Chastity Layman

  Chapter 318 Good words of gold and jade

  Pingkangfang, at the gate of Gongyuan.

  Jixian Library unveiled the plaque and opened. Qin Lang specially ordered a batch of firecrackers from the secret firearms supervisor. Two gunners each held a three-eyed dragon swallowing bronze cannon and stood at the door. The three-eyed bronze cannon is about the height of the eyebrows, tucked obliquely under the armpit, and holds an incense stick to light the medicine in one hand.

  Then the three eyes fired in turn, and the sky thundered.

This thing was designed by Qin Lang himself. In fact, it is an imitation of the three-eyed firecracker of the later Ming Dynasty. The shooting range, as long as it is within ten steps, still has a good effect, but it is time-consuming and labor-intensive to load, far inferior to bows and crossbows.

"What is this stuff?"

  I knew for a long time that there would be a new library opening here today, and I heard that it was presided over by Master Qin from the Chongxian Hall, so it attracted many people to watch the excitement early.

  When a cannon fired, the face of the shocked people turned pale, and some of them were even farther away, and they didn't know what happened, so they ran away with their heads in their hands.

   "Mom, what is this?"

  Everyone was terrified, looking at Qin Yong and Ah Huang who were holding guns today, these two complacent faces, they were all puzzled.

   "Cause the sky thunder?"

  Some people think that these should be firecrackers, but how can there be such a firecracker that can be held in the hand and can explode continuously, and it still looks like a dragon head, or a three-headed dragon.

Cheng Qian was also very heart-thumping, but he was even more excited. He knew the existence of the firearms monitor, and he followed Qin Lang to see it a few times. He knew that this thunderous object was actually designed by his teacher Qin Lang himself. The firearm, its full name is the Thunderbolt Three-Eyed Fire Dragon Gunpao.

  He saw Qin Lang bombard the target with the three-eyed cannon. A tied pig was covered with iron armor. Ten steps away, the armor broke and the pig died.

  Of course, beyond ten steps, there is no accuracy at all, let alone power, and there are still many shortcomings, such as time-consuming reloading, unusable in wind and rain, and charging by standing.

   But regardless of his shortcomings, this is still a brand new weapon, an unprecedented weapon.

  Three-eyed blunderbuss, the front end is a piece of cast iron blunderbuss head, and a hardwood handle is inserted in the back.

  However, after the emperor's Baiqi tried it out, he didn't think highly of it, thinking it was a tasteless thing. The distance of ten steps is too short. The enemy cavalry can shoot arrows from forty or fifty paces, and the enemy infantry can shoot arrows from sixty paces. If it is a crossbow, it can shoot from a hundred paces.

  With a distance of ten steps, the cavalry can directly stand in the face, and even the infantry can jump up with spears and shields.

  Compared with bows and crossbows, which have a longer range and higher precision, the hundred cavalry still trust them more.

However, Qin Lang was not discouraged. The Huomen gun can only be said to be the most primitive way to use firearms, and it is indeed very backward. If a musket needs a super-super-normal crossbow, there is still a long way to go. Matchlock guns and thread-loaded guns , Sui-fire guns, fixed-loading ammunition, line musketeers, matching artillery and so on.

   But at least it's a good start.

  Today he specially brought the three-eyed blunderbuss to celebrate the opening of Jixian Library, which is also the first time that a firearm has been used practically.

  After the roar of the blunderbuss, more spectators were attracted.

   Then Qin Lang appeared, and he invited the Crown Prince Chengqian to cut the ribbon and unveil the plaque for the Jixian Library. This ritual did not exist in the Tang Dynasty.

  Gold scissors, fine red silk.

  Qin Lang, Cheng Qian, Prince Zhan Shi Pei Ju, Cui Dunli, Zheng Xuanli and more than a dozen literary figures started scissors one after another, and each of them cut a big red flower.

  The popular prostitutes recruited from Nanli Xiaosa Pavilion, Zhangtai Pavilion, and Hongxiu wore gorgeous fashions from Qin's fashion shop, holding a lacquer plate, and took the golden scissors.

  These gold scissors will be given to the guests who come to cut the ribbon. These scissors are quite valuable, not to mention that there will be ten pieces of red silk as a gift.

  Finally, the crown prince was invited to take over and uncover the plaque, on which the four characters of Jixian Library inscribed by the emperor's gold pen were impressively exposed.

  Qin Lang took a book of Taibai poems from the shopkeeper, and advertised in public.

"This is my collection of poems, a total of thirty-six poems. It is a collection of some of my old works and some recent new works. They are all poems that I think are okay. This time, I handed them over to Jixian Library for publication. The printing is exquisite and the binding Gorgeous, and each collection of poems only sells for thirty-six dollars."

   "In addition, in order to thank everyone for your love, XX held an autograph event in the library today. The top ten book buyers and the top 10 book buyers today will get one autographed by XX."

  Qin Lang shamelessly started book signing, anyway, he advertised for himself.

  In order to lead the correct trend, Qin Lang also deliberately reached an agreement with the Printing Bureau, that is, the Printing Bureau will sell Qin Lang's poetry collections and pay Qin Lang the copyright fee based on 10% of the book price.

  In the past, there were patent fees, but now there are copyright fees. This can be said to be the first of its kind.

  Qin Lang authorizes the book printing bureau to print and sell the books, and the printed books are then sold to Jixian Library in wholesale. The printing bureau is the publisher, and the bookstore is the distributor.

  Qin Lang received a publishing fee of three Wenliu for a collection of poems.

