Chapter 257 Monthly Report Submission
Zhang Meng had no idea that he was actually the display object chosen by Qiao Yan, and he jumped into this trap without any preparation.
When he took the knife from the man holding it, he even looked at it professionally for a long time, and finally came to a conclusion -
This is truly an excellent knife.
However, there are of course differences between good knives. For example, there is a difference between a good knife that is sharp enough to cut the throat and a good-looking knife with a thick back.
The former excels in sharpness and toughness, while the latter excels in strength.
The knife in Zhang Meng's hand belongs to the former.
In other words, if this knife is used in actual combat, it can easily cut through flesh and blood, but heavy armor can also effectively block its blade. So, what about the concrete ground in front of him?
If it is the latter type, perhaps it can rely on its strength and the explosive force of being thrown to the ground to make a small hole in the cement under extremely extreme conditions. The former obviously doesn't work.
But Zhang Meng didn't understand the reason behind this.
After realizing how sharp the sword was, he even asked the person who had held the sword for some things to test the sharpness of the sword, such as wood, leather armor, or even other weapons.
All in all, the final result satisfied everyone.
His rigorous performance, how should I put it, greatly reduces the possibility that he is a stooge.
This "everyone" does not even just refer to the onlookers.
Zhang Meng was obviously very satisfied with the current situation.
In his opinion, with a good knife in hand and his strong strength, even cutting gold and jade would be no problem, let alone a road like this!
At the same time, Qiao Yan watched this scene from afar and couldn't help but smile.
Someone nearby said, "I think your move is not only to demonstrate this miraculous road, but also to demonstrate this knife."
Hearing Cheng Yu say this, Qiao Yan replied: "This can only be regarded as a secondary role. Everyone knows that only with the advantage of weapons can one defeat the enemy. Those who have iron guards have already thought about how to make the swords sharper. All we do is to do our best."
This is not like the development from dirt roads and gravel roads to cement roads, which is a qualitative change. In modern terms, this can only be regarded as an improvement in quality control.
But when Zhang Meng used this knife to cut off the sword of a visitor from Jingzhou, everyone's eyes on the knife changed a little.
Originally this place was just a display of the new road in Chang'an, but at this moment, from paper to famous horses to the army, and now to weapons, it has formed an impression of strength everywhere, although it does not need to be stated explicitly.
But it is such a good knife——
Zhang Meng rubbed his palms, gripped the knife handle tightly, and chopped at the concrete ground.
In a flash, everyone heard a teeth-grinding sound of iron bending, coming from the direction where the tip of the knife hit the ground.
This is obviously not the sound that would be made when cutting concrete like cutting tofu!
Zhang Meng almost lost his balance and fell to the side, but fortunately he still had some strength left, so he was able to stand there.
As soon as he stood still, he looked at the knife in a daze.
The moment he lowered his body and chopped with all his strength, he could be sure that he had used all his strength.
The moment the knife hit the ground, the vibration transmitted from the blade to the palm of his hand even made his arm muscles feel extremely painful and numb.
If he had not instinctively maintained a tight grip on the knife, it would have slipped out of his hand.
It was because of this stubbornness that for a moment he even felt that this arm no longer belonged to him.
But this "effort" obviously did not bring the expected rewards.
Not only did he fail to leave any scratches on the ground, but the long knife in his hand, which could cut through iron like mud, also had a striking curled edge at the tip of the blade!
If the knife was not tough enough, Zhang Meng even suspected that it would break on the spot, and then the flying iron pieces would teach him a lesson for his stubbornness.
When Zhang Meng thought of this possibility, he couldn't help but feel a little scared.
If such a situation really happened, he would never have a chance to escape!
If the situation of failing to cut the ground and almost getting injured was enough to make Zhang Meng feel an unprecedented sense of frustration, another emotion was even more difficult to bear.
As he stood there in a daze, holding the knife that had become as good as scrap metal, he felt that the eyes of the people around him were looking at him, and their eyes said without saying anything - look, this is the person who overestimates his own abilities.
This subtext made him almost want to find a hole to crawl into.
Or maybe it would be nice to have such an opportunity.
Let him go back to the moment when he first arrived in Chang'an and take back all those words that showed contempt for this road.
But in fact, after seeing the folded blade of the knife, most of the people here did not look at Zhang Meng's flushed face, but at the integrated ground.
The people of Chang'an saw with their own eyes the paving of this land, so they knew clearly what a muddy state it was originally in.
But what about now?
Now it has become a hard rock that cannot be trampled by people or vehicles, and cannot be split by swords or knives.
What a magical sight this is!
You know, there isn't even such a flat and huge piece of stone.
So such existence undoubtedly subverts their cognition.
When Zhang Chang pulled the dazed Zhang Meng off the cement road, the people of Chang'an heard the guards in charge of guarding the place tell them that after the emperor and officials' carriages drove from Gui Palace to the city gate and then returned from the city gate, they could step on it and feel it for themselves.
