If the most profitable business in the world is ranked, Zhang Qian believes that the publishing industry will definitely be ranked in the top 50. Especially for publishing books that don't have to pay the author any manuscript fees, in his original time and space, the profits are directly pursued by usury.

When he was in junior high school, he once saw the owner of Tui Micycle selling storybooks at the school gate, and in just a few years, he turned the tricycle into a big jeep, and then into a façade of hundreds of square meters. And when he finally got his first mobile phone, he found out that the storybooks sold by his boss were all taken directly from the Internet, and he never gave the author a penny for the manuscript.

The writing bureau under the secretary of the Tang Dynasty has hundreds of thousands of books from ancient times to the present, many of which are still unique books, but they worry about the cost of maintaining bamboo slips every year, which is too undeserved.

Isn't it money to take out those lone books and print them into books and sell them? Can those children and grandchildren of lonely books still ask you for manuscript fees for the sake of their ancestors thousands of years ago?

Isn't it money to compile the most popular classics, print them into a book, and sell them? As long as the author has been dead for more than 50 years, there is no fear of the author's descendants coming to fight a copyright lawsuit.

Print the "Thousand Character Text" that educates Mengtong literacy, and you are worried that you can't sell a few thousand copies?

Summarizing and printing the outstanding articles in each imperial examination and binding them into a volume, isn't it the eighth-century "Collection of Manchu Essays in the College Entrance Examination"?

It's really not good, a little lacking in morality, sort out the eleven sets of Confucian scriptures commonly used in the "Ming Jing" exam into fill-in-the-blank questions, and make a "Ming Jing Question Bank" out, claiming that in the future, the "Ming Jing" test questions will all come out of the question bank, and the students in the world are not going crazy?

And also......

In short, as long as you are willing to think about it, there are too many ways to make money. You must know that the Datang Books Agency, which has three functions in another time and space, the General Administration of Press and Publication, the head office of Xinhua Bookstore, and the National Grand Library, has already monopolized the knowledge and publishing industry to an outrageous level. This kind of department, which occupies an absolute monopoly position and can change its rules at any time, is so poor that it can definitely be heard as a joke in the 21st century!

And the cost of engraving that He Zhizhang was worried about was too high, but in Zhang Qian's eyes, it was not a problem at all.

The cost of engraving printing is high, and movable type can be used. Bi Sheng, who invented movable type printing in the Song Dynasty, was just an ordinary craftsman. The Datang Weapons Supervisor and the General Supervisor are concentrated in the country's craftsman elite.

According to Zhang Qian's own understanding of the technical level of the Ordnance Superintendent, casting a bronze cylinder half a centimeter square and two centimeters long is as simple as playing for the craftsmen of the Ordnance Superintendent. And the engraving of yang text on the metal surface is also commonplace for craftsmen.

In order to ensure the clarity of the printing, it is even possible to temporarily set the movable type specification at half an inch square, one inch long. And such a rectangular bronze column, according to Zhang Qian's estimate, the cost of each one will definitely not exceed ten yuan. (Note: Han inch, one inch is about 2.3 cm)

In another time and space, there are 3,000 to 7,000 commonly used Chinese characters. It is estimated that the Tang Dynasty has doubled, and the commonly used Chinese characters in the Tang Dynasty are counted as 14,000. All of them caused copper movable type, plus fire consumption, the total cost was 150,000 Wen.

And 150,000 wen is only 150,000 hangings. As an ordinary craftsman, Bi Sheng can't afford it, and ordinary booksellers among the people have a hard time coming up with it, but for any central organ in Datang, it will not be a large number. What's more, you can also reduce the cost of movable type by adjusting the proportion of tin in bronze, and even directly use lead, which is far less expensive than bronze!

The main reason why Zhang Qian did not plan to use lead type was that he did not know how toxic lead was. In order to build a strong team for the Authors Bureau, he is ready to pull Wang Han, Wang Zhilian, Zhang Xu, Zhang Ruoxu and others together. If in order to save dozens of dollars, these bright stars who once illuminated the history of Chinese civilization were poisoned by lead poisoning, he would definitely have a disturbed conscience.

So, two days later, when Wei Dao and Mu Nanfeng arrived at the main hall of Zhang Qian's house, they saw such a jaw-dropping scene. He Zhizhang, Zhang Ruoxu, and Zhang Xu, who arrived earlier than the two of them, each carrying a chisel knife, were concentrating on carving words on the small bronze pillar. In the center of the main hall, Wang Han, Wang Zhilian, Qin Lv and Zhang Jiuling gathered around a huge wheel, whispering.

