Near noon, outside Jinyang City and in the small town on the Fen River, officials from the Transport Department and the Imperial Heaven Supervision gathered next to several tall equipment.

They each watched the equipment run and discussed some "technical issues".

One of the equipment, the water clock.

There are six water clocks, divided into two groups.

One group of (three seats) water clocks have the same time as "Jiankang Time"; the other group of (three seats) water clocks have the time of Jinyang local time.

The local time in Jinyang was obtained by the Imperial Heaven Supervision in Jinyang to measure the sun shadow.

During Jiankang time, the Imperial Heaven Supervision needs to send people to Jinyang to carry a clock to "school the time" and this clock (more than one) is "conciled with the time" in Jiankang before departure.

Now the problem is: the clock that just arrived in Jinyang yesterday was in line with a set of water clocks that were already running in Jinyang (who was walking in Jiankang time), and the time did not match, and the average difference was about five minutes.

The "garrison" officials of the Imperial Heaven Supervision in Jinyang were very confident about the water clocks when they left, believing that these water clocks, the size of a third-floor building, had very small operating errors.

The water clock started to run at the end of last year and has not been a year since it was now, and it has not been a year since the last time of proofreading (proofreading Jiankang time), so its time error is not as large as five minutes.

The implication is that something went wrong with the clock during the long journey.

The driving of the clock and the gear transmission structure are easily affected by the continuous bumps of long distances and errors that should not have occurred.

The officials who brought the clock to Jinyang did not agree with this statement. They stayed in Yecheng halfway, where they "teached the time" of the water clock in Yecheng's "Jiankang Time". The time error between the two was very small.

Officials in Jinyang believed that it might be that when the group crossed the Taihang Mountains, the mountain road was bumpy, which affected the timing of the clock. So after arriving in Jinyang, there was a problem with the timing.

However, officials who brought the clock to Jinyang believed that the clock was placed in the bump-proof "horizontal box" and would not be affected by any impact.

You should know that the method of placing a clock in this "horizontal box" to ensure accurate clock movement has been conducted on river and sea boats, and the effect is good.

However, officials in Jinyang believe that the bumps on mountain roads (land) are different from bumps on water (sea) and cannot be generalized.

The two groups of people argued, and each of them felt that they were right.

Next to him, the officials from the Transport Department felt helpless when they saw it.

Chen Xu, deputy envoy of Bingzhou Transportation, was also present. He could not understand the debates among the internal personnel of the Imperial Heaven Supervision Bureau. After all, the content involved was too "professional" and "outsiders" had no room for interruption.

However, this did not prevent him from watching the huge armillary sphere beside him.

The armillary sphere is a large instrument made based on the "emerial sphere theory". It is a general term for the amaryllis and armillary sphere, and it appeared in the Han Dynasty.

Zhang Heng, a famous scholar in the Han Dynasty, made the armillary sphere. Chen Xu had read related content when he was studying.

Now, on the platform in front of him, there is a huge armillary sphere operating, and the instrument is driven by hydraulic power, so it is built by the river.

The main body of the armillary celestial sphere is a circle where several layers can operate independently, a large trapped middle circle and a small trapped middle circle.

Each circle is engraved with the inner and outer rules, the south, the north pole, the yellow, the equator, the twenty-four solar terms, and the twenty-eight columns of the constellations.

There are also "middle", "outer" stars, sun, moon, five latitudes and other celestial phenomena.

This huge astronomical instrument aroused Chen Xu's great interest. When he was a child, he liked to look at the stars in the night sky, but he felt that the stars in the sky were so mysterious.

If we can judge the "will of heaven" based on the astrological signs, can we turn bad luck into good fortune and be safe and safe for the rest of our lives?

Chen Xu looked at the armillary sphere in front of him and remembered the scene when he saw it for the first time.

That was after the first armillary sphere in the State of Chu was completed on the bank of Jiankang and Qinhuai River, and it was regularly opened to the public and allowed to visit the people.

So he took the time to take his son Chen Shuning to go there.

Not only was Chen Xu shocked by the armillary sphere that he had seen in the book, his son Chen Shuning was even more excited and turned around the armillary sphere many times, but he couldn't see enough.

Many questions were asked.

Chen Xu didn't know how to answer his son's questions, but fortunately an official gave an explanation on the spot, and he passed the test.

It is said that the structure of this armillary sphere is very complex and refers to a lot of clock technology, so after operation, it is "calibrated" and has high accuracy.

