Riding an old yellow horse, followed by Da Biao, Zhu and other young men, and two old men, Yang Dayan and Zhao Dafu, rode donkeys to accompany him, and the group was also very imposing.

With 5,000 copper coins, it can be regarded as a confident success.

The purpose of going to the street today is very clear, first accompany Yang Dayan to buy some paper, ink, pen and inkstone, since you want to open a school to educate children, this should be the investment that should be less. Books can not be bought first, Yang Dayan can copy by himself, but paper and pen must be bought first.

Then there is the matter of buying grain, and this time we will have to buy more at a time, and it is best to be able to buy enough grain for next summer's harvest. When there is food at home, there is no panic in the heart. Nowadays, mutual assistance and cooperation in the village can be regarded as a model of association and mutual assistance, eating a big pot of rice and working collectively, Li Xiao has to prepare everyone's rations first.

Fortunately, grain prices are now relatively stable, and the prices of grain, oil, non-staple food, and seasonings are very expensive, but the grain is still not high. 1,000 yuan can buy 40 stone corn, a Zhuangzi 40 mouthfuls, there are 100 stone corn is definitely enough to eat until next summer's harvest.

It's still the same grain store last time, and it's still the same price.

Li Xiao purchased 100 stone of corn at a time, and then bought a few more stones of rice, as well as some wheat and some millet.

He also bought some soybeans, sorghum, and wheat bran for the family's horses and mules as feed.

It cost a total of 3,000 yuan, and the shopkeeper also said that he would let the guys in the store take the carriage and horses and send them directly to the home, and this kind of service was indeed home.

"Thank you, shopkeeper."

Leaving people to watch, Li Xiao accompanied Yang Dayan to buy stationery.

The shop selling paper, ink, pen and inkstone is in the best part of the street, at the crossroads, which can be described as a place where the golden horn gathers wealth. The decoration of the store is also very stylish and tasteful, with a smell of books.

Even the guys who greeted customers at the door of the store were wearing robes, very gentle.

After entering the store, Li Xiao asked about the price, and he couldn't help but be speechless.

Expensive, really expensive.

Paper is sold by the sheet, but at an outrageous price. The most expensive is hemp paper, as well as leather paper, straw paper, bamboo paper, etc. There is also jute paper and white linen paper.

For example, the official writing paper is almost all hemp paper, and the center of the court and the court use jute paper produced in Shu for tribute.

The shopkeeper talked eloquently about his own paper, but Li Xiao listened with an ugly face.

After buying food, he came to this store, and came out of his house with 5,000 yuan, which he had just spent 3,000 yuan, and now he still has 2,000 yuan on him.

Just now, three thousand dollars bought more than 100 stone of grain, but now two thousand dollars can't buy a few pieces of paper here.

"Shopkeeper, your paper is too expensive." Da Biao couldn't help but say. A thin piece of paper can be worth a pig, which is simply killing a pig.

The shopkeeper stroked his beard and smiled indifferently, "A few guest officers, the small shop operates in good faith, and it will never open a high price." Let's just say this hemp paper, the small shop has white hemp paper and jute paper. The front of the white linen paper is white and smooth, the back is slightly rough, and there are straw stick confetti adherence, but it is very thin and thin, the texture is tough, very durable, and it can not deteriorate for a long time as long as it does not get wet. ”

And the jute paper in the small shop is transported from Shu, and it is made of authentic jute in Shu. The color is slightly yellow, slightly thicker than the white bed paper, and it looks rougher than the white linen paper, but the paper pattern is wider, about two fingers or so, which is the best writing paper used today, and even the royal court and the imperial court center are using this paper. Books made of hemp paper are not afraid of wind and sun, and as long as a jute paper book is well preserved, it can even be passed down for thousands of years and is still intact as new. ”

Yang Dayan is a teacher, and he is an expert in paper, so he said to Li Xiao, "The hemp paper in this store is all good paper, and the price is high but the same as the market price." ”

Li Xiao was a little helpless, the cut jute paper in the store, one is a scroll type, the other is a folding type, the size is about the same, that is, you can copy tens of thousands of words, and the Tang people generally make a book of 10,000 words into a volume. Such a book is usually eight to ten lines per page, with eighteen characters and twenty-four characters per line, so a book is about fifty pages.

