Eight hundred and ninetieth chapters tense preparations
Everyone in the newspaper office was busy. The rooms and warehouses had been cleaned up. The two old men walked around and sat down in the lobby on the second floor. Dugujing hurried from the warehouse. He bowed respectfully and Dou Yi waved.
He waved his hand and asked, "Where is Dou Hong? Why don't you see anyone else?"
"Erlang went to Xishi. The government-run printing shop opened a woodblock printing house in Xishi yesterday. He went to see the situation."
"How are other preparations going?" Du Lingqiu asked.
"Reporting to the head of the family, the printing has been completed and can be started at any time. The paper has also been negotiated with Daminglou. They can provide up to 30,000 Di newspapers a day. Now it is mainly about engraving and recruiting personnel. Clerks are easier to find. There are many people who have failed in Chang'an.
Scholars are engaged in copying and writing letters in Chang'an, and as news spies, we estimate that we need to recruit about a hundred people, and we are going to recruit them from the idle people on the streets. I guess it is not a big problem. Another thing is what content to publish?
And then there’s the question of how to sell newspapers?”
Du Guqiu pondered for a while and said: "This is the same as selling goods. You cannot sell fake and shoddy goods, that is, fake news. In fact, the same is true for selling goods. If you are selling to the general public, you must be cheap, that is, the content must be vulgar, and the sales
For scholars and officials, they need to be more careful, that is, the content should be more concise and literary, or they should talk about national affairs, but there is a bottom line to grasp. You cannot criticize the King of Jin and the princess. Of course, you can also praise. You must be careful to be reserved and not too much.
direct."
Dou Yi smiled and said: "Ordinary people are illiterate, so they must be sold to scholars and officials. Moreover, we are called Tianxia Xinbao, which reports on major events in the world. I wrote several diaries about Anxi, and we went to Anxi to check it out.
The situation of growing cotton can be revised and published as a journey to Anxi.
In addition, I suggest that we can collect articles and publish high-level articles. I agree with the idea of the head of the Dugu family. Our newspaper should have a high starting point and target officials and scholars."
Du Lingqiu nodded, "Then we don't need too many detectives. Some information can be obtained from the imperial court."
"Master, I wonder what route Chang'an Express is taking?" Dugujing asked.
"I heard that they are taking the market route." Du Guqiu stroked his beard.
Dugujing immediately breathed a sigh of relief, "I think so. After all, they are all businessmen and their contacts are all small people in the market. It is definitely unrealistic for you to ask them to focus on literature and current affairs."
Du Lingqiu shook his head, "Then you are wrong. The route they choose is not up to them, nor to us. It is all decided by His Highness King Jin. Do you understand?"
Dugujing suddenly realized that this was the case, everything was planned by His Highness King Jin.
At this time, noisy sounds came from downstairs, and someone shouted: "The second master is back."
Then there was the sound of people going up the stairs. In a moment, several people came up, each holding a big box. The leader was Dou Hong, who called his followers to put the box on the table.
"What is this?" Dou Yi stepped forward and asked.
"This is movable type. There are 400 movable types in a box. I rented a set with 3,000 commonly used characters. If it is not enough, you can rent it. Renting this set costs ten guan a day. If you rent a single character, it will be more expensive.
There are also different font sizes and different prices, and pattern molds are a little more expensive.”
Hearing that it was movable type, everyone was immediately interested. They immediately opened the box and saw a very strong square box, which was densely packed with small squares. Each small square placed a wooden movable type, two horizontally and vertically.
Ten rows.
"The movable type was carved out so quickly?" Dou Yi asked in surprise.
Dou Hong shook his head, "I asked specifically. This batch of movable type is not newly carved. It was cut by carpenters from old engraving blocks and then polished. They are all made of jujube wood. The wood is very strong and fine."
Du Lingqiu picked up a piece of movable type, squinted at it for a long time, and sighed longly: "It's a wonderful idea to make movable type. All the previous engravings can be used."
He put the words back and suddenly found the corresponding words written on the bottom of the box. Du Lingqiu was stunned for a moment and asked: "Does each word have to have a fixed position?"
"It's like this. Once you memorize it, it will be easier to pick up the characters. Otherwise, it will take a long time to find a word. The people from the Engraving and Moving Type Society said that in the future, they will be classified according to rhymes. Each rhyme will have a box, so it will be faster to pick up the characters.
"
Dugujing thought for a while and said: "I think we can rent a room in the movable type house. We can type directly in the movable type house. After arranging the layout, we can take it back and print it."
"Then how to print the engraving?" Dugu Lingqiu asked again.
Dou Hong opened another box, which was empty. He said to everyone: "This is called a printing box. It is exactly the same size as a newspaper. There are no small partitions inside, otherwise the distance between words will be too big."
It is large, but there will be small dividing wooden pieces inside. According to the layout of Di newspaper, there are three pieces at the top and bottom. The middle can also be separated by a pattern mold. After the words are arranged, ink is applied and printed directly. "
Du Lingqiu couldn't hold back the excitement in his heart and said: "Just use this movable type method and try printing a piece of "Di Bao" first. I want to compare it. How big is the difference with woodblock printing?"
...........
