stonecrandall Chapter 995 Using a magnet as a guide to understand the celestial bodies!
Chapter 995 Using a magnet as a guide to understand the celestial bodies!
Gao Yao was well aware that the various changes he brought about—whether it was the leapfrog progress in smelting technology that created more durable and sharper weapons and agricultural tools; the promotion of those high-yield, drought-resistant exotic crop seeds that doubled grain production; or the emergence of the incredibly powerful "black powder" that changed the form of warfare—these were certainly earth-shattering, but there were still some traces to follow.
In Xiao He's view, these might be understood as a profound and sophisticated method of investigating things to acquire knowledge, an unprecedented and exquisite application and combination of known materials. Its underlying logic remained within their cognitive framework of the world, only pushed to an incredible peak.
But "lifespan" and "immortality"... these are concepts on a completely different level! They touch upon the ultimate mystery of life, a realm that even sages like Confucius, Mencius, Lao Tzu, and Zhuangzi could not fathom and could only entrust to the cycle of heaven. It is ethereal and elusive, completely beyond the comprehension of ordinary people, and even carries a strong mystical and supernatural element.
To convince these ancient people, deeply influenced by traditional thought and with their minds already firmly established, to believe in and understand the possibility of longevity based on "magnetic energy," a concept with near-scientific explanations, is an impossible task. It is indeed understandable that Xiao He and Zhang Liang could not comprehend it for the time being, and even felt resistance towards it.
"Do you know about Tianxing's matter?"
Gao Yao stopped dwelling on their current trust issues and instead led them along a hidden and secluded staircase towards the depths of Mount Li and the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum. At the same time, he posed a new question, attempting to guide their thinking in a different way.
"Tianxing?"
Upon suddenly hearing this unfamiliar term, both Xiao He and Han Xin looked bewildered, pausing slightly as if they had never heard of it before. Only Zhang Liang, with his extensive knowledge and keen interest in past dynasties and local anecdotes, frowned slightly, pondered for a moment, and seemed to have found relevant information from the corner of his memory.
"Is Your Majesty referring to the giant rock that fell from the sky in Dongjun in the thirty-sixth year of Qin Shi Huang's reign? It is said that the rock was inscribed with the prophecy 'When the First Emperor dies, the land will be divided'?"
“Yes, that is it.” Gao Yao confirmed Zhang Liang’s statement.
"What I heard in the aftermath was that the First Emperor was furious upon learning of this, considering it an ominous sign and a deliberate act of sabotage. He dispatched imperial censors to investigate the area house by house, but finding nothing, he ordered the meteorite and all the nearby residents to be burned to prevent future trouble. Your Majesty's special mention of this now... could it be that there is more to the story?"
Zhang Liang naturally knew that the inscriptions on the stone were mostly the work of remnants of the six states or anti-Qin forces, intended to undermine Qin Shi Huang's authority. However, he never investigated the stone's whereabouts, after all, no one would place their true hopes for overthrowing Qin on a stone from the sky.
"This is the celestial star I was referring to." Gao Yao's voice echoed in the dark passage, carrying a sense of mystery. "Moreover, this celestial star contains an extremely special energy that transcends ordinary people's understanding. It was not truly burned. That was merely smoke and mirrors deliberately released by the First Emperor to deceive others. He secretly sent people to collect the core of the celestial star, transport it back to Xianyang, and ultimately place it deep within his own mausoleum."
He paused, giving them time to process this astonishing information, and then continued to explain using an analogy: "When you inspected the smelting workshops under the Directorate of Works, you must have seen those magnets that can attract iron, right?"
Hearing Gao Yao's question, the group nodded. Lodestone was not unfamiliar to them. In fact, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, the book *Guanzi* recorded, "Above is lodestone, below is copper and gold," and *Lüshi Chunqiu* also explicitly mentioned, "Lodestone attracts iron, or draws it in." Therefore, in ancient times, lodestone was often called "cishi" (慈石), meaning "loving stone," implying its ability to attract iron like a loving mother beckoning her child.
This peculiar mineral had long been used to make directional objects such as the "Sinan," which can be considered the earliest prototype of the compass. Although the group knew nothing about "celestial stars," they had a basic understanding of magnets, a natural phenomenon that can generate invisible gravity.
“This celestial star, in a sense, can be seen as a type of lodestone with more special properties and a much larger volume,” Gao Yao guided their thinking step by step. “The magnetic field energy contained within it is hundreds or thousands of times greater than that of ordinary lodestones. However, its property of attracting iron objects is different from that of ordinary lodestones. The special magnetic field it emits has an extremely wide range of influence, and its energy fluctuations can even… to some extent, cover and affect the entire territory of the Great Qin!”
"What?! This... how is this possible! How could a single rock, no matter how large, affect a vast territory? This..."
Upon hearing Gao Yao's earth-shattering remarks, the group was all shaken, their faces showing even greater shock than before, some even becoming incoherent. A single stone could influence an entire nation?
This was practically a myth! However, their reaction was much better than the complete disbelief and worry they felt when Gao Yao directly mentioned immortality. Their current reaction stemmed more from extreme shock at having their understanding overturned, rather than from thinking it was utterly impossible or absurd nonsense.
The difference lies precisely in Gao Yao's guiding approach, progressing from the superficial to the profound, from the known to the unknown. If modern concepts like magnetic fields and bioenergy fields were directly introduced, even the exceptionally intelligent Xiao He and Zhang Liang would find them incomprehensible, like listening to gibberish. However, by starting with the already familiar concept of "magnets," and using the property of magnets to generate an invisible force field within a certain range as an analogy, the concept that celestial bodies possess a larger-scale, unique magnetic field becomes relatively easy to understand and accept.
After all, although the power of a magnet is limited, its "action at a distance" characteristic is intuitively visible. Based on this, the resistance to thinking is much smaller.
“And if the magnetic field energy of this celestial body can resonate with the human body’s own life energy through some special means, even achieving a certain assimilation effect…” Gao Yao lowered his voice, with a solemnity of revealing an ultimate mystery, “then the human body nourished and influenced by this special magnetic field may obtain a strange effect—almost stopping the aging process of the body, or rather, greatly slowing it down. Now, do you understand a little bit of what I’ve explained?”
As Gao Yao finished speaking, the group followed in his footsteps and turned a corner of a slightly narrow tomb passage.