There was a crack in the forged iron stove. If Kou Ji hadn't warned him in time, someone might have been injured.
When the leader of the craftsmen saw Kou Ji arriving, he hurriedly came up to meet him and said to Kou Ji with a bitter face: "Young master, I didn't manage the craftsmen well, and such a big mistake happened. I am at fault.
The villain has already started investigating, and after finding out, he will definitely give an explanation to the government."
Kou Ji looked him up and down and saw that the expression on his face was particularly ugly. He thought about it for a moment and said, "Madam, are you making things difficult for you?"
The leader of the craftsmen lamented: "My wife came twice and failed to detect the thief. She reprimanded the villain twice and gave the villain three days to find out the matter."
Kou Ji raised his hand to pat him on the shoulder, but after reaching out, he felt something was wrong.
The leader of the craftsmen has a big beard and is about the same age as his father. It would be inappropriate for him to pat someone on the shoulder.
Kou Ji retracted his hand and said with a smile: "Don't worry, there is no need to investigate this matter any further."
The leader of the craftsmen said timidly: "But Madam..."
Kou Ji smiled calmly and said, "I've already told you Madam, you don't need to worry anymore."
After a pause, Kou Ji added: "Speaking of which, the workshop in our house is making more and more things, and now we are making steel. The space in the yard of our house is obviously not enough.
In a few days, you go find Kou Zhong and go with him to see the courtyard, Zhuangzi, and other courtyards named after Kou Mansion.
See if there is a suitable place and move the workshop there.
If there is no suitable courtyard in Zhuangzi under the name of Kou Mansion, then look elsewhere.
If there is someone suitable, let Kou Zhong take it and set up a workshop."
The leader of the craftsmen was stunned at first, bowed and saluted Kou Ji, and said, "Thank you, young master, for your trust."
Kou Ji nodded and told him to tell the craftsmen that it was all right and let them work hard.
As soon as he entered the yard, Kou Ji felt that the craftsmen were not in the right mood.
He thought for a moment and figured out what the problem was.
So he quickly came up with a solution.
The craftsmen in the Kou Mansion are all great craftsmen with superb craftsmanship.
As long as someone is skilled and skilled in craftsmanship, they are somewhat arrogant.
There was a thief in the yard, and they were not happy either.
I want the leader of the craftsmen to catch thieves and eradicate this scum.
But Xiang Yan repeatedly scolded her, making them feel uncomfortable.
Xiang Yan didn't deliberately target anyone, but the craftsmen felt that Xiang Yan was peeking at them all as thieves.
So I felt resentful in my heart.
If this resentment persists, these craftsmen will sooner or later leave the Kou Mansion.
Kou Jigang taught these craftsmen some things and expected them to be of great use. How could he let them escape from the Kou Mansion?
So he hurriedly spoke out to appease the craftsmen, and made a suggestion to move the workshop out of the house, in order to calm the grievances of the craftsmen.
Seeing the craftsmen's eyes glowing again and starting to work seriously, Kou Ji let out a sigh of relief.
He gave some more instructions to the head craftsman, and then started wandering around the yard.
After wandering for a long time, I plunged into the workshop where Bi Sheng was.
As soon as he entered the workshop, he saw Bi Sheng sitting at a table, carving something seriously.
When I walked over and took a look, I saw Bi Sheng carving words on a piece of clay.
Not far from him, there was a pile of clay prints, each with a word engraved on it.
These clay prints have been burned and look hard.
Seeing this, Kou Ji speculated that with his reminder, Bi Sheng's movable type printing technology was about to be created.
It's just that compared to clay printing, another thing is the most time-consuming and critical thing.
The reason why Bi Sheng spent decades to create movable type printing was because he spent most of his time on this most critical thing.
"Cough~"
Kou Ji coughed lightly.
Bi Sheng's hand trembled, and the clay mark in his hand was broken.
"Little...young master...why are you here?"
Bi Sheng's wrinkled face squeezed out a simple and honest smile.
Kou Ji looked at the clay seal in Bi Sheng's hand and apologized: "I had a discomfort in my throat and coughed, but I broke your seal. I want you to forgive me."
Bi Sheng hurriedly waved his hand and said: "It's not a problem...it's not a problem...the clay seal is not worth a few dollars. If it breaks, the villain will make it again."
Kou Ji smiled and nodded, "As long as it's not valuable..."
Kou Ji chatted with Bi Sheng for a while.
He asked abruptly, "Is your printing skills making good progress?"
