Chapter 1247 Postscript 103 Finally It Became a Modern Piano

Chapter 1247 Postscript 103: Finally it became a modern piano

It was early spring, and the cold had not yet dissipated.

Zifeng felt a chill on her back, as if the quilt was not covered properly, and cold wind kept blowing in.

She pulled the quilt several times subconsciously, but failed to move it. So she drowsily squeezed towards a warm place, half of her body lying on Xie Laoliu.

Suddenly there was a noise outside the house, and Zifeng woke up suddenly due to the habit she had developed as a maid for many years.

Qingluan also woke up at the same time.

The two looked at each other across the chest of the prince consort, and each recalled the absurdity of last night.

Qingluan was much more generous, sticking out her tongue and smiling playfully.

Zifeng was so embarrassed that she quickly turned over to avoid it, but found that there was no quilt next to her - Qingluan pressed the other side of the quilt in her dream last night, and rolled Zifeng's quilt over.

No wonder she felt cold just now, Zifeng immediately sat up and dressed.

"Knock, knock, knock!"

"My dear, it's time to wash up."

There were maids knocking on the door outside. They had made the noise before.

Xie Yan yawned and opened his eyes. He wanted to sit up and put on his clothes. Suddenly, he felt his arms were sore. It turned out that Qingluan and Zifeng had been sleeping on his back for half a night.

Who told him to hug him left and right before falling asleep?

"What's wrong with Liu Lang?" Qingluan asked while she was getting dressed.

Xie Yan looked a little uncomfortable: "Maybe the blood circulation in my arms is not smooth. I need to relax for a while."

Qingluan and Zifeng immediately understood and glared at each other. They blamed each other for crushing my dear.

They quickly put on their clothes, then lay on both sides to massage Xie Laoliu to activate his blood circulation. After massaging for a while, they helped Xie Laoliu sit up and cooperated with each other to help him get dressed.

Xie Yan's arms had recovered a long time ago. At this moment, he closed his eyes to enjoy the tenderness and experience the decadent and comfortable life.

Finally, Qingluan went to open the door.

The maids outside the house filed in, and when they saw Zifeng was also here, they showed surprised expressions one by one.

Zifeng was so embarrassed that she forced herself to calm down and said, "I got up early today and came here to serve you in advance."

The maids did not expose her, but just pursed their lips and held back their laughter.

After Xie Yan finished washing up, he ran to greet the princess, but the princess was still sleeping in, so he also lay down next to her to make up for it.

After a while, Zhu Tangxi woke up: "Why is Liu Lang here?"

Xie Yan smiled and said, "I miss my sister."

"I'm glad that you still remember me." Zhu Tangxi was in a good mood and called the maid outside to serve.

After breakfast, the couple came to the front house and called two male servants to tell them to do errands. One went to invite the carpenter to come home, and the other went to buy steel wires of various thicknesses.

In the afternoon, the carpenter started working, but the steel wire had not been bought back yet.

Iron wire is easy to buy, but steel wire is not common because there is no demand for it among the people.

There is no way, you can only order it.

And you have to find a military factory to order it.

"What do you want the steel wire for?" Empress Dowager Ye asked curiously.

Xie Yan said, "To do experiments."

Zhu Tangxi said, "Only iron wire can be bought on the market."

Empress Dowager Ye was too lazy to ask more questions. Anyway, it was not a contraband. The reason why he came to her was just to contact the military factory. It was troublesome to follow the normal process.

Calling an official from the Tongzhengyuan, Empress Dowager Ye asked Xie Yan to explain the specific needs and directly issued an imperial decree to order the Luoyang Military Factory to make it.

"Little uncle, do you still have that kind of candy? I've eaten mine." The little emperor ran over after finishing his homework.

Xie Yan smiled and said, "We have to wait until the fleet returns from the Americas."

The little emperor was a little disappointed, but still pulled Xie Yan to play Cuju.

Empress Dowager Ye watched them leave, and said to Zhu Tangxi with a smile: "The emperor is thirteen years old this year. I have selected three child prodigies for him to study with. They will be brought to the palace in a few days, and a courtyard will be specially arranged for the child prodigy to live in."

"It would be nice to have a few playmates," Zhu Tangxi asked, "When will he get married?"

Empress Dowager Ye sighed: "Fifteen years old."

The crown prince of the Ming Dynasty usually got married at the age of sixteen.

In ancient China, the crown prince usually got married at the age of 13-17.

But the little emperor is not the crown prince.

He is the emperor.

This is the first underage emperor since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

From the empress dowager to the ministers, everyone was afraid of accidents, such as the sudden death of the little emperor.

For the ministers, although they could choose another member of the royal family to ascend the throne, there were too many variables. Therefore, everyone hoped that the little emperor would get married and have children as soon as possible.

Seeing that the little emperor turned thirteen, some officials have already requested to consider the matter of marriage.

The ministers meant that the selection should be made this year and the marriage should be made next year.

In the Ming Dynasty of this time and space, the empress's origin was between the Song and Ming dynasties: offering was prohibited. Those with low cultural level were not accepted. Those with close relatives of the third rank or above were not accepted.

The prohibition of offering was a lesson from the Song Dynasty.

The trend of offering maids to the emperor in the Song Dynasty began when Liu E came to power. After Song Renzong took power, it was once dismissed, but it was soon carried forward.

From that time on, the royal family, nobles, officials, and generals of the Song Dynasty offered women to the palace from time to time.

Even ordinary people, if their daughters were beautiful, were sent to the outside of Donghua Gate by carriage.

