As soon as the Tianxia Daily was published, it caused a sensation among the citizens of Lin'an.

A total of 50,000 copies were printed, and Wang Yinglin and others thought that if they could sell half of them, they would already be considered a good start.

After all, the "Calendar Day" published by the Taishi Bureau only sold for 70 texts, which was needed by every household, but it only sold 200,000 or 300,000 copies, and it was still sold one after another.

Most of the ordinary people can save money, even if the "Calendar" can be used for many years, they are still more willing to spend only two or three pennies to buy the Minyin calendar that only manages for one year.

Although the literacy rate in the Song Dynasty was high, and there were many people in Lin'an City, they were not necessarily willing to spend money to read the newspaper.

And this is the first time it has been released, and no one else knows about this newspaper, so how many people will buy it, and the sales will definitely be limited.

It's right to think so, but Wang Yinglin and the others still underestimate the power of Yan Wangci.

Not for anything else, even in order to see King Yan's new words with their own eyes, there are countless people who are willing to spend these five cents.

As a result, 50,000 newspapers were sold out in an hour, and some people even bought all the newspapers in the newsboy's bag.

Maybe some people are trying to bring it to relatives and friends or collect something, but more people actually resell it at a higher price, and they make several times more money on their backhand, and they have to admire their business sense.

After buying the newspaper, I was a little unaccustomed to horizontal at first, and then I discovered the benefits of punctuation.

In the past, whether it was writing or printing, it was usually continuous word by word, so to understand the article, you must not only be literate, but also be able to read sentences, that is, break sentences yourself.

Even if Meng Tong has learned words, he still has to rely on the teacher to break sentences for them to read.

If the sentence is not accurate, it is very easy to create ambiguity, and even a sentence can understand many completely different meanings.

The ancients were not unaware of this problem, so it was good to use neat sentence structure, or arrangement, or duality, or symmetry, to help readers break sentences.

There are also some special words that often appear in the text, which are also used to break sentences.

Roughly speaking, '曰' and 'cloud' are used to sum up the following, 'cover' and 'husband' are mostly at the beginning of the sentence, 'in, and, then, and 'generally do the transition in the middle, 'also, 'who, trouble, balance, year' means a pause, at the end of the sentence uses 'ya' to express exclamation, 'yes, hu' to express doubt, and '矣, ear' to indicate the end.

However, there are still some places that are prone to ambiguity, and some people will draw a slash, or a dot, triangle, square, or other symbols, which can be regarded as primitive punctuation marks.

Nowadays, as long as you read the instructions in the newspaper, you can easily break the sentence with this set of standardized and complete symbols.

"This punctuation mark seems simple, but with it, reading the text is much easier, wonderful!"

"Haha, it seems that Brother Tai is the first time I've seen this punctuation mark, in fact, the Qiushi Bookstore under Yanwangfu has already published a lot of books, and it has been used for a long time."

"Realistic Bookstore? What masterpieces have been printed? I'm going to buy a few too. ”

"Well, the books printed by the Realistic Book Bureau are a bit special, they are all some practical miscellaneous studies, including new arithmetic, geometric preliminary solutions, introduction to accounting, and agricultural books such as the same name."

"Aren't there four books and five classics, and selected poems? …… Well, contemptible people love books, no matter what kind of books they are, go buy some and talk about it. ”

"These books are very cheap, and it doesn't hurt to buy some, and they should be the knowledge that His Royal Highness King Yan attaches more importance to, and it is not without benefit to understand some of them."

"That makes sense, thank you for the mention...... It is said that His Royal Highness King Yan is indeed talented, and the new song remembers Qin E...... Xiongguan Mandao is really like iron, and now it is stepping forward from the beginning...... What a heroic and passionate spirit! ”

"His Royal Highness King Yan is always able to bring forth the new, just say that this newspaper is much more interesting than ordinary tabloids, you see, there are romance legends, anecdotes, scripts, celebrity stories, ......"

"I think the best thing is this court political commentary, which is an analysis of the pros and cons of the Jingjie Law, and finally said, if you have different opinions, you are welcome to submit, once you choose, there will be remuneration ......"

The content of Tianxia Daily is rich and novel, and reading it carefully can even pass the time for half a day, which immediately captures the appetite of the vast majority of people, and the price is much cheaper than that of tabloids.

