Tiger Guards

Chapter 492 Official Business Comes First
Hedong University is located in the northwest suburbs outside Anyi City.

The construction of Hedong University was modeled after military camps, as it was originally an expansion of a military camp.

Inside a large hall, Zhuge Jin was inspecting the area.

Inside the hall, more than a hundred students sat around two long tables, sorting through various bamboo slips that had been confiscated from the army.

These bamboo slips have already undergone preliminary screening; most of the ones that were transported here are prose, poems, notes, and the like.

Not many bamboo slips were transported from the front lines. Many bamboo slips were collected and buried on the spot, waiting to be excavated and transported later.

It is difficult to determine exactly how many bamboo slips were buried.

Transport capacity was precious during the withdrawal of troops, and these bamboo slips were too heavy. They were carried back to Shaanxi and Tianjin with Gan Ning's fleet, then transported by land for nearly a hundred miles, and then loaded onto ships to travel up the Yellow River via the Sushui River to Anyi.

More importantly, the bamboo slips containing books, geography, and classics were loaded onto ships and transported north along the Fen River to Jinyang. Once in Jinyang, they were temporarily stored, waiting for the Longcheng University to be operational and for cheap labor to be available to compile and organize those classics, historical books, and geographical information.

Zhuge Jin was only here on orders to inspect the place. The university did not force these students to participate in the interpretation and classification; it only provided them with meals and accommodation.

The buildings in the university town were all converted from the original barracks, and they all had heated brick beds. The fuel was horse and cow dung from the Beiguo family manor, which was located a dozen miles to the east.

After the Beiguo family manor was converted into a military camp, it was designated as the garrison of the Hedong Knights Camp.

Even though the Hedong cavalry were scattered throughout various military settlements, towns, and villages, the Beiguo cavalry camp was still responsible for training warhorses and had a fixed output of horse manure.

Zhuge Jin looked around but couldn't find his second brother, Zhuge Liang, in the crowd.

After observing for a while, he went to inspect other disciplines accompanied by several professors.

Hedong University has nine disciplines: Taoism, Law, Morality, Economics, History, Agriculture, Military Science, Mathematics, and Engineering. As a result, the entire university town is divided into nine teaching areas, which does not restrict the scope of students' studies.

Each department has one chief lecturer and several professors, most of whom are from Xuzhou, Hongnong, Jingzhao, Henan, and Tianshui.

There is no designated person in charge of the university; frankly, it's just a disorganized university.

Therefore, these priests or professors were very eager to curry favor with Zhuge Jin.

Zhuge Jin didn't have any particularly outstanding achievements; he simply accompanied the Grand Marshal on two expeditions to Guandong, and each time he was in charge of military medical affairs.

He didn't have much power, and he couldn't even control much external affairs, but the wounded soldiers were grateful to Zhuge Jin after they recovered.

Zhuge Jin's uncle, Zhuge Xuan, was in charge of filling vacancies and internal promotions in the various departments of the Grand Marshal's office.

Zhuge Xuan was in charge of the internal affairs of the military headquarters, but he couldn't resist being promoted to the governor of Hedong Commandery.

Zhao Xu, the former governor of Hedong Commandery, was transferred to be the governor of Taiyuan Commandery.

Although the Zhuge clan, being from the same hometown as the Zhao clan, did not wield much power, their influence and influence were rapidly expanding.

Zhuge Jin soon arrived at the engineering department for inspection and saw many students weaving armor together. He asked, "What is the reason for this?"

There is no "leader" in engineering; to be precise, no one is willing to take the position, as they feel it's too shameful.

Therefore, the engineering department was only overseen by a professor who was proficient in mathematics, astronomy, and calendar systems. He looked at the students who were focused on weaving armor and said with a smile, "We are studying the improvement of armor. This is an order issued to the engineering department by the shogunate in the middle of the year."

"Any progress?"

"The difficulty lies in the lack of steel armor plates."

Professor Xue said, "There are feasible ways to improve the situation in engineering, but there is a lack of enough steel armor plates. At present, there are only enough to weave a dozen or so new suits of armor. After the armor is completed, it will be damaged when it is attacked by bows, crossbows, spears, halberds, axes, and cleaving weapons."

Seeing that Zhuge Jin had spotted Zhuge Liang in the crowd, Professor Xue continued, "Currently, we are using the steel-layering method, which requires more than 500 steel plates per set of armor to improve. Previously, it was more than 700 plates, and they want to reduce it to more than 400, or even less than 400 plates."

To put it bluntly, it's a more scientific way to cut corners, using the best steel plates in the most critical areas without compromising the defensive capabilities of other parts.

Under the Grand Marshal's Shogunate system, once the armor began to be remodeled, the required steel plates would inevitably be a huge expense.

As for the time spent on refitting the armor, that's not a big deal. A qualified soldier should understand his own protective gear and weapons, and master the skills of temporary armor repair.

During the off-season when there is no war, as long as the new armor plates and the weaving samples of the new armor are distributed, the soldiers can complete the re-weaving of the armor themselves.

There's no need to discard discarded ancient armor plates; they can be made into iron-inlaid leather armor and distributed to county and prefectural soldiers.

As for those rusty and brittle nail plates, they were naturally recycled and remade.

After observing for a moment, Zhuge Jin said, "I will report this matter to the Grand Marshal and have the workshop allocate manpower to make more armor plates."

Professor Xue simply bowed and thanked him, displaying neither arrogance nor servility.

Engineering has its own tasks, and other disciplines have similar tasks; improving armor is just a small part of them.

