My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 228 Liu Biao's foolish behavior backfired

When it comes to printing large quantities of books that need to be printed repeatedly, such as thousands of copies, the cost of woodblock printing is actually no higher than that of movable type printing.

However, the initial investment is relatively large, and all the contents of the books to be printed have to be engraved once, so most people cannot do this, and the startup phase takes a long time.

The main advantage of movable type is that it can be started quickly. If there is something new to print, it can be started in a few days, unlike woodblock printing, which often requires several months of preparation. Therefore, when printing the Thirteen Classics of Confucianism, which is in huge demand, woodblock printing is completely sufficient.

These shortcomings were all made up when Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang invested in the printing industry with the official power of local princes. They had money and were not afraid of large initial capital investment and slow return. They also did not care when the engraving could be completed.

This technology has only been tested for more than two months. Even if more carpenters were employed, only "Er Ya", which has very few words among the Thirteen Classics, and a small part of "Mao Shi" have been carved. But Zhuge Liang can wait and release it bit by bit. Even if it takes several years, it will be enough to attract scholars in Jingzhou and the north.

Sima Hui and Xu Shu came to this conclusion after roughly estimating the work efficiency of the printing house.

However, Zhuge Liang was not satisfied with ending the tour immediately. Now that he was here, he had to fully flex his muscles and potential, and explain all the details and ingenuity to Xu Shu:

"This method of engraving may seem simple, but there are actually many details to pay attention to. A wise man should be able to see the big picture from the small details and take precautions. For example, after carving a block with great difficulty, some characters may wear out after printing hundreds of volumes. If we don't take precautions, the whole block will be wasted. Isn't that a pity?"

The only obvious disadvantage of woodblock printing over movable type in printing the Thirteen Classics was that it was more difficult to replace them after they were worn out. If a movable type was worn out, one only had to replace the damaged character.

If a few words on the carved plate are damaged, it may be necessary to replace the entire plate.

However, these shortcomings were not a big problem because Zhuge Liang had his elder brother Zhuge Jin, a time traveler, to help him check and predict and remind him of pain points in advance.

Even though Sima Hui and Xu Shu, who were laymen, had not yet seen the trick and did not ask him, Zhuge Liang would still take the initiative to show off.

When Xu Shu heard this, he thought that this question was indeed foreseen. He thought about it himself, but couldn't think of a solution, so he humbly asked for advice: "Since you have anticipated this problem, how should you solve it?"

Zhuge Liang boasted, like a villager who could empty a tank of gas by strolling around the village after catching a big fish: "Actually, it's not that difficult if you understand it clearly. First, we plan to make the plate smaller in the future. Now a large plate can print a whole volume, with thousands of words, which is not flexible enough. In the future, we will reduce it to two or three hundred words per page, and the paper will also be cut smaller, and slowly work out a size that is the most efficient overall.

Moreover, when I carved the blocks for the first time, I asked the craftsmen to choose harder and more wear-resistant wood, and to carve the characters deeper, generally ensuring that the strokes protruded two points (about four millimeters) from the back of the board.

The higher the characters are raised, the more they can be worn. After printing hundreds of times, if you find that a considerable part of the characters are worn away, you can use sandpaper to sand the other characters that are less worn, making sure that all the characters are back to a similar raised height, and then you can print hundreds more times.

Finally, if all else fails, we can carve out the characters that are particularly worn out, carve a single-character square block of the same size and stuff it into the gap to fill it up, or glue it in. In short, we try to use low-cost methods to repair and extend the durability of the carved plate."

While Zhuge Liang was explaining, he took Sima Hui and Xu Shu to observe each process on site. There were indeed two or three carpenters in the workshop who were carrying out the repair work, repairing the plates that were occasionally worn, missing words, or had typos.

Xu Shu took a quick look at the work at first and did not think it was that difficult. After listening to the explanation, he learned that the wood used for the carvings was relatively hard, so he could not help but pick up a piece of wood to take a closer look and then broke it with his hands.

Finally, he took out his original sword and made a strong scratch on the wooden tablet, feeling the difficulty of carving, and then he was slightly disappointed:

"These woods are really hard. How come those craftsmen can wield their knives so quickly? Are the carving knives of carpenters in Wuchang particularly sophisticated?"

Zhuge Liang was asked about his pride again: "The carving knives used by the craftsmen were naturally not sharp enough and difficult to carve hard wood. But I have been digging the Daye Iron Mine in E County for the past two months and innovating the process of forging knives with steel.

The original intention of mining, smelting iron and refining steel there was to strengthen the army, but swords and guns have not been mass-produced yet. I did ask people to forge and polish a batch of carpenter's knives using the new method.

