In the movable type printing technology mentioned by Li Yanzhi, the movable type materials used are different, and it is true that the clay movable type mentioned by Li Yanzhi is the easiest and easiest to manufacture. Xin Yan listened to Li Yanzhi's detailed explanation, and he was already eager to try. The next day, he went to the workshop, found Li Liang, and explained this method in detail.

Li Liang is holding a planer and is planing a crossbow arm. Sawdust flies and sweat rains down. Seeing Xin Yan coming, he didn't dare to slack off, and hurriedly got up to greet him. Xin Yan called Li Liang and went to a vacant house in the workshop, Li Liang moved a few cases and two stools, and invited Xin Yan to sit down. After the two sat down, Xin Yan took out a chopstick that had been cut off and then carved a "one" character and asked Li Liang to look at it.

Li Liang hesitantly took the small piece of chopsticks, looked at them carefully for a long time, looked up and asked with a puzzled expression: "I don't know what the Ming Mansion is doing with this thing, but what is the use?" ”

Xin Yan looked at the half of the wooden chopsticks in Li Liang's hand, and said with a faint smile: "This thing is used for printing books." One or not enough, but if there are many, put them on a framed iron plate and arrange them properly, and then brush them with ink, cover them with paper, and pressurize them. ”

Li Liang looked at the half-engraved wooden chopsticks in his hand, and suddenly had the idea of giving it a try. He got up and went to the side to take a piece of straw paper, and found some residual ink in the inkstone on the bookshelf. He dipped the wooden movable type in his hand that Xin Yan had learned and sold in his hand in the residual ink, and then the end of the ink with the words went down, and he pressed it firmly on the straw paper for a moment before he slowly took his hand away.

Li Liang took away his hand and carefully looked at the papyrus, and sure enough, the word "one" appeared on the papyrus. His expression suddenly became excited, and he turned his hand and looked carefully at the severed wooden chopsticks in his hand again. Then he said to Xin Yan: "This method is indeed a wonderful method. Maybe only a few books are printed, and I don't realize that the speed is fast. But if it is printed in hundreds, thousands, it can be completed in a few months. ”

"But I don't know, what does the Ming Mansion want to print when it adopts this method?" Li Liang put the movable type made of small pieces of wooden chopsticks in his hand in front of Xin Yan and asked curiously.

"It's not that I want to print anything, but Li Changshi feels in his heart that he should gather the children of loyal martyrs in the county and open a school to study. Or let him read and reason, and in the future, he can be qualified to serve as a subordinate official of each prefecture. Or learn one or two skills, and in the future, you can fend for yourself, so that the martyrs of the generals can be blinded ......."

Listening to what Xin Yan said, Li Liang was also moved, he thought for a moment, and then picked up the piece of straw paper on the table, and said to Xin Yan: "Don't hide it from the Ming Mansion, now it seems that the war is imminent, and a batch of crossbows will be made in the Changshi Workshop." At present, we are working this matter, and we do not have enough manpower to prepare the characters for printing. ”

Xin Yan hesitated a little when he heard this: "Since this is the case, does Craftsman Li have a wonderful method to do?" ”

Li Liang nodded and said slowly: "The households who fled before are now all settling down in the outer city of the county capital. I have heard that there is a shortage of land nowadays, and many people seem to have not been able to settle properly......"

Xin Yan frowned slightly: "Craftsman Li wants to re-select craftsmen from these households to handle this matter?" ”

"Why don't you think so. This law is both a new law of the long history and the Ming government. We don't know the details, and even if we need to do this, we have to study it from scratch. At this time, the displaced people were recruited to set up a separate division, and these households also started from scratch. But in this way, the difficulty of resettlement of the county government can be solved, does the Ming government think this is the case? ”

Xin Yan's eyes lit up, and then he looked at Li Liang and said, "If you talk about the facts, it is true. Although Li Jiangtou does not speak on weekdays, he has great wisdom at this time, which really impresses Fuliang. ”

Li Liangyi arched his hand: "I just think that the method of long history is quite feasible, and what I did was the children of the soldiers who sacrificed and died in the county." Indeed, it is a good thing. Hence the idea of such a strategy. If you can share the worries of the Ming Mansion and the long history, you will feel honored to be humble. ”

Xin Yan smiled: "Since that's the case, I'll go and give it a try." Since Li Jiangtou is burdened with heavy responsibilities, Fuliang will no longer stay. If there is any disturbance, let Fuliang confess, and hope that the craftsman will not take it to heart. ”

"The Ming Mansion has killed the villain." Li Liang bowed and watched Xin Yanxing leave the workshop.

