Chapter 156 Printing
It took a long time for the athletes to enter the venue because the number of participants increased a lot and the number of events increased from ten to sixteen.
Among them are women's short-distance running, long-distance running, high jump, long jump, weightlifting and relay races.
Because there are inherent differences between men and women's bodies, it is somewhat unfair to put them in a competition together.
The first day of the competition is the preliminaries, where nine winners are selected from the contestants from eighteen states to advance to the subsequent competitions.
Song Yuzhu had other things to do, so she just watched the opening ceremony and left through the dedicated passage with Zhao Xiao.
Coincidentally, as soon as the two came out, they ran into more than ten people gathered at the entrance of the stadium, and it seemed that a conflict had occurred.
"Li Dehai, go and take a look."
"Hey!" Li Dehai walked very fast and got back the information in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.
"I went over to ask and found out that the Goguryeo princess was stopped at the door and the guards wouldn't let her in."
Li Xianxiu? Song Yuzhu raised her eyebrows. She didn't expect to meet her here.
It seemed that they had also discovered Song Yuzhu and Zhao Xiao. Li Xianxiu hurriedly came over with his attendants and maids, and bowed to Song Yuzhu in a dignified manner: "Greetings, His Majesty the Emperor."
Song Yuzhu looked at her and saw that she was wearing a pink skirt sprinkled with gold, with a golden hairpin in her hair and a flower ornament on her forehead. She looked gorgeous and noble.
She raised her head inadvertently and glanced at General Zhao beside Song Yuzhu, her cheeks flushed.
In fact, she had already heard that General Zhao would come today, so she dressed up early in the morning and prepared to come here to meet him. However, she did not expect that when she was about to enter, the soldiers at the door stopped them and said that they had fake tickets.
Li Xianxiu argued with them anxiously, but unexpectedly ran into Zhao Xiao at the door. Her heart was beating fast. This must be what people in the Central Plains call fate!
Just as she was secretly rejoicing, Zhao Xiao's low voice suddenly came to her ears.
"Even the King of Goryeo has to kneel before the Emperor. Who are you? Why don't you kneel before the Emperor?"
What Zhao Xiao said was not wrong. Goguryeo was a vassal state of Daqi, and the King of Goryeo was equivalent to a minister of Daqi. When he came to see Song Yuzhu, he had to kowtow. What right did his daughter have to not kneel?
Li Xianxiu didn't expect him to say that, and he retorted without thinking: "Goguryeo is a vassal state of Sheng Dynasty, not Daegi..."
"You mean, Goguryeo doesn't intend to be a vassal state of Daqi?" Zhao Xiao's voice was not loud, but every word was threatening.
Since the Zhou Dynasty, Goguryeo has been a vassal state of the Central Plains. Although there have been Goryeo kings who have rebelled, they were eventually pacified by the Central Plains and replaced with obedient Goryeo kings to continue being a vassal state. If Li Xun plans to break away from Daqi, he doesn't mind leading his troops to fight there and replace them with an obedient Goryeo king.
The maid beside Li Xianxiu turned pale with fear and quickly grabbed her arm: "Princess, be careful with your words!"
The purpose of their trip was to make friends with Da Qi. They also saw Da Qi's military parade a few days ago. If they really angered the emperor, it would probably bring disaster to the entire Goguryeo!
Li Xianxiu also realized that she had just said the wrong thing, but Zhao Xiao spoke to her in that tone, which made her very sad.
Her eyes were red, and she knelt on the ground with grievance: "Your Majesty, your servant greets you."
Song Yuzhu didn't mean to embarrass her, so she changed the subject and said, "Get up, what was the reason for the noise at the door just now?"
"Your Majesty, my maid bought the tickets, but the guards wouldn't let us in."
Song Yuzhu raised her chin, and Li Dehai took the ticket from the maid.
"Where did you buy this ticket?"
The maid stuttered, "Your Majesty, I couldn't buy a ticket when I went to queue up, so I bought it from a merchant at a higher price."
Song Yuzhu took a look and said, "The ticket is fake."
"Impossible, I spent three thousand taels of silver..." The maid turned pale when she heard it was fake. What if the princess thought she had embezzled the money?
"Go and ask someone to bring a real ticket."
The eunuch ran to the official from the Ministry of Rites to ask for a real ticket. The two tickets were almost identical, and if you didn't look carefully, it would be difficult to tell the real one from the fake one.
Song Yuzhu pointed at the two tickets and said, "The real tickets are made of bamboo cotton paper, which is sprinkled with gold foil and has oil added to the ink. The paper will not rot when it comes into contact with water, and the writing will not fall apart. Put these two tickets in water and give it a try."
Li Xianxiu took the ticket and put it into the lotus pond next to him. The words on the fake ticket became blurred immediately after being put into the water. When it was taken out, the paper was so soft that it could not be picked up. The other ticket was only a little wet and the ink did not fall off at all.
"It turns out to be true or false. It's my fault for disturbing Your Majesty." Li Xianxiu lowered his head and prepared to leave.
"etc."
Li Xianxiu's face turned pale, thinking that Song Yuzhu was going to pursue what had just happened, and he turned around with a bitter face.
"Pass on my order and let the princess in."
"Yes!" The guards let Li Xianxiu pass. She looked at Song Yuzhu in surprise. She didn't expect that the emperor did not blame her, but let her in to watch the game!
In comparison, Song Yuzhu was much better than the general. He was really short-sighted to have fallen for that vicious man. He regretted writing that letter to him more and more.
Li Xianxiu rushed into the gymnasium with a red face.