The newspaper office of "Chang'an Express" is located on East 3rd Road, Xi'anmen Street. It is a three-story building covering an area of nearly five acres. There is a large courtyard behind it. The location here is slightly remote, there are no shops around, and it is relatively quiet. The property rights of this shop
It belonged to Guo Ping. It was originally intended to be used as an inn, but when he couldn't find a suitable place to run the newspaper, Guo Ping used it as his investment in the newspaper office.
The newspaper office occupies a very large area, with not only a warehouse, a printing shop, but also dormitories where employees rest and sleep.
The preparation progress of "Chang'an Express" is not slower than that of "Tianxia Xinbao" of Guanlong nobles. Although Zhang Lei and Li An's own family members are not enough, they can hire high-paying employees from outside. They also hired two deacons.
One was named Li Lian, Li An's nephew, who served as the deputy manager of the imperial merchants. After the imperial merchants were disbanded, he has been with Li An, demolishing the buildings in the old city of Han Chang'an, building official rental housing, etc.
Responsible for coordination, Li Lian has strong social skills and is good at solving all kinds of troublesome problems. He is responsible for the operation of the newspaper.
The other one was the chief editor of the newspaper. He was a friend recommended by Li Lian. His name was Du Chong, an old scribe from Wannian County. He had a very good pen and was well versed in the ways of the world. They hired a dozen more people to write pleadings for others.
Old writer, everyone is good at making living people angry to death, and can also praise dead people back to life.
This is the talent that Zhang Lei and Li An need, they are market news! It is to make readers interested and write about trivial things in a witty and interesting way. Only the stories about Zhang’s parents and Li’s family’s shortcomings are interesting.
As for the information spies, Zhang Lei decided in one sentence that he would recruit a hundred idlers on the streets of Chang'an and pay them according to the information they provided. In Zhang Lei's view, giving a fixed monthly salary is to raise lazy people. They run frequently, have more information, and have more money.
Naturally, you will get more. Of course, the information must be true and cannot be made up by you.
At night, the lights in the newspaper office were brightly lit, and everyone was gathering together to discuss the details of running a newspaper. No one had ever run a newspaper, but thinking about it, it was just like that. It was successful to catch the readers' attention and make them interested in reading.
Each of the dozen writers put a pot of wine on the table, two plates of cold dishes with wine, and a few glasses of wine, and the conversation started. Everyone was quick in thinking and came up with golden ideas one after another.
"Everyone, who are our readers? Ordinary people? Maybe in the future, but at least not now. They are basically illiterate. They can only use newspapers to make fires for cooking."
The chief judge, Du Chong, was about fifty years old, short in stature, with a brown goatee under his chin, his eyes were rolling, and his thoughts were very active. He drank the wine in the glass in one gulp, put a mouthful of vegetables into his mouth, and continued.
: "Our most important readers are actually the women of wealthy families. Absolutely most of the women of wealthy families are literate, but they just can't go out at will. They are bored at home and eager to understand the outside world. Our newspaper will become theirs.
Favorite, we can’t live without it every day, so we have to write about content that women are interested in, the most popular makeup, famous rouge, the most popular hairstyles, clothes, jewelry, etc. Don’t tell me alone, everyone has their own opinions
Replenish."
"And there are children!"
A writer smiled and said: "We can write about the experience of pregnancy, the experience of giving birth, the experience of confinement, the experience of raising children, and the experience of teaching children to read. We can write about how Jinshi was taught. I guarantee that there will be a lot of information."
Women are interested."
Everyone laughed and applauded, and Zhang Lei couldn't help but grinned and said, "Let me interrupt!"
The proprietor spoke and everyone fell silent. Zhang Lei said: "We can't write all the things that women are interested in. We must also consider men's preferences. For example, many stories in the drama about joining the army are quite interesting. Let's just write them out. Don't publish them in one day."
After that, a story will be published in ten days, which will make him feel itchy and buy a newspaper every day."
Everyone cheered in unison, Zhang Lei felt proud, and said to everyone: "Also, His Royal Highness the King of Jin told me that he hopes we can promote tea drinking, so let's write about tea, and write about how drinking tea can prolong life, such as at the foot of Mount Emei
In a certain village, all the villagers live to be over ninety years old. Why? People drink tea every day. Who doesn’t want to live longer? When you write like this, everyone starts drinking tea.”
There was no cheering in the lobby, and everyone looked at each other in shock. Just now, the fat man said that writing false news was strictly prohibited, but in the blink of an eye, he was making it up himself.
Li An couldn't stand listening anymore. He coughed twice to attract everyone's attention and said with a smile: "I would like to say a few words. Fold a newspaper, that is, the front, back, left, and right sides. Let's reserve a special page for various publications.
Professional news, such as Mingzhu Restaurant’s food prices being 20% cheaper on a certain day of the month, such as buying five bottles of Meishou wine and getting one free.”
"This is a good idea!"
Guo Ping smiled and said: "As long as you buy five bottles at a time, I can indeed give you one bottle. The same goes for Mingzhu Restaurant. On the fifth and tenth of every month, the price of vegetables is reduced by 20%."
Zhang Lei rolled his eyes and said, "Lao An, our jewelry can also be published in the newspaper and sell them all."
Li An shook his head, "No, there is a huge demand in Luoyang. I have reached an agreement with two Luoyang jewelers, and they will underwrite our jewelry."