After Li Su was granted the enthronement, he was able to stay in the capital for a long time.

No major incident happened in the next two days, so he went to Zong Zhengqing to complete the "job procedures" to get familiar with the situation, and then continued to complete his writing, engraving and printing work in his spare time.

Two days later, on the first day of March, the date of the court meeting for five days.

Calculate the days, it has been a whole month since Li Su traveled to this world. He was stranded in the capital, and there were more than ten days in total.

Emperor Ling is now in political affairs for many years, but the court meeting is still held. It is nothing more than the emperor's face that flashes. After the specific affairs are initially handled by the ministers and the ministers, they will be handed over to the ten regular attendants to decide.

The first emergency document from Youzhou Governor Tao Qian was sent four days ago. He missed the last major court meeting, so the rewards and punishments for the relevant emergency will naturally be discussed at this court meeting.

The Duke and the Ten Constables played behind closed doors and finally reached a balance.

Tao Qian has not rewarded or punished for the time being, and remains in the position of Youzhou Governor, so that he can make meritorious service to stabilize the situation in Youzhou first so as not to expand rapidly.

However, everyone knows that Tao Qian, the governor of Youzhou, will be transferred by the excuse for a few months at most.

The Wuhuan School Captain Gong Qi Chou hurriedly led the Wuhuan stationed in Yuyang to the south to fight Zhang Chun. When he was later in Juyongguan, the Wuhuan King Nanqiao under his tent suddenly attacked and cooperated with Zhang Chun inside and outside to kill Gong Qi Chou, and killed the Han tribes under the tent of San Gong Qi Chou.

At this court meeting, the tone was officially set and pushed everything to Gong Qi Chou, a dead man who had already died in battle. He believed that his subordinates were unclear and deducted Wuhuan's food and wages, and did not notice the unfair intentions of the Wuhuan people.

At the same time, the court meeting also formally discussed the merits and demerits of Liu Bei, Pan Feng, Zhang He and others before, and discussed the merits and demerits of Zhang Chun.

Pan Feng and Zhang He made little contributions, or had certain mistakes in his actions, but overall his contributions outweighed the mistakes. They were rewarded with some money, but they were not promoted.

Liu Bei made the most contribution because he was the first to make his first title, but he killed all the way through the areas occupied by the Black Mountain bandits and ventured south to report the news. He also performed bravely in the battle when he chased Zhang Chun.

Finally, the court decided to change Liu Bei from Anxi County Magistrate to Guangchang County Magistrate, with a rank of 400 stones, which was two levels higher than the original one. (Anxi County Magistrate was 300 stones, and it was upgraded to 400 stones, and then to 400 stones)

The reason why the county magistrate of Guangchang is only 400 shi is because this county is relatively small. The county with less than 10,000 households has only "county magistrates", which can range from 400 shi to 600 shi according to the household registration number. Only counties with more than 10,000 households have "county magistrates", from 600 shi to 1,000 shi.

Guangchang County is the northernmost county in Zhongshan, located in the upper reaches of Laishui (equivalent to Laiyuan County in Baoding in later generations). This county is in the mountainous area of ​​Yanshan, with few household registrations, only about 5,000 households, so the county magistrate is worthless.

In addition, according to Zhang He's previous deployment when he intercepted Zhang Chun, because the official army was not strong enough, only the southern area at the junction of Zhongshan County and Zhuo County, that is, along the Yishui coast, had no troops to block Laishui.

So in the end, Zhang Chun did escape from Guangchang County along Laishui. Local officials in Guangchang either followed Zhang Chun to follow the thief or were killed by Zhang Chun to death.

Therefore, the officials in Guangchang County’s officialdom were basically cleared, and many vacancies were vacant.

The court decided to let Liu Bei, who knew the military and was good at fighting, be the county magistrate of Guangchang, and be responsible for blocking the Laishui line and prevent Zhang Chun from spreading back to Jizhou along the road after becoming bigger in Youzhou.

As for Li Su, his name was mentioned in the court discussion, but later he heard that Liu Yu, the chief minister of the Zongzheng Mansion, had appointed him as the head of the Princess of Zongzheng Mansion, and the rank was 300 stones, so he would not deal with it separately, just to register.

...

Unfortunately, the imperial court's appointment and recruitment of Liu Bei was not officially issued.

Because Liu Bei had long since stopped serving as Anxi County Magistrate, even if he sent the appointment, it would be a waste of time.

The day after the court discussion, Li Su, as the "former colleague of Liu Bei", used appropriate channels to report to the department, saying that Liu Bei had abandoned his official position and returned to his hometown, and organized the village hero to fight against Zhang Chun.

Among the officials, a few people have already learned the news in advance. After all, Liu Bei has been away from Beijing for nearly ten days. But if they need to do a game, they can only pretend to be confused and wait until Li Su "officially report" before pretending to "realize".

The acting was also quite tiring. Liu Yan's power probably spent a lot of resources behind it. He thought he was using Liu Bei and Li Su as puppets to manipulate him.

At the same time, after Li Su formally reported the above situation, two days later, the first batch of mulberry papers that Li Su had ordered at Zhenjia Workshop to prevent printing from being stained have been officially made and dried and can be used for printing.

