After leaving the palace, Shulot strode forward and headed east. Bertard guarded him calmly. Everyone faced the warm morning sun and walked quickly towards the place of divine enlightenment.
The young man was obviously in a good mood. He had a warm smile on his face and nodded slightly to the nobles and warriors who were saluting respectfully along the way.
Not long after walking eastward from the palace area, there was the majestic Great Temple. Shulot looked up and stared intently. He keenly discovered that the Rain Temple, one of the twin pyramids, was being renovated.
Next to the flying curtain of the God of Rain, the curtain of the God of War is unfolded at the same time and is above. Most of the wind and rain symbols symbolizing the God of Rain have been removed and replaced with hummingbird carvings symbolizing the God of War. Although the statue in the inner hall cannot be seen clearly.
, but the young man is sure that there will be changes there as well.
This is one of the New Year preparations of the priesthood. Starting from this year's sacrificial ceremony, the main god will gradually take over the agricultural priesthood of the rain god. The priests will also use prepared myths to explain, using a buffer time of several years to let the people
Slowly accept the ascension of the Lord God.
After the big temple, there is the chief minister's palace where the elder lives in seclusion. Looking from a distance, Shulot saw a cold and solemn scene in front of the palace. The elder's guard was still as solemn as a sculpture, but the old man who spanned centuries could not be seen. Beyond the temple
With the palace, he continued eastward and soon arrived at the busy Shenqi Temple.
Looking at the name written by his own hand, the young man's heart fluctuated slightly. In the towering palace, was the elder's calm gaze also looking at the future here?
After a while, Shulot came back to his senses. He no longer thought about it and went directly to the southern area where the folk craftsmen were. The first thing he wanted to see was the engraving and printing that he was most concerned about.
The study of woodblock printing is located in a side hall to the east. In the exquisite and gorgeous side hall, there are various thick wooden boards, blue-black ink and white paper piled up. When the young man stepped into the side hall, he smelled the fragrance of pine and the fragrance of ink.
It has the fragrance of ink and a faint pungent smell.
Shulot's eyes swept over and paused slightly. He took a few steps closer, stared at the paper as white as snow, and pondered silently.
Upon noticing His Highness's arrival, Aquila immediately put down the carving in his hand and knelt down to salute. The young man raised his hand to signal the senior middle-aged jade craftsman to stand up. Then, he stretched out his hand and pinched the white paper in front of him. The thickness was even.
The quality is high. And the faint pungent smell also comes from the white paper.
"Equila, is this paper sent from the craftsmanship center?" Xiulote was a little confused.
"Your Highness, this is the latest refined paper completed by the Shenqisu Papermaking Department. It is more suitable for engraving and printing. It was invented by a young craftsman and was hurriedly delivered early this morning. They are not far next door.
's house."
Aquila looked calm and told the truth.
Xiuluo nodded. It seemed that the paper-making office had indeed discovered a new process. He would have to inquire carefully later and compare it with the memory in his mind to see if he could find anything else. Then, he looked at the calm and steady middle-aged Yu
Carpenter.
"Was the carving of the engraving smooth? How was the printing effect?"
Aquila bowed and extended his hand in vain.
"Your Highness, everything goes well. Please let me demonstrate it for you."
As he spoke, Aquila took out a piece of thick wood that had been carved. On it was the reverse version of the thousand-character inscription left by His Highness. The reverse version of the engraving was carved into raised embossed characters, and the remaining blank parts were removed from the depressions. The young man
When I reached out and felt it, I found that the inscriptions were extremely fine and only slightly protruded from the surface. However, the shallow edge of the nail only protruded by about 1-3 millimeters.
Then, the middle-aged jade craftsman carefully used a brush to apply even blue ink on the engraving. This ink is the most commonly used Mayan blue in the Mexican Union, plant indigo extracted from wild green tree leaves, and palygorskite clay.
Made from a mixture of mineral binders. Maya blue has a high production volume and is often used in sacrificial rituals to smear the entire body of the sacrifice.
After observing the degree of inking, Aquila carefully covered the white paper on the board and used another flat wooden board to cover it stably. Soon, he lifted the paper off the printing board and placed it on the board.
Drying in the shade on a wooden table in the corner of the room.
Shulot looked carefully and saw that there were already dried papers there. The Chinese characters on them were as big as a thumb, and the handwriting was clear and precise. There were also some papers with majestic depictions of gods and the alliance's calendar sun stone. The pictures were all
Extremely detailed and lifelike.
"Equila, how many pieces of paper can you print in a day? How many times can a printing plate be printed?" the young man asked eagerly.
Aquila thought for a while and answered cautiously.
"Your Highness, as long as there is enough paper, at the speed I just set, a printer can print more than a thousand sheets a day. If he is busy day and night and is skilled, he can print up to two thousand sheets. The number of times the engraving plate can be used depends on the material of the wood board. I haven't used it yet.
It’s more damaged than an engraving. Judging from the degree of wear and tear, I think it will happen thousands of times.”
