The number of big cities in the world is Chang'an, and under Chang'an is Luoyang, these two big cities are from the hands of the architect Yu Wenkai, it can be said that it is a sister city, the scale and even the layout of the two cities are very similar, the only difference is that Chang'an as the capital of the Sui and Tang dynasties, affected by too many political factors, so that Chang'an's permanent population has been more than Luoyang, and economic activities such as commerce are stronger than Luoyang.

However, since the destruction of the Turks, there is no strong enemy outside the Tang Dynasty, the domestic politics are clear, and industry and commerce have also been vigorously developed, especially Luoyang, which is close to the hinterland of the Central Plains, is developing very fast, here is not only the only way to Chang'an, but also the gathering place of industry and commerce, many businessmen have opened workshops here, such as Li Xiu's canned food workshop, tea workshop, etc., the scale of Luoyang has even exceeded Chang'an.

With the development of industry and commerce, Luoyang's population is also steadily improving, although it is not as good as Chang'an for the time being, but it is recognized as the only city in Datang that may threaten the status of Chang'an's largest city.

The east side of Luoyang is the hinterland of the Central Plains, where the population is large and the land is fertile, it has always been the anointing place of the Tang Dynasty, and the transportation here is developed, Luoyang is the most important transportation hub in the Central Plains, and it is precisely for this reason that the Tang Dynasty has also set up many institutions in Luoyang, such as the Money Bureau.

The minting bureau is now classified as a subordinate institution of the financial supervision department, similar to the bank, before because of the different management of the minting bureaus in various places, the quality of the copper coins minted can not be guaranteed, and finally after the rectification of Liu Renliang, a considerable part of the minting bureaus were abolished and merged, leaving only some large coins with relatively large scale and guaranteed production quality.

Luoyang is close to the heart of the Central Plains, and it is a traffic artery, and its own industry and commerce are also very prosperous, which also leads to the local demand for copper coins is naturally also very large, so the coinage bureau here is naturally retained, and the scale is also very large, even the coinage bureau of Chang'an and Taiyuan is not as good as the Luoyang coinage bureau, which can be called the largest coinage bureau in Datang.

Luoyang Minting Bureau is not in Luoyang City, but is located in a valley in the south of Luoyang City, it is said that this was an ancient copper mine before, from the Han Dynasty began to mine, so here also built a coinage bureau, the mined copper was directly cast into copper coins, and later although the copper mine was mined, but the coinage bureau was retained, of course, the copper used can only be transported from other places.

"Enlightened horse, what you want has been cast!" In an official room of the Money Minting Bureau, Liu Renliang personally put a heavy tray in front of Li Xiu to report, but when he said these words, his face was also full of doubts, because he still didn't know what Li Xiu wanted to cast these strange things for?

"Are you alright?" Li Xiu was also refreshed when he heard Liu Renliang's report, and immediately stood up and lifted the red cloth on the tray, only to see that there were cuboids made of brass on the tray, the size and specifications were almost identical, and there was a reverse Chinese character engraved on the top of each brass body, which looked like a seal.

"Horse, here are just some of the more commonly used words, and there are a large number of other words that have been cast in the warehouse, and some commonly used words are also in accordance with your requirements, each casting more than one, but I still don't understand, what did you ask the lower officials to cast these seals for?" Liu Renliang finally couldn't help but say the doubts in his heart.

Some time ago, Li Xiu came back from the south, Liu Renliang was not in Luoyang at that time, but after Li Xiu came to the Luoyang Minting Bureau, he found the officials in charge and immediately let them cast these strange "seals", the officials of the Minting Bureau did not dare to refuse, so they could only send someone to inform Liu Renliang while casting, after all, Liu Renliang was their top boss, but when Liu Renliang arrived in Luoyang, these seals had already been cast halfway, and he wanted to persuade Li Xiu to stop It was too late, plus Li Xiu's attitude was also very tough, In the end, he had no choice but to let people continue to build.

"Hehe, this is not a seal, but a copper type, and its function is a bit complicated to explain, but I want to ask, how did the books you read when you were young come from?" Li Xiu didn't rush to explain, but asked with a smile.

"Reading?" Liu Renliang frowned when he heard Li Xiu's question, and then asked again puzzled, "Why do you ask this question?" ”

"Don't worry about why I'm asking this, answer me first, how did you study in the first place?" Li Xiu still insisted on asking.