If you look closely, the wheel is not actually a wheel, but a wheel-shaped table. The table is engraved with a number of thin spokes and round wefts, which are separated by the intersection of the spokes and the weft, and all of them are chiseled into grooves more than an inch deep. In each groove, there are also rectangular copper pillars in threes and twos, which are illuminated by the sunlight shining through the window, and the golden light is dazzling.

"What is this?" Wei Dao's eyes straightened, and he didn't care about saluting the two elders, He Zhizhang and Zhang Ruoxu, so he rushed to the wheel in three steps and two steps, and asked loudly.

No one answered his words, and Wang Han held a box-like thing made of bronze in his hand and sent an invitation to Wang Zhilian and Qin Liu. The latter two quickly turned the wheels, picked out several copper pillars with engraved words on the surface from different grooves, and put them into the bronze box with each other.

Mu Nanfeng acted more steadily than Wei Dao, but took the initiative to greet He Zhizhang and Zhang Ruoxu first. However, the attention of the two elders was all on the chisel knife in their respective hands at the moment, and they responded very absent-mindedly. Therefore, on the contrary, he made him uncomfortable, thought about it, and simply followed Wei Dao's footsteps to the wheel, bowed down to ask Zhang Jiuling, the oldest among the young people present: "Brother Zishou is invited, dare to ask, what rare artifacts are you pondering?" What is the use of this wheel and the brass pillar in the wheel? ”

"The copper pillar is movable type, and the wheel is a word picking wheel. We have just heard a few words from Yongzhao, and we are thinking about it ourselves. You and Tsunatsura will take a look at it first! Zhang Jiuling didn't raise his head, carrying a brush the size of a brush, and answered quickly.

"Movable type?" Mu Nanfeng was confused when he heard it, and instinctively repeated in a low voice. However, it is not good to continue to get to the bottom of it, so I can only be patient and take a closer look.

This time, he really saw some doorways.

The copper pillars placed in the grooves, the total number of about 300 pieces, are all regular script with Yang script engraved on the surface, and the text on the Kaiyuan Tongbao issued during the Wude period belongs to the same lineage.

The side of the bronze pillar is not straight up and straight down. Instead, in the very center, a deep groove is carved. Whenever there was enough copper pillars in the bronze box, Wang Han could manipulate a thin copper wire on the box to firmly jam the entire row of copper pillars.

In this case, when about 150 copper pillars are placed into the bronze box in turn, they form a vertical column and horizontal row, forming a text. Read it carefully, it is vaguely a child's enlightened "Thousand Character Text".

Just as he was watching with relish, he heard that Wang Han suddenly shouted, "Okay, use ink!" ”。 Immediately after, Zhang Jiuling used a brush-sized brush to dip some slimy ink with the scent of pine from a specially shaped black box on the ground, and gently applied it to the surface of all the copper pillars in the bronze box.

Immediately, Qin Rhythm and Wang Zhilian spread out a blank sheet of paper with movements that were more agile than sword dances. Wang Han flipped over the bronze box, grabbed a wooden handle behind the box with both hands, and steadily covered it with the white paper.

"Poof, poof, poof, poof......" After covering seven or eight times in one breath, Wang Han finally stopped. Then, standing beside the spread out of the white paper, carrying the bronze box in one hand, he gasped as if he had just experienced a life-and-death duel on the battlefield.

"Heaven and earth are yellow, and the universe is desolate. The sun and the moon are shining, and the sun and moon are shining. The cold comes and the summer comes, and the autumn harvest is hidden in winter. When he was more than an adult, Lu Lu adjusted the yang ...... "In the field, the most calm and relaxed place is Wei Dao." Without the need for anyone to invite him, he took it upon himself to read out the words that had just been printed on the blank paper.

"It's a clear print, but it's much better than engraving printing!" finally understood what Wang Han, Zhang Jiuling and the others were doing just now, and the words of admiration blurted out from Mu Nanfeng's mouth.

Although Wang Han has practiced martial arts, his strength and wrist flexibility are far more than ordinary people. However, after deducting this factor, the clarity of the words engraved on the bronze surface can still throw off more than a dozen streets of the Buddhist scriptures printed by the engraving. And after the bronze is stained with ink, it will not be deformed, and the durability is hundreds of times stronger than that of wood!

