Tibet

The next morning, Empress Dowager Zhang issued an edict to confer the title of Regent Li Ye as the heir to the throne, and continued to serve as the Regent.

This meant that Li Ye became the official heir to the throne of the Tang Dynasty, and the only heir, taking the most critical step for him to ascend the throne.

At the same time, Li Ye was inspecting the expansion of the city with several important officials outside the East City.

The expansion of Chang'an has been going on for several months. In addition to the early land recovery and land leveling, the construction of the city wall has begun. The foundation is currently being laid, and the Ba River is full of stone transport ships.

A large amount of granite was transported from Lantian County, and the stonemasons chiseled them into large square stones, which were laid in the dug and compacted city wall gullies to form the foundation.

The construction of the city wall is very particular. First, a layer of pebbles is laid at the bottom. The soil on the foundation and the surrounding soil must be cooked, mixed with lime, and then covered with soil to flatten and compact. This ensures that the foundation will not grow grass and rats and snakes will not dig holes. This is the same as the construction of Tangzhi Road.

After laying three feet thick stone strips, glutinous rice paste mixed with lime was used as mortar for bricklaying. The bricks are also fired large blue bricks, which are very strong and durable. There is a metallic sound when knocked, which can ensure that they will last for a hundred years.

Li Ye stood on the top of the East City with his hands behind his back. Thousands of people were busy building the city wall in the distance, and to the south was the sparkling Qujiang Lake. The expansion of the city did not involve Qujiang Lake, but extended eastward from the north of Qujiang Lake.

Li Xian, the Minister of Works, introduced to Li Ye: "Your Highness, the original plan was to demolish the inner city wall after building the outer city, but now it is generally required that the inner wall should not be demolished, and Chang'an should be divided into the inner city and the outer city."

Li Ye smiled and asked: "Has the Political Affairs Hall discussed it?"

Wei Jiansu smiled and said: "Reporting to Your Highness, the Political Affairs Hall has discussed it, and everyone unanimously agrees that the inner city wall should not be demolished, but hopes to open more city gates."

Li Ye nodded, "I will not interfere with whether the city wall will be demolished. It will be decided by the Political Affairs Hall, but I hope to gather ideas and consider it more carefully."

Wei Jiansu bowed, "I understand!"

At this time, there was a noise in the distance, and hundreds of people were seen coming with wooden sticks and hoes in the distance, shouting all the way, and the crowd was excited, rushing up to stop the craftsmen from working.

Li Ye's face sank, "What's going on?"

Li Xian sighed, "These are all farmers whose land was expropriated. The government bought their land at a price of 100 guan per mu, and promised to give each household two mu of residential land in the future. At that time, they were all happy to take the money for demolition. Later, someone instigated them, saying that they were losing money by selling it at 100 guan per mu, and that it would be worth 1,000 guan per mu when it became residential land in the city, and then they started to make trouble."

Li Ye frowned, "How long have they been making trouble?"

"About two months! They come almost every day. Today is still relatively small. A few days ago, they brought relatives and friends, and thousands of people came and made a lot of noise!"

Li Ye's face became uglier and uglier, and he asked coldly, "Aren't they here to ask for money?"

" What money are they asking for? The money has already been given to them. I have confirmed that every household has been given money. "

"They are making trouble like this, and the county government doesn't care?"

Li Xian shook his head, "Of course they have come to take care of it, but the yamen runners can't beat them. Every time they come to take care of it, they beat them up."

Li Ye took out the gold medal and handed it to the guards behind him, "Go and notify the inner guards to come and arrest them. Take them all to the inner guard office and beat them with 50 sticks each. If you dare to make trouble again, you will be exiled to Lingnan!"

Soon, thousands of inner guard cavalry rushed over, murderous, and went forward to knock down more than a dozen of the most violent ones with iron sticks, beating them to pieces and lying on the ground wailing. The other hundreds of people were terrified, squatting on the ground with their heads in their hands and dared not move, and were obediently taken away by the inner guards.

The high officials of the Political Affairs Hall were stunned. When the county yamen runners came out, they were not like this. They fought desperately, beat the yamen runners to a bloody mess, and fled in embarrassment. But it was different when the inner guards came. They all became honest all of a sudden. They really feared power but not virtue.

