Wentang

Chapter 665 Watches are on sale and a new book is published

Yue Shan met Li Jing the next day after chatting with Liu Rengui, and the two reached an agreement on the research of naval guns.

After leaving the court that day, they stayed to meet Li Shimin, explained to him some basic laws of naval warfare in detail, and demonstrated on the sand table the huge gap between ships with guns and ships without guns.

In fact, they don't need to explain it in such detail. When Yue Shan gave Li Shimin a suggestion to study gunboats, he had already learned about naval warfare and gunboats in private. He knew very well that gunboats were an epoch-making weapon for water warfare.

In the past, this plan was temporarily shelved out of caution, coupled with the fact that the strategic focus is on land.

Now that Datang's strategic center of gravity has also begun to shift partly to the sea, it is time to carry out this plan.So the two just made this suggestion, and Li Shimin had already decided to agree.

As for how to carry out the follow-up research work, he will let the people from the Firearms Battalion contact the Privy Council and the Ministry of Industry.

The Firearms Camp is the place where gunpowder and firearms are researched. It is in the hands of Li Shimin, and even the Privy Council does not know where it is.It can only be speculated based on various signs that it is in the deep mountains of the Qinling Mountains.

After the matter of the naval gun was resolved, Yue Shan put aside the affairs of the court and concentrated on preparing for the publication of his new book.

In fact, it is to contact the core strength of the new study department, as well as those great scholars who have made good friends with him, and communicate with "Chinese Civilization" in advance.

He explained the purpose of writing this book to these people in detail and expressed the need for their help.When the book is published, I hope they will voice their support, and it is best to promote the book within their academic sphere of influence.

But when he wrote letters to different people, he used different tone and expressions.

For example, some people hate Buddhism very much, and his tone also has a bit of disdain for Buddhism, and he also said that to give Buddhism a Chinese ancestor is to vent anger or something.

When this book really spreads all over the world, Buddhism will be ashamed and so on.The wider the spread of Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty, the more people they lost, and at the same time it could bring out the greatness of Lao Tzu.

For those with good reputations, he vigorously promoted the achievements of Emperor Qin, Han and Wu, and caught the civil servants of these two dynasties boasting fiercely, saying that they assisted the two emperors in creating great achievements, and they will be famous in history, which is also a role model for our generation.

Now an opportunity to create a new era is in front of us. How can we let the ancients be more beautiful than before? Join us to open up the glory that belongs to Datang.

In short, say something that they like to hear and touch their hearts.The result was very good, only a small number of people said that they still need to consider, and most people are willing to participate in the grand event.

During the busy break, he also helped Liu Rengui buy a big house in the capital, and took over his parents, wife and children and settled them down.

The commander-in-chief basically wanted to keep his parents, wife and children in Beijing as hostages. It was because of Yue Shan, and because everyone didn't pay much attention to the navy, so no one asked about it.

Now that the imperial court attaches great importance to marine construction, and Liu Rengui has just made great achievements and was made an earl. He is considered a number one figure in the imperial court, so naturally he wants to bring his family to the capital.

In addition, a small incident happened. Finally, on the first day of July, the Royal Commercial Bank sold clocks and watches to the outside world as scheduled.

Dozens of clocks and watches of different shapes and sizes in three grades of high, medium and low, appeared in the markets of various states and counties of Datang at the same time.

People who knew the name of the clock for a long time rushed in immediately. After confirming that this thing can really measure the time accurately, those rich people rushed into the shop of the Royal Commercial Bank with bags of coins on their backs like crazy.

It only took about a week for the timepieces in stock to sell out.Then the scalper market ushered in a bumper harvest again, and the price of watches and clocks was fired to several times the selling price, which was still priceless.

Those who thought it was too expensive and didn't buy it before regretted jumping.

It was not only them who regretted it, but also the eldest grandson Wugou. When she learned that the goods she had hoarded for a month were sold out in a week, she realized that she still underestimated the demand for clocks and watches in Datang people.

If I had known earlier, I would have stocked up on more goods, or raised the price up.

When Yue Shan entered the palace and talked about this matter, he casually asked how much he had stockpiled, and the eldest grandson Wugou stretched out a finger.

"1?"

"No, it's 11."

"How many?"

After learning the specific figures, Yue Shan was also shocked. When did Datang have so many rich people?This is not soap that costs a few pennies a piece, but a clock that costs ten pennies at the cheapest and thousands of pennies at the most expensive.

Yue Shan swallowed, and asked, "How much did you sell for?"

The eldest grandson Wugou gestured a seven and a five.

"Seven... 750 million guan?" Yue Shan's voice trembled a little.

