In the early spring, the streets of Shanghai are still cold, and most of the people who come and go in a hurry are still wearing thick coats, and they can still see the white fog when they exhale.

"Sell newspapers, sell newspapers, yesterday His Majesty issued an oracle reaffirming the Empire's determination to adhere to industrial development!" A newsboy in straw sandals and a thin cloth coat held a large stack of newspapers in his hand, and a thick pile of newspapers in a cloth bag around his waist. Although the pair on his body was thin and had a lot of patches, he was extremely clean, and although the white-washed clothes and the pair of straw sandals could not withstand the cold in the morning, they looked relatively refreshing.

He stood in the crossroads, holding the newspaper in his hand and shouting in a childish voice.

"Sir, get a newspaper, for a penny!" The newsboy held up the newspaper and approached a well-dressed middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man glanced at the newspaper in the newsboy's hand, and when he saw the 'Trade Bulletin' written on the newspaper, he immediately stopped, and then took out a banknote with 'One Cent' printed on it from his pocket.

"Here's a copy!" After the middle-aged man spoke, he handed over the money.

The newsboy immediately looked happy, this was the first newspaper he had sold today, and after handing over the trade bulletin in his hand, he carefully took the banknote, and then turned to another well-dressed young man who was carrying a rattan briefcase.

He also shouted the slogan that the newspaper people taught them to learn before they set out to sell the newspaper, because he was illiterate, and not only him, but most of the newspaper boys were illiterate, and if no one told him what was said in the newspaper today, it was estimated that he would not know the contents of the newspaper.

"Sell newspapers. Selling newspapers, His Majesty held a royal banquet at the Shanghai Palace yesterday. A large number of officials and businessmen attended! ”

He shouted as he spoke, and the newspaper in his hand was quickly sold. Look at another newspaper called Su Song Business Daily on the opposite side of the street, Hualin Daily, and a large number of newspapers, he couldn't help but smile, fortunately, what he is taking today is selling trade bulletins, although this trade bulletin is usually not easy to sell, although it is published in a very timely political current affairs and industrial and commercial affairs, and it is not like several other newspapers in Shanghai, it will also publish messy anecdotes, gossip and the like.

Therefore, this trade bulletin is not easy to sell on weekdays. Because except for those who care about the current situation and business information, ordinary people basically don't read it, but those who pay attention to business bulletins are generally upper-class people, officials, businessmen, most of them will choose to directly subscribe on a monthly or annual basis, and rarely go directly to the street to buy newspapers to read.

So usually. He also rarely sells this trade bulletin, because he can't sell it, although the newspapers that can't be sold can be returned, but it's not a good thing to waste time. If you can't sell it, you won't have any money, and you may have to go hungry at night.

But whenever something big happens, the Trade Bulletin is always the best selling newspaper. For example, last year, the empire sent warships to bombard the Japanese 'Motoshimonoseki Fort. When the news came back to China, the Business Gazette was the first to publish the news. On that day, the trade bulletin was sold out, and even had to be reprinted urgently, and its circulation reached 15,000 copies in history, you must know that this is a daily newspaper in the sixties of the nineteenth century, with a daily circulation of 15,000 copies, this data is not so easy to achieve.

In the early years, the empire did not have clear laws on the newspaper industry, and whether or not a newspaper could be run basically depended on the attitude of local officials, for example, Shanghai was relatively open, so there were newspapers very early, but Nantong, which is across the river, was not allowed to run newspapers.

Later, in 1860, the empire officially promulgated the relevant laws and regulations of the newspaper industry, which clearly stipulated: the private sector is allowed to set up newspapers, but the procedures required to set up newspapers are very complicated, and the requirements for applicants are quite high, first of all, capital requirements, and the other is that the owners and editors of the newspaper must apply and approve, and anyone who has inappropriate ideas and remarks is not allowed to participate in the newspaper industry.

In addition, because the imperial newspaper law stipulates that public newspapers must be submitted for review in advance before they are officially put on sale, and considering that it is impossible for state employees to send so many people to review tomorrow's newspapers for you every night, although newspapers are allowed to run in various localities, they are generally only allowed to run weekly newspapers or even monthly newspapers, and as for the daily newspapers, it is quite difficult to apply, even in the huge Shanghai, there are only five daily newspapers, namely "Shanghai Business Daily", "Business Bulletin", "Susong Business Daily", "Hualin Daily" and "Shanghai Evening News"

It is worth noting that two of the five daily newspapers are controlled by the Royal Asset Management Office, of which the Commercial Gazette was founded in 1854 under the personal direction of Lin Zhe, and this newspaper also published some interesting gossip information at first, but later the Royal Bank in the royal industry and the British-funded Xinde & Co. cooperated to form a newspaper, which was the Shanghai Business Daily, and the Shanghai Business Daily was a comprehensive newspaper.

