Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 179 The Difficulty of Industrial Development

Determined to use the printing industry as a breakthrough to promote the industrial technological reform of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youjian told Xue Fengxiang:
"For newspaper printing, block printing and wax printing are temporarily used."

"The next step is to develop mixed engraving and wax printing technology. Whether it is engraving a Yin engraving block and printing a Yang Wen wax block. Or engraving a Yang Wen engraving block and casting a Yang Wen wax block with a Yin text paper mold. We must try out the method of printing wax blocks with engraving. , quickly replicate."

"The next step is to develop lead plates. Use wax plates, clay plates or paper molds to cast lead plates and use lead plates for printing."

"The last step is to develop movable type, use lead movable type to type, make a movable type plate, and then use paper molds to cast the lead plate."

"Others, such as using wax paper to develop transcription printing and using wax molds to develop copperplate printing, can all be tried."

"Divide craftsmen who are good at these technologies into corresponding working groups, select group leaders and deputy group leaders, and let them choose their own technical routes for testing."

After formulating a three-step strategy for Ming Dynasty printing technology, Zhu Youjian asked Xue Fengxiang to remember it carefully. After the meeting, he could copy the daily notes and develop according to his own instructions.

In order to encourage technological innovation, Zhu Youjian initially expressed his idea of ​​setting up a patent agency, saying:

"All the results of this printing technology research are strictly confidential, and the Jinyiwei Security Department will follow up."

"For those whose confidentiality level is not high enough and can be authorized externally, I allow you to charge authorization fees."

"This licensing fee can be called a patent. The term is twenty years. I allow officials and craftsmen who participate in technical research to share it."

"Because it is a court organization, the Ministry of Industry will share 80%, the participating officials will share 10%, and the craftsmen will share 10%. Pay attention to calculating everyone's contribution."

"Personnel with outstanding merits will also be awarded with annual merit, casual officials and even world officials, so everyone involved can work hard!"

It took Xue Fengxiang a while to understand the new terms licensing fees and patents. Although he didn't have a clue on how to do it, he heard that the emperor wanted to collect money from people who used these technologies.

This was a measure for the Ministry of Industry to increase its income, and it was also a measure for the emperor to solve the money and food problems of the court. Although Xue Fengxiang didn't think he would receive much money, he still agreed. After preventing him from vetoing this, the emperor asked him to find a way to raise money.

Besides, the court kept 80% of this so-called patent fee, and the remaining 10% was given to officials and 10% to craftsmen. This is a good thing to increase the income of the officials and craftsmen of the Ministry of Works. If he objects, he will not want to take the position of Minister of the Ministry of Works.

After initially proposing a patent pilot, Zhu Youjian gave instructions to the Ministry of Rites, asking the Ministry of Rites to pay attention to collecting their technologies when registering publishing houses, news agencies, and newspapers in private bookstores, and asking them to register patents with the Ministry of Industry and share their unique technologies. Authorized for use by the imperial court.

Especially for ink and paper, pay attention to collecting ink suitable for printing, as well as low-cost, good-quality, large paper suitable for printing. After these inks and papers pass the inspection of the printing workshop, the court will purchase them in the future, so that those merchants will not suffer losses.

Particularly dissatisfied with the small paper used by Lu Tunan, Zhu Youjian thought about the size of newspapers in later generations and said:

"Publications can be bound into books, and newspapers should be made of large paper, with both front and back printed."

"The paper used in newspapers is tentatively determined to be two feet four inches long and one foot eight inches high. According to the weights and measures established by Qin Tianjian, they are eight hundred millimeters and six hundred millimeters."

"After folding it in half, it will be one version, six hundred millimeters high and four hundred millimeters wide."

"Use this size to make an engraving, and combine two or even more small squares on the bottom plate to print one side at a time."

"This negative plate can be flat, or it can be a roller, which is stained with ink and rolled from the paper to facilitate quick printing."

He took the pen holder and rolled it on the paper to demonstrate. After explaining it several times, Xue Fengxiang finally understood and understood the beauty of this printing method. Compared with traditional printing methods, roller printing is indeed faster. For newspapers with strong timeliness, this printing method is obviously more suitable.

He even felt that if roller printing matured, it could also be used to print books at a faster speed.

He admired Xue Fengxiang's idea very much. Zhu Youjian knew that books in later generations were divided according to format size. Those format sizes are obviously needed for printing. It's just that he didn't remember the specific dimensions, so he divided it himself and took the whole size.

As for whether cutting and trimming are required during printing, and what specific changes will occur in the size, that is a more specific question. Now Zhu Youjian is just proposing an idea, which needs to be improved by the Ministry of Industry.

In addition to ink and paper, the most important thing is movable type. Thinking that the West had developed the Gutenberg printing press, Zhu Youjian said:
"I heard that there are printing presses in the West, and you can try to introduce them."

"This printing press uses movable type. If it can be copied, there will be no need to make engravings in the future."

The emperor's idea and the ministers who knew Western writing all disagreed with this idea.

Lu Tunan was born in Quanzhou and had some knowledge of overseas affairs. He also knew the shortcomings of movable type printing. He said:
"The Latin alphabet used by Tessie is only twenty-six."

"There are tens of thousands of characters in the Ming Dynasty, and there are also missing characters that are taboo and newly created characters for people's names."

"Engraving blocks can be carved directly, but movable type cannot be added at will, and it is inconvenient to check the type."

"It is better to use engraving than using movable type. It can be carved directly."

The history of Chinese characters is too ancient and there are too many characters. In addition to regular characters, there are also variant characters, missing characters, etc., and even newly created characters, which must be taken into consideration when printing.

For example, according to the naming method prescribed by Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, the descendants of the royal family should have two-character names. The first character is the character generation, which he has already determined. The next character takes the radicals of the five elements, in order: fire, earth, metal, water, and wood.

The clan has been multiplying for hundreds of years, and there are countless people of the same generation. In order to reduce duplication of names, many characters and five elements radicals were created.

These people still have status and their names cannot be printed incorrectly. Therefore, a set of movable type usually requires tens of thousands of typefaces. If the number of words to be printed is large, hundreds of thousands will be needed.

Moreover, apart from printing their names, these fonts can only be left to gather dust and have no other use. The added cost is too much, and it is also difficult to check characters.

Listening to these reasons given by Lu Tunan, Zhu Youjian decided to change the naming system set by Taizu. At the same time, he also realized the difficulty of promoting industrialization in an agricultural society.

The printing industry with a good foundation in Ming Dynasty is so difficult, and other industrial categories are even more difficult. All the problems encountered need to be solved by him.

Thinking about the solution for later generations, Zhu Youjian knew that simplified Chinese characters were commonly used at that time. Simplified Chinese characters have a formal name, which is standardized characters. The slogan to promote it is "please write standard words".

It was difficult to copy the simplified characters of later generations during the Ming Dynasty, but it was necessary to standardize Chinese characters.

This is the need for the development of the printing industry and the requirement for popularizing education in the future.

So Zhu Youjian said:
"I intend to compile a dictionary to facilitate readers to learn Chinese characters."

"Convene scholars who are accomplished in writing to come to Beijing and compile dictionaries in the Hanlin Academy."

(End of this chapter)