“Of course there are.”
Jin Feng said, “The world is vast, Great Kang occupies only one corner of it.”
“Great Kang occupies only one corner?”
The Ninth Princess frowned slightly.
Qing Xinyao immediately gestured for the guards to close the door.
Although Great Kang did not have the saying that all land under heaven belongs to the emperor, it still held the mindset of a celestial empire.
In the minds of successive rulers of Great Kang, they were the most authoritative people in the entire world.
Of course, the rulers of Europe at this time might have thought the same.
After all, the world they knew was extremely limited, perhaps only their own countries and the surrounding regions.
Jin Feng saying that Great Kang occupied only one corner of the world, if maliciously interpreted, would probably lead to accusations that he harboured ill intentions.
As a member of the imperial family, the Ninth Princess instinctively disliked Jin Feng’s tone of belittling the imperial court. However, she quickly suppressed her displeasure and asked with a smile, “Then, sir, could you tell us, besides Great Kang and the Europe you just mentioned, what other countries exist in this world?”
“Da Liu, go back to the guild and bring the black box from my bookshelf!”
Jin Feng shouted towards the outside.
“Yes!”
Da Liu, who was guarding the courtyard, responded and ran off.
“Everyone wait a moment. When Da Liu brings it over, it will be easier to explain.”
The Jinchuan Guild was not far from the Qing residence, and Da Liu was riding a horse, so he soon returned with a black box.
Entering the room together with Da Liu were Wei Dadong and Qin Er.
“This subordinate greets Your Highness, greets Lord Qing, greets Sir Jin, and greets Miss Qing.”
Wei Dadong saluted everyone in the room one by one, not even omitting Qing Mulan.
“Lord Wei, why have you returned at this time?” the Ninth Princess asked.
“This subordinate came to ask Sir Jin to lend me the telescope.”
Wei Dadong turned and saluted Jin Feng. “I hope sir will grant this request.”
There were several canals under construction around Yulei Mountain at the same time, and he simply could not run between them all, so he planned to build a lookout platform on Yulei Mountain and use the telescope to direct the work remotely.
“No problem.”
Jin Feng took the telescope out of his robe and handed it to Wei Dadong.
“Many thanks, sir. Please rest assured, I will use it carefully and will not damage or dirty it.”
Wei Dadong carefully accepted it with both hands, as if what Jin Feng handed him was a peerless treasure.
In fact, a telescope could indeed be considered a treasure in Great Kang.
Leaving other things aside, just the concave and convex lenses made from ground glass, at current prices in Great Kang, were already extremely valuable.
Qing Mulan looked at Wei Dadong with eyes full of envy.
She had pestered Jin Feng several times to ask for it, but Jin Feng had never lent the telescope to her for long term use, at most letting her play with it briefly.
Jin Feng had no choice either. Glass itself was not rare to him, but grinding lenses was extremely time consuming.
Although he had already produced machine tools, the precision required for lens grinding was far beyond what his machines could handle.
Recently, he had also been travelling constantly, with no time to improve the machines, so he could only rely on the original method of manual grinding.
As a result, the number of telescopes produced was very small. Each one had an important purpose, and there were simply none to spare for Qing Mulan to play with.
“Your Highness, the prisoners in the dungeon have all been executed. This servant has personally confirmed it, not a single one is missing.”
After Wei Dadong and Jin Feng finished speaking, Qin Er stepped forward to report.
Upon hearing this, Wei Dadong almost dropped the telescope in his hands.
The execution ground in Xichuan City was in the south of the city. He had entered from the west gate and had not passed the market square, so he did not know about this.
But he clearly understood what Qin Er meant.
Previously, Wei Dadong had the same thoughts as Qing Xinyao, believing that after the Ninth Princess forced grain out of the nobles, she would surely release Xu Fatty and the others.
He had not expected her to actually behead them, not sparing a single one.
“In the future, Sichuan and Shu will probably be in turmoil…”
Wei Dadong sighed inwardly.
Beheading so many representatives of the nobility at once meant that the nobles would definitely retaliate.
They would not only retaliate against the Ninth Princess and Jin Feng, but also against Qing Xinyao, against Xichuan, and even against the entire Sichuan and Shu region.
Yet the Ninth Princess remained calm. “A bunch of parasites who preyed on the people. If they are beheaded, then so be it. I keep my word. Since they honestly handed over the grain, inform their household servants to come collect the bodies.”
“Yes!”
Qin Er responded and went out again to make arrangements.
The Ninth Princess then raised her head and looked at Jin Feng.
Jin Feng nodded slightly in response.
He had already received word from Xihe Bay that the newly appointed Jinchuan County Magistrate Cai Liuyang and the Guangyuan Prefect Xie Xiguang had been secretly executed by the people left behind by the Ninth Princess on the day the nobles were arrested.
Now that all the nobles had also been beheaded, the Ninth Princess could be said to have fulfilled the promise she made in the small grove.
Jin Feng believed that the Ninth Princess would not deceive him, nor did she have any need to.
For such a major matter as executing nobles, even without his instructions, the Bellring Group in Xichuan City would definitely be watching closely.
Seeing Jin Feng nod, the stone in the Ninth Princess’s heart finally fell.
Compared to retaliation from the nobles, she was more worried about Jin Feng rebelling.
After confirming Jin Feng’s satisfaction, a smile finally returned to the Ninth Princess’s face. “Let us stop talking about those vexing people. Sir, the item has been brought. Please continue explaining the countries beyond Great Kang.”
“Alright.”
Jin Feng opened the black box and took out a round object about the size of a coconut.
He then picked out a hand drawn world map from a stack of drawings.
“This item is called a globe. I made it according to the descriptions of the high master.”
Jin Feng held up the round object for everyone to see.
“Why did you carve the map onto a sphere?” Qing Mulan asked curiously.
“Because this is what the world actually looks like.”
“What the world actually looks like? What do you mean?” Qing Mulan was even more confused.
“It means exactly what it sounds like. We live on such a sphere,” Jin Feng explained.
Puff.
The tea in Qing Xinyao’s mouth sprayed out at once.
The look the Ninth Princess gave Jin Feng also became strange.
Even Da Liu, who had always blindly admired Jin Feng, felt that he was talking nonsense.
“Sir, the sages have long said that heaven is round and earth is square. How could people possibly live on a sphere?” Qing Mulan said, rolling her eyes at Jin Feng. “Stop joking around and hurry up and talk about serious matters.”
“Believing everything in books is worse than having no books at all. What the sages said is not necessarily correct.”
“The sages might not be correct, but how can you be sure that the high master is correct?” Qing Mulan asked. “If we live on a sphere, how is the land flat?”
“Who says the land is flat?”
Jin Feng looked at Wei Dadong. “Lord Wei, you have been to the Eastern Sea, have you not?”
“I have,” Wei Dadong nodded. “Once or twice a year.”
“Then have you seen what ships returning from the open sea look like?”
“I have.”
“Then did you first see the sails, and only later see the hull?”
“If you had not mentioned it, I would not have noticed. Thinking about it now, it does seem that way,” Wei Dadong nodded.
“The land is not flat, and the sea is not flat either. It is just that the sphere we live on is so large that we cannot feel it,” Jin Feng explained.
