"Take a look at the Royal Paper Mills."

Out of the weaving mill with the roar of looms, the emperor went to the paper mill, which was also in the south of the city, but it was not actually a real paper mill.

According to the factory director, this is equivalent to a packaging yard.

"Nowadays, our royal paper mill has more than 100 paper mills in more than 20 counties in more than 20 provinces across the country, jute paper, mulberry paper, Teng paper, straw paper, and even new research on bamboo paper and other materials to make paper, which can be said to be extremely rich."

"Your Majesty gave us 1 million guan from the inner library to open a factory and develop a new paper-making process, and we hired excellent craftsmen from all over the country to study it diligently, and now it is very effective. We are not only using shabby linen to make paper, but also began to use wild hemp to make paper, wild hemp has a wide range of sources and sufficient sources, and the cost is low, no need to occupy the field for planting, do not take care of it manually. ”

Paper mills buy a large number of wild hemp from the people, and the people can collect all kinds of wild hemp in the field, and then sell it to the buying merchants, and they can also earn an income, and for the paper mill, the cost of this wild hemp is undoubtedly greatly reduced.

"Your Majesty, now we have formed a large-scale production of hemp paper in Shudi, and we have a large number of hemp paper workshops in Shu to produce all kinds of hemp paper with hemp as raw materials, the process has been continuously improved, the cost has been continuously reduced, and the quality of hemp paper has also improved by leaps and bounds."

"In the Guanzhong area, we use teng leather and leather paper as the main raw materials to make leather paper."

"In the south of the Yangtze River, we mainly produce bamboo paper, after our research, now the bamboo paper process is very mature and stable, the south of the Yangtze River is full of bamboo, the use of tender bamboo paper, its fiber is stronger, the paper toughness is better, and the cost of bamboo paper is much cheaper than hemp, Teng."

The field director proudly told the emperor.

In the past few years, the scale of their paper production has expanded rapidly, and the output of paper production is also quite amazing.

"At His Majesty's repeated requests, we have reduced the price of paper tenfold in recent years."

It's quite staggering, the price of paper has dropped tenfold, what does that mean?

In the past, books were made into volumes in the form of scrolls or folded pages, and the price of books was also extremely expensive.

But paper, ink, and pens are expensive.

Even the imperial court, in which the consumption of paper and ink has become a huge expense.

The emperor previously pulled out millions to invest in research and development of papermaking, improve the process, expand the output, and now some basic paper products have dropped ten times compared with the past, although there are also some high-quality paper, the price is still very expensive, even more expensive than in the past, but after all, for more scholars or public officials, there is no need to use such good paper.

"In the past, the government and the yamen used Teng paper, and several counties that produced Teng paper were cut off, resulting in the price of Teng rising again and again, and the government's paper expenditure was also greatly increased, and even some yamen officials had no paper available. Since His Majesty ordered us to study papermaking, now the imperial court and yamen have switched to hemp paper for office, and the cost has dropped tenfold. ”

"And bamboo paper with engraving printing to print books, but also to make the price of books drop dozens of times, in the past a page of books at least dozens of dollars, but now a page of books only need a few dollars."

In the past, there were 300 poems in a set of poems, divided into four volumes, and the whole book was only more than 30,000 words, but it was sold for dozens of dollars, almost one word and one penny.

Now, the Royal Printing Bureau has used cheap bamboo paper and engraving printing to print thousands of copies at a time, which has greatly reduced the cost, and even the carved plates can be reused.

Now a set of poetry is only two dollars, which is equivalent to five hundred dollars for one volume.

"This is really for the benefit of the world's readers."

As soon as the owner mentioned this, he could not hide his excitement and pride. In the past, almost all the scribes in Luoyang had a starting price of 1,000 yuan per volume, and a volume was 10,000 words. If you copy 10,000 words, you will get 1,000 dollars, but you can know how high the cost is.

Royal Weaving Board, Royal Paper Board, Royal Printing Office, Royal Pharmaceutical Board······· The workshops with the name of royalty have expanded rapidly and grown by leaps and bounds in recent years.

