The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Pan Xiu was afraid that Wang Wenlong would notice that the envelope had been tampered with, so he didn't dare to do anything. Only then did he get Wang Wenlong's permission. He was so happy that he suppressed his excitement and opened the envelope and took out the letter paper inside. He saw that the letters were all written in Chinese. Xiu took a brief look at the content and couldn't help but look surprised in his eyes.

He said: "This letter was ghostwritten by a wise man in Xiangshan Ao for foreigners. It is said that his masterpiece "History of Portugal" was published in the UK a few months ago. A British sea owner read it on the ship and was shocked. He When I arrived at Xiangshan Ao, I specially asked someone to write a letter to express my respect to my husband."

It has been seven months since Luo Mingjian translated Wang Wenlong's "History of Portugal". The translation of the entire book has not yet been completed, but Walter has no patience to wait.

He was short of money and eager to monetize Wang Wenlong's manuscript, so he decided to publish Wang Wenlong's "History of Portugal" into two parts.

Wang Wenlong's "History of Portugal" only has 200,000 words. It is still a bit thin if it is split into two books. In order to gather the content of the book, Walter asked Luo Jian for some translations of Eastern philosophy books. Together, it lasted three months. It was finally published in London under the name of Volume 1 of "History of Portugal".

The British captain who came to Macau was actually one of the first readers of "History of Portugal" because he was going to East Asia. In order to understand the customs and customs of East Asia in advance, he specially collected books about China on the British market before leaving the UK. , reading on the road, it is actually a coincidence that I can buy the just-published "History of Portugal".

But Pan Xiu obviously would not regard this as a coincidence. His mind was spinning, and then he said in an admiring tone: "Mr. Jianyang is indeed a great talent. Even the British want to translate his books."

Even Wang Wenlong was a little shocked when he heard that his book had been published in the UK. Although he was prepared that his "History of Portugal" would one day spread to Europe after it was published, he never expected that it would spread so quickly.

But seeing Pan Xiu's look, Wang Wenlong pretended to be suspenseful and said: "Why did the British publish my book so quickly without telling me first? Such foreigners are very rude."

Pan Xiu asked quickly: "From the tone of your voice, it seems that you are very familiar with the British."

Wang Wenlong was stunned, as if he realized that he had made an unintentional mistake. He quickly looked around and said, "Oh, it seems to be noon. Bo Feng will have lunch at my house before leaving."

After that, Wang Wenlong took Pan Xiu to dinner, deliberately not talking about the Europeans. Pan Xiu nodded quickly and thanked him. When he followed Wang Wenlong out of the study, he couldn't help but think in his heart: When Wang Wenlong talked about the British, his tone was very Familiar. Could it be that he has always been in contact with the British?

Wang Wenlong was walking in front, thinking in his mind which direction he wanted to direct Pan Xiu's sight?

U.K? Netherlands?

In fact, you can also throw the blame to the made-up characters. For example, "Assassin's Creed" is good. The Knights Templar and the Assassin Brotherhood, the two groups have been engaged in a continuous secret war throughout the recorded history of Europe.

“Valuing purpose order and control.”

"Fight to ensure the survival of free will!"

"Everything is empty and everything is allowed. We are allowed to work in the darkness and serve the light. We are assassins..."

Just as Wang Wenlong was recalling his gaming days in college, Walter, who was far away in the UK and had just risked his fortune to publish the first half of "History of Portugal," was worried.

He has a very high opinion of "History of Portugal", but he doesn't know whether the people will accept this European history book written by scholars from the far East.

Cogsha, Essex, England.

Sherman put on a crisp wool suit, practiced his smiling expression, and then walked into the Pecock family's store with trepidation.

Sherman is only twenty years old this year and is the second generation of a local textile factory family.

Cogsha was a place name that few people would have heard of in later generations, but at this time it was the most affluent place in the UK.

A hundred years ago, with the Spanish and Portuguese colonists bringing back a large amount of gold, the southern European countries quickly became wealthy. The purchasing power of the wealthy European continent exploded, and the demand for textiles was almost endless.

At that time, Britain, which was still a vast and sparsely populated country, naturally took over the textile business. A large amount of land originally used for farming was taken away by the nobles and became pasture for wealthy families. The farmers on the land were displaced and could only enter the emerging textile industry as hired workers.

The Essex region in western England has rapidly grown into a well-known textile center in the entire UK and even Europe in the past century. A series of small villages that were originally unknown have quickly become distribution centers for the textile industry. Cloth was the basis of England's commercial empire at this time and accounted for most of the value of Britain's exports at this time.

