I

  Chapter 357 355 [Conspiracy in Sichuan]

   "The grand ceremony has been cancelled?" Everyone in the Dudu Mansion was surprised.

Zhao Han said: "Issuing documents internally and posting notices externally, that's enough. It's just to establish yourself as a king, and it's not about enthroning and proclaiming emperor. Let's keep everything simple. Save money and food, and send it to Shandong. "

   No one persuaded me, I had to obey.

  Although Zhao Han brainstormed and was willing to accept various opinions, once a decision was made, the nine bulls couldn't pull it back.

  Various decisions, not quite right, often appear out of place.

   There are some mistakes, Zhao Han is willing to correct them.

   There are some mistakes, and he will not correct them. Zhao Han always believes that he is right.

  The officials of the Dudu Mansion have long been accustomed to this. As long as it wasn't something particularly outrageous, after Zhao Han made a decision, they didn't even bother to persuade him.

  It is obviously not a big deal to establish yourself as a king without engaging in rituals.

"Don't attack Henan. A piece of white land, millions of hungry people, it will be a quagmire," Zhao Han sighed. "Don't attack Jiaodong again. Next year, we will only attack two places. One is to attack the Grand Canal in Shandong." Along the route, one goes to Sichuan along the Yangtze River."

  Li Banghua said: "The southern Sichuan salt field must be taken down."

   "Taking the southern Sichuan salt field, and then attacking Chengdu in the north, there is another important grain production area." Xu Nianzu said.

  Zhao Han asked: "Who would like to be an envoy to subdue Chieftain Shijie (Qin Liangyu)?"

  Xu Nianzu cupped his hands and said, "I wish to go."

   "Do you know General Qin?" Zhao Han asked.

   "I don't know." Xu Nianzu said.

  Zhao Han suddenly laughed: "Then you can go."

  Xu Nianzu asked: "What conditions can you offer Shi Jie Chieftain?"

Zhao Han replied: "First, the chieftain of Shijie was changed to Tuguiliu, and will be changed to Shizhu County in the future; second, the old lady is old and probably won't live for a few years, so she was made the magistrate of Shizhu County; third, the land The policy remains unchanged, each of the Ma family and the Qin family retains 20 acres of land; fourth, if members of the Ma family and Qin family still want to join the army, they can temporarily form the Shizhu Independent Regiment. The number of troops must not exceed 3,000, and Missionaries must be placed, and we will provide the food and salaries for the soldiers.”

  Xu Nianzu said happily: "Since this is the case, I will be able to persuade Chieftain Shi Jie to surrender!"

  Zhao Han is now poor and crazy, with more than enough money, but food is always stretched.

  There are too many places that need food. This year, the southern provinces suffered from floods. In the first half of the year, Guangdong suffered from droughts throughout the province. Even the grain merchants in various provinces don't have much grain in their hands, but ordinary people's homes are still stockpiling some.

  Facing the famine, Fei Ruhe and Zhang Tieniu are confiscating grain from grain merchants in Shandong.

  How much can the grain merchant have?

  Under normal circumstances, the sum of the grain stocks of all grain merchants in a certain place, through high price screening of customers, can maintain some people in the city to live until the grain harvest season next year. As for those who have no money to buy high-priced food, they will starve to death!

   That is to say, even if all the grain from the grain merchants was confiscated, it would not be enough to rescue all the people in the city, let alone save all the people outside the city.

  Zhao Han is trying his best to mobilize food and clothing, and transfer and organize officials to move to Shandong.

   To send troops next year, Zuo Liangyu must be attacked first!

  Although Zuo Liangyu's territory was also affected by the disaster, the area along the Grand Canal can barely support it.

   As for the attack on Sichuan, there are no more than two goals: grain from the Chengdu Plain and silver from the southern Sichuan saltworks.

   After discussing the details again, everyone went to work on their own.

  Qian Qianyi and Liu Rushi then met and brought the first version of Qieyin (Pinyin) plan.

  Qian Qianyi reported: "After repeated discussions and revisions, the original seven tones were changed to five tones, namely: Yinping, Yangping, Shangsheng, Qusheng, and Rusheng."

  Zhao Han nodded and said, "That's good. Five tones are more concise and easier to promote than seven tones."

  If you compare the tones of modern Chinese, Yinping is equivalent to one tone, Yangping is equivalent to two tones, Shang tone is equivalent to three tones, and Qu tones is equivalent to four tones—just equivalent, not absolutely, and there are some differences.

The    symbols have also been formulated: Yinping (ˉ), Yangping (ˊ), Shangsheng (ˇ), Qusheng (ˋ), and Rusheng ().

  Liu Rushi said: "Qieyin has been set, but the correct pronunciation of the text is still being fabricated, mainly because the tones of some texts are controversial."

   "Yes, take your time to determine the pronunciation of the text. You come from different places, and it is normal to have disputes about the tone," Zhao Han said, "As you determine the pronunciation, make up a dictionary at the same time."

  Qian Qianyi is very obedient now, and asked, "What instructions does the governor have for compiling the Dictionary?"

  Zhao Han said: "First, it is easy to understand, try to compile it in vulgar language and avoid using classical Chinese; second, it is easy to search, and it takes a long time to search for a word."

  Qian Qianyi said: "It is easy to compile popular texts, but it may be difficult to make them easy to search."

  Zhao Han took out a pen and paper, and demonstrated in person: "One is to search by phonetic notation, and sort according to the initials and finals; the other is to search by radicals, to sort by horizontal and vertical strokes. If there is no specific radical, it is sorted by the number of gestures alone."

  After Zhao Han finished explaining in detail, both Qian Qianyi and Liu Rushi couldn't help being amazed.

