Li Su asked He Jin for leave on August 7 to delay his departure from Beijing.

Because discussing the marriage with the Zhen family has to wait for Zhen Yan to enter Beijing in person, it will take at least another five or six days.

Considering that the road to Shu is now dangerous, Li Su estimates: Maybe Zhen Yan has already made two preparations when negotiating, such as letting the Zhen family's business also take the opportunity to enter Shu, and transferring some assets and manpower to develop in the past.

The Zhen family, as a wealthy merchant family in the late Han Dynasty, must be very well-informed, knowing that the commerce of Shu County has been very developed in previous years, and the four sects of Shu Confucianism and other local clans have long been intertwined, and outsiders are not allowed to interfere.

However, the variables caused by Liu Yan caused a great damage to the vitality of the Ren family school, which ranked second among the four major sects, and although Dong Fu's family was treated well by Liu Yan, as long as Liu Bei entered in the future, he would definitely wipe out the Dong clan of Shu County on the charge of instigating and plotting against the chief evil. The first and second of the four sects of Shu Confucianism are all ambushed, and the vacated business vacuum and power vacuum are very considerable.

It is more likely that Zhen Yan has asked one or even several of his younger sisters to move from Wuji's hometown to Yecheng in advance, so that after the negotiation is completed, he will directly send some of his younger sisters to Hanzhong with the business manager to settle down, and buy a house first and live in another place-

With the release of the Zhen family in March this year, Zhen Yan's filial piety was officially requisitioned for an official position, and now he is engaged in a grassroots job in Yecheng, and has bought several properties in Yecheng, and it is very convenient for his family to move to Yecheng in advance.

And Zhen Yan's younger brother Zhen Yao is two years younger than him, he is only fifteen this year, and he has not officially become an official yet, maybe he will be cunning and go to Liu Bei to be an official.

Yecheng to Luoyang is still relatively close, and the fast horse round trip takes about eight days. But the young lady and her family had to take the car and hurry slowly, so calculated, the messenger arrived in Yecheng in four days, and the return journey slowly traveled for seven or eight days, but it was not around August 25 to get everything done.

It's been long enough to help Li Su.

The next day after taking leave, on the eighth day of the eighth month of August, while Zhen Yan had not yet arrived, Li Su took advantage of the gap of three or four days to help Cai Yong take care of it first.

After all, he and Cai Yong still have a teacher-student relationship, so even if the relationship between Weng and his son-in-law is confidential, it is still quite justifiable to help Cai Yong on academic issues, and it will not be conspicuous.

After two trips to Dongguan and Lantai, Li Su also found that it was not easy to move a lot of things, mainly because there were too many ancient Janes, and the bamboo was so heavy, and there were at least tens of thousands of bamboo slips in the entire Lantai, and there were many compilations in one set, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that there were hundreds of thousands of compilations-

You must know that in history, when Luoyang was destroyed alone, Cai Yong's own private collection of books had 4,000 sets and tens of thousands of compendiums. Lantai is equivalent to the national library of the Han Dynasty, and it is easy to be dozens of times larger than Cai Yong's personal collection.

Of course, there is a lot of repetition in it. For example, the reason why Cai Yong wanted to compile the "Xiping Stone Classic" is because the four books and five classics copied by each family have dozens of versions because of the different description words, and these versions have to be archived in Lantai, but Taixue Shijing only picks the most authoritative and recognized version to engrave, and the other versions are left in Lantai for academic research and comparison.

The reason why the allusion of "Wen Ji returned to the Han Dynasty" in later generations was praised was mainly because after Cao Cao took Cai Yan back, he asked her if she could find those unique ancient books of Cai Yong, Cai Yan replied, "My father has 4,000 sets of ancient books and miscellaneous books, which are scattered, and the concubine only has to recite one-tenth", and finally wrote down the 400 sets of ancient books she memorized silently, so that those books can be circulated in the world.

If it weren't for this merit, Cai Yan's other cultural achievements alone would not be enough to be called Ban Zhao.

