There were two wooden huts, a wooden hut and a straw hut used as a hut in the courtyard, and a total of five people lived here, including a craftsman, an apprentice, and three veterans who had been wounded and resettled from the army.

Seeing the steward and Otto coming in, the five people immediately put down their work and came up to salute, especially the three veterans who had been injured and retired were even more excited to see Otto.

Otto took the initiative to greet a few people, and also talked about the three wounded veterans.

"Lord Odo, this wooden house is their house, and they are not allowed to go out of the courtyard on weekdays, so they live in this house, and the wooden shed is full of paper-making materials, and the main place for making paper is that wooden house, please come with me." The steward brought Otto into the sturdy wooden house.

The first thing that catches your eye when you enter the door is a huge iron pot and stove, and there is still firewood burning in the hearth, and a pot full of bark is steaming in the large iron pot.

Next to the iron stove was a hydraulic hammer sticking in from the back wall, and the hammer was constantly pounding the bark of the tree that had become a rotten tree in the large stone mortar.

Next to the big stone mortar is a large wooden water tank, and next to the water tank are neatly stacked fifty or sixty wooden frames that are arm long and vertical, and each wooden frame has a thin cotton gauze net.

"Odo-sama, after two years of exploration and countless failures, we have now basically mastered the papermaking process taught by adults. To put it simply, it is divided into eleven processes. ”

"The first step is to scrape off the green bark from spruce, fir, beech, oak and other high-quality woods left over from the carpentry workshop when making spear shafts and shields.

The second step is to dry the bark: hang the peeled bark in the yard to expose it to the sun, dry it and store it for later use.

Step 3: Soak the dried bark in the river and let it soak to remove impurities until the bark is completely soft.

The fourth step is to mix the ash: first use a sieve to sieve the plant ash, and then put the soaked soft bark in it, so that the plant ash is evenly attached to the bark, this step determines whether the paper is white, we have tried more than 100 times to succeed.

Step 5: Steam: Put the ash bark in a pot of water, cover it with a burlap cloth, and steam it over a firewood fire. The boiling time is generally more than a day, until the bark is cooked and rotten.

Step 6 Washing: After the bark is boiled thoroughly, the boiled bark is picked into the stream, and the river water will wash away the grass and wood ash attached to the bark, and at the same time, wash it continuously by hand, and clean up some impurities and hard objects until there are no impurities.

Step 7: Put the cleaned bark into a stone mortar and beat it repeatedly with a hydraulic hammer until the bark can naturally disperse in the water.

The eighth step is to scoop the pulp: first fill the wooden jar with seven full of water, and then pour the slurry mashed into the water tank and stir it repeatedly, and then use the paper mold sieve framed by fine cotton gauze to salvage the pulp in the water, and after the pulp is precipitated to the white gauze, slowly tilt the paper mold sieve to let the water drain and lift it to the sun.

This process can only be done by our craftsmen, because the slightest carelessness can leave the paper with different thicknesses, and some even fail to form at all.

Step 9: Dry the paper: Lift the pulped paper together with the paper mold sieve to the sun for exposure.

Step 10: When the paper is dry, use a porcelain bowl with smooth and complete edges to gently polish the back of the paper mold to make the paper attached to the white gauze side smoother and more colorful.

The final step is to peel the paper: after the paper has dried, a corner is torn by hand, and then the whole sheet is gently removed with a smooth piece of wood.

After the paper is removed, the fineness is checked, and all those that meet the requirements are locked in the big iron box and handed over to the civil affairs officer to be sealed in the wooden castle vault, and those that do not meet the requirements are torn up and thrown into the iron pot for re-steaming.

As he spoke, the steward took out a key from his waist and opened the large iron box, which already contained half a box of white paper.

Otto crouched down and picked up a piece of paper, which was light and dense, and the surface was smooth and white, smoother than a girl's skin compared to the yellow, rough, and thick straw paper at the beginning.

