Chapter Nineteen Brick Road

  "Alone in a foreign land, I am a stranger, and whenever a festive occasion arrives, I miss my family even more."

  Today is Mid-Autumn Festival. On this day that makes people miss their hometown, Yang You only left a moment of nostalgia for himself before starting his busy day.

  Outside the East Palace Gate, a four-wheeled carriage, noble and elegant, was entirely in deep purple black. It turned out that this carriage was made of precious purple sandalwood, with an astonishing price.

  Behind the purple sandalwood four-wheeled carriage, a pink four-wheeled carriage stopped in front of the East Palace gate.

  Compared to the chariots made of purple sandalwood, the pink chariot has less domineering air but more delicate and transparent beauty, what remains unchanged is that they are all so elegant.

  This is Yang Guifei's carriage, which was specially made for her by the Ministry of Works.

  I don't know how Yang Jier got the news, but she knew that Yang You was going to inspect the settlement of refugees today, so she blocked the gate of the East Palace early in the morning. Yang You had no choice but to let her follow him.

  Dong Yue rode a tall horse, his eyes scanning the surroundings like an eagle.

  Drive

  Dong Yue urged his horse forward, and the warhorse began to move slowly. The carriages behind him started to follow slowly, heading towards the East City Gate.

  At this time, Mid-Autumn Festival was not an important festival. The most important festivals here were the Spring Festival and Qingming Festival.

  But this year's Mid-Autumn Festival is indeed the most joyful festival for Daxing people, without the trouble of corvée and taxes, the autumn harvest has already been completed, at this time wanting to celebrate, what's more comfortable than celebrating the festival!

  The entire Daxing City was shrouded in a thick festive atmosphere, filled with laughter and cheers.

  According to Daxun's 2014 scholarly verification, the Mid-Autumn Festival became popular precisely because of this celebration by the people of Daxing.

  Yang Jier was overjoyed and couldn't help herself. Although she was in the palace with no one daring to provoke her, the number of times she went out of the palace was pitifully small.

  Last time Yang You went to Luoyang, he was already envious. This time, he finally got the chance to leave the palace and was as excited as a bird flying out of its cage into the sky.

  Feeling the almost imperceptible vibration of the horse carriage beneath her, Yang Jier's face flushed with excitement as she urged the coachman to speed up even more. However, this was within the inner city of Daxing, where there were many residents, and even if it were a princess urging the coachman on, he wouldn't dare go too fast, lest something happen and he be the one to suffer!

  "The prince has gone out."

  These days, the great name of King Yang has truly reached the hearts of ordinary people. Just allowing them to pay money in lieu of labor has made the people of Daxing extremely grateful, and they have flocked to watch. Almost all the streets are lined with crowds of onlookers.

  Of course, that weirdly-shaped four-wheeled carriage also attracted a lot of attention. In the eyes of Daxing citizens, the fleet drove out of Daxing City.

  Inside and outside the city are two completely different worlds. Inside, there is a festive atmosphere filled with laughter and cheer, while outside, it's a scene of intense labor and toil.

  Just a few miles out of town, you can see the bustling scene of prosperity and good fortune.

  Young and strong people are naturally the main force of this busy life. Although old people and children cannot do heavy work, they can do some light work to help out.

  Looking at the official road under the car, Yang You was very satisfied. The progress of this project is much faster than in previous years. In previous years, those citizens of Daxing City were forced to do these things, and they naturally did whatever it took to save effort, all of which were perfunctory.

  But these refugees are different, they are fighting for a mouthful of food to save their lives, without anyone urging them, they all work very hard.

  Looking at the ordinary people on both sides of the official road, sweating like rain but with a smile on their faces, Yang You knew that his efforts had not been in vain. After passing this hurdle, Daxing will surely usher in another period of rapid development, and it is not impossible to surpass Luoyang.

  Suddenly a commotion came from the front, and the convoy slowed down and stopped.

  "What's going on?" Yang You asked, sticking his head out of the car window.

  "Dummy Yang Yu, it seems like there's a broken-down car in front, blocking the road." Yang Jier stretched her head out as far as she could, almost half of her body already sticking out of the car.

  "Reporting to Your Highness, the vehicle in front that was carrying bricks has broken down and is blocking the road." The guard ran forward to investigate the situation and returned to report.

  Yang You nodded slightly, didn't mind this small matter, suddenly glanced at those bricks with his peripheral vision, and his gaze suddenly fixed on them.

  He quickly got off the bus and arrived in front of the road-blocking vehicle, bent down to pick up a brick, and looked at it carefully, as if he had found a treasure.

  "Red brick?" Yang You muttered a sentence.

