Section 47 Printing House

The most important equipment in the printing office is the high-speed mimeograph machine. As for several EPSON 24-needle printers, they were also very important in the early days - many wax paper printing used to be typed with these printers, and after the first female typists were trained, the Chinese typewriters brought finally worked, and Zhou Dongtian basically relied on Chinese typewriters to make wax paper.

Now, the Chinese typewriters brought from the old time and space have been dismantled and sealed as STC, the original standard equipment templates, along with several other more haode needle, inkjet and laser printers, replaced by several stupid black thick locally made Chinese typewriters. Several female typists were working in front of the bright windows, and the room reverberated with the sound of typing heads pounding on the pencil plates.

In the next room, around a large table, some people were carving steel plates with iron pens, some were proofreading the proofs that had just been printed, and everyone was very busy -- the printing house was very busy in the group, not only to undertake the printing of thousands of copies of the two periodicals of the Lingao Times every week, but also to undertake the printing of a large number of textbooks, jishu pamphlets, various manuals, and countless documents. The task is very onerous. In addition to the mimeograph machine, several hand-cranked mimeographing machines were also copied for small quantities of printing. Several workers are shaking the machine.

The engraving workshop occupies the largest area here. Zhou Dongtian went in and took a look. When these workshops were first built, they were painstakingly lit. Unable to provide enough artificial light for the workers, the crossing group had to try to make the most of daylight. A lot of thought was put into the design of daylighting. Not only are the windows large in the workshop, but most of the workshops also have skylights. Use blinds and curtains to adjust the light and try to make it as soft as possible.

In front of the window sat a few old carvers, wearing prescription glasses and concentrating on the engraving plates. Engraving is mainly used to print all kinds of bills, blank documents, certificates and the like.

The currency of Lingao - grain negotiable bills and other negotiable securities - were also printed here. Therefore, the engraving and printing workshop is particularly important. When you go to work, you will be guarded by a special person. Before leaving work, all engravings, paper and ink are counted and put back in a special warehouse.

The management system here is very strict, not only there are inventory records for the manufacture, modification and disposal of engravings, but also there is a registration system for each receipt and printing. Clear to each sheet.

Zhou Dongtian went to the mimeograph machine workshop to find Tan Ming - this person is one of the few talents who has ever opened a printing press in the crowd, and he can also distinguish colors - but he can't use it locally.

The high-speed mimeograph machine is housed in a separate workshop and is locked when not in use. Zhou Dongtian originally brought a large number of reserve parts and inks for it, and it is estimated that it can be used for about seven or eight years. In order to serve this treasure bump, every time the seal was opened, it was operated by the patriarch himself, and only a few indigenous apprentices did it.

Tan Ming was washing his hands, he had just finished processing his latest order. It is a dictionary of the official dialect of the Ming Dynasty compiled by the Great Library. The Executive Committee placed a list of 100 copies.

Zhou Dongtian has too many part-time jobs, and now it is mainly Tan Ming who works in Jishu, who is in charge of the printing office. Zhou Dongtian talked to him about the establishment of a printing house.

"You're right, I've never seen a movable type factory like this." Tan Ming shook his head, "I've driven an offset plate machine and also engaged in laser phototypesetting. But I really don't understand the work of typesetting with movable lead type. ”

"You don't have to do it yourself." Zhou Dongtian said, "But my main energy in the future will be on the movable type printing house, and you can take care of the printing office." I sent a letter to the organization department, suggesting that you be appointed as the director of the Bairen Printing Factory. It will probably take a few days for the official appointment to come down. ”

"This ...... Of course...... Xiexie......" Tan Ming said incoherently.

"You're welcome, this is where you do things, and I'm just a part-time job." Zhou Dongtian waved his hand, "Being a factory director is actually almost the same, the key is that you have a name to do things." ”

Zhou Dongtian explained all the affairs to him one by one in the office, Tan Ming looked a little unconfident, and suddenly had to take charge of everything himself, which made him feel a little afraid.

Zhou Dongtian did a good job and hurried to the Ministry of Industry to talk to people about the equipment problem.

Movable type printing sounds very modern, it is almost impossible to see in the modern printing industry, even small printing houses are no longer used, Zhou Dongtian has been in contact with movable type printing factories in the past, and he still knows a little about this system.

Movable type printing is, of course, much more efficient than block printing. However, in traditional societies with no industrial base, the cost is much higher than that of block printing. Jishu is also much more difficult. This is also the reason why Weishenme movable type printing has not been popularized in China. There have been only a few large-scale movable type printed books in Chinese history, and all of them were officially organized. Folk movable type printing has always stayed in the small-scale, simple and low-level printing application. It is rarely used to print books.

For this reason, of course, Zhou Dongtian knew that casting movable type was a jishu job in the first place, and printing a book required a large amount of movable type, which had to be manufactured in advance. And the material of movable type is very particular. Bi Sheng made pottery movable type, which has the lowest manufacturing difficulty and the lowest cost. Therefore, the pottery type was still useful in the 19th century, and the copies of the various places were printed with the pottery type, because the adhesion to the ink was not good, and the handwriting of the printed documents was blurred.

