Red sleeves add fragrance to the night reading!

But any man, more or less, has fantasized about this scene.

The sandalwood in the incense burner and the body fragrance of the daughter's house seem to be some kind of special enjoyment that only exists in the ancients.

But six years after coming to Wanli, Shi Yiwen finally knew the reason.

This was an era when there were no electric lights, and when I read at night, I could only use the dim light of oil lamps.

The most annoying thing is not the dim light of the oil lamp, nor the black smoke coming out of the lamp, but the constant need to pick the wick from time to time. It is these trivial things that make people unable to separate.

The ancients said that the red sleeves added fragrance, in fact, it was just for practicality, at least someone picked the wick on the side, since the lamp was extinguished, it was also distracted.

After experiencing several night readings, even if he had nothing to do, Shi Yiwen rarely experienced the hard work of reading and writing in the dim oil lamp.

If it weren't for the fact that it was too eye-catching, I'm afraid he would have come out of the supermarket with a small table lamp. After all, the evenings are so boring that there is no other pleasure than reading a book.

In this era without the Internet, reading books is the only way to relieve the boredom of life, in addition to the books in the library in the space, he also likes to buy books.

Only in this era will you know how developed the publishing industry was in the Ming Dynasty, which was the most active and prosperous period in the history of ancient publishing. In the area of Sanshan Street alone, there are no less than 100 bookstores, each of which publishes a variety of books, and the content of the books covers a wide range of topics, from the subset of scriptures and poems to the encyclopedia of agriculture and industry to the laws of the imperial court.

When he has nothing to do, Shi Yiwen always likes to go to the bookstore on Sanshan Street to buy books, but it is only a few months of work, and the books bought from Sanshan Street fill several rooms, and the bookcases that extend from the ground to the roof are made by Shi Yiwen in accordance with the style of later generations, the style is very simple, the camphor wood bookcase is not even painted, this kind of forest head is the best to prevent silverfish from eating books.

The reason why he will buy books, in addition to passing the time to read by himself, Shi Yiwen also has an idea, that is, to collect as many books as possible, this idea may be because he has not been able to let go of the Manchu Qing Dynasty through the revision of the "Four Libraries of the Whole Book", the destruction of Chinese civilization, all destruction, extraction, stripping and the like, not to mention, the most insidious thing is to delete the content of ancient books. A large number of precious historical materials have been tampered with or destroyed, which has to be called a cultural catastrophe in Chinese history.

After the completion of the "Siku Quanshu", which was admired by many "people", there were only 3,462 kinds of books left in China's 5,000-year-old civilization, and there was nothing else......

Perhaps, it is precisely because of the understanding of this "great cause" that Shi Yiwen has always had the idea of collecting books in his heart, after all, books are the inheritance of civilization.

"Oh, Shi Gongzi, you are a coincidence......

As soon as the front foot entered the "Shide Building" (1), the shopkeeper Sun in the building hurriedly greeted him, in Sanshan Street now, there are few people who don't know Shi Yiwen, after all, there are really few people like him who buy books and don't ask about the category.

"Yo, shopkeeper Sun, what good books do you have?"

Shi Yiwen said curiously.

"Good book, and more than one."

After speaking, Shopkeeper Sun led Shi Yiwen to the bookshelf, pointed to the books on the bookshelf and said.

"Shi Gongzi, this is a while ago, our owner just copied the twelve books from Wenyuan Pavilion through the relationship of fellow villagers, which is the only one in Nanjing."

"Oh, Wen Yuan Pavilion copied it, then I have to take a good look."

As soon as he heard that it was a book copied from Wenyuan Pavilion, Shi Yiwen suddenly became interested, Wenyuan Pavilion is the collection of books in the Ming Dynasty, according to the record of the orthodox six-year "Wenyuan Pavilion Bibliography", a total of more than 7,000 kinds of books were collected, most of them were exquisite books since the Song and Yuan Dynasties. For the publishers of the Ming Dynasty, the Wenyuan Pavilion collection was their publishing treasure. After all, all the bookstores in Daming are facing a similar situation, and printing books is not worrying about sales, but there is a lack of manuscripts, especially good manuscripts.

