Chapter 472: Technological Development and the Three Academies of Liangzhou

With religious matters settled, Zhang Zhao's next stop was the construction of the Imperial Academy, which he cared about most.

Since Zhang Zhao began restoring the prefectural schools seven years ago, there had finally been a little progress by now.

Now in the State of Liang, from Shazhou eastward, even the most remote Taozhou and Dangzhou had prefectural schools.

Though the level of instruction was still very low, at least the framework was in place.

And in practice, it had achieved no small results.

The teaching at these prefectural schools was not good, but teaching literacy and simple addition and subtraction was no problem.

So although the prefectural schools had not produced many deeply learned scholars, they had provided Zhang Zhao with a certain number of literate, sensible, knowledgeable, and ambitious mid- and low-ranking officers.

And in Liangzhou, Zhang Zhao placed even greater importance on the prefectural school and the Imperial Academy.

Since Liu Na took up his post at the Imperial Academy, Zhang Zhao had been discussing reforms with him.

By now, the basic transformation could be said to be complete. Zhang Zhao first expanded the original Imperial Academy and turned it into the Qiongming Academy. What the Qiongming Academy taught was the Six Arts of the Confucian tradition.

Then, next to the original Imperial Academy, he built the Qiqiao Academy, devoted to researching the various sciences, with Cao Yanming as its head.

The Qiqiao Academy alone covered more than a thousand mu, and it also had a branch campus by the Macheng River outside the city.

Then there was also an academy for the study of agronomy—such as seed breeding, fattening, intercropping, grafting, and other techniques—and also responsible for the breeding and propagation of all kinds of livestock, especially warhorses. It was called the Qimin Academy.

These three academies were all under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Academy, and the scale of the three academies alone was larger than Zhang Zhao's Yongxun Palace.

Now the Three Academies of Liangzhou were very famous in Guanzhong. They were the golden terrace Zhang Zhao had built, the physical proof of his determination to govern through culture.

All this spending—one could say that Shi Chonggui's building of a few small palaces was nothing compared to it.

Shi Chonggui had spent only a little over a hundred thousand strings of cash in all, while Zhang Zhao's three academies plus the Great Ci'en Temple had already cost more than four hundred thousand strings.

But the stark contrast between the two was that Shi Chonggui's hundred-odd thousand strings had been extorted from the common people, and every string of it almost represented a family driven to desperation.

But of the four hundred-odd thousand strings Zhang Zhao spent, he had not paid out a single string of copper cash. He had simply printed silver notes, and the actual cost was less than five strings.

After ten years of development, the State of Liang, and Liangzhou in particular, had a flourishing population and open trade routes. Not to mention four hundred thousand strings—even four million strings in silver notes could be absorbed.

This was the magic of finance. Zhang Zhao had turned almost blank paper into more than four hundred thousand strings, and not only had it caused no harm, but the construction of the three Imperial Academy schools and the Great Ci'en Temple had actually stimulated a great wave of domestic demand.

And Zhang Zhao did not spend this money recklessly. For example, the crimson-gold bricks used to build the Baozhao Pagoda were actually the kind of red bricks fired in later generations' earthen kilns.

To get this thing made, Zhang Zhao had again sunk in a large amount of research and development costs. Although the cost of using it was still high, it was worth it.

Because red bricks alone still could not build the Baozhao Pagoda to a height of forty or fifty meters. A binding agent was also needed, and this forced the Qiqiao Academy of the Liangzhou Imperial Academy to begin focused research.

Zhang Zhao had initially given a rough direction for cement, and the research went smoothly, because cement is really not difficult—it is nothing more than calcining limestone and such, and then paying attention to the proportions.

But in the end it was abandoned, because it was too expensive. Not to mention the research and development costs, just calcining limestone in this era of difficult coal mining was astronomically costly.

If firewood were used as fuel, then even burning all of Hexi and Longyou into desert would not be enough.

In fact, even for red bricks, the greatest cost was still the firing.

So in the end, the Qiqiao Academy restored the glutinous rice mortar formula from the Great Tang period, and even improved it to a certain degree.

With the construction method of red bricks paired with glutinous rice mortar, it was not only good for building city walls, but even better for building water conservancy facilities.

Using red bricks to build city walls was still too extravagant, but for building water conservancy facilities in places where terrain and soil conditions made new construction impossible—such as reservoirs and canals in certain places—it was perfectly suited.

And the development and progress of these technologies further drove the demand for coal, and even led Cao Yanming's research direction astray.

Now the gunpowder research that Cao Yanming was in charge of had suddenly shifted from military use to civilian use.

The main purpose was to meet the demand of coal mining, and this in turn further drove the great development of the mining industry. The Gold-Splitting Division was now almost turning from Zhang Zhao's engineers into a "state-owned mining group."

At the same time, Zhang Zhao did not force Cao Yanming and the others to push gunpowder research toward firearms, because the cost of using firearms was still too high for the current State of Liang.

Moreover, weapons innovation was often bound together with military innovation in tactics, formations, troop selection, organization, and other aspects.

The State of Liang currently did not have the ability to complete such a transformation relying only on the lands of Hexi, Longyou, Lingwu, and Xiasui.

Zhang Zhao's core territory now was what later generations would call Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, eastern Qinghai, and northern Shaanxi.

Even in the later Republic, these places could hardly be called prosperous; they were basically all relatively backward regions.

Such regions could not produce modern military innovation, and could not enter the age of firearms.

In practical terms, among the four regions of Hexi, Longyou, Lingwu, and Xiasui under Zhang Zhao's rule, there were probably over a million people who could ride and shoot, and at least one or two hundred thousand with decent archery skills.

