Just after coaxing her son Zhou Yi to sleep, Song Ruo'e walked into the study and saw Zhou Jun and Xie Qin sitting there, whispering, and said angrily: "Erlang, hurry up and put this evil-loving demon into your room. It's better than living every day."
Come to my place for a private meeting."
Jie Qin rolled her eyes at Song Ruo'e and said, "I know how to talk nonsense all day long. I have something serious to do today."
Song Ruo'e walked up to Xie Qin and said with a chuckle: "I didn't know who it was last time and said it was something serious, but in the middle of the night, there was a lot of noise in the room."
Xie Qin was in great embarrassment and planned to beat Song Ruo'e.
The latter smiled and hid next to Zhou Jun.
Zhou Jun patted Song Ruo'e and motioned her to sit down first, and then said: "The imperial court has issued an official status to understand Qin. From next month, the palace's teaching hall will be changed to the Xuanwen Hall... There are usually many people on weekdays.
It’s not convenient for me to talk a lot because I want to say something, but I feel more comfortable here.”
While Jie Qin was listening, he took out a square wooden box from under the desk.
Seeing her curiosity, Song Ruo'e asked, "What is this?"
Xie Qin: "It's what Erlang ordered."
As the wooden box was opened, Song Ruo'e found two huge wooden roulette wheels inside, one above the other.
The roulette wheel is divided into hundreds of small grids according to rhymes, and in each grid, there are many long strips carved from wood.
Song Ruo'e picked up a small wooden stick from it and felt it was heavy. She looked carefully and found that the word "王" was inscribed on the front. She picked up another piece and found the word "无" inscribed on it.
Roughly counting, there are about five hundred wooden strips stored on the wooden tray, which is about five hundred words.
When it comes to writing, calligraphy and painting, Song Ruo'e has always been self-taught and smart. After thinking for a while, she asked: "Is this using a sharp tool to separate the engraving into movable type?"
Xie Qin pointed at the two wooden roulette wheels and nodded: "Erlang's idea was to first lay a round bamboo frame on the roulette wheels, and then put the wooden movable characters inside according to rhyme classification, with each rhyme and each character in turn.
Make up the numbers. Prepare two roulette wheels at the same time, one to store the selected characters and one to store the commonly used characters."
"In addition, prepare two booklets to record the number sequence of the wooden movable type on the roulette wheel. When typesetting, one person reports the numbers from the booklet, and the other person sits between the two roulette wheels and turns the roulette wheel according to the called number to take out the movable type. It can be pushed either left or right
The characters are transferred and excerpted, and finally the movable type is pressed into the fixed mold and inked for printing."
Song Ruo'e's eyes lit up after hearing this, she turned to look at Zhou Jun and said, "Erlang is really partial. He doesn't even ask me to make such interesting objects."
Xie Qin: "You guard your precious son every day and don't even want to go out. How can you find the time to do such trivial things?"
Zhou Jun asked Xie Qin: "When making these, was there any confidentiality?"
Jie Qin: "Erlang Kuanxin, the production of wooden movable type is divided into two parts, the front and back parts, the preliminary preparation, material selection, molding, seal carving, cutting, combination and other processes. Each process uses different people, and there is no difference between them.
I have never met each other, and I don’t know the purpose of the craftsmanship. As for the later processes of rolling, typesetting, book making, etc., I am personally responsible for it, and all the people I use are close to me, so there will be no leakage of secrets.
"
Zhou Jun looked at the wooden movable type in the box and asked: "There are only five hundred characters on the wooden wheel now?"
Xie Qin: "At the beginning, I just made the commonly used five hundred characters as a test text. After the process stabilizes later, I plan to engrave the characters word by word."
Zhou Jun nodded slightly, picked up a wooden movable type, and began to recall the records of later generations.
The so-called movable type printing includes wooden movable type, clay movable type, tin movable type, copper movable type, lead movable type, etc.
Among them, clay movable type was the first to appear, and its inventor was Bi Sheng during the Qingli period of the Northern Song Dynasty (1041~1048).
