The mold is required not only to be strong, but also to reduce costs as much as possible to facilitate typesetting.
And making these molds does not happen overnight, it may even take several months, half a year or even a year or two.
After all, this is a new thing, and those craftsmen must continue to explore before they can make it.
However, Li Min was not willing to wait for that long.
Therefore, I reluctantly bought a set of ready-made molds in the mall.
These molds use some rare materials and are not easily damaged.
However, the price was really bad. After purchasing a complete set of molds, Li Min's wealth value bottomed out again.
After having the mold, in the following time, these craftsmen found from several companies can start typesetting page by page.
After arranging the layout, you can print directly just waiting for the paper to arrive.
The production of paper was also very fast. It only took seven or eight days to have snow-white paper, covered tightly with linen, sent to the palace of Prince Liang.
After the paper arrives, the printers here have already laid out many editions and can start printing directly.
Shangguan Yi is in charge of the printing here.
The first thing Shangguan Yi looked at was the paper sent from the paper mill.
Prince Liang was indeed not lying. The papers he sent were indeed many times better than the papers sold in stores now.
It is white, smooth and without too many impurities. It is as good as the paper on the market, one in the sky and one on the ground.
After the paper arrives, printing begins directly.
This time they mainly printed the Four Books, Five Classics and books needed for the imperial examination, and what they printed this time were all annotated editions.
During the Tang Dynasty, books were extremely expensive and rare items that could be passed down as family heirlooms.
For example, some bookstores sell the Four Books and Five Classics for exams, but the prices are extremely expensive.
There are also some story books and legends for sale, but the sales volume is very average.
A book boy also sells pens, inks, paper, inkstones, calligraphy and paintings. If he only sells books, he may not be able to pay the rent of the store.
But some books, such as the Four Books and Five Classics with annotations, or some rare books, are not sold in bookstores at all.
These books are all controlled by aristocratic families.
Those common people can't even afford books, and you can't even buy books with annotations if you have money. I'm afraid there's no place to borrow them.
So, what do you use to study? What do you use to take the imperial examination?
Therefore, although the imperial examination had been implemented at that time, most of the people who succeeded in the examination were the children of wealthy families.
The number of students from poor families admitted is still relatively small.
But this time, the books printed by Li Min were all books with annotations.
If it can be combined with the Datang Dictionary, those students from poor families in the Tang Dynasty can even become talented through self-study.
Once these books are widely circulated among the people, the cultural blockade of aristocratic families will inevitably be broken.
After more than ten days, the first batch of books has been printed.
Li Min directly took a few sample books and entered the palace to ask for an audience with the emperor.
When Li Shimin got the sample book, he couldn't help but be shocked.
When Li Min said that the printed books were only one-tenth or even lower than the price of books on the market, Li Shimin thought that the printed books must be shoddy.
However, as long as it can interrupt the family's monopoly on culture, it doesn't matter even if it is shoddy?
But now after seeing the printed book with his own eyes, Li Shimin was surprised to find out how shoddy it was.
This is simply exquisite!
In comparison, the books currently on the market are truly shoddy!
The paper of this book is really not that good!
It is even much better than the paper used in their palace.
And when Li Shimin opened the book and observed the printing inside, he found that the printing was particularly clear.
Actually, even the printing quality is much better than the books circulating on the market.
But soon, Li Shimin discovered a suspicious point and couldn't help but ask Li Min: "Ming'er, what are these little dots in this book? Could it be that they were accidentally stained by printing?"
Although these flaws are not concealed, they are somewhat excessive.
Li Min stretched out his head to take a look, couldn't help but smile slightly and said: "Father, these are called punctuation marks, and they are specially used to break sentences."
"Punctuation marks? Used to break sentences?"
Li Min smiled slightly and said: "Those children from poor families are learning words by themselves without anyone's guidance, so sentence segmentation is a problem. They themselves may not have the ability to segment sentences. But with punctuation marks, they can segment sentences easily."
After hearing Li Min's words, Li Shimin couldn't help but look thoughtful on his face.
After understanding the function of punctuation marks, Li Shimin couldn't help but marveled, and immediately felt the wonderful use of this punctuation mark.
Li Shimin couldn't help but ask: "Yin'er, the paper quality of this book is so good and the printing is so exquisite. I wonder how much a book costs?"
The ordinary Four Books and Five Classics circulating in the market now cost two or three guan.
And the ones with annotations are simply unavailable even if you want to buy them.
If the cost of books is too high, then they simply cannot achieve their expected goals.
Hearing Li Shimin's inquiry, Li Min smiled slightly and said, "Father, the cost of these books is about twenty yuan each."
What?
After hearing the price, Li Shimin was so surprised that he could hardly believe his ears.
Li Shimin asked with disbelief: "Yin'er, is it really twenty coins? Isn't it two thousand coins?"
Li Min said calmly: "It's really twenty coins."
In fact, the cost of twenty coins is already quite high in Li Min's opinion.
Twenty Wen is equivalent to forty yuan in later generations.
You know, in later generations the price of many books will not be so much.
In later generations, if you exclude copyright fees, serialization fees and other messy expenses, and only count the printing cost, the price of a book will only be a few dollars.
In Datang, this cost price is ten times higher!
Even so, Li Shimin was pleasantly surprised!
After a long while, Li Shimin asked: "Yin'er, at what price do you plan to sell it?"
Li Min couldn't help but smile and said: "Father, this matter is too big for me to do. I think that my eldest grandson uncle can come forward to do this."
Li Shimin looked at Li Min deeply and asked meaningfully: "Min'er, why did you think of asking your eldest grandson uncle to do this?"
Li Min couldn't help but said: "Father, this matter will definitely arouse a strong counterattack from the five surnames and Qiwang. I believe that in the civil and military affairs of the Manchu Dynasty, no one except my eldest grandson can take on this important task."