Xin Yanxing walked out of the workshop and immediately turned to the side barracks. When the soldiers on duty outside the camp saw Xin Yan coming, they gave salutes one after another. Xin Yan looked at the official on duty at the gate and asked, "Can Li Changshi be in the camp?" ”

When the official heard this, he hugged his fists and replied: "Changshi led the Jianrui battalion out of the camp early in the morning to practice, and he has not returned yet. ”

Xin Yan was slightly disappointed when he heard this, but his expression quickly returned to normal. He said to the official on the gate: "If Li Changshi returns, I hope that the veteran will tell him, and he will say that there is something important and want to find him in detail, and ask him to move to the county government." ”

The officer on duty on the gate didn't dare to slack off, and hurriedly hugged his fists and said: "Mingfu rest assured, the last general will definitely convey it on his behalf." ”

After returning to the county government, Xin Yan immediately summoned the officials in the government to arrest and wait, and went to the outer city. There are population statistics and so on in each fang, and the current situation of each family must also be recorded. In this way, it is possible to intuitively check which households have not been properly resettled, and then select some of these people to be used as workers for the production of movable type and printing.

Although the outer city is newly built, the buildings are still mainly adobe and thatch. The barracks of blue bricks and tiles stand out in it. In the refugee camp, both the military generals and the county officials had an intuitive understanding of the camp layout, drainage and public health.

In the process of establishing and repairing the new urban area, we also learned from the experience of the refugee camps, and each street was leveled and compacted into a shape with high middle and low ends, and the road was paved with gravel to ensure that after the rainfall, the rainwater could automatically flow to the low-lying ditches on both sides of the road, so that the main road would not be soaked in rainwater for a long time, which would bring inconvenience to the residents.

In addition, a public toilet has now been built in each workshop. It is set up outside the wall. The district officials warned each household to go to the toilet at a fixed point to excrete, so as not to pollute the water source indiscriminately, which would become a hidden danger of the plague. Overall, the living conditions of these families and tribesmen living outside the city are much better today than they were in the refugee camps.

There are ownerless fields left by some of the people in the county who were slaughtered by the thieves before, and Xin Yan and Li Yanzhi have discussed and selected some military families and their dependents in advance, and distributed these fields to them, so that they can make enough to make a living. However, in addition, there are still nearly 1,000 displaced households who have no land to cultivate and no other permanent employment. For the time being, he still relies on the county government to provide relief from two bowls of gruel a day.

It was the first time Xin Yan had heard of such a mysterious method of printing books. Now he needs to recruit people, but he has no bottom in his heart, and he doesn't know how much to recruit. So he first collected all these rosters in the houses. I thought about waiting until after the evening, and then I would meet with Li Yanzhi and discuss it again.

Xin Yan himself prefers the clay movable type method that Li Yanzhi mentioned. After thinking about it, he still sent a few depressed people carrying cloth bags to the river to collect a whole bag of wet clay. He took out his book, compared it to the size of the handwriting on it, and took out a handful of clay in the courtyard, and was trying to knead the clay into the blanks needed to make movable type.

Xin Yan worked hard and carefully, and one by one the clay blanks of the same size, but some of them were not very neat, and they took shape under his hands. This county magistrate with a straight face and a bit of a straight face in the past is now grinning in the backyard at the rows of clay characters on the stone table, looking like a madman.

Occasionally, old servants walked by, all of them were light-handed, although they saw the strange appearance of the Ming Mansion today, but they didn't dare to come forward to disturb. Xin Yan worked hard all afternoon, kneading nearly 100 character blanks, planning to show off his achievements to him when Li Yanzhi came.

When night fell, Li Yanzhi led the Jianrui battalion back. Hearing the report of the general who was on duty at the gate before, he didn't bother to eat his meal, and immediately left the camp to go to the county government.

When he arrived outside the county government, when he saw Wang Qiang on duty, Li Yanzhi asked about Xin Yan's situation. I only heard Wang Qiang say: "The Ming Mansion went to the squares in the outer city this morning and asked the officials of the squares to come to the household list. In the afternoon, the Ming Mansion ordered the officials to go to the river to load a bag of soil, and after coming back, they have been staying in the backyard. ”

When Li Yanzhi heard this, he couldn't help but laugh dumbly in his heart. Xin Yan's purpose of collecting soil, he had already guessed a rough idea. However, presumably Xin Yan was pampered before, and he had never done these manual jobs, and now he is afraid that it will be difficult to succeed. He walked to the backyard to see how Xin Yan was doing.

When he arrived in the backyard, Li Yanzhi saw Xin Yan lighting an oil lamp on the stone table, and counted the narrow mud strips on the stone table. He walked to the stone table, but Xin Yan was engrossed in staring at the stone table and didn't even look at him.

