Eight hundred and eighty-ninth chapter extraordinary advice
Gold and silver coins worth three million pounds were finally issued. In fact, the quantity was not large. The five counters that undertook the issuance of gold and silver coins all had their own big customers. They notified the big customers to buy them first. As a result, the rich and powerful bought them.
After the gold and silver coins were deposited, they were stored separately and did not circulate in the market at all. Only more than 200,000 gold and silver coins worth three million coins appeared on the market, but they all disappeared in less than a month.
After all, the war is still going on, the world is far from unified, and the world is still in chaos. People with good conditions want to store some gold and silver, and the emergence of gold and silver coins just meets the storage needs.
This result was really beyond everyone's expectations. None of the various plans carefully prepared before were used. Even Pan Liao laughed at himself. If he had known it, he would have sold the gold and silver ingots directly. Why did he bother to mint money?
However, with three million guan of money, the two major projects promoted by Guo Song, the camel project and the sea-going ship project, began to be fully launched.
By October, the first batch of 20,000 camels arrived in Zhangye, and they would be used to transport supplies between Lanzhou and Zhangye during the war.
Time gradually came to October. On this morning, the Department of Weights and Measures, which had been prepared for three months, was officially launched. Literally, it is a department that manages weighing instruments and measuring tools, but in fact, it is responsible for formulating various regulations for government-run workshops.
Department of manufacturing process standards and processes, which will definitely play a huge role in promoting the development of Datang handicraft industry.
In fact, this is not an innovation. Rulers of all dynasties have been promoting the development of production technology, paying special attention to the promotion of agricultural technology. From the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, "The Book of Pan Sheng" and "The Essential Art of Qi Min" appeared successively.
", "Chen Fu Nong Shu", "Wang Zhen Nong Shu", "Agricultural Policy Complete Book" and other five major agricultural works.
As for the handicraft industry, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was a book "Kao Gong Ji" that described various work specifications and manufacturing techniques of the government-run handicraft industry. By the Ming Dynasty, Song Yingxing wrote "Tiangong Kaiwu" which represented the peak of the handicraft industry. It is said that
After arriving in Europe, he directly laid the foundation of European industry.
The first achievement of the Department of Weights and Measures was printing, which was completed during the preparation period for the Department of Weights and Measures.
Guo Song has always wanted to vigorously promote official education and let more children read and write. It does not mean that many outstanding talents must be cultivated. No, as long as an ordinary person is literate and read, he will have the courage to take his family to the city.
, otherwise, if you don’t know a word and can’t even understand the street signs, it will be difficult for you to have the courage to go out, and you can only live in places you are familiar with.
However, the first obstacle encountered in promoting official learning is that there are not enough teaching materials, paper and ink. Providing sufficient stationery and paper production is one aspect, but promoting printing is also a top priority. Although woodblock printing had been invented in the mid-Tang Dynasty,
Nowadays, most books are still copied by hand, and there are still too few printed books.
In the afternoon, Guo Song, accompanied by a large group of officials, visited the official printing workshop. This is a government-run printing workshop with a history of more than 100 years. It existed as early as the Sui Dynasty and currently has more than 300 craftsmen.
, the famous woodblock printing was invented here.
Engraving printing did not appear suddenly. It also evolved from the earliest inscriptions to lithographic printing, and then slowly developed into woodblock printing. It lasted for hundreds of years. Generations of craftsmen accumulated a lot of experience, which was passed down orally.
, passed down from master to apprentice from father to son, and did not form a standard or norm.
Of course there are many reasons for this. On the one hand, they treasure their secret skills. Most old craftsmen will never easily teach their eating skills to outsiders except their own apprentices and sons. On the other hand, it is also because the craftsmen are from the bottom.
Most of them are illiterate, and even if a book is written to them, they will not be able to understand it.
"The most prosperous time here was when Empress Zetian was in power. At that time, there were more than a thousand people here printing Buddhist scriptures day and night. At least hundreds of thousands of Buddhist scriptures were printed and passed on to temples all over the world."
Of course, printing requires technology. To print clearly black characters and not stain the ink, this involves the amount of ink used, the choice of paper, and the control of the heat. Otherwise, if you let inexperienced apprentices do it, you will be sure that the printing will be a mess, but printing technology
The core of technology is plate making, which is what Guo Song is most concerned about.
"Then aren't there a lot of engravings piled up here?" Guo Song said with a smile.
"Exactly. Your Highness, please come with me."
Guo Song came to the backyard. The backyard was a large yard. A corner of the yard was filled with discarded engraving boards, all of which had failed to be carved. They were piled up like a hill.
There were three large rooms on the front. A worker opened the lock and opened the door. Guo Song walked into the large room surrounded by people. There were rows of wooden shelves inside, filled with stacks of carved blocks. Guo Song picked up a board and it was
The engravings of the "Diamond Sutra" have vigorous and powerful carvings in Chinese characters. The wood is made of solid jujube wood, which is very black and shiny. It seems to be very old.
