Just when the house in Guangzhou was thinking about the situation, and the small river outside Guangzhou also ushered in a group of visitors of different shapes.

Among them, the oldest one with a wide robe in a green shirt is Qiu Eun, an Annan scholar who is over the age and still resolute in spirit, but still has a good sense of humor, and who also follows the military praise discipline;

Then, no matter where he is, he always maintains a meticulous image, and looks like a good gentleman, Fan Xuan, who is now the head of Hucao;

The youngest one looks quite elegant and handsome, but there is a faint sense of depression and sadness; He is none other than the former celebrity (spy) Pi Rixiu, who has recently been loosened from the scope of the lockdown;

Accompanied by Fan Zuo and Qiu Eun, who were important officials of the Left-behind Division, they came to a workshop on the edge of the small river; Nowadays, along the tributaries of the Xiaojiang River near Guangfu, many new hydraulic workshops and workshops have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, driven by huge water wheels and rotating shafts.

It's just that with the sound of tinkling operations all day long and the roar of the mechanism turning and crashing, there are many sewage streams of different shades flowing down the ditches and pools into the rivers, making the water near the shore a little colorful.

It is not surprising that they are quite knowledgeable people, you must know that before this, all kinds of waterwheels, dragons, water mills, and water mills have frequently appeared in the application of the people; It's just that no one thought that a lot of manpower could be replaced by such a centralized use of a more compact and compact structure.

This time, they came to a special workshop, and if they got a little closer, they could smell the heavy smell of carbon ink mixed with castor oil; As you get closer, you can smell the smell of pig iron and paper mixed together.

After entering the room, the noisy voices and the strong smell of hot air rushed to the face, as well as the mechanisms that were running around like small buildings, with many large and small hubs and shaft connecting rods, and the workers and craftsmen who wore uniform colors with solemn and serious expressions all showed that this was a workshop that used water power to print.

"Skin, this is what I have been trying to call you to see these days."

And on the road, Qiu Eun, who has been unraveling Pi Rixiu, is also rare to take a light and upright way.

"If you have any thoughts or thoughts, don't hesitate to ask."

However, Pi Rixiu had already opened his mouth wide and lost his voice on the spot, although he had the experience of buying his own book club and printing workshop in his early years and corresponding regrets, but it was only to ask a senior woodmaker to carve some woodblocks, and then use the bluestone ink to emboss on the paper; But how can I ever see this kind of scene where hundreds of people are running at the same time to operate a huge machine.

"Excuse me, what's this name?"

It took him a long time to come back to his senses, and he pointed to a whole plate of things that a servant had taken from the shelves of the four-walled corridors.

"Mr. Hui's words, this is a movable type carved from lead and copper casting,"

The other party paused for a moment and replied without time to think.

"Just arrange them in order one by one in the slot bed of the printing machine, which is what is described in the corresponding article that goes into print."

Of course, the threshold for experimenting with movable type printing in the whole era was actually not as troublesome as most later generations thought; In fact, in the earlier part of this era, some individual clay used to repair engravings was fired into pottery movable type. It is only for a long time that the ancients have tried tin typetype, wood typetype, copper typetype, lead typetype, clay typetype, etc., in the materials of movable typesetting, and then determined that the more durable copper and lead alloy typetype was determined.

"Is this grate oil?"

Then Pirixiu noticed that the ink they were using was also unusual. The sticky-looking fills are filled in a special leaky barrel high above the machine, and then slowly flow along the lead groove to the thick drum, and then evenly erased by the horizontal brush, and then roll down and roll onto the layers of letters.

"As Mr. said, the ink paper with grate oil is very good, and it is not easy to deface and fade away, so it is good to dry it a little afterwards."

Then Pi Rixiu paid attention to a detail here. Although there are a lot of people running here, in fact, the water-driven rotary printing machine, as long as three or five workers take turns to take care of it, replenish the ink and feed the material at intervals, and clean it up; A single machine can print tens of thousands of pages 12 hours a day.

If it is a printing workshop, dozens of racks of machinery start printing at the same time. Add in those typesetting machines that are raised and lowered like shelves, and it is not a problem to print hundreds or thousands of books a day.

After all, most of the books of the whole era are still quite concise and to the point, unlike the most complicated and exhaustive long-winded tomes of later generations; In this way, once a sufficient scale is formed, the cost of books that were originally sold and circulated in the market can be reduced to one-sixth to one-tenth of the original one-tenth.

You must know that although there have been some engraving and printing in this era, the price of books is still high and the source is limited, so that many people want to read books and have to prepare to copy them; This will also be an important advantage and profit point under the rule of the rebel regime. Soon the landing of a large ship on the river broke the orderly sound of the place again.

