Da Tang: Father, can I resign?

Chapter 49 Movable Type Printing

New content printed every day?!

Wei Daijia and Lai Junchen both felt that His Highness Li Ming's ideas were a bit far-fetched.

Not to mention that carving printing blocks is a delicate craft that is time-consuming and labor-intensive.

Even if the carpenter wanted to improve his performance, he used his carving knife to carve out sparks.

It takes at least a few days to dry and cool the carved blocks!

"Although His Highness Li Ming is a great master in managing people, he is still too young and tends to act too hastily." Wei Daijia muttered in a low voice.

Li Ming glanced at him:
"General, what are you talking about?"

"Your Highness, I think it's a good idea!"

After working at the grassroots level for a while, Wei Daijia became slippery. He dodged the kicking pig's trotters like a loach and quickly mounted his horse to hail people.

Soon, all the young and old people gathered in Zhang's bookstore, and the place was full of sparkling lights.

The noble children sat in the front, and the key business personnel selected by Lai Junchen sniffed the sweat odor on their bodies and consciously stood in the back.

Li Ming took a look, frowned and patted the stool:

"Are you hiding in the back of the meeting? Can you hear me clearly? Everyone, come sit up and squeeze in together!"

Under his tyrannical arrangement, the nobles' children and craftsmen sat down one by one.

The taciturn craftsmen were particularly reserved at this time and wanted to huddle into a ball.

I was afraid of soiling my neighbor's expensive clothes, and I couldn't afford the compensation even if I sold them.

The children are quite carefree.

They were used to dealing with Li Mingye and had long since stopped caring about details.

Everyone sat down, and Li Ming got straight to the point:

“I hope the content of the flyer can be updated every day.”

One stone caused a thousand ripples, and everyone was immediately in an uproar.

But they are all voices of support.

Chang Sunyan rubbed his dark circles, but his eyes were shining:
"Aung is in a better and better mood recently, and he has become more talkative and ate more. He said that although the public opinion this time is strange, it is in his favor."

His father-in-law Changsun Wuji regarded Hou Junji as an ally. After reading these low-level red leaflets, the angry people said for him what he was not convenient to say.

Fang Yizhe smiled evilly:
"My grandpa has been scratching his head recently, muttering, 'I can't figure it out, I can't figure it out, how on earth did he come up with this crazy idea?' Hey, we can make him scratch his head too!"

Yuchi Xunyu showed his white teeth and said cheerfully:
"My uncle has been closed to visitors for a long time. Recently, I couldn't help but ask the palace what happened and why it caused such a big commotion."

Although the children have different positions, they are all very excited about being able to directly participate in national affairs.

Di Renjie remained silent.

Because Wei Daijia was too busy, the burden of reviewing and revising all the articles gradually shifted to his shoulders, and his hairline moved back visibly.

But he enjoyed it.

Being able to observe this high-level political struggle with your own eyes is worth the price of admission, even if you die from overwork!

Li Xiaoyi's painting style is much more unique and clear.

He applauded Mingge's proposal:
"Good! Now the people are full of slander against the court, saying that Your Majesty intends to unjustly kill good generals. This is simply unreasonable!
"As the sons of court officials, we are paid by the emperor. We must educate the people and correct this evil trend!"

You are the one who is the most aggressive in criticizing others... Everyone is complaining in their hearts.

Li Jingye, who always keeps things to himself, kindly reminded:
"If you really wish to protect the emperor's reputation, then I advise you not to write."

The harsh words, coupled with his sharp-nosed and monkey-faced appearance, made Li Xiaoyi so angry that he immediately jumped into a rage:
"What did you say?"

"I said, if you can't write an ode, don't write it!"

Li Jingye became very angry because he was criticized for giving advice with good intentions.

"Fuck you!"

"I'm going to fuck your mother!"

This pair of enemies who had attacked each other in history started fighting each other decades in advance.

Everyone:...

"Stop fighting. Go outside if you want to fight."

Li Ming blasted out the two men who were fighting fiercely, and rubbed his forehead in distress:
"Then update every day, is that okay?"

"No!" The children were full of energy.

The problem of typists has been solved, and the next problem is the more troublesome printing problem.

Li Ming shifted his gaze to the silent craftsmen.

"I also want to hear the opinions of professionals." The craftsmen still looked down at the ground.

Perhaps infected by the relaxed atmosphere, a young carpenter looked around and whispered his concerns:
"If new articles were to be published every day, new printing blocks would have to be made every day, which is impossible."

Once someone took the lead, other workers became bolder and started discussing the topic.

"Not necessarily impossible. What if we work harder and carve faster?"

"That won't work. Even if you blow into a clay plate, it will take several days to dry it!"

“What if it’s not dried?”

"The clay is soft, so the words tend to blur together. Have you forgotten? In the past two days, we were in a rush, so the printed list was unreadable."

"What if we turn on the fire?"

"If the fire is too strong, the engraving will crack and break as soon as you print. You have been dealing with these things all your life, and you don't know this?"

The discussion among the craftsmen became more and more heated, just like a group of science and engineering men checking answers after a math test.

Finally, they reached a consensus:

Li Lang’s ideas are very rich, but the reality is very bleak.

Even without considering the cost of the explosion, it is impossible to manufacture daily-disposable engravings.

Even if we exercise subjective initiative, we must still follow objective laws.

Li Ming watched the discussion with satisfaction and tapped the ground lightly with his finger.

The craftsmen and children immediately stopped their discussion and waited for the boss to speak.

"The problem actually lies in this engraving." Li Ming said slowly:
“Every time the content is changed, the engraving plate has to be remade, and if there is a mistake in the engraving, it cannot be corrected, which is very inflexible.

"What if we abandon woodblock printing?"

This question left everyone at a loss.

"If we don't use plates, what can we use to print?"

It's like sawing off your head to cure a headache.

Li Ming grinned, took out a handful of copper coins from his arms and threw them on the ground.

use money?

People were puzzled by this lavish spending.

I know that you, Li Lang, are rich, but no matter how rich you are, you can't make Tao Ni obey you, right?

Under the suspicious gaze of the audience, Li Ming arranged the copper coins into two rows.

"Assume that each copper coin is one word, and two lines of words are printed on one leaflet."

Everyone nodded.

Li Ming patiently persuaded:

"What should we do if we want to change the order of these words?"

The young carpenter who spoke first replied:
"That's easy. Just rearrange the coins..."

Halfway through his words, he suddenly realized something and opened his eyes wide with excitement:
"I understand what Li Lang means! I understand what Li Lang means!

"Why bother with carving blocks or kneading mud? Can't you just rearrange the characters?!"

After all, they are craftsmen who have been working for a lifetime. Several craftsmen understood it immediately and shouted with excitement.

Wei Daijia and the children were completely confused.

What is this rearrangement? What is this abandoning of woodblock printing? What kind of wit is this?

Li Ming scattered the copper coins on the ground:
“That is to say, the printing is not done on a single engraving block.

"Instead, we cast individual molds, and when printing different articles, we just need to rearrange the molds according to the content of the article.

"In this way, each font can be reused, without having to create a template for each draft."

This time everyone understood.

Yup!

Since the woodblock as a whole is difficult to solve, it can be broken down into pieces!

I was bound by old ideas and stuck in the dead end of woodblock printing, and I had no solution.

As long as you change your mindset, the solution can actually be very simple!
Li Ming curled his lips and said with a smile:
"Every word is alive, so I would like to call this printing technology——

"Movable type printing."

(End of this chapter)