The official documents printed in the Qing Dynasty used copper movable type, and the printing effect was good. But the cost of movable copper type was high - only the royal family could afford it. The value of copper itself makes the emperor can't help but play the idea of copper movable type, and the copper movable type stored in the Wuying Hall in the Qing Dynasty was recast into royal furnishings when Qianlong.

Printers also experimented with other materials to create movable type, including wooden and pewter type. None of the works are good. The requirements of movable type are very high, not only to have wear resistance, but also not too hard, but also to be able to adhere to the ink more haode, the price must be cheap, and it can be used in large quantities. Only lead meets this requirement. However, the simple lead character is still not ideal in terms of effect, and antimony must be added.

Another problem of movable type printing is ink, which has not been solved in the traditional Chinese printing industry - traditional engraving printing uses water-based ink - water-soluble ink with smoke ink as pigment. Water-soluble ink works well on wooden engravings, but it can easily turn into ink beads on movable metal type. In addition, it is not possible to transfer the printing by simple stamping like woodblock printing. Rubbing is a very slow process, in order to ensure that it can be effectively printed, it is necessary to use highly absorbent paper, the result is that there will be ink on the back of the paper, can not be double-sided printing, virtually increase the cost of printing.

Taken together, these factors have resulted in movable type printing not being the mainstream of the printing industry in China.

The new jishu new concept cannot become productive until the right jishu means are found. Zhou Dongtian learned a little bit about the history of the development of printing out of interest, and he had this feeling - the Chinese people put forward countless new jishu new concepts ahead of the times in history, but many of them have remained in the primitive stage: in the middle of the 19th century, the pottery movable type workshops that printed newspapers in various places were no different from Bi Sheng's time

Zhou Dongtian knew that in order to put metal type into practice, he had to first solve the problem of large-scale self-production of printing inks - he remembered that the key was to use oil-based ink, that is, to use oil to adjust the printing ink.

According to the Jishu source, it is best to boil flaxseed oil. It has extremely haode adhesion and dries easily. Therefore, it is still used to prepare oil paints. However, Zhou Dongtian went to the planning institute once and checked all the material catalogs. There is no such thing as flax oil in the inventory and the materials that can be produced and purchased. As for other vegetable oils, including rapeseed oil, castor oil, coconut oil, and peanut oil, they are not suitable.

"I want flax oil." He approached Fa Shilu of the Committee of Agriculture, and as the chief agronomist, he should have a way, "I know Lingao doesn't have one, but you can definitely come up with some locally produced substitute oils." ”

"Oil." It only took Fa Shilu thirty seconds to give him the answer, "Lingao has ** - to be honest, there are not many places without **." But we haven't planted it - the Lebanese should have planted it, and the last time the trade team in the Lebanese region brought back the rope and coarse cloth. ”

So Zhou Dongtian went to the planning institute again. But there is no such thing in the inventory of the Planning Institute - ** oil has a slight hallucinogenic effect after eating, it is inedible, and the local ** has not formed a planting scale, and the Planning Institute does not care about collecting it at all.

Under his fierce pursuit, Wu De couldn't resist it, and finally agreed to put the collection of ** grains on the emergency schedule.

"I'll get the remote exploration team and the trade department to collect it as soon as possible." "But," said Ude, "I don't know if it's going to be a knot - you have to have a schedule, you can't say you're going to ......."

"Then the Executive Committee should not suddenly issue instructions to expand exports."

"Okay, okay, it's our fault." Wu De said helplessly, "The key is that it's too strange for you to get this thing, ** I still have fiber in stock." Grains are never thought of. ”

Solving the ink problem, Zhou Dongtian went to the machinery factory and directly found Zhan Wuya. He asked him to gather all the people involved in the last time he made a Chinese typewriter - this group of people had made lead characters on typeboards last time, and they were considered experienced.

Lead characters need to be manufactured in large quantities, and the easiest and cheapest method of mass manufacturing is, of course, casting. The specific method is to use a hard metal, such as steel, by the carver to carve a reverse embossed lettering - the male mold, and then use the male mold to stamping the female mold on the soft brass. Then the lead water is injected into the negative mold and cast into words.

It's just a simple principle, but there are actually a series of details: the lead characters must be the same size, and the sockets must fit perfectly into each other so that they can be arranged neatly on the typesetting. This requires special process equipment to ensure it, and there must be special word repairers to grind and process. Due to the very large amount of lead words, casting lead words must be a continuous large-scale work, and the word molds must have a special process for rapid demoulding...... The complete set of lettering was gradually improved from the 15th century onwards, and by the 18th century it had reached a high level.

Zhou Dongtian intends to build equipment according to the level of an 18th-century printing house based on the existing industrial standards of the group.

Several technicians surrounded Zhou Dongtian's copy of the Jishu materials from the big library, and they were judging the products. Obviously, to manufacture lead characters in batches, it is not enough to carve a steel mold for each word, and the loss of this thing is very fast, and the steel mold must be constantly replenished. This makes it a bit difficult for everyone: carving steel fonts is a very boring thing to do, quite boring.