Hearing this, Hulot was very satisfied. Printing and books will be the most powerful ideological weapons to complete the religious reform and completely reshape the spiritual world of the Mexica people!
The priesthood has compiled a concise teaching of several thousand words, called the "Book of Amakoli", or simply the "Ali Sutra". In the Nahua language, "Amakoli" means book
, revelation, reading or scroll.
The Ali Sutra is generally a scripture that praises the supremacy of the Lord God and describes the myth of the creation of the world by the Lord God. Its text is simple and simple, referring to the content of the Thousand-Character Classic, and is used as the most basic enlightenment book, just like the European Bible.
Now that the engraving is practical, the next step is to print tens of thousands of Ali Sutras and distribute them to every community military school. When the literacy education of the first batch of priests is completed, they will rush to the alliance with brand-new ideological weapons.
In every town and village, they will teach the will of the Lord God to every fifteen-year-old boy, popularize new religious ideas, completely change the next generation of the alliance, and establish the supreme kingdom of God on earth!
Thinking of this, Shulot's heart was filled with ups and downs. In addition to printing scriptures, engravings can also depict majestic temples and complete mythological stories. In the form of albums, they can leave the revelations and teachings of the Lord God to ordinary people who are illiterate.
.It can also print prayer rituals, legal provisions, calendar common sense and agricultural illustrations to guide daily life and production.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! In short, printing and religious books will drastically reduce the difficulty of spreading religious ideas and quickly promote the monotheistic religious reform. From the current point of view, papermaking and printing technology must be strictly kept secret, paper
Production and book printing can only be done in the capital.
This matter is related to the great cause of the Mexican people. At least within two generations, the core of the alliance must maintain its absolute monopoly in cultural communication, and form a cross-dimensional cultural blow to the Central American states where writing has not yet been formed!
Shulot thought quickly and made a decision. All craftsmen must be closely monitored, registered, and even isolated from society. Book printing will become a taboo of the priesthood. Anyone who dares to get involved in this field, whether they are civilians or nobles,
, there is only a dead end!
On the one hand, this measure is to slow down the spread of technology, and on the other hand, it is a preview to prevent the invasion of European Christianity. Unlike the Celestial Empire, the emerging civilization does not have the cultural accumulation to embrace all rivers. Therefore, on the battlefield of ideas, it will also be life and death.
contest.
Thinking of this, he looked at Aquila calmly and indifferently. The middle-aged jade craftsman suddenly felt a chill in his heart, and he quickly bowed his head in salute, not daring to look directly.
Then, Hulot continued to think about the development of movable type printing in Europe. The religious reform it brought would determine the fate of the Spanish Empire, the great enemy of the Aztec Alliance.
About forty years ago, in 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type printing in the Holy Roman State. Today, this technology has been introduced to the major powers in Europe.
It is still spreading rapidly, giving birth to opportunities for new religious reforms.
More than thirty years later, almost at the same time when the Spanish invaded the Aztec Empire, the flames of the Reformation would first be ignited in the HRE countries, and then Britain would break with the Roman Church and establish the Anglican Church. The Protestant Church
The flames will gradually burn throughout Europe.
In history, after conquering the Americas, the Spaniards would have wealth beyond that of European countries and reach a golden age of great prosperity. Due to religious differences, the pious Kingdom of Spain was hostile to the Kingdom of England. Then Britain supported the Dutch rule from Spain
During the War of Independence, he privately plundered the Spanish fleet in America.
Amid the dual hostility between religion and royal power, the Kingdom of Spain finally sent out its Invincible Fleet in an attempt to conquer Britain, but unexpectedly failed in all battles. The Armada was defeated in the Battle of Graveland, and coupled with the strong reverse southerly wind,
Forced to flee northward. In the end, the Armada lost more than two-thirds, more than a hundred large ships sank in the ocean, and it lost effective control of the Americas.
What followed was the brutal and unusual Thirty Years of Religious War, which led to the independence of the Spanish Netherlands, which completely declared the decline of the Spanish Empire and the end of the Golden Age. The final finale was the War of Spanish Succession fifty years later.
After the war, Spain lost almost all of its European territory outside the Iberian Peninsula, and the first generation of the Empire on which the Sun Never Sets came to an end. From then on, Britain established its hegemony and gradually emerged as the second generation of the Empire on which the Sun never sets.
Looking at the paper with thoughts printed on it, Shulot fell into deep thought.
The development of history is a dynamic process, with various clues complicated and entangled, and the times rushing forward. Important events in history are only records and manifestations of violent and dynamic conflicts in the general trend. Printing gave birth to the general trend of the religious reform and the flame of Protestantism.
The Roman Church could not extinguish it, and England's centrifugal force was also driven by the general trend.
Regardless of religion and culture, purely from a diplomatic point of view, the Kingdom of England after the Protestant Reformation and the pious Spanish Empire have always been hostile, and are natural allies of the alliance. In the distant future, this will be an important opportunity.
After thinking for a long time, Shulot shook his head and took his mind back from the history that had not yet happened. He once again considered the technology and feasibility of movable type printing.
