Prince Li You of the Great Tang Dynasty begs the noble families to their deaths!

Li You sighed and said, "This kind of imperial examination is not only riddled with problems, but it also puts the cart before the horse, favoring the sons of aristocratic families too much."

"What you say is very true, my lord. I have been taking the imperial examinations since I was a child. I took them for eighteen years in a row. When I was thirty-three, I became disheartened and had no intention of taking them again. So I asked a friend for help and became a teacher at the Xuzhou State School."

This is the story of Chao Yang, a Tang Dynasty scholar who repeatedly failed the imperial examinations, and the events of the first half of his life.

Li You thought for a moment, then said, "Your first point, the monopoly of aristocratic families over book collections, can this be resolved? In my opinion, paper is now widely available and not very expensive; ordinary people can afford it. If we find a way to steal the classic books from the aristocratic families' collections, buy paper, print tens of thousands of copies, and distribute them throughout the country, wouldn't their monopoly be broken?"

Upon hearing this, Chao Yang was stunned for a long while, then smiled bitterly and said, "My lord's thinking is always so unconventional. If we could really steal the books and publish them throughout the land, the damage to the reputation of the aristocratic families would be unprecedented. Does my lord really want to do this?"

"The aristocratic families are the enemies of my Huang Chao army. As long as something is detrimental to the aristocratic families, I will not shirk my duty."

Li You's statement deeply moved Chao Yang.

He stood up and bowed to Li Youshen.

"On behalf of all the poor scholars in the world, I, Chao, thank you, my lord."

"Oh, not at all, it's all what I should do."

After Chao Yang took his seat, he continued, "My lord has many talented and extraordinary people under his command, so stealing books should not be too difficult. In the past hundred years, there have been those who infiltrated noble families to steal books. In my opinion, if we want to steal books, we should choose the Cui family of Qinghe and the Cui family of Boling. These two families not only have a large number of books, but also rich interpretations, which can be called classics among classics."

As he spoke, Chao Yang asked Li You for paper and pen and wrote down the titles of some books.

The Analects, The Book of Rites, Zuo Zhuan, The Rites of Zhou, The Book of Rites, The Book of Changes, The Book of Poetry, The Book of Documents, The Gongyang Commentary, The Guliang Commentary, The Tao Te Ching, The Classic of Filial Piety, and The Zhaoming Anthology.

"These are the books used in the imperial examinations. We just need to steal these books. Even if we can only steal three or five copies, it will be a great deed that benefits the world."

Li You glanced at the book list and couldn't help but gasp.

It seems that the imperial examinations in ancient times were not simple, requiring the reading of so many books.

However, it is unknown how much of these books contain practical knowledge for governing the country and benefiting the people.

To paraphrase Minister Hu, the books of sages are meant to be read by others; they are utterly useless when it comes to practical matters.

I've heard it said: "A scholar is utterly useless."

Little did they know that the books these scholars read were useless in the first place. If the scholars selected in this way were useful, that would be truly absurd.

"I will send men to infiltrate the noble families and find a way to secretly steal these books. As for the actual printing and publishing, I will leave that to you."

Chao Yang cupped his hands and said, "My lord, printing and publishing books is not a simple matter. We need to find artisans who specialize in this business to make the woodblocks, which I cannot do. As far as I know, there are only two merchants in Chang'an who can do this in the world today."

"Only two?"

"That's right, it's the Pei Family Bookstore and the Zou Family Bookstore in Chang'an. Pei Mingli, the owner of the Pei Family Bookstore, became famous for helping the government publish the 'Admonitions for Women,' and later even became an official."

"Is Pei's Bookstore... related to the Pei family of Guanzhong?"

"No, that's not true. Pei Mingli came from a poor family and started from scratch. He initially ran a jewelry business before moving into woodblock printing. The Zou family didn't start out as a bookstore either; they were originally in the grain business."

Li Youqi asked, "There are so many scholars in the world, there must be a demand for book printing. How could there only be two merchants doing this business?"