"I remember the common word was eight hundred. If you want to print, you still have to prepare the amount of 3,000 words. Jiang Ye calculated, "Each word needs an average of four or five steel molds, and it will take tens of thousands of steel molds to make alone." This has to be made in the Year of the Monkey. ”

"More than that." Sun Li shook his head, "The printed book must be a combination of simplified characters and traditional characters, and the two add up, when the words are at least five or six thousand." Moreover, there are a lot of rare words in ancient books, and these rare words also have to make one or two steel molds for backup. ”

"Letterers can recruit engravers, who are themselves carvers." Zhou Dongtian said.

"But it's very inefficient." Sun Li looked at it for a long time and said, "I don't know how many words the letterer can carve out in a day, but the efficiency will not be too high, and the pouring of this stamped die must be carried out by hand - and the work of demoulding and file repair must be added. He asked, "How did you get a modern movable type printing plant?" ”

"There is a special casting and row machine. Casting, typesetting, and dismantling are all automatic, and one person can operate them. Electricity or steam, of course. Zhou Dongtian said and took out a few drawings, "But this machine is quite complicated, almost at the level of the early twentieth century." ”

What he brought out was a Leno-type typesetting machine invented by the Americans. This machine was used from 1890 to 1940, and although it was mainly used to print newspapers and magazines, it was also widely used to print books in the United States.

A few got together and studied for a long time.

"There is no problem with replicating the machine, but the structural strength and tolerances of the material are difficult to control. The machine is also quite sophisticated. Xiao Gui said, "It can be made, but the quality cannot be guaranteed." ”

"I mean easy first, then hard. It is difficult to manufacture the cast-row machine, so it will be built later. Sacrifice efficiency first with a simple process. Sun Li said, "Industrial upgrading is not a day or two work,"

"I have an idea," said Liang Xin, who had not spoken, "and we thought the other way around—we had a precise stamping jishu that people of this era did not have." Simply use the stamping method to make the lead type. ”

His idea is to use high-strength steel to make a die, and then use the die as a stamping head to directly stamping a lead plate of a certain thickness, and directly flush the lead characters off the lead plate.

"In this way, we can save the casting process, and a stamping die can punch hundreds of words in one go. Much more efficient. Liang Xin said, "The post-processing of the stamped workpiece is also much less. You don't need to do that much to file. ”

"That's going to have to make thousands of dies." Jiang Ye frowned, "Besides, you used high-strength steel to make a die, what material did you use to make a punch?" Is it possible to let the carvers carve high-strength steel directly? ”

"I think it's okay, that's what they eat. Even diamond and jade glass can be carved, but weishenme steel can't be carved? Liang Xin said, "It seems to be a little too late in terms of speed." Or use the machining center directly to make a typeface. ”

"You're thinking, but you're not going to work." Zhou Dongtian shook his head, "The word you rushed out like this is just a word, without a word base, it is impossible to arrange it neatly on the typesetting board." And what should I do if there is no radical on the side? ”

Liang Xin scratched his head a little disappointed, he didn't expect this question.

"When speed is required, the first convex dies can be made directly on a machining center. A few days of hard work is enough. Sun Li said, "It's okay to be able to top the stage, and then let the carvers slowly get acquainted with it." ”

"It's a pity that we're too far away from Europe." Zhou Dongtian said. "The Dutch will already have a professional typecasting workshop, able to produce all kinds of standardized letters and symbols for the printing house."

"The Dutch are making letters, do you want him to make kanji?" Jiang Ye touched his chin, "If you don't talk to the executive committee and recruit a group of Dutch typesmiths, it's too late." ”

"I guess I can, he'll just think it's a figure." Zhou Dongtian said with regret, "It's just a long way away, even if you send someone to wait for them to come to Lingao now, it will be at least two years later." ”

Sun Li said: "Aren't the Dutch in Batavia? Since the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company is here, they must print something, right? There will definitely be printing workshops, and according to you, the casting of words must be carried out all the time, and there will be a few casters. Just go and kidnap people and equipment back. Shut up and help us print. ”

"I always felt that this method was too backward." Jiang Ye looked at it for a long time, "There should be a simple way - you must know that we are standing on the shoulders of our predecessors, and so many inventions and creations can always choose the right one." Let's think about the process again. ”

"The sooner it happens, the better." Zhou Dongtian said. If you can recruit skilled casters, it is much stronger than a half-baked person like himself to train workers, after all, how to typeset, how to print, he has also seen it, really let himself go on the whole process to guide the work of his own heart is still a little unscored.

Zhou Dongtian continued his departmental travels and official applications, and he approached the Ministry of Colonization and Trade and handed over documents on the recruitment of Dutch printers to Batavia. The document stresses that whether it is coerced or voluntary, it is good to bring people in anyway. equipment together to get the best.

Skade is organizing a trade expedition to Southeast Asia. Zhou Dongtian's request was incidental, and he agreed at the moment. said that as long as there is something in the local area, he will do everything possible to get people here.