Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 859 Hangzhou Printing Office
Zhao Yingong's application report encountered no objections in the project approval of the Planning Institute.On the contrary, the foreign intelligence bureau, the competent department, expressed objection to his immediate involvement in the silk industry: Jiang Shan and others thought it was too risky to do so. The silk industry was a popular industry at that time, and it was also an industry where officials and gentry were deeply involved. Zhao Yingong immediately started A modern silk reeling factory is a typical fire.

"He is going to be a big fat pig, waiting for someone to kill the pig, so he must be stopped." Li Yan said to Jiang Shan in the conference room, "The silk reeling factory is coming together, just like the Leizhou Sugar Factory opened back then. Immediately, it was shocking and weeping ghosts and gods. He said that he only reeled silk and did not intervene in circulation and silk weaving-you must know that Leizhou Station also thought so, but it was immediately besieged by people. If Leizhou was not on the opposite side of the strait, the Senate The all-round support came quickly and the regiment was wiped out long ago!"

Jiang Shan agreed: "I think so too. But you can't look forward to the future when you do things. He is eager to get money to open the situation-I can understand that it is impossible to open the situation without money."

"There are many ways to open up the situation. Besides, there is no support from Shanhai Road? Wanyou will open the Hangzhou branch soon..."

"He doesn't have the right to freely pay in Wanwu, you know financial discipline. Obviously he needs money now." Jiang Shan said.At the most recent joint meeting of various departments of the Foreign Intelligence Service, the financial affairs of the elders stationed abroad were coordinated, and it was stipulated that any elders could not directly withdraw cash from the shops on Shanhai Lianglu except for the specified intelligence activity allowance, and could only withdraw cash at If necessary, temporarily borrow cash in the form of borrowing, and there is a certain amount limit.

The consideration of formulating this rule is to prevent veterans stationed abroad from thinking that they are "business geniuses" and engage in "commercial operations" privately. It is nothing more than a waste of activity funds.Therefore, whether the enterprises in Shanhai Road are state-owned or joint ventures, they are all managed by the commercial department in a unified manner—unless it is clear that the veterans stationed abroad are responsible for the management and operation of the stores in Shanhai Road, otherwise they only provide certain services for the overseas stations. support.

"You can find other ways to make money, and start from a low-cost industry," Li Yan said. "I suggest starting with the book business first. Book publishing."

The publishing industry in Hangzhou was only at the "middle level" level in the Ming Dynasty, far behind Suzhou and Nanjing. There were not many bookstores and its influence was not too great.Compared with a highly profitable industry such as silk, the book engraving industry was expensive, slow turnover, and not very profitable. It was not an industry that officials and gentry were willing to intervene in.Li Yan thinks that it is the best choice for Zhao Yingong to intervene in the book engraving business first.

Jiang Shan said: "However, Zhao Yingong's enthusiasm is very high, and the motion he proposed immediately hit the G point of the Ministry of Light Industry, Foreign Trade Corporation and Agricultural Committee. I am afraid that these departments will express their enthusiastic support. I I am afraid that it will be passed at the committee meeting of the Senate."

If it is approved by the Standing Committee, it will be included in the operation items of the Planning Institute.Even if the Foreign Intelligence Agency objected, I am afraid it would not have much effect.

He circled a few times, stopped and said, "It doesn't matter, the equipment of a modern silk reeling factory can't be completed overnight, at least it will take half a year. We asked the Agricultural Committee to help the Hangzhou station to improve the planting of silkworm eggs and mulberry trees— - This is the foundation of sericulture reform, and Zhao Yingong will not object."

The improvement of silkworm eggs and mulberry tree planting will not attract much attention, and its impact will be much smaller than that of a new method of silk reeling.According to the knowledge of the ancients, this is the so-called "farm-based", and the gentry manage it by themselves, not only will no one look down upon it, but it is also a very face-saving thing.

"... This matter will take at least half a year. By the time Zhao Yingong wants to build a silk reeling factory, the situation should have changed, and there will be no problem in setting up a silk reeling factory." Jiang Shan was very proud.

Li Yan thought to himself that this was just a tactic of "dragging", but he admitted that what he said was correct.Consider Zhao Yingong's report that he has two directions, one is the silk reeling factory and the other is the printing and publishing industry.With Hangzhou's manpower and material resources, it is impossible to take care of both. It is completely reasonable to focus on only one project at the moment, and he will not have any ideas if he thinks about it.

Li Yan first had some discussions with the Planning Institute, and then called Tan Ming, the director of the printing factory, and Zhou Dongtian, a member of the publishing steering group, to hold a meeting.Discussions were held on how to deal with the publishing industry in Hangzhou.

Wu De's opinion is that there is no need to establish a printing industry in Hangzhou, but to ship books directly from Lingao for sale.Lingao's printing factory has installed lithographic printing equipment, which can print lithographic materials on a considerable scale, and it is possible to transport a certain amount of books to Hangzhou.