No wonder a rich woman like Changsun Wugou, who can earn tens of pennies every minute, regrets that she has less stock, which is 750 million pennies.

And it's still 750 million per week.You must know that not counting the income of the Royal Commercial Bank, Datang's annual tax revenue has just exceeded tens of millions.

Anyone would regret it.

"Then what are you waiting for, make it quickly, before the imitation product comes out, make it quickly." Yue Shan said eagerly.

"I've already given the workshop an order to let them build it with all their strength." The eldest grandson Wugou said.

"I don't care whether there is a workshop or not. Make a manual on the technology of making clocks and watches, and distribute it to the stewards of all states, so that they can set up their own workshops and speed up the work." Yue Shan said immediately:
"There is also the need for shops around the world to accept reservations, and a 20.00% deposit will be paid in advance for whichever model you want. When the watch is produced, it will be given priority to them, on a first-come, first-served basis."

"Watches are not so easy to imitate, and we can harvest a round of the market after they research it. If you do what you say, the manual will be easily circulated, and it will only be cheaper for those who imitate."

Only then did Yue Shan calm down.Yes, a clock looks like a swing, a clockwork and a pointer, but it is not possible to make a clock by combining these things.

The simplest thing is that the spring has relatively high requirements on the material. Ordinary iron sheets will not work at all, and steel sheets with strong elasticity must be used.

This kind of steel can be smelted in large quantities by the Ministry of Industry, and it is difficult for other small workshops to smelt this kind of high-quality steel with the relatively primitive iron-making methods.

However, the high-quality steel produced by the Ministry of Industry is not enough for its own use, and it is rarely sold to the outside world. Those imitators have very few ways to obtain high-quality steel.

Moreover, both Yue Shan and Ma Cong knew physics, knew that the mainspring must be made of special steel, so they went directly to the Ministry of Industry to obtain the best material, which saved a lot of time in trial and error searching for materials.

Those imitators don't have such systematically trained physical talents, and they rely on imitation without making manuals. It is estimated that this clockwork can hold them for a long time.

If people who don't understand this point rashly use inferior steel sheets or even iron sheets to make springs, the end will probably be miserable.

If you let them get the crafting manual, you can avoid many pitfalls and speed up their progress in making clocks.

Maybe someone will say, isn't it just a clockwork, what's the problem?

Some things seem simple but are actually difficult, such as the light bulb is very simple.It is estimated that everyone who has gone to school knows that the filament can use tungsten wire.

Little is known, however, how much money and time the inventors spent testing which material was best for tungsten wire.

Although those imitators can quickly find the problem with the material of the mainspring, it is not so easy to find the right material.

Yue Shan shook his head. He dealt with a group of high-level intellectuals every day, and subconsciously produced a lot of high-level intellectuals in the country.

But I forgot that this is the capital city, and Weishui Academy itself has gathered talents from all aspects of Datang, and it is a unique talent center.

The level of knowledge popularization in the entire Tang Dynasty is actually not high, and talents in physics are even rarer.

Does this count as an alternative? Why not eat minced meat?

So Changsun Wugou's seemingly conservative method is the most suitable. His own idea looks very good, but he is actually digging a hole for himself.

In the end, Yue Shan admitted his mistake and continued to make clocks according to Changsun Wugou's plan.

After that, Yue Shan began to calculate how much money he could make in this wave.

750 million guan, the cost is calculated as 50 guan, and the net profit is 700 million guan.

Thirty-seven cents...

Sanqi 21...210 million.

Yue Shan was about to faint, at this moment he even wanted to stand on the street and shout, who else is there.

The family has a lot of money and doesn't know how to spend it. Some time ago, after marrying a daughter-in-law, they finally gave away hundreds of thousands of pennies, and in the blink of an eye, they earned back ten times.

Hey, worry.

He was indeed worried, but it was not about how to spend the money, but about family affairs.

The whole family was happy that Yue Shui'er was pregnant, and Yue Shan was also very happy at first, but soon...

Yue Laosi and his wife just said something unintentionally, the younger sister is about to have a child, why you, the elder brother, haven't moved yet.

Not once or twice, basically every time I go home, I hear similar words.

Li Lizhi looked at him with resentment in his eyes, even if Yue Shan put the investigation report in front of her and told her that giving birth at a young age was dangerous.

Facts have fully proved that when a smart and virtuous woman gets into a dead end, she will become unreasonable.

So every time he got off work, he was worried.

Go home, you have to face your wronged little daughter-in-law.Don't go home, Li Lizhi is probably depressed.