Seeing Li Xiu's insistence, Liu Renliang could only think helplessly, and then replied: "When I was young, my family was poor, and it was not easy to study, fortunately, our Liu family used to be a big family, and there were some books in the clan, so I often went to read the books in the clan, but these books were not borrowed, so when I encountered some good books, I could only use pen and paper to copy the contents of the book, can only rely on memories to dictate the content of the book, in order to consolidate the knowledge they have learned. ”

When he said this, Liu Renliang seemed to touch some sad things, and then sighed and continued: "It's a pity that my talent is not very good, I remember that many of the contents of the book in my mind have made mistakes, and my knowledge is not as good as others, and there is definitely no hope for taking the imperial examination, until I met Ren Gui, the pacification ambassador of Henan Province, and got his recommendation to become a county lieutenant, and later met a concubine, which is why I have my current official position!" ”

When Liu Renliang said the end, he also saluted Li Xiu very respectfully, he met two nobles in his life, the first was Ren Gui who recommended him to enter the officialdom, and the second was Li Xiu who promoted him to the top. However, his face still showed a little regret at this time, because he was an official who was recommended, not an official who went through the imperial examination, which made him a little lacking in confidence when facing those officials who were born in the imperial examination.

"If there were enough books for you to read, with your character, I believe you would definitely follow the path of the imperial examination, right?" Li Xiu also heard the regret in Liu Ren's words, and sighed at the moment, there are too many regrets in life, and if you miss it, you will miss it forever, and no matter how hard you work in the future, you can't make up for it.

"Yes, as long as you are a scholar, if possible, you are more willing to take the imperial examination, but unfortunately the collection of books in the clan was destroyed in the war, but our family's collection of books is limited, even if it is not destroyed, I am afraid it is not enough to support me to take the imperial examination." Liu Renliang sighed again at this time and said, although their Liu family is also a big family, it has already been defeated, and it is very rare for the clan to leave some books, so he can't be demanding.

"It's never too late to read, you should have a lot of good books in your collection by now, right?" Li Xiu suddenly changed his words at this time, and then asked with a smile.

However, hearing Li Xiu's words, Liu Renliang showed a wry smile and said: "Don't laugh at the horse, although I have an official position now and the salary is also rich, but I can't buy books casually, after all, the books on the market are too expensive, especially some books that are copied neatly without typos, and they are even more valuable. ”

Liu Renliang is not crying poor, and it is not that his salary is low, in fact, he is already a middle-level official in the Tang Dynasty, and his salary is also very rich, but even so, it is a very luxurious thing to buy books, after all, a book is often dozens of times, which is thousands of catties of food.

"Books are a bit more expensive, but have you ever wondered what would happen if you lowered the price of books?" Li Xiu smiled again and said, what he asked Liu Renliang to make was not a seal, but a real copper movable type, movable type printing is what he has always wanted to come up with, the purpose is to reduce the price of current books, after all, the current books can only be copied by manpower, not only slow and expensive, but also prone to errors.

"Bring the price of books down? How is this possible? Liu Renliang asked with a shocked face when he heard Li Xiu's words, and it was no wonder that he didn't understand, in fact, in the early Tang Dynasty, not to mention movable type printing, even engraving printing was limited to printing some rough Buddha statues, Buddhist scriptures, etc., but no one thought of using this printing technology for the printing of books.

"Of course it's possible, you come and see the copper movable type on this tray!" When Li Xiu said this, he saw that he stretched out his hand to adjust the copper movable type in the tray, because they were all commonly used words, so he easily adjusted a sentence "Zi said: Learn and learn it, don't say it." ”

"You see, this is the first sentence in the Analects, and if there is enough copper type, I can lay out the whole Analects, and then rub them down on paper, and then print as many as I want, and then I can print as fast as I want, and wouldn't it be much faster than copying it?" Li Xiu said with a smile again at this time.

Hearing Li Xiu's words, Liu Renliang only felt a "boom" in his head at this time, and the whole person seemed to be empowered by someone, and he immediately understood the role of these copper movable characters, which made him cry out in ecstasy: "Yes, yes, such a simple way, why didn't I think of it?" ”

Liu Renliang said as he tore his hair excitedly, after all, the impact of this movable type printing on him was too great, and he had even thought that if books could be printed on a large scale, everyone in the world would be able to afford books, so wouldn't it be possible to achieve the goal of the saint "educating all people"? You must know that this is the biggest dream of any scholar in the world!

Seeing Liu Renliang's excited appearance, Li Xiu smiled calmly, even a person as calm as Liu Renliang can be so out of shape because of movable type printing, I don't know what kind of performance Li Shimin would have if he knew about it?