"My lord, you may not know this, but woodblock printing is an extremely costly and labor-intensive task. If a book has five hundred pages, then five hundred woodblocks need to be carved. If the engravers make even the slightest mistake, the entire woodblock will be ruined. Such enormous costs are far beyond the reach of ordinary merchants."

Li You suddenly realized: "Woodblock printing...woodblock printing...so movable type printing hadn't been invented yet..."

"My lord, what is movable type printing?" Chao Yang asked curiously.

Li You squinted and thought for a while, then smiled and said, "Modular type printing is the perfect elixir for mass-producing books."

Before Chao Yang could ask any more questions, Li You said, "Come with me."

……

Li You led Chao Yang to the coin-minting site.

More than a dozen vertical furnaces for smelting copper ingots operate simultaneously, melting the ingots into molten copper. Lead blocks are then melted into the molten copper to lower the melting point and increase its fluidity. This allows the molten copper to be poured into molds, producing basic copper coin products. After further cutting and polishing, they become new coins.

Li You found those skilled craftsmen who could carve "mother coins".

"Master craftsmen," the king said, "I wish to engrave reversed characters, similar to those on a seal, on a piece of bronze. Is this feasible?"

"That's possible, but I wonder what my lord intends to do with it?"

"You should carve it first, and each character should be carved from one copper block, with each copper block being the same size."

The master craftsmen were completely baffled, and Chao Yang also felt something was amiss.

Prince Li You of Qi, on the other hand, seemed quite interested and excited.

What Chao Yang said today has brought up another industry that was not done well during the Tang Dynasty, but which Huang Chao's army was able to establish as an advantage.

That is the printing industry.

It was only today that Li You understood why aristocratic families could so easily monopolize knowledge.

Because of technological limitations, books—the carriers of knowledge—are a luxury in this era.

By controlling the printing industry, one can even, to some extent, control public opinion.

Any scholar, regardless of their social standing, will pick up anything with writing on it and take a look, no matter what it says.

Although the master craftsmen did not understand King Qi's intentions, after discussion, they felt that the task was not particularly difficult.

These people were all masters of bronze ware making when they were in Luoyang. It was not difficult for them to carve flowers and characters on bronze ware.

They first made a mold for the regular copper blocks, then poured in the molten copper, and after it solidified, they took it out and polished it slightly, thus obtaining more than a dozen cubic copper blocks of the same size.

"What kind of reversed characters does Your Majesty wish to have carved?"

"Hmm, let me think... How about this, you carve the following six characters on the copper blocks in reverse: 一, 二, 三, 生, 万, 物. Mr. Chao, could you please go and fetch the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone?"

Everyone obeyed the order.

The master craftsmen took out their carving knives and, with the skill of wielding a brush, began to carve on the copper ingots.

Iron engraving tools are harder than copper, so they can leave marks on copper ingots.

The characters 一、二、三、生、万 are relatively simple and easy to carve.

Only the character "物" (thing) is a little difficult to carve.

It took the master craftsman about an hour to completely carve it.

Looking at the six copper blocks with reversed characters on the table, Li You suddenly thought of mahjong tiles from later generations.

He first stacked the three copper blocks together: one, two, and then dipped a brush in ink and smeared ink on the copper blocks.

Then, a sheet of paper was placed on the copper block and pressed gently. The three characters "一生二" (one begets two) appeared on the paper.

Then, Li You stacked the three copper blocks together: "two," "life," and "three," following the same procedure.

The phrase "two begets three" also appears on paper.

Finally, there is the concept of "three giving birth to all things".

"Mr. Chao, esteemed masters, this is movable type printing."

"You're all intelligent people; you should be able to figure out the crux of the matter, right?"

Chao Yang looked at the words on the paper: "One begets two, two begets three, three begets all things," and then at the six copper movable type pieces on the table.

The saying goes that books are inanimate, but words are alive.

By arranging and combining six copper blocks, ten characters can be "generated".

What if it were a hundred words, a thousand words, or ten thousand words?

Chao Yang couldn't help but look up to the sky and roar: "Heavens above, you have finally opened your eyes! The aristocratic families are in danger, the aristocratic families are doomed! The poor scholars of the world will no longer suffer the pain of being without books!"