Tang Dynasty: Saving Lives and Helping Others, Li Lizhi Falls for Him

As evening fell, Li Lizhi took her leave as usual.

Cuizhu followed behind, carrying an empty food box, and the master and servant boarded the carriage.

The carriage curtain was lowered, and Li Lizhi leaned against the carriage wall, closed her eyes to rest for a moment, and then suddenly opened her eyes.

"Cuizhu, tell the coachman to go faster."

"Yes, Princess."

The carriage sped up and headed towards the palace.

The wheels rumbled on and on. Li Lizhi's hand remained pressed against her sleeve, where several sheets of paper were hidden, covered with notes on what Shen Chang'an had taught that day.

She meticulously recorded the principles of printing and the methods for improving papermaking.

Inside the Ganlu Hall, Li Shimin was reviewing memorials.

He held the vermilion brush in his hand, but hesitated to put it down, as if he was thinking about something.

"Your Majesty, Princess Chang Le requests an audience," a eunuch announced as he entered.

Li Shimin put down his pen, raised an eyebrow slightly, and said:

"Announce!"

"Father, Mr. Shen said two things today." Li Lizhi entered the hall, curtsied, and got straight to the point.

"explain!"

"The first thing is about those Japanese. Mr. Shen asked me about the route and time the Japanese envoy left, and I told him the truth. He didn't say much after listening, he just nodded."

Li Shimin put down his vermilion brush, frowned slightly, but quickly relaxed.

He wasn't particularly concerned about the Japanese; those Japanese envoys had already submitted their resignations, so he simply sent someone to keep an eye on them.

As for what Shen Chang'an wanted to do, he had already stated his position, so he pretended not to see it.

"And the second thing?" Li Shimin asked.

"The second item..."

Li Lizhi carefully considered her words, "Mr. Shen said that he has some methods that can greatly increase the speed of book copying and also improve papermaking techniques."

He said this was a very important matter and that he needed to think about the specifics of how to do it first, and would explain in detail once he had thought it through.

Upon hearing this, Li Shimin's eyes lit up. He stood up and paced back and forth in the hall.

"Lizhi, do you know what these two things mean?"

"My daughter knows that if this can be achieved, children from poor families will also be able to afford to study, and only then can the imperial examination truly break the monopoly of aristocratic families."

"good."

Li Shimin stopped and looked at his daughter. "Starting tomorrow, you will go to Jishiju every day."

"Shen Chang'an, write down whatever you want to do and report back every evening. I need to know every single detail."

"Your daughter obeys."

……

It's late at night at Jishiju.

Shen Chang'an did not cultivate or refine pills. Instead, he sat in the quiet room with several sheets of paper spread out in front of him and a charcoal pencil in his hand, writing and drawing on them.

He was thinking about how to teach Li Lizhi.

The principle of movable type printing is not complicated, but to make someone who has never been exposed to it fully understand, two aspects need to be explained: first, what is movable type printing, and second, why it is better than woodblock printing.

Woodblock printing involves carving an entire page of text onto a wooden block.

If even one character is engraved incorrectly, the entire block is ruined; after printing one page, a new block must be engraved for the next.

Carving a single block can take anywhere from a few days to several months.

Printing a book requires carving dozens or even hundreds of printing blocks, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and costly.

Movable type printing is completely different.

Shen Chang'an drew a simple diagram on the paper.

Each character is made into an individual typeface, then typed, arranged into an article, and then printed—inked, paper laid out, and finally the printing plates are disassembled so that the printed typefaces can be reused.

He put down his pen, looked at the diagram, and mentally reviewed what he would be teaching tomorrow.

That's not enough. Explaining the principles isn't enough. He needs to create a complete set of letter molds and demonstrate them to Li Lizhi on the spot.

He picked up a lump of wet clay and began to mold characters.

Sculpt one, carve one character, and set it aside to dry.

He sculpted clay until late at night, until dozens of clay molds were neatly arranged on the stone table, before he stopped and went to the kitchen to check the materials needed for tomorrow's papermaking demonstration.

The tattered linen in the earthenware pot had been soaked in lime water for two days, and the fibers were beginning to loosen.

He scooped out a piece, crushed it with his fingers, put it back, added some lime water, and covered it with the lid.

"That's about it. We can demonstrate pulping and papermaking tomorrow."

Shen Chang'an washed his hands.

I went back to my bedroom and fell asleep immediately.

……

The next morning, Li Lizhi arrived at Jishiju on time.

Shen Chang'an had already set up the pavilion. A clean cloth was laid on the stone table, on which were placed dozens of hardened clay molds. Next to them were iron frames, pine resin, wax, brushes, ink, and a stack of paper.

