Sky Curtain: The Overlord Charges into Battle, Shocking Emperors of All Dynasties

[Let's start with papermaking. In ancient China, after the emergence of writing, people initially wrote on tortoise shells or bronze vessels. During the Warring States period, they began writing on bamboo slips. However, bamboo slips were thick and heavy, and a cartload of bamboo slips could only record a few thousand characters of information.]

Excellent, excellent! The sages of the Warring States period wholeheartedly agreed. They had long been fed up with bamboo slips, as a single scroll could only hold a few words, forcing them to simplify their language.

During the Western Han Dynasty, the earliest paper appeared in China, but it was yellowish and uneven in thickness, making it completely unusable for writing.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a eunuch named Cai Lun who improved papermaking using materials such as rags, hemp fibers, and fishing nets. Through generations of innovation and improvement, various types of paper emerged in later generations, such as Xuan paper, bamboo paper, and cotton paper.

On the celestial canvas, as the story unfolds, the papermaking process slowly appears: chopping, soaking, steaming, pounding, forming, pressing, and drying.

Finally, one by one, pristine white sheets of paper appeared on the screen.

This is paper, upon which thousands of years of Chinese civilization have been written. Sheets of paper are cut into books, and books converge to form the mighty river of Chinese civilization.

While the West was still using parchment and Egypt was using papyrus for writing, China had already begun using paper. To this day, the entire world's civilizations use Chinese paper, and human civilization has been preserved and recorded thanks to papermaking.

Finally, the long-awaited invention of papermaking!!!

Ying Zheng even felt like crying. If he hadn't known how convenient it would be for future dynasties, especially the Ming Dynasty, to read memorials, things would have been much better.

I could have endured the darkness if I had never seen the light.

While other emperors read memorials one by one, he read them by the cartload!

Arrange for people to experiment with papermaking immediately!!

I can't wait a moment longer!

It wasn't just Qin Shi Huang; many emperors before the Tang Dynasty had arranged for artisans to experiment with papermaking techniques.

The Confucian scholars, especially those from the Han Dynasty, were extremely excited. Finally, they no longer had to painstakingly carve each character onto bamboo slips, nor did they have to replace the slips every now and then!

All you need to do is borrow bamboo slips and copy them onto paper yourself; it's so much better than before!

Papermaking truly deserves its place among the Four Great Inventions!

Printing technology first appeared in the Tang Dynasty, using woodblock printing. Later, movable type printing emerged in the Northern Song Dynasty.

The principle of printing is actually quite easy to understand; it's similar to a seal. Woodblock printing involves carving a whole page of paper. Later, Bi Sheng's movable type printing technique separated the characters, so that only one typesetting was needed for each book, eliminating the need to create a whole page of printing plates.

After the invention of printing, the difficulty of disseminating books decreased dramatically. A book could be printed in just a few minutes, greatly reducing the cost of acquiring knowledge and making education affordable even for children from poor families.

No way!!! This printing technology is undermining our very foundation!!

The powerful families of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties were furious.

The invention of papermaking was a good thing, but the paper in the Wei and Jin Dynasties was still very yellowish and could not compare to the white and smooth paper on the sky. This was the kind of paper that their aristocratic families should use!

But with printing technology, how could those peasants possibly be able to read?

The reason they were able to monopolize the court and the country, with almost all official positions in the court held by powerful families, was precisely because of their monopoly on knowledge.

Now, if printing technology were to spread, a single book could become hundreds or thousands of copies in just a few days.

Can their family's status be preserved?

"These kinds of strange and ingenious skills are flashy but impractical; if they were to become widespread, it would be a complete waste of the nation's resources!"

When the emperors of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties saw this, they had an idea in mind.

The royal library has plenty of books; the problem is how to get more people to read them.

They were determined to try printing. They believed that as long as more people were educated, they would no longer be afraid that those who could govern a country were all from powerful and influential families!

The compass, which appeared as early as the Warring States period, was called the Sinan in ancient times and was mainly used for divination and feng shui. During the Song Dynasty, its use was reduced to maritime trade. After it spread to the West, it indirectly ushered in the great Age of Exploration.

Pshaw~ Many people immediately felt disdain.

They thought a compass could be of any use; it turns out it's just something for navigation at sea.

Is it worth going to the ocean if there's nothing there?

Scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants!

The nation's foundation is agriculture, and commerce is ultimately a secondary path. Are future generations going to become obsessed with money?

Besides, what do those small countries have to trade? They're dirt poor!

"Thump!!"

A loud bang echoed across the sky, followed by billowing smoke and flying debris.

"What was that so loud, so powerful? Could it be a thunderbolt?"

"Shouldn't we be talking about gunpowder next?"

Many people were puzzled. The name "gunpowder" sounded like it was related to medicine, so it must have been invented by one of the legendary doctors mentioned earlier on the screen.

Why is the scene now set in the wilderness instead of the pharmacy?

"Art is Patrick Star!!!"

As the smoke cleared, a man wearing a helmet was seen holding a lump-like object to his mouth. A short distance away, opposite him, stood a large, barren mountain.

What are they doing? Are they trying to move mountains like the Foolish Old Man did?

"Three, two, one"

"Detonate!!"

"boom!!!"

With a deafening roar, like thunder, as if the earth were turning over, the mountain in front of the man suddenly shattered into pieces, and white smoke and dust swept in, covering half the sky!