The crowd was busy with the blowing of the whistle, loading and unloading from the ship cartloads and unloads of vats of ink and bales of all kinds of new paper that have been sent in; Among them, there are not only high-end mulberry paper, but also cheap and rough jute paper; There are also familiar and clear hydrated pine smoke inks, as well as oily pyrene inks.

It's like feeding an invisible gluttonous monster that can't get enough to eat. Then it becomes a rough blank of the book, which is carried out by cart from the other end, already bound with cut and raw edges, and as long as the cover and foreskin are pasted, it is a brand new book.

But in contrast to Pirixiu, after the initial shock and impulse, a certain mood of mixed feelings, not even taste, followed; He could imagine the sight of the world going crazy and chasing after this kind of thing once it became widely spread; Especially those who came from poor backgrounds and were shy in their pockets.

But why is it that this kind of thing that is good for the country and the people can be spread and passed on to future generations is always the same and cannot be used by the imperial court, but appears in the hands of these grass thieves who kill officials and rebel and persecute the powerful families and clans; Could it be that the current dynasty is really a sign of the absence of the Mandate of Heaven, or that the ancient clans who have consistently mastered the way of inheritance and teaching should also come to the time when they really face the great changes in the world?

He could even imagine after such cheap books had spread; Originally, the so-called propositions and truths of these grass thieves were like heresies, but since then, they have got rid of the limitations of the fallacies and deviations of word of mouth, and have really had the basis and premise for forming the corresponding trend of thought and speech among the people. He could even imagine the repercussions and reactions of poor scholars who were trapped in hunger and lack of progress after seeing these books of fallacies.

And the young men and children who I saw in the Tunzhuang and who had been taught by the coarse texts could easily understand and accept the heresy of the grass thieves by relying on these books. It is no longer limited by the way of preaching and teaching by private words and deeds, as was the case with the masters and apprentices in the past, and it is easy to bewitch and create a large number of blind followers who naturally accept and support the heresy of grass thieves.

In addition, the training places that those grass thieves are setting up, once they learn to be used by grass thieves in the future; That is simply cutting off the roots and influence of the old government, and there is no longer a foundation for the imperial court; And to go further and do this in the long run is also to cut down and dig down the heels of those family members who claim to take the transmission of scriptures and education as their family business, and rely on their advantages in their careers and teaching.

Although he was deeply disgusted by the practice of those great families who controlled their knowledge and monopolized the way to advancement, he thought of the prospects and possibilities of these "Sven sweeping the floor" and "the fall of the holy word"; I still can't help but feel negative emotions such as shuddering, loss, and emptiness.

His astonishment and shock had been accumulating without accumulating it, and after a whole night of tossing and turning, and sighing, he was taken back to the harbor by the sea; After seeing a person trembling off the ship, it was as if he had been triggered.

"Brother Lu Wang?!!!! Is that you, Brother Lu Wang?"

Tortoise Meng, who is not named Lu Wang, never thought that after falling into the hands of Wang Sanlun, the "poisonous pit sting history" who is known as "biting into the bone", he will see the light of day again in this life. He thought that he would end up dying in prison in Suzhou, but suddenly one day he was taken out and sent to Hangzhou all the way.

Then he gradually realized that what could get him out of the hands of Wang Sanlun, a cool official, was the face and means of Dong Chang, the Badu regimental training envoy who occupied a big man in Hangzhou; But as something that has been swallowed by Wang Tingshi, it is impossible to get back those family properties that have been confiscated from the fields, earth, houses, and goods.

And his people and relatives are also exiled from exile, fleeing from exile; Fuli Township, Lujia Village, where the great adults Ding is thriving at the foot of Guzhu Mountain, is scattered in the blink of an eye, and only his old dry bones remain.

However, to his surprise, Dong Chang and Dong Tuanlian, who freed him, did not have the slightest intention of meeting or refuting him, but left him in a rough mood for three or four days to recuperate, and then sent him on a big ship and set sail non-stop.

By the time he came all the way from his ship, he was already in the port of Guangzhou, which had fallen into the hands of grass thieves. This simply made him inexplicable and inexplicably overwhelmed by grief and indignation. Who went to such great lengths to concoct and toss him?

The moment he saw the other party waiting on the trestle, the incomprehension and doubts that Tortoise Meng had been trapped in his heart seemed to burst out. This is said to have voted for the grass thief, and the old man and best friend who has been involved in it

"Attack the United States, attack the United States, you are miserable to me."

However, the thoughts and words that had accumulated a thousand words were on the side of the tortoise's mouth, and in the end they could only turn into a loud sigh:

And in the distance, a person who had just stepped down was also looking at this scene with interesting curiosity.

(End of chapter)