As mentioned earlier, there are four gold-topped and white-topped temples in the four corners of the city wall of Shahai King City, and in the outer city, every common person lives in the streets and alleys, and there are also small white-topped temples, with gold-topped white towers in front and back, creating a blooming mandala shape.

The center of the two-story golden pagoda converges in the center of the inner city, and it can be seen that a tower with a higher height and larger area stands completely in the center of the inner circle, becoming the center point of the entire mandala flower.

The inner city, which was entirely inhabited by these nobles and bureaucrats, and this kind of central point of architecture, which often assumed the function of the main place of worship compared to the temples in the outer city, and was of course the highest level in terms of size and height, they no longer hesitated to walk through the streets into the inner city and came to the Futu Monastery, which was surrounded by aristocratic mansions.

The area of the whole temple is about five or six quadrangle courtyards, which must be at least 1,000 square meters, and the overall shape presents a hollow-shaped layout, and there is a gold-topped white pagoda with a height of twenty or thirty meters in the center.

This white tower is composed of five parts: the base of the tower, the foot of the tower, the body of the tower, the top of the tower, the top of the tower, the top of the tower, the top of the tower is gradually sharpened from the bottom to the top, as if it is like a tall bamboo shoot standing upward, on the joint connection point of the body of the tower, there is a slightly contracted and rounded structure, as if the five parts of the tower body are connected with the golden hoop of different sizes.

The body of the tower is the white marble masonry carving of snow white plain, there is no opening from the foot of the tower to the body of the tower, to the part of the top of the tower, only to begin to appear the golden eaves of nine layers of nesting, each layer of the eaves of the tower has the window lattice corridor of lacquer decoration, it looks very gorgeous.

The overall shape is very similar to the Tubo Floating Massacre, but it is obviously much more gorgeous than the Tubo Floating Massacre, if the Tubo White Pagoda is compared to the plain white sacred, these white towers also add the jewels, the spirit is rich, if you look at the city from a high altitude, you can immediately distinguish the high and low of the temple in the city, the main and secondary monarchs and ministers.

This golden-domed main tower is only the central white tower of the temple, around the main tower, there are several small white towers seven or eight meters high, their shape is gradually returned to normal, and they have walked all the way to the residential area white tower is no different, built in the southeast and northwest four directions, and the huge tower in the center of the tower shares the same tower base, forming a more gorgeous white tower complex.

Outside of these white pagoda complexes, a hollow-shaped white treasure tower is formed.

The form of these treasure towers is already similar to the square treasure towers in the city, the main color of gold and white, the window lattices are gorgeous, the dome of the golden helmet, solemn and solemn, the height of the three-story building is exactly the same as the base of the tower, there are also bridges in the pavilion that can lead to the base of the tower, and the bridges in the four directions form the railing of the four breads, protecting the safety of the white tower complex in the center.

According to the architectural style, this kind of floating pagoda belongs to the stupa style of the Western Regions, mostly in the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, introduced into the Central Plains through Buddhism, is the earliest form of pagoda, and the wooden structure pagoda that later generations entered and exited freely did not begin to appear until the middle of the Tang Dynasty and even the Song Dynasty.

Prior to this, whether in the south or in the north, the stupas were mostly made of stone and could not enter and exit, such stupas were rare in today's era, only in some temples on the snowy plateau, you can still see the Tibetan stupa or lama pagoda that remains of the Western Regions stupa style.

If this kind of tower is too large, it is often made of stone accumulation, and then pour mud and mortar outside to form a stable structure, and then decorate it with white marble stone or white gypsum, showing the texture of a white tower, if it is only a small floating tower high for one person, it is not so troublesome, you only need to find a huge stone, carve it into a floating Buddha style, and then apply white plaster or decorate white marble.

Stone is naturally more difficult than wood, and compared to later wooden pagodas, it has very obvious disadvantages!

Because the main material of the tower is stone, it is naturally many times heavier than wood, and the carved stone is not easier than the carved wood, and it is also much more difficult to make the parts of the tower, if it is not handled properly, it is easy to affect the stability of the tower body and the load-bearing capacity of the tower base.

