荒墟牧神 - 第281章 龍君相邀 - 簡牘書房

Once the great bridge had been completed, the many officials of the Ministry of Works rose into the air and scattered to inspect the riverbanks. Shen Mu saw men with iron rods, driving one rod after another, each several zhang long, into the river embankments at intervals of a hundred zhang. A man stood beside every rod, and someone had set a huge bell in midstream; when a resounding dong rang out, the rods shook in concert, and those standing beside them leaned close to hear the quivering tone that ran along the metal.

"What are they doing? " Shen Mu wondered. Ling Yuxiu walked over to him and said, "This is something you would not know.

In the old days, the Tu River was forever flooding, and my imperial father, Emperor Jingping, ordered the Vice Minister of Works to come and tame it.

The Vice Minister spent an incalculable amount of wealth. My father was angry and asked him why he had spent so much and where the money had gone. The Vice Minister said that he had laid a wall of dark copper along each bank of the Tu, two inches thick and two feet high, running along the dikes for ten thousand li. The wall was covered with inscribed runes. Whenever they wanted to test the dikes for hidden cracks or for places worn thin by the water, they had only to strike the bronze bell; the bell-note stimulated the rune marks on the dark-copper wall and set it resonating, and by the sound-waves they could judge where the dike was cracked and where it had thinned. " Si Yunxiang came up and said, "The Emperor nearly had his head cut off because he spent so much. " Ling Yuxiu glanced at her. "The Vice Minister spent too much, it is true. In those years, he built flying towered ships for the sky, painted barges for the water, land-going boats and flywheel carts for the roads, smelting works for the mines, military workshops and ordnance factories everywhere, renovated every city gate and tower, laid out the sewers and paved the streets, made siege cloud-carts, built the frontier stockades, and fabricated machinery of every kind. I had not yet been born then, but later my second brother told me that in those years the Vice Minister's spending forced my father and all the princes, the crown prince, the honored consorts, and the Empress Dowager to tighten their belts until their faces turned green with hunger; the treasury was emptied at once, and officials' salaries went unpaid for months.

" "And then?

" Si Yunxiang asked, smiling. Ling Yuxiu sighed. "Afterward, the smelting works spread, and the towered ships and painted barges were sold to merchants, and the ordnance factories produced one after another without stopping. In no more than two years the treasury was full, so they built several more treasuries to hold the money. My father congratulated himself and said, 'Thank heaven I did not execute him! ' Apart from the Vice Minister, the biggest spenders in the Ministry are the directors of the Waterways Bureau. They built water-lifting carts, flood-relief lakes, all sorts of dams and great bridges, and cut canals; their spending was no less than a river in flood, but they also made the common folk wealthy. " Si Yunxiang blinked. "It seems as if all the spending was done by the Vice Minister and the Bureau directors.

What does the Minister of Works do?

The actual work appears to be done by the Vice Minister, Shan Youxin, and his people; the Minister never seems to do anything. " Ling Yuxiu blinked too. "The Minister of Works supervises their spending. " Then Ling Yuxiu let her gaze rest on Si Yunxiang. "Junior Sister Yunxiang seems very interested in the Celestial Sage Sect. " Si Yunxiang smiled sweetly. "This little sister has no talent, but as the Holy Maiden of the Celestial Sage Sect, I naturally pay it a little attention.