Li Su has been recruited, and he will be able to stay in Beijing for a long time.

After two days, nothing major happened, so he went to Zong Zhengqing to go through the "entry procedures" to familiarize himself with the situation, and then continued to complete his work of writing, engraving, and printing books in his spare time.

Two days later, on the first day of the third month, it was the date of the great court meeting on the fifth day of the imperial court.

Counting the days, it has been a whole month since Li Su traveled to this world. I stayed in Beijing, and I also had more than ten days before and after.

Emperor Ling is now desolate in political affairs all year round, but the court meeting will still be held. It's just that the emperor flashed when he showed his face slightly, and the specific affairs were initially handled by the secretary of state and handed over to the ten permanent servants for decision.

The first emergency document of Youzhou Assassin Shi Taoqian was sent four days ago, and he missed the last court meeting, so the rewards and punishments for related emergencies were naturally discussed at this court meeting.

The secretary and the ten permanent servants played a closed-door game, and finally reached a balance.

Tao Qian did not reward or punish for the time being, and still temporarily stayed in the post of assassin in Youzhou, and asked him to make meritorious contributions to stabilize the situation in Youzhou first, so as not to spread the erosion rapidly.

However, everyone knows that Tao Qian, the assassin of Youzhou, will not be long in coming, and he will be transferred away under the pretext of a few months at most.

Gong Qichou, the captain of Wuhuan, hastily led Wuhuan, who was stationed in Yuyang, to the south to meet Zhang Chun ten days ago. It is feasible to live in the Yongguan area in later generations, and the Wuhuan Nanqiao King under his tent suddenly made a difficulty, and Zhang Chunli should cooperate with the outside, kill Gongqi Chou, and kill the Han people who dispersed the descendants of Gongqi Chou's tent.

At this court meeting, the tone was also officially set, and everything was pushed on Gong Qichou, a dead man who had died in battle, thinking that his royal majesty was unknown, and he withheld the Wuhuan food and salary, and did not notice the dissenting intentions of the Wuhuan people.

At the same time, the court meeting also officially discussed a result of Liu Bei, Pan Feng, Zhang He and others who had taken the lead and pursued Zhang Chun before.

Pan Feng and Zhang He had less credit, or there was a certain amount of fault in their actions, but on the whole, the merit outweighed the fault, and they were each rewarded with some money, but they were not promoted.

And Liu Bei has the greatest credit, because he was the first to take the lead, and he still killed all the way through the area where the Black Mountain thieves were entrenched, risked south to report the news, and the combat performance of chasing and killing Zhang Chun was also heroic and brave.

In the end, the court decided to change Liu Bei from the lieutenant of Anxi County to the magistrate of Guangchang County, with a rank of 400 stones, which was two levels higher than the original. (Anxi County Lieutenant is 300 stones, and he has to rise to 400 stones, and then to 400 stones)

The reason why the magistrate of Guangchang County only has 400 stone is because this county is relatively small - counties with less than 10,000 households have only "county magistrates", and according to the number of households, they range from 400 stone to 600 stone. Only counties with more than 10,000 households have "county orders", ranging from 600 stones to 1,000 stones.

Guangchang County is the northernmost county in Zhongshan, located in the upper reaches of Laishui (equivalent to Laiyuan County in Baoding in later generations), this county is in the Yanshan Mountains, there are very few household registrations, only about 5,000 households, so the county magistrate is relatively worthless.

In addition, according to the previous deployment of Zhang He to intercept Zhang Chun, at that time, due to the lack of official and military troops, only the southern area of the border between Zhongshan County and Zhuo County, that is, the coast of Yishui, was blocked, and there were no troops to block Laishui.

So in the end, Zhang Chun did escape from Guangchang County along Laishui. The local officials in Guangchang either followed Zhang Chun as a thief, or were killed and martyred by Zhang Chun.

Therefore, the officials in the officialdom of Guangchang County have basically been emptied and many official vacancies have been vacated.

Only then did the court decide to let Liu Bei, who knew the soldiers and was good at fighting, go to be the magistrate of Guangchang County, so that he could be responsible for blocking the first line of Laishui and preventing Zhang Chun from spreading back to Jizhou along this road after he became big in Youzhou.

As for Li Su, his name was also mentioned in the court meeting, but later I heard that Liu Yu of the great Zongzheng had already recruited him as the princess of Zongzheng Mansion and the rank of 300 stones, so he would not deal with it separately, but just posthumously recognized and recorded.

……

It's a pity that the imperial court's appointment to Liu Bei was not officially issued.

Because Liu Bei has long been out of the position of county lieutenant in Anxi, even if he sends the appointment, it will be in vain.

The day after the court meeting, Li Su, as a "former colleague of Liu Bei", used appropriate channels to euphemistically report to Yousi, saying that Liu Bei had abandoned his official position and returned to his hometown and organized the township to fight against Zhang Chun.

Among the divisions, in fact, a few people already knew the news in advance, after all, Liu Bei had been away from Beijing for nearly ten days. But when the game is needed, they can only pretend to be confused, and wait for Li Su's "official report" before pretending to "suddenly realize".

The acting is also very tiring, Liu Yan's forces, it is estimated that a lot of resources have been spent behind this, and they think that Liu Bei and Li Su are being manipulated like marionettes.

At the same time, after Li Su officially gave feedback on the above situation, two days later, the first batch of parchment paper that Li Su had ordered in Zhen's workshop to prevent printing and dyeing had also been officially made and dried and ready for printing.

