It is only now that Li You feels that most of the obstacles on the way forward have gradually been removed. In law, there is the "try to see" of the Son of Heaven; Technically, the entrusted Guide Chitose "borrowed" the copper movable type from the palace factory; In terms of manpower, there is almost an inexhaustible supply of scholars available in Guozijian, and there is no shortage of craftsmen at the feet of the Son of Heaven.

As for money, it's not a big problem. At the end of last year, Li You passed the coal matter, and the black and black took one or two hundred thousand taels from the fallen father-in-law, although half of it was given to the eldest princess of Guide, but a lot of it was left in his hands. If you really can't do it, you can borrow money from the silver number, so you don't have to worry about the silver for the time being.

Therefore, Master Li is full of ambition and increasingly excited, vowing to be the first to open a generation! This is the first innovative business created out of nothing since the crossing.

Thinking of this, he has to thank the court bigwigs for depriving him of the power to supervise the newspaper in the country, otherwise under the constraints of the imperial court framework, how could he be so free to play all the fun?

In this newspaper, many of Li You's requirements and plans can even make the people of the time feel shocked. He had several technical indicators in mind, such as the printing density should be published every other day, the distribution time should arrive on the same day, and the layout content should be 16,000 words per issue, and so on.

In this era when the pace of life is slow, the news a month ago is also news, skilled craftsmen can only engrave 200 words a day, and a Tao Te Ching is only 5,000 words, these indicators put forward by Li You can be called quite advanced requirements. But in Mr. Li's mind, this is the kind of newspaper that is close to the impression of his previous life, not small street flyers and big-character posters.

In order to achieve the desired effect, Li You successively accumulated a large amount of manpower in a short period of time, just to run what he thought was a modern newspaper.

So far, a total of 20 editors-in-chief, 60 chief writers, 50 newsman craftsmen, 100 newspaper people in charge of delivering the newspaper have been recruited, and a number of other shopkeepers and miscellaneous workers have been recruited. In order to open up a fiction column in the future. I also need to hire a number of storytellers. If it weren't for the support of all parties, it would have been difficult to assemble such a large number of people in a short period of time.

In fact, the labor cost of the dynasty was very cheap, so cheap that Li You was surprised after learning more about it. This is also the reason why he dares to recruit a large number of people in one go. Taking the printing industry he just familiarized himself with, for example, one of the reasons why more advanced movable type printing is not as popular as engraving printing is that the labor cost is low.

A skilled letterer is paid only a few cents of silver a day. No more than two taels a month. In this way, the bookstore can hire more cheap letterers to meet the demand for book printing, and it is only slower than movable type printing. This is true for skilled craftsmen, and even more so for others.

However, Rao is cheap manpower, but after Li You Newspaper's conversion, the labor salary cost paid every month is more than 500 taels, and it is expected to be about 6,000 taels for the whole year. Of course, unlike ordinary shops that buy and sell goods, newsstands have a high proportion of labor costs, which can almost be compared with workshops.

In comparison. The cost of paper and ink is very low, and the maximum number of 10,000 newspapers is only 20 taels at a time, and the newspaper is published every single day. Less than three hundred taels a month. It is three thousand taels a year.

Li You's luck also lies in the fact that he can "borrow" copper movable type. You don't have to spend a lot of money and time to cast enough movable type, which is the biggest technical barrier to the emergence of competitors. If this part of the cost is also included, it will cost thousands of taels of silver.

Therefore, in the first year of running the newspaper, excluding the cost of movable type, the capital paid by Li You was about 10,000 taels of silver.

Family wealth is to describe the rich, how can 10,000 taels be equivalent to one or two 10,000 yuan, if you buy a field in the Zhili around Beijing, it is not a problem to buy a few thousand acres. Therefore, 10,000 taels is definitely a large amount, enough to surprise most merchants (the golden million who is about to enter Beijing means that 10,000 taels is only two months profitable, but he didn't think of this idea).

Seeing the number of cost accounting, Mr. Li was very emotional, new media not only needs courage and strength, but also needs to burn money, which is the case in any era. If it were as easy as finding a few craftsmen to print a few pieces of paper to run a daily newspaper in the true sense, the ingenuity of the ancients should have appeared a long time ago, and would it be the turn of the traversers to invent one after another?

Outsiders talked about Li You's boldness of spending a lot of money, but the family was a little dissatisfied at first, and Aunt Guan of the third room, who was in charge of the accounts, had strong objections to the old man's behavior of burning money.

Every year, tens of thousands of taels of silver are spent, which can empty the family's old capital, but the profit model is very unclear, and in Guan Xiuru's eyes, it can only show that the husband is so smooth sailing that he gets carried away.

This kind of money-burning behavior is dizzy, it is extremely unwise, and it is to become the front wave that is beaten to death by the back wave, and it must be stopped while the matter is not yet irreparable.

However, Li You's attitude is more resolute and insists on high investment. The reason why he is so confident is mainly because he sees a gap in the market.