  "The color is red, of course it's a red brick, you're so stupid," Yang Jier saw Yang You get off the car and also followed up, a large team of guards hurriedly separated the crowd, keeping a safe distance.

  "It shouldn't be!" Yang You muttered to himself, ignoring Yang Jier.

  Yang Yijiu had been in the palace for a long time and did not know that the Sui Dynasty did not have red bricks, and had always used green bricks. Red bricks were invented by ancient Romans and had not yet been introduced to China.

  When producing red bricks, they are usually fired at high temperature until the brick is thoroughly burnt inside and out, then the fire is extinguished, allowing the kiln and bricks to cool naturally.

  At this time, the air in the kiln is well-ventilated and oxygen-rich, forming a good oxidation atmosphere, which oxidizes the iron elements in the brick blank into triiron tetraoxide.

  Because iron(III) oxide is red, it will also be red. That's why bricks are red.

  If the brick is burned through and then water is constantly poured into the kiln, at this time, due to the high temperature inside the kiln, the water quickly turns into steam, which will prevent air from flowing, creating an oxygen-free environment inside the kiln. The iron oxide in the brick is reduced to ferrous oxide and remains in the brick. Since ferrous oxide is bluish-gray, the brick will be bluish-gray. This is the green brick.

  Compared to green bricks, red bricks are the result of cutting corners and reducing the soaking process, which can save a lot of time and cost. However, there is little difference in quality, which is also why red bricks gradually replaced green bricks in China later on.

  Red bricks are cheaper.

  "Where did this pile of bricks come from!"

  Yang You held a red brick and walked up to the trembling cart driver, asking.

  "Spare my life, spare my life! I'm just a lowly commoner, I deserve to die!"

  The dark-skinned coachman heard Yang You ask a question and began to plead for himself.

  "This king Yang You won't blame you, just want to know where these bricks came from." Yang You shook his head and said with a slight smile.

  "Pay respects to Ren Wang!" The dark-skinned coachman heard Yang You's name and suddenly became excited.

  "Ren Wang," Yang You said with great doubt.

  Under the driver's chaotic explanation, Yang You finally understood that this time he had paid money to substitute for labor, allowing him to use work instead of relief, making countless people in Daxing benefit and survive, everyone was very grateful to him, thinking he was benevolent, and respectfully called him Ren Wang.

  "According to the words of Master Ren, these are all waste bricks. My master has a kiln factory at home, and our young master practiced firing the kiln for the first time a few days ago, but he fell asleep and forgot to sprinkle water on the kiln, so the bricks were damaged and turned red, some were even half-red and half-green. I'm just following the orders of the young master to come to Daxing to find a buyer to sell them at a low price." The cart driver dared not hide anything and told everything truthfully.

  Yang You suddenly realized that it was a waste brick, and when he picked up several more bricks to take a look, they were indeed ugly with a mixture of green and red colors.

  Unexpectedly having the hope of red bricks, Yang You would not let it go. Having the secret recipe for making red bricks, mass-producing cheap bricks can also be considered an achievement!

  "Go and invite your young master over, I have some questions for him."

  The charioteer drove away with several attendants.

  "Yang You, let's hurry up! This place is filthy." Yang Jier urged.

  Yang Jier has always lived in the palace and loves cleanliness. Now the ground is full of dirt, which she finds very disgusting. So she lets a few guards put together several bricks to stand on.

  Yang You looked at the bricks on the ground and Yang Jier standing on top of them, suddenly had an idea, picked up a few bricks, laid them flat on the ground, and connected them to the bricks under Yang Jier's feet.

  The guards hastily snatched up the bricks, this dirty work definitely can't be done by His Highness the Crown Prince!

  According to Yang You's instructions, around Yang Jie'er, half-green and half-red bricks were laid on the ground, forming a brick floor about one zhang wide.

  Yang Jier's foothold suddenly became a square inch of land.

  "Yang You, you're so clever!" Yang Jier seemed to have forgotten that she had just been calling Yang You a fool, and suddenly began praising his intelligence.

  Yang Jier happily jumped back and forth on the brick surface, earlier there were only a few places to stand which made her feel very stifled, now suddenly having several feet of width, suddenly felt much more comfortable.

  Seeing the brick road on the ground, Yang You suddenly fell into memories, thinking of his previous life's small village. At that time, the village-to-village construction project had just started and cement roads were not yet widespread. The villagers in his hometown raised funds to build a brick road themselves. Wasn't he as excited as Yang Jier in front of him at that time?

  The project of brick road is simple, as long as there are bricks, it can be paved into a road, without any technical content. Is it feasible to build a brick road in Daxing?

  Of course it's possible.