"...But I don't know how many books Hangzhou needs, and the types." Tan Ming has no bottom in his mind. Although the production capacity has now increased, the task of the printing factory itself is very heavy. The printing of a large number of textbooks and scientific and educational brochures makes the printing factory The work is extremely heavy.

Zhou Dongtian said: "Looking at his application, the books Hangzhou needs must be multi-variety and small-batch. This is a bit difficult for the printing factory."

Multi-variety means that there are many versions to be arranged, and not many are printed each time.This is quite uneconomical for printing houses.

The final decision is: to ship a batch of ready-made books from Lingao to Hangzhou first.Simultaneously transport simple printing equipment to Hangzhou——Zhou Dongtian suggested to transport two kinds, one is the simplest hand-operated printing machine.This type of printing machine does not use typesetting, but uses paper or lead type to print.

Although many people think of the modern printing industry as "movable type printing", in fact the real "movable type printing" is not widely used.Most modern printing techniques, including modern phototypesetting, follow the principles of woodblock printing.It's just that the speed and efficiency of making engravings have been greatly improved compared with engraving book boards.

In the era of "movable type printing", printed books were typesetting with movable type, and then used thick cardboard or thin lead plates to press out "paper type" or "lead type" on the arranged movable type.Then send the paper type and lead type to the printing machine for printing. After printing, the advantage of doing this is that it can greatly reduce the wear and tear of the lead type.Moreover, the paper type and lead type can be stored for a considerable period of time. If the book may be reprinted, it can be taken out of the warehouse and printed immediately, saving the effort of refilling typesetting.It can be said that it takes into account the advantages of movable type printing and engraving printing.

Compared with heavy wooden engraving blocks, paper type and lead type are lighter in weight, smaller in size and lower in cost.It is the most commonly used book printing process before the promotion of modern photolithographic printing technology.It is impossible for the Hangzhou printing factory that Zhao Yingong is going to open to train a group of specialized typesetting workers, so it is the easiest way to directly copy the various paper and lead models currently stored in Lingao printing factory and send them to them. As long as a few simple manual printing machines are prepared, the needs can be met.

"I recommend the Albion type." Zhou Dongtian said, "This manual printing machine has been considered the best manual printing machine since its invention, and many printing houses in the 20th century used it. There are still many printing enthusiasts today. Praise for this machine."

The Albion type printing machine is simple and light in structure, and has a strong transfer force, which is a very suitable choice for the printing house in Hangzhou.The disadvantage is that all imprint printing machines are the same, and the printing efficiency is not as good as that of rotary printing machines by using flat plate imprinting.

"The last time we conducted research on imitating this machine with the people from the machinery factory, we thought it could be improved to increase production efficiency, including the use of power such as water turbines and steam engines. The other is to cancel the spring."

The Albion press had a critical spring component that was researched and replaced by other means.

"However, with this approach, the task of typesetting still falls to the printing factory in Lingao. Moreover, most of the book types we currently store are not suitable for sale in Hangzhou." Tan Ming said—the typesetting work of the printing factory is already busy enough Understand.

There are thousands of books of various types in the Lingao Printing Office, but most of them are technical and management brochures, various textbooks, and promotional pamphlets for Lingao's own use.Books suitable for sale in the Ming Dynasty were only a small number of Four Books and Five Classics, the Annotations of the Thirteen Classics of the Qing Dynasty, some common subsets of classics and history, and religious pamphlets of the Catholic Church and New Taoism.

Zhou Dongtian said: "There is no way to do this. In the future, we will gradually establish a typesetting process locally."

Another piece of equipment is the lithography machine.Lithography is also essentially a type of woodblock printing, but with protective paints and caustics.Lithography is suitable for printing patterns and small batches of text prints, and it is more suitable for places like Hangzhou Printing Office that require small batches and multiple varieties.

Although these two devices seem simple, they cannot be imitated with the technology of the 17th century.It does not constitute the possibility of "technology leakage", which is the most taboo of the Senate.

Zhou Dongtian said: "I applied last time, and I wanted to go and see the local engraving and printing industry in Nanjing, Hangzhou and Suzhou. By the way, I also wanted to see if I could recruit some master engraving craftsmen. The demand is also great. This time I want to go to Hangzhou with books and printing equipment, and help Zhao Yingong set up a printing shop—after all, I am a professional. By the way, I will take a look at the printing industry in Jiangnan and recruit some craftsmen."

Zhou Dongtian had submitted the application for a field trip to the south of the Yangtze River a long time ago.At that time, there was no stronghold in Jiangnan, so the planning institute naturally could not agree.Now it seems very good for him to give reasons again.Of course Wood would not object.He turned his gaze to Li Yan.

"He hasn't received training, is there any problem going to Jiangnan?"

Li Yan said: "There is no problem in escorting him to the south of the Yangtze River. We have plans for the elders to travel to the red zone for a short time."

(End of this chapter)