Everyone looked at each other when they heard Shao Xi's words, and the original land of this printing technique had already existed.

After each book is compiled, a craftsman will be asked to carve the contents of the book into a plate on a wooden board, and after applying ink, the paper will cover it and wipe it evenly, so that the reverse text on the engraving plate can be printed on the paper, and then the printed paper with different layouts will be bound into a book, which becomes a printed book.

But what kind of technology is the movable type printing that Shao Xi is talking about?

Shao Xi saw that everyone present did not know what to do, so he opened his mouth to explain: "Although this printing technique has been around for a long time, it has many drawbacks. For example, once there is a mistake or omission in the engraving, it is necessary to scrap the whole page and re-engrave it from scratch, which is really time-consuming and labor-intensive; In addition, the engraving plates are all made of wood, which is easily deformed by moisture and water, and the number of prints is extremely limited; Due to the uneven texture of the wood, the difficulty of engraving is also relatively large; After the printing of the book is completed, the storage of the engraving plate also takes up a lot of space, and it is really laborious to do a good job of anti-corrosion and moth-proofing; A large number of wooden engravings are piled up and stored and they are very afraid of fire, which is really inconvenient. ”

After listening to Shao Xi's analysis, Bai Dinggong and Liu Xingzhai both nodded in agreement. This is indeed a common problem facing the printing press today, but there has been no good solution.

Shao Xi saw that the two masters agreed with their views on the current engraving printing technology, so he continued: "Then in view of the shortcomings I mentioned above, solve them one by one to form the movable type printing I mentioned before. First of all, in order to prevent mistakes and omissions in the whole page engraving, we can split the text of the whole page engraving into independent single words, so that even if a word is carved wrong, it is not a pity to scrap it, save labor and time, and can also be disassembled and stored when not in use, saving space; Since the wooden engraving is easy to deform when it encounters moisture and water, then we will replace it with copper to solve the disadvantages of deformation, and it can be printed into a large number of books, and the copper is also relatively soft, the texture is uniform, not afraid of fire, although the difficulty of carving is greater than that of wooden engraving, but it is not impossible to do. In this way, the text arrangement can be flexibly adjusted according to the needs of each printing, and the printing plate can be disassembled into independent blocks after printing, and recombined and arranged into the next edition. Wouldn't it be more convenient and faster than engraving, saving time and effort? ”

Shao Xi's analysis and explanation really surprised everyone present.

Although everyone knew the disadvantages of engraving printing before, they could not find a good solution, and now listening to Shao Xi say this, it has indeed solved all the current problems.

With Bai Dinggong's consent, Shao Xi vacated a space in the room originally dedicated to transcription, and let the craftsmen place and install the typesetting tools prepared in advance.

This set of movable type printing tools is Shao Xi's synthesis of the movable type printing technology of several dynasties in the original world, such as the movable type typesetting of Bi Sheng in the Song Dynasty, the copper movable type of Zhou Bida in the Song Dynasty, and the "words on the person, according to the rhyme" of Wang Zhen's rotary typesetting plate in the Yuan Dynasty, etc.

In short, Shao Xi took out all the movable type printing techniques he had learned in the history books and could use.

When Bai Dinggong and others watched several craftsmen combine and arrange the engraved copper movable type blocks into an article and print it into an article, they were all shocked, and couldn't help but sigh why they had never thought of changing the engraving to typesetting before? It is not only flexible and time-saving, but also saves a lot of materials and manpower.

The most incredible thing is that the rotary typesetting plate can further speed up the typesetting, which is not comparable to the previous engraving.

Bai Dinggong and Liu Xingzhai, the two old masters, watched the printing process of the craftsmen, and kept sighing about the efficiency of movable type printing.

Bai Dinggong couldn't help but ask Shao Xi: "How many books can be printed in a month with movable type typesetting like this?" ”

Shao Xi thought for a while and said: "If the number of movable types is small, it can only be arranged page by page, and printed page by page, which is indeed a bit slow. But if a large number of movable copper types are carved and typeset together, and each group of people is responsible for typesetting and printing one of the pages, how can thousands of copies be printed in a month? ”

When the two masters heard Shao Xi say that they could print more than thousands of copies in a month, they were so surprised that their eyes were round, and their mouths were wide open.

At the beginning, the two of them really took a lot of effort to print their books into a book. Because each page has to be engraved by a master, the number of prints is not much, but it consumes a lot of time and manpower.

Nowadays, it is different, just ask the engraver to carve out a large number of copper movable type blocks at one time, and then typeset and print according to the content of the book.

As long as there are enough of them, every page of a book can be typeset and printed at the same time, which is a hundred times faster than before.

The two old men pulled Shao Xi and kept saying words of thanks, they really didn't expect to receive such a big gift on the occasion of the Shangyuan Festival. In the future, the two of them can co-authored a large number of books and circulate them in the world, and their painstaking efforts will not be in vain.

