The gold and silver coins worth 3 million guan were finally issued, but in fact the quantity was not much, and the five cabinets that contracted the issuance of gold and silver coins had their own large customers, and they informed the big customers to give priority to the purchase, and as a result, the rich and wealthy families bought the gold and silver coins and stored them separately, and they were not circulated in the market at all, and only more than 200,000 yuan of gold and silver worth 3 million guan appeared in the market, but they all disappeared in less than a month.

After all, the war is still going on, the world is far from being unified, it is still a troubled time, and people with good conditions want to store some gold and silver, and the appearance 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, he knew that he would sell gold and silver ingots directly, and what did he bother to mint money for?

However, with 3 million yuan, the two major projects implemented by Guo Song, the camel project and the sea ship project, began to be in full swing.

By October, the first batch of 20,000 camels had arrived in Zhangye, which they would use for wartime transportation between Lanzhou and Zhangye.

The time gradually came to October, this morning, the establishment of three months of the Weights and Measures Department was officially listed, literally, this is the management of scales and measuring tools, but in fact, it is specialized in the development of various manufacturing process standards and processes of the government-run workshop, which will play a huge role in promoting the development of Datang handicraft industry.

In fact, this is not an innovation, the rulers of all dynasties are promoting the development of production technology, especially attaching importance to the promotion of agricultural technology, from the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, there have been five major agricultural works such as "The Book of Fan Sheng", "Qi Min Yaoshu", "Chen Fu Agricultural Book", "Wang Zhen Agricultural Book", "Agricultural Administration Book" and so on.

As for the handicraft industry, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was a book that described the specifications and manufacturing processes of various types of work in the government-run handicraft industry, and in the Ming Dynasty, Song Yingxing wrote the "Heavenly Creations" on behalf of the pinnacle of the handicraft industry, which was transmitted to Europe and directly laid the foundation of European industry.

The first result of the Weights and Measures Department was printing, which was completed as early as the preparation period of the Weights and Measures Administration.

Guo Song has always wanted to vigorously promote official learning, so that more children can read and write, not that there must be many outstanding talents, no, as long as an ordinary person is literate and read, he has the courage to take his family to the city, otherwise he can't read a word, and he can't even read street signs, it is difficult to have the courage to go out, and he can only live in a place he is familiar with.

But the first obstacle encountered in the promotion of official learning is that there are not enough teaching materials and paper, pen and ink, providing enough stationery and paper production is one thing, but the promotion of printing is also the top priority, although engraving printing has been invented in the Tang Dynasty, but now most of the books are still copied by hand, and the printed books are still too few.

In the afternoon, Guo Song, accompanied by a large group of officials, came to visit the government-run printing workshop, which is a government-run printing workshop with a history of more than 100 years, as early as the Sui Dynasty, there are currently more than 300 craftsmen, and the famous engraving printing was invented here.

Engraving printing did not appear suddenly, it also from the earliest inscription to stone printing, and then slowly developed into woodblock printing, which lasted for hundreds of years, and generations of craftsmen have accumulated a lot of experience, which are passed on by word of mouth, master and apprentice from father to son, and have not formed a standard and norm.

Of course, there are many reasons for this, on the one hand, the secret skills are self-cherished, most of the old craftsmen except for their own apprentices and sons, will never easily teach the skills of eating to outsiders, and on the other hand, it is also because the craftsmen are from the bottom, most of them are illiterate, and they can't understand the books written for them.

"The most prosperous time here was when Empress Zetian was in power, when there were more than 1,000 people here, printing Buddhist scriptures day and night, at least hundreds of thousands of Buddhist scriptures, and passing them on to the temples of the world."

Of course, printing requires technology, to print black characters clearly, ink stainless, this is related to how much ink, the choice of paper, the grasp of the heat, otherwise let inexperienced apprentices do it, to ensure that the printing is a mess, but the core of technology in printing is plate making, which is also what Guo Song is most concerned about.

"Isn't there a lot of engravings piled up here?" Guo Song said with a smile.

"Exactly, please come with me."

Guo Song came to the backyard, the backyard was a very large courtyard, and the corner of the courtyard was full of discarded engravings, all of which were boards that had failed to be carved, piled up like a hill.

The front is three big houses, one is engaged in opening the lock, pushing open the door, Guo Song walked into the big house surrounded by everyone, there are rows of wooden shelves inside, which are full of stacks of carved plates, Guo Song picked up a board, it is the engraving of the "Diamond Sutra", the Yang text carved vigorously and powerfully, the wood is solid jujube wood, very black and bright, it seems to be very old.

