Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 386 Printing Ban
After explaining the situation to everyone, the rest is their own business.

The effect this time was good. Under Guo Kang's explanation, the priests were very interested in this theory and were willing to read more books.Guo Kang also promised that in the future, he would persuade the family to donate more books to them, making everyone happier.

When papermaking and printing technology was introduced here, it immediately sparked an upsurge in the local area.Even after decades, Guo Kang can still feel this enthusiasm and the power behind the books.

Before the popularization of "Chinese paper", books were very expensive, especially in remote areas, even more exaggerated - in England in the middle ages, a book could be sold for one pound, and according to the prices at that time, it could weigh about 600 kilograms wheat, or 30 good suckling pigs.Even if it is replaced with ordinary spices, it can be exchanged for ten pounds.It is conceivable how precious and scarce knowledge is.

However, papermaking technology began to spread to other regions a long time ago.Around the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Sogdian merchants in the northwest had already sold the paper back to their hometowns in Central Asia.

However, the relatively complete papermaking technology was only spread in the Tang Dynasty. It is said that after the Battle of Talas, some soldiers of the Tang Dynasty were captured by the Arab army. Because they mastered advanced military and production technology, they were highly valued. Some of them were papermakers. Just in Samarkand, he guided the Arabs to set up a paper mill to produce hemp paper of average quality—of course, for regions outside East Asia, this is already a very advantageous technology.

And the Arab profiteers do business much faster than the Tang people.As they expanded, hemp paper was sold everywhere.For the convenience of sales, they built factories in Cairo, Egypt, and Fez, Morocco, to sell paper to the Mediterranean world.

Egypt was previously home to papyrus, a plant that has been used as paper for thousands of years.This material is so precious that it was called "pa-per-aa" by the Egyptians, which means "Pharaoh's property".Until later generations, paper in many European languages ​​was a derivative of this word.

However, after the introduction of papermaking, the local people quickly gave up planting sedges and planted reeds and other crops that are more suitable for papermaking due to the great technological advantages.Later, the sedge simply disappeared, and it is not known whether it was extinct or wild.

However, Europe's technology is relatively backward, and it can only import a large amount of paper.Spain, one of the world's cultural centers of Tianfangjiao, is the center of paper output, and the French buy paper from there all the year round.Other countries also rely on the trade routes in Spain and Italy to import enough paper.

After the establishment of the Purple Horde Khanate, a new round of technological change began.They brought better workmanship from the East, improving the technology again.

In addition to several previous crops, the Purple Horde also introduced bamboo.This plant grows quickly and can grow in warmer southern Europe.At first, it was actually brought by Guo Gai and others to decorate the house for "elegance", but it spread quickly and was used in various aspects.

However, the Purple Horde hardly ever exported paper. On the contrary, they had to buy it from Egypt frequently, even if the quality was not as good as theirs.Because since the introduction of printing, paper has not been enough.

Contrary to common sense, woodblock printing is not necessarily less efficient than movable type.Especially for characters such as Chinese characters, the advantages of movable type are not great, and the development may not be as fast as engraving.

By the late Qing Dynasty, fully mature printing had already reduced the price of books to a very low level.According to British surveys, ordinary books of a practical nature are very cheap, and the price of a booklet is even lower than a bowl of noodles; and if the printing workshop uses female workers, the price can be lowered even lower.

The reason why this level can be achieved is that there are many literate and plate-making workers in the society, including female workers, which greatly reduces the cost.

On the other hand, copying books is also very popular.Due to the existence of a large number of low-level literati, the reproduction of small batches of books can be completed by copying. The wages of these "Kong Yiji" are lower than that of movable type printing, and their artistry is also better than the other.

Under the attack from both sides, movable type printing fell into an embarrassing situation.For a long time, the ecological niche was maintained by printing popular pamphlets that were not very popular on the table.Because of the development of market culture in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this kind of thing was "updated" quickly, and the engraving could not keep up, and Kong Yiji couldn't copy it, so some living space was left...

Under the influence of these various factors, those magical literacy rates in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China were produced.

Of course, these figures can only be used as a rough guide, because the standards of "literacy" vary greatly.

For example, by American standards, half of the Protestants could easily read the New Testament, according to 1918 statistics.Considering that the literacy rate during the Republic of China was not as good as that of the Qing Dynasty, and the quality of the teaching staff was also very uneven, this data is very exaggerated.

Similarly, in 1896, statistics in Hawaii found that 25% of Chinese female immigrants could read and write.Considering that the women who traveled across the ocean at that time were basically unlikely to be in the upper class of society, either the cultural environment at that time was not as backward as imagined by later generations, or the standards of Americans were too loose.Of course, it could be both...

Therefore, when this technology is developed, not to mention what effect it can achieve, at least it should be enough to bully the uneducated Europeans at the moment.In fact, this does not require the support of modern data, after all, the ancients also knew the importance of education.

Unlike the past history that Guo Kang knew, in this world, the mature printing technique was directly brought over by the Purple Horde Khanate, and from the very beginning, Patriarch Zhang collected most of the craftsmen and machines to print his missionary booklets every day enjoyable.

Because of these multiple relationships, printing has been very politically incorrect from the start, and almost every other church has tried to ban believers from using printed matter and printed matter.Even if it is difficult to completely ban private printing due to management capacity problems, at least in important related fields such as religion, theology, and philosophy, the ban must still be maintained.

Faced with this situation, the Purple Horde Khanate simply released itself, printed a large number of scriptures and commentaries, and sold them everywhere.This can be regarded as confirming the previous accusations, and opponents such as the Roman Catholic Church were greatly annoyed by this.

Many priests insisted that this printing technique was an unmistakable technological heresy, evil from its inception.Some radicals even think that it is a craft invented by the devil.Therefore, not only itself, but all uses must be prohibited, including its introduction, research and transformation.

Most people on the whole are not so exaggerated, but it is undoubtedly quite annoying.In this environment, the field of theology and philosophy is actually in a state of being subjected to printing bans.The comparison between the two shows the preciousness of the books here.

(End of this chapter)