Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 180 Triggered by running a newspaper

The emperor wants to revise books again, and the officials are already a little numb to this.

It’s not that they are unenthusiastic, it’s that they are all responsible for compiling books and cannot devote their energy to compiling dictionaries.

Moreover, the compilation of those history books has already used all the staff of the Hanlin Academy, and will even recruit more Shuji scholars next year.

When it comes to the compilation of dictionaries, there really is no separate hand.

I don’t think the dictionary is important. Huang Liji, the chief minister of the cabinet, said:
"Mei Yingzuo, a student of Nanjing Imperial College, wrote "Cihui" during the Wanli period, containing more than 33,000 characters."

"I believe that this "Cihui" is quite complete and there is no need to compile another dictionary."

Unexpectedly, Zhu Youjian was overjoyed and said:
"Is Mei Yingzuo still there?"

"He was summoned to Beijing to preside over the compilation of the dictionary."

Unexpectedly, the emperor had not given up the idea of ​​compiling a dictionary. Huang Liji said:

"Mei Yingzuo is no longer here, and his "Cihui" has been published."

"Your Majesty wants to read "Ci", you can buy this book."

What Zhu Youjian wanted was not the "Cihui", but to formulate standard Chinese characters. Unfortunately, no one among the ministers understood it. They only thought that he wanted to revise the book to show his literary rule.

Without Mei Yingzuo, the person who compiled the dictionary, compiling the dictionary would have to start all over again. Thinking that there were really no redundant people in the Hanlin Academy, and it would cost money and food to recruit people to Beijing, Zhu Youjian gave up the idea for the time being and asked:

"How many words are there in the Four Books and Five Classics?"

"Repeated characters are not counted. How many character molds need to be cast?"

This question is a bit biased, but someone has actually done statistics. Huang Liji said:

"About 4,500 words."

"Because there are different versions, the number of words will vary."

This word count is already very small, which is in line with Zhu Youjian's expectations. Thinking that the most commonly used words in later generations are 2500 words and the next most commonly used words are 1000 words, Zhu Youjian said:
"From the Four Books and Five Classics, 2500 most commonly used words are selected as common words."

"The other 2000-plus words are designated as less commonly used words."

"Can these 4500 words meet daily printing needs?"

Xue Fengxiang shook his head in denial, and Lu Tunan also thought it couldn't be done.

Although the characters in the Four Books and Five Classics are commonly used, they cannot cover all commonly used characters.

In particular, there are many differences between ancient people's speech and today's people. Colloquial language is sometimes used in newspapers and magazines, and the difference is even greater.

Therefore, these 4,500 words need to be expanded to meet daily printing needs.

Meng Shaoyu, the Minister of Rites, said:

"The Thirteen Classics are about 6,500 words long."

"I think that on the basis of these more than 6,500 words, some additional words will be enough."

Nodding in approval, Zhu Youjian said:
"Then we should also include all the words used in the Thirteen Classics."

"Select some frequently used ones as general standard texts for printing. The total number is about 7,000."

"These seven thousand characters must be written in a standardized way and strokes. No pens may be missing or other changes may be made at will."

"The radicals and radical components should also be unified to facilitate search."

When Meng Shaoyu was asked to compile a general standard character list for printing, Zhu Youjian said:
"From now on, these seven thousand characters will be the standard for movable type printing. Those that are not in these seven thousand characters are allowed to be replaced by other characters." "For example, the names of the clan, except for the names of the vassals of the past dynasties, must be included in the common characters, and other characters The five-element radicals of the name can be removed and replaced with common characters. A comparison table must be prepared to replace various variant characters and rare characters. "

"There are also clan names. Except for the direct lineage of the vassal king, the five elements are no longer required, and four-character names are allowed. From now on, the vassal king's name must be chosen from common characters, and there is no need to avoid taboos."

This order was a matter for the royal family, and no one among the ministers had time to object.

They also understood at this time that the emperor wanted to develop movable type printing, so he issued this order. I wanted to compile a dictionary before, probably for this reason.

Thinking that the books he was compiling would inevitably need to be printed in large quantities in the future, Huang Liji said:

"Should we use common words when compiling brief histories?"

Zhu Youjian nodded immediately and acknowledged:

"Use common characters as much as possible. Characters that cannot be changed but are very important should be included in the common standard character list."

"In the future, the scholar examination will only require common characters."

"Uncommon words other than common words should be avoided as much as possible when writing questions."

"Various characters and other characters that are not standard characters cannot appear to avoid confusion among candidates."

In order to promote universal characters, Zhu Youjian also included them in the examination scope, saying:
"Currently, a general standard word list has not been drawn up, so there are no requirements for the time being."

"But after the character list is made, all characters used in scholar examinations must use standardized characters."

"If you use variant characters, they will be treated as typos."

"There are too many typos, so I can downgrade it appropriately."

This is serious. The emperor said that if there are too many typos, the grade will be downgraded, but he did not say that if there are too many typos, the grade will be downgraded. When it is implemented, it all depends on the will of the marking officer.

Candidates who want to avoid being downgraded can only use common characters. Avoid being dismissed because of this.

Huang Liji and others now regretted their previous inactivity. Meng Shaoyu was overjoyed and felt that he had gotten a big deal.

Because the compilation of the universal standard word list is obviously something that can go down in history. I may be recorded in history because of this word list.

Not to mention that this type list is extremely important for movable type printing. If movable type printing becomes mainstream in the future, his reputation will be even greater.

Instructing Meng Shaoyu to finalize the calligraphy list as soon as possible, Zhu Youjian asked the Ministry of Industry to cooperate with him to make a batch of clay movable type using this calligraphy list and try to print newspapers and periodicals.

If it can be printed well, then the first version of the word list will be published as a standard. If it cannot meet the needs, we will discuss adding more text.

The number of fonts needed to print newspapers with movable type must also be explored to facilitate the use of lead movable type in the future.

As for the word-checking method, Zhu Youjian proposed the radical-checking method, the stroke-checking method, the four-corner number-checking method that he had seen in later dictionaries, and even the five-stroke input method that he had used. Let Meng Shaoyu split characters according to these methods and standardize the parts of common characters to facilitate type checking and typesetting.

Moreover, the formulation of Pinyin also appeared in Zhu Youjian's plan. After the pinyin is formulated, the phonetic word detection method can be used more conveniently.

There are many Western missionaries in the Ming Dynasty now. These missionaries not only passed on Western knowledge, but also spread the knowledge of the Ming Dynasty out. The names of people and places in the Ming Dynasty are naturally transliterated into pinyin letters during translation, and these need to be standardized.

Zhu Youjian felt that rather than letting missionaries translate randomly, it would be better to transfer the pinyin of later generations. Take the initiative to master this area and develop alphabetical pinyin for Chinese characters.

In short, there are a lot of these various things, all caused by the matter of running a newspaper.

This made Zhu Youjian lament that industrialization is really difficult. He just wanted to develop the printing industry, but he encountered so many problems, some of which could only be solved by the emperor.

I really don’t know how much effort the ancestors of later generations have put in to enable China, an agricultural society that has lasted for thousands of years, to enter industrialization in just a few decades.

(End of this chapter)