However, before his words fell, Wei Dao had already habitually begun to raise the bar again, "Clear is clearer than engraving printing, but the cost is too high after all, even if it is used to print Buddhist scriptures, ordinary merchants cannot afford it!" ”

Wang Han didn't refute him, just pursed his lips and sneered. Then, quickly toggle the mechanism to release all the copper pillars. Immediately after, some of the bronze pillars were picked up and rearranged and added to become another page of text.

It was still Zhang Jiuling who helped with the ink, but then, the one who operated the bronze box became the piano rhythm. I saw her, Emei frowned slightly, her mouth opened slightly, and she comforted her arm as if she was dancing, and then quickly pressed her arm down, "poof, poof, poof, poof......", and also covered seven or eight pages of text on the white paper, before he was satisfied to hand over the bronze box to Wang Zhilian, and he looked at the words printed on the white paper, smiled and nodded.

"Yuzhang Ancient County, Hongdu New Mansion. The stars are divided into wings, and the ground is connected to Henglu. The three rivers and the five lakes are controlled, and the Ouyue is controlled. Wuhua Tianbao, the ruins of the dragon light shooting bull fight......" Wei Dao did not wait for anyone to invite, shaking his head and reading aloud, his voice excited and high-pitched.

"You don't have to carve a copy for every book you print! As long as a set of movable characters comes out, the book of the world will be printed. Brother Zhao is really a genius in the world, this clever thought, Wang Mou is convinced! Wang Zhihuan loosened the mechanism, and sighed in a low voice while releasing the copper movable type that had just been used from the box and swinging it back to the original groove on the wheel.

"In this way, there is no need to go through the trouble of copying books. In particular, the most commonly used enlightenment books, thousands of copies of it are printed at a time, and ordinary small households can afford to buy them even if they grit their teeth! Zhang Jiuling thought further, rubbed his chin and nodded again and again. If you are not careful, you will smear your chin black.

"Even if you don't print an easy-to-sell scroll like a thousand-character text, the cost of combining different books and printing them is much lower than that of engraving. And the more you print, the more you save. Only one set of copper movable type is needed, and if it is engraved, it is a plate for each page of the book! Wang Han's summary was also very incisive, squinting at Wei Dao, turning his head to the question he had raised earlier.

Wei Dao's face was hot when he saw it, and he instinctively stiffened his neck and retorted in a low voice, "I don't think so!" You are all the best among the readers, so naturally you know everything you do. And ordinary people, even if they are literate, it takes a whole day to pick out a few hundred of thousands of copper movable types to form a one. In this way, it seems to save the cost of engraving, and the time spent on printing a book has increased exponentially! ”

"Compendium, this is a mistake!" He Zhizhang just put down the chisel knife and walked over to see the excitement, and after listening to Wei Dao's words, he immediately shook his head with a smile.

Anyway, despite his age, he quickly walked to the wheel and turned it gently. Move your fingers from the inside to the outside along a spoke with the Wat letter and the Chinese character Wu on the surface, and finally land on a weft with the Wat and Chinese characters for 欸. In the groove in the upper right of the intersection of the spokes and the weft, a guard character was found.

Immediately, he quickly turned the wheel, and in the same way, he found more than a dozen words and stuffed them into the bronze box of Wang Zhilian's fingers.

Zhang Jiuling quickly colored the surface of the copper movable type in the box, and Wang Zhilian smiled and stamped it on the white paper. It only took a dozen breaths before and after, but a new text was already on the page.

"Guardian Dao, the word compendium. Young and studious, well-read and memorized. However, he is born to argue with others, and enjoys it all day long. A Taoist priest looked at his soul with his eyes, and saw a latch looming behind his head,...... "Qin Lu pursed his mouth and read the words on the white paper one by one. I'm only halfway through it, and I'm so happy that I can't straighten up.

Looking at Wei Dao himself, he was ashamed. But he didn't dare to raise the bar with He Zhizhang, who was an elder, arched his hand in a sneer, and said in a low voice: "Uncle Shi has taught you a lot!" The old mistakes of the younger generations have just been made again. This thing is used to print books, and it is indeed far more convenient than engraving. Just ......"

Habitually lifting it, he immediately realized that he had made the same old mistake again, and quickly covered his mouth with his hand, coughing continuously, "cough, cough, cough......"

"Just what?" He Zhizhang refused to let him go easily, and asked with round eyes.