The bookstore of the Ming Dynasty prints everything, what subsets of scriptures and history, what medical books and agricultural books, what Taoist Buddhist classics, as for the poetry and literature of the people of the time and even the selection of scientific research articles, they must print books, and the number of them published every year is huge. However, in the absence of manuscripts, the booksellers set their sights on Wenyuan Pavilion, which has a large collection of books, although it is not open to the people, but money can make ghosts grind, and the booksellers naturally have a way.

The Beijing officials were poor, and the booksellers were rich, so they asked the officials to copy on their behalf at a high price, and then published them, and a complete industrial chain had already been formed.

"It's all from the Department of Diagrams?"

After taking the book and looking at it, Shi Yiwen couldn't help but be a little disappointed, the collection of books in Wenyuan Pavilion was divided into the Holy System Department, the Canon Department, the Scripture Department, the Officials Department, the Sub-Department, the Collection Department, the General Collection Department, the Class Books Department, the Jinshi Department, the Picture and Scripture Department, the Music and Law Department, the Character Department, the Science Department, the Song Department, the Biography Department, the Skill Department, the Zhiyan Department, and the Miscellaneous Department 18 departments. The Department of Illustration is just one of them.

"Don't you have a book from the Crafts Department?"

"Childe, Wenyuan has eighteen books, and there are only a few of the most popular, many of them are too biased, if Childe is interested, next time Xiao Lao'er will talk to the owner and let people copy a copy, but the price is ......"

"The price is easy to say!"

Hearing this, Shi Yiwen said with a smile.

"Send these books to your home, and if there are books like this in the future, just send them directly."

As he spoke, Shi Yiwen flipped through the book in his hand again, it was a novel, and he had no interest in novels all along.

Yo, I'm very familiar, I've seen ...... "movie" before I crossed.

"The Legend of the Lamp Grass Monk."

"Shi Gongzi ,......"

Seeing the book in Shi Yiwen's hand, Shopkeeper Sun's expression was slightly embarrassed.

"Selling ancient books is not as good as selling current texts, and printing current texts is not as good as printing novels", in the final analysis, there are more laypeople in this world. ”

Shopkeeper Sun's explanation made Shi Yiwen smile and look at the books in the bookstore, many of which were similar novels.

"Is it easy to sell a novel like this?"

"Childe, look at this bookstore......"

Pointing to the bookstore on the upper and lower floors, the shopkeeper Sun was also direct.

"There are three floors up and down the Shide Building, and there are no less than 100 kinds of books printed every year, ...... 90% of which are all kinds of novels, which the people like to read."

Shopkeeper Sun's words made Shi Yiwen curious.

"Hundreds of thousands of copies! How many prints are made? Are there so many people watching? ”

"Childe, what did you say? How many people in the world don't read novels? ”

Suddenly, Shi Yiwen thought of a few little girls in the family, they seemed to read novels, and they could understand it, which ...... No, doesn't it mean that the literacy rate in ancient times was very low?

Can...... If the literacy rate is low, why do all kinds of popular novels sell well?

The premise of reading novels is to be literate, and if the people are illiterate, who will the novels sell to? The premise of a best-selling novel is that most people can read and write in order to understand it.

Before the liberation, although there were this "everyone" and that "everyone", it seemed to be bullish, but in fact, how many of their novels were circulated? The era when real novels sell well is not still the 80-90s after the change, with millions of copies at every turn, and as for the pirated version, it is several times that of the genuine version, what is the reason why novels sell well and are popular? Isn't it because of dozens of education after the founding of the People's Republic of China, ordinary people have gone to school and read books before they can understand novels!

Suddenly, in the bookstore, Shi Yiwen thought of another thing, and thought of why the Yuan Dynasty and the Qingming Dynasty were all spread in the world with opera and scripts (storytelling), because the people were generally illiterate, and natural opera and storytelling naturally flourished. Because the people are illiterate, most of them can only listen to dramas and listen to commentary. As for the novel...... Who will see if the people are illiterate?

Looking around at the surrounding bookshelves, as well as the novels on the stalls, Shi Yiwen suddenly realized that these novels were not also symbols of cultural prosperity in the Ming Dynasty to a certain extent?

"Shopkeeper Sun, how many novels are there in our building, send one to me, and if there are new novels in the future, send them the same!"

(1) The bookstore of the Ming Dynasty was often named after the ** building, such as the Shide Building and the Wanjuan Building, which were the names of the bookstores on Sanshan Street at that time. Don't get me wrong.