"This is the "Diamond Sutra" engraved in the Tianbao period, in fact, we originally had three sets of "Diamond Sutra" boards, the board in the Shenlong period was damaged by insects, only two sets are left, and now the front is printed with the board of the Great Calendar, and this set of plates during the Tianbao period is used as a backup."

"How many boards are there?" Guo Song asked.

"There are a total of 2,000 sets of boards here, mainly Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, all of which are commonly used boards, many poems and texts engraved by individuals are not here, we also have a warehouse in Feng'anfang, there are four or five thousand sets of boards over there, but they are not used much, and it is a pity to destroy them, so they are piled up over there."

Guo Song nodded, and walked around the warehouse, the strong smell of Chen Mo in it made everyone a little unbearable, and everyone didn't stay for a long time, and went out of the warehouse directly.

"Where is that?" Guo Song asked, pointing to a larger courtyard on the right.

"Back to Your Highness, there is the Carving Institute, the place where the plate is made."

"Let's go! Look at it. ”

Guo Song was immediately interested, and led everyone to the carving institute, where there are also three large rooms, unusually quiet, only to see more than 20 carvers sitting inside, engrossed in carving boards.

Seeing a distinguished guest coming in, all the craftsmen put down their carving knives one after another.

Guo Song took a look, and the craftsmen inside were not young, basically they were all middle-aged or above, and none of the young people in their twenties and thirties saw them.

"Don't they have apprentices?" Guo Song asked strangely.

"There are apprentices, but the apprentices are not here, they are learning carving in Feng'anfang, and here they are rushing to make engravings, and the Ministry of Scholars commissioned us to print 3,000 copies of "Di Bao".

Guo Song said with some puzzlement: "Di Bao has a maximum of five boards, is it enough for so many people to carve together?" ”

"Your Highness doesn't know, the Ministry of Scholars wants us to print it early the day after tomorrow, so we have to break down the five boards into twenty small pieces, carve a small piece for each person, and then put them together for printing."

This method is good, Guo Song was immediately interested, and hurriedly asked: "Is it a mistake in carving, so you don't need to invalidate the whole board, just invalidate a small piece?" ”

"Back to Your Highness, that's exactly the case."

After hesitating, the steward sighed again and said, "But it's a pity that a small piece also costs a lot of manpower and material resources." ”

"Listen to me, everybody!"

Guo Song clapped his palms 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, everyone quieted down, Guo Song picked up a small board and said, "I think, what if every word on the board is turned into movable type?" ”

The officials next to him couldn't understand what King Jin was saying, but the professional craftsmen understood as soon as they heard it, and the room was suddenly noisy, King Jin's suggestion came too suddenly, and the minds of each craftsman were activated, and they were all talking about each other.

Guo Song is of course talking about movable type printing, which has not been paid attention to since its invention in the Northern Song Dynasty, because it is not practical and necessary.

Just imagine, an article, we use movable type to spell, we need to find thousands of Chinese characters for a long time, not to mention the workload of typesetting, what if an article appears several of the same words? How many '曰', '子' and 'zhi' are needed to print a copy of the Analects?

After the printing is over, you have to dismantle the movable type that you have worked so hard to put together, and you have to print something else, just dismantling, if the shopkeeper suddenly comes and says, "I have to print 50 more copies." ”

Or if you want to print multiple books at the same time, each with hundreds of pages, how many sets of movable type do you have to prepare?

It is not necessary to say that movable type is because a set of engraving plates can be used for many years, and a copy of the Analects can be printed, and only a set of engraving plates needs to be prepared, and as many copies can be printed, and if there is no engraving on hand, you can also borrow it.

There are so many classic Confucian and Taoist explanatory scriptures from ancient times to the present, and there is no need to prepare many engravings, private printing anthologies or, spending money to make engravings, and printing as many copies as you want.

In fact, movable type printing is more suitable for the West, just dozens of letters, easy to spell, easy to find, especially after the emergence of letter typewriters, the real advantages of movable type are fully reflected.

But what Guo Song said at this time is another concept, that is, to improve the effectiveness of the engraving, the engraving engraving of a wrong word, the entire board will be scrapped, and it has been carved in vain.

But if it is a word-by-word engraving, and finally put it together into a complete engraving, when not in use, it is directly sealed with a lid, and it will not be disassembled, and it is still used as a carving plate, so that if you engrave a wrong word, you only need to engrave another word.

In fact, Guo Song's plan is for the carvers to divide a carved plate into four parts and then refine: since it can be divided into four pieces, why can't it be subdivided into one piece of each character?