After all, the law made by Chang'an is that if there are guardrails on both sides of this imperial road, it would be illegal for them to step on them, so they can walk after the guardrails are removed today, and of course they can also walk in the future when there are no barriers.
Can they also go up and take a look?
Everyone asked each other a few questions and confirmed that they were not hallucinating, and then they all looked happy.
They were still skeptical about the rolling blade of Zhang Meng's knife the moment before, but now they all turned their eyes to the ground in front of them, fearing that they would miss the best position when it was their turn to move forward.
Another group of wheels passed by and returned in front of them, and then they saw that the garrison soldiers who had blocked their way were retreating in an orderly manner towards the end of the long street.
As soon as Lu Zhi got off the car, he turned around and saw that the long street behind him was full of people.
Thinking of the scene he had just passed by, he couldn't help but want to laugh.
"This is the first time I see people bowing their heads in front of the emperor and his courtiers. It's not because they are avoiding the emperor's majesty, but because they are studying the details of this road." Seeing Qiao Yan returning from the stands where she directed today's demonstrations, Lu Zhi said to her.
Qiao Yan jokingly said, "Or maybe they are thinking, with the weight of the emperor and the three ministers, can they destroy this miracle road?"
Wang Yun was a little far away before, and didn't pay attention to what Lu Zhi said. He only heard Qiao Yan's words "weight" at this time, so he asked, "What weight?"
Qiao Yan replied: "It's heavier than Mount Tai."
Hearing her say this, Wang Yun waved his hand helplessly, "Grand Marshal, please stop teasing us with such words. I think the four kinds of paper that appeared today are much heavier than ours."
Not to mention that Zhang Chang was extremely curious about these newly appeared papers, even Wang Yun couldn't help but feel itchy when he passed by those white and yellow papers before.
But thinking that Qiao Yan would always help them solve their doubts, he suppressed his curiosity and asked Qiao Yan, "I wanted to ask you when you mentioned this paper. Only a few people can tell the quality of these papers. Maybe you can ask a few more people to try to chop the ground, which would be much more useful than letting these pieces of paper appear at this time. Why did you choose this way?"
Qiao Yan pointed to the crowded road over there and asked Wang Yun, "In your opinion, Situ Wang, in addition to letting the guy chop, if I find a few more people to liven up the atmosphere, will it be better than letting them experience it themselves?"
Obviously not.
More people are still willing to believe what they see with their own eyes, especially when it has never appeared before.
In the scene that Wang Yun could see, someone was poking the ground with a carrying pole in his hand.
Perhaps because they saw that Zhang Meng's arm had not yet recovered to the state it was in before he swung the knife, no one dared to conduct the test in an overly violent manner.
Such actions certainly would not cause any damage to the cement road, but these people still enjoy doing this and seem to be quite pleased with themselves.
In Wang Yun's opinion, they have become even more convinced that this is a magical road that seems to have been bestowed upon Chang'an by God.
It is indeed much more useful than asking someone else to make the presentation.
"But you still don't seem to have answered my question. Even so, you can just cancel this step," Wang Yun replied.
Qiao Yan smiled meaningfully at this, "This can probably be called a little trick to mobilize everyone's wisdom and strength."
"What do you mean?" Lu Zhi asked.
"Let me put it this way," Qiao Yan explained, "If I were to come up with a way to promote this path, or if I were to let my subordinates come up with it, the best they could do would be what you saw today. But since we want the prestige of the Chang'an court to spread far and wide and suppress the other side, we can't stop there."
After hearing her say this, even though Lu Zhi and Wang Yun already knew that Qiao Yan was a man who dared to think and act, they still did not expect that in the face of this situation that they already thought was unique, Qiao Yan was still unsatisfied.
She also has bigger goals.
She continued, "Think about it. Since such paper can be produced in this grand ceremony, there must be a way to produce it. If this ability exists, who wouldn't want to record their books and poems in a more beautiful way, or even flip through them at will? Who wouldn't want to have their calligraphy in a more expressive way? Who wouldn't want to try to record what they see and hear by painting on paper instead of on the rock wall?"
These words made Wang Yun vaguely guess something.
Qiao Yan said, "Wang Situ, forgive me for being blunt, but if you were a young man from an aristocratic family who I didn't know well and had come to question me about the alcohol restriction, but now you saw a good product like this that could satisfy your spiritual pursuits, what choice would you make?"
"Another unfortunate fact is that there are still nearly ten days before the discussion party, and I can't get a solution for the time being. This is because I don't plan to have any positive communication with them before then. I even left Chang'an for a period of time to avoid their visits. What should they do to ensure that they will not be excluded?"
Something like paper is different from cotton-padded clothes.