For this reason, he once wanted his eldest grandson Wugou to launch the plan in advance, and wrote to the imperial court to finalize the proposal of postponing the age.

The eldest grandson Wugou who learned the truth of the matter almost died laughing, but he firmly rejected his proposal.

As the saying goes, haste makes waste, this habit that has lasted for thousands of years does not change just by saying it.It is necessary to create enough discussion among the people before it can be brought to the court.

Her plan is to use the nationwide health care system to slowly tell the outside world about the dangers of giving birth at a young age.After more people knew about it and caused panic and attention, she contacted the noble ladies in Beijing to strengthen her momentum, and finally changed this bad habit in one fell swoop.

Not long ago, she just started to implement the first phase of the plan, and it is estimated that it will take several months or even a year or two of deliberation to drive the topic, and it is not yet time to write a book.

What else could Yue Shan do, he could only bear with it.

Man, it's hard.

But soon he didn't have time to worry about these things - Huaxia Civilization was published.

After more than half a month of printing, "Chinese Civilization" has accumulated a considerable amount, and Yue Shan directly used the power of the Imperial Commercial Bank to spread this book all over the Tang Dynasty.

And the price is unprecedentedly cheap, only [-] cents for a book, it really only charges the cost, not earning a penny.

The huge hype that had been hyped before, the nationwide distribution of goods without dead ends, and the super cheap price made this book instantly become Datang's best-selling book.If there is a bestseller list, its sales can be compared with the total sales of the Four Books and Five Classics in the same period.

Almost all literati will buy a copy to see for themselves what it is about, and dare to use Chinese civilization as the title of the book.

As a result, as expected, the content of this book caused a sensation in an instant.

This book allows everyone to understand the concept of Chinese civilization and what it represents.Regardless of whether you agree with the content of this book or not, the title of Chinese civilization has been unanimously recognized.

Countless people began to call themselves the inheritors of Chinese civilization.

Even the old school did not object to this concept, but criticized Yue Shan's book as a family opinion, unable to represent the true meaning of Chinese civilization, and even contained many distortions and fabrications.

The new school shouted excitedly that they are the true inheritors of Chinese civilization and also represent the future of Chinese civilization.

The two rows fought hard again.

The publication of Chinese civilization once again caused the literary circles to stand in line.

A small number of southern aristocratic families who still hold the theory of pure-blooded Han Chinese have publicly condemned Yue Shan for fabricating history. How could those alien races have the same roots as them?Don't be such a bullshit.

Although the northern family did not fully agree with their words, they still voiced their support out of the logic that an enemy's enemy is a friend.

Even some people who originally had a good impression of the new learning, but insisted on the pure blood theory, also stood up to oppose it.

Their joint attack has indeed brought inconvenience to the spread of Chinese civilization.

However, those who supported Yue Shan soon stood up.

It has been emphasized before that Chinese civilization is not a collective formed by the theory of blood, but comes from cultural identity.Confucius once said that when the barbarians come out, the Chinese people enter.

Therefore, they are more acceptable to Yue Shan's book that the alien races around the Tang Dynasty are all branches separated from the Central Plains civilization.

On this point, there are more people who support Yue Shan, especially the scholars who are from other races, regardless of whether they supported Xinxue before, they are desperately advocating for him this time.

Even some aristocratic families who often marry with other races or come from different races have changed their previous attitudes and started to support Yue Shan.

This is also what Yue Shan did not expect. It was a complete surprise that a Chinese civilization caused the family to split again.

Debate naturally needs a battlefield, and the newly established Weishui Journal took this opportunity to emerge.

Wang Ji is still very visionary and courageous. He has long realized that the emergence of Chinese civilization will inevitably lead to scuffles in the literary world, so he recruited troops in advance to expand the editorial department of Weishui Journal.

When Huaxia Civilization was just published, he had already asked dozens of Confucian scholars who supported Yueshan to write articles, and the printing team printed [-] copies day and night.

As soon as the book caused a sensation, [-] newspapers appeared in the most prosperous states, counties and cities in the country through various channels.

Classics such as the Four Books and Five Classics are easy to buy, and bookstores in big cities sell them.What are scarce are the annotations of famous scholars, which are the truly valuable knowledge.

Dozens of famous commentaries, which are usually hard to come by, now appear at a time, and one copy only costs ten pennies.Scholars rushed to buy it, and it was sold out soon.

The Weishui Journal became known in the world in one fell swoop.

Because all the articles published in this issue were advocating Chinese civilization, it really affected the thinking of many scholars, and it was not good for Yue Shan to be in a lesser situation for a while.

