Tao Wangling bowed and said, "Teacher, I know you pity your disciples for their hard work and can't bear to let us work hard. Students can spend twenty taels a month to subsidize their classmates who compile the academic journals."

Lin Yanchao looked at Tao Wangling. He knew that the Tao family was a famous family in Kuaiji and that the family had been officials for many generations, so the amount of silver was really just something outside of Tao Wangling.

For such a generation of generations, even if he does not take the imperial examination for the Jinshi, he will be better than most Jinshi.

Lin Yanchao is not a pedantic person. If Tao Wangling wants to give him silver, he will not refuse.

But Lin Yanchao considered a little long-term: "Looking back, you have understood what I meant wrong. If you rely on your disciples to subsidize silver or manually edit academic journals, then this matter is not a long-term solution. Things in the world cannot do without profit, and they cannot do without profit. If you want to have a long-term future, you must have the word "profit."

Xu Huobo said: "Teacher, since ancient times, it is hard to benefit others and self-interest!"

Lin Yanchao said to his two disciples, "Why can't we benefit others and self-interest? When engraving books, promoting education depends on benefiting others. Earning rewards is for benefiting oneself, and benefiting others and self-interest is a merit. If you promote it from oneself to the world, not only will education be prosperous, but you will also have an extra path to seeking food for many people. Culture and education are also a matter of merit."

After hearing Lin Yanchao's words, the two disciples couldn't help but be convinced.

Xu Huobo exclaimed: "My teacher is teaching by words and deeds, and in practice, what is the way to achieve success."

Lin Yanchao smiled, then paced and thought that it was indeed difficult to run newspapers in this era before improved printing and papermaking, mainly because the cost was not coming.

A five-thousand-word book and magazine cost two cents. How much does it cost? The court gave officials one tael a month, which means that an ordinary citizen had to work for six days to read Lin Yanchao's academic journal. This was the cost price.

Lin Yanchao came from the era of the great explosion of knowledge in later generations, and he knew how expensive it was to study in this era.

Now you can read a million-word novel for only 20 or 30 yuan on the Internet. It is easy to imagine how difficult it is to be done in ancient and modern times. If you don’t think of ways to reduce costs in academic journals, it is really not easy to implement.

Lin Yanchao said: "After class tomorrow afternoon, you will follow me to the bookstore and walk!"

It’s really a shallow feeling that you know it on paper. You must practice it yourself if you know it.

Lin Yanchao, Xu Huobo, Tao Wangling and other disciples went to the bookstore and finally understood why the cost was so high. The engraving bookstore the disciples found for Lin Yanchao was quite noble, and it turned out to be the Imperial College Regulatory Commission engraving workshop.

The Sili Supervision and Supervision Factory and the Imperial College Engraving Workshop were the largest carving workshops in the country at that time.

The Jianxiufang used the printing method of engraving copper movable type, which of course would not be reduced. Lin Yanchao remembered that during the Qing Dynasty, someone in Fujian asked someone to engrave copper movable type, and cast more than 400,000 words of copper movable type, and used a total of 200,000 taels of silver.

Lin Yanchao also knew that his disciples had good intentions. They wanted the "Miscellaneous Treatise on Xuegongtang" to be exquisitely produced, so the exquisite and elegant bronze characters printed with copper movable type are naturally the most popular among scholars.

Therefore, the two cents per word of ICBC given by the Jiankefang is definitely a conscientious price, which makes Lin Yanchao unable to find someone to suppress the price.

Everyone left the Imperial College.

Seeing the disciples taking it for granted, Lin Yanchao shook his head. He was really not aware of the price of firewood and rice.

Qu Hengjiang said to Lin Yanchao: "The largest book engraving workshop in the capital is the Imperial College and the Sili Supervision and Supervision Jing Factory. If Mr. is not satisfied with the seal engraving workshop, we can find the Jing Factory to give it a try."

Lin Yanchao also heard of Sili Jingjian Factory, which is the largest publishing institution in the world. There are thousands of craftsmen including engraving workers, printers, matching workers, binding workers, etc. Moreover, the engraving workers and paper and ink of Sili Jingjian Factory are very well-deserved. In addition, they can also borrow private work from the people.

All the disciples knew that Lin Yanchao despised copper movable type too expensive, so he took the second step to find the Silijian's bookstore to print "Study and Miscellaneous Treatises of Xuegongtang", which is also OK...

Lin Yanchao knew that he would go to the Sili Supervision and Supervision Factory to engrave books. With his relationship with Feng Bao and Gao Huai, these people would definitely give him a discount. But this was still a favorable move, and it was not a way to make a profit at all.

Seeing that the disciples did not understand what they meant at all, Lin Yanchao said, "It is good to have a Sili Supervision and Supervision Factory, but it is still expensive. I'll ask if you have any other cheaper carving shops?"