So at that time, the trade bulletin was a very purely political, industrial and commercial newspaper, mainly publishing some political and commercial information.

Although this newspaper has nothing to do with ordinary people, it is a must-read newspaper for middle and high-ranking officials and businessmen in the Jiangnan area, because it will publish some political information in a timely manner, such as the appointment of senior officials, and what policies have been introduced by the central government or a local province.

There are only five daily newspapers in Shanghai, but there are also more than 30 weekly and monthly newspapers, and if the average is down, there are about 80,000 newspapers in Shanghai every day, and in addition to digesting them locally in Shanghai, a considerable part of them will be sent to the surrounding areas of Shanghai, and even to Zhejiang, Beijing, and even Hubei.

In addition to carrying passengers, the daily regular steam liner also carries a large number of letters and newspapers.

In recent years, not only in Shanghai, but also in other places, a large number of newspapers have emerged, basically large cities will have a daily newspaper and a number of weekly newspapers, monthly reports and the like.

The reason for the blowout of the newspaper industry is not that the economic development of the empire is good, but because people have found a new way to comment on current affairs, especially when it is rumored that His Majesty the Emperor Lin Zhe will read the newspaper every day, and he wants to publish his own articles in the newspaper in order to reach the heavens.

Therefore, even though there is a very high threshold for engaging in the newspaper industry, being able to publish their own articles and ideas in the newspaper still attracts countless literati and writers to devote themselves to it.

When some people see that the newspaper does not publish their own articles, but publishes the articles of those people they don't like, they are not willing to lag behind, and they simply pull in three or five friends as soon as they grit their teeth, or simply do it by themselves, and then get a newspaper to come out, and they can't apply for a daily newspaper, but it's not bad to play weekly and monthly reports.

As a result, a group of literati who wrote for newspapers in the past two years also gave birth to a group of literati, because most of the newspapers were for ordinary people, in order to let more people understand their articles and convey their own ideas, so many literati began to use simpler, straightforward sentences to write articles, and this kind of articles are also vernacular Chinese.

However, the so-called modern poems of later generations were not written by anyone, after all, the literati of this era still have some self-esteem, so they let them put it:

these

Bullshit.

Break casually

Add a mark to each sentence

Sentences with dot symbols.

Think of it as poetry,

It's still a bit difficult.

The emergence of vernacular literature can also promote the development of education to a certain extent, after all, when students are reading and literacy, it is far less familiar and easy to understand than learning articles such as 'back'.

The emergence of vernacular literature is the inevitable result of the rapid development of the newspaper industry.

However, although in 1860, a large number of newspapers began to emerge all over the country, but the development of the newspaper industry is still relatively backward and uneven, in some coastal port cities and political and economic centers, newspapers have developed quite rapidly, for example, there are as many as 34 newspapers in Shanghai that have been formally approved.

As the political center, there are also more than a dozen newspapers in Beijing, and there are more or less newspapers in other cities such as Guangzhou, Tianjin, Suzhou, and Wuchang.

For example, the newspapers in Shanghai have a daily circulation of nearly 80,000 copies, of which the largest circulation is Shanghai Business Daily, which is a comprehensive daily newspaper giant. The Shanghai Business Daily was co-funded by Royal Bank and Xinde Bank.

However, although the two major investors have invested, they do not have management rights, and their management is managed by a number of senior and prestigious literati and professional managers hired by the board of directors.

This decentralization model also allows Shanghai Business Daily to have an advantage that other newspapers do not have, that is, there is not too much control from the capital side, and the management also has a few foreigners, or a few foreign editors who ran English newspapers in Shanghai in the early years, so the newspaper has developed rapidly, and now its daily circulation has reached 26,000 copies a day, and its audience is very wide, not like Su Song Business Daily for ordinary citizens, nor like the business bulletin for the middle class and above, since its readers have imperial high-ranking officials and even Lin Zhe, the emperor of the empire, and there are also those ordinary citizens.

The blowout of the newspaper industry has also given birth to a very special group, that is, newsboys!

On this crossroads of Shanghai's Bund Avenue alone, there are three or four newsboys.

The newsboy who sold the trade bulletin patted the empty cloth bag with a smile on his face, and while covering the stack of change notes in his pocket tightly with his hand, he trotted up, he wanted to take advantage of today's trade bulletin to sell, and then go and get another batch back to sell.

If he's lucky, maybe he'll be able to make a lot of money today!

He thought that if he made a dime, he would go buy a small bag of rice, and his sister hadn't eaten white rice in a long time. (To be continued.) )

PS:It's been a little busy these last few days.,So there's been less update, and please be considerate of the brothers.,I'll return to normal updates when I'm free in a few days.,Then I'll make up for some of the chapters that are owed.。