The influence of the textile industry is so profound that the people here did not even have names. However, in the past hundred years, they quickly gave themselves the name of their industry.

For example, Sherman's name originally meant edge trimmer, which was his family's craft.

And there are a lot of similar names around him, such as: Weaver (meaning weaver), Weber (meaning spinner), Fowler (beater), Walker (wheel spinner), Dale (printer and dyer) …

Large-scale production brought division of labor, bankers and dealers, and a large number of English people quickly became wealthy.

The Sherman family is also one of them. His ancestor was just an ordinary edge trimmer, but by his father's generation, he already had his own workshop. By the time he was twenty, the family workshop had become a The small factory that undertakes the upstream coarse cloth processing employs ten workers. However, Sherman's father passed away earlier this year, and the hopes of the family factory rested entirely on his eldest son.

Today's business is particularly important to Sherman.

"Are you Sherman?"

Sherman walked into Thomas Kopek's office and quickly showed a flattering smile on his face: "Yes, Mr. Kopek."

The Thomas Kopec family is also a major cloth merchant in England that has emerged in recent years. Their ancestors were just sheepherders, but now they are well-known figures in West England.

"Young man, I don't know any reason to change my partner to buy your woolen fabrics."

Sherman said confidently: "The quality of the cashmere produced by our family is comparable to that produced by the Dutch, and the price is only three-quarters of theirs."

Thomas was quite surprised when he heard this. He picked up Sherman's sample and looked at it carefully: "The quality of your sample is very average, but how can the price be so low?"

"It's our family secret," Sherman said.

Thomas glanced at him, suddenly pulled out a handful of thread from the cloth and put it on the oil lamp next to him to light it.

Seeing this scene, Sherman's original smile suddenly became awkward.

After rubbing the ashes from the burned thread, Thomas said contemptuously: "You just mixed cotton fiber into the cashmere. Do you think I have never seen this shoddy trick?"

Sherman was slightly embarrassed. Cotton was a commodity recently shipped back from overseas by the East India Company in bulk, and their factory was the first to dare to mix these cotton fibers into cashmere as shoddy goods. If his family's factory had not If there is no way to sell this batch of goods, there may be a risk of bankruptcy.

He quickly said: "We can supply it at two-thirds of other people's prices."

Thomas's disdainful eyes dropped slightly, he thought for a long time, and said with a smile: "Young man, I really appreciate your courage to try, and I am willing to buy your goods at the price you proposed."

He added: "But you have to know that people on the European continent only want the purest cashmere."

Sherman understood and quickly said with a smile: "Our factory in Cogsha has always produced the purest cashmere wool. I can guarantee that every piece of finished wool will be as exquisite as the sample I brought today."

The two laughed after they finished speaking, and Thomas invited Sherman to his home for a banquet in a few days.

At this time, British goods were famous for being of low quality and heavily adulterated. In order to distinguish the inferior British goods from their own, the Dutch would always advertise that the goods they were selling were genuine Dutch goods. Of course, , going forward fifty years, the reputation of selling inferior goods also belongs to the Dutch.

Sherman, fresh off his first sales success, felt like he was floating out of his feet when he walked out of Thomas's store.

Thinking that he could finally bring back some good news to his mother and siblings, he first went to the market to buy some gifts for his family. With the development of the textile industry, West England was already very wealthy at this time, and there were people on the streets every day. More novel products appeared: tight-fitting corduroy trousers, silk belts, and Italian fashionable leather boots, which dazzled Sherman.

Then he walked into a bookstore and asked the boss: "Are there any new books recently?"

The book dealer saw that he was young and quickly started selling recreational books to him.

“We have just entered the best-selling book in London this year, The Value of Women: The True Revelation of Women’s Nobility and Superiority over Men…”

With the advent of the Age of Discovery, European countries are experiencing a surge in wealth, visible changes in people's lives, and the cultural market is rapidly enriching.

More than a hundred years ago, after Gutenberg promoted type printing, Europeans began to play with printing on a large scale. Before that, Europeans were still copying books by hand, and their level of civilization was a level lower than that of the Ming Dynasty and the Islamic world. But in the past hundred years, the European literary and art market has prospered rapidly, changing almost every decade.

In 1500, there were just over 1590 censored books published in England. Most of the printed books were Bibles, but by the number had exceeded . Fifty years earlier, the most popular recreational book in England The Canterbury Tales was still written in the Middle Ages, but now, writers such as Shakespeare and Delony have become popular figures.

(End of this chapter)