The big man has a living father

Chapter 108 Go and study
Early in the morning, Liu Che took a carriage and headed north with Liu Ju.

Originally, Liu Che wanted Huo Hai to take Liu Ju north to the Tongguan Coal Mine in order to allow Liu Ju to have more contact and understanding of the economy.

However, after Liu Ju finished making the cake, he returned to the palace to give the cake to Wei Zifu.

Liu Che doesn’t know Huo Hai yet?

It was obvious that he felt tired of coaxing the child, so he tricked Liu Ju back.

However, Liu Che still had to take Liu Ju to the mine to attend the shareholders' meeting, so he had to get up earlier and take the prince with him.

After all, children are very busy and if you don’t leave early, you may not be able to make it to the shareholders’ meeting, and you may even miss lunch.

The car was on the road and Liu Che also looked out the window.

Today, the Chidao has changed its appearance.

Every store on Chidao, if it has a yard and is not on the street, will hang a large wooden raft on the roadside, either horizontally or vertically, with the type of business written on it in simplified Chinese.

Tailor shop.

Noodle House.

Dog meat shop.

Liu Ju looked out the window and was confused: "Father, why don't I recognize these words?"

Liu Che: "These are the simplified characters invented by your brother Hai. You haven't learned them, so it's normal that you don't recognize them."

Liu Ju tilted his head and said, "Why doesn't Brother Hai use official script, but invents new characters?"

Liu Che: "Because it is easy to learn."

Liu Ju's eyes widened: "I want to learn this! I don't want to learn official script anymore!"

Liu Che: "..."

After a brief silence, Liu Che turned around and glared at Liu Ju, and Liu Ju did not dare to act rashly anymore.

In fact, Liu Che was still waiting for verification, waiting for verification of the rapid explosion of simplified Chinese characters.

Liu Che knew very well that the difficulty of learning official script, including elegant language, was much greater than that of simplified Chinese and vernacular Chinese. This had been verified on a "small scale". In just two months, the character recognition rate of 70,000 soldiers exceeded 99%, and the number of characters they recognized reached at least 200.

This is almost blindness.

But the question is, can the public accept simplified characters replacing official script?

If you don't accept it, then simplified Chinese characters will be used exclusively by the military.

After Liu Ju was glared at by Liu Che, he did not continue to think about this thing, and his attention was quickly distracted to other things: "Father, why don't you have a windmill hanging on your car?"

Liu Che was puzzled: "Hang a windmill?"

Liu Ju: "Yes, father's car is not as advanced as brother Hai's car. It doesn't have a windmill."

Liu Che rolled his eyes. "My car was built by your brother Hai himself. Every part was made by a senior master from the car dealership. The car he used was just an ordinary commercial vehicle, and most of the parts were made by apprentices."

"This one of mine is made of the slowest growing golden nanmu pearwood, etc. It uses the original paint shipped from Yangzhou to adjust the black ink, and is fully upholstered with cowhide made from the best cows selected from the grasslands. And the cushion you sit on is made of the best steel springs, woven into spring cushions, and palm mats woven from palm trees shipped from Shu County, filled with Shu cicada cocoons, which are extremely soft and worth a hundred peerless magic weapons."

"Apart from my two cars, there is only one set of this on the sofa in Weiyang Palace."

"The transparent glass on this window is the latest product of the glass factory. It is polished by hand with flowing water pebbles. It takes seventy surfaces to polish a piece of glass this perfect."

"The heat transfer efficiency of this copper furnace is much higher than that of an iron furnace. What is burned in the copper furnace is not coal, but walnut charcoal that is cooked in the furnace."

"The wealthy families in Chang'an City use this charcoal to brush their teeth and rinse their mouths, and the rest use it to write and draw. I use it to burn."

Liu Che said so much just to make Liu Ju feel the benefits of money.

Liu Ju: "Not as good as a windmill."

Liu Che: "..."