  So Qin Lang also hopes that this book will sell more, so that the share will be more.

  Book signings are something that no Tang people have done before.

  As soon as Qin Lang's words came out, all the fans were extremely excited.

  So there was a long queue at the door of the store.

   Fortunately, General Liu Shili of You Jinwu was well prepared today, and Yongzhou Zhizhong also sent bad people to maintain order early, but there was no congestion like last time.

   "Purchase limit of ten copies per person per day!"

  Because the price is low, people are not rushing to hoard and resell it, so the bookstore has already made restrictions on sales.

  Actually, a large number of Taibai poetry collections were published this time, 10,000 copies were printed at one time.

  Distributed to 100 Jixian bookstores across the country for sale, and the goods are sold everywhere. The main store keeps more, with 3,000 books left.

  Qin Lang made a conservative estimate, worried that there would be too many copies to sell. After all, the number of scholars in the Tang Dynasty was limited, and it was impossible to grab a few copies.

  But he still underestimated the status of poets in the hearts of scholars and literati in the Tang Dynasty.

  Chang'an happens to be the center of the world. There are the largest number of scholars here, including the most wealthy scholars.

   What's more, a thirty-six-page poetry collection only sells for thirty-six dollars?

  This price is unbelievable. If it was in the past, it would have cost a few bucks, not to mention that this is the poetry collection of Shixian, and there are many new works of Shixian on it.

  Since it is so cheap, it is the same as Bai Jian, of course you have to buy it. At this price, buying thirty-six sheets of paper is also more expensive than this.

   "Ten volumes!"

  The people in front of the queue all directly opened their mouths to buy ten volumes, and it would be good to take them back and give them as gifts to friends after snapping them up.

  Qin Lang sat in front of the desk at the door and took a pen to sign for these people.

   "What's your name?"

   "Zhang Yueshi!" A young scholar excitedly presented a collection of Taibai poems in front of Qin Lang, "I am a scholar of Bingzhou, and my brother and I were recommended by Dudu Li to come to Beijing."

  Listening to his Bingzhou accent, Qin Lang smiled and picked up the pen, opened the title page, "Do you want to write something?"

   "Please give a gift from the bachelor."

"good!"

  Qin Lang picked up a pen, thought for a while, and wrote down two sentences in the book, there are roads in the mountains and hard work as the path, and there is no limit to learning the sea and working hard in a boat, and presented it to Zhang Yueshi, a scholar of Bingzhou.

  Zhang Yueshi read these two poems excitedly, "Is this a new poem in the Bachelor's Poetry Collection?"

   "No, these two sentences have not been included in the poetry anthology, nor have they been written into poems, so I will present them to you, come on!"

   "Bachelor Xie!"

Zhang Yueshi was very excited when he heard that these two lines were actually unfinished poems, and he gave them to himself. This seventeen-year-old Hedong Bingzhou candidate was originally recommended by Li Ji, the governor of Bingzhou, to enter Chang'an to participate in the scholar department. But later Qin Lang presided over the reform of the imperial examination system, and the Xiucai department was cancelled.

  He and his brothers then took the Bingzhou Examination and the Hedong Dao Examination in Hedong, and passed both.

  Both brothers are not reconciled and don’t want to go home. They plan to stay in Beijing and fight for another year.

  The second scholar who came to sign also bought ten volumes of poetry.

"May I have your name?"

   "Bachelor, I am Zhang Chujin, Zhang Yueshi's younger brother. I am seventeen this year. Please give me some words from the teacher."

Qin Lang sized him up and found that he was really similar to the one just now. Unexpectedly, these two brothers, who were seventeen or eighteen years old, could be like this. , is also very powerful.

   "Let me give you four sentences, adapt to things, don't welcome the future, don't mess with the time, don't love the past."

  Qin Lang reminded the young scholar that it doesn't matter if he doesn't win the Jinshi, don't worry, don't think too much about things that haven't happened in the future, and don't need to keep thinking about things that have passed, the most important thing is to focus more on the present.

   On the sixteen-character ink book, Zhang Chujin, come on!

  Countless scholars who lined up behind were all envious when they saw the treatment of Zhang Yueshi and the brothers.

   "Scholar Qin really deserves to be an immortal of poetry. The gift words to the two of them are so well written!"

   "Yeah, it's a golden word."

   "Worthy of the name of poetry fairy."

  Everyone started with ten volumes of poetry, but 3,000 volumes of poetry were sold out in a short while, and the scholars who queued up for a long time and failed to grab them were very dissatisfied.

   All accused the people in front of buying too much.

  The shopkeeper hurriedly came out to apologize to everyone at this time, saying that the poetry collection has been sold out, if you want it, you can order it, pay a deposit of 10 yuan, register your name, and you can make a reservation, and you will be notified when the collection of poems arrives.

  So everyone didn't bother to criticize those who bought the books, and all lined up to pay for the reservation.

  Some people even paid the full price directly, or even bought ten or twenty copies. Such a cheap collection of poetry can be sent back to their hometown.

  I can’t buy the anthology of Taibai’s poems, so it’s good to buy a few volumes of the Three-Character Classic and Thousand-Character Wen by the way, just to take it back to enlighten the children in the clan.

  Thus, the reprinted Three-Character Classic Thousand-Character Essay sold out ten thousand copies in one day, which stunned the shopkeepers.

   It sold 10,000 copies before, but today it sold out another 10,000 copies of the reprint.

  Where is such a big demand coming from?

  (end of this chapter)