Although the emperor initially invested a lot, the output now is even more amazing.

and the Royal Shipbuilding Board, the Royal Mint, the Royal Maritime Trade Board······· It is also bringing a steady stream of wealth to the emperor.

"Papermaking technology should continue to invest time and energy in research, to develop more paper, try to reduce the cost of paper, the imperial court is now going to carry out a large imperial examination, to Guangxing government, now is collecting all kinds of books in the country, offering rewards for the people to donate books, after these books are collected, the imperial court will send someone to sort out and proofread and even repair and rescue, books are the treasures of our human beings, and they cannot be destroyed and lost."

"After these books are sorted out, they will be collected in the royal library, and for some important books, they will be engraved and engraved and stored in Liujing, as well as the school of Fendao County, even if it is some ordinary books, they will be copied in several copies, stored in the library, and left for future generations."

Not only that, but the emperor had even made the secretary of the ministry responsible for sorting out and classifying all the books that existed in the world, classifying them according to the four major categories of the subset of the classics and histories, and then compiling a catalogue and revising the four libraries.

As for some of these books, such as the Nine Classics of Confucianism and the official histories of various dynasties, Luo Cheng is also planning to publish them separately, which will not only become a must-read book for all officials, students, and scholars in the imperial examination, but also allow more ordinary people to come into contact with and understand them.

And to make these books textbooks, to become books for the people, they have to be cheaper, out of the ivory tower, into the world.

When, when a book only costs a few hundred dollars, or even dozens of dollars, at that time can it be said that there is a real cultural and educational flourishing, although this seems unrealistic, but Luo Cheng does not want to promote him.

The owner took an account book to Luo Cheng, Luo Cheng found that he had invested a million in it, and in the past few years, the Paper Bureau now has more than 100 paper mills, has more than 20,000 paper workers, and will temporarily hire a large number of temporary workers every year, but now there is a surplus.

The investment of one million guan has now come out, and there are still more than 100,000 guan left.

This is still the result of the emperor's repeated requests to bring down the price of paper, seeing this, Luo Cheng couldn't help but exclaim, is it possible that papermaking technology developed rapidly in the past in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, but paper is still so expensive, no wonder those scholars hold the papermaking technology and refuse to promote, it is because this business is too profitable.

Thinking of the recent years, there are often courtiers who play, calling the emperor's internal servants and provincial bureaus, competing with the people for profit, and so on, Luo Cheng couldn't help laughing.

It seems that he, the emperor, touched the cheese of these people, and they were very unhappy.

It is estimated that if he is not the emperor, he is just an upstart, such a fierce operation, I am afraid that he would have been beaten to death by these scholars a long time ago, right?

Competing with the people?

, he developed the royal bureaus within the rules formulated by the imperial court, neither evaded taxes nor evaded taxes, and did not engage in any bullying activities, and even the largest household in Daqin's profit tax, which drove how much tax growth and how many people increased their income.

Not to mention a large amount of investment, which brings technological innovation and industrial upgrading, but these people just pretend not to see it, and just blindly say that the emperor's royal bureau competes with the people for profit.

This Manchu minister, who has no property at home? Whose family depends only on the land and the land? Basically, no one is like this, every family has more or less other industries, or engaged in lending and mortgages, or engaged in trade, or engaged in workshop production, who gave up this piece?

Luo Cheng wondered if he was going to issue a decree prohibiting officials from doing business with their families?

Didn't they say that they should compete with the people for profit, then they are officials, and they should not compete with the people for profit.

However, the emperor still only shook his head, and estimated that even if a decree was issued, it would be invalid, after all, it had been a long time for officials to not be allowed to do business, but they had a way to bypass it, such as letting the people of the side branch clan or relatives, or even only enter the cadre shares, or even simply find an agent, and not even leave a name.

Compete with the people for profit.

The loudest ones are those scholars and ministers, and the nouveau riche won't shout, because everyone is busy making money and making a fortune.

Perhaps, he can ask the Imperial Observatory or the Imperial City Division to check the details of the loudest gang to see if they are really clean.