Bi Sheng's whole body froze, as if he had been hit by a immobilizing spell, and he did not dare to move.
He stared at Kou Ji blankly for a long time.
Seeing the smile on Kou Ji's face full of joking, his heart skipped a beat and his knees weakened.
Kou Ji was shocked when he saw this, and he quickly supported Bi Sheng.
Bi Sheng obviously wanted to pay him a big tribute and plead guilty.
But how could Kou Ji bear his great gift?
Although Bi Sheng did not have much status, his contribution to China was very high.
Some people may think that with Kou Ji's current status, it would be nothing for him to receive a gift from Bi Sheng.
But Kou Ji is also a person of some background.
A serious craftsman.
When you meet a senior craftsman, how can you receive such great gifts?
"Young Master..."
Bi Sheng was supported by Kou Ji and cried out sadly.
"Little man...I'm sorry, little man..."
Kou Ji let out a long sigh and helped him sit down, "You don't need to say more... I can understand your approach. If it were me, I would definitely follow your lead, and even go further than you do."
Bi Sheng's eyes were a little red, and he whispered: "The villain... The villain was also temporarily blinded by lard... But the villain really couldn't hold it in anymore... Seeing that his wish to win will soon be achieved, The villain can't wait even a moment."
Kou Jidao: "I can understand..."
After a pause, Kou Ji added: "I can understand what you did, but you broke the rules. You serve in the house, and the house has never neglected you.
If you need anything, you should tell your boss directly.
The family will not be stingy either.
If you need ink, if you need different ink, you can tell me directly.
I can study it together with you.
But if you steal behind the scenes, that's wrong."
Bi Sheng raised his head, stared at Kou Ji with red eyes, and asked: "Young master, how do you plan to deal with this villain?"
Very strange.
When Kou Ji spoke to comfort Bi Sheng, Bi Sheng seemed to be filled with guilt and felt so uncomfortable that he almost cried.
But as soon as Kou Ji scolded him, he relaxed a lot.
Kou Ji thought about it: "Tell me first, how far has your printing skills reached?"
Bi Sheng hesitated for a moment and said: "I don't know whether it's successful or not. The villain made a clay mark after receiving some advice from the young master before.
I tried it and found that the effect was far better than the original printing method.
It's just that the ink is not suitable, it melts easily and becomes a mess.
The villain studied a lot of ink in a row and it all melted away.
Just when the villain is at his wits' end.
The villain thought of the ink you used to print Jiaozi, young master.
At that time, the young master seemed to have used clay printing to make Jiaozi, but the ink did not melt.
So I wanted to try it with some ink.
Originally, he wanted to ask the young master to ask for it, but the young master never returned home, so he took the risk.
After using Young Master's ink, the printed words did not melt away as expected.
It’s just that there are still some flaws, so I don’t know if it’s done or not.”
Kou Ji asked: "Is there any printed finished product? Let me have a look."
Bi Sheng nodded, took out two pieces of paper from a box under the table, and handed them to Kou Ji.
Kou Ji took it over and took a look and discovered the problem.
It can be said that Bi Sheng's movable type printing technology has been successful.
There are just some typography issues.
He seems to be bound by the original thinking of woodblock printing, and he is also somewhat partial to woodblock printing when it comes to the typesetting of movable type printing.
Movable type printing uses movable type, but block printing uses a full page.
If you use the same printing method, problems will naturally arise.
The former is not constrained by corners and corners, is easy to spread out, and has a large spacing between words.
When printed, it looks like a flower of words, not like an article.
Seeing that Kou Ji was holding the printed article and not speaking, Bi Sheng said worriedly: "Young Master, is it... is it... that it didn't work?"
Hearing this, Kou Ji put down the article in his hand and said with a smile: "It's done! It's just some small problems that you didn't handle properly. That's why this kind of mistake happened."
Kou Ji pointed to the scattered words in the article and said: "You only thought about using clay to print, but you didn't think about rigorously fixing the clay. This resulted in the printed article being looser."
Bi Sheng was slightly startled.
Kou Ji continued: "If you are making a clay print, make the clay prints the same size, and then make a board with separate grids on it, and put the clay prints in tightly. Look at it again, and you will see Will it be loose?
If you could print the grids on the board together, wouldn't it look more beautiful?"
What Koji pointed out were just minor issues.
Bi Sheng was just confused for a moment and didn't figure it out.
Now after Kou Ji reminded me, I immediately realized something was wrong.
He stood up suddenly and said hurriedly: "I'm going to try it now..."
Kou Ji watched in astonishment as Bi Sheng ran out of the workshop in a hurry.