Everyone looked at each other.

Qu Hengjiang said: "Sir, there are only private carving workshops among the people, or official craftsmen's workshops."

Lin Yanchao nodded and said, "Everything is OK, be sure to put affordability first."

Although Lin Yanchao was very concerned about money, the teacher wanted to compare the various schools, and the disciples had no choice but to help find a way.

A few days later, they finally found a carving shop in the suburbs of Beijing.

Lin Yanchao came to the carriage in person in this carriage. The carriage is a standard craftsman carriage.

Lin Yanchao entered the carving workshop, and an old man with gray hair and a middle-aged man were engraving letters on the carving board with a knife.

There were two young men, one was drawing characters with a pen on the carving board, the other was carrying a rolling brush to carve the carving plate, and the other were picking up and binding.

The carvings are filled with the smell of ink and wood chips.

Lin Yanchao glanced at it and saw the old man and the middle-aged man who were carved out in a carved form, I was right, it was really a carved printing.

Is woodblock printing cheaper than movable type printing?

Seeing Lin Yanchao standing at the door, a young man saw it and said, "Cheer, are you here to print the book?"

"Rareless, Old Man Sun opens your dog's eyes wide. This is the top scholar in the current academic year, and he still won't kneel down to greet him." Craftsman Lijia shouted loudly.

After hearing that it was the turtle of the emperor, the craftsmen in the carving shop put down their work and came to Lin Yanchao to kneel in a row.

The old man said tremblingly: "The villain Sun Yougong is a craftsman in the carving workshop. He thought the top scholar would arrive a few days later, but he didn't expect it to come today. The villain failed to meet him, so he asked the top scholar to forgive him."

Lin Yanchao smiled and said, "It's okay for the old man, I'll take a look first."

Before Lin Yanchao came, he heard that this house belonged to the craftsman.

The Ming Dynasty had a third-class household registration, including craftsmen, military households, and civilian households. Craftsmen were hereditary, just like military households, and their grandparents had to be craftsmen and could not engage in other industries.

Sun Yougong's family was originally from Haining, Zhejiang. During the reign of Emperor Chengzu, he worked as a craftsman from Haining to the capital.

As a resident craftsman, he could operate his own business except for serving the court for ten days a month. As for the craftsmen who run the Sun family, he usually printed popular novels for bookstores and then priced them according to the pages. They used carved books, with about 500 words per page and charged five cents of silver per page.

In this way, the engraving of a book called "Xuegongtang Miscellaneous Lessons" only costs five taels. Isn't it said that movable type printing saves costs compared to woodblock printing? Why is it so much cheaper to woodblock printing in the end than movable type printing?

Have I traveled through the wrong dynasty? I probably came to a fake Ming Dynasty.

Lin Yanchao almost sighed to the sky.

Lin Yanchao said to Sun Yougong: "Get up, I'll take a look at your carving and printing paper."

Lin Yanchao was kind enough, but how could several craftsmen dare to get up easily?

As the saying goes, scholars, farmers, industry and commerce, and craftsmen have extremely low social status. Not to mention that Lin Yanchao is the top scholar today, even an ordinary scholar, they dare not be rude.

The craftsman Lijia said: "Zhuangyuan Gong, it's better to let them kneel down and speak."

Lin Yanchao did not insist deliberately, but asked: "Sun Yougong, how many males are in your family?"

Sun Yougong knelt down and said, "There are three sons, the eldest son is working in the Sijing Bureau. The second son helps me carve books at my house. The third son is still studying in elementary school. The others are the helpers I hired."

After Sun Yougong finished speaking, the craftsman Lijia laughed there: "Old man Sun, your third brother still wants to make a fortune? That's a toad who wants to eat swan meat. It's better to do things for the nobles honestly and throw money into the water for nothing?"

The craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty were able to be admitted to the imperial examination. Although the number of people who passed the imperial examination was small, there were not none. However, their identities were limited to those craftsmen who entered the service. For example, those craftsmen who forced themselves to become craftsmen for crimes were not qualified.

After hearing the sarcasm of General Jia, Sun Yougong said sarcastically: "We have been engraving books for a lifetime, but we can't recognize one or two words in the ten words. If the third brother fails to study in the future, at least he can be a literate craftsman."

Lin Yanchao did not expect that Sun Yougong would be illiterate.

So Lin Yanchao asked Sun Yougong about the printing of woodblock printing and compared the printing of movable type and woodblock printing. He finally understood why woodblock printing was still popular in the Ming Dynasty.

It turns out that movable type printing in this era was mainly used for private book engraving. Although the engraving of the handwriting is clear and the dots and strokes are clear, the cost is too high.

Many of the people, such as the famous Jianyang bookstores, still use woodblock printing.

You should know that in the late Ming Dynasty, the era when popular novels emerged. For example, the novels like Mei and A Tuan that you see today are all carved out by carving words by word.