With so many cheap elite archers available, where was the room for matchlock gunners whose shots went wherever luck took them? They were expensive and impractical.

And the changes brought by this series of technological innovations alone had already left the people of all Liangzhou, and even the whole State of Liang, dazzled.

Within the Imperial Academy of the State of Liang, the number of students in the Qiqiao Academy was more than five times that of the Qiongming Academy, which studied the classics.

After five years of polishing and guidance, Zhang Zhao had finally, to a certain extent, achieved the free transfer of talent between studying the classics and researching ingenious crafts.

For example, in the Imperial Academy, there were many students who could not stand studying the classics and transferred to the Qiqiao Academy to study what they saw as "fringe subjects."

There were also senior figures from the Qiqiao Academy who, lost in their research, returned to the Qiongming Academy to continue seeking spiritual guidance from the classics of the ancient sages and to engage in philosophical debate.

Looking at them, Zhang Zhao suddenly remembered a famous saying from later generations: philosophy is the foundation of all science.

Without philosophical reflection in people's minds, without the further development of culture, relying on a transmigrator like him alone could not change the whole environment. It had to rely on ideological change.

But at this point, the help and guidance Zhang Zhao could provide was rather limited.

Because before he transmigrated, he was a full-contact armored combat fighter, and he truly had no talent for philosophy or literature.

Amid these random thoughts, Zhang Zhao arrived at the gate of the Qimin Academy. This was the place that delighted Zhang Zhao most.

Completely outside his plans, Zhang Liecheng had unexpectedly brought back from Guanzhong Han E, the agronomist who in history compiled the agricultural book Essentials of the Four Seasons.

After Zhang Zhao appointed Han E as Vice Chancellor of the Imperial Academy and head of the Qimin Academy, agronomy, which had originally been looked down upon by students, finally began to develop slowly.

Although the Qimin Academy held the lowest status in the Imperial Academy, with a distance from the Qiongming Academy as great as heaven and earth,

being able to bring this discipline openly into the Imperial Academy was already a tremendous success.

However, after Zhang Zhao summoned Liu Na, Han E, and others, ate a simple meal in the Qimin Academy dining hall, and then attended a classics debate among the Qiongming Academy students, he was somewhat dissatisfied.

"This Qiongming Academy classics debate—nobody even came to blows! What kind of classics debate is this? Not to mention drawing swords, there wasn't even a fistfight!"

Great King Zhang rubbed his chin and muttered to himself.

Liu Na, standing nearby, was drenched in cold sweat as he listened. Though he too felt that the standards of Liangzhou's Qiongming Academy were not particularly high, its academic atmosphere somewhat dull, with few truly brilliant talents.

But was the Heavenly King not being far too radical? Who ever heard of debating scriptures with swords and blades?

Well, though Zhang Zhao's words were somewhat crude, one could not say they were without reason.

Scholarship, and especially the great debates of philosophy, carried so little gunpowder only because of one thing.

That is, everyone's level had not yet reached a certain height, and they were not particularly sensitive to the importance of this aspect.

"Old Liu once said that there are learned men in the Eastern Capital who wish to come to Liangzhou to serve as academy head. Did he mention any conditions?" Zhang Zhao asked Liu Na beside him.

Recently Liu Tao had gathered a group of talented and renowned scholars in the Eastern Capital for Zhang Zhao, and was about to send them to Liangzhou. According to Liu Na, one of them was a rather gifted and famous scholar.

"The man is from Kaifeng Prefecture in the Eastern Capital, surnamed Xue, given name Juzheng, courtesy name Ziping. Xue Ziping has long held aspirations, and has already resigned his post as Prefectural Judge of Kaifeng and come with his family, making no demands."

Xue Juzheng? Zhang Zhao rubbed his chin and thought carefully in his mind. There seemed to be a faint, blurry impression.

But that impression was very likely derived from the later name Zhang Juzheng.

Perhaps anyone with the characters "Juzheng" in their name could be considered to have some talent?

And he made no demands, directly abandoning the post of Prefectural Judge of Kaifeng to come — clearly he was very confident in his own learning and ability.

"Wan'er, note this down. Have officials at every level receive this Xue Juzheng well, and arrange an audience once he arrives in Liangzhou." Zhang Zhao instructed Guo Wan'er, who was dressed as a man behind him.

Guo Tiance was now a Grand Academician of the Qionglin Academy, busy with government affairs, and no longer suited to serve as Zhang Zhao's private secretary.

Zhang Zhao had no good candidate in mind, so he simply brought in Guo Wan'er, who had once served as his personal secretary for a period.

And keeping her by his side day after day would also let him see whether the little wildcat could conceive.

After the Buddhist mission was arranged, the Guo family's Church of the East would be very important indeed.

Not only could it balance Buddhist influence in the west, but after the great Buddhist army marched west, the Church of the East could more easily enter Western and Southern Europe, using a barely similar religion to deceive those European barbarians, and bring the two faiths to a balance of power in Europe.

In the future, the main theme of Europe would be the struggle between the Church-Protecting Alliance — outwardly Christian, inwardly Confucian — and the westward-marching swastika knights who drove the Slavs. Let them fight for centuries and forge deep hatreds. Just thinking of it was delightful.

Having arranged the affairs of the Imperial Academy and its three colleges, Zhang Zhao hurried on without pause to Lanzhou, where even more important matters awaited him.

That was the dredging of the Huang River and the Tao River waterways. This was a major matter bearing on whether Zhang Zhao could hold Hexi and Longyou more tightly in his grasp, and he had to go in person.

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