Chapter 93: The Compass and the Gold-Dividing Company

Zhang Zhao crouched on the ground, holding a specially forged refined-iron needle that Li Shengtian had ordered his blacksmiths to make, rubbing it rapidly against a lodestone.

After about twenty rubs, Zhang Zhao swiftly threaded the iron needle through a stiff piece of paper marked with the characters for "south" and "north," then placed the paper with the needle into a water bowl held by a miner.

The iron needle in the water bowl wobbled a few times, then pointed steadily in one direction. The onlookers immediately burst into excited cheers.

They had already tried it five times, and each time the needle pointed south in the same direction.

Amid the cheers, the greatest obstacle to Zhang Zhao's tunneling-and-blasting method — the problem of keeping the tunnel on course — had been solved.

This was no small problem, because if they were to blast a great city like Shule, the tunnel could not be short, and once a man was inside the tunnel, he had no way to judge direction. If they were not careful, they would dig off course.

In later ages, one could rely on GPS positioning or laser targeting to solve this, but in this era there was no such convenience. In the end, it was Zhang Zhao who thought of using a compass to confirm direction.

In fact, he did not care whether it pointed south or not. He only needed each reading to point in the same direction without drifting.

Yet even such a simple device, one that barely counted as a compass, had not come easily.

Zhang Zhao had searched through Li Shengtian's treasury until Li Shengtian could not resist coming to see for himself, thinking his nephew meant to pack up the entire state storehouse. Only then did Zhang Zhao find a few pieces of lodestone in a corner.

"Is this the south-pointer spoken of in the Guiguzi? So it can be made this simply? Cousin-uncle, how did you know how to make a south-pointer?"

Cao Yanming, his left cheek swollen high, stared with wide, astonished eyes, his whole body burning with the light of exploration.

Recently, Cao the Fourteenth had been getting a bit "cocky." Ever since the divine fire thunder had caught on, he had gone from being a dispensable, unwelcome noble young master under Zhang Zhao to a Cao the Alchemist wrapped in an air of mystery.

He had even begun to look down on Zhang Zhao somewhat, declaring countless times that Young Lord Zhang Erlang was too obsessed with power and force, and neglected the study of the great Dao between heaven and earth (meaning the study of various gunpowders).

So this morning, after Zhang Zhao found a small mistake of his and gave him a thorough demonstration of what power and force were good for, he then used the feat of "making a compass" to thoroughly win Cao Yanming over.

And so it was that Cao Yanming very smoothly changed his form of address for Zhang Zhao back from Young Lord Zhang Erlang to cousin-uncle.

Of course, Zhang Zhao also held a piece of blackmail over Cao Yanming. The fellow had previously said he looked down on foreign beauties and the like, yet a few days earlier he had quietly slipped into the room of a lovely Oghuz slave girl — and was caught red-handed by Zhang Zhao just as he was coming out after finishing his pleasure.

"Vice Director! With this thing, we can dig a single straight path right under the city wall!"

The one calling Zhang Zhao "Vice Director" was a short fellow with grayish eyes, skin slightly brownish, and somewhat purplish-red hair and beard — clearly bearing Sogdian features.

This man, who could speak passable but not fluent Chinese and insisted he was a descendant of the Anxi Tang garrison, was called Shi Chongmin. He was the genuine coal-mine foreman that the Suoduo Company had found for Zhang Zhao under intense pressure.

Zhang Zhao, however, suspected the man was more likely a Sogdian from the Shi state among the Nine Zhaowu Clans.

Now all three hundred miners had arrived. As agreed, Zhang Zhao selected one hundred and fifty from among the miners in poorer physical condition, and then selected one hundred and fifty skilled miners.

Though these three hundred men fell far short of the miners of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in history, they could still basically meet the needs of tunneling and blasting.

These past days, while maintaining a relatively high standard of food for the miners, Zhang Zhao had also begun putting them through a harsh "military training."

Of these three hundred men, one hundred and fifty were too deeply servile, and of the other one hundred and fifty, more than half acknowledged only Shi Chongmin. To fully tame them would not be an easy task.