And such a piece of jute paper, which can copy a book, actually costs a thousand yuan.

For 1,000 yuan, you can buy a blank piece of paper, and you can only write 10,000 words, isn't this a robbery? Guo Dabiao killed a pig, and he couldn't make a few pennies, and a whole pig was sold, but it couldn't be sold for a thousand yuan.

This is just a blank sheet of paper, and if it is a copied book, such as a Mongolian book like Qianziwen, the price will have to be doubled or tripled.

No wonder it is said that the knowledge of this era is in the hands of the scholar family, and ordinary people who can read it.

A bucket of corn is only two and a half cents, and a thousand dollars can buy forty stone corn, but only one piece of jute paper can be bought.

"If the guest officer thinks that hemp paper is expensive, he can buy leather paper, straw paper, and bamboo paper, which are slightly cheaper." The attitude of the shopkeeper is very good.

But when you ask the price, it's not cheaper.

The cheapest is straw paper, as the name suggests, paper made directly from grass, with a rough texture, astringent paper surface, and many grass clippings on the back, thick and brittle. Bamboo paper and leather paper are better, but in Li Xiao's opinion, they are also very poor.

With such paper, the cheapest piece of straw paper costs two hundred dollars for a large sheet.

"What about this mulberry paper?"

"This is a piece of leather paper with mulberry bark, three hundred dollars a piece."

Da Biao felt that his heart couldn't stand it when he heard it, "If you don't buy it, it's better to write it directly on the cloth." ”

"How can cloth be compared to paper?" The way of the shopkeeper.

"Shopkeeper, give me two pieces of this kind of vellum." Although it is very expensive, the paper still has to be bought, but now that there is no money, Li Xiao has to buy two first.

In fact, there was a technological explosion of papermaking in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, so the use of paper has been very common today, but paper is still common at the level of the government and scholars, and ordinary people still can't afford it.

Not to mention that wrapping paper is used for packaging, and some ordinary people may never touch a piece of paper in their lives.

Paper is expensive, books are more expensive, and the books of this era are basically copied, and the printed books are carved plates, mainly printed scripture books, etc., and the price is expensive.

Thread-bound books did not exist in this era, and books at this time were the same as the paper sold in this store, or they were scroll-style, with shafts on both sides, and opened like picture scrolls. The other is the album, the style of the chapter read by the emperor is the album, which is folded and can be opened, and the Buddhist scriptures are mostly album-style.

The kind of book-by-page binding that came in later generations had not yet appeared, and movable type printing was even more useless.

In this era, there are very few people who can read books, so the status of those who can read and write is also very high, even if they are down, even if they go to copy books, the income is very high. In general, the price of copying a book is 1,000 yuan.

A book, that is, 10,000 words. A thousand words and a hundred dollars are simply more profitable than writing a book.

If you buy paper, you have to buy a pen, buy ink, buy inkstone, paper is very expensive, these are not cheap, any brush, it is dozens of dollars or hundreds of dollars, and Li Xiao's teeth are sour when he listens.

"Let the children practice their words on the sand first." Yang Dayan said helplessly, if you buy paper, ink, pen and inkstone for several children in the family, you can't afford it at all.

Da Biao was worried, "Now I know that it costs so much to read, and paper printing is the most profitable." If you know how to make paper, your children and grandchildren will not be worried. ”

Yang smiled with big eyes, "The paper mill is in the hands of those wealthy families, and it is impossible for others to get the technology if they don't want to get involved." ”

Li Xiao was silent beside him, he knew how to make paper, but it seemed that the papermaking industry was grasped by those wealthy families, and he would not easily meddle in the profits of others.