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Regardless of what Huang Chengyan ultimately decided, as far as Fei Qian was concerned, he absolutely had to find a way to spirit away a few of the crossbow-making artisans, by hook or by crook.
And, of course, those others—the papermakers, the weaponsmiths...
The more, the better!
Especially the papermakers.
Paper had become Fei Qian's newest obsession.
Fei Qian bitterly loathed the days without paper. It wasn't just the daily weightlifting exercise of hauling around heavy wooden slips. The main issue was the welfare of his rear end! In this day and age, every trip to the privy began with the task of picking through the privy-sticks to find one relatively clean, without any splinters or burrs...
Otherwise, one could well imagine the excruciating, gut-wrenching sensation of a bamboo or wooden splinter jabbing into such a tender place...
In the end, Fei Qian was forced to prepare his own personal privy-stick, which he had to wash after each use and then stow away in a pouch inside his sleeve.
While that solved one small problem, it gave rise to another psychological affliction: Fei Qian was perpetually haunted by the feeling that his sleeve carried a faint, inexplicable odor of filth, lingering and impossible to dispel. It truly was...
Agh!
The problems of the Han Dynasty were not limited to this alone. The greatest issue now confronting Fei Qian was that the standardized system of the Qin Dynasty had, by this point, been completely lost!
Liu Bang, that uncultured ruffian, after he ascended the throne, had a sudden, idiotic whim and decided to establish a separate Han system of standards!
The Qin foot generally measured around twenty-two and a half to twenty-three centimeters. Then that fellow Liu Bang declared, "How can the measurements of our Great Han be the same as the Qin foot?"
So he added a little, making the Han foot roughly twenty-three and a half to twenty-four centimeters. Other units of measurement similarly deviated slightly. In the end, what had once been a unified system of weights and measures once again descended into utter chaos.
Then, later on, the great pioneer Comrade Wang Mang, while putting his ideals of social egalitarianism into practice, also made further stipulations regarding units of measurement and even invented the vernier caliper...
In the present Han Dynasty, not only were there the five graduated units of length—fen, cun, chi, zhang, and yin—but below the fen, there were also the two minute units of hao and li. A batch of bronze zhang, bamboo yin, bronze standard-measures, and bronze balance-beams were manufactured to further define the national units of measurement.
It was a pity, however, that Wang Mang... well...
The Han emperors who followed, though they continued to use these, did not share Wang Mang's obsessive pursuit of detail. A little off was fine; close enough was good enough. This resulted in a national metrological system that, though it existed in name, was hardly precise.
The consequence of this was that many mechanical devices of the Han Dynasty—items that would remain astonishing even in later ages, such as the armillary sphere, the seismoscope, and the south-pointing chariot—existed only as unique, one-of-a-kind creations. Setting aside the question of their practical utility for the moment, these complex machines simply could not be reproduced on a large scale...
The reason was precisely this lack of standardized measures. Even the length of a ruler could differ between a master and his apprentice.
This very problem existed within the Huang family as well. Fei Qian and Huang Yueying looked at the dozen or so rulers laid out on the ground and could not help but scratch their heads in dismay...
These were the rulers used by the Huang family artisans in their daily work. Yet among these very rulers, there were slight discrepancies in length. Though the deviations were not large—at most, a few millimeters' difference from one to another—they undeniably existed. And the prevailing attitude of the Huang artisans was: "A little off doesn't matter; a couple of strokes with the file and it'll fit."
Indeed, for most manually crafted implements, if during assembly some part did not quite fit, these artisans would casually file it down a little, or rasp it, and that would be the end of it.
Fei Qian looked at these rulers and exchanged a glance with Huang Yueying. "It would still be better to unify them," he said. "Find the best one, make a mold from it, and then cast a batch. We could call it the 'Huang Family Ruler.' Wouldn't that be better?"
"'The Huang Family Ruler'?" Huang Yueying's large eyes swiveled in thought. Then she smiled. "Yes! I think that's a wonderful idea!"