Some places that should have been the inherent territory of the old school once allowed the voices supporting Yueshan to gain the upper hand.

This pissed off the opposition. Isn't this cheating?
They also wanted to run a similar newspaper, but it was such an easy task.Among other things, the cost is unaffordable.

Weishui Journal uses wax printing technology to make the font very small, only the size of soybeans, but very clear.So dozens of articles are printed on both sides of a newspaper.

The cost has been kept to a minimum, and you can earn money for every ten cents.

But others don’t know wax printing technology, so if they want to run newspapers, they can only do manuscripts or woodblock printing.However, both hand-copied and block-printed fonts are relatively large, and dozens of articles can only be contained in a book.

The price is too high, and ordinary people can't afford it at all, unless they lose money and make money.

It doesn't matter to them to lose some money, as long as they can fight Yue Shan to grab the right to speak, the main problem is sales.Who do you sell the book to?
The Weishui Journal has relied on the power of the government and the Royal Commercial Bank to distribute the newspaper to most parts of the country. These aristocratic families are indeed very powerful in the local area, but they can't do it if they have only one-third of an acre of land.

The most worrying thing is that since people can publish the first issue of the newspaper, they can also publish the second and third issues. Anyway, the cost is low, so I can publish as I like.Do you dare to lose money and publish a book?
Just when they were helpless, they soon discovered a piece of news that they didn't know if it was good news.

The Weishui Journal actually wrote an invitation letter between the cracks, no matter who you are, no matter which school you support, you can contribute to them.As long as the quality of the work is qualified and does not violate the laws of the Tang Dynasty, they will help publish it for free.

Those who oppose Yue Shan are skeptical. The Weishui Journal knows what is going on just by looking at the name. Will they really publish articles against Yue Shan?

Most people don't believe it, but a few decide to give it a try.

Ten days later, a new issue of Weishui Journal was published, and everyone was surprised to find that it actually published an article refuting Yue Shan.

Moreover, the Weishui Journal played a trick, one side of the newspaper was full of articles supporting Yue Shan, and the other side was full of articles refuting him.

Twenty articles each, very fair.

Not only the opponents were surprised, but even those who supported Yue Shan were very puzzled.Wasn't Weishui Journal founded by Weishui Academy?What is this for?Rebel?
However, no matter what they think, the Weishui Journal has always insisted on this approach, and each issue is full of articles supporting Yue Shan on the one hand and articles opposing it on the other.

Seeing that the Weishui Journal was really impartial, those who opposed Chinese civilization felt relieved and contributed articles to the newspaper one after another.

Some people moved to live in the capital for the convenience of submitting articles and seeing the latest issue of newspapers in time.It can be regarded as a small boost to the tourism and real estate industries in the capital.

Because of Weishui Journal's "fanning the flames", the debate on Chinese civilization is getting bigger and bigger. Gradually, wherever there are scholars, there must be a topic about this book.

The opposition did not realize that with this debate, more and more people are familiar with the content of Chinese civilization.

What they didn't realize was that the Weishui Journal, which seemed to be impartial, allowed the voices supporting Yueshan to enter their inherent territory.

Let those scholars who could only 'listen' to their voices 'hear' different voices, and they can no longer use their influence to 'block' everyone's ears.

The Weishui Journal tore open an almost irreparable rift in the old school's web of family, in-laws, and knowledge.

Along with this debate, the ideas of new learning formally infiltrated into their inherent territory and took root.

Soon Buddhism and Taoism entered the venue, and all Taoist temples began to promote the content of Chinese civilization.

If the previous books and blank papers were only for scholars, the Buddhism and Taoism passed the knowledge of this book to hundreds of millions of low-level people.

People are more willing to trust monks and Taoists than high-status scholars and high-ranking family lords.

What's more, they didn't know a single word and hadn't read a book. They didn't have inherent prejudices in their hearts, so they were more able to accept the content of this book.

However, when Yue Shan wrote this book, he adopted the form of half narrative and half storytelling. Even if the common people don't understand the idea of ​​this book, they can still remember the story inside.

It turns out that we are a part of Chinese civilization, our ancestors did such things, that’s how Taoism came about, and Buddhism is also a part of my Chinese civilization, not a foreign religion...

The aristocratic families and ordinary scholars who opposed the book of Chinese Civilization hadn't realized that when they were fighting with those who supported Yue Shan, Yue Shan had borrowed the power of Buddhism and Taoism to steal their family fortune.

In the midst of this noise, time has entered September, and Yueshan is routinely working at the six gates on this day.In the afternoon, a wrestler rushed in and told him the shocking news:
The overlord died.

(End of this chapter)