The raw materials of this batch of paper were not fully soaked and produced only half a month, so the lifespan of the paper produced would be a little shorter, but there is no problem with printing things.

The carving board has been carved while waiting for the paper, and it can be printed immediately as soon as the paper arrives.

Of course, I encountered some technical difficulties during the carving process. For example, at the beginning, Li Su did not consider the words carved out of the carving in the negative text, and after printing, it was reversed.

But these problems are easy to solve. Li Su asked Zhong Yao to copy the very thin silk again and gave Zhong Yao an extra copying fee. Because the silk is more ink-transparent than paper, the handwriting can be clearly printed on the back of the silk after writing, so the silk is covered on the wooden board and the carpenter can carve the carving board along the reverse characters and carve out the carpenter.

Li Su also made a drum-shaped tool that wrapped ink-absorbing materials like sponges on the outside, which was used to brush ink on the carving boards so that the ink would not be able to hold on if it was too much mulched with mulberry paper.

After a while, I finally printed out the first batch of black and white negative scrolls in the world.

On the third day after the attempt to award Liu Bei the official position, this batch of books began to spread in Luoyang.

The original seller was the Zhen family's shop, and they sold finished books just like they used to sell paper.

After all, there was no business of books in this era. Everyone bought paper and copied it themselves. Even if there were transactions, it was still a business between scholars, and no merchants sold it in bulk.

...

On the fourth day of the third month, the day after the sale of "Xiaoyi Lu".

Li Su went to the yamen early in the morning to take care of some affairs. When she was waiting to catch her free time for official business, she skipped out and sneaked out to the Zhen family business and asked the manager Zhang Liang about the situation of selling books.

Zhang Liang's attitude towards Li Su is really two-sided.

On the one hand, I am very grateful to Li Su for inventing this new business (although he is still keeping the technology of the Zhen family confidential), and the overall industry prospects seem to be very broad.

But on the other hand, the book originally published was indeed of poor quality and was not sold very well.

Zhang Liang told the truth: "Sir, since yesterday, many people have come here to read it. After many people tried it, they also felt that the story was wonderful and it was quite educational, which was thought-provoking. But many people think that the book is too expensive and has no benefit from the career path and classics, so they are reluctant to spend money to buy it."

Li Su was mentally prepared for this temporary result, but he did not expect that the main reason why everyone didn't buy it was because they thought the price was expensive.

He asked patiently: "This book is expensive? Just selling paper, such a long scroll costs more than ten yuan, and Zuo Bo paper costs thirty yuan. The Zuo Bo paper I made is of better quality than ordinary Zuo Bo paper. Just selling paper forty or fifty yuan is probably not an exaggeration because it is scarce?

I also got the words up, and only charged more than one hundred yuan per volume. Is it expensive? This volume is several thousand words, and I have to copy it for a few days if I find a document to copy it slowly. The time for scholars cannot be at least 100 yuan a day?"

Li Su analyzed it very pertinently and thought that the Zhen family was not good at doing business and would not find a reference partner to convince customers, which led to the customers not willing to pay.

In addition, some people may think that selling a piece of paper is too expensive for a dozen to a few dozen—but in fact, the paper of this era is very long, that is, it is as wide as the rice paper in later generations, narrower than rice paper, but longer.

Because the Han Dynasty's habit of writing books was not yet derived from bamboo slips, bamboo slips were rolled up in very long rows of bamboo slices. After paper was available, old habits were difficult to change, so they still became long scrolls. Therefore, books were based on "rolls". A long piece of paper was written as a scroll, and a scroll was written as a book.

Before Cai Hou’s paper, a piece of silk with such an area would cost at least a few hundred yuan. Paper only sold for a few dozen to a few dozen yuan per roll, which is more than ten times cheaper than writing on silk. Everyone’s psychological price is silk, so they also recognize the price of paper.

Faced with Li Su's analysis, Zhang Liang patiently explained: "Sir, your book is indeed not expensive to count as paper money and labor costs, and it is still a subject matter after all. Scholars spend a lot of money to buy books and read books... The purpose is to benefit the career of the official career after all. If it is just a story, it would be fine if you read it and remember it.

If you are willing to sell books on Confucianism, I can guarantee that your sales will increase by at least a few dozen times. With the number of scholars in Luoyang City, as long as we take the lead, it will be fine to sell hundreds of volumes of "Spring and Autumn" in a day."

Only when sales soared by dozens of times can you ensure that hundreds of volumes were sold a day. It can be seen that Li Su's "Xiaoyi Lu" can only sell more than ten volumes a day, and save less than a thousand volumes a month, and can only cover such a small number of scholars.

Fortunately, Li Su knew that he had a backup plan.

He patted Zhang Liang on the shoulder: "Don't worry, wait and see for another two days. Tomorrow, it's the day of the imperial court meeting again. I believe that this set of books will be sold out in a few days. At that time, there will definitely be noble people to help you."

Zhang Liang was fooled and stunned: "Really? Even if you have the help of noble people, you can't force scholars to buy it, right? Unless the Taixue school stipulates that everyone should read this book, it is possible to sell it. But Taixue is under the jurisdiction of Taichangqing, so how could those noble people care about these dirty and vulgar affairs?"

Li Su's eyes lit up, thinking to himself that Zhang Liang is a lucky businessman, and Flegg is a good player.
Chapter completed!