Johannes Gutenberg's movable type printing technology consisted of two parts: lead movable type casting, and wooden printing press.
The wooden printing press here is just a screw-type wine press, which uses threads and levers to rotate to steadily apply pressure to the wooden board below for printing. This technology has been invented before BC, and it was not used in the Chinese Dynasty.
Rare. In fact, the printing press has never been the decisive factor in the application of movable type printing, movable type casting is!
Gutenberg's lead movable type casting technology came from the goldsmith's casting. The technological innovation lies in the steps of yin and yang mold casting. He first used hard metal to make a yang character mold, and then used the yang character mold to carve on the soft metal.
A character mold containing Yin characters is made. Finally, the mold of Yin characters is used to cast low melting point lead and tin to produce a large number of repeated Yang character grains for layout and printing.
This technology also has no technical bottleneck for Chinese goldsmiths. Copper plate banknotes in the Song Dynasty already used metal movable type to print different anti-counterfeiting font sizes. However, metal movable type was never popular in the Celestial Dynasty, and its roots lay in Chinese characters.
The essential difference between the Latin alphabet system and the Latin alphabet system.
There are more than 10,000 Chinese characters in the Chinese character system, and there are thousands of commonly used characters. The Latin alphabet system only has 26 letters, and the ancient Latin alphabet only has 21. The movable type libraries of the two are not on the same scale at all, and there is a difference of two.
orders of magnitude. This huge difference in production costs determines whether the technology is practical or not.
In terms of the training of printing workers, Chinese character movable type workers must know thousands to ten thousand Chinese characters, understand the pronunciation and rhyme, know the position of each character on the thousands-character plate, and prepare a plurality of high-frequency commonly used characters.
As for the movable type workers of the Latin alphabet, they only need to be able to spell 26 letters, and an ordinary apprentice can get started in a few days.
Shulot thought silently, and finally nodded and decided.
The writing system of the Chinese dynasty has gone through the accumulation of history and completely chose block printing. Metal movable type is at best a digital anti-counterfeiting method. Therefore, Mexicans who embrace Chinese characters will inevitably use block printing. The characteristic of block printing is low cost.
Low craftsmanship, long-term preservation, and low cultural requirements for workers are also in line with the current situation of the alliance.
Block printing would remain the mainstream of the Alliance until the huge technological advancements brought about by the Industrial Revolution made metal movable type extremely cheap.
In a moment, Shulot decided on the alliance's 100-year technical route. He continued to look at the ink printed on the engraving.
Metal type does not stick to water and requires the use of ink, which is to add animal and vegetable oils and turpentine to the ink. Since he decided to use wooden engravings, the young man only cared about the ink used on the wooden boards.
The Alliance currently has two types of ink, one is natural black ink made from natural coal, and the other is blue ink made from plant dyes and mineral clay.
Xiulote pondered slightly. In the areas controlled by the alliance, natural coal is very rare and is only occasionally used as black paint. The main source of these paints is the Zapotec people in the south, which proves that there must be open-pit coal mines of unknown size there.
According to the boy's memory, the Canine Land in the north, close to the future Texas, not only has a large amount of oil, but also stores large-scale coal mines that were formed together. These key mineral deposits are key areas that must be occupied.
, and also the driving force for future industrial development.
In addition to natural charcoal, the most common method of making ink in China was to burn wood and make smoke. Xiulote recalled the production process of Hui ink and analyzed every scene in his mind. In this era, the Ming Dynasty’s top-secret production process will be on the Internet in the future.
Spread freely on the internet.
Unfortunately, he thought about it for a long time, and only remembered that it was to burn pine wood, take out the pine smoke on the surface, and then add gum to bond it. It seemed that there was also a process of gold engraving? The young man shook his head, and according to the existing ideas, he would arrange for craftsmen to trial-produce it later.
.
The middle-aged jade craftsman Aquila lowered his head and waited for a long time, then quietly raised his head and saw His Highness shaking his head. He fell to the ground again in fear, his head pressed tightly against the ground, making a slight sound.
Hulot shifted his gaze and landed on Aquila on the ground. He smiled with satisfaction and promised loudly.
"Aquila, you have done a good job! From today on, I will appoint you as a master craftsman of engraving, which is equivalent to the alliance's military nobles! You will have rewards of gold, silver, gems and Chinampa land! You can promote two people
The children are royal warriors and my followers!"
Hearing this, Aquila raised his head in disbelief, with shock and surprise on his face. Then, he lowered his head forcefully again, kowtowed deeply to the ground, and made a fierce bang.
Shulot looked deeply for a moment, then slowly spoke again.
"Starting from tomorrow, I will send two warriors to protect you personally. The technology here will be classified as a top secret of the alliance. I will also send you a special apprentice. From today on, you will be the exclusive craftsman of the priesthood.
Got it!"
After saying that, the young man calmly stared at the middle-aged jade craftsman for a moment, observing the other's joyful and pious expression. After a long time, he nodded with satisfaction and turned around to go to the papermaking office.
