Short video spoiler history: The beginning of modern warfare

Chapter 29 Papermaking and Printing

"I have heard that people remove the fat from pig pancreas, grind it into powder, add soybean powder and spices, and make bath beans!" Duan Lun, the Minister of Industry, said: "I think the so-called soap in Tianmu is also the same."

Li Shimin looked at his brother-in-law with some surprise. He didn't expect that he also knew these things. However, when he thought about the time when he and his brother-in-law practiced Taoism and read classics, he thought that he must have learned them from them.

"I have also heard that pig pancreas can be used to make facial medicine and lip balm," someone added.

"That's true, but pig pancreas is rare, and the materials for the recipe mentioned by Tianmu are easier to obtain." Li Shimin sighed.

This soap is actually of little use to people's livelihood. Guan Tianmu was so sure about it, he must be very confident in its cleaning ability. This made him think of the appearance of people in later generations, which was indeed much cleaner and tidier.

But what is the reason for this?

Li Shimin thought that some videos in the sky would mention the principle, while some would skip this matter.

It was also in this way that he came to know that "principles" are contained in everything from the sky to the sea and from firewood, oil and salt to food. Later generations made in-depth studies on this.

For example, the production of refined salt, fans, fertilizers, soaps, etc., especially fertilizers, has had an extremely far-reaching impact and is a great achievement that will be passed down through the ages.

There is also a high-yield crop, sweet potatoes!

This is what is called a leak of the secret. Before this, who could have realized that there might be other high-yield food crops in other parts of the world?

Who else can realize that the Central Plains is just a small piece of land in the entire world?
Later generations also said that sweet potatoes are highly adaptable and easy to survive.

Perhaps a special department should be set up outside the six departments to take charge of this matter.

What worried him was that, although this department was as famous as the six ministries, it was in charge of studying the principles of various affairs, and its authority was far away from the power center of the court, which greatly dampened its enthusiasm.

If officials were to be transferred from the six ministries, it would probably cause opposition in the court.

Moreover, since ancient times, people have studied in order to become officials. It seems that all kinds of secrets were bestowed by heaven. Although it has benefited the Tang Dynasty a lot, if they were really asked to do this job, no one would be willing to do it.

In their eyes, all kinds of skills are nothing but "strange and cunning tricks". It is better to read the Four Books and Five Classics and be well-educated. The prejudice in people's hearts is as big as a mountain!
Changing customs and habits is not easy, especially when interests are involved.

It may not be a good idea to transfer good officials from local areas. They may be good at handling local government affairs, but they are not as good as the people in studying soap.

What about using civilian forces? I'm afraid that's a long shot. In the Tang Dynasty, there are few literate craftsmen. They can't even speak clearly when playing in front of the palace. It's a pipe dream to rely on them to study some principles.

All kinds of thoughts flashed through my mind, and the scene on the sky changed again.

【Papermaking and printing are one of the greatest inventions in the world】

[Their greatness lies in breaking the cultural monopoly, greatly reducing the difficulty of storing and disseminating knowledge and information, and even changing the hierarchical structure of human society]

[With them, you will be able to cultivate talents in large quantities, and the power system will no longer be controlled by the aristocratic families]

[With the popularization of knowledge, a new class will be born, and the dawn of industrial civilization will bloom in your hands]

[First of all, it should be reminded that papermaking technology had already appeared before the Eastern Han Dynasty, but Cai Lun improved the papermaking technology on its basis, making it cheaper and of better quality]

[The basic principle remains the same to this day, and here is a better way to make paper]

Late Han Dynasty, Nanjun.

Everyone was shocked. What Tianmu said was too scary.

Liu Bei had heard that Cai Lun improved paper and was awarded a title of nobility for his contribution.

But he was not clear about the specific production steps, and paper is extremely expensive nowadays.

Does the aristocratic family refer to the aristocratic family? Interrupting the cultural monopoly, reducing the difficulty of knowledge storage and dissemination, and changing the human hierarchy?

Popularizing knowledge means enabling ordinary people to read and write?

Then we can create industrial civilization? Is this the world where future generations live?

He took a deep breath, forced himself to control his trembling hands and quickly wrote down what he had written.

【First is the basic principle of papermaking】

[Paper is composed of short fibers and binding materials, which combine together to provide certain mechanical properties and void structure]

[Theoretically, as long as fibrous tissues with a certain aspect ratio are bonded together, they can form paper]

[Therefore, wood pulp, straw pulp, sugarcane pulp, cotton pulp, bamboo pulp, reed pulp, etc. can all be used as papermaking materials, and the properties of the paper produced are also different]

[Below I will use bamboo as an example to illustrate the principle of making writing paper]

"1. Cut bamboo into one meter pieces and soak in lime for 14 days"

“2. Peel off the bamboo skin and clean it.”

“3. Hammer until it becomes a pulp”

“4. Steam bamboo pulp and wood ash together for 10 hours”

"5. After removing impurities from bamboo pulp, add water and stir evenly to form pulp"

"6 Bamboo curtains are poured into wooden troughs to become paper"

"7 wooden boards weigh down the water"

"8 Stick the paper on a heated wall and let it dry.

Pang Tong and others quickly recorded what Tianmu said, shortened it and removed unnecessary words, and recorded the complete papermaking process.

