Mythical Three Kingdoms Chapter 1908 - 1742: Piercing the Window Paper (Part 2)

Xun Yu and Zhou Yu both recalled the great battle in Yuzhou those years ago and couldn’t help but sigh; ti truly flies.

"But that’s not an issue. Gong Youu has already submitted the materials. We will soon produce a finished product, and this ti there won’t be as many mistakes as before," Chen Xi said with a smile. "Let’s do a collective assessnt to save so trouble."

Zhou Yu and Xun Yu exchanged a glance, then Xun Yu spoke up, "We believe it is necessary to first conduct a Grand Craftsman assessnt, and moreover, assess the three families simultaneously. After that, the lower assessnts should be conducted locally. While the Grand Craftsman standards are the sa, the assessnts in various places won’t differ significantly either."

"No problem." Chen Xi nodded. He understood their concerns, but if they were unwilling, he didn’t intend to probe into it either. He did this to prepare for the upcoming standardization; a production line can only be developed post-standardization.

During the late Han, different regions had different asurent standards, which nearly drove Chen Xi to explode. Although the local deviations were small, they were enough to give him a headache.

It was supposed that taxes were collected by the bushel, but each area’s bushel was different. Once, Chen Xi raged in front of Lub Su, berating those prefectural governors, "You scoundrels think I don’t know what’s ant by ’small bushel out, big bushel in’? Don’t you know the Chen Family ancestor did it the other way around?"

However, it was essentially aningless. After all, there were deviations in asurent standards across different regions. The so-called inch was derived from the length of ten millet grains laid side by side, sothing Chen Xi had no way to control to reach his desired result.

There was a ti when Chen Xi was obsessed with finding a way to define the ter as a standard unit. Given a definitive length, he could quickly calculate standard weight, and from there create many universally used units.

Unfortunately, without any tools at hand, producing an accurate ter was unreliable through thods like pendulum experints and speed of sound calculations. In the end, he almost resorted to asuring Liu Bei’s long arm out of frustration as a standard length.

But just as Chen Xi was about to use Liu Bei’s arm for the standard length, he saw Liu Bei playing foolishly with rcury.

Imdiately, Chen Xi thought of an experint: the barotric pressure experint with a rcury column. On a fine day passing through Qingzhou, he conducted the experint and produced a seventy-six centiter rcury column, instantly establishing a standard unit.

Afterward, he had a large-scale balance constructed, using Inner Qi to distill one cubic ter of water. Although it wasn’t pure water, the deviation wasn’t large. A ton of gold was directly lted into a counterweight shape and thrown onto the balance; when balanced, it was the standard ton...

After this was done, Chen Xi achieved it all in one go, producing one cubic deciter and one cubic centiter of distilled water.

Naturally, the golden counterweights for each unit were also produced. A one-ter long golden ter prototype was crafted by Chen Xi, hardened to the extre using Inner Qi for high-effect nourishnt, ensuring it didn’t deform. Since gold doesn’t naturally oxidize, its weight and shape wouldn’t change. When light speed is asurable thousands of years later, this will utterly be a divine artifact.

Of course, Chen Xi never disclosed how he asured the ter unit. When future generations can asure the unit by spectrum, whoever obtains that original golden ter prototype will certainly be baffled.

A ter prototype with a precision deviation of less than one ten-thousandth could definitely beco one of the future’s unsolved mysteries. Thinking of this, Chen Xi felt quite pleased, creating an unsolved mystery for future generations wasn’t too bad either.

"Later, I’ll give you a standard unit so everything from taxes on down is the sa. By the way, how much exactly is one bushel in your regions?" Chen Xi asked Xun Yu and Zhou Yu with a hint of curiosity.

With those words, the two visibly froze, probably having already noticed this issue, but having never managed it because it was a historical legacy. Even when the First Emperor of Qin unified asurent standards, he couldn’t prevent varying bushels.

"Aren’t you guys silly? Why use the size of ten millet grains as a unit of length? Can you tell if the length of ten millet grains is the sa everywhere?" Seeing the two frozen, Chen Xi asked irritably.

Everyone present had twitching mouths. They finally saw the problem with varying bushels: it’s all rooted here, where differing sizes of ten millet grains led to issues in the smallest unit, the inch, and all subsequent units deviated in multiples.

"So, let’s first remove that line in the Book of Han about asurent standards: ’Started from the length of the Yellow Bell, with the middle-sized millet, one millet’s breadth of it, ninety of the Yellow Bell’s length equals one division,’ and then create a new standard asurent!" Chen Xi said irritably.

The civil servants all nodded; understanding the root cause, they knew how to reform. Although, truth be told, it’s amazing that such a simple problem wasn’t recognized by anyone present.

However, so issues are hidden in plain sight. asurent standards were like this in China for thousands of years, and nobody ever thought there was a problem.

"So, what should we use as the length?" Xun Yu asked with a frown.

"Later, I’ll send a letter to Ye City providing you with the standard ruler. You can use this as a basis to create new rulers for distribution to the provinces and counties. Rember to make an original version using the nourished gold, and check if there’s a problem," Chen Xi instructed Xun Yu and Zhou Yu, who were speechless.

"Having a length also allows you to cut the standard unit of gold for the standard weight," Chen Xi continued, as by this ti, Xun Yu and Zhou Yu had nothing more to say. Breaking that barrier made many things surprisingly simple.

"That’s about it for asurent standards; you can proceed like this. If it’s troubleso, I can provide you with a standard weight as well." Chen Xi asked as he saw their silence, realizing that by now they couldn’t refuse.

"Thank you, Marquis Chen," Zhou Yu and Xun Yu said sowhat despondently.

"Hey, hey, hey, don’t use that tone. My standard weights are all gold blocks worth several million coins each and might be worth even more in the future," Chen Xi said to Zhou Yu and Xun Yu, who imdiately scoffed. To this group of people, several million coins were nothing!

"Zichuan, you should move on to the next item and stop dwelling on this." Jia Xu waved to Chen Xi, fearing he’d waste more ti on this subject, which, though important, might not be a concern for so.

"Okay, where was I?" Chen Xi asked.

"You were talking about animal husbandry; ti to discuss other things," Jia Xu said calmly.

"Oh, then it’s ti to talk about roads, bridges, and post stations." Chen Xi nodded, "First, the bridges—I plan to build bridges over the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. The bridge over the Yellow River is under construction and is expected to be completed by the end of next year by Gong Youu. Once there is one, the other ones will be relatively simpler. Of course, I’m saying, don’t you dare demolish this bridge."

Zhou Yu and Xun Yu both rolled their eyes at Chen Xi. Once Sunx Qian finishes building a large bridge over the Yellow River, future generations won’t demolish it unless they’re crazy or have no choice. After all, such a bridge can’t be compared to small ones. Destroy it, and you might wait centuries before soone’s capable of recreating it.

"Oh, right, I realized sothing I forgot to ntion earlier," Chen Xi suddenly rembered that he had left out part of his plan earlier.

"What part was missing?" Xun Yu asked curiously since he hadn’t noticed any gaps in Chen Xi’s plan.

"The distribution of infrastructure and various livelihood investnts, Zichu, Zizhong, you two understand money, roughly calculate how much the things I just ntioned will cost," Chen Xi said with a smile to Liu Ba and Mi Zhu.

"Approximately seven hundred and fifty billion." "Around seven hundred fifty billion." The two spoke almost simultaneously, and upon hearing that, everyone couldn’t help but be surprised.