Liu Che rolled his eyes and said, "But the mechanical structure under my car is the latest. Because it cannot be mass-produced, it was hammered by Tang Sier, a steel expert at the research institute."

"Both the shock absorption efficiency and the transmission efficiency are better than those of ordinary horse-drawn carriages."

"The shaft and bearings in particular are extremely technologically advanced. It's difficult to even manufacture a third one, let alone promote it. There are only two wheels in the world that can rotate this fast."

When it comes to rotation, Liu Ju becomes interested: "Really? So advanced?!"

Liu Che finally understood that the prince liked this.

Liu Che tapped his knees with his fingers, propped himself up, and glanced diagonally to the right and downward: "With money, we can research smoother bearings and shafts, and create wheels with less friction when turning."

Liu Ju: "Then how can we get rich?"

Liu Che: "This is why I am taking you to Tongguan Coal Mine today."

The technical content of Liu Che's carriage is really no joke. Because the bearings are so smooth, the pulling power of a horse can pull this huge carriage with a separate toilet.

This carriage was pulled by eight horses.

Although horsepower is used to represent power in later generations, in fact, the horsepower on a car is roughly equal to the manpower of one person. One horse has about eight horsepower, and eight horses have sixty-four horsepower, which can pull the car to a speed of 20 miles per hour.

You need to change horses every six kilometers.

The good news is that along this road heading north to Tongguan, there is a horse farm rest stop belonging to the coal mine every three kilometers.

Arriving at the dock, Liu Che took Liu Ju out of the car and said, "Cross the river."

Liu Ju: "I don't want to cross the river! I don't want to ride in an ordinary carriage, I want to ride this super rotating carriage!"

Liu Che looked confident and said, "As early as yesterday, another super carriage of mine was sent to the other side of the river."

"This is the benefit of being rich. When I have more money in the future, I will build more super-carousel carriages and place them in various places. I can ride them wherever I go."

Liu Che has been guiding Liu Ju to feel the benefits of money.

Liu Ju thought: "Since the carriages cannot cross the river, we have to change carriages. Then... why not invent a large ship that can directly carry the carriages and is safe?"

Liu Che also fell into deep thought.

But the answer is still the same: "As long as you have money and invest it, what can't you do and what can't you invent?"

……

Because it was too early, Huo Hai's motorcade passed through the city, neither taking the Chidao Road nor the Chang'an Avenue.

Taking the Chidao Road is too roundabout.

If we took Chang'an Avenue, it was newly built and there were no lights on the roadside. It was too early to see the road and we might bump into a stone pillar. So the convoy passed through the city from the village and prepared to get on the highway halfway.

As the carriage was running, Xiang Xu was puzzled: "Sir, why do many shops have wooden signs with simplified Chinese characters written on them?"

Huo Hai closed his eyes and didn't even look: "Of course it's to attract customers."

Xiang Xu scratched his head: "Except for our family and the army, not many people know this simplified Chinese, right? Why do we have to write simplified Chinese on the flag?"

Huo Hai laughed. What a stupid question.

Huo Hai: "Who is the richest person in Chang'an City?"

Xiang Xu: "Your Majesty."

Huo Hai: "Besides His Majesty?"

Xiang Xu: "Several princesses, princes, young masters, General Wei, and the master."

Huo Hai: "Are these the richest people?"

Xiang Xu scratched his head and thought for a while, then suddenly realized: "It's those soldiers who are the richest!"

These soldiers were from good families with good financial conditions. In addition, they had won many battles in recent years, so Liu Che gave most of the money he had extorted as rewards to the soldiers.

Although these people are not rich when taken individually.

But ten veterans together can be as powerful as a Guannei Marquis.

Ten ordinary military officers together are equivalent to an ordinary marquis.

A military general with a salary of 1,000 stones, just based on the cash in his hand, can be equivalent to a marquis with a fiefdom of 1,000 households.

