Chapter 14 Paper Making and Printing

Although since Cai Lun improved papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty, it has greatly facilitated the spread and preservation of culture, but the cost of papermaking is indeed high, and a hundred pieces of paper between scholars are already valuable gifts. At this time, the main raw material for papermaking was bark, and if you could use straw to make paper like the small paper mills in later generations, although the quality would be poor, the price would be much cheaper.

The principle of papermaking is very simple, that is, the cellulose in the plant is decomposed, and the paper can be copied from the pulp with a wooden board, which has not changed since Cai Lun invented paper, nearly two thousand years, and the principle has not changed, and what Changsun Tang can do is only to change the raw materials of papermaking. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the cost of papermaking had been greatly reduced due to the use of tree bark, but not all bark could be used to make paper, and the growth of trees would take longer, so Changsun Tang decided to use wheat straw to make paper.

We always say very simple things when we judge others, but when it's time to play ourselves, we are not even as good as others. Theoretically, papermaking is simple, but theoretically the manufacture of the atomic bomb is also very simple. Easier said than done is one of the basic rules of this world, no matter what time it is.

The wheat stalks were first crushed with a guillotine, soaked in plant ash for a few days, and the paper copied out made Changsun Tang's face very ugly, didn't he just want to prove it to himself, how to get out of the paper The color is not good, but how can there be such a large piece of broken grass in it?

Changsun Tang's first attempt lasted nine days and ended in failure, if it weren't for the reason of face, it is estimated that Changsun Tang's ambition would be eliminated in this embryonic stage, and there would be one more person waiting for death in this era. But looking at the whole village, young and old, especially his six students, looking at him with adoring eyes, the eldest grandson always had a hot face.

Since we have failed, we have to find out the reason, and a thousand years later, Newton will say that failure is the mother of success, do you want to say it yourself first?

The paper is rough because of lack of time, and the raw materials can also be more broken, as for the color, it is a little difficult to decolorize in the era when there is no bleaching powder.

The raw material for papermaking is transferred to bamboo, which is undoubtedly a good raw material because there is too little bark and the trunk is too difficult to chop. The second attempt began, this time with bamboo and quicklime from the first year, where the green skin of the bamboo was scraped off, cut off and soaked in lime water to observe the cellulose at any time.

It takes time, and during these times, Changsun Tang gets up early to run, teaches eight students, and sends two school-age children over. It is still one person and one sand table, which makes the eldest grandson even more nostalgic for the era when there were textbooks and printers in his previous life.

Speaking of printers, the eldest grandson thought of printing again, the early Tang Dynasty already had engraving printing, and the first engraving found in later generations was the "Diamond Sutra" in the early Tang Dynasty. In the process of turning bamboo into pulp, he turned his gaze to printing again, having nothing to do.

Papermaking and printing played a vital role in the spread of ancient Chinese culture, before these two inventions, knowledge was monopolized by the family, so there is a family origin, that is, a big family always has its own knowledge, if the Han Dynasty to carry out the imperial examination is simply not feasible, because the examination is still the same as the chaju of the children of the family, the imperial examination for the poor family basically began in the Song Dynasty. At the same time, the family began to gradually decline.

For printing, there are two kinds of engraving and movable type printing, engraving printing is convenient for printing those that need a large number of content, such as "Analects", "Tao Te Ching" and so on, but because it is not easy to train the carving, it is very troublesome to make engraving, which is also the problem faced by Changsun Tang, so movable type printing is the only choice for Changsun Tang.

Changsun Tang originally planned to make movable type of clay, but there are very few places of origin of cement suitable for making movable type in the Qinling Mountains, at least there is nothing to be found in this village. In retreat, the eldest grandson decided to use wooden movable type to find the only carpenter in the village, but the carpenter could only make squares, but the lettering was a little difficult for the carpenter.

Uncle Li said: What is the most important thing in the 21st century, talent! The eldest grandson asked Cangtian speechlessly, don't I just want to do something meaningful, how can others succeed casually, and I can't even find someone to engrave, talent, talent, hey......

The eldest grandson planned to make wooden movable type by himself, but had to give up after carving more than ten wooden blocks. This is really not a human job, with a carving knife on the small wooden block plane a few times after the words are carved without exception, and there are a few more cuts on the hands.

Changsun Tang knew that his vision of inventing movable type printing could only be like this for the time being, and he had long understood that when he was commenting on what others were doing, he didn't know what others had experienced and paid, and always felt that he would do better than others, but when it came to the end, he realized that it was not the case at all. The traverser is just an ordinary person who knows the general trend of development, and in some aspects is even inferior to ordinary people, except for the broadening of his horizons, there are not many advantages, if he lets Changsun Tang return to the prehistoric era, he can survive or say it!

When the eldest grandson had finished his day's routine work, it was already close to sunset, and he climbed to the hill to the west of the village to watch the sunset. Sunrise means hope, sunset represents the sunset in the west mountain, the eldest grandson likes to watch the sunset, whenever this time will always tell the feelings that have passed away to the uninhabited mountains and forests. The villagers went home one after another, some hunters carried a few prey that had strayed into the trap, some had just finished the grass in the field, and there was actually a rice field with a large area in the village, although it was not Zhancheng rice, but the yield was higher than that of wheat in the dry land. The children remembered the best part of the day, running carefree in the fields. A few dog barks were heard from time to time in the distance, and the chickens had already entered the chicken coop and were about to croak the next morning. The mountain wind swept over the hills, the pine forests whistled and swayed, and the Chang Gung star appeared and disappeared again in the sky, and the next morning it was necessary to get up early to guide the way forward for the hurders with its faint light.

The eldest grandson didn't know what he could do, the sense of uncertainty and disapproval was as clear as it was when he first came to this world six years ago, he couldn't find a direction, he couldn't find a support, like a child abandoned in the wilderness, the momentum he had accumulated before was wiped out under the blows of successive failures, a deep sense of frustration enveloped his whole body, he had tried to struggle to get rid of it, but he still failed.

Unconsciously, the eldest grandson fell asleep on the hill, until a noisy sound woke him up, and the whole mountain village seemed to be boiling, and one by one the torches seemed to be connected, and someone called him hoarsely. It was Zhang Zhong, and when the eldest grandson heard it, a warm current welled up in his heart.