He seemed to have forgotten that he still carried the identity of a thief, and he only wanted to develop movable type printing.
Seeing this, Kou Ji shook his head in confusion.
This seems to be a common problem for everyone who studies something intently.
When their research made breakthrough progress, they didn't care even if the sky fell.
Bi Sheng ran around impatiently in the yard where the craftsmen were. An hour later, what he wanted was built.
He enlisted a few more craftsmen to help.
Then, in the astonished eyes of all the craftsmen, he took out the ink he stole and started printing.
Seeing Bi Sheng, a thief, concentrating on printing, and the stolen victim Kou Ji looking on with a smile, the craftsmen suddenly felt that their heads were a little hard to turn.
When their heads turned around, their eyes all fell on Bi Sheng, with a hint of complaint in their eyes.
They complained that Bi Sheng had stolen something, causing them to be reprimanded by Xiang Yan.
But no one rushed forward to stop Bi Sheng from tinkering with printing.
Because they are all craftsmen, they have experienced Bi Sheng's state of desperate research.
They know that this kind of opportunity is rare, so they will not disturb Bi Sheng.
Bi Sheng has been branded as a bad guy by them.
But that doesn't mean they will ruin Bi Sheng's good deeds.
What the birth of a new craft means to every craftsman is very clear to them.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Bi Sheng carefully selected clay prints of the same size and put them into the grid.
Painted with ink.
A piece of snow-white paper covered it.
After rolling it over with something similar to a mallet, an article is printed.
When Bi Sheng raised the printed article in his hand, tears flowed out unconsciously.
Twenty years.
Twenty years have passed since he discovered the shortcomings of engraving and printing.
He spent twenty years developing a printing technique that was more advanced than engraving.
"I succeeded! Woohoo! I succeeded!"
Bi Sheng held the article in his hand and shouted with tears streaming down his face.
An old master craftsman saw this scene and looked envious.
He sighed and turned around to leave.
The apprentice who was following him asked him with some confusion, "Master, the one who stole things is Bi Sheng. He has made you miserable for so many days. Now that he has exposed his crime in public, why don't you scold him?" ?”
The master looked at his apprentice and wanted to say, "You are still too young."
But when the words came to his lips, they were not spoken.
Considering that his apprentice also had an identity as his nephew, he felt that it was necessary to mention something, so he sighed: "I can't scold you anymore. You are new to the industry and have short eyelids. There are many things that I can't explain clearly." Some of them, I'm afraid you can't understand.
The thing that Bi Sheng just created will definitely become something that benefits the world once it is born.
And those who use it the most are readers.
Scholars who received his favor would definitely call him Bi Shi.
Even if you don't call him Master Bi, you will still have great respect for him.
I will write a book about him in the future.
He is also destined to become a figure that will go down in history.
For a character like this, what's the point of stealing a little bit of ink?
Even if he steals gold and silver, the scholars will explain it to him.
Because his merit is greater than his sin.
Big enough to cover up all his sins."
The disciple asked in confusion: "What does the matter of scholars have to do with us?"
The master craftsman rolled his eyes and said: "He has created such an amazing thing, and his reputation in the craftsman's profession will not be low in the future. I scolded him today, and people who use his craftsmanship to beg for food will not do it behind his back." Arrange me in it?"
The disciple looked stunned.
The master craftsman paused and said with emotion: "In the future, he may be like the founder Lu Ban, and he will be honored as the ancestor by the craftsmen..."
Just when the master craftsman was about to leave, a cry of surprise came from where Bi Sheng was.
The master looked up and saw Bi Sheng holding an article in his hand, insisting on kowtowing to Kou Ji.
Kou Ji refused to accept it.
The two are in a stalemate.
Kou Ji dragged Bi Sheng along.
Bi Sheng held Kou Ji's arm tightly and said excitedly: "The villain can create this thing, it is all due to you, young master. If you hadn't reminded the villain to use clay to make seals and carve single characters for use, the villain would never have thought of it. This fork.
If it weren't for the ink you developed, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to complete printing in this life.
Young Master, you have fulfilled my wish, and you deserve to be worshiped by me."
After hearing this, the craftsmen who were watching were all stunned.
They originally thought they were witnessing the birth of a great man, but they didn't expect that behind this great man, there was another, taller person.
This man once provided them with many craftsman skills.
They regard it as the source of craftsmanship.
Now, he has become a great man.
Wouldn't there be more in the future?
For a moment, the craftsmen looked at Kou Ji with eager eyes.