Now that he has to face so many things in such a short period of time, Li Su also has to be in power urgently, and he can't really pay attention to "taking away the authentic works and leaving transcripts".

The five hundred cavalry outside the city, plus the accompanying baggage carts, were not enough to transport hundreds of thousands of bamboo slips, and even if they could be transported, they would be too conspicuous and would be suspected.

Li Su secretly thought: I am only here to preserve the cultural content, not a collection of cultural relics, as long as the content of those unique books is passed on, as for these bamboos...... If it weren't buried in the ground, it would have rotted out in a few hundred years.

Even if it is paper, the papermaking technology of the Sui and Tang dynasties is nothing more than "paper life is not more than a thousand years", and the Li Hou paper that he is now making from Zuo Bo paper is even less life-threatening than Sui and Tang Dynasty rice paper. Therefore, the content of these transcriptions will definitely be transcribed in the future.

"It's better to copy all the words that are only on the bamboo slips on the paper, at least the transportation weight can be reduced by a hundred times, and hundreds of thousands of rolls of paper will not be so conspicuous when you take them out.

The content is all there, and it is considered a great merit, these bamboos, it is a big deal that in the future, the remote control will buy off some of the Tai students and Cai Yong's disciples who stayed in Luoyang, so that when they really encounter a big disaster, they will find a way to spend money and be accommodating. When Dong Zhuo leaves, he will definitely steal the imperial tombs of more than a dozen emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty and loot gold and silver treasures.

But after the looting, there is no special destruction of the tomb building, and when the time comes, let Cai Yong's disciples take the risk of interceding, bury the bamboo slips that are to be burned back into the imperial tomb that has been hollowed out, and then bury the coffins of the previous emperors under the pretext of piling up soil, Dong Zhuo will probably agree - Dong Zhuo just wants money, not specially running against the grain. The bamboo slips are really buried in the imperial mausoleum with good airtightness, maybe it is longer than being kept outside, and there are archaeologists in later generations who are destined to find it, and if they can't find it, forget it, anyway, the content is not lost. ”

Li Su finally decided on the case and asked the people of the Zhen family to dispatch and raise manpower according to this idea.

Cai Yong organized thousands of relatively reliable Tai students to copy day and night, and the Zhen family also produced a group of copyists.

In addition, Cai Yong's engraved Xiping Stone Scripture, two years ago, the Zhen family only copied and engraved a few copies in order to sell books for profit, and it was easy to return to the original. This time, regardless of the cost, I carved all the seven classics on the stone scripture that were not engraved, and the wood carving version was transported away when the time came.

The entire project should be basically completed within half a month, and it will take more than 20 days at most.

Roughly calculated, there are about 100,000 scrolls that need to be copied, thousands of printing engravings, and the rest are not duplicated after Cai Yong's appraisal. The students who were called to copy the books had to copy three or four scrolls a day.

In this process, Li Su also discovered another difficulty in the transportation of large quantities of scroll books, and thought about improving it.

However, when he was only halfway through the thought, he encountered some personal entanglements.

……

On the tenth day of the eighth month, on the third day after coming to Lantai, Cai Yan suddenly found an opportunity to help his father sort out the books he needed to go to Ba County, and took advantage of the fact that there was no one left and right, and blocked Li Su in a library room, and there was no one else left and right.

Cai Yan was in a very lost and panicked state, and when he caught Li Su, he asked, "Senior brother, some people outside know the reason why you asked the general for leave." You...... Are you going to marry Zhen Jiang, or is General Zhengxi going to marry Zhen Jiang, and you are going to marry Zhen Tuo? Just because your marriage contract with me can't be made public, you have to ......"