These knives are in great demand, but not much steel is used. The most laborious part is the sharpening and grinding. It is too slow to use a whetstone to grind them back and forth. I have also thought of a foot-operated grinding wheel, which can sharpen a dull carving knife in a few breaths. Brother Xu, please look here. "

Xu Shu looked in the direction of Zhuge Liang's finger, and sure enough, there was a knife sharpener in the corner providing supporting services to the carpenters.

The knife sharpener was stepping on something similar to a bicycle pedal (of course Xu Shu didn't know what a bicycle was). The pedal had a thick shaft with a tight belt on it. The other end of the belt was connected to the shaft of the knife sharpening wheel, which was very thin.

In this way, relying on the thickness ratio of the rotating shaft, you can achieve a speed change effect similar to that of a bicycle chain gear set, but it is more likely to slip than a bicycle, but it is not a big problem. Basically, when you step on the pedal once, the grinding wheel can rotate more than ten times. Put a blunt carving knife on it and grind it for a few seconds and it can be used again.

"These are the correct ways to strengthen the army. In such a chaotic world, how can we rely solely on culture and education to attract scholars? You have so many wonderful ideas that I am really fascinated by them." Xu Shu sighed from the bottom of his heart.

Zhuge Liang: "It's not difficult. In a few days, please ask Brother Xu to go to E County to observe. At that time, you can also choose your initial duties according to your strengths."

When the people around heard this, Shi Tao immediately expressed that he also wanted to go with Xu Shu to broaden his horizons.

However, purely academic talents such as Sima Hui, Yin Mo and Li Ren were not interested in things like forging weapons and smelting steel, so they expressed their willingness to stay at the Wuchang Academy and start work that day.

Zhuge Liang naturally would not force it, and he tried to divert this wave of talents.

……

Three days later, Sima Hui, Yin Mo and Li Ren had initially adapted to the environment in Wuchang, and Sima Hui decided to open a school in the Wuchang Academy and accept disciples.

Yin Mo and Li Ren had not completed their studies themselves, so they studied while helping their mentor with some auxiliary work - similar to the part-time teaching assistants for graduate students in later generations.

The academy has only built two buildings. Everything is in its infancy. We still have to start with publicity and attracting students. It is estimated that we will not receive many people in the last ten days of the twelfth lunar month this year. It will not be on the right track until at least after the Lantern Festival next year.

Xu Shu and Shi Tao were also taken by Zhuge Liang to visit various places during these days, and they came to E County. In E County, Xu Shu saw a stream flowing from Jutie Mountain to the Yangtze River, which was intercepted and stored. Then another artificial canal was dug into the river to ensure that the water level difference and water energy impact were even in each section.

On both sides of the outlet channel, there are densely packed newly built water wheels, each of which is connected to a container similar to the cement mixing tanks of later generations. Inside the containers are countless freshly excavated iron ores, which are crushed by gravity rolling and collision with each other, and then manually sorted to remove impurities and waste rocks, and then the relatively concentrated ore sand is transported to the smelting area.

In the smelting area, Xu Shu saw an iron smelting furnace that was two or three meters high, more than twice the size of the tallest furnace he had seen before.

A higher furnace means a better heat storage environment, and with sufficient air blowing, the internal furnace temperature will rise further.

However, with the new refractory brick enclosure, even though the furnace temperature is high enough to cause molten iron to flow out quickly, the inner wall of the furnace does not soften at all and remains strong in resisting pressure.

After the molten iron flows out, there is a huge and heavy container directly at the iron outlet of the furnace. The container is filled with preheated red-hot wrought iron rods as thick as soybeans. After the molten iron is poured in, the raw and wrought iron carburize each other. In just over a quarter of an hour, after it is completely condensed and solidified, it is ready to be poured into steel.

In comparison, at this time a year ago, when Zhuge Jin first invented the steel pouring method, in order to increase the reaction contact surface area, he had to pull the wrought iron into thinner and longer pieces with more strands.

At that time, wrought iron could only be as thick as mung beans. If it was thicker, it would not have time to complete the reaction before cooling and solidification. Now it can be made as thick as soybeans, which is one or two centimeters thicker. It has changed from "iron wire" to "iron rod", and has greatly reduced the pre-treatment workload of drawing iron wire with perforated wire drawing plates, which is a great improvement.

All of this is caused by higher furnace temperature and lower carbon content in molten iron.

Xu Shu was stunned to see steel being produced at such a fast speed without having to repeatedly forge, fry or mix raw and wrought iron.

In particular, he saw that a circular track was built in front of the furnace, allowing small carts loaded with molten iron containers to circulate and pick up molten iron in front of the furnace's iron outlet.

After filling a large square basin, the blacksmith would drag the cart forward with calipers to make room for the next car to follow and continue picking up the pieces.

