"... To report to the Governor, His Highness the King of Wei, I led the people to follow Kangqu to Jiningfang in the west of the city. I did not find anything strange about him, nor did I see him coming into contact with anyone on the road. I asked them to People are hiding near his house and watching secretly. If there is any news, report it immediately!"
Taiyuan City, the back hall of the governor's mansion.
Feng Baotou strode in from the outside and cupped his fists at Wang Liaoyuan and Li Tai who were inside.
At this time, only Wang Liaoyuan and Li Tai were left in the house. As for Dugu Feiying, he took the weapons scattered by the assassins in the morning and cooperated with the soldiers from Bingzhou Camp to search for the assassins in the city. Wang Yu naturally I have to go back to the Wang family to make some arrangements. After all, when it comes to finding people, especially in Taiyuan City, the Wang family's ability and strength are not weaker than those of the government.
The main reason why Li Tai hasn't left yet is that he is waiting for news from the people following Kang Qu.
Wang Liaoyuan frowned and asked, "You mean Kangqu has a house in Jiningfang?"
"Yes!"
Feng Baotou replied.
Wang Liaoyuan continued to ask: "Have you found out when he started coming to Taiyuan City to do business?"
Feng Baotou cupped his fists and said: "My subordinates learned through inspections that Kang Qu came to Taiyuan City three years ago. He opened a treasure shop in the city, specializing in selling gems and pearls. His business has been good over the years, and he is a good person. It can be regarded as an honest duty. Last year, he just married a wife locally. The woman was the daughter of a squire outside Taiyuan City, named Xu Xiuhe. After the two got married, they fell in love, and nothing unusual happened! "
Wang Liaoyuan frowned and remained silent, while Li Tai asked aloud: "Have you asked the neighbors in Kangqu whether any strangers have visited him or sent him letters today~?"
Feng Captou nodded and said: "Back to Your Highness, I asked an aunt who sells cooking cakes in front of Kang's house. She said that today in Kang's house, besides Kang Qu, there is only one old farmer who delivers food. The food has been in, but no one else has been in or out of Kang's house!"
"The old farmer who delivers food~?"
Li Tai's heart moved and he quickly asked: "Where does this old farmer come from? Have you checked?"
Feng Captou had obviously done a good job in his "work" during this trip. After hearing this, he clasped his fists and replied: "My subordinates have asked, this old farmer turned out to be a farmer in Nanhe Village outside the city. He has a son who lives in the city and was born this year. He moved into the city and lived with his son, and basically every few days he would deliver food to Kang Qu's house, nothing unusual!"
Hearing this, Li Tai couldn't help frowning and saying nothing.
When Wang Liaoyuan saw this, he waved his hand to Feng Baotou and said: "You have done a good job on this matter. Go down first! I and His Highness have important matters to discuss!"
"Here~!"
Feng Baotou hugged his fists and bowed to leave.
Li Tai raised his head at this time, looked at Wang Liaoyuan and said: "Prince Wang, I still feel that there is something wrong with this Kang Qu. You have people continue to keep an eye on Kang Qu. If anything unusual is discovered, report it to me immediately!"
Although Kang Qu looked normal on the surface, Li Tai's intuition told him that Kang Qu must be hiding something behind his back!
Wang Liaoyuan has been an official for so many years, so he still has the vigilance he should have. He himself also felt that Kang Qu seemed to have some problems. After hearing this, he nodded and said: "Okay! The lower official will make arrangements for it!"
Li Tai nodded, stood up and said, "In that case, I'll leave this to Governor Wang. I have other official duties to attend to, so I'll take my leave first!"
Although Duguxin has been assassinated, and although the assassin lurking in the city has not yet been caught, the academy's task of building a telegraph relay station must still continue, and even be accelerated, because Li Tai does not know how much resistance he will encounter on the road ahead. At the moment, he can The faster, the faster, otherwise it is very likely that the task will not be completed within two months!
Wang Liaoyuan's heart moved, and he cupped his hands and said: "The hidden dangers in the city have not been eliminated. It is best for Your Highness not to move around in the near future. If Your Highness insists on going to Longshan, you can bring the Imperial Army and Bingzhou Dayingfu soldiers there!"
Obviously, Wang Liaoyuan also saw that Li Tai would not "stop" because of the assassin, so he warned him.
Li Tai nodded and said: "Yes! I know! I will be careful!"
