Empress Changsun finally left, but she left with a confused smile. She left gently, but left Yan Shaoning with a bomb that could explode at any time.
"Dad~, why did you agree~? My child is only eighteen years old this year, why are you so anxious?"
Seeing that his eldest grandson was gone, Yan Shaoning plucked up the courage and said aggrievedly.
"Bastard~! Queen Hong En, do you still want to refuse~? Besides, what the Queen said is exactly what I thought! You see, Xiaoxuan is three years younger than you, and now he has a family and a career. Where is your boy? ~?"
Yan Lide opened his eyes and said angrily when he heard this.
Yan Shaoning shrank his neck, wiped the spittle from his face, and glanced at Li Zexuan with a bitter look on his face. That look clearly said: Damn it, it's all your fault!
Sometimes having a friend who is too good is also a kind of trouble~!
Li Zexuan rolled his eyes helplessly, which meant: Brother, I am so good, there is nothing I can do!
Yan Shaoning almost vomited blood. If it weren't for the wrong situation, he would really want to fight Li Zexuan at this moment.
"Ahem~! Uncle Yan, I leave it to you to build the Yanhuang Academy!"
After some eye contact with Yan Shaoning, Li Zexuan felt a little bad because he felt that such an exchange was a bit gay, so he looked at Yan Lide and said seriously.
"Hmm~! No problem~! His Majesty just told you personally that the Ministry of Works will fully cooperate with you~! Fortunately, there have been no urgent construction tasks assigned to the Ministry of Works recently, so according to my preliminary estimation, the Ministry of Works should be able to give it to you Allocate 220 craftsmen who are skilled in garden construction.
Several of them have participated in the construction of Cuiwei and Yuhua palaces with me and are very experienced in the construction of buildings and buildings. As for ordinary civilian husbands, you must recruit them yourself. It is impossible for the imperial court to recruit civilian husbands for you for free~! "
Yan Lide raised his head and thought about it, then stroked his beard and said.
"Two hundred and twenty people~? That should be enough~! As for the civilian husbands, I must have hired them with my own money. Uncle Yan doesn't need to worry about it. What I want to ask is whether this kind of high-rise building can be built with the construction technology of the craftsmen from the Ministry of Works. Can it be made~?”
Li Zexuan nodded and asked.
He knew in his heart that except for Li Er and a few military commanders who were close to him who supported Yanhuang Academy, the other ministers in the court were either waiting and watching or opposed in their hearts. After all, this involved a dispute between schools. In this kind of situation, Under the circumstances, it was very impressive that Yan Lide was willing to allocate so many craftsmen to him. As for ordinary civilians, he had never expected the court to use corvees to help him recruit them for free. Since he had made up his mind to build Yanhuang Academy, he had never thought about saving money. money.
The key question now is whether the ten-story building designed by Datang can be built with its current construction technology.
Yan Lide took another careful look at the sand table, then pointed at the future teaching building of Yanhuang Academy - Guanghua Building, and said with a confident smile:
"Xiaoxuan, are you worried that this building is too high and that the craftsmen can't build it? Haha~! In fact, you don't have to worry at all. This building is only ten stories, and the total height is estimated to be no more than twelve feet. It will not be a problem to build. .
Have you seen the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Jinchangfang? That tower has twenty floors. Compared to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, although your tall building covers a wider area, as long as you put more effort into the support columns between floors, there is no problem in building it to ten floors~ ! "
The Big Wild Goose Pagoda is located in Jinchangfang, south of Chang'an City. It is also known as the "Cien Temple Pagoda". After several repairs, it has reached a height of 64.7 meters (about 19 feet), which is equivalent to the current height of 20 stories. Thousands of years ago, The Tang Dynasty can truly be described as a "skyscraper".
But the embarrassing thing is that Li Zexuan rarely goes to the south of the city, let alone the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. This is worthy of his reputation as a dead house.
"Uh, cough, cough, that's good, that's good~!"
Li Zexuan was slightly embarrassed and relieved at the same time, but he was still a little curious. Such a high floor would definitely not be built just with wood, because wood cannot bear such a heavy weight, but if it were made of masonry, the problem would be Come on, there was no cement in the Tang Dynasty, so how to build a wall~?
"What kind of materials does Uncle Yan plan to use to build these buildings~?"
Such a "two" question made Yan Lide speechless. He said: "Of course it is bricks and stones. Such a tall building cannot only use wood~!"
Being regarded as a fool, Li Zexuan's old face didn't look very good. He directly asked the topic, "Then what kind of thing should be used to stick the bricks together~?"
Yan Lide's expression suddenly became even weirder. He paused for a long time before saying: "Of course it is made of glutinous rice mortar~! Xiaoxuan, you...you don't even know this, right~? Then why do you design such a tall building? ~?"
"Well, I really don't know~! I want to design it first and see if it can be built. If it can't be built, I will think of other ways. Ahem, Uncle Yan, is this wall made of glutinous rice mortar strong~? "
Yan Lide was speechless. Fortunately, he was praising Li Zexuan for his proficiency in architectural design before. Now it seems that this guy is a complete novice in some aspects. He shook his head and said:
"Of course it's solid~! The city wall of Chang'an City is built with glutinous rice mortar. Do you think it's solid~?"
In fact, the ancient construction technology was far from as low as Li Zexuan imagined. Although there was no cement at this time, there were many substitutes.
Clay was first used as cementing material in the West, and the ancient Egyptians used mud from the Nile River to build uncalcined adobe bricks. Around 3000 to 2000 BC, the ancient Egyptians began to use calcined gypsum as a building cement material.
In 146 BC, the Roman Empire annexed Greece and inherited the Greek tradition of producing and using lime. The Romans used lime by first digesting the lime juice, mixing it with sand to form mortar, and then using this mortar to build buildings. Ancient Roman buildings using lime mortar, some of which are so strong that they even survive to this day.
Later, the ancient Romans improved the process of using lime. They mixed not only sand but also finely ground volcanic ash into the lime. In areas without volcanic ash, finely ground bricks with the same effect as volcanic ash were added. Some people call the three-component mortar "lime-volcanic ash-sand" "Roman mortar".
In the history of European construction, the application of "Roman mortar" has continued for a long time, and its performance is basically close to that of modern cement. However, during the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries AD the mortar technique was almost lost.
In ancient China, although there was no Roman mortar or cement, the industrious and intelligent ancient working people still invented other substitutes. The most widely used and longest-lasting one is glutinous rice mortar.
According to records, at least no later than the Northern and Southern Dynasties (386~589 AD), glutinous rice mortar has become a relatively mature technology.
Adding glutinous rice slurry to aged lime plaster can increase the bonding strength, surface hardness, toughness and anti-seepage properties of the mortar, and significantly improve the firmness and durability of masonry.
To this day, many ancient buildings using glutinous rice mortar, such as the ancient city walls in Nanjing, Xi'an, Jingzhou, Kaifeng and other places, as well as the fish scale stone ponds on the Qiantang River in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, are still very strong despite being washed away by wind and rain for hundreds of thousands of years.
Facts have proved that glutinous rice mortar is a building cement material with outstanding performance. The engineering quality of ancient buildings built with glutinous rice mortar is no less than that of some modern reinforced concrete buildings.
Therefore, the wisdom of the ancients cannot be underestimated, and the craftsmanship and technology of the ancients are not without merit. There are still many shining points.
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