Li Ye was too lazy to explain, and turned around and went down the city.

Li Ye then came to the Engineering School again. This was his second time to the Engineering School after returning from Youzhou. The last time he came was to inquire about the progress of the steam engine. It was almost successful, but he needed to wait patiently for a while.

Today he came to inspect the research and development of materials. There is a copper and iron materials institute in the Engineering School. Although it is in the Engineering School, it is under the Military Equipment Supervision.

The Copper and Iron Materials Institute has more than 300 students, seven professors and more than 30 craftsmen who are responsible for researching various new iron materials and copper alloys.

Their latest achievement is to refine a batch of high-quality hard steel, that is, high-carbon steel, which is used to make thousands of three-pointed double-edged swords, which are extremely sharp and comparable to Mo Dao.

Some of the inner guards have already replaced this three-pointed double-edged sword, and tens of thousands of them will be made for the border troops to use.

This kind of hard steel is of great significance. It is as sharp as the Mo Dao, but much cheaper than the Mo Dao. It can be promoted on a large scale, and it will double the combat effectiveness of the Tang army.

You can imagine that the enemy's sword can be cut off in one encounter, and there will be a one-sided situation on the battlefield.

The chief officer of the Copper and Iron Materials Institute is called Du Wensheng, who is also the junior supervisor of the Military Equipment Supervision. He brought Li Ye and other senior officials to the test room and handed Li Ye two copper tubes.

"Your Highness, please look, last time Your Highness mentioned copper tubes, we have made them!"

Li Ye was overjoyed and hurriedly took the copper tubes to take a closer look. Both copper tubes were about the thickness of an egg. One was a seamed copper tube and the other was a seamless copper tube. The seamed copper tube was easier to roll into a tube and then pour copper liquid to weld it, but the seamless copper tube was difficult and needed to be formed in one go.

"How is this copper tube made?" Li Ye pointed at the seamless copper tube and asked.

"First, make a tubular sand mold and pour it with molten copper at one time. A total of ten tubes were made, and only this one was qualified. The others all had sand holes."

Li Ye nodded and asked, "Who made the mold?"

Du Wensheng smiled and said, "Reporting to Your Highness, we asked the craftsmen who made the mold for the outer shell of the iron fire bomb in the Firearms Bureau to make it."

Li Ye suddenly realized that the craftsmen who made the iron fire bomb in the Firearms Bureau were the best craftsmen in the Tang Dynasty, including making molds, shells, manufacturing nitroglycerin and explosives, etc. Among them, the craftsmen who made molds used to make copper coin outer molds. The molds they made were of extremely high quality and could basically be cast in one time.

The copper tube was very smooth and obviously polished. Du Wensheng handed Li Ye a magnifying glass. Li Ye used the magnifying glass to carefully check the copper tube and indeed did not see a single sand hole.

Wei Jiansu stood aside and couldn't help asking: "Your Highness, what can you do with the copper tube?"

Li Ye smiled and said: "In the future, the territory of the Tang Dynasty will become larger and larger, but our army will not be enough. There is only one way. One person can do the work of ten people. If a hundred soldiers are stationed in one place, they can deal with the rebellion of thousands of people. What do you rely on? Just rely on firearms, powerful firearms. This copper tube will be used to make a powerful firearm in the future."

After that, Li Ye said to Du Wensheng: "Success is only the first step. I want to make eight out of ten like they did with the iron fire bomb shells. If eight out of ten copper tubes are successful, that is the real success!"

"I understand, I am ready. Invite these old craftsmen to give lectures and train young craftsmen. In addition, their techniques and tricks should be recorded in pictures and texts. "

Li Ye said happily: "You are right. Many excellent techniques of our ancestors have disappeared because they were not passed on. It is completely correct to record them in pictures and texts, but the awareness of confidentiality must be strengthened, especially military secrets, which must be strictly controlled. "

"Your Highness taught me, I remember it!"

"In addition, this kind of pipe for patching seams is also useful."

Li Ye pointed to the copper pipe with seams: "This kind of pipe is also needed, but not this thin pipe, but it should be made bigger and thicker. I will draw a blueprint later, and you can try it. "

"I obey your order!"