General Officer's Office and Li Li talked with Zhou envoy Du Gao and others who visited the door. There were also relevant personnel present, such as Xu Ling, the Huangmen Minister who specially received Zhou envoys.

This is a "foreign affairs activity", so the "you department" must participate, otherwise Li Li will be suspected of being in touch with foreign countries.

Du Gao met the long-known "Poyang Li Li" and found that the other party was indeed as rumored, with a tall and burly figure and a distinctive martial artist's temperament.

But his words and deeds are not vulgar, and he speaks elegantly, he is quite fluent.

In such an occasion, there is actually no major event. As the guest of honor talks, they talk about printing.

Before, Xu Ling briefly introduced the woodblock printing and movable type printing to Du Gao and others, so the envoys of Zhou State had an understanding of this.

Later, with permission, Xu Ling took the Zhou envoy to visit a "printing hall" on the Qinhuai River and actually visited the general process of woodblock printing and movable type printing.

Therefore, Du Gao had many questions about movable type printing.

Now, seeing that Li Li expressed his opinion that he could explain the secrets of movable type printing, Du Gao would not be polite and raise the question:

Question 1: When printing movable type, you need to "type-based". Then, those who type-based and proofreader must be able to read.

However, most craftsmen are illiterate, which will affect the popularity of movable type printing.

Question 2: The management and selection of movable characters (font model) is not simple.

Because every word is one model, and there are thousands of characters, how can I effectively manage it? It cannot be placed at will.

And when selecting characters and typesetting, the process of "selecting" will be very long.

Question 3: According to on-site observation, Du Gao believed that the wear of the font mold during the printing of movable type is probably a big problem. Under large-scale printing, the wear of the font mold will cause problems in the printed books.

For example, incomplete strokes, deformation of fonts, etc.

So, since there has been "woods printing" before, why not use "woods" but "moving type" instead of "woods"?

In woodblock printing, craftsmen can use words on wooden boards as carving patterns, so there is no need to read.

When making plates with wooden boards, the text on the layout can be neatly made, and the carved plates can be repaired. Once the content of the carved plates is worn during the printing process, it can be repaired very easily.

Wood can be stained with ink and can be printed without very special ink.

The woodblock can realize the printing of patterns and paintings, and the printing of movable type.

It is indeed a matter of time to make the carvings, but after the production is completed, I think it can be used for a long time to print those classics with the unchanging content, which is very convenient.

Du Gao believes that in terms of the difficulty of popularization, woodblock printing is easier to popularize than movable type printing.

"Mr. Du said it right. Normally, woodblock printing is easier than movable type printing to popularize it."

Li Li admired Du Gao's agility very much. Of course, there is no shortage of smart people in this era. The reason why he seems particularly smart is that he has seen countless times more.

However, as long as the smart people of this era have done practical work, they can easily find that the difficulty of woodblock printing and movable type printing in promotion is different.

Li Li hopes to promote printing, even if it is woodblock printing, so he is willing to explain:

"The production, management, durability, and typesetting, proofreading of characters and proofreading the knowledge requirements for personnel, as well as the use of ink, are several difficulties that restrict the promotion of movable type printing."

"In order to solve these difficulties, the craftsmen in Poyang have spent ten years."

"The component of the font mold is not pure lead, so it can be made in large quantities, which is convenient and durable, and has low cost."

"As for the management of font models, a system has been formulated to facilitate selection of characters and save time. To be precise, it is to encode characters and store them in the font disk according to certain rules."

"The so-called code is a set of numbers."

"When typing, let the literate person code each text on the page according to the encoding table. The typist selects characters from the character disk according to the encoding... They don't need to recognize words, they just need to learn to recognize numbers."

"The encoding table and character dial are all unified in the system. Printing sites in various places will be implemented in accordance with the regulations and become more popular and more convenient."

"There is also ink, of course, very special, but now it can achieve large-scale production and sufficient supply to the outside world. Therefore, movable type printing technology can also be promoted."

"The court's strategy was to walk on two legs, woodblock printing, movable type printing, and promote it at the same time. The local area can be determined according to the situation. Mr. Xu is very clear about this matter."

The topic was turned to Xu Ling by Li Li, and Xu Ling introduced to Du Gao how Liang State planned to promote two printing techniques.

Li Li listened and began to think.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, movable type printing technology appeared, and the inventor was Bi Sheng, and movable type was clay movable type.

Therefore, the opening performance of the 2008 Olympic Games included movable type printing content, but it caused controversy: Europeans believed that movable type printing (and printing press) was invented independently by European Gutenberg during the Renaissance.

Time, about 300 years after Bi Sheng discovered the printing of movable type.

However, the movable type printing that appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty was never popular. Instead, the woodblock printing technology that appeared in the Sui and Tang Dynasties was popular until the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Therefore, some people believe that Gutenberg's movable type printing technique (lead movable type) is the originator of modern printing techniques.

So, why did movable type printing not replace woodblock printing until the Ming and Qing Dynasties after the emergence of the Northern Song Dynasty?

There are several reasons, just like what Li Li heard Du Gao say just now.

1. The production and durability of the font mold have not been well solved.

2. For metal movable type printing, special ink, i.e. oily ink is required.

3. For movable type printing, it requires type-based recognition of characters, which raises the threshold for use.

Therefore, if these three problems are not solved, it will become difficult to promote movable type printing.

On the contrary, there is no need for craftsmen to recognize words. It can print both characters and patterns, and there is no strict requirement for ink, so it is indeed much more convenient to promote it.

However, the production of carved panels is time-consuming, and it is very troublesome to adapt to those printing needs with flexible and variable content.

Therefore, in order to promote printing technology as soon as possible and reduce the price of books, Li Li's strategy is to walk "two legs".

The technical threshold for woodblock printing is very low and can be promoted everywhere immediately.

Those classics and scriptures with fixed content can be printed in large quantities to "publish books" in large quantities.

As for movable type printing, it overcomes the technical difficulties of ink and lead alloy font molds, and also has the conditions for promotion, but it requires strategies to promote it.

Cooperate with woodblock printing, learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses, and operate the "printing industry" as an emerging industry as soon as possible.

For example, large-scale books like "Hualin Binluo" are "high-end books" and are expensive and are "published" in movable type printing.

Common Buddhist scriptures, classics and other books with relatively few words can be printed with woodblocks to make small profits and quick returns.

First spread the stall, build the industry, drive the development of surrounding industries, and then carry out "technological upgrades" in stages.

But no matter what, Li Li wanted to make the printing industry an important chess piece as soon as possible and help him take the whole chess game alive.

Thinking of this, Li Li found an opportunity and said to Du Gao: "In a while, there will be a large number of books for sale in Jiankang City Book Market, all of which are exquisitely printed thread-bound books. If Du Gong is interested, you can go and take a look."
Chapter completed!