The population of Jingshi is one million, and the literate people are at least 100,000, and these 100,000 literate people can affect at least three or four hundred thousand people. Moreover, this is three or four hundred thousand people concentrated in the capital, not three or four hundred thousand people in the poor countryside, whether it is the official culture of the upper class or the market culture of the lower class, it is also one of the best in the world today, and it can theoretically afford to raise a newspaper. The place with such conditions, except for the capital, is only Jiangnan.

If newspapers can become popular, they will gain unparalleled influence and penetration in this world where there is no radio, no television, and no Internet. If the impact can be successfully further translated, the benefits will be extremely considerable.

And at present, this is still an exclusive business that can barely be called an exclusive business, and there is almost no other semicolon exclusive business, and it is easy to obtain a monopoly position. As for the Guozi Supervisor Official Newspaper, Li You doesn't think that those presidents, officials, and lords can have the insight and courage to make a large-scale layout and spend money like themselves. It can be seen from the idea of laying off employees in the stone festival wine that it is still a set of newspaper-style thinking behind closed doors.

Guan Xiuyu questioned: "Husband, if you don't give it away for free, then it will be easier, and the concubine only knows that the husband's biggest concern for running a newspaper is actually not to make money, but you can't just lose money." Spend tens of thousands of taels a year, just rely on what advertising benefits you said, you can recover the cost? ”

"What more do you need to know!" Li You shook his head and sighed.

Guan Xiurust was not convinced, and calculated with her husband: "Even if you can bring a hundred large merchants with financial resources from all walks of life, each merchant pays thirty taels of silver every month, and more than three thousand taels per year, where can you recover the other six thousand taels?" There are only a handful of such large merchants, and as for other small businesses, they can't afford much money at all, and having three melons and two dates is also a drop in the bucket. ”

"Alas, how many times have I told you for my husband, don't always be in business, you must broaden your horizons. Trading is not just about buying and selling goods, there are so many things in the world that can be used for trading, you can't think of it? To make money with the eyeball economy, it is not necessarily necessary to have a physical basis! ”

Aunt Guan pursed her lips and gestured to her husband with her eyes, you continue to make up.

"There are often disputes over political opinions in the imperial court, and if anyone wants to create influence and spread their views to thousands of households and officials of the yamen and large and small overnight, what should they do? Just publish it in the newspaper, and charge him less than twenty taels for a policy, do the officials care about the money? ”

"Don't worry that no one thinks of this, I'll let them think of it, husband. If a political opponent is in the newspaper, can the other side show weakness? No one can easily give up public opinion, so they have to go to the newspaper to publish their opinions, but they also have to pay money. ”

"Don't ignore the magistrates, the magistrates are richer than the Beijing officials! Our newspaper is run at the feet of the Son of Heaven, and the top officials and nobles in the world read it, maybe the Son of Heaven will also pay attention, if there are local officials who want to get ahead, take out 180 taels to make their name in the newspaper, isn't it the best of both worlds? Otherwise, there are more than 1,000 counties, hundreds of state capitals, and hundreds of Taoist platforms in the world, how can the imperial court know about it? ”

"If you want to be in the newspaper, it costs money, and if you don't want to be in the newspaper, it costs money, for example, if someone has a bit of an ugly thing, if you can pay some money to cover up your shame, it's not negotiable."

"Also, how can literati and celebrities become famous if they want to go to Beijing to break into the world? Is there a quicker way than a newspaper? He published a poem and song, and charged him a few taels of silver according to the number of words, isn't this profitable? For this kind of person, it is always less expensive than going to the Qinglou Chu Pavilion to show off his talents. ”

"The common people also have needs, if there are outsiders who come to Beijing to complain, how can the government and the opposition know about it? Just publish it in the newspaper, and don't you charge him more than ten taels for a complaint? Outsiders who can come to Beijing are not poor, and they are involved in lawsuits, and they can afford to grit their teeth for ten taels of silver. ”

"Do the math yourself, this is just what I can think of at the moment, I don't think there are many more to be excavated! As long as the influence is out, there are 180 issues of the newspaper every year, and there can be several such articles in each issue, and it is very easy to earn 6,000 taels of silver a year, so what are you worried about? ”

Listening to the husband snapping his fingers to settle the account, Guan Xiurust gradually became dumbfounded, the cherry mouth opened slightly, and he forgot to close it for a while. She found that her husband did not know how to do business, but he could be called the blackest businessman, he did not buy and sell goods, but human nature, and fame and profit.

After counting the number of ways to get money, Li You continued to talk about another reason to burn money: "High investment is also to set a high threshold. It's easy to run a low-cost tabloid, but it's also easy to imitate. If you run a newspaper that only costs a few hundred taels of silver every year, such as Jingshi Daily, even if you can make a few days of small money, after a while, Kyoto Daily, Imperial Capital Daily, Jingcheng Daily, Jiumen Daily, and so on will definitely pop up, and the industry will be rotten.

Therefore, as the first one, the large-scale investment is to set extremely high standards in terms of timeliness, content, and circulation, and make latecomers sigh at the standards. This would prevent potential competitors from entering the industry, at least the vast majority of potential opponents. As long as we are the only one in the industry, we can earn as much as we want! ”