"Princess, today we will formally learn movable type printing." Shen Chang'an sat down at the stone table and gestured for Li Lizhi to sit opposite him.

Li Lizhi took out paper and charcoal pencil and sat up straight.

"Does the princess know how books are printed these days?"

"Woodblock printing".

Li Lizhi replied, "Carve a page of an article onto a wooden board, apply ink, lay down paper, and print it into a book."

"Indeed, Princess, do you know that there is a major problem with woodblock printing? If you carve even one character incorrectly, the entire block is ruined."

"One block is needed to carve one page of a book. A book with dozens or hundreds of pages requires dozens or hundreds of blocks to carve, which takes several months and is extremely costly."

Li Lizhi nodded and quickly took notes.

Shen Chang'an picked up a clay character mold and held it up in front of her.

"Modular type printing uses these individual type molds, with each mold engraving only one character."

"Several thousand commonly used characters are engraved in dozens of pieces and stored in a type mold box. When you need to print an article, you pick out the required type molds from the box and arrange them in the iron frame in order."

"Several thousand commonly used characters are engraved in dozens of pieces and stored in a type mold box. When you need to print an article, you pick out the required type molds from the box and arrange them in the iron frame in order."

He picked up the iron frame, the bottom of which was coated with a mixture of pine resin and wax, and heated it on a small stove.

"When typesetting, the typefaces are placed one by one into the iron frame. Once a row is full, it is secured with wooden wedges. Then the next row is placed, and so on, until the entire page is filled."

Shen Chang'an picked up dozens of typefaces from the table and arranged them one by one into the iron frame.

Once the entire template is filled, turn off the heat. The resin cools and solidifies, and the typeface is firmly fixed in place.

"This is 'typography'. The fonts can be arranged and combined at will. You can use whatever font you want to print for any article."

Li Lizhi wrote very quickly, the charcoal pencil making a scratching sound on the paper.

After the resin had completely cooled, Shen Chang'an brushed a layer of ink onto the typeface, laid down a piece of paper, and gently brushed the back of the paper with a brush.

"This is 'printing'."

He unfolded the paper and handed it to Li Lizhi.

The poem, written in black and white on white paper, is a five-character verse: "The bright moonlight shines before my bed, I wonder if it is frost on the ground. I raise my head to gaze at the bright moon, then lower my head and think of my hometown."

Twenty characters, neatly arranged, with clear handwriting.

Li Lizhi took the paper, her hands trembling slightly.

"Mr. Shen, how long did it take from typesetting to printing?"

"In the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea."

Shen Chang'an replied, "For a skilled craftsman, a quarter of an hour is enough for one printing block."

Shen Chang'an picked up another piece of paper with a different poem on it: "The sun sets beyond the mountains, the Yellow River flows into the sea. To see a thousand miles further, climb one more story."

"Princess, look, these two poems use the same set of typefaces. If you take apart the previous set and rearrange them, you can print completely different articles."

He picked up the iron frame and heated it over a fire. The resin melted, and he removed the type molds one by one, putting them back into the type mold box.

Then he picked out the words again, arranged a new version of the poem, printed it out, and handed it to Li Lizhi.

"This is the biggest advantage of movable type printing—the type molds can be reused repeatedly, allowing for flexible typesetting."

"To print a copy of the Thousand Character Classic using woodblock printing, you need to carve a thousand different characters, and once it's printed, it's useless."

"Modular type printing allows you to print countless books with just a thousand type molds—today you can print the Thousand Character Classic, tomorrow the Analects, and the day after tomorrow the Tao Te Ching. You can print whatever you want."

Li Lizhi looked up, her eyes sparkling: "Mr. Shen, is this what you meant by 'only arranging, not engraving'?"

"Yes. Woodblock printing is called 'carving,' and each page needs to be carved into a block."

"Modible type is 'typesetting'. The type mold is carved once and reused repeatedly. It is only typeset and not carved. Princess, you can do the math. To print one hundred books, you need to carve one hundred sets of printing blocks; movable type only needs one set of type molds and you can type one hundred times."

"It saves time and effort, and is inexpensive." Li Lizhi's eyes lit up even more.

"Another advantage is that it's easy to make corrections. If a character is engraved incorrectly in woodblock printing, the entire block has to be scrapped and re-engraved. With movable type printing, if a character is misplaced, you only need to replace the type mold, and the other characters remain unchanged. You won't have to scrap the entire block because of one misplaced character."

Li Lizhi wrote down every word Shen Chang'an said, filling several pages.

"Mr. Shen, may I tell my father about this when I get back?"

"Of course, this was originally prepared for His Majesty."