Bai Jinqing and the others were also shocked by Shao Xi's gift, but they didn't expect that he had been running inside and outside for this matter in the past two days, this was really a great good thing for people who read in the world! This act is enough to go down in history.

Only Shao Xi knows in his heart, where is this what he did? This is obviously borrowing the achievements of the ancestors of the past generations, but in this world, they have become his achievements.

Bai Dinggong said to Shao Xi excitedly: "The old man will definitely present this matter to the saint, let the saint know that you are the Central Plains, for all the scholars and people in the world have done a great thing that is enough to affect thousands of generations, and you Shao Xi's name must be left in the history books of my Jingyuan Dynasty." ”

Shao Xi secretly said in his heart: "You don't need to say this, the people who have done these things in history have indeed influenced thousands of generations, and they have all left their names in the history books." ”

Shao Xi saw that things were almost done, so he said goodbye to the two masters, and promised to find some craftsmen to make more movable type blocks and typesetting tools to send to the academy after the Shangyuan Festival. When the time comes, the books to be printed will be typeset and printed by the gentlemen and protégés of the academy.

Before leaving, Bai Dinggong asked Shao Xi how much silver he needed to ask these craftsmen to make so many things, Shao Xi hurriedly said that it would hurt his feelings to talk about money, and it was natural for him to do something for the academy as a protégé of the academy. This made Bai Dinggong even more moved, and he kept talking about promoting this printing technique in the entire Jingyuan Empire, and he also played it to the saint and asked for a reward for Shao Xi.

Shao Xi and his entourage left the Egret Academy, and the two old men went back to look at movable type printing.

Because they came out too early in the morning, several people didn't eat in the afternoon, so at Shao Xi's suggestion, the group took a carriage to the Moon Tower. The reason why I didn't go to Junxiao Lou again was because Hu Yushan and a few people felt that something had happened there a few days ago, and it was not very lucky to go now, so they had to avoid it for a while. Shao Xi didn't say much about their belief in ghosts and gods.

When he arrived at Wangyue Tower, Shao Xi didn't ask Bai Jinqing and the others for their opinions, and directly ordered a table according to the standard when he came to Lao Wu last time.

Anyway, for him now, a tael of silver is nothing at all, and it just so happens to let a few brothers have a good taste of the signature dishes of Mochizuki Tower and the famous mulberry wine.

After the third round of drinking, several people chatted about movable type printing again, in addition to lamenting Shao Xi's unconventional ideas, they were also relieved that everyone in the world would have books to read in the future.

At this time, what Shao Xi was thinking in his heart was not something that their thinking could keep up with.

Now that the art of movable type printing has been introduced, there are more things to consider.

Bai Dinggong and Liu Xingzhai are the two masters of the literary world, so the source of this book is naturally not a problem. But what should be done to make the printed book widely circulated? Is it by sending?

The printing and binding of books will consume a lot of money costs, which involves the problem of publishing and distribution.

When it comes to publishing and distribution, it involves the price of books, so the main reason for the price of books is the price of paper. At present, the price of paper in the Central Plains is on the high side, and the cheap books bound into volumes cost hundreds of thousands of yuan, and the expensive ones cost tens of thousands of yuan, which is not something that ordinary people can afford.

The threshold of price naturally blocks the vast majority of people from the door, and reading has become a luxury. Only in this way can there be hope for the improvement of the cultural level of the whole people.

At present, it is not only the price of books that remains high because of the high cost of paper, but also the paper used in government official business is currently extremely expensive. Whether it is the local household registration, finance, food, and military supplies, they all have to be registered, and this cost has always been borne by the imperial court, and it also costs a lot of money on paper every year.

Before the protégé of the academy gave gifts to Bai Dinggong, among them, the protégé gave the best water-patterned paper, speaking of which the price of a knife paper is more than gold, which shows that the production process of paper is complex, the manufacturing cost is high, and the number of finished products is small.

Now that the problem of mass printing has been solved, the next thing to solve is the price of paper. If you want to keep the price of paper down, there is no other way but to find a way to reduce the cost from the manufacturing process of paper.

When it comes to reducing manufacturing costs, the most important factor is none other than the choice of manufacturing materials.

At present, most of the Central Plains paper is green rattan paper, because the growth of green rattan is affected by the season, the growth cycle is long, so the output of green rattan paper has not been high, and then the paper price remains high.

In this way, not to mention printing books, even the entry officials in various places should also consider the problem of saving paper when entering various local data, which will cause the case data to be unknown, and will also have a lot of negative effects on the policy management of the entire Jingyuan Kingdom.

Therefore, the increase of paper production has become a top priority to be solved at present, only by reducing the cost of materials and increasing the output of papermaking, can the price of paper be lowered.

When paper is no longer a luxury, the local government can better report various data to the imperial court, the people can afford to read and write, and only with culture can they open up the wisdom of the people.

So what should be used to replace the green rattan paper? There is one of the best options – bamboo paper.