After that, Li Tai put his hands up and walked towards the door.
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Today's Taiyuan City is destined to not be peaceful.
In fact, Taiyuan City has not been peaceful in the past two days. Yesterday, both the bright and dark sides of the Wang family came out, frantically searching for Zhu Xiesheng and Kang Changan in the city. Yesterday, Taiyuan City was in full swing; today, the 10,000 soldiers and horses from Bingzhou Camp were scattered throughout Taiyuan City. In a corner, they were searching for something from door to door.
After these sergeants entered the people's homes, they searched the house without asking any questions! The homes of butchers and hunters were the focus of searches. All the knives, arrows and other weapons hidden in their homes were found by the sergeants of the Bingzhou Camp.
Then I saw one of the sergeants take out a blueprint from his arms. On the blueprint, various weapons were drawn, and a specific pattern was engraved on the weapons. The sergeant looked at the weapons found on the ground from people's houses, and at the same time looked at the drawings in his hands, as if comparing them.
After the comparison is completed, if there is nothing unusual, the sergeants will leave without saying a word; if the weapons found have similar patterns to those on the drawings, the owner of the house will be arrested and sent directly to the Governor's Mansion!
There are a total of fifty-six residential buildings in Taiyuan City, with a population of more than 400,000. Ten thousand government soldiers searched every house. The amount of "work" is not small.
This was in the early Tang Dynasty. The military discipline of the Tang army was still very strict. As the most powerful military camp in the northern part of the Tang Dynasty, Bingzhou Camp had extremely strict military discipline. Although the soldiers were searching house to house, they were still very strict during the search. According to the rules, the owner of the house is usually asked to gather the female family members in one place before they enter the house to search. Therefore, although the search by the government soldiers caused some inconvenience to the lives of the people, in general, the people in Taiyuan City Most of the people still support the "work" of the soldiers.
Of course, there are always exceptions to everything. Not everyone is willing to cooperate with the search by the soldiers. Some wealthy families in the city are often not very willing to let the soldiers go in and search. After all, they all have big families. If the soldiers If we broke something when we went in to search, the loss would be huge!
Furthermore, wealthy families have many secrets. If the soldiers discover something shameful about the owner of the mansion during the search, wouldn't it be a huge loss?
Therefore, when the owners of many high-ranking families heard that the government soldiers were coming to search, they couldn't help but want to instruct their servants to stop the search. However, today's search warrant for the whole city was issued by Wang Liaoyuan, the governor of Bingzhou, and Gongteng, a member of the military camp of Bingzhou. The highest-level military and political officials in Bingzhou have jointly issued the search order, and the government soldiers will execute this search order unconditionally!
Those wealthy servants who wanted to obstruct their search were all knocked to the ground by them. If the owner of the house still did not know how to appreciate it, he was directly arrested and sent to the hospital together with those who had hidden suspicious weapons in their homes. Go to the Governor's Mansion.
As a result, for a while, Taiyuan City was in a state of chaos.
At the same time, Longshan's side seemed not to be affected by Taiyuan City's side at all.
According to the division of labor assigned by Li Tai in the morning, members of the fifth and sixth groups took measuring tools and began to survey the buildings inside and outside Longshan Tongzi Temple.
The measuring tools they took were all from Yanhuang Academy. At the beginning of this year, the academy's second and third "killer projects" were officially approved. The second "killer project" aims to improve the telegraph machine and increase the transmission distance of telegraphs. The third "killer project" is mainly to formulate measurement standards. , Make standard measuring tools!
After nearly half a year of hard work, the academy not only established its own measurement standards committee to formulate unit standards for some new physical quantities, but also collaborated with Qiquge Workshop to produce a batch of precision measurement instruments. These instruments will provide a standard reference for all similar instruments in the future, and they will be calibrated once changed!
The measuring instruments held by these students on Longshan include rulers, large set squares, and even tape measures. The units of these instruments for measuring length are not the "inch", "chi", and "zhang" commonly used by the people in the Tang Dynasty. , but the new units proposed by the Academy's Measurement Standards Committee based on Li Zexuan's wishes - "millimeter", "centimeter", "decimeter" and "meter"!
