li Bao has already made an agreement with Zheng Jin, so Li Bao gave Zhang Chengye an official position to confuse the eyes of the outside world.

After Li Bao found Zhang Chengye a few years ago, he never let him hold any important positions, just because he wanted to temper and cultivate him more.

Now is the time to employ people, but Li Baosheng is afraid that his ideas will not be implemented, so he called Zhang Chengye, Zhou Rui and others over today and taught them a lesson in person.

So Li Baochun chattered all morning, and then had lunch with them before sending everyone back. Because he was in the palace, it was inconvenient to go out of the palace to see them off, so today's luncheon was equivalent to practicing it for them.

When everyone was sent away, Li Bao didn't take a nap, he took Hu Sanbao and then rushed to the general as a prisoner, and the hot air balloon was almost made now. The sphere is almost ready, and the airtightness is good.

As for the ignition device, the craftsman who will be the supervisor has already produced the first version according to Li Bao's drawings. Li Bao went here to see how effective the spit fire oil was.

There is also the need for him to coordinate the progress and give an explanation to Emperor Li Yi with this. This big thing is not made in a day or two, it contains a lot of hard work by Li Bao, and he is also looking forward to this thing.

When he arrived at the prison commissioner, Hu Yunda didn't have time to greet Li Bao, so he was waved back by Li Bao to the hot air balloon research institute where he would be imprisoned.

Yan Mingli and the other craftsmen only saluted Li Bao slightly when they saw Li Bao coming, and then plunged into their tense work.

Nowadays, the summer is at its peak, and most of the craftsmen are shirtless and wearing calf nose pants, sewing, pulping, and sticking each process to perform their duties in an orderly manner.

Li Bao is also very considerate to the artisans, and mung bean soup and ice cubes are served openly. In addition, special rewards are given to craftsmen who have made outstanding contributions.

Li Bao also explained to them that as long as the hot air balloon can be perfectly lifted into the sky, he will play the official family, and then he will issue medals to everyone. Everyone was greatly encouraged to hear this, and few people cared about what the medal was.

Li Bao took a turn in the ball factory, learned about the progress, and asked if there were any problems, Hu Yunda assured that there was no problem, and it could definitely be completed in the near future.

Li Bao praised Hu Yunda after hearing this, and then he followed Hu Yun to the smelting workshop, which was another important component manufacturing yard for hot air balloons.

This fire-breathing device is very similar to the bellows used by the people, first sucking the oil from the oil tank into the giant spray barrel, and then pushing the movable rod to spray out the fire oil in the spray barrel, continuously heating the hot air balloon to achieve the purpose of lift-off.

Such a set of decorations requires someone to constantly push and pull the flamethrower, so it is quite tiring to fly once. But this is not a problem, it is very simple for the emperor to make the summoning people not sleep.

The most important thing is how much this hot air balloon can carry is the key, so the design drawings given by Li Bao should be as big as possible, for fear that the ball skin will be small and the buoyancy will not be enough.

Therefore, the dimensions of the first hot air balloon in the history of the Tang Dynasty: 15 meters long, 13 meters wide, and 15 meters high, became the standard for the production of the new empire in the future.

If future generations knew that the Shenwu Emperor of the year had only made the sphere into such a strange shape close to a cube because of uncertainty, they would definitely have doubts about the great talent and sage wisdom of the Shenwu Emperor.

If the volume is calculated in this way, it is nearly 3,000 cubic meters, and the weight of the object that such a big ball can carry, Li Bao is not clear, and others are even less clear.

Therefore, Li Bao must know the load capacity of this hot air balloon before showing it to the emperor, and then he can make better use of this hot air balloon.

In order to better adapt to the launch of the hot air balloon, Li Bao specially asked Hu Yunda to make five ignition jet devices according to his drawings according to the diameter of the spray barrel, which are different in weight and of course spray different in flames.

Li Bao asked the craftsmen to line up the cast and flame-breathing devices, and then ordered the craftsmen to ignite the fire-breathing devices to test the life and fire-breathing performance of these devices first.

Li Bao gave an order, and after the craftsmen lit the fire, the five flamethrowers each sprayed a foot long flame. A few feet away, looking at the raging flames, I felt steaming, and I could imagine the craftsmen who tested in front of the flamethrower.

After a short time, from these five flamethrowers, it was found that the spray barrels were large, laborious, and did not last long enough. Therefore, Li Bao selected three small spray barrels to continue the fire test.

Half an hour later, Li Bao stopped the test. Li Bao has conducted long-term experiments and concluded that manpower can push and pull the spray barrel in the air for a long time, but the time cannot last too long, and an hour (half an hour) should be the limit.

In addition, the air pressure and air temperature in the upper air are thinner, which is also a consideration. However, the hot air balloon has just been made, and it must not fly high, but Li Bao still asked Hu Yunda to record his test method as a test procedure for new products in the future, and use it as a result