When the first box was opened, the slightly yellowed paper exuded a faint scent of ink, which immediately caught the attention of the gentlemen.
Compared with the heavy bamboo slips, the one-foot-long book is negligible in weight. Compared with the expensive silk, it is cheaper to make.
Thinking that these dozen or so carriages were loaded with paper books, the book-loving gentlemen became excited and stepped forward to help one by one without Qiao Xin's instructions.
"Here, these are all?"
The young man next to her explained, "Yes, that's all. The old lady brought over 40 books and asked us to print thousands of copies of each. We have a limited number of ox carts in our village and can't carry so many at once, so we have to deliver them in several batches."
Liang Shengming picked up a book at random, stroked the slightly yellow cover with his fingertips, and was shocked.
The two characters "Nine Classics" are clearly marked with heavy ink. Apart from that, there is no decoration on the entire book except for a seal of "Wancong Shuzhai" in the lower right corner.
When I opened the book, I saw no blurry ink between the lines, the fonts were of consistent size, and there were even numbers marked at the bottom of the book.
Liang Shengming could tell at a glance that this was a book of better quality than a rubbing.
When he was traveling in Nanliang, he had seen rubbings of books in a large family, but compared to the book he picked up, the rubbings he had seen seemed to be made more crudely. The paper and ink were not so fine, and the running script layout between the fonts was not so sparse, grand, clean and tidy.
Not to mention that the Qiao family sold tens of thousands of books at once! This is more than the library of a large family!
Wasn't the Qiao family still a hungry civilian family a year ago? How did they manage to print thousands of identical books in just a few months?
Zou You, the curious man, asked, "I wonder how much it costs to carve a book?"
Qiao Xin stopped the naked young man and said to him with a smile: "It's cheaper than bamboo slips and silk anyway. If the teachers in the academy want to publish any books, the Qiao family will help you print them for free. It's just a 50-50 split of the profits."
Qiao Xin stated the conditions for cooperation openly, and did not feel that it was degrading to discuss gold and silver items with a group of scholars.
When they heard about free publishing, many people had doubts, but wasn't it too mercenary for the Qiao family to put a price on their masterpiece and then take half of the profits?
Everyone has different thoughts, but it does not affect the speed at which each other reads the books.
Qiao Xin even had people randomly check a box of books from each car, focusing on checking to see if there were any common problems such as ink contamination, typesetting errors, and missing prints.
She always sets the most stringent production standards for books used as teaching materials and for sale, and no carelessness is allowed!
Fortunately, the people of Leiwo Village did not disappoint her. All the products sampled were found to have no problems. Qiao Xin was pleased and relieved. The Qiao family's printing workshop was only completely established at this moment.
The establishment of a printing house in Leiwo Village was not smooth sailing at first.
The first headache was the material problem of the template. The official engravings that had just been developed were mainly full-page wood carvings. Once the engraver made a mistake in carving, the entire page would be invalidated and all previous efforts would be wasted.
The reason why this method of production has not been widely spread over the years is that it is not only costly, but also wasteful. But if you don't have dozens of taels of silver, you can forget about it.
Most people simply cannot afford the cost, and it is better to use handwritten copies for convenience.
Qiao Xin used movable type printing technology which took almost centuries to perfect. Once it is replicated, the efficiency will be overwhelming that of all current private and official engraving workshops.
The system guessed her thoughts and recommended the technique of using lead type to engrave the typeface. Although it was a bit expensive, he had indirectly saved so many people in Yuncheng during this period and accumulated a lot of merit, which he exchanged all at once.
The technology had the raw materials but was stuck. Where could we get so much lead? But this was the ancient times when the industry was backward and lead could not be purchased in such large quantities.
The mining rights of Tujin Dajing were all in the hands of the state. Who better to turn to than Emperor Wu? Qiao Xin submitted a letter to His Majesty crying poor overnight. Emperor Wu, as a boss, was also very generous and sent people to deliver more than 200 kilograms of lead overnight.
Fortunately, she later found some extremely sticky soil in Tujiabao, which she carved into character molds. After firing, its stability and hardness were no less than lead.
This solved the long-term problem of raw material sources. After all, she couldn't just go to Emperor Wu for everything she needed, and the old stubborn people in the court wouldn't agree after a long time.
Just when the raw material problem was solved, the labor problem arose. Except for the ninth grandfather and the village chief, the villagers of Leiwo Village were illiterate and could not read a single word. They did not even know what their own names looked like!
If a typesetter is illiterate, it will greatly affect the efficiency and speed of his work.
There was no other way, so Qiao Xin had to ask housekeeper Cao to send a few literate subordinates to open a literacy crash course, and try to select a few people who can read the fastest and do things the most nimbly within half a month to focus on training them as typesetting masters. Only then was the first makeshift team barely put together.
Even so, all the mistakes that should have been made were not missed. There were problems with typesetting and typos. Qiao Xin's workshop encountered all the mistakes that a new printing workshop would make, and only then was a group of qualified people trained.
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It’s even more exciting later!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com