Li Yanzhi coughed lightly twice, Xin Yan came back to his senses when he heard the sound, and after looking back and seeing Li Yanzhi, Xin Yan immediately raised the oil lamp in front of him with an excited face: "Dingdong, look at it, are these blanks available?" ”

Li Yanzhi looked at his hands full of mud with tears and laughter, and his face was wiped with dirty hands, making Xin Yan, who was like a cat, feel speechless in his life. He said in a deep voice: "Fu Liang, don't say that there is no obstruction in the mouth, today you spent an afternoon, and most of these words are probably unusable......"

When Xin Yan heard this, he was a little unconvinced: "How can it?" Each word blank is trimmed for half a day to make sure that it is the same size. Why is most of Dingdong unusable? ”

Li Yanzhi picked up a word blank from the stone table, brought it to his eyes and looked at it for a moment, and then gently pressed his two fingers to pinch the clay word blank, and by the faint light of the oil lamp, a few fine stones and gravel in the word blank were revealed.

"Fuliang, look." Li Yanzhi pointed to the section of the clay word blank and said to Xin Yan: "Although this clay word blank is made of mud, it looks rough, but it must not be mixed with other impurities such as stones, gravel, etc., otherwise, when it is burned into shape, it will break." This kind of nature cannot be used......"

Xin Yan's face turned slightly pale, and then he continued to ask: "In this case, how to remove the impurities in the soil?" I also hope that Dingdong will inform. ”

Li Yanzhi thought for a while and said: "After the collection comes back, don't be in a hurry to make the word blank, first crush it, pick out the large stones and gravel, etc., and then dry, grind, and sift it." Remove the fine impurities ......"

"Dingdong, wait a minute!" Xin Yan stretched out a hand, stopped Li Yanzhi, turned around and ran towards the back hall. Li Yanzhi hurriedly asked, "Where is Fuliang?" ”

"I'm going to get a pen and paper and write it down." Xin Yan didn't look back. Li Yanzhi saw his embarrassed look, and immediately shouted: "Fuliang, don't you go wash your hands first?" ”

"Dingdong didn't remind him, he forgot about it." Xin Yan looked embarrassed when he heard this, and hurriedly ran to the side of the water tank, scooped a scoop of water from the water tank with a scoop, and then washed his hands before entering the inner hall with Li Yanzhi.

Xin Yan took out the pen and paper, sharpened the ink, and asked Li Yanzhi to repeat Fang Cai's words again, and he took the pen and recorded them. Li Yanzhi watched him finish writing, and then said: "After sifting, pour these finely ground clays into the water tank, add water and wait for it to settle." Then scoop out the water little by little on the noodles......"

"After scooping out the clay at the bottom of the tank, pour out the soil in the tank and dry it until it is moderately soft and hard. Then it will be made into a word blank, and then the word blank is slightly dry, suitable for carving, the reverse word is engraved, and then sent to the kiln for firing. After firing, let it stand and cool, and then you can use ......"

Xin Yan meticulously wrote down the whole process that Li Yanzhi said. After reading it a few more times, he looked at Li Yanzhi: "In this way, I will make this clay character in accordance with the law of Dingdong." ”

"I went to the workshop this morning and asked Craftsman Li to send people to help us make this clay type. However, Craftsman Li said that the bow and crossbow need to be made in the workshop recently, and it is difficult to spare manpower......"

"What Craftsman Li said is good, I really asked him to lead his craftsmen to make bows and crossbows with all his might." When Li Yanzhi heard this, he nodded and said, "Can Craftsman Li make a proposal to the Ming Mansion and propose how to solve such problems?" ”

"Craftsman Li said that there are still many displaced people in the outer city who have not yet been properly settled, and we can transfer people from these households to come and make this clay movable type." Xin Yan's face was solemn, and he immediately took out several household registration books and put them on the table, and pushed them to Li Yanzhi: "I went to the squares in the outer city in the morning to ask the officials for the household registration books of the people. Now how to select people to make this clay type, and then print the book, I hope Dingdong will give some suggestions. ”

Li Yanzhi opened the registration book, glanced at it a few times, and blurted out the criteria for selecting people: "Try to select the family members of military households, you don't necessarily have to be a man in the prime of life, even if it is a woman or an old man." Priority is given to the selection of Longxi Jin people, so that they should be able to easily get enough posts. ”

When Xin Yan heard this, he was surprised: "Why doesn't Dingdong use people from Diqiang?" Nowadays, there are many people who have joined the army, and if the tribal people have no livelihood, it is very easy to cause accidents......"

Li Yanzhi smiled faintly: "Ming Mansion, there are some things, there have to be some changes, so that it can be better to act ......"