In order to take into account the bearing capacity of the stone tower, the tower is often not built particularly high, and at the same time, in order to make the tower body more stable and strong, the space in the tower will also be sacrificed, and the tower is completely solid in exchange for the stability of the whole tower body, so as not to affect the solidity because of the hollow tower body.

If these two problems are not solved well, no matter how tall the tower is, it may fall in an instant.

To avoid the stone structure of the towers

Disadvantages, the craftsmen of later generations will improve the stone structure tower, formed a wooden structure pagoda, this wooden structure pagoda can be through a variety of beams, bucket arches, fir, pillars, mortise and tenon and other wooden components of the combination, to strengthen the stability and solidity of the tower body, at the same time, the use of stone foundation and wooden structure, the load-bearing pressure of the tower body is all transferred to the tower base, as long as the foundation can be guaranteed to be stable, you can add the number of tower floors at will, the highest can be built up to 100 meters of high tower.

During the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty, the craftsman who will be the supervisor built the lamp tower for Tang Xuanzong, up to three or four hundred meters, climb the tower and overlook the whole Chang'an City, if you light the lantern, it is like the golden palace Qionglou that falls from the sky to the world, it is magnificent, beautiful.

From this point it can also be shown that timber towers are superior to these stone towers in terms of stability and plasticity.

Perhaps it was the disadvantages of stone towers that began to change from stone to wood from the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the middle of the Tang Dynasty, and the two mixed for a long time, until the stone towers disappeared completely during the Song Dynasty.

After that, the pagoda or the floating tu, without the stone constraints, the tower body became more and more light, wide, stable, and there were many choices in decoration, and the pagodas of later generations became more and more gorgeous and exquisite, and the stone towers were gradually eliminated and disappeared in the historical buildings.

If it appears again, it will appear in the backyard of some temples, and the specifications are only more than one person, and there is no difficulty in making.

Without further ado, they went to the vicinity of the temple and observed the tower, but they did not find anything wrong.

Yue Guanchao asked curiously, "What did you see just now?"

Nayi's eyes became strange: "Just now I saw that the top of this tower was glowing slightly, as if some candle was lit on it, and when we got closer, the light disappeared again, and I wondered if I was dazzled."

Everyone looked near the windowsill at the top of the tower, and the nine-story golden roof did not feel like it was lit up, and the current situation became strange.

Song Siyuan looked at the top of the tower in the center and said, "The golden roof above has not corroded or produced any rust after nearly two thousand years, and it is likely that it is made of gold pasted on the outside, painted with gold paint, or simply made of pure gold."

"When we held the torch just now, it was easy to shine the light on the fire, it was as if the eaves of the tower were slowly being lit, and I saw that there were windows and corridors under the eaves, and the white tower in the center could be climbed to the top, and we could go up to see if we were looking away, or if there were any lights on it?"

Since there is such a question, it is better to dispel the doubts in their hearts, so as not to think about it a few more times in their hearts, and their backs are hairy, they bypass the treasure tower and enter the vicinity of the tower base, in the easterly direction, there is indeed a door on the tower base.

This doorway is oval and open, and it is built at the base of the tower with the eaves, and there is no access to the tower beyond the foundation.

Yue Guanchao and they approached the door on the base of the tower, the arch has been locked by the chain, the iron ring of the chain has been stretched and deformed, it is estimated that when the ancient city sank thousands of years ago, the force generated made the chain partially deformed, under the corrosion of the millennium, there was no strength to imprison the door panel, they picked up the shotgun handle, easily exploded the chain, pulled the door panel and opened it outward.

They stood outside the door for a moment and watched, and after making sure that there were no living creatures or beasts inside, they led the people inside.

Xu Xiake said, "Song Qianjin, didn't you say that people can't enter such a tower?"

Song Siyuan took a look at the surrounding situation and explained: "Although the tower can enter and exit freely, the space that can provide people with activities is not large, and the length and width of the space are only seven or eight meters, which is almost negligible compared to the width of the entire tower body, and it also confirms what I said, in order to take into account the stability, it is impossible to completely hollow out the tower, even if it is hollowed out partly, the width is limited, and it is impossible to place a whole palace like a wooden tower."