"It's just, what's the use of just the words on the spokes and the weft of the car?" Wei Dao reacted very quickly, and decisively led the conversation elsewhere, "The junior just saw that Uncle Shi was looking for the spokes of the car first, and then looking for the weft from the inside out. It should be a quick way to pick up words. I don't know Uncle Shi, can you solve the doubts of the younger generation? ”

"You're cunning!" He Zhizhang knew that he was deliberately changing the topic, but he glared at him with a smile, and no longer continued to embarrass him in front of so many people, "This thing is called the wheel pick-up type. The spokes and weft of this car were jointly done by the old man Showa in the past two days. The idea is mainly from Yong Zhao, and the old man is just checking and filling in the gaps for him on the side! function, similar to the rhyme book of the former Sui Lu Fa Yan. But it's much easier to use. (Note: Yunshu, an ancient monograph on the study of the pronunciation of characters, already has the rudiments of pinyin.) Among them, Lu Fayan's "Cut Rhyme" was the most widely circulated in the Tang Dynasty. ）

Lest everyone not understand, he deliberately set aside more than a dozen breathing time, so he smiled and slowly added, "Use Zhao to divide the text into twenty-three tones and thirty-nine rhymes." They are inscribed on the spokes and the weft. Simplified markup in homophones and roman. The sound and rhyme are tangent, which is the original sound of a word. And the old man thought that this method could not cover all the words of my Tang Dynasty, so it was increased to twenty-eight tones and forty-two rhymes. The words with the same sound and rhyme are held in the grooves, and then the tone is raised and lowered to distinguish them, and the Datang characters can cover more than ninety percent. The remaining 10% of the words that are not commonly used will be left for the future to continue to be supplemented as appropriate! (Note: Modern Chinese has 23 initials, and the pronunciation of ancient Chinese is complex, so there will be more initials and finals.) ）

"Well, it's so much simpler. As long as you are literate, you can use this copper type. Wei Dao listened convincingly, and nodded again and again. However, he tried hard to suppress and press, and only then did he suffocate the second half of what he wanted to say back into his stomach.

"Say what you want, as long as you make sense!" When He Zhizhang saw it, he immediately felt that he was funny and pitiful, glared at him again, and took the initiative to relax his requirements for him.

Wei Dao immediately received amnesty, and asked with a smile, "Junior, junior, junior, just don't understand, why do you still use this whisk text." Isn't my Datang text enough? Why waste more energy? ”

"Good question!" He Zhizhang smiled and nodded approvingly, "The old man also asked Yong Zhao before." He said that the words of Fulu are not for you to see, but for a Mengtong who can't read a word, which is called Jian Yun! At the beginning of children's enlightenment, they first learned 28 tones, 42 rhymes, and then saw the text, which can be marked with initials and finals, so that no matter reading or remembering, it will get twice the result with half the effort! ”

When the words fell, the cheers immediately resounded throughout the hall, "Good, good!" If this method has been in place for a long time, children will be enlightened, how much suffering can they suffer? ! ”

It turned out that at the beginning of enlightenment, everyone had suffered greatly. It was all with perseverance and rote memorization that he memorized the pronunciation of the words taught by Mr. However, among the clansmen, they drop out of school because of poor memory or poor perseverance, and they don't know how many people do not know every year. If there is a simple rhyme, enlightenment will become extremely simple, and the number of readers in the family can also be multiplied several times in just a few years!

"No wonder Yongzhao said on the invitation, there is something to ask me to do!" Wei Dao finally had no bar, pulled up his sleeves, and was eager to try, "It turned out that I wanted to use copper movable type to fill the grooves on this wheel and make the world's first printing artifact." It just so happens that Wei has also studied Jinshi for a few days, so it is better to ...... from today"

"Don't you dare to bother Brother Wei about this!" He was only halfway through his sentence, but he was interrupted from behind. was picking up the last two distinguished guests, Bi Gou and Zhang said, and accompanied them into the lobby with Zhang Qian.

Looking around, Zhang Qian smiled and bowed his hand to everyone, "Thank you for coming, the Humble House is flourishing today." Today, I invite you to come, one is to thank you for your kind visit and help some time ago, and the other is to gather everyone's strength to jointly compile a "Primary School Dictionary", which I think is used daily by my Datang readers. As for the rotary movable type printing press and the movable copper type, which were only made for the purpose of printing the Dictionary of Primary Schools, they are not in the subject of today. ”

"Not in today's topic?!" Unexpectedly, the movable type printing machine that everyone was shocked as an artifact was actually just an addition, except for He Zhizhang and Zhang Ruoxu, who had long known about it, all the other guests were stunned. In particular, Bi Gou and Zhang Shuo, who came the latest, looked at the glittering movable type, and then looked at the pages of the book that had just been printed, both of them were like falling clouds.