Li Su's heart warmed, and he hurriedly hugged his sister to comfort: "What do you think, it has nothing to do with me, it's General Zhengxi and General Guan's General Zhang, I'm a matchmaker." ”

Cai Yan's eyes flickered, and he was a little moist: "You are a 21-year-old Zhonglang general, and you are about to add another county guard, but you have always claimed that you have not been married, and the Zhen family wants to marry and is willing to let you go?" ”

Li Su scratched Cai Yan's nose: "That's because I completely resolved the Zhen family's overtures, and his three younger sisters are almost old enough to marry and marry, and they are all arranged by me clearly, they don't have a sister of the right age anymore, of course there is no way." ”

Cai Yan stared at Li Su for a long time, carefully pondered Li Su's eyes, and gradually burst into tears, believing that what he said was true: "Senior brother, you are so good to me, but I can't be your virtuous helper, and I can't help you recently."

What have you been busy with in the past two days, let me help you, with your status, you don't have to copy it yourself...... Besides, your words are still the same, and no one else will believe them when you say them. ”

As she spoke, Cai Yan's expression became lively again, and she seemed to have completely walked out of the worry just now and the subsequent emotion, and it can only be said that the fifteen-year-old girl's mood fluctuates quickly, and she is hot for three minutes.

Li Su said, took some paper rolls, and showed his sister the work he had been busy with in the past two days:

"I've been thinking about it for the past two days, and it's not easy to transport more than 100,000 scrolls to other places, so I wondered if I could change the book to a different way, remove the shaft handle of the scroll, and stack it directly, so that I don't have to roll it in a circle, and when I store it in the box, it takes up several times less space, and it is not easy to be conspicuous."

It turned out that because engraving printing had only appeared for two years, the shape of books in this era had not yet completely emerged from the evolutionary inertia of old-fashioned bamboo slips. The Zhen family and all other booksellers sold books, just like those famous calligraphy and paintings in later generations, a long scroll, two shaft handles at both ends, if the volume was rushed and fluffy, it would take up more space.

You can imagine how much space a famous painting will occupy if it is rolled up, how much space it will have, how many gaps there will be in the middle, and if it is folded or even formed into a thread-bound book, the volume will definitely be several times smaller.

Usually, this indicator is not important, but since Li Su wants to transport so many books as low-key as possible, the volume suddenly becomes important. Because after changing to thread-bound books, assuming that only 200 scrolls could be hidden in a box when it was shipped out, it might now be 500 books, which will be underestimated several times in the eyes of the generals and soldiers of the capital guarding Lantai and Dongguan, and even when they go out of the city gate.

Li Su discussed with Cai Yan: "Senior sister, do you know how to sew?" If we could, let's try cutting the book into narrow pages one foot wide, and turning the original eight-foot long scroll into eight pages, with a cover in front of it, and sewing it together with a needle and thread. ”

Although Cai Yan is a young woman in literature and art, but a well-behaved girl can do needlework, of course she will, after listening to her brother's advice, she felt that this thing was very interesting and meaningful, so she helped cut and sew a book.

However, she was not satisfied with the sewing and suggested: "Since they have all been cut, there is only such a thin copy in my hand, which is awkward, this is the first volume of the Analects, more than 3,000 words, divided into eight pages, and there are four volumes of the Analects.

"Mencius" was originally an eight-foot long scroll of eleven volumes, cut into eighty-eight pages and one foot of pages, and the thickness was just right. The 200,000 words, 60 or 70 volumes, and 600 pages of "Zuo Chuan" are too thick to be sewn together, so let's divide them into six books, and each book should not exceed 100 pages. ”

Li Su had just pondered about this, but he didn't think about it deeply, seeing that his fiancée was careful, of course he was as good as a stream, and the couple were in a library, and the lonely man and widow invented the binding mode of thread-bound books.

After sewing a few samples, Cai Yan also felt that Li Su's ideas were a bit stiff, and put forward two suggestions for improvement:

"Senior brother, "Xijing Miscellaneous Records" and other short books, only a few thousand words, are too thin to bind, and it takes a lot of hands and feet to sew, and it is not good to sew them together with other books. I think it is necessary to remove the shaft handle to save space, and it does not necessarily have to be bound, and it is not very convenient for us to fold and seal directly?

