I rode and slashed unparalleled in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 424 Expensive Knowledge

As Lu Zhi and others had been with Su Yao for quite some time, they had a basic understanding of the character of this Champion Marquis.

That guy never does meaningless things. He is the kind of person who will talk about business at a celebration banquet, eat his meal, and then just leave.

This time, while His Majesty was out on a tour to worship his ancestors, he quietly had someone create such a huge treasure in the capital, and now he has come to offer it on his own initiative.

There must be a purpose behind this.

I have to say, these guys are pretty sharp.

Su Yao would naturally not offer his gift for nothing.

"Your Majesty's lesson."

Chen Zhi said truthfully:
"Although the Suhou paper is now a finished product, the movable type printing is still just a prototype and there is still room for improvement."

"Your Excellency originally wanted to complete it and present it to Your Majesty."

"However, now that you have traveled to Liaodong, your return date is uncertain. In order to prevent delays and leave the pearl in the dust, you have sent us a message in advance. After this initial sample is completed, this technology will be presented to Your Majesty. I hope to get the support of the court so that this technology can be promoted and benefit the world as soon as possible."

"Oh, you said this is just a prototype?" the emperor asked in surprise.

He looked at the delicate block of wood and the beautiful book in his hands, but couldn't figure out what was going on.

He naturally didn't know that printing and papermaking were projects that Su Yao had discovered through experience points.

Just like when he was learning medical skills in the past, Su Yao, with a pragmatic spirit, was not in a hurry to point out these two construction projects at first.

However, when Su Yao ended his trip to Bingzhou and was on his way back to Beijing, as the team's personnel became more complicated, Su Yao began to feel that the military discipline of these big soldiers was difficult to enforce.

At the same time, considering that he has never had a suitable administrative team, Su Yao decided to popularize education in the military first, so that at least grassroots talents can ensure self-sufficiency.

The military discipline propagandists at that time were established based on this idea.

However, compared to directly sending violators on tour to preach military discipline, the popularization of education in the military has not been smooth.

If it was a problem of teachers, he could still rely on a few people from aristocratic families in the team, such as Wang Ling, Wei Ming, Chen Zhi and others to work part-time, but the lack of teaching materials and easy-to-use paper was the most troublesome problem.

At that time, just to make the hundreds of elite troops in the army understand how to write their names, they could only use wooden sticks or weapons to gesture on the ground.

After all, precious bamboo slips must be used to record important information, and although Caihou paper is simple and rough, there is not even a paper mill in Bingzhou, let alone a bookstore.

The only bookstore Su Yao had ever seen in the world was when he arrived in the capital city of Luoyang, at the gate of Imperial College.

The price of the bamboo slips and scrolls made him gasp.

Although I know that everything sold in the store is expensive, it is not an exaggeration to say that the prices are rip-offs.

In that case, just make it yourself.

Su Yao had accumulated a lot of experience in suppressing bandits at that time, so he went straight to the movable type printing.

And its prerequisite technology is precisely papermaking, which can unlock papermaking workshops for future territory construction.

However, after clicking on all the skills, Su Yao discovered something quite disappointing.

The skills and projects were unlocked, but he was only given the principles and a hyperlink to an encyclopedia description, which did not allow him to build a factory on the spot in a matter of seconds. He had to find people from scratch to tell him how to do it.

It’s really a rip-off!
At that time, Su Yao was busy with the main storyline and was about to follow the emperor to worship his ancestors, so he naturally had no time to care about so many things. Taking advantage of the days when he stayed at home every day, he called his confidant Chen Zhi and gave him this glorious and arduous task.

Fortunately, Chen Zhi did not fail in his mission. Although he was not a first-class talent in internal affairs, he had received a good basic education as a son of an aristocratic family. More importantly, there were a large number of outstanding craftsmen in Luoyang.

As long as he explains to the craftsmen the ideas that Su Yao told him truthfully, he can achieve his goal step by step.

Whether it is papermaking or printing, for this era, its basic skills have already been mastered, and it does not have many strict requirements like many mechanical and engineering technologies.

The so-called Su Hou paper is actually just a combination of the craftsmanship of Cai Hou paper and Saiki paper.

Yes, it's that simple.

People at that time simply lacked a little attempt, or were conservative, which led to the emergence of technology in the real world hundreds of years later.

As long as the barriers of thought were broken, the papermakers in Luoyang immediately reproduced it.

As for the printing technology, it was Liu Hong who personally led and lit up the front end.

During the eight-year-long carving of the Xiping Stone Classics, the craftsmen in Luoyang had already mastered the craft of woodblock printing. They were able to carve and make rubbings on stone. Compared with the woodblock printing technology that was only invented in the Tang Dynasty, the only thing they lacked was a piece of good paper.

As long as the standards of paper and ink meet the requirements, there is no basic technology that is difficult to overcome between movable type printing and woodblock printing, except for printing efficiency.

It's just a matter of turning whole pieces of carved blocks into adjustable movable type blocks.

This is what inventions and creations are like. When basic technology is met, their birth is often just a sudden change of thought.

However, it sometimes takes hundreds of years to realize such ideas, and some nations or countries may never be able to realize them in their entire lifetime.

Today, Su Yao has skipped the detour by relying on the power of the system.

In just a few months, the first prototype was completed.

Yes, a few months.

This is also the reason why Su Yao decided to donate it after learning about the progress of the technology in Luoyang.

Even with the support of the system and even with mature craftsmen in Luoyang.

However, movable type printing and papermaking technology still faced many difficulties for individuals or newly rising dignitaries like him.

The paper mill in Luoyang is a government-run workshop, and their inability to use paper in large quantities is just one of the reasons.

The most important thing is that movable type printing takes much more time than Su Yao imagined, and the cost is also very high.

Although movable type printing has many advantages, as long as the templates are manufactured one by one, they can be adjusted at any time later.

However, the sheer number of Chinese characters meant that the initial printing of the characters was a massive undertaking that could not be accomplished by a single individual.

Compared to English, which only has 26 letters, there are tens of thousands of Chinese characters, which is an astronomical number.

Even if we only consider commonly used characters, there are three to five thousand.

If it were an ordinary printer, it would take several years just to make the plates.

This is also the key reason why movable type printing in China could not be popularized after woodblock printing matured in later generations.

(End of this chapter)