"Since this last difficult problem has been solved, let us go back and prepare, and get ready for the inspection by the Great Sage Son of Heaven!"

Zhang Zhao shouted with a face full of delight, then pressed a hand on Shi Chongmin's shoulder.

"Captain Shi, your Gold-Dividing Company's drawing and literacy lessons need to be stepped up at once!

When you can be upgraded to a Gold-Dividing Battalion, and who can become Battalion Commandant — everything will depend on ability. Even I cannot very well break the rules."

Hearing Zhang Zhao's words, Shi Chongmin could not help but grimace in pain. Vice Director Zhang was good in every way — good food, good lodging, good clothing — but this one point was not good.

Digging holes was one thing, but they also had to learn to read. After learning to read, they had to learn to draw. After drawing, the harder part was calculating — calculating digging speed, calculating the spacing of roof supports, calculating how many days it would take to reach the target.

Zhang Zhao smiled slyly to himself. This was deliberate on his part. These illiterates in their twenties and thirties had spent half their lives unable to read. Learning characters was absolutely agonizing for them, to say nothing of drawing and calculation.

But this was exactly how he intended to create a competitive mechanism among the three hundred new miners. If Shi Chongmin failed to qualify, he would be very happy to replace him.

The words "Gold-Dividing" in the Gold-Dividing Company also came from Zhang Zhao's mischievous sense of humor.

And the reason he had set these three hundred men up only as a company rather than directly as a battalion was to prevent Shi Chongmin from naturally becoming a commandant and then turning these miners into his own subordinates.

If he was not careful, Zhang Zhao might end up as the nominal leader, and his relationship with Shi Chongmin would become like that between a Central Plains Military Governor and the yabing officers beneath him.

This was something Zhang Zhao absolutely could not tolerate, so he deliberately compressed the unit structure — three hundred men only got a company — and used literacy and examinations to further weaken Shi Chongmin's leadership over these hundred-plus miners.

Of course, this also helped him see whether he could discover a few talented men among the miners.

In Khotan city, within the Taihua Palace, Li Shengtian was frowning as he reviewed memorials.

Ever since he had seen in Zhang Zhao the hope of breaking Shule, under Li Shengtian's direction, Khotan — this oasis city-state of the Western Regions at the peak of its power — had slowly begun to mobilize.

Seventy years. Ever since Khotan's restoration, the greatest desire of the Li family kings for generations had been to break Shule and possess two of the four garrisons of the former Great Tang's Anxi.

Shule in particular was simply too critical a place for Khotan.

If Khotan could take Shule, that city would become Khotan's northern bridgehead and a solid fortress against the Oghuz, Karluk, and other peoples to the north.

Conversely, if Khotan lacked Shule, then the Karakhanid state to the north could look down from the high ground and continuously infiltrate Khotan.

It could also turn Yarkand (Shache), one of Khotan's richest regions, into a frontline of conflict, denying Khotan the use of that fertile land.

Li Shengtian suddenly recalled a metaphor Zhang Zhao had once given him: if Khotan were a giant tortoise, then Shule was that giant tortoise's shell.

But now Khotan did not have Shule. A giant tortoise without a shell, forced to expose its soft flesh to the threats of natural enemies, could not hold out for long — it was only a matter of time.

Wait! Li Shengtian suddenly stopped his brush and pondered. If the Great Jin Kingdom were a giant tortoise, then what did that make him, the Great Sage Son of Heaven? The turtle's head?

"Son of Heaven! The Gentleman Attendant at the Yellow Gate, Fengtian Commandant Zhang Zhao, petitions Your Majesty to send palace officials to Yaotou Ridge for inspection. He expects to begin digging a tunnel from three li away starting tomorrow, and in three days requests that the Son of Heaven visit Yaotou Ridge!"

The voice of the palace official on duty came from outside the door. Hearing that Zhang Zhao had already begun preparations, Li Shengtian instantly forgot the matter from a moment ago and stroked his chin.

Excellent! It seemed this young fellow was going to show him an even more realistic blasting of Shule!

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