When they were first sent in, most of them became maids, but a few directly became concubines.

Everyone hoped that the women they offered would become empresses or favorite concubines one day.

There were a lot of records of offerings during the reign of Song Renzong alone.

For example, Prime Minister Zhang Shixun offered beautiful women to Song Renzong in order to consolidate his power, and was impeached by the censor Yang Kai.

There was also a member of the royal family, Zhao Congyan, who presented beautiful women to Emperor Renzong of Song.

Wu, a relative, divorced her husband, but she took her husband's niece away and sent it to the palace to present to Song Renzong.

There was also a commoner who dedicated his twin daughters to Song Renzong.

Empress Wen Chengzhang (who was posthumously granted the title) asked her grandmother (Qian family of Wuyue) to send her two younger sisters to the palace in order to maintain her favor. The three sisters served Song Renzong together, and they really fascinated the emperor.

There is no mistake. One post, one content, one 6 one, one book, one book, one read!

These are the ancestral arts of the Zhang family. Empress Zhang's two aunts are sisters who served with Song Zhenzong.

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty now prohibits the donation of palace maids, and everything follows the selection process. It is actually the Song Dynasty that caused a lot of troubles.

In the Song Dynasty palace, there were even private maids!

That is, the concubines of the harem paid privately for women to enter the palace through private people. In order to bypass the employment period, she was adopted directly as an adopted daughter.

This kind of private palace maids only take orders from their adoptive mothers. They don't even have a formal establishment, and they don't need to pay for their support from the royal family.

After the official was convicted, his daughter was sold to the palace by the Yaren. After he was reinstated, he asked for redemption. In the Song Dynasty, this kind of scandal was recorded in writing at least twice.

The Ming Dynasty had requirements for the queen's cultural level and also learned from the lessons of the past.

Take the present as an example. If Empress Dowager Ye was illiterate, wouldn't she be completely manipulated by her ministers?

…

Taixue has opened a school and all kinds of customized steel wires were delivered.

Xie Yan came home from get off work early and assembled one of the buttons and its linkage components.

Only one steel wire is needed, nails are driven into the wood at both ends, and the steel wire is wrapped around the nails to straighten it.

"Boom!"

The button is pressed and the wire is plucked.

Xie Yan wrote down with a pen: "The touch of the keys is too hard, so leather or flannel must be added as a gasket."

Zhu Tangxi also pressed it a few times and said, "The strings won't stop trembling. We need to find some way to stop them."

"It seems that there is another device at the front end of the linkage lever." Xie Yan said.

What device to add?

Damper!

This is a damper that quickly stops the strings from vibrating.

Xie Yan pressed the button again and again, observed the linkage lever and said: "You can not use the spring to return it, just use the gravity of the front end of the lever."

Zhu Tangxi listened carefully on the side: "A piano like Liulang's is the same no matter who plays it. The only difference is the speed of playing. In the future, there will be no famous piano players or masters. Everyone will become a piano playing craftsman." "

"No, this is definitely wrong." Xie Yan thought quietly.

He didn't know that what he designed was a harpsichord, he always thought it was a modern piano.

Zhu Tangxi suddenly thought of something: "If it were replaced by hammering strings, wouldn't this be an amplified mulberry qin? It just has many more keys."

The santurqin from the Mesopotamia and Mesopotamia was introduced to the Ming Dynasty decades ago with the exchanges between the East and the West, and was referred to as "sangqin".

If it continues to develop and evolve in China, it will eventually become the dulcimer.

Similarly, the santur also spread to Europe, and began to use steel wire for strings. If it continues to develop and evolve, it will develop into a harpsichord and eventually a modern piano.

Piano and dulcimer have the same ancestor!

"Change the plucking of the strings to the striking of the strings..." Xie Yan thought carefully for a moment, "It's not impossible. Moreover, you can also control the lightness and gravity of the striking of the strings by pressing the keys, so that the sound of the piano will have more changes. At that time, different people You can play the same song with different personal styles.”

Xie Yan is really not doing his job properly.

When he went to school the next day, he even brought a pile of wood sticks and nails, as well as a carpenter's saw and hand drill.

"What experiment is Bachelor Xie going to do?" Assistant Professor Zhang Chong asked curiously.

Xie Yan smiled and said: "It's an experiment, but it has nothing to do with chemistry. If class time comes, please notify me ten minutes in advance."

The new version of chemistry textbooks has been distributed to students.

Moreover, all students across the country use the same chemistry textbooks, so there is no difference between Taipei students and other students.

The upgraded version of the chemistry textbook dedicated to Taixue has not even started to be written, and even chemists are still doing experiments on many of the contents!

Zhang Chong sat aside and watched.

I saw Prince Consort Xie picking up the saw from time to time and adjusting the length of the small wooden strips. He also used a hand drill to drill holes into the small wooden strips, inserted nails into the holes, and then assembled them and pressed them back and forth.

Zhang Chong suddenly understood: the prince consort and the princess's child was about to be born, and they were making toys for the baby.

Yes, it must be a baby's toy.

Xie Yan worked on this thing all the time at work and off work, and it took him five days to finally get it done.

What follows is more, and more professional.

The first is the selection and arrangement of wires.

Next comes the piano speakers and soundboards, what kind of wood should be chosen, and what kind of spatial structure should be made.

Xie Yan couldn't do it by himself, and even the princess was reluctant, so she had to ask a musician to help.

The musician and mathematician who calculated the twelve equal temperaments was naturally the first choice to help make the piano - the one who "corrected" Mr. Xie's "Du Liu Pu".