The raw materials of this batch of paper were not fully soaked, and it only took half a month to produce them, so the life of the paper made will be a little shorter, but it is no problem to print things.

The engraving has also been carved in the process of waiting for the paper, and it will be printed as soon as the paper arrives-

In the process of engraving, of course, there were also some technical problems, such as at the beginning, Li Su did not take into account the words carved out of the Yin engraving, and they were reversed after printing.

But these problems are easy to solve, Li Su asked Zhong Xuan to copy it again on a very thin silk silk, and also gave Zhong Xuan an extra copy fee. Because silk silk is better than paper, and the back of the silk can be clearly printed after writing, so the silk is covered on the wooden board in turn and the carpenter follows the reverse lettering, and the engraving can be carved out of the book.

Li Su also made a drum-shaped tool wrapped in a sponge-like ink-absorbing material to brush the engraving plate, so that the ink would not be stained with too much parchment paper.

In short, after some tossing, the first batch of Yin scroll books with white characters on a black background in the world were finally printed.

On the third day after the unsuccessful attempt to confer an official title on Liu Bei, these books began to circulate in Luoyang.

The original seller was the Zhen family's shop, and they sold finished books just like they originally sold paper.

After all, in this era, there was no book business, everyone bought paper and copied it by themselves, and even if there was a transaction, it was bought and sold between readers, and no merchant sold it in bulk.

……

The fourth day of the third month, that is, the day after the sale of "Filial Piety Record".

Li Su went to the yamen early in the morning to order something, dealt with some affairs, and waited for the time to catch official business, so he skipped out of work. Sneak to the Zhen family's business and ask the steward Zhang Liang about the sale of books.

Zhang Liang's attitude towards Li Su is really two-sided.

On the one hand, I am very grateful to Li Su for inventing this new business (although it is still kept secret from the Zhen family's technology), and it seems that the overall industry has a bright future.

But on the other hand, the quality of the original book was really not good, and it didn't sell very well.

Zhang Liang told the truth: "Sir, since yesterday, there are many people who have come here to see the freshness, and many people have tried to read it, and they also think that the story is wonderful, and it is also quite edifying and thought-provoking." However, many people feel that the price of this book is too expensive, and it is not beneficial to study in the Shi Journey, so they are reluctant to spend money to buy it. ”

Li Su had a certain psychological preparation for this temporary result, but he didn't expect that the main reason why everyone didn't buy it was because it was expensive.

He patiently asked, "Is this book still expensive?" Just selling paper, such a long scroll, Cai Hou paper costs more than ten yuan, and Zuo Bo paper costs thirty yuan. The Zuobo paper I made is better than the ordinary Zuobo paper, and the paper is sold for forty or fifty dollars, because of the scarcity, I'm afraid it's not too much, right?

I also got the words up, and I only charge more than 100 yuan a roll, is it expensive? This volume is thousands of words, find a document to copy, slow hands have to copy for a few days, the time of the reader, a day must not be at least a hundred yuan wages? ”

Li Su analyzed it very pertinently, and once thought that the people of the Zhen family would not do business and would not persuade customers to find reference objects, which led to the customer's refusal to pay money.

In addition, some people may think that a piece of paper is too expensive to sell for tens to tens of dollars - but in fact, the paper of this era is very long, that is, as wide as the rice paper of later generations, narrower than the rice paper, but longer.

Because the habit of writing books in the Han Dynasty has not yet been born from bamboo slips, bamboo slips are rolled up in a long row of bamboo pieces, and the old habits are difficult to change after there is paper, so they are still made into long scrolls. Therefore, books are based on "volumes", and a long piece of paper is a book when it is written full of volumes.

Before Cai Hou paper, a silk silk of such an area cost at least a few hundred dollars. Paper is only sold for a dozen to dozens of dollars a roll, which is already more than ten times cheaper than the cost of writing on silk. Everyone's psychological price is based on silk silk, so the selling price of paper is also very recognized.

In the face of Li Su's analysis, Zhang Liang patiently explained: "Sir, your book, counting paper money and labor costs, is indeed not expensive, in the final analysis, it is still the subject matter. Readers spend a lot of money to buy books and read books...... After all, the purpose is to be beneficial to the career, but if it's just a story, it's just a matter of reading and remembering it.

If you are willing to sell scripture books, I can guarantee that your sales will increase at least dozens of times. With the number of readers in Luoyang City, as long as our family is alone, "Spring and Autumn" will sell hundreds of volumes a day. ”

Sales have skyrocketed dozens of times, and only then can we guarantee that hundreds of rolls will be sold a day. It can be seen that Li Su's "Filial Piety Record" can only sell more than a dozen volumes a day, and less than a thousand volumes a month, which can only cover such a small number of readers.

Fortunately, Li Su knew that he had a backhand.

He patted Zhang Liang on the shoulder: "Don't worry, wait and see for two more days." Tomorrow, it will be the day of the court meeting again, and I believe that in a few days, this set of books will be a big seller, and when the time comes, there will definitely be nobles to help. ”

Zhang Liang was stunned: "Really? For such a thing as reading, even if there are nobles to help, you can't force the scholar to buy it, right? Unless Taixue stipulates that everyone should read this book, it is possible to sell it. But Taixue is too often in charge, how can those noble people care about these filthy and mundane affairs. ”

Li Su's eyes lit up, and he secretly thought that this Zhang Liang was a lucky general who did business, and Flegg stood up well.