Also, even if those long scrolls are to be sewn, there is no need to cut, after cutting, each piece of paper turns over with words on the front, and only ink stains on the reverse side are ugly, it is better to fold them directly, and sew the back of the two pages together without tearing them apart, which also reduces the reader's number of flips by half, and there are words on both sides and backs. ”

Cai Yan's two brilliant ideas also surprised Li Su.

He then realized that he had preconceived notions, because the books of later generations were printed on both sides, and of course they had to be cut to be sewn into thread.

But now, there is only the technology of single-sided printing and single-sided copying, and the back of the paper does not need to be exposed, so it would be nice to fold and sew.

As for those books that are too thin, they can be stored directly without sewing when folded, which is similar to a butterfly-bound Khmer book - people who have been married in later generations should be familiar with wedding invitations, that is, the kind of folded pages that can be opened like an accordion.

Sure enough, when it comes to making handmade gadgets, girls are more ingenious, Li Su at best provides some prophetic ideas, and the specific practice Cai Yan thinks more beautiful and practical than him.

Butterfly binding book, folded book...... This library, which was all in the Lantai of the National Library of the Han Dynasty, was invented one after another.

The husband and wife sew books together, cut books and fold books, and tinkered with the craftsmanship of the cultural industry, but they were also in a happy mood, and they didn't know the passage of time, but they only felt that they had a soul and a common language.

While tinkering, whenever there was a new idea, Li Su found Zhang Liang, the manager of the Zhen family's firm, and asked him to transfer craftsmen to carry out the rough work of these production links, Li Su and Cai Yan gave samples to teach them how to do it, and let the craftsmen punch holes, bind and sew, cut and seal in batches.

"It's really a blessing to be able to work with my senior brother to drum up so many things that benefit the people of the world. I didn't expect that I would have such a useful day, so I am looking forward to the days after I arrived in Ba County. Cai Yan's heart was full of sweet fantasies.

Good days always pass quickly, and three days later, Zhen Yan rushed to Luoyang and formally talked to Li Su about the large-scale marriage between the Zhen family and Liu Bei's camp.

Anyway, the Zhen family has many daughters, and Zhen Yan also accepted all the conditions as Li Su expected, and prepared to send her sisters and part of the family property disguised as a dowry to Hanzhong.

At the same time, Li Su promised to let his second brother Zhen Yao be an idle master bookkeeper by Liu Bei's side, and he would first experience and learn (Liu Bei's side will divide things and Cao Peng will set up a master book, otherwise there is only one Meng Xin as the master bookkeeper and he won't do anything, which is too wrong.) Zhen Yao can be the master book with another disciple of Zheng Xuan)

After the negotiation was completed, Zhen Yan arranged to pick up her sisters from Yecheng, and around the time when Zhen Yan's messenger returned to Yecheng and the young ladies of the Zhen family were about to set off from Yecheng, there were several messages from Luoyang's side one after another.

"Dong Zhuo's army finally left Hongnong County and entered Henan Yin! Hangu Pass, one of the eight levels of Luoyang, has passed! ”

"I heard that the previous general seemed to have soft ears, and he regretted it, and sent a new waiter to stop Dong Zhuo from stopping, and he was not allowed to cross the pond. Now that they have passed the Hangu Pass, Michi has long been left behind, it seems that Dong Zhuo dares to disobey and disrespect! ”

"Fortunately, the general sent a kind of servant to reprimand Dong Zhuo for the second time, this time to ask him to stop in Gucheng County, forty miles away from Luoyang, and I don't know if Dong Zhuo dares to resist the decree again."

Everyone in the capital became nervous.

——

PS: There will be three shifts today.

After thinking about it, under the three conditions of free addition on that day, I will add one more item: on days when there is an emotional drama, it will also be added to the third watch free of charge. Because the emotional drama is worse than the background farming, war fights, and side plots, and it is even more unhelpful to the main story.

This is also self-spurring to motivate yourself to write as little emotional drama as possible. My current emotional drama basically involves farming and strategy, and I have to write a few sentences, and there is no pure emotional drama. Every time Cai Yan appears, he has a tool man task that must appear.