Wentang

Chapter 225 Chapter 220 Six Engraving Printing
The several workshops that Li Xiaogong gave are very suitable for Yue Shan's needs. They helped him solve the early stage of construction, workers' running-in and other work, saving a lot of time.

As far as the papermaking workshop is concerned, the first thing Yue Shan thinks of is toilet paper.Every time he went to the toilet, he had to use a small wooden stick. Just thinking about it made him feel uncomfortable in a certain part.Now that he has the conditions, he naturally wants to get out the toilet paper.

And toilet paper helps women even more.What should ancient women do when menstruation occurs?To use a menstrual cloth, it sounds the same as a foot wrap, but it is used differently, so you can imagine how dirty it is.

In this era, women's diseases are high, and everyone can only suffer. If you are lucky, you can survive, and if you are unlucky, you will die.A large part of women's health problems can be solved with toilet paper.

As for whether using toilet paper will arouse the resentment of readers... maybe there will be, but definitely not too much-you don't think that in the era when there is no toilet paper, no one will use paper to wipe their butts, right?I think too highly of those scholars.

Besides, the Zhenxiang Theorem is one of the truths of the universe. Even if you have an opinion, it will naturally stop after you use it twice.

The second type is simply plain white paper.In order to lower the threshold of reading and literacy, Yueshan will inevitably print a large number of books and put them on the market, even if he loses money, he will do it. This requires qualified printing paper.

It is very important to let the workshop develop a kind of white paper with low price and high quality.

The third kind of paper is the legendary Chengxintang paper, which can be regarded as Yue Shan's temporary idea.He didn't have this need before, but now he does.

Especially after using hard yellow paper, he is more eager to master a paper of similar quality.

The hard yellow paper is made by other people, the key is that the output is low and he doesn't even have a place to buy it, so he can only go to the palace to order a few sheets, which can't meet the demand at all.

If you master a method of making high-quality paper, not to mention selling it to make money, at least you can use it casually.

Therefore, he did not let the paper workshop produce large quantities of paper, but suspended all other work and devoted himself to the research and development of the three products.

Once the toilet paper is researched, he will take the initiative to announce the production method, and even encourage everyone to imitate it.As the emperor's business partner, he is not short of this money.Improving the living standards of the whole people is more important than making money.

Once ordinary white paper is researched, it can be manufactured in large quantities, and then transferred to printing workshops to be printed into books and put on the market.

Use a large number of cheap books to lower the price of books, give more poor people the opportunity to read, and at the same time break the monopoly of aristocratic families on knowledge.

This is also a life of losing money and making money, but as a person with ideals and ambitions, he is happy to do it.

The third kind of paper is just as he said, don't force it.It is best to invent something that can be invented, and it is a matter of accumulating experience if it cannot be invented.In fact, what Yueshan values ​​most is toilet paper and plain white paper.

Speaking of ordinary white paper, printing has to be mentioned. Most people know that printing originated from seals and stele rubbings, and it was formed during the Sui and Tang Dynasties.But few people know exactly when it originated.

In the past, Yue Shan only knew that the printing technique originated in the late Sui and early Tang Dynasties, but he didn't know the exact date.It wasn't until after the academy was opened that people printed textbooks and test papers. At this time, the Tang Dynasty didn't even have a mature woodblock printing technique.

He was a little shocked at the time.

After careful investigation, it was found that the engraving technology was just in its infancy at this time, and the quality of the printed books was very poor.

All the books on the market are hand-copied, and printed books are not even qualified to be on the shelves.

There are very few printing workshops, and only some big cities have book printing workshops.

There are more students in densely populated big cities, and some students from poor families are not eligible for selection.Even if the quality of this book is poor, I still have to buy it, and if I don’t buy it, I don’t even have a bad one.

There are also Buddhist and Taoist classics printed and sold to illiterate common people. They don't buy these things for reading, but worship them as religious objects.So as long as the price is cheap, it doesn't matter whether the quality is good or not.

This is why Yueshan is confident that only one book printing workshop can drive down the market price.The advent of mature printed books will inevitably drive down market prices.

To be precise, it is the impact of industrial products on hand industrial products, which cannot be resisted.

Of course, woodblock printing can only be regarded as a semi-manual industrial product, so hand-copied books will exist for a long time.But the mainstream market will inevitably be seized by printed books.

But what Yueshan has to do now is to go to the book printing workshop to make woodblock printing.

Why not engage in movable type printing... Anyone who knows history knows that there are too many technical problems in movable type printing.

Movable type printing was invented in the Song Dynasty in China, but few people used it.After the Industrial Revolution, the West took the lead in overcoming technical difficulties and popularizing movable type printing, which in turn drove the reform of printing technology in China.Movable type printing officially replaced engraving.

As for the technical problems of movable type printing and how to solve them, Yue Shan has no research and has no idea.So for the time being, he has no idea of ​​using movable characters.

Besides, we have to eat one bite at a time. First, we should develop engraving and printing, and then we can lower the price of books.After solving this problem, we are setting up a movable type printing research group and let them study it slowly.

Soon Yueshan came to the printing workshop, and the situation here was worse than that of the paper workshop.

If the technology is not good, it will naturally not be taken seriously. The so-called printing workshop is just two or three kittens. It seems that life is really not good.

Yue Shan called people over to ask and found out that there were only a dozen people in total.There is only one person who can really be regarded as a technician, a carpenter who has studied for two years, and his name is Zhang Dachun.

There are three other people who can't read big characters, one carpenter, one stonemason, and two ink makers.The rest are small workers.

Yue Shan chatted with Zhang Dachun for a few words, and felt that this man was a man who had seen the world clearly, and asked other workers who had a good reputation, so he was promoted to be the manager of the printing workshop.

Zhang Dachun was naturally very excited, saying that he must do a good job and so on.

Yue Shan called together a few craftsmen who were skilled in technology, and told them his idea of ​​engraving and printing.The result can be imagined, these people worshiped one after another.

As mentioned above, the prototype of block printing already existed at this time, but it was still immature.Yue Shan's so-called 'invention' is more like a summary and expansion of previous technologies.

So Zhang Dachun and others understood it easily.When encountering a new technology, these people couldn't help but want to try it out immediately, but was stopped by Yue Shan, who didn't finish his sentence.

He doesn't know movable type printing very well, but he knows engraving. There are not many technical difficulties in this thing, mainly in wood selection and carving technology.

Yue Shan didn't understand the carving technique and could only rely on craftsmen to figure it out, but he knew about wood.It is written in history books that jujube wood and pear wood are the most suitable materials.

Don't underestimate this sentence, it is the experience summed up by countless craftsmen for decades.With this sentence, the time and material consumption of looking at it can be saved.

After finishing what he knew about engraving and printing, Yue Shan let them verify it.And he was not in a hurry, wandering around the workshop.

One is to wait for these craftsmen to take out the first edition of engraving to see the actual situation, and two, he is also curious about what the printing factory is like.

Generally speaking, I am very disappointed, that is, some wood and stone materials are piled up together. Those who don't know it think it is a carpenter's workshop and a stonemason's workshop.

He didn't see anything of interest until he came to a corner.

"Are you making ink?" Yue Shan asked a few workers who were busy.

(End of this chapter)