The people from the Imperial Heaven Supervision have made many "comparisons" to determine the "celestial phenomena" on the armillary sphere at a certain time and at a certain moment at night, which is consistent with the celestial phenomena in the actual night sky.

Therefore, the Imperial Heaven Supervision used this set of armillary spheres as an example to build star observatory platforms, set up armillary spheres and observe celestial phenomena in Jiangling, Xiangyang, Linxiang, Xiakou, Xunyang, Poyang, Shouyang, Hanshan, Kuaiji, Lingbiao Panyu, Longbing and other places.

With Hebei and Hedong, the Hedong region was successively controlled by the imperial court. Yecheng, Xindu, Jicheng, Jinyang, Datong and other places, and also began to build star-observation platforms, armillary spheres, water clocks, and the government summoned local scholars to measure the sun and watch the stars.

Prepare for the formulation of a new calendar.

In addition, the Imperial Heaven Supervision has a heavy responsibility of "setting coordinates" in the observatory of the various places.

Transport departments at all levels also set up rain measurement equipment on the observatory to observe the rainfall.

And a "flow meter" is installed at the location of the water clock to measure the flow of the river.

This is one of the responsibilities of the Transport Department.

Transport departments/offices at all levels are not only responsible for the transfer of financial resources, grain and grass in various places, as well as the verification of relevant accounts of governments in various places, but also observe the local "meteorological conditions".

Especially, record the rainfall of each rain and make good records. Once abnormal rainfall is found, pay more attention.

If you find that the situation is wrong and there is too much or too little rain, you must report it immediately and start planning a grain allocation plan to prepare for flood control, drought resistance and disaster relief.

In addition, the flow of the main local rivers must be observed, because based on the changing trend of the river flow, it can also be inferred whether there will be heavy water or droughts in the future.

Therefore, transfer departments at all levels must "view the meteorology above" and "test hydrology below", master the meteorology and hydrology data related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and must cooperate with other departments to derive a lot of responsibilities.

Seeing that the people from the Imperial Heavenly Prison were quarreling and it was difficult to get involved, Chen Xu quickly took the people from the Transportation Department to see the "flow meter".

Flow velocity meter is an instrument for measuring the velocity of water flow. Its principle and structure are simple:

Insert a large "vertical axis rotary cup" vertically into the river, and the flowing river water will push the rotary cup to rotate continuously, while the mechanical counter at the other end of the vertical axis records the number of rotations of the rotary cup (vertical axis) and the corresponding time span.

So the flow rate of the river was measured.

Multiply by the "cross-sectional area" of the river to obtain the "river flow" data.

The principle is very simple, but it is very troublesome to implement. Chen Xu was an official in the Transportation Department for several years and had a clear understanding of the technical issues.

After coming to the flowmeter, I called the "observer" and asked a lot of questions.

Jinyang is located on the bank of Fen River. Fen River is the main river in the Hedong region and has many tributaries. Therefore, its hydrology has very prominent characteristics:

River water is very likely to surge in rainy seasons in summer and autumn, and low water levels are very likely to occur in autumn and winter.

Such water conditions (the annual water level changes significantly) will not only affect shipping, but also cause the normal operation of the flowmeter of the transshipment department to encounter a lot of trouble.

The flow meter must be installed by the river. Because the water level of the Fen River changes greatly, the position of the flow meter must be "consistent".

Otherwise, the "vertical axis rotary cup" of the flow meter cannot be completely immersed in the river during the dry period, and the measured data will be low.

If the flow meter is located too low during the flood season, it will easily be flooded by heavy water.

There is no need for the chief officer to figure out how to solve a series of technical problems, but Chen Xu must pay attention to these details to avoid being troubled by problems that arise every now and then during the daily work of the Transport Department.

Because the Transport Department has too many responsibilities, it needs to "connect" many affairs with many departments, Caosi's offices, and it is too busy.

After a while, an official came to report something to Chen Xu: There was something wrong with the tax customs, so I had to go there in the afternoon and have a meeting with the chief officer of the tax department to coordinate related matters.

The tax and customs department is under the jurisdiction of the General Tax Department. The Transport Department, which is responsible for the transfer of materials, will inevitably have to deal with the peaceful tax department/office.

Chen Xu thought that there were so many things that needed to coordinate with the tax authorities, and he felt that the sky was getting darker.

Next to him, two groups of people from the Imperial Heaven Supervision were still arguing. Chen Xu couldn't care about it and waved his hand to his subordinates: "Let's go back to have a meal first, and go to the tax customs in the afternoon!"
Chapter completed!