Chapter 67 Printing with movable type is difficult!
In fact, Li Yuanjia didn't care much about these six "primary school mathematics" books.
Although engraving is relatively slow to make, it can be used for a long time after one engraving. As long as Li Zhong takes care of it, there is nothing to worry about and the chance of making mistakes is low.
What he is really concerned with is movable type printing, which represents the future.
"So far, we have produced 3,940 movable types."
When he walked into the workshop, Li Zhong said proudly: "Although we are still far from the goal of 100,000 words, we can now achieve more than 100 movable types a day, and it will definitely be faster in the future!"
"Yes, Not Bad!"
After listening to his words, Li Yuanjia nodded with satisfaction.
The speed of more than a hundred movable types per day, and it must be the kind where one word needs to be copied many times. In the industrial era, this speed is definitely representative of a snail. But in this era, if it were not for the guidance of Li Yuanjia to create the Yin and Yang inversion mold
With such skill, I’m afraid it would be incredible to be able to make six or seven in a day!
Chinese characters are not English letters, especially when traditional Chinese characters are still used now, so how fast...
Tsk tsk!
Therefore, Li Yuanjia is really satisfied with the results of Li Zhong's work. And he also knows that Li Zhong and his colleagues still have a dozen young apprentices who are studying hard. They should start their apprenticeship after the New Year and make movable type by then.
It shouldn’t be a problem if the speed increases several times!
I’m afraid the goal of making 10,000 movable types a year is really not a dream?
Unfortunately……
"This speed can't be faster!"
Thinking of the cost estimate that Li Zhong gave him, Li Yuanjia felt inexplicably sad. If they could really make 10,000 movable types every year, they would have to invest at least 5,000 guan, which means that one movable type would cost 500 yuan.
Even Li Yuanjia can't afford this number!
In fact, if he knew that a Qing Dynasty businessman in later generations used 200,000 taels of silver to create more than 400,000 copper movable types, he would probably be lucky.
The cost for Li Zhong and others to create movable type was honestly not that high.
After all, there is a time difference of thousands of years. Even if Li Zhong and others have mastered the yin and yang inversion molds, and they do not use strategic materials like copper, they can reduce the cost of a movable type to more than 500 yuan, which is absolutely possible during the Tang Dynasty.
It can be considered a miracle.
To create 200,000 movable types, it only requires 100,000 strings...
"Hiss..."
As he was thinking about it, Li Yuanjia suddenly took a breath of air and shook his head hurriedly: "It's expanded! It's expanded! One hundred thousand guans are starting to not be taken seriously? Tsk, tsk, calm down, calm down, Li Yuanjia!"
After warning himself, Li Yuanjia suppressed the turmoil in his heart.
Movable type was slowly being made. Prince Han's Mansion could still afford the cost. If he really found a hundred craftsmen at one go to make alloy movable type for Li Yuanjia, he would have gone bankrupt in three or four years! Don't forget, he still had a lot of money.
There are a lot of workshops and craftsmen to support, and at the same time, I have a huge royal palace and countless servants and guards in Chang'an City. Which of these doesn't require money?
Just rely on his annual salary, land, job fields and so on?
Don't look at how much Li Yuanjia made in one breath using Thirteen Incenses in the past few years, but don't forget that spices are very expensive in this era, and are even used as currency by many wealthy families to reserve them! So when you earn that money
, Prince Han’s Mansion also paid a huge price, although compared to these costs, Li Yuanjia did earn a bit more...
"What the hell! It's not easy to be a prince!"
While shamelessly complaining in his heart, Li Yuanjia asked casually: "Are the movable types you created based on that dictionary?"
"Yes, Your Majesty, they are all words in that dictionary!"
Without any hesitation, Li Zhong nodded immediately: "According to how many they use, we made a hundred of some words such as, ,, and so on, and some of the more commonly used ones were made of five.
Ten, and most of the others made twenty spares."
Previously, the king asked them to count the words in a hundred books, select a thousand of the most commonly used Chinese characters, and compile it into a dictionary. Later, as time passed, the capacity of the dictionary gradually increased to a thousand
More than 400 characters became the basis for Li Zhong and others to create movable type.
Twenty of each character are created, which is nearly 30,000 movable types!
Fifteen thousand strings!
After calculating the accounts instantly, Li Yuanjia felt a pain in his heart again, and then quickly shook his head: "Damn it, I can't think about it anymore. If I think too much, I'm just looking for trouble for myself..."
Li Yuanjia was worried about money here, but when he saw him frowning and shaking his head, Li Zhong thought he was dissatisfied with his work, and he panicked: "Your Majesty, is it... too little is made? If it is less,
Let’s make more!”
"No, no need!"
Li Yuanjia's head immediately shook even more violently, and he said repeatedly: "The current one will do, no need to make more, no need... Don't worry about making movable type, the key is how you use them well! You can solve the problem of storing and picking up movable type.
How's it going?"
The more we build, the more we spend. Li Yuanjia is really distressed!
And what’s the use of just making movable type? If the problem of use is not solved, these things will be just a pile of scrap copper and iron, which will never be used for woodblock printing!
The first step in using it is to store and pick up movable type!
Li Zhong and the others have created nearly 4,000 movable types alone! As long as the 4,000 movable types are not damaged, it is easy to simply store them, but if they are to be used in movable type printing in the future, they must
It must be stored in categories, and it must be able to quickly find the one needed for printing among the four thousand words!
Without a system and effective method, it would be impossible to even think about it.
So after hearing Li Yuanjia's question, Li Zhong quickly replied: "Replying to the king, according to your order, we have currently made 600 wooden frames specifically for storing these movable types! In addition, we first according to the number of strokes
To sort, and then sort the strokes according to stroke order. Although the speed is still not as satisfactory, it is still enough, but..."
"Just what? Tell me!"
Li Yuanjia frowned and shouted a little impatiently.
"yes!"
His heart trembled again, and Li Zhong quickly replied in a low voice: "It's just that the simple characters are fine, and the craftsmen can basically pick them out, but they have trouble recognizing the slightly more complicated characters! In this case,
If they wait until next year to make more and more movable type, I’m afraid they really won’t be able to do it anymore.”
"Well……"
Hearing what he said, Li Yuanjia's brows furrowed even more tightly.
He had really thought about this problem before, that is, the engraving workers these days can't actually read a few words, and most of them just follow the written words. But this is not possible with movable type. The craftsmen have to think
To choose the characters you want to use among hundreds or thousands of characters, you must know them, learn to count strokes, and know the radicals or stroke order...
"So, ancient movable type printing was difficult!"