Zhao Xiao's ferocious look just now probably shattered Li Xianxiu's heart. Song Yuzhu couldn't help but laugh with her head down.
Zhao Xiao asked in confusion: "Yuzhu, what are you laughing at?"
"It's nothing. Send someone to check where the person selling the fake tickets came from." Three thousand taels is not a small amount. Maybe he sold it to other people.
"Yes." The guards immediately rushed to the Dali Temple.
Zhao Xiao took the real ticket from him and looked at it, saying, "This is the first time I've seen paper and ink that is not afraid of water."
"Because there's cotton mixed in the paper, try tearing it apart."
Zhao Xiao tried to tear it, and found that it was indeed more resilient than ordinary paper.
"This is the paper I'm going to use to print banknotes. What do you think?"
"Yes, I'm just worried that ordinary people won't recognize paper money."
Song Yuzhu was not worried. "It's okay. You will accept it naturally after a long time. It takes a process."
Replacing the currency is imperative because a large amount of copper is needed to issue currency every year. Copper, as an excellent conductive medium, will be of great use in the production of generators in the future, so it must be stockpiled as soon as possible.
The two got on the carriage and headed towards the palace. They had just talked about paper money in the morning, and in the afternoon, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue and Zhang Wei, Huang Ming and others who were responsible for drawing the paper money entered the palace.
After more than seven months, the drawings for the first edition of banknotes have been completed.
During these seven months, Zhang Wei and his fellow apprentice Ying Xinzhong worked together to draw these five editions of banknotes.
Ying Xinzhong was responsible for painting the portrait on the front, and he was responsible for painting the scenery on the back.
The portrait can be left in Shangjing, while Zhang Wei has to go to various places to collect folk songs in person. After being exposed to wind and sun for the past few months, he has lost a lot of weight and his skin is much darker than when he first met him, but he is more energetic than before.
When the two showed the five patterns, everyone gasped.
It's perfect!
It is so beautiful that words cannot describe it, especially Zhang Wei's painting of Mount Tai, which fully depicts the majestic aura of Mount Tai. Even people who have never been there can feel the magnificence of the mountain from the painting!
This painting is the back of a 100-wen note, and the front is a portrait of Song Yuzhu.
Ying Xin used meticulous brushwork to depict all of Song Yuzhu's facial features. In the painting, Song Yuzhu is wearing a black crown and a golden crown, with bright eyebrows and clear eyes. It has to be said that Ying Xin's painting skills are superb, and people feel friendly at first sight.
The next time, the patterns of fifty cents, ten cents, five cents and one cent were displayed, each of which was exquisite.
After the drawings were drawn, all that was left was typesetting. The Ministry of Revenue made a simple typesetting and they drew these drawings according to the style of the silver notes of the previous dynasty.
This banknote is as big as a handkerchief. It is convenient for printing pictures, but it is inconvenient to use and the cost of making it is also high.
"The banknote is too big. It should be a little smaller." Song Yuzhu gestured with his hands. It was four inches long and two inches wide, which was about the same size as the banknotes of later generations.
However, it is quite difficult to put such exquisite paintings on a small piece of paper, especially the portraits, where each stroke is almost as thin as a hair after being reduced.
The Minister of Revenue said with some embarrassment: "Your Majesty, I can ask the coin mint to find a way to print the picture, but this picture is so delicate that I am afraid the ink will be smudged after printing."
"Is it difficult?"
The Minister of Revenue hesitated for a second, but finally told the truth: "It's difficult."
Song Yuzhu smiled and said, "That's right, it's difficult. If you all find it difficult, won't it be even more difficult for those who want to print □□ in the future?"
The Minister of Revenue was stunned. This was something he had not expected.
In the past, the face value of all copper coins minted was one cent. Even if someone imitated them, the value of copper was not much different from the value of coins, so few people took the trouble to mint copper coins.
This reminded Song Yuzhu of a funny news story in his previous life. Two men spent nearly 30,000 yuan to buy a machine to make fake coins, but in the end they only made 10,000 coins and lost 20,000 yuan.
Paper money is different. Although the production process of bamboo paper is complicated, it is still paper, which is fundamentally different from copper. Moreover, the face value of paper money is larger. Printing a 100-wen paper money is equivalent to minting 100 copper coins, which is a huge difference.
If the process of making paper money is very simple and ordinary people can print it out at will, the country's economy will suffer very serious damage.
Never underestimate the ancients' ability to imitate. Under the temptation of huge profits, they imitated things to an extent of 80% or 90% similarity, which was enough to deceive ordinary people.
"I understand!"
Song Yuzhu: "The more complicated the process of making banknotes is, the smaller the chance of a problem in the future. For long-term planning, the first batch of banknotes must overcome this difficulty."
The Minister of Revenue bowed and said, "I obey your command."
"As for the ink smudging problem, let the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Research find a solution and try to print samples before the end of the year."
"Yes!" The Minister of Revenue rolled up the scroll and left in a hurry.
*
The research department has previously developed ink that is not afraid of water, but this ink is fine for writing, but it is not suitable for printing fine paintings.
In order to improve the ink, more than 50 scientific researchers conducted experiments day and night, and finally developed an ink that would not smudge in October.
But a new problem arose. In the past, minting copper coins was very simple. They just poured molten copper into the mold and waited for it to cool.
Banknotes must first be carved into a plate. In the absence of modern precision instruments, all processes were done manually. Even the most famous engraver in Shangjing spent three full months just to carve out one mold.
Using this mold to print money, how long will it take?
(End of this chapter)
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