Hearing the Emperor's proposal about serialization, everyone's eyes lit up.

Xi Zhicai respectfully said, "Your Majesty's idea is excellent! This way, the people will still be eager to buy more and will continue to purchase the newspaper the next day. Through word of mouth, the speed of newspaper promotion will definitely increase greatly!"

Cao Song quickly added, "That's right. Moreover, over time, it can cultivate people's habit of reading newspapers every day, and newspapers will become an indispensable consumer product in people's lives, with a huge market!"

Thinking of the future when everyone in the Han Dynasty would read newspapers, not to mention anything else, the advertising fees alone would be a huge source of income. For a moment, a golden light suddenly appeared in Cao Song's eyes.

Liu Hong smiled and looked at Cao Song, "If that's the case, printing 50,000 copies by tomorrow morning shouldn't be a problem, right?"

"Your Majesty, if we only take two thousand words from it, there will be absolutely no problem!"

Cao Song patted his chest and assured Liu Hong.

"Okay, that's good!"

Liu Hong smiled and nodded, then looked at Zhao Zhong and said in a deep voice:

"The Royal Trading Company must also immediately prepare for the newspaper's establishment, and then find some people to go door-to-door to ensure that the newspaper's voice reaches the entire city of Luoyang within a single day!"

"promise!"

Zhao Zhong quickly and respectfully agreed.

Liu Hong nodded, then looked at Xi Zhicai.

"After Zhicai returned, he also compiled some of his political ideas for use in the subsequent publication of the newspaper!"

"Please rest assured, Your Majesty!"

Xi Zhicai nodded.

Then Liu Hong stood up, looked at the three of them, and said with a smile:

"Alright, that's all for now. Go back and get ready!"

"We take our leave!"

The three of them quickly stood up, bowed to Liu Hong, and then hurriedly left.

After the three left, Liu Hong sat down at the table, took out paper and pen, and began to write.

"Phew! Now that we have newspapers, written language can be spread much faster. The next step is books!"

As he muttered something softly, Liu Hong looked at the four large characters he had written, "Popular Education," and a smile appeared on his lips.

In ancient times, unless one had an extraordinary stroke of luck, "reading and writing" was practically impossible for ordinary people.

The main reason is that "characters" are too expensive; a simple bamboo slip can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of coins.

That's why there's a saying that a single word is worth a thousand pieces of gold.

Many ordinary people can't even guarantee their basic needs, so how could they possibly have the money to buy books to teach their children to read and write?

This is also why there were so few scholars in ancient times.

Taking the Han Dynasty as an example, out of a population of 60 million, no more than 2 million were literate.

Of those, those who are well-versed in knowledge and can speak eloquently will not exceed 300,000, or even fewer.

It was precisely because of such a low literacy rate that scholars and intellectuals held such a lofty status in the eyes of ordinary people.

This is why powerful families go to great lengths to raise the price of books, thereby monopolizing writing and knowledge and preventing them from easily spreading.

The main reason for this is to maintain their superior status.

Powerful families monopolized knowledge, completely cutting off the path for commoners to rise in society.

Those who are ambitious and want to gain more can only attach themselves to those powerful families and clans, become their followers, and serve their interests, a cycle that continues generation after generation.

This is precisely why there is a saying: dynasties come and go, but powerful families remain constant.

The only way to break the monopoly of knowledge held by powerful clans is to popularize knowledge and promote written language.

Besides being used to control public opinion, newspapers were also one of Liu Hong's main means of promoting and popularizing writing.

When a person or a child spends a lot of time in contact with newspapers and listens to them, they will naturally be able to recognize one or two words.

(Just like my four-year-old niece, she loves watching cartoons. Listening to the TV and watching the subtitles, she can even recognize how to pronounce certain words!)

With the widespread dissemination of newspapers, people's thinking and horizons have been broadened, and everyone can recognize a little bit of writing. At that time, it will be much easier to set up schools.

Upon returning to the Royal Trading Company, Zhao Zhong immediately summoned all his subordinates and shopkeepers to a meeting and relayed Liu Hong's instructions to them.

Then Zhao Zhong looked at everyone with a solemn expression and said in a deep voice:

"Gentlemen, His Majesty attaches great importance to newspapers and newspapers. Tomorrow, the printing press will produce a certain number of copies, and we must sell that many copies. Not a single copy is allowed to be left over. Do you understand?"

As for the newspaper vendors, let's find the shop assistants and their children to help out!

"promise!!"

Upon hearing Zhao Zhong's words, everyone quickly echoed in agreement.

Zhao Zhong nodded, then waved to the crowd.

"Alright, everyone hurry up and get ready!"

"We'll take our leave!"

The staff of the Royal Trading Company also hurriedly left to recruit people and prepare for the establishment of a newspaper office and the sale of newspapers.

On the other side, Cao Song also brought those few pages of paper to the printing factory and gathered together several craftsmen in charge of typesetting and printing.

Cao Song then handed the few pages of paper to several craftsmen and told them about the missing chapters in the serialization.

"This... Grand Minister of Agriculture, you mean to break it at the most exciting part...?"

A craftsman held the paper in his hand and stared blankly at Cao Song.

"Yeah, what's wrong...?"

Cao Song nodded, looking at the craftsman with a strange expression.

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