Chapter 1520: How Long Is a Year

However, it is possible that Xuanyuan is not prepared to build his newly chosen location to be as luxurious as Huaxia City all at once; Xuanyuan does not seem to care very much about these things. What he cares about more is the tribe's grain yield, whether the people can eat their fill, how much copper is produced, and how many Weapons can be forged in a year.

As for living conditions, earth-and-wood structure houses are also completely fine; anyway, as long as the roof is built well, there is no fear of leaks, and as long as it can block the wind and rain and keep warm, that is enough.

Therefore, Xuanyuan might first want to clear all the land where they live and turn it into fertile fields before anything else. By that time, those Artisans who have done enough hard labor in Huaxia will also be ready to go home.

Baifeng, on the other hand, is thinking about whether it is possible to incite those Artisans to defect after the time is up.

Better not; although they would certainly be more willing to stay in Huaxia, it is not worth losing the Xuanyuan Tribe as a high-quality trading partner for the sake of a few Artisans. Unless Huaxia completely intends to be done with the Xuanyuan Tribe, breaks off relations, and no longer cares about the relationship between the two sides, then at that time, one could directly incite those Artisans to defect and deal the Xuanyuan Tribe a heavy blow. Anyway, there is still plenty of time, and Baifeng has plenty of time to lay out his plans.

Baifeng has not been doing nothing in the Xuanyuan Tribe; he has personally taken a look at some of the joint development projects between Huaxia and the Xuanyuan Tribe, especially those for determining the timing of Heaven. Now they have already created various buildings and facilities to observe the shadows of the sun, as well as the trajectories of the stars and the moon.

And this time, Baifeng also discovered that their progress speed is somewhat rapid.

Because they have paper and pens, and a very large Telescope has been specially built for them to use for observing celestial phenomena, they can continuously record and draw what they observe, and then compare them after a period of time.

When Baifeng and Xuanyuan went over, it was still daytime. The people observing the sun were staring at the sun's shadow, holding rulers in their hands, measuring it every so often, and then writing down the length on the paper in the room.

An entire office was piled full of paper and hung with paper, all covered in various lines and numbers. Because Arabic numerals are easy to use, Baifeng used them directly, and the Xuanyuan Tribe naturally used them too, because they discovered they were indeed faster than characters.

Those who went along were not just Baifeng and Xuanyuan; there were several others accompanying them. As soon as they entered the door, the paper in the room fluttered. Some of the paper stuck to the wooden boards—which should have been stuck with boiled peach gum—fluttered. Seeing Baifeng and Xuanyuan enter, they were very excited, not because they were excited to see their leaders, but because the movement was too great and almost blew their documents into disarray. However, facing the two greatest leaders, who were also their greatest supporters, they dared not have any opinions.

"Qingyun, Changxi, and these few from your Huaxia, you should recognize them all, right?"

Xuanyuan introduced the few people in this studio to Baifeng. Judging by his familiarity, it seems he still attaches great importance to this place, but since he is not in the Xuanyuan Tribe most of the time throughout the year, he is not very clear about the progress.

Baifeng looked at these people; they were all very familiar. Those few Huaxia officials had not returned to Huaxia for many years, and they did not even know what Huaxia looked like now.

And because the observation of the sun cannot be missed for a single day, except for cloudy or rainy days when they could compile patterns and perform calculations in the office, there was not a day they were not out in the open sun, which resulted in them not even having been to the Embassy a few times.

Now that they saw Baifeng, it was like seeing their own mothers; they were incredibly excited. Baifeng also comforted them, saying: "You have all worked hard. Having been here for so many years without taking a single day of leave, keep it up. Once you finish this task and return to Huaxia, I will grant each of you the title of Marquis and let you stay in Huaxia to enjoy a life of comfort."

"King! Wuuuuuuuuuuuu..."

They all knelt on the ground and cried, but they still had to be careful that their tears and snot did not smear the paper. Baifeng helped them up one by one and wiped their tears with his own clothes, which moved them deeply.

"What is your progress now? Over these years, has there been any advancement?"

The leader of the group was someone Baifeng had once valued highly. He was excellent in Mathematics and Science, which is why he was sent here to engage in this work. His name was Ta.

"King, through these years of observation, by using the sun's shadow, we discovered that just as you said, at the Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice, the sun's shadow is at its shortest and longest. In spring and autumn, we can also observe the sun's shadow gradually beginning to grow longer and shorter, and the angle of the shadow has also changed.

By counting day by day, marking, and recording that most extreme day, we found that this time is approximately three hundred and fifty-four days. But the numbers from these few years have differences, so we are still calculating to see exactly where the error lies. The time of a year must be constant; we must have calculated something wrong!"

Baifeng was exceptionally delighted and patted Ta on the shoulder: "Ta! You haven't calculated wrong. A year is approximately that amount of time, but the specific number of days in a year is not fixed. It might be three hundred and fifty-something days, or it might be three hundred and seventy-something days. Averaged out, a year is three hundred and sixty-five days.

As for how to average an entire year, you need to correspond it with the movement of the moon. Have you not communicated with the people responsible for the moon's movement?"

Ta, and everyone in the office, had looks of bewilderment. On their sun-tanned faces, their expressions were simple and confused.

"King, we are each responsible for our own tasks, so we haven't communicated. Every day, we are just like this, without stopping."

"Oh my!" Baifeng slapped his own head: "How can you not communicate? If you had communicated enough, perhaps you would already have the rudiments of a calendar by now!"

Changxi introduced: "We haven't calculated the correct numbers yet, so we felt it wasn't a suitable time. We planned to wait until we calculated the correct numbers before going to unify the calculations with them."

While Baifeng was delighted, he could not help but feel some regret. If he had known earlier, he could have arranged for them to communicate sooner. The reports they sent back over these two years did not have clear results, which made Baifeng think they had not yet produced results. After all, observing the timing of Heaven is a long-term matter; only in the matter of Lulu had there been relatively great success.

Baifeng felt that perhaps those observing the moon should also have had great results, but they just felt they had not calculated accurately yet, so they did not report or communicate.