Although one centimeter on these length-measuring rulers may not be strictly equal to one centimeter on those modern rulers, it is not important. In ancient times, if you want to carry out precision production, you must carry out the ancient measurement units. In terms of subdivision, the smallest unit of length at this time is one inch (approximately equal to 3.333 centimeters). This obviously cannot meet the needs of precision production, so Li Zexuan not only proposed millimeters, but even smaller units such as microns. Over at the Academy We are also currently manufacturing vernier calipers and other more precise measuring tools!
"Mr. Mo, we have already measured the inside and outside of the Tongzi Temple. We believe that the height here fully meets the construction requirements for a telegraph relay station. We can even build the telegraph relay station directly in the second-floor Zen room of the Tongzi Temple. This way First, we don’t need to build an additional high platform for the telegraph relay station, and we can have a lot of time left~!”
Near noon, eight students from the fifth and sixth groups approached Mo Chui. One of the students handed the drawing in his hand to Mo Chui and reported the report seriously.
Mo Chui reached out and took the drawing and looked at it carefully.
When the students were surveying just now, they drew the structure of Tongzi Temple according to a certain proportion. The dimensions of each key place were marked. Anyone who understands the new engineering drawing method invented by Li Zexuan can basically understand it at a glance!
"Well! Very good! Your judgment is correct. Considering the height of Longshan and the first floor of Tongzi Temple, it is completely feasible to establish a telegraph relay station in the Zen room on the second floor! But where should this generator be placed? Pang Sheng, have you ever thought about it? ?”
After roughly scanning the drawings, Mo Chui nodded with approval, and then asked again.
Telegraph machines need electricity, and telegraph relay stations naturally also need electricity, and batteries must not be used. After all, the "life" that batteries can provide is limited, so they can only rely on small power stations.
The construction of a hydroelectric power station is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so what they brought from the academy this time was a small thermal power station. This was also the first thermal power station in the history of Datang!
"Mr. Hui Mo, as for the power station, it must not be placed inside the house, otherwise water will leak easily. We think it should be placed in the backyard to the north of Tongzi Temple. The space there is spacious and convenient for the imperial guards to guard. It is more convenient than placing it outside Tongzi Temple. Safety!"
The student named Pang Sheng replied.
"Yeah! You've considered it very comprehensively!"
Hearing this, Mo Chui nodded and praised: "In that case, immediately notify the members of the second, third, and fourth groups and let them start preparing to build the thermal power station! Remember to measure and adjust the voltage when the time comes. , otherwise the voltage will be too high and our machine will be easily burned out!"
"yes!"
Pang Sheng and others nodded in agreement, then turned and left.
"Mr. Mo Chui, how is the situation here?"
At this time, Li Tai also came to Longshan, walked to Mo Chui's side, and asked.
As soon as he came out of the Governor's Mansion, he didn't even go back to the post house, but came directly to Longshan with more than a dozen imperial guards. Taiyuan City is now full of soldiers from the Bingzhou Camp. Li Tai is not worried that someone will jump out and assassinate him at this moment. If this is the case, he will have to breathe a sigh of relief, because although the number of imperial guards around him is small, But everyone is a person with strong martial arts. Even if he can't win for a while, he can still be temporarily held back. As long as he can be held back for a while, the soldiers in the city will definitely come over and arrest the assassin!
Hearing the familiar voice behind him, Mo Chui was startled. He turned around quickly and saw that it was Li Tai. He breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Pang Sheng and the others have completed the survey. We all think that the telegraph relay station can be built directly here." The Zen room on the second floor of Tongzi Temple, right now I am asking Jia Jiayin and Li Yan to lead people to build a thermal power station in the backyard of Tongzi Temple!"
Hearing this, Li Tai looked vaguely excited and said: "Okay! It would be best to build the telegraph relay station directly in the Zen room on the second floor of Tongzi Temple. In this way, we can have a lot of work left over and a lot of time! However, this thermal power station was only successfully tested initially in the workshop. Now that we want to put it into practical use, there may be some problems! Let's focus on making the thermal power station run smoothly in the past two days. !”
"Well! Qingque, your worries are not unreasonable! Just do as you say! After we adjust the thermal generator this time, we can save a lot of trouble next time!"
Mo Chui nodded when he heard this, then he frowned and asked with a worried look: "By the way, Qingque, how is General Dugu's current situation?"
When he, Li Tai, Dugu Feiying and others went to Longshan in the morning, they were "chased" by the imperial army halfway. Therefore, Mo Chui knew about the assassination of Dugu Xin, but in order to avoid causing panic, he did not tell anyone about it. said the rest of the students.
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