"Lord Odo, the top fifty sheets were just removed yesterday, and they are the best paper we've ever gotten. In addition to God, only adults can perform such miracles. ”

The steward, a man of theological education, knew the shock of the papers, which were worth as much as silver coins for the price of a book, and whose value would have been revealed to the world, though twenty thousand fennigs had been spent and countless materials and instruments had been wasted to make them......

The steward remembered another thing, suppressed the excitement in his eyes, hesitated for a long time, and then asked in a low voice to Odo: "Lord Odo, recently the carpentry workshop has been ordered to make some small wooden blocks engraved with Latin letters, and the letters on those small wooden blocks are engraved backwards. What is this made for? Is it related to these papers? ”

Otto's face suddenly sank when he heard this, and he asked softly, "Tell me where you got that from?" ”

The steward was suddenly shocked, knowing that he had said something he shouldn't have said and asked something he shouldn't have asked, "Lord Odo~I~I~"

"Say it! Otherwise, I'll dispose of you on the spot! Otto suddenly became ferocious.

"Yes~ It was said by the steward of the carpentry workshop when he took the civil affairs officer's warrant to my hand and called the paper~" The butler's forehead was already bursting with beads of sweat the size of beans.

"The steward of the woodmill? He's so bold! ”

"Listen to me, if anything happens in this small courtyard, even if the most ordinary process is known to outsiders, you and your whole family's heads don't want to be saved!"

Otto turned and pushed the steward away, and walked straight out of the cabin.

"Yes, yes, yes! The subordinates remembered, remembered, remembered~" The steward wiped the dense sweat on his forehead and looked up at Otto in the distance, with a different look flashing in his eyes......

Wooden Fort in the Valley, the official room on the first floor of the lord's hall, where the civil magistrate Cooper is reporting to Art on the affairs of the territory.

“...... Sir, this year's spring ploughing is completely over, and the 6,000-acre reclamation task you arranged before last year's expedition is expected to be completed before this year's autumn harvest, which is a year earlier than expected, and by the autumn there will be almost 10,000 acres of land in the southern valley of the valley. Due to the popularization of the "manure law", these lands can still support four or five thousand people after paying all kinds of taxes in full. However, after the wasteland was reclaimed, we had to go south through the dense forest before we could have suitable land for us. ”

Art held a quill in his hand to sign a request for additional funds for military uniforms submitted by the command camp of the corps, "I have already explored all the south of the workshop, and there are three open wastelands such as intervalleys less than sixty miles south of the river, plus some scattered inter-river lands and basins, if we have enough strength, we can at least reclaim at least sixty thousand acres of fertile land, and there is a lot of land further south, but it is unlikely that we will be able to run that far for a while." ”

"Sir, I see. I will send people through the dense forest to survey the wasteland south of the workshop during the slack time after the winter wheat is planted. "Cooper's thirst for land today is unquenchable.

Art approved the request for additional uniforms for the textile workshop, then put it aside and picked up another county report from various territories in Tinets County and looked at it a few times, "Cooper, have you seen the county information reported from various parts of the county?" ”

Cooper stared at the birch bark in Art's hand, "Master, this county information is what I have compiled from all over the country, so I have naturally read it." ”

"Is this county situation real?"

"Back to the master, it's mostly true. The lords and squires of all parts of the county dare not provoke you, so they do not dare to deceive you, but the concealment of the land of Dingkou will certainly not be forbidden. ”

"Didn't you order someone to be sent to look for mineral deposits? Our people learned through an unannounced visit that there was a small copper mine in the northern mountains of the county, but the local lord concealed the mine in his submission, and they have been quietly mining it for a profit......"

The quill in Art's hand squeezed tighter and tighter, "Let the Inspector go around and find one or two of the most typical ones to report to me, and I will deal with it myself!" ”

"Yes! Master. ”

"By the way, tell the parish school that in the next two days I will take time to teach those specially trained apprentices, who will become my assistants in controlling the county after training, and I need to meet them more."

Cooper quickly jotted down a few words on the birch bark in his hand.

"Sir, there are two other things I need to report to you. The first thing is that the carpentry workshop has carved fifteen complete sets of Latin letters according to your secret order, and after testing to print words on white paper, we have successfully printed two passages on the first page of the Bible! Cooper said as he handed Art a piece of paper covered with symbols sandwiched between birch bark.

