Farmer’s Little Girl

  Chapter 3373 Extraordinarily powerful sister 28

   Zhou Man turned around and ran, "You go home and wait, and when I find out, I will find you."

  Mingda: …She hasn’t had time to say that this bookstore is considered to be two offices. Also, the next office time hasn’t arrived yet, is this considered as leaving early?

   Zhou Man ran back to the county lord’s mansion, got into the study, and began to look for it, “I remember seeing it in a book. At that time, there was a new paper-making method on it, so I bought it.”

   "But after reading through it, I found that the contents recorded in it are very complicated. It mentioned a printing method called movable type printing..." Zhou Man squatted in front of the bookshelf and searched for it, flipping back while talking to Keke.

  "Didn't we deduced that method is not applicable?"

  The sudden voice made Zhou Man sit on the ground. She turned her head to look and saw Bai Shan in casual clothes, standing in front of the innermost bookshelf with a book in her hand.

  Bai Shan reluctantly closed the book, stepped forward to help her up, "It's rare to see you scared."

  "At noon, what are you doing at home in the imperial city?" Zhou Man said angrily: "Don't you know how scary people will die?"

  Bai Shan "...Since childhood, Bai Er and I hid in the dark for many times, trying to scare you. I thought you were not afraid of people making noises suddenly. How do I know that you are really scared?"

   Zhou Man looked at him suspiciously, "You really don't know, or did you pretend?"

  Bai Shan tried to maintain the expression on his face, but Zhou Man stepped on his foot, crushed it, and gritted his teeth and said: "I know!"

  Bai Shan hissed, hugged her hurriedly and said: "My fault, my fault, forgive me, I will never dare to be a child again."

  Bai Shan finally helped her find the book from the shelf, handed it to her, and asked, "How come I find this way?"

  "Mingda said he wanted to open another bookstore. There were a lot of books on the book list. Mingda sent so many sets of books. The bookstore was not working, so I wanted to open another bookstore."

  Bai Shan frowned, "Do you want to use a new printing method in the new bookstore?"

   Zhou Man nodded, "What do you think?"

   "But we have deduced it before, and the new printing method may not be as good as the current one." Bai Shan said: "The movable type typesetting is too laborious and the cost is too high."

   "I was thinking about it on the way back, but I think it's a little different. Maybe you can give it a try."

  Bai Shan: "Where is it different?"

"Compared with the time when it was deduced more than ten years ago, there are more people who are literate now. Don't you say that more and more people participate in the imperial examinations every year, but the number of people recruited by the imperial court every year is still limited, so there are A large number of people are unemployed."

  Bai Shan: "...Do you want them to typeset? Are those scholars who lack this salary?"

   Who can afford to read books, who doesn’t have a few acres of land?

Zhou Man said: "There are always people who are short of this amount of wages. How many people participate in the imperial examination every year? Of these people, as long as one enters the bookstore, one a year, and within a few years, the bookstore can do much. NS?"

  Bai Shan really thinks that today is different, because after the popularity of women's schools, private schools have also flourished, and more and more people are studying and literate, and not everyone is rushing to the imperial examination.

  There are still many people who are literate and unemployed.

  “However, the cost of hiring someone who reads and reads is still relatively high.”

   "Oh, but books are not cheap. Those who are able live it. Let us not be too stingy on wages."

  "Since your goal is to reduce book prices, you must control the cost of each book, including labor costs."

   Zhou Man: "You can only find out after this calculation, so you also think this thing is feasible, right?"

  Bai Shan basically didn't stop Zhou Man from doing what he was going to do. Even if he felt that he couldn't do it in his heart, he would let the other party give it a try. When he vetoed it directly, it was the same this time.

  Bai Shan nodded and said, "You can give it a try and come to me if you need it."

   Zhou Man closed the book happily and turned around to leave. Bai Shan pulled her back and said, "Copy the method on paper and send it. The book should stay at home."

  Although he puts the book on the shelf without fear of others, it is different from sending it to smart people.

   Zhou Man thought about it and agreed.

  Turned to the page where it was printed and began to copy, “Mingda found the disciples of the Mohist school. With them, it should be much faster to think about this. Then let them think about reducing costs.”

  Engraving printing and typesetting does not require people who know too many characters, or even those who do not need to read, as long as it is printed out one page after another;

  But the movable type is different. The typesetting person must not only know the words, but also know every word, and even read the textbook profusely, so that there will be no mistakes and efficiency.

  If the printing volume is not large, the cost of typesetting is too high. At this point, type is completely inferior to engraving.

  But movable type also has very convenient places. First, as long as there are enough typefaces, the bookstore can quickly typeset a new book. It does not need to be re-characterized word by word like engraving, which is very slow;

  Secondly, if some characters are damaged during the printing process, the movable type can be replaced quickly. The cost is low, unlike the engraving, if one character is broken, the entire plate will be broken, and the repair cost is extremely high.

Zhou Man copied and said: "The other reason I recommend movable type is that there are more and more people who write books, especially those with narratives, as well as collections of poems and essays published by various literati. Except for a few people, the books of the others are kept in the bookstore and hired to copy them."

  "Why is this? Isn't it just because the engraving is not easy, the bookstore won't pick it up if the quantity is not enough?"

A new book, like Bai Erlang, who has already accumulated a reputation, is fine. The bookstore will carve it and reprint it every year. Hundreds or thousands of volumes are republished every year. No need to worry about bookstores and booksellers. ；

  If a book written by an author can only sell dozens of copies in Beijing, it is sold to other places, and there are only a few hundred copies in total. After the bookstore has printed the engraving once, it will be invalidated, and the cost of printing is too high.

  Few booksellers are willing to pay this money, unless the author pays his own money, otherwise most of the scripts are actually copied by hired people.

  The tradition of Zhou’s children is to earn pocket money by reading and copying books. After they are well-written and proficient in writing, they can copy the manuscripts of poetry collections and these miscellaneous transcripts in the bookstore.

  The price is a bit higher than the copy of "The Analects".

Zhou Man copied all the content about movable type printing, and then sighed sadly: "But I remember one Mid-Autumn Festival, when I was drunk, the printing technique I mentioned was printed in a few clicks, please explain. If Da insists on asking this..."

   "You said it was what you saw in your dream, it seems to be the practice of the gods in the sky."

   "This is a lie."

  Bai Shan: "But from your point of view, it doesn't appear to be fake at all. Don't worry, she will believe you, because this is also true. It's just not the practice of the gods in the sky, but the practice of the underworld."

  But the underworld does not sound good, but the gods in the sky sound better.

Good night

  (End of this chapter)