Song Siyuan said as she walked, "If it is small in size, it is completely impossible for this kind of golden-topped white tower to accommodate people in and out, but this tall tower is already more than twenty meters, and it belongs to a giant tower made of stone, and it can be maintained by its own gravity

It is also because of the large area of this main tower that it can leave space for people to go up and down in this white marble space."

"But it's just for people to go up and down, and there isn't much space after putting the stairs, in fact, there is still no space, relative to the floor space."

As they walked, they had reached the top of the tower along the narrow staircase, and if they looked closely, they understood what the structure of the top of the tower looked like.

The top of the white tower is about seven or eight meters high, and there is a stone pillar in the center to support the entire top of the tower.

The nine-story eaves they saw were all stacked on top of each other, and the window lattices and openings could lead to the outside world and near the railings.

After walking on the top of the tower, the stone pillar in the center of the tower has also come to an end, a huge platform appears at the top of the stone pillar, this platform is already the highest place at the top of the tower, only four or five meters high is left from the spire, the platform space is limited, the area is of course not large, the total is also fifty square size, there are railings around the fixed platform, five gorgeous wooden pillars bind these railings, from the position of the platform all the way to the top of the spire.

The crowd stepped on the platform and shifted their perspective to the center of the platform, where there was an object they didn't recognize at all.

This thing is a bit like a planetarium, which is mainly composed of a base, a pole, a tray, an observation circle, and a crystal ball.

The base is a giant disc three meters long and wide and half a meter high, which is completely divided into nine concentric rings from the outside to the inside, each with a certain gap between them, which looks like a whole, and the ring body is engraved with many Sogdian characters.

In the center of these concentric rings, that is, at the center point of the disc, there is a pillar the size of a bucket, about half a meter high, with dragon and phoenix shapes attached to the surface, and the surface of the pillar has made a lot of patterns that look like waves and fish scales, and this thing is the pole.

This pole and the tray at the top are completely fixed together!

The so-called tray, in fact, is similar to lying on the back, fixed on the top of the pole of the large Ruyi, the material is close to brass, the shape and the pole is very similar, are the dragon attached to the phoenix, carved scales, as if it is a slightly larger than the water tank Ruyi, with the pole as the center, divided into two ends to support the observation circle.

The most important component of the observatory is the observation circle at the top, which is very complex and consists of three giant metal rings with thick bowls.

The three metal rings are attached to each other at different angles, and a wrist-thick support rod is used in the middle to string the metal rings and fix them to the pallet.

In the middle of these metal rings, there is another crystal ball slightly larger than the water tank, which is also fixed between the metal rings, and the three metal rings are staggered from each other, as if forming a rice-shaped metal cage to hold the crystal ball in the middle.

The highlight is the crystal ball in the metal circle, this crystal ball is a little smaller than the metal circle, the size is a little close to the lid of the big pot of rice, the surface is polished very round and smooth, it looks clearer and translucent than the Yuchuan mountain stone they saw, the center is pierced by the pillar of the metal circle, and the metal circle is fixed together, if you look at the deep layer of the crystal ball, you can see that the deep layer of the crystal ball has a lot of stars that have been deliberately carved out, as if the stars of the universe are drawn in the crystal ball, which is very exquisite.

Everyone doesn't know much about this structure, and they don't know what the crystal ball is for, and they don't know what it is after observing it for a while!.

"What is this? It's kind of like a big kerosene lamp."

Yue Erpao slapped the instrument, and the metal vibrato oscillated.

"Don't move, if there's a mechanism, you'll be in trouble."

After careful observation, Song Siyuan explained: "It's a bit like a celestial objector, through these instruments, you can observe the relative positions of longitude, latitude, sun and moon, and can also be used to observe the weather.

Gu Xixi stepped forward, and her eyes lit up: "I know something, but I don't know if I guessed right."

Song Siyuan said, "Miss Gu, you can just say it and brainstorm for a while

It's much better than we want to break our heads."

"The illusionist's apparatus!"