"This is the "Diamond Sutra" carved during the Tianbao period. In fact, we originally had three sets of boards for the "Diamond Sutra". The boards from the Shenlong period were damaged by insects, leaving only two sets. Now the front is printed on boards from the Dali period.
This set of boards from the Tianbao period will be used as a backup."
"How many sets of boards are there in total here?" Guo Song asked.
"There are a total of two thousand sets of boards here, mainly Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian classics. They are all commonly used boards. Many of the poetry boards commissioned by individuals are not here. We also have a warehouse in Feng'anfang, and there are
There are four to five thousand sets of boards, but none of them are used very much. It would be a pity to destroy them, so they are just piled up there."
Guo Song nodded and walked around the warehouse. The strong smell of Chen Mo inside made everyone unbearable. They didn't stay for long and went straight out of the warehouse.
"Where is that?" Guo Song asked, pointing to a larger courtyard on the right.
"Reporting to Your Highness, that is the Engraving Academy, the place where plate making is done."
"Let's go! Let's take a look."
Guo Song was immediately interested and took everyone to the Carving House. There were three large rooms here and it was unusually quiet. There were more than twenty engraving craftsmen sitting inside, concentrating on carving boards.
Seeing the distinguished guest coming in, all the craftsmen put down their carving knives.
Guo Song took a look and saw that the craftsmen inside were all very young. They were basically middle-aged and above. No young people in their twenties or thirties were seen.
"Don't they have any apprentices?" Guo Song asked strangely.
"We all have apprentices, but the apprentices are not here. They are learning engraving at Feng'anfang. Here we are rushing to make engravings. The Shibu Department entrusted us to print three thousand copies of "Di Bao"."
Guo Song said with some confusion: "A maximum of five boards are enough for Dibao. Do we need so many people to carve it together?"
"Your Highness doesn't know something. The Shibu Department asked us to print it early the day after tomorrow. We had to break the five boards into twenty small pieces, each person carved a small piece, and then put them together for printing."
This method was good. Guo Song was immediately interested and asked quickly: "If there is a wrong word on the carving, then the whole board does not have to be scrapped, but only a small piece can be scrapped?"
"Reporting to Your Highness, that is exactly what happened."
After hesitating for a moment, the manager sighed again and said: "But it's a pity that a small piece requires a lot of manpower and material resources."
"Everyone, listen to me!"
Guo Song clapped his hands and smiled at the two dozen craftsmen: "Let's discuss it and see if there is a better way to solve this problem."
King Jin spoke and everyone fell silent. Guo Song picked up a small board and said, "I'm thinking about what would happen if every word on the board was turned into movable type?"
The officials nearby couldn't understand what King Jin was saying, but the professional craftsmen understood it immediately. The room suddenly became noisy. King Jin's suggestion came too suddenly, and every craftsman's mind was activated.
Discuss with each other.
Of course Guo Song was talking about movable type printing. After movable type printing was invented in the Northern Song Dynasty, it was actually not taken seriously because it was not practical and unnecessary.
Just imagine, if we use movable type to spell out an article, we need to search for a long time among thousands of Chinese characters. Not to mention the workload of typesetting, what if there are several same characters in an article? Print a copy of "The Analects of Confucius"
,How many '曰', '子''的' are needed?
After the printing is completed, you have to dismantle the movable type that you have worked so hard to put together. You have to print other things. Just after dismantling it, if the shopkeeper suddenly comes and says, "Fifty more copies need to be printed."
Or if you want to print multiple books at the same time, each with hundreds of pages, how many sets of movable type should you prepare?
It is said that movable type is not necessary because a set of engraving plates can be used for many years. To print a copy of "The Analects of Confucius", you only need to prepare a set of engraving plates. You can print as many copies as you like. If you don't have an engraving plate on hand, you can borrow it.
There are only so many classic Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist scriptures from ancient times to the present, and there is no need to prepare many engravings. You can just print anthologies privately or spend money to make engravings, and you can print as many copies as you like.
In fact, movable type printing is more suitable for the West. There are only a few dozen letters, which are easy to spell and find. Especially after the appearance of alphabet typewriters, the real advantages of movable type were fully realized.
But the movable type that Guo Song was talking about at this time was another concept, which was to improve the work efficiency of the engraving. If one wrong word was carved on the engraving, the entire board would be scrapped, and all the previous engravings would have been in vain.
But if you carve one word after another, and finally put it together into a complete engraving, then just seal it with a cover when not in use, and will not take it apart again. It will still be used as a piece of engraving. In this way, you will engrave a wrong word.
Just need to engrave one more word.
In fact, the plan proposed by Guo Song was for the carvers to divide a carving board into four parts and then refine it: since it can be divided into four pieces, why can't it be subdivided into one piece for each character?