The track for the trolley to run on is undoubtedly also cast directly with cast iron. This ensures that when receiving molten iron, the container on the car is limited and will not be too close or too far, causing the molten iron to splash out.

In order to standardize such a simple process, they even cast the rails with iron! This shows how worthless iron is to the General of Chariots and Cavalry.

What surprised Xu Shu the most was that after the steel was smelted, it was forged and processed using various unprecedented techniques in the forging area.

In the past two months, Zhuge Liang has also made a prototype of the hydraulic forging hammer. In the future, when forging steel, hot-forging steel to make it thinner, and shaping it, there will be no need for the blacksmith to swing the hammer manually throughout the process.

Blacksmiths are still needed, but they are only in the final stage of refinement. The rough forging that requires great force in the early stages can be completely left to water power.

Unfortunately, the drop in the Yangtze River and its tributaries in Ezhou is not large enough, and the water energy is not strong enough, not as strong as the Minjiang River around Dujiangyan in Shu. The scale and location of the hydraulic forging hammer are also very limited.

But there is no other way. The river drop in the plains is not as good as that in the mountainous country. The new forging hammer can at least increase the production efficiency by five or six times compared to the old human hammer. That's enough. After entering Yizhou, we will consider more than ten times.

Steelmaking, forging, quenching, sharpening... the four links in weapon forging have made remarkable progress under Zhuge Liang's drastic reforms.

From refractory furnaces, to hydraulic forging hammers, to cold quenching guided by modern chemical thinking, to pulley-driven grinding wheels, the quality of Liu Bei's newly forged swords and guns is obviously not comparable to that of a year ago.

Witnessing all this, Xu Shu secretly rejoiced that he had chosen a wise leader. With such all-round development, the General of Chariots and Cavalry obviously possessed the potential that neither Yuan nor Cao possessed when it came to ending the troubled times.

In the end, after some adjustment, Zhuge Liang also helped Xu Shu and Shi Tao to choose their respective positions at the beginning stages of their official careers.

Xu Shu temporarily served as the magistrate of E County, while Shi Tao served as the head of Zhu County on the other side of the river. He would first be in charge of local construction work for a year or so. If he performed well, or if he could make contributions at the military level if war broke out later, he would naturally be transferred to another position.

Yin Mo and Li Ren wanted to continue their education career under their mentor, so they first worked as officials in the Li Cao and other education-related departments in Jiangxia County.

As for Xiang Lang who had not arrived yet, it was said that he needed to first politely decline the position of Zigui County magistrate that Liu Bei had invited him to, and then come to Liu Bei to find a position lower than county magistrate, to show that "coming to Jiangxia was not for wealth and glory, but for better study." Zhuge Liang would naturally help him and said that when Xiang Lang arrived, he could serve as the county magistrate of Wuchang County.

Although the rank and grade of the county magistrate is much lower than that of the county magistrate, Wuchang County is more valuable and is a county-level county. Moreover, Wuchang has developed even better in later generations and is a provincial hub and a thoroughfare for several states.

By exchanging the county magistrate of a small county for the county magistrate of a large county, Xiang Lang actually did not lose anything, except that his reputation was taken care of.

As long as this news is passed back to Xiangyang, and other exiled northern scholars from Jingzhou know that Liu Bei is so considerate of the face of those who come to him for refuge, they will naturally be more eager to join Liu Bei.

However, although Zhuge Liang's plan was well done, there were some minor problems in its execution.

After he took Sima Hui and Xu Shu to visit the academy and printing house in Wuchang, as well as the iron ore refinery and forging factory in E County, at least five or six days had passed. Counting the days, the second group of Xiang Lang and others, as well as his father-in-law Huang Chengyan who was lingering in his hometown, should also be back.

However, when the expected day came, Zhuge Liang did not wait for the arrival of the enemy. Instead, Liu Bei called him back to Wuchang and told him an unexpected news:
"Sir, I heard an urgent report recently that Liu Biao has blocked the river without any distinction! Although Liu Biao's excuse was to prevent Cao Cao's spies and envoys from infiltrating and to prevent Cao Cao from persuading Zhang Xiu to happen again,

But in fact, this is clearly intended to prevent the flow of Jingzhou scholars to Yangzhou! For this reason, what should our army do? "

When Zhuge Liang heard this, he was indeed slightly surprised at first, but he was not worried at all. Instead, he was happy: "Why would Liu Biao do such a foolish thing? Isn't this harming the merchants and scholars of Jingzhou, and destroying his reputation as a man of virtue?"
He should know that wise men return to their lord like water returns to its source, and it is better to drain it than to block it. How could Liu Biao be so afraid of our army that he would not hesitate to damage his own reputation in order to block us?"

(End of this chapter)