However, the earliest use of wooden movable type was more than two hundred years later than clay movable type. It was not until the second year of Dade (1298) that it was invented by Wang Zhen, an agriculturist in the early Yuan Dynasty.
In fact, when Bi Sheng invented movable type, the first material he thought of was wooden type, because wood is easy to obtain, low cost, has moderate hardness, is easy to replace, can be used repeatedly, has certain ductility and other advantages.
However, after some experiments, Bi Sheng discovered that wooden movable type has disadvantages such as uneven wood texture, difficulty in carving, deformation after being exposed to water, and difficulty in separating when stuck together with chemicals.
Therefore, Bi Sheng could only abandon wooden movable type and use clay movable type.
But when it came to Zhou Jun, the invention of wooden movable type was not difficult.
First of all, the material used for wooden movable type must be hardwoods such as golden amber and jujube that have been aged for more than a hundred years. These items are beyond the reach of ordinary people, but they are piled high in the palace.
Secondly, only the most experienced carpenters can do the engraving and cutting of wooden movable type, and the carpentry department who will be in charge of the work has many highly skilled craftsmen.
As long as Zhou Jun gives the order, he will be able to gather more manpower and resources than Bi Sheng, who is a woodblock craftsman, and Yin Wangzhen of Jingde County.
It was under this premise that wooden movable type came into being five hundred years ahead of schedule.
Seeing that Zhou Jun was deep in thought and silent, Xie Qin said: "Erlang, the wooden movable type is now ready, but there is nothing yet in place for the newspapers and brochures to be printed."
Zhou Jun: "Over there, I asked Du Fu to sort out what he saw and heard about the Tianbao disaster and record it into a volume. As for the Di newspaper, have you two seen the sample manuscripts that were sent to the Memorial Hall?"
Song Ruo'e: "I have seen newspapers from all over the country. They just write about things that happened in various places, plus some articles praising virtues. It seems very boring."
Zhou Jun: "What if the story is published in the Di newspaper?"
Song Ruo'e was stunned: "Print the story in the newspaper?"
Xie Qin shook his head and said: "Most of the scripts have a thousand words, and occasionally they are longer, even ten thousand words. How can they be printed in the Di newspaper?"
Zhou Jun: "Just split the story into chapters and publish it in serial form."
Xie Qin: "Serialized?"
Zhou Jun: "That's right, in each issue of the Di newspaper, there is a special column for publishing storybooks, with a thousand words updated every day..."
Having said this, Zhou Jun shuddered and quickly changed his words: "I mean, just update a thousand words every half month."
Xie Qin: "In addition to the storybook, what else should be written in that newspaper? Or else, what should be written about the court's advice?"
Zhou Jun shook his head.
Zhou Jun took a piece of paper from the desk and divided it into several columns with a chicken-segment pen dipped in ink.
The two daughters, Xie Qin and Song Ruo'e, looked on attentively and didn't ask any questions, just waiting for an explanation.
Zhou Jun pointed to one of the columns and said: "Publish the story here."
He pointed to another column and said: "Here are the strange things, ghosts, ghosts and biographies that happened in Datang Prefecture and County."
"Here you can sort out the market prices of products in markets around the world and publish them in lists."
When Song Ruo'e heard this, she asked with some confusion: "If you publish the prices of goods in the market in the newspaper, will anyone want to see it?"
Zhou Jun: "Yes, although these market prices may seem boring, for some people, they are crucial."
Xie Qin whispered: "As small as a merchant, as large as a neighboring country."
Zhou Jun nodded, then pointed to the remaining blank space in the Di newspaper and said: "In the remaining columns, you can publish literature, romance, mountains and rivers, military affairs, etc."
Xie Qin felt helpless after hearing this, and asked Zhou Jun for help: "Erlang, I have never done what you are talking about, so I really have no way to start."
Zhou Jun: "On the day when the Xuanwen Hall opens, I will go to help. Before the first report comes out, I will also sit in the hall... This Xuanwen Hall will be the public opinion of the Tang Dynasty from now on."