Art picked up the Bible-bearing paper, thrilled, even though the handwriting on the paper was unevenly inked, sometimes thick and sometimes faint, and there was dirt in several places.

But it would be an epoch-making achievement, just like the passage on paper – in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth......

"Master~Master!"

Cooper's cry pulled Art's thoughts back to reality.

"Oh, by the way, you have one more thing?"

"Yes, sir, there is another thing that is also related to this wooden block inscription~" Old Cooper's tone dropped significantly, and his eyes were a little evasive.

"Yes, you say!"

"Master, it's me who has no way to control it, and the matter of the carpentry workshop making printed wood blocks has leaked!" Cooper fell to his knees as he spoke.

The smile on Art's face slowly melted, and his face gradually deepened, "Get up." ”

Art helped old Cooper up, "When did you find out?" ”

"It's noon today. At noon the steward of the weaving workshop came to me at the official office of the wooden castle, and told me that the steward of the carpentry workshop had told him about the wooden blocks of the inscription, and that the night before he had heard some of the craftsmen in the carpentry workshop discussing the matter with the men of the brewery in a drunken manner......

"He was worried that this secret matter would be leaked, so he thought about it~"

"Master, I'm going to rush to the workshop area overnight to deal with this matter!"

Yate's face turned pale, "That mill steward is also a little sober, and knows that someone has stabbed the sky." ”

"You don't have to go, I already know about it, and Ron has already taken the guards to the workshop to deal with this matter just before lunch." Art sat back in his chair and continued to flip through the papers.

Old Cooper knew that this matter had made a big fuss, and he was uneasy, "Master~I~"

"Okay, you are the chief civil official and the official of the workshop, and you will definitely be held accountable for this matter and will confiscate your salary for three months. However, you've been busy with things in the county lately, and you can't be perfect in everything, so you don't have to worry too much. ”

"The two top-secret thaumaturgies of paper and printing will be related to the future of all of us, and I cannot tolerate any problems. Ron will wring out all the people in the know and hand them over to you to deal with, and the woodmill steward must be beheaded, the fang's adjutant will be demoted to the woodmill steward, and the rest of the leakers will be severely punished! The insider issued a gag order. ”

"You ask the construction officer to build another separate courtyard in the workshop area, put the craftsmen who make the printed wooden blocks alone in the small courtyard and send peasant soldiers to guard them, so that the craftsmen can continue to improve, especially continue to study the ink suitable for printing, and you also ask the parish school to arrange the Latin letters in the books to appear frequently, and the most commonly used Latin letters will be engraved on more printing plates in the future."

"In the future, the two courtyards of papermaking and printing will be under the direct jurisdiction of the civil magistrate, and you will personally manage them. Ron will send someone to help you, too. ”

Art remembered the "informant" steward of the mill, "The steward of the mill managed the textile workshop very well, and was immediately promoted to the deputy director of the mill and in charge of the affairs of the textile workshop. ”

"Yes, sir! It's just that the steward of the wooden workshop~" Cooper stopped talking, and finally couldn't help but raise his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

Art looked up at the old man, who was nearly half a hundred years old, and a trace of unbearability flashed in his eyes.

He slowly got up again, picked up the wine glass from the wooden table, poured a full glass of wine and handed it to old Cooper, "Old fellow, our power is getting bigger and bigger, and such things will definitely be indispensable in the future, so let's get used to it slowly." Forget it, Buzz will be back next month, and I'll let him deal with it in the name of the Territory Judge. ”

"Master, I'm a civil affairs officer, and I shouldn't hide from something like this. I'll take care of it! Cooper's eyes suddenly became determined.

Art patted the old man on the shoulder, raised his glass and touched Cooper, "Old fellow, next month is your fiftieth birthday, and little George is clamoring for a lively birthday party for his grandfather Cooper." ”

Cooper was stunned for a moment, and a tear flashed in his eyes......

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Chapter 403: Paper Printing