I'm in the Red Mansion

The next day, something new suddenly happened in the entire capital city.

A group of people suddenly appeared in the streets and alleys of the capital city. They carried thick boxes of books and started distributing them on the streets.

This is truly a new thing, something that has never happened since the founding of the Great Xia Dynasty.

Not to mention Daxia, even a thousand years ago, it seems that no one has ever done such a thing.

In this age of extremely low literacy rates, the general public has a natural reverence for words.

Even just a piece of paper with words written on it would make people inexplicably awed.

This is because of the cost of paper and printing, and of course also because the aristocratic families blocked the knowledge.

In this world, the prices of books are always high.

For poor people, it is very difficult to get a book. If there is a book at home, it will be carefully kept as a family heirloom.

And nowadays, there are people distributing books on the streets?
Although this book seems a little thin, it only has a few sheets of paper.

But they are also books!
As a result, countless people rushed forward to ask for books.

However, it was not until this point that they realized belatedly that these books were not given to everyone who asked for them.

Although it is given for free, it is only given to people who can read.

At the very least, you will be given a book if you can pick up the book and read a paragraph of the text inside.

The literacy rate in this era was extremely low, and this threshold really blocked a large number of people.

However, those who could read were all very proud of themselves.

As long as they can read a paragraph of the book, they will be given a book as a gift, which will then cause others to admire and even praise them.

At this time, more and more people began to become curious about what kind of book this was.

Why were they distributed on the street?

Then, those who were literate and had obtained books began to recite under the crowd.

It turns out that the name of this book is Daxia Monthly.

They didn't understand what the Daxia Monthly Report meant.

Well, actually even the person who recites it doesn’t understand its meaning.

Next, they opened the Daxia Monthly and began to read the articles inside.

The first column is anecdotes.

Several articles in this column were written by Xue Baoqin.

When Xue Baoqin was young, he followed his father to do business in Daxia.

In the whole Daxia, she had been to six or seven of the ten pavilions.

So naturally I have seen many new things.

Xue Baoqin picked out the interesting stories and wrote three articles about them.

When the people of the capital heard these three reports, they were all amazed.

Next, there is the poetry section.

The poetry section selects several poems written by Jia Cong and several poems written by Tanchun.

There is no need to talk about Jia Cong's poems, which are naturally excellent.

However, Tanchun's poems are a little lacking in quality.

However, even among the scholars, he can barely be considered to be at a medium level.

For ordinary people, how could they understand poetry and songs?

It just sounds catchy, but even though I don't understand it, it still feels very impressive.

And below, there is also a current affairs section.

This section is actually aimed at students taking the imperial examinations.

As for the Daxia Monthly News, its target audience is naturally literate scholars.

As for the group of scholars, is there any group larger than those who take part in the imperial examinations?

Haven’t you seen how many white-haired old men are still taking the imperial examinations every year?

The several model essays in the Daxia Monthly were all written by Jia Cong.

Jia Cong's eight-part essay writing skills have reached perfection. The contemporary essays he wrote are naturally full of pearls and beautiful sentences.

This section also includes Jia Cong’s explanation of eight-legged essay writing.

Just based on Jia Cong's ability, these contemporary essays alone are enough to attract countless imperial examination candidates.

Of course, ordinary people have no feelings about these current affairs, and some may even feel drowsy after listening to them.

So, those who read the article skipped these contemporary essays and read the last chapter novel.

This chapter novel is The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

It has to be said that the emergence of The Legend of the Condor Heroes was a dimensionality-reduction blow to the chapter novels of this era.

After just listening to a few hundred words, almost everyone was fascinated.

The story comes to an abrupt end after more than 20,000 words, when Qiu Chuji makes a bet with the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan.

"What's going on down there? How is it going down there? Have they found the descendants of the two families?"

"That's right, that's right, this is the hero's queen, have they found her?"

"There's nothing behind!"

"How can it be gone? Aren't you going to look for it?"

"But the book doesn't stop there..."

At the critical moment, it’s gone!

This drove almost everyone who heard this story crazy.

Where can I find someone who can keep people in suspense like this?
They were eager to know what happened next.

Fortunately, someone discovered it soon.

It turns out that the Daxia Daily will actually publish another issue next month.

The story of The Legend of the Condor Heroes will have a sequel next month.

Moreover, the Daxia Daily also accepts submissions from scholars.

These sections all accept submissions. Once accepted, the remuneration will be generous, starting from one or two taels of silver.

The place for submission was a house on the back street of Rongning Street.

If you want to contribute, you can do so here.

It is true that Jia Cong works at home.

However, he couldn't submit the manuscript directly to Ningguo Mansion.

If it were really placed in Ningguo Mansion, it would not only cause unrest in Ningguo Mansion.

Over time, it will cause some unnecessary troubles.

Therefore, it is very necessary to set the place for collecting manuscripts outside Ningguo Mansion.

The remuneration offered by Daxia Monthly is really not low.

You have to know that the monthly salary of a first-class maid in Rongguo Mansion is only one or two taels of silver.

For ordinary people, they can’t earn even one or two taels of silver even if they work hard for a month.

Moreover, the Daxia Monthly News also said that one or two taels of silver as a remuneration is just the starting point.

If it is really well written, the remuneration may be even higher.

Of course, these have nothing to do with ordinary people.

They can't even read, let alone submitting articles.

Now, they are already wishing they could skip a month and go straight to next month so they can hear the sequel to The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

……

This method of giving away newspapers for free was naturally Jia Cong's idea.

If a new product like newspaper is sold from the beginning, it will definitely not be accepted by the market and will take a long time to open up sales.

If I want to promote it, I don’t know how much effort it will take.

But it’s different if you give it away for free. Within just a few issues, everyone in the capital will know about the existence of the Daxia Monthly.

Now it seems that even within a few issues, the effect of the first issue alone has achieved their expected results. (End of this chapter)