As a result, the tabloids on the market began to be ignored, so that people engaged in this industry were so anxious that they scratched their ears and cheeks, tried all kinds of ways to win back customers, and even reduced the price to five cents a piece, but it still had no effect.

The hawkers at the newsstands were fine, and they could stay in business by selling the Tianxia Daily, but the bookstores that printed the tabloids were dumbfounded.

There is such a bookstore specializing in tabloids in Xingqingfang, which is called 'Ba Min Printing Workshop', and the proprietor is Chen Shilin, a native of Jianyang, Fujian.

Fujian Jianyang and Bianjing, Lin'an, Chengdu were the four major printing centers of the Song Dynasty, and now Bianjing has fallen, and Chengdu is also a war zone, so the books on the market at this time are basically Lin'an official private editions and Jianyang editions.

There is a saying, "The Jianyang version of books is far away." ”

Although the quality of the Jianyang edition of the book is relatively poor because of the problem of paper and engraving materials, it is cheap.

The essence of books is to spread knowledge, and the cheaper price has greatly promoted local education in Fujian, so it has become a 'imperial examination factory'.

During the 300 years of the Song Dynasty, a total of more than 30,000 Jinshi were admitted, of which a quarter were from Fujian, which shows its awesomeness.

Chen Shilin's family also opened a bookstore in Jianyang earlier, and Chen Shilin himself once passed the examination and came to Lin'an to take the exam, but unfortunately his name fell to Sun Mountain.

However, in Lin'an, he found that the tabloid industry was very rich, and after returning home, he persuaded his father to move to Lin'an, which lasted for 30 years and became the leader of the Lin'an tabloid industry.

Relying on the tabloids, the Chen family also saved a lot of family business, and their lives were prosperous, but as soon as the Tianxia Daily came out, the Ba Min Printing Workshop was pushed into the cold winter.

After more than ten days, it was so bleak that it could not be sold, and even if it was distributed to the newsstand in the form of reduced price and credit, it was still returned after two days.

Looking at the mountains of returned newspapers in the yard, Chen Shilin's face was more bitter than bitter melon, and he complained to himself, "You are a dignified Yan King, you don't enjoy the glory and wealth, and you don't care about the major affairs of many countries, why do you want to get a daily newspaper to compete with me and other small people?" Let's get it, it's so cheap, it doesn't leave people alive at all! ”

He lamented, picked up the Tianxia Daily on the table and studied it, the more he looked at it, the more he thought about it, and the more puzzled he became.

"Although this paper is shoddy, it is better than what we use, the news pays attention to timeliness, and I think it is the same movable type that we use, but how can we make the font so small and clear, this ink is stable and will not be over-penetrated, so both sides of a paper can be printed...... It stands to reason that if you want to do these fine work, the cost must be far higher than ours, why can you sell it so cheaply? Could it be that King Yan is used to scattering wealth and scattering, just to have fun? ”

Movable type has been invented a long time ago, the advantages are obvious, but there are many disadvantages, the general summary is that wooden movable type is easy to deform, clay movable type is rough and fragile, metal movable type has poor inking and is expensive.

Moreover, the structure of Chinese characters is complex, and the method of manufacturing character molds at that time was hand carving rather than casting, which required very high technicians, and did not save manpower more than full-page engraving.

The most important thing is that the printed book can be read, but the quality is not high, there is no sense of exquisiteness, and it does not meet the requirements of readers.

Moreover, the Song Dynasty already had a strong engraving printing production capacity and the corresponding engraving printing industry, which was fully able to meet the market demand, so there was no urgency for new printing technology.

Therefore, movable type is generally only used in the printing of Buddhist scriptures, yellow calendars, tabloids, etc.

Zhao Mengqi guided the craftsmen to overcome the problems of casting, word inspection, ink and other problems, and the new printing technology formed by this was so low that Chen Shilin couldn't figure it out.

Just when Chen Shilin was so worried that he wanted to eat the newspaper in his hand, several officials walked in.

"Outside of Chen, my brothers have sent you news again, there is a big ...... today."

Chen Shilin smiled bitterly, "Chen's current situation is not unclear to you, and it is useless to receive your news." ”

The officials were also very distressed, and laughed, "We naturally know the hardships of the outside staff, but for the sake of cooperating with each other for so many years, you can do it well, collect the news, this time only charge you half price, your family has a big business, and it is not bad for these three melons and two dates, but the brothers are still waiting for money to buy rice and put it in the pot......"