Why is this? Because the reading groups of popular novels are all over the market and are aimed at the public readers, they are for profit, so they must be cheap and affordable, so they use woodblock printing. Of course, woodblock printing has always been criticized by the scholar-official class as "the paper is abusive" and there are many typos, so they can only be used for the general public.

However, during the Longwan period of Jiajing, woodblock printing was also innovated.

During the Jiajing period, the character "正" was first invented, and the so-called character "正" is the character "正" today's Song font.

The characteristic of Song-style characters is that they are light horizontally and heavy vertically, and the purpose is to facilitate craftsmen to carve. Before Song-style characters come out, the carving craftsman could only carve more than 200 characters a day, but the efficiency was greatly improved afterwards.

In addition to being easy to carve, Song font characters are also characterized by their ease of learning and easy to get started. In the past, carving artists must be able to write good calligraphy to carve the plates. The characters carved in this way will be beautiful! Otherwise, what will be crooked and twisted?

But Song Dynasty characters are different. If you engrave books in square pens, even if you are illiterate, you will always be able to copy them.

When the Song font was released, some people mocked that the Song font was neither Yan nor Ou style. What is this called? The craftsman carved Song font characters, which were almost the same, as if they were all from the same hand.

For the conservative scholars and officials, the Song Dynasty characters with light horizontal lines and heavy horizontal lines are naturally unacceptable for printing, which are purely for printing, with no curves, and are naturally unacceptable. This undoubtedly destroys the beauty of calligraphy and is regarded as bad, dull, or even no longer a word.

After hearing what Sun Degong said, Lin Yanchao showed a sarcastic look.

History will prove that Song font lives better than anyone else.

The reason why these scholars and officials opposed it was that they "followed the old rules" and "seeking the truth but not profit". Lin Yanchao did not advocate these things, and doing things is to pursue effectiveness.

In addition to Song Dynasty characters, in order to pursue profit, folk carving workshops also carried out flow operations on carving printing. From the division of labor, namely, to the word publisher and the printing printer, the efficiency has been improved. The most criticized "evil paper abuse" has also improved slightly.

Sun Yougong took out the newly printed book, and Lin Yanchao looked at the printing effect, but fortunately it was within his tolerance.

In this way, the price of engraving books in "Xuegongtang Miscellaneous Lectures" is 5 taels, plus ink, paper, repair and printing costs totaling 6 taels. The price is only one tenth of the copper movable type. If you change to the place of wood production, Jianyang Bookstore, which is skilled in technology, can further reduce the cost.

Even so, the cost price of "Xuegongtang Miscellaneous Lectures" has dropped to two cents of silver per share.

"You said five thousand words cost two cents of silver each?" Lin Yanchao asked again.

"Yes." Sun Yougong thought Lin Yanchao was going to lower the price, so he whispered with a bitter face.

Craftsman Lijia cursed: "Old man Sun, hello is not a thing. Zhuangyuan Gong published a book for you. That was the accumulation of virtue by your ancestors. He was so greedy. Believe it or not, I will ask your family to send it to Liaodong to serve hard labor."

Sun Yougong hurriedly said, "Zhuangyuan Gong, the villain is wrong. It's not good to throw away the little man's strength without money. Just ask the monk to give us some food and drink, and this is fine if you can do it for one cent to eight or six cents."

Sun Yougong said with grief, and the craftsman below hung his head. Not to mention Sun Yougong, they wouldn't have enough food.

Craftsman Lijia calculated that this was the limit, so he immediately decided for Sun Yougong: "Okay, just one cent five cents."

Lin Yanchao winked at Chen Jichuan, and Chen Jichuan said to the craftsman Lijia: "General A, I have other things to ask for advice."

After the craftsman's total armor was spread.

Lin Yanchao looked at the disciple behind him and asked, "What do you think?"

Lin Yanchao was worried for a long time, but the result of two-part money did not make the disciples overjoyed at all. In the hearts of Xu Huobo's disciples, he originally coughed up the "Miscellaneous Treatise on Xuegongtang" as noble as it should be, but now when he gets it, he thinks it is a romantic novel from Jianyang's book on the book stall.

Only Qu Hengjiang said: "If one cent or five cents of money, we can sell three cents of money in one piece. Not only can we make a profit, but even the peddler can afford it."

Lin Yanchao looked at Sun Yougong, sitting and said, "Sun Yougong, will I give you a condition?"

Sun Yougong said in disgrace: "Zhuangyuan Gong, if the price is reduced, our family will not be able to survive."

Lin Yanchao shook his head and said, "Although I hope the cost of publishing books is low, I will not squeeze you against my conscience. I can give you two cents and five cents per copy. Can you only carve books for me in the future?"

After hearing Lin Yanchao say this, Sun Yougong's face showed a look of surprise.
Chapter completed!