At least in Professor Xue's eyes, the improvement of armor is far less important than the revision of the calendar in the Taoist school.

In recent times, natural disasters and man-made calamities have been frequent. In Professor Xue's view, there are many factors at play, and at least the old calendar system can no longer keep up with the needs of the times.

Astronomy and mathematics continued to develop, and revising the calendar was a major event for the dynasty.

Similar calls for a new calendar had been made during the reigns of Emperors Huan and Ling, but the court struggled to make a decision, and the Yellow Turban Rebellion led to further indefinite postponements. However, professionals in the private sector continued their efforts, each eager to become a promoter of the new calendar.

Even improvements in armor are far less significant than improvements in agricultural and livestock breeding in agricultural science, or improvements in smelting methods in engineering.

In terms of quick results, armor modification is the easiest way to achieve results.

Once the final design for the new armor weaving scheme is determined, and at least one hundred samples are produced, the final assessment can proceed.

We already have samples; the current step is to internally improve the weaving scheme to reduce the consumption of steel plates.

At least 100,000 sets of armor need to be re-made; every single piece reduced is meaningful.

In Zhuge Jin's eyes, this was nothing more than something for college students to practice on. Later, tasks would be assigned to improve new types of armor, horse armor, chariots, and warships.

He only offered to help because Zhuge Liang was there.

Many wounded military officers, after recovering, would be transferred to local posts, and the most common place they went was a workshop management position.

He only needed to mention it to Zhao Ji when reporting to him, and if Zhao Ji didn't object, Zhuge Jin could coordinate the increase in armor production on his own.

After inspecting Hedong University, Zhuge Jin headed to Anyi City.

In Anyi City, the handover between the old and new governors was completed in the governor's mansion, and the newly appointed governor, Zhuge Xuan, was reviewing the archives of the governor's officials.

The county officials will definitely need to be replaced; the original county officials are still in their posts.

In the past, when the prefectural governor changed, many prefectural officials would voluntarily resign.

However, preparations for a new war are underway, and these county officials cannot be touched yet; there will certainly be oversights when new people take over.

Although Hedong Commandery did not mobilize its troops or conduct military mobilization, it still needed to organize manpower and resources to prepare for war.

With the Sushui River in place, if the front lines are not progressing well and logistics are tight, the supplies from Pingyang and Xihe should be transported up first; then the supplies from Hedong should be transported to prevent the front lines from running out of food.

Zhuge Xuan was a slow-paced person, and at this time he was even less willing to make any mistakes.

Originally, the simplest solution for Jia Xu to resign as governor of Taiyuan was to have Zhuge Xuan succeed him.

However, Zhao Yan was used to Zhao Xu and wanted to give Zhuge Xuan more opportunities, so he let Zhuge Xuan take over as governor of Hedong Commandery.

Zhao Ji also wanted to temporarily shift his development focus to Pingyang. Although the eight counties surrounding Pingyang had been incorporated into the Pingyang Marquisate, they still belonged to Hedong Commandery.

Let Zhuge Xuan take charge of Hedong Commandery; Zhao Ji is also quite comfortable using him here.

"uncle."

When Zhuge Jin entered, he was carrying a pot of tea. Zhuge Xuan looked up and asked, "Have you seen Kongming?"

"I saw him, but I was too busy with official business to speak with him."

Zhuge Jin poured tea, handed over the teacup, and sat down at the lower end, saying, "My nephew will be heading to Pingyang tomorrow, so I'll have to trouble Uncle Kongming with his studies."

"It's good to prioritize official business. Kongming is not very opinionated, so let him study at the university for now."

Zhuge Xuan had already remarried, and he left his wife and one concubine in Jinyang.

According to custom, county officials should not bring their families with them when taking office in other places, nor should they marry local wives or concubines.

Zhuge Xuan pondered for a moment, then continued, "Once the Grand Marshal has pacified the various Hu tribes in the three commanderies, he will vigorously develop Longcheng University. I believe that Kongming should go to Longcheng University. Once my official duties are running smoothly, I will summon Kongming and explain the situation to him."

Longcheng University's disciplines are similar to those of Hedong University, but it involves in-depth skills such as law, military command, logistics, and medicine.

Hedong University also has a medical school, but there is a shortage of military doctors on the front lines, so where can we find good doctors to give lectures?
Therefore, it was temporarily incorporated into the Taoist discipline. After all, it is normal for people who study astronomy, calendar systems, and mathematics to also study Yin-Yang medicine.

The mathematics department at Hedong University focuses on practical applications.

After discussing Zhuge Liang's arrangements, the uncle and nephew did not chat for long, and Zhuge Jin immediately took his leave.

That's just how his family is; they don't have the habit of gathering together for meals and drinks.

Since Zhuge Xuan was a newly appointed official and his subordinate county officials had not been replaced, he should set an example.

Being too close to Zhuge Jin would actually be detrimental to Zhuge Jin.

Hedong is different from other places; there are too many families here that are associated with the Tiger Warriors.

By maintaining his relationship with Zhuge Jin, his subordinates would be unable to ask Zhuge Jin for favors through him.

Without further delay, Zhuge Jin left Anyi City and headed north, spending the night at a post station on the northern outskirts of Wenxi City.

He was ordered to pay homage to Lord Tongxiang early the next morning, delivering several sets of winter clothing and daily necessities; afterwards, he would head to Pingyang to assist Jia Kui in mobilizing the volunteer troops in the eight counties of the Pingyang Marquisate.

Before the snowfall, war mobilization must be carried out.

(End of this chapter)