One thing to say, the Chen family tabloid can become bigger and stronger, thanks to these 'part-time reporters' who can always send gimmicky secrets.

Chen Shilin was not completely dead at this time, so for the sake of maintaining the relationship, he said, "Okay, Chen will grit his teeth and fight this difficulty alone, and he can't treat the brothers badly, let's say, what is the big deal." ”

Seeing that Chen Shilin agreed, the 'part-time reporters' were all relieved, the news is worthless if you can't find a seller, and it will expire soon.

"From a friend in our palace, Concubine Yan secretly summoned a singing and dancing team to go in yesterday afternoon......

"What's so strange about this, isn't it common for the palace to hire market artists?"

"Hehe, don't worry, Chen Yuanwai, this time is unusual, the team was called by Yan Guifei, but in fact, it was for the official family to perform, and the official family was very happy after watching it, and gave a heavy reward, the key is ......"

"What's the point, don't sell it."

"Hehe, the key is that the singing and dancing team came out before the lock in Miyagi, but there was one person missing, and the missing person was most likely Tang An'an."

"Tang An'an!?"

"Bacheng is her, since she didn't leave the palace, she must have been stayed by the official family, others, you know, hehe......"

Chen Shilin couldn't help but be moved, "The official family stays in the inner palace!?" Wow! It's really a big deal...... Hey, if it was half a month ago, with this news, you would have earned at least a few hundred yuan! It's a pity ......."

If this kind of secret is published in the tabloids, it will definitely anger the officials, but if you can make money, it is okay to take some risks, but now that the newspaper can't sell, it would be a bit silly to do so.

I spent five times to buy this melon, and in the end I had to keep it for myself and eat it.

In the evening, when Chen Shilin returned home, his son Chen Huang greeted him excitedly, "Daddy, our printing workshop has been saved......

Seeing his son, who had always been out of tune, Chen Shilin subconsciously wanted to scold, but saw that his son was followed by a scholar.

"In Xia Sun Yuanzheng, he and Chen Huang are friends and Fujian people, so I took the liberty to ask Uncle Chen to find a clean place and discuss the printing workshop."

Chen Shilin was suspicious in his heart, but when he heard about the printing workshop, he was still patient and led Sun Yuanzheng to his study.

The three of them sat down, and Sun Yuanzheng's face became serious, "I have a way to bring your family's printing workshop back to life, but there is a premise, you must not reveal my relationship with you to anyone......"

After the Chen family's father and son made a guarantee, Sun Yuanzheng said slowly, "Tomorrow, I will have people send 10,000 yuan, and all your printing workshop has to do is to continue to print tabloids, and then give them to the vendors for free, so that they can only sell them for one penny......"

10,000 yuan, at the price of 20 wen a copy, that is 500,000 copies, which is already the sales volume of my own house in the past two or three months.

When Chen Shilin heard this, he naturally wouldn't disagree, but he also knew that pies would not fall from the sky, so he twisted his eyebrows, "Ten thousand yuan is not a small amount of money, I don't know if you do this, how do you want me to repay?" ”

Sun Yuanzheng chuckled, "Uncle Chen is also a transparent person, and he will open the skylight to say bright words in the future, what I want to do is not complicated, you used to do it often, as for the specific content to be released, you will naturally know when the time comes, rest assured, it will not be more serious than the ones you posted before, what you have to do now is to keep the channel of your tabloid ......"

Chen Shilin understood what Sun Yuanzheng meant, although he was still a little apprehensive, but if he gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, as long as the content does not cross the line at that time...... It's not difficult to keep the channel, it's impossible for free vendors not to want it, and it just so happens that I have a lot of stuff on hand......"

But after Sun Yuanzheng asked about the content of the material, he stopped, "No!" If this causes trouble, it will affect my plans! ”

"Well, you bought these newspapers anyway, and you have the final say." Chen Shilin shrugged.

The two sides agreed on some details, and finally Sun Yuanzheng said before leaving, "10,000 is not enough, you can add more at that time, as long as your printing workshop lasts for a month or two, it will definitely be able to come back to life." ”