As for the top ones who have been awarded the title of marquis for their martial arts in recent years, the wealth of their families can be compared to that of a marquis with three or five thousand households.

And those who served as generals under Huo Qubing and Wei Qing in the previous few years had family wealth comparable to that of a marquis!

This group is the richest and most affluent class in Chang'an City.

Some people call them the new aristocrats, while others call them the Northern Expedition aristocrats and the Wei and Huo aristocrats.

How many people are like this?
More than 120,000.

An ordinary driver entered the store and said, "Boss, I want a bowl of plain noodles and a bowl of noodle soup."

The so-called Yangchun noodles are noodles that taste like spring. What does spring mean? It means that the snow melts and flows into water, with green leaves floating on it.

To put it simply, it is vegetarian noodles.

As for the soldiers, they would say, "Boss, a pot of wine, a bowl of noodles, a plate of dog leg meat, and a plate of cured pork."

These guys are specially allowed by the emperor to eat meat. They can eat meat and they are rich, so all the profit points are on them.

Which store doesn’t want to let these people know what they are selling in their store?
The soldiers themselves also understand this principle.

So, some time ago, when a large number of soldiers were learning to read, Zhao Po Nu's wife took the lead in hanging plaques in the military camp.

There were words written on the plaque, and the soldiers who were still learning to read even took the initiative to run over to read the words and learn.

After a long time, the families of nearby literate soldiers began to imitate this when doing business.

As a result, more and more businesses started hanging plaques and flags.

Many people started to learn.

Even those who cannot read go and ask others for help.

But it’s not that easy to help.

Why would others write your sign to steal your business?

However, many old scholars are willing to help write plaques for a small fee.

But... "What the hell is this? Who can recognize it?" The soldiers didn't recognize the small seal script and the official script.

If you want to write a simplified Chinese sign, you either have to find someone you know through connections, or pay a lot of money to hire someone to write it.

The bold one directly wrote the words and asked a carpenter to carve it, making it more high-end and hanging it on the door.

What about ordinary business people?
After Huo Hai's carriage passed by, a couple in a shop were worried.

Early in the morning, before it was fully light, the family next door lit lanterns to illuminate their own signboard.

From a distance, others could see what his house was for and went in to eat.

This store does the same business as the one next door, but there is no one here.

The lady boss was very angry and poked the man with her finger: "Everyone else can read, why can't you? How can you run this business? How do you tell me to do it?"

"We bought this yard at a price ten times higher than before. Now we can't do business. What should we do?"

The man couldn't think of a solution, so he could only say, "I'll go find someone else to ask for help..."

The proprietress: "Didn't you take the money and go to Junlu to look for someone yesterday? You looked everywhere but couldn't find him?"

The man was also embarrassed: "I went out yesterday and was hungry. There were a lot of people on Chidao Road and every store had a queue, so I found a queue and queued up..."

“I waited in line until I realized it was a toilet…”

"Then I went to the side to queue up for food, which delayed me."

Woman: "How dare you go to the toilet to queue up? Why don't you go in and eat shit?"

The man was also angry: "Begging, begging, begging, who are you asking for help? I heard that the son of the old man Ma who used to live in Gulu is now retired and is a teacher in a night school. I might as well sign up for a night school and learn to read by myself."

“It shouldn’t be that hard to learn a few words like noodle shop, right?”

The woman yelled, "What if the backyard business is not doing well in the future and you want to change your business? You went to night school just to learn two words? Then you might as well go copy the sign next door?"

The man whispered: "There are two words for Noodle House, but there are four words on the sign. Which two words are Noodle House..."

“What if they say it’s a free trial…”

Woman: "If you want to learn, then learn it all! When I give birth to a son, I will definitely send him to school, not like you, an idiot, who queues up in the toilet to eat! So stupid!"

The man coaxed: "Go and learn now, go and learn now..."

(End of this chapter)