Kai Fu Han

Chapter 284 Movable Type Printing
"Since the establishment of the Puppet Qi, Muping County has been mobilized at least three times. Once, 1000 troops were mobilized to attack Zhao south, and no one has returned them yet. Once, 1000 troops were mobilized to attack us by the five-county coalition, and the entire army was wiped out. The last time It was this time that the Jin-Qi coalition sent another 1000 people to Huang County to join the coalition, and they were captured by us again. Muping is not like Penglai, a small county. Three thousand young men were taken out in a row, and their muscles and bones were broken. It is impossible to resist our counterattack." Liu Xinqi said: "The Muping County Magistrate is also confused. He is still thinking about defending the city. I don't know if he can get enough men to line up the city wall."

"I heard Xu Daren say that this Muping County magistrate has done all kinds of evil. He was probably afraid that we would be liquidated after surrendering, so he resisted desperately." Liu Xinbao explained.

Knock, knock, knock!

"Come in!"

"Alliance leader, Propaganda Department Minister Luo Gao said that he wants you to review the People's Daily." The guard opened the door and came in to ask for instructions.

"Let him come in." Liu Xinqi replied.

"Then I'll go back first." Seeing that Liu Xinqi had official business to attend to, Liu Xinbao immediately stood up and resigned.

"Don't leave in a hurry. If there's nothing important, let's take a look together and make some comments." Liu Xinqi tried to persuade him.

"Respect is worse than obedience!"

"You..." The two of them were stunned. Liu Xinbao's respect made Liu Xinqi a little uncomfortable. However, considering that in the future, as the power of the Xinghan Alliance will grow, his own power will become more and more powerful. This kind of view The foreigner will inevitably come, so I can only take back the polite words that followed.

Seeing that the atmosphere in the office was about to become awkward, Luo Gao walked in with more than a dozen pieces of paper. He greeted Liu Xinbao first, and then placed the paper in his hand on Liu Xinqi's desk:
"Leader, the first draft is out, please review it."

"Okay, you sit down and rest."

Liu Xinqi began to look through the "opening issue" of the People's Daily in his hand

The first page is a full-page promotion column for the "Basic Law of the Xinghan League". It can be seen that the signature is Lu Ren. Lu Ren did not use a pen name as Liu Xinqi suggested, but directly used his real name.

The second edition is the "Administrative Law of the Xinghan League", and the third edition is the "Military Law of the Xinghan League".

The following pages are about the victory over the Jin-Qi coalition; Xinghan League's "Xinghan League Land Law", "Xinghan League Debt Law", "Xinghan League Grain Storage Law", "Xinghan League Title Law" A brief introduction; ten typical illegal cases; an introduction to Xinghan League departments and the responsibilities of each department; some funny jokes; a short article about the life changes of a refugee from Laizhou after joining Xinghan League; and two more The advertisement on the page is an advertisement for sea salt produced by Cement and Xinghan League.

The text is arranged vertically, the words are concise, there is no pretentiousness, there is no neat dialogue, and there are sentence breaks for easy reading.

[Most of them are about popular knowledge about the law, like a legal newspaper...]

Liu Xinqi thought so in his heart, but said: "It's very good, but there are less new things about the people."

"The time is too tight, we haven't collected suitable ones, and no one has contributed, so we can only do this." Luo Gao replied.

In later generations, the preparation time for the opening of a newspaper or journal was calculated in months. This time, the time was indeed tight.

Moreover, promoting the rule of law was indeed Liu Xinqi’s original purpose, and Luo Gao did not understand it wrong.

"Then let's do it. Xinbao, take a look, do you have any opinions?"

Liu Xinbao took the newspaper from Liu Xinqi's hand and started to read it, while Liu Xinqi and Luo Gao talked about something else.

"How is everyone's response to this newspaper?" "The response is very good, but most people are worried about the sales volume of the newspaper. After all, there are too few literate people in Xinghan League, and they are worried that it will not be sold. I calculated it. The higher the sales volume of the newspaper, the higher the sales volume. The cost of a single newspaper will be lower. If the sales volume is low, our losses will be serious, because each time typesetting is a large expense," Luo Gao replied.

There are no printing machines now. There are so many words on a newspaper that need to be typed out manually using movable type before printing.

Bi Sheng invented the clay type used in movable type printing. However, the clay type was carved first and then fired, so the fonts were inevitably deformed and the requirements for ink were also high.

The Xinghan League used copper movable type. First, rectangular copper strips of the same size and specifications were cast, and then engravers with warrior physiques carved inverted single characters. This resulted in the Xinghan League's movable type printing cost being very high.

A newspaper with thousands of words requires tens of thousands of movable type "seals", and even more single-word seals are reserved.In addition, each time typesetting is very labor-intensive, if you only print a few hundred copies, you will definitely lose everything.

"I have said before that you don't need to consider the cost. Xinghan League's finances will support you. As long as you run this newspaper well, it will be the biggest credit." Liu Xinqi comforted: "I will issue an order. All governments Departments, towns, schools, factories, affiliated businesses (grain stores, restaurants, etc.) all have to order their newspapers from you, and you can guarantee that your newspaper sales will not be less than a thousand copies."

"Besides the cost issue, do you have any other difficulties?"

"Yes." Luo Gao replied sheepishly.

"What do you think."

"First of all, there is a shortage of manpower. Most of the people in our Propaganda Department have been hindered by the proofreading and typesetting of the newspaper and are unable to collect news and solicit manuscripts from outside. We hope to add more manpower."

"Okay, if we occupy the seven counties this time, there will definitely be many scholars who want to join the Xinghan League. After the assessment and recruitment, we will select some for you." Liu Xinqi responded.

"There is also the issue of paper. I think the paper currently used for printing newspapers is a bit wasteful. Can we develop a cheaper paper that does not require such good quality? Newspapers are not books after all and do not need to be stored for a long time. .”

Luo Gao's question reminded Liu Xinqi.

"Yes, I will inform the Ministry of Industry to develop paper with a lower cost. But there is one thing, you must print some newspapers with good paper quality for each issue, and keep them for regular binding and archiving."

"Well, that makes sense. The information in the newspaper can be considered a historical witness." Luo Gao agreed.

"Indeed, I will build a library in every county in the future, and these bound newspapers will also be stored in the library for future generations to read," Liu Xinqi said.

"Then I will review the manuscript more carefully, and according to your plan, I should archive thousands of newspapers before I can use it." Luo Gao replied.

Luo Gao's words are interesting. There are thousands of archives, one for each county. This means that the Xinghan League has occupied the whole country, and it is too far to foresee.

"Haha, that's not necessary. A dozen copies are enough. As long as the information in the newspaper is preserved, if necessary in the future, it can be printed again."

"Ok."

At this time, Liu Xinbao had probably finished reading the newspaper in his hand.

"Do you have any suggestions? Tell me."

(End of this chapter)