For these children of wealthy families, if they don’t have cotton clothes, they still have furs, which can fully meet their needs of keeping warm in winter.
Anyway, as long as you have money, you won't freeze to death.
At best, in the publicity campaign created by Qiao Yan, Princess Yang'an and Mi Zhu, if they continue to dress in the same way as before, they will easily appear to be not keeping up with the trend.
But if they still use the old-fashioned paper instead of the pure white and lustrous mulberry paper, it might be a matter of face.
The face of the literati.
Why did she take out four kinds of paper at this time?
Except for the bamboo paper which she had just acquired, mulberry paper, mulberry paper and mulberry paper all belong to the category of "parchment paper" and can be analogized when making them, so they are not recent products.
She didn't take it out before, but waited until now, just because -
She needs these two things to get a qualified exchange of benefits.
It appears at the perfect time.
While using bamboo paper to promote low costs, expand the circulation of Leping Monthly and reduce education costs, she also needed to control the lifelines of other people.
Wang Yun asked tentatively, "You mean, since we have made this road the focus of our recent publicity, why don't they give it a push and get the news about this paper?"
Qiao Yan replied: "Since they are still reluctant to give up the huge profits in the wine industry, this move is of course the most pleasing."
If Wang Yun were to analyze the current situation, I'm afraid it would be exactly what she said.
Before she explained the alcohol restriction, she had already taken back the initiative, forcing people to ease relations with her. So it would undoubtedly be a perfect move for these people to do some "to the best of their ability" publicity for Chang'an's spectacular road.
Once they make such a choice, each family's information channels and publicity channels, and even their own reputation, will make "Chang'an has a wonderful road" a fact known to all corners of the world and there will be no doubt about it.
This does not harm their own interests.
Qiao Yan added: "I think they will show their talents."
The unofficial histories, miscellaneous talks and biographies written by literati of all dynasties are all more exciting than each other. Perhaps there will be some bizarre stories like "mud and water flow in Chang'an, and a touch of water turns to stone" that will be passed down to later generations.
Anyway, let them play.
No matter how Lu Zhi listened, he felt that there was a hint of mischief in Qiao Yan's words, but when he looked towards the noisy scene, he couldn't help but think that this bit of mischief was really insignificant.
Amidst the surging crowd, he saw a particularly interesting scene.
There was a guy who was previously responsible for guarding the cement road from being damaged. He was holding a dog from a nearby neighbor's house and putting its paws on the ground in front of him. It was quite cute.
Didn’t you always want to step on it before? Now you can step on it enough.
It was indeed somewhat "harmonious" that the previous pursuit and blockade between the two parties ended in this way.
If it weren't for the orderly environment and harmonious people's lives, there would never be such a childlike scene.
Or... the dog might really be in the pot instead of here, just as the onlookers initially guessed.
When he thought of this, he felt even more that the scene before him was precious.
Yuan Yao, who was in the crowd, also saw this scene and his eyes flickered slightly.
He has now stepped onto this special path.
Although he was caught up in the crowd, he had to admit that he was also extremely curious about such a scene.
It was not until the guards around gradually dispersed, and changed from blocking them from stepping onto the cement road to evacuating the crowd so that the people who came later could come up and take a look, that Yuan Yao realized belatedly that he should not have been so obsessed with this and forgotten his primary mission in coming to Chang'an.
He was going to ask the Grand Marshal to seek medical treatment for his father!
Yuan Yao hurriedly walked out from the crowd and followed the direction indicated by the guards.
But just when he changed his gaze from looking down at the ground to looking straight ahead, he suddenly saw a somewhat familiar figure in the crowd.
Even if the other person was wearing unfamiliar clothes, and even if he lowered his head to reduce his presence, they were cousins and playmates in Luoyang after all, so they would definitely not fail to recognize each other.
That is Yuan Shao’s second son Yuan Xi!
But why is he here?
Thinking that his father was injured because of Ju Su, who was sent by Yuan Shao to launch a surprise attack from Chenliu County, and that Yuan Shao was in opposition to the Chang'an court, Yuan Yao chased after him without thinking.
If he really didn't recognize the wrong person, it would be a credit to catch Yuan Xi.
But there were so many people around who came to witness this new road.
In a blink of an eye, Yuan Yao realized that he had lost Yuan Xi.
When he tried to look into the crowd again, he could no longer see Yuan Xi.
Yuan Yao was sure that there was nothing wrong with his eyes, so when he saw Yuan Xi, it was not just dazzlement.
It’s a pity that no one was caught!
He could only wonder in his heart what Yuan Xi was thinking if he really came here, while heading towards the Sima Mansion.
What surprised him was that before he could hand in the visiting card, when he arrived at the gate of the mansion, the people waiting there called out his identity and let him in.