The Huang family artisans standing nearby nodded in agreement one after another.
People are always like this. They readily accept what they can identify as their own. But if Fei Qian had jumped out and started lecturing them, declaring that all their rulers were no good and must be replaced with a new standardized ruler, many of the artisans would likely have begun muttering complaints under their breath...
Now, by proposing the name "Huang Family Ruler," these same men found it perfectly natural and entirely acceptable.
Unifying the standard of measurement was a small problem. What lay before Fei Qian was a far more troublesome matter—the reason why the Qin Dynasty's systematic, standardized manufacture of weaponry had died out by the Han Dynasty. There were many factors, but the most crucial was the change in materials.
The Qin Dynasty had used its supremely mature, perfected bronze technology to contend against the wrought iron technology that the other six states were just beginning to develop...
It was not that the Qin did not wish to use wrought iron technology. Rather, situated as it was in the land west of the Passes, the Qin state had no iron ore deposits, nor did it have the skilled personnel who understood iron-casting. It had no choice but to push bronze technology to its pinnacle. But the Qin's victory did not signify the victory of bronze.
The malleability and toughness of wrought iron were absolute advantages over bronze. This was the fundamental reason why, following the Han Dynasty, steel and iron became the materials for weapons.
But bronze had a low melting point and could be very conveniently processed through mold-casting. In this way, all manner of implements could be mass-produced and, after grinding and polishing, an entire batch of weapons could be turned out.
However, with iron, the problem was different. Raw cast iron was too brittle. To fully bring out the ductility and resilient toughness of steel, the metal had to be repeatedly forged and hammered. Yet forging, as a processing technique, was exceedingly difficult to standardize. The pursuit of uniformity inevitably demanded a great increase in labor and repeated returns to the furnace. This, in turn, would lead to an overall decline in production output...
Therefore, in the Han Dynasty, after the adoption of this superior material, the Qin's former system of standardized, institutionalized production of military equipment became an ideal state that was nearly impossible to achieve. As a result, from the top down, gradually, no one bothered to undertake such a thankless, profitless task.
Yet this outcome was very difficult for Fei Qian to accept.
He had originally thought that by borrowing from the experiences of those transmigrator novels from a later age, he could establish an institutionalized standard for military equipment, set up an assembly line, and then simply wait for tons upon tons of goods to appear automatically. After that, he would only need to press the "attack" button, and all would be well...
But now, this dream had been punctured with a sharp "pffft" in the face of the crude metallurgical technology and equipment of the Han Dynasty.
To achieve large-scale, standardized production of small items like steel arrowheads, one would need something akin to later-era cold-rolled steel, which could be directly stamped in a die and then ground into shape.
And within this process, the gap between the Han Dynasty and the later ages was not merely a matter of a few machine tools.
He had simply been taking things for granted.
So, what was he to do?
Fei Qian was somewhat worried. His brow furrowed, he looked at the lump of bronze in one hand and the lump of steel in the other. It was obviously impossible to use the bronze of several centuries past to contend against the steel and iron of the present Han Dynasty. But to transform steel, a material that required such excessive human labor, into something mechanized and large-scale—within this process, it was not something that could be accomplished merely by uttering a few words or pushing some standard into place.
Then, what should be his first step in making improvements?
What a troublesome matter.
Fei Qian was still frowning in deep thought when Huang Yueying, standing beside him, seemed to hear something. She turned, raised her arm, and waved. "Father! We're over here!"
Huang Chengyan came striding over hurriedly. Upon hearing Huang Yueying's voice, he merely gave a slight nod, his face a mask of gravity. Clearly, something significant had occurred.
He walked straight up to Fei Qian and let out a sigh. "Governor Liu of Jing Province has arrived. He wishes to see you..."
Governor Liu of Jing Province?
Liu Biao wants to see me?
What good could possibly come from that old fox showing up at the door?
Could it be that...