  This set of search methods is not only twice as efficient as the existing search rules. For some complex and rare words, the retrieval efficiency may be hundreds or thousands of times higher!

  Really, looking up rare characters in ancient times, you can look up a word for a day.

Zhao Han also said: "When compiling the dictionary, the simplest folk characters are selected as the orthographic characters. If there are other ways to write this character, they will be listed later. The content of each character is divided into: orthographic, phonetic, interpretation, For example. Interpretation can be divided into: original meaning, quotation, metaphor, escape, etc. Each word meaning must be given an example to let people know how to understand and use it.”

  Zhao Han is tantamount to laying down the rules for compiling a dictionary, and the rest is action.

Simply took it out, Zhao Han wrote a set of punctuation marks, and said: "Today's sentence breakers are nothing more than commas and sentence circles, which are extremely unfriendly to beginners. You can add book title marks, question marks, quotation marks, colons, etc. I plan to print the new version of "Datong Collection" next year. Vertical printing is not conducive to digital writing, and it wastes paper when printing."

  Qian Qianyi carefully understood those punctuation marks, nodded and said: "These sentence breaks are excellent."

  Liu Rushi asked: "Will all books in the future have to be printed horizontally?"

  Zhao Han said with a smile: "Folk books are not mandatory, but government official documents, official printed books, and school textbooks must use horizontal rows."

   Except for very bad customs that must be corrected by force, Zhao Han generally does not force anything when he promotes new things. He just let the government do it first, and with the power of the government, guide the people to carry out reforms.

  Take horizontal printing as an example, private booksellers must follow suit.

  Because of horizontal printing, it can save paper and reduce the cost of books!

  Zhao Han glanced at the clock, it finally had a minute hand. This is great progress, at least fifteen years ahead of Europe.

   "It's almost evening, stay for dinner." Zhao Han said.

  Qian Qianyi and Liu Rushi naturally would not refuse, and they happily followed him to the back house.

  Zhao Han said as he walked: "Those petitioners, have you harassed the Imperial Academy yet?"

  Qian Qianyi smiled and said, "I've been there a few times, but no one paid any attention, so I won't go anymore."

   "A group of rotten Confucians, they are full." Zhao Han said contemptuously.

  Qian Qianyi said flatteringly: "It's just a corrupt Confucian, how do they know the deep meaning of the governor?"

   Walking to the back house, Fei Rulan is reading a book, sitting in the shade of a tree and enjoying herself leisurely.

  Pan Qimei finally stopped raising chickens, and became interested in cooking instead. She has been keen on making pastries recently. Because she makes too many pastries, her servants and guards often take them home, and the officials of the Dudu Mansion occasionally share some.

   "See you madam!" Qian Qianyi cupped his hands and bowed.

   As a woman, Liu Rushi also imitated men's clasping fists. As early as a few years ago, when she corresponded with literati and celebrities, she also referred to each other as "brother" and called herself "brother" in the letters.

  Fei Rulan hurriedly got up to return the salute, calling the two to sit down.

Seeing two guests today, Pan Qimei was very happy. She brought out her own snacks and introduced: "This is called sweet potato candy. I bought some from the sweet potato harvest recently. Mix steamed potato fries with glutinous rice flour, After compacting, cut into strips and steam thoroughly. Then press and steam again, take embryos and cut into pieces, deep-fry and boil sugar on top.”

   "Thank you, Mrs. Pan."

   After Qian Qianyi thanked him, he dared to reach out to take food when he saw Zhao Han was eating.

  Liu Rushi put it in his mouth and chewed, his eyes lit up immediately, and he exclaimed, "It's so delicious to make a mere sweet potato."

  Qian Qianyi also praised sincerely: "Madam Pan is ingenious, and can turn decay into magic!"

   This thing is a real delicacy, and it will definitely be popular.

  Pan Qimei smiled and said: "My husband provided the method, I just did it myself."

  Qian Qianyi quickly flattered again: "Governing a big country is like cooking small fish. The governor governs the country well, and cooking is also a must."

  Liu Rushi smiled and said: "I heard that when the governor was in Qianshan, he taught cooking skills in person. The chicken cut in red oil and white, chicken diced in the main town, etc., were all taught by the governor himself."

   "Greedy, delicious." Zhao Han said with a smile.

   Not long after, the princes and princesses came back from school with their schoolbags on their backs and came to greet them: "Uncle is well, aunt is well."

   "Sit down." Zhao Han nodded with a smile.

  Fei Rulan handed over the potato floss candy: "You guys eat it too, Aunt Pan made it."

  Zhu Yuxi took a bite, and immediately smiled: "This is delicious, I have never eaten it in the palace."

   Palace?

  Qian Qianyi and Liu Rushi immediately looked at these children.

  Zhao Han asked: "What have you learned today?"

  Zhu Cihong replied: "I can know the Four Books, and I can also do arithmetic. Today I reviewed the Four Books and learned to use Fanbang numbers to do multiplication."

  Brothers and sisters Zhu Cihong are very satisfied with their current life. They can make a lot of friends in the school, and no one cares about it. It is much more interesting than being free in the palace.

   It’s just that they kind of miss their parents.

  As for the teachers and students in the school, no one knows their identities for the time being. It can't be kept secret for long, the second and third princes are only eight years old, sooner or later they will leak their words.

   Waited for a while, the little girl hasn't come home yet, she probably went to dinner with the Mathematics Association.

  Zhao Han said: "Let's serve dinner."

  Qian Qianyi and Liu Rushi observed secretly, and they became more and more confident in their guesses that the princes and daughters were very polite when eating.

   (Ask for a monthly pass.)

  (end of this chapter)