However, Qiao Yan would not tell him that this was because when he set out from Yuzhou, the intelligence personnel in Yuzhou had already sent the news to Guanzhong by carrier pigeon, and someone had noticed Yuan Yao's entry into the city in advance.
This made his appearance not a surprising thing.
But such reports certainly have their limitations. For example, Ju Shou and Gao Gan's action of setting out for Chenliu County could not have been known to Qiao Yan's men because they did not lead troops from Yecheng. So when the battle report of Yuzhou was delivered to Qiao Yan, saying that Ju Shou had mobilized the private troops of the Chenliu Gao family to launch a surprise attack on Runan, and that the person leading the troops was named Gao Shun, Qiao Yan looked at the news for a long time.
Fortunately, the news was not bad for her.
Yuan Shao's adoption of this offensive method meant that it was impossible for him to achieve his goal of conquering Yuzhou in a short period of time. On the other hand, this news also reminded her that even though she was now the Grand Marshal, second only to the emperor, she should not underestimate her opponents, let alone the butterfly effect.
But when she turned around and heard Yuan Yao mention that Yuan Shu wanted to ask Hua Tuo to go to Runan to treat him, she felt a little amused.
Is Yuan Shu a little too outstanding among the heroes of the late Han Dynasty?
To put it more bluntly, isn't he a little too careless?
At this time, the first thing he thought of was not how he could restore his image in front of the Runan Yuan clan after experiencing such a defeat, but to ask a famous doctor to see him.
I can only say that it was fortunate that Hua Tuo was indeed an expert in treating external injuries, and he prescribed the right medicine for the condition.
It can be said that this is a reasonable and well-founded statement.
Unfortunately, Qiao Yan did not intend to loan Hua Tuo to Yuan Shu.
"Mr. Yuanhua has other important matters to attend to, so he cannot go to Runan for the time being." Qiao Yan replied, "But Mr. Yuanhua cannot go, but his disciples can. The former general was attacked by the rebels and was injured in guarding the prefectures. He is also considered a meritorious official of the Han Dynasty. The court should pay attention to him and will not stand idly by."
This statement really flattered Yuan Shu.
As soon as Yuan Yao entered Chang'an City, he was shocked by the scene created by Qiao Yan. Now that he heard such words, how could he think that this was a trick on him and his son?
He just felt that the reason why Marquis Qiao had not provided support to Runan before was most likely because he was tied up with other things, rather than because he ignored Yuan Shu.
Even now, it’s not that we don’t take Yuan Shu’s injury seriously. After all... it may just be inappropriate to call on Hua Tuo.
If Yuan Shu knew that he sent his son out to seek a doctor and ended up creating a fan of the Grand Marshal, he would probably scold himself for making such a decision.
But he now knew nothing about what happened in Chang'an, and he didn't know that his good son, after learning that Fan Anai, whom Qiao Yan was going to send, was the most proficient in acupuncture and health-preserving techniques among Hua Tuo's disciples and could help Yuan Shu calm down his anger, felt that this Sima Qiao was actually a good man. He then told Qiao Yan that he had seen Yuan Xi in Chang'an.
"Yuan Xi... Yuan Xianyi?" After temporarily settling Yuan Yao in the Chang'an Inn, Qiao Yan sat on the table, wondering if there was any way for her to profit from this person's appearance.
Although Yuan Yao also said that he could not guarantee that Yuan Xi was indeed here, and there was a possibility that he had recognized the wrong person, but thinking about the inspirational record of Yuan's promotion in the previous Leping Monthly Report, it was not surprising that Yuan Shao sent someone to Chang'an.
Qiao Yan will also ask someone to confirm whether the news is true.
But it is a bit regrettable that since Tian Feng is an example of someone who failed to steal a chicken and ended up losing the rice, and even became a loyal minister, Yuan Xi obviously would not go undercover to join Tian Feng at the same time.
This makes it a bit troublesome to decide how to deal with Yuan Xi's matter.
If he was caught on the spot, given Yuan Shao's attitude towards his son, it would probably be unlikely that he would use him to gain benefits in redeeming hostages.
If we let him go, there's no way he would get some information from Tian Feng and then escape from Chang'an safely.
In that case, Qiao Yan would be at a huge disadvantage.
Always——
Let him be of some use.
What surprised Qiao Yan was that the first message she received was not from Yuan Xi, but the reason she told Lu Zhi and Wang Yun about showing the paper. She actually received a feedback on the second day.
When Cai Zhaoji came to see her, she said in a strange tone: "My Lord, someone asked if Leping Monthly would accept submissions from outside. It was for the literature section. It was about the exhibition on Chang'an Road yesterday."
Qiao Yan sat up straight from his lazy posture, "Which great talent came up with such a quick article?"
Cai Zhaoji replied: "This man's name is Wang Can, he is the grandson of the former Minister of Works Wang Shumao, but..."
"Please read this poem first before deciding whether to use it or not."
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