Liu Bei's hands were shaking slightly as he held the bamboo slips. They were too precious. Pang Tong, as a descendant of one of the four great families in Xiangyang, looked at the sky with a complicated expression.

Cultural monopoly? That is true. You have to know that in this era, scriptures are family heirlooms.

Ordinary people want to learn to read and write? That’s just a dream!

In addition, the drawbacks of the recommendation system allowed powerful families to dominate the states and counties and annex land, which eventually led to their becoming too powerful to be controlled.

Ever since the sky curtain first appeared in the world, he seemed to see an invisible hand stirring up the wind and clouds and sweeping across the world.

As for Tianmu, it is extremely hostile to the aristocratic families, or the powerful families, and it is coming at them with great force.

He didn't understand why people in later generations were hostile to the aristocratic families. He only knew that the general trend of the world could be followed but not reversed.

After that, one thing after another proved his guess.

Fertilizer, sweet potato, cotton, refined salt, and papermaking.

He is not one of those corrupt scholars and he knows the power of these things.

Nowadays, except for sweet potatoes and cotton, if any one of the other three things appeared in the world, it would have a profound impact on the current situation.

During the Zhenguan period, Li Shimin had a lot of free time and paper had already become popular.

There are spontaneous papermaking workshops among the people, so if we want to improve the paper technology, we can just leave it to them.

Only at this moment did he feel the goodness of the sky.

If there is any technological update, businessmen will inevitably follow suit in pursuit of profits, and others will also follow suit to improve the technology in order not to be eliminated.

At the same time, it also gives ordinary people the opportunity to participate. After all, this was basically a family craft in the past, and it was impossible to produce it without a secret recipe.

This leads to full competition, and prices do not go up, so the people benefit.

For example, the technique of refining refined salt in the sky became popular. The refined salt that was previously only affordable by the nobles in Chang'an was now sold in various cities. The selling price was lower than before, but its quality was much higher than before.

It has to be said that if people from later generations really traveled through time, they would probably have the ability to make clouds and rain with a flip of their hands, which would cause unrest in the Tang Dynasty.

There is also movable type printing. Is it a new technology?

He knew that books were now printed using stereotype technology, which involves using stone slabs to engrave the text to be printed, with one page of text engraved on one side of the slab. After use, the slabs can be stored for later reuse.

Books printed in this way are also much cheaper. Of course, there are also poor students who cannot afford to buy them, so they borrow books and copy them themselves. Relatively speaking, it is cheaper as they only need to pay for the paper.

Of course, brushable slates also have their disadvantages, which is that typos and omissions are difficult to deal with.

[There are only three difficulties in movable type printing]

[Basically it is a question of thinking and is very easy to solve]

[First, cast the type mold. First, use copper and iron to make the mold of the type mold, then use a fixed-volume lead ground to absorb the type mold, and use the type mold to typeset and print. After typesetting, there is no need to disassemble the type.]

[Batch printing will be very low cost, very suitable for commercial use]

[Second ink, use smoke black linseed oil, rosin alcohol to make ink for lead printing. If conditions permit, you can add appropriate amount of paraffin wax, glycerin, etc.]

【The third printing tool is very simple as shown in the picture. 】

[Use spiral stamping to improve printing quality and efficiency. With these two magical tools, papermaking and printing, you can do more than you can imagine]

The picture of the machine on the skylight did not stay for long, and Liu Bei did not quite understand it, so he looked at the craftsmen.

The craftsmen were also a little confused.

"Chinese movable type printing is not practical, woodblock printing is the way to go"

"Woodblock printing is to carve characters on a wooden board. One board represents one page of characters. Ink is applied and paper is laid on it for printing. The advantage is that the printing is neat and beautiful. The disadvantage is that one board can only be used to print a specific page of a book. Moreover, if even one character is missed during engraving, it will be very troublesome and a new board must be engraved to replace it."

"The durability of movable type printing depends on the durability of the type. If the number of times it is used is too low, it will not work well."

"There are too many commonly used characters in China, and managing them is a big problem, so in the end it benefited the West, who only have 26 letters [laughing and crying]"

"In ancient times, there were few books and they were not updated frequently, so woodblock printing was the main method. Movable type printing could only print family trees for others. Modern information density is high, and newspapers, magazines, and various novels are updated every day, so movable type printing is the main method."

Jiangling City in Nanjun in the late Han Dynasty.

"Oh!"

"Use a piece of board to carve a page of words, apply ink and then print it. How wonderful!" Liu Bei exclaimed.

With the two magical tools of paper and printing, probably everyone will be able to read and write.

With the advent of woodblock printing, movable type printing became easy to understand, so he ordered people to gather the engravers in the city.

Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, Wei Yan, Ma Liang, Jian Yong, Mi Zhu, Mi Fang and others were all very excited. Books, those were books!
With the advent of paper and printing, there are now as many books as one wants.

They can't wait.

"Dig out the roots of the knowledge monopoly class. If you don't have a certain level of strength, don't show it, as it will easily lead to a crazy counterattack from the knowledge monopoly class."

"You must have a sufficient identity to travel through time, otherwise you won't know how you died"

"The biggest bug in time travel is that you have a clearer understanding of the future development direction than any ancient people, rather than industrial technology that only knows the results but not the reasons. "

(End of this chapter)