"Don't worry, let's watch Zhang's demonstration!" Knowing that everyone needed time to understand their words, Zhang Qian was not in a hurry to give an explanation. Instead, he took Zhang Shuo and Bi Gou to the front of the wheel to pick up the words, and demonstrated the typesetting and printing process demonstrated by Wang Han and Wang Zhilian just now, from beginning to end. Then he smiled and said, "Since it is based on sound and rhyme, you can spell out the pronunciation of a word." Therefore, Zhang wanted to gather everyone's strength to correspond to the world's words, their pronunciation and meaning, and compile them into a book, similar to "Shuowen Jie Zi", called a dictionary. (Note: Shuowen Jiezi is a dictionary of the Han Dynasty.) ）

There was a deliberate pause for a few breaths to give the crowd time to understand. He continued: "Unlike Shuowen Jie Zi, this book uses two ways to search for texts: pronunciation and radicals. No matter which way you search for the word, you can find out the basic meaning of the word. In this way, when people read a book, when they see a rare word, they can first look up the word in the dictionary according to its radical, understand its meaning, and then spell out its pronunciation according to the initial vowel. On the contrary, when you are writing, if you encounter a certain word that you can't write, you can also find it in the dictionary according to the pronunciation of the word, and then learn how to write and understand its meaning. If this book is completed, in the future, all readers will no longer be troubled by encountering rare words that no one can ask, or forgetting to write a pen. And those who participated in the compilation of this book are enough to be famous through the ages! ”

"Good, great good!"

"If this book is completed, the merit is immeasurable!"

"The merit is immeasurable, this is the merit is immeasurable! With Zhao, you have a heart! ”

……

In all directions, the cheers rang out again. Including Bi Gou and Zhang Shuo, their faces were red with excitement, and their beards trembled up and down.

In particular, Zhang said that he was still a little worried about whether it would be a big mistake to introduce Zhang Qian, a child of the Mo family, into the court. At this moment, I firmly believe that the persistence of myself and Bi Gou that day was right. Even if Zhang Qian really remembers his Qin Mo master in the future, his contribution to Confucianism with this "Primary School Dictionary" is enough to embarrass those who tried to suppress him that day.

Only Wei Dao, although there is no bar, he still did not forget to ask loudly: "With Zhao, the dictionary is the dictionary, why do you add the word elementary school in front?" ”

"Elementary school is the opposite of university." Zhang Qian smiled at him and explained very patiently, "The way of the university is to be Mingmingde, to be close to the people, and to be perfect. Primary school is for enlightenment, to solve doubts, so that people can acquire the most basic knowledge, so as to better gain a foothold in the world. With our current ability, it is really not enough to make an all-encompassing "University Dictionary". Therefore, first make a "Primary School Dictionary", so that people can read and understand the basic meaning of words and sentences. As the old saying goes, if you don't accumulate steps, you can't reach thousands of miles. If it is another day, the "Primary School Dictionary" can be popular all over the world, and we have achieved some knowledge, and then calm down and spend ten years to make a "University Dictionary", it is not too late! ”

"Good, great good!" Hearing this, everyone didn't wait to drink, their hearts were already drunk. One by one, they are gearing up and applauding loudly, and they can't wait to start work now.

And Zhang Qian, although he was also very excited, his mind kept his last calm.

It is too difficult to make a "Tang Dictionary", and with his ability and qualifications, it is impossible to push it. It's much easier to make a simple little dictionary that is only used for word lookup and literacy. Both the funds and manpower used happen to be within his purview.

In another time and space, what book can have a larger circulation than "Xinhua Dictionary"? It can be compiled for 50 years at a time, and it can be reprinted every year, and you never have to worry about sales!

It is foreseeable that once the primary school dictionary is completed, the situation of the Writings Department not making ends meet every year can be reversed immediately.

And the birth and exploration of mature movable type printing technology can make the Writings Department earn a lot of money every year.

As for Wang Han, Wang Zhilian, Zhang Xu and others, in addition to participating in the compilation of the "Primary School Dictionary", isn't it logical to stay in the Department of Writings? No matter how good the speaker is, I'm afraid he won't be able to pick any bones out of the egg!