After returning to the mansion from Sun Yougong's workshop, all the disciples felt that they had solved a major matter in their hearts and were overjoyed. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

But when Lin Yanchao saw his disciple like this, he frowned slightly, as if he was a little unhappy.

Everyone didn't know what Lin Yanchao was thinking, but most of them didn't dare to ask questions without permission.

Only Qu Hengjiang couldn't help but ask: "Why is Mr. unhappy?" ”

Lin Yanchao asked rhetorically: "How many words can be printed in a day of the copper movable type in your Guozi Supervision and Carving Workshop?" ”

Qu Hengjiang said: "The disciple once asked the workshop craftsman, and he can make more than 20 papers a day. ”

When everyone heard this, they exclaimed: "More than 20 papers! ”

"If the craftsman Sun can only get a piece of paper in two days."

"Movable copper type does have its merits."

Qu Hengjiang thought that Lin Yanchao was worried about this, so he said: "Sir, although this copper movable type is fast, it is indeed too expensive, and ordinary people can't afford it." As far as our Beijing master is concerned, there is only one place in the supervision and carving workshop with copper movable type, and there are more than 200,000 copper mold words, and the private carving workshops in Jiangnan are not as good as the supervision and carving workshop. ”

Tao Wangling nodded and said: "What Brother Qu said is very true, only private carving workshops such as Wuxi Huitong Hall, Lanxue Hall, and Guipo Hall in Jiangnan have copper movable type, and there are tens of thousands of copper mold words, hundreds of thousands, but private carving workshops do not have the financial resources to supervise the carving workshop. If you want to print the book, you need to see if there is a lack of words, and if there is a lack of words, you need to cast them vertically. ”

He Ziming added: "Although the copper movable type is good, but it is too expensive, if you want to get a set of hundreds of thousands of copper mold words, I don't know how much it will cost tens of thousands of taels of silver, not to mention that there are also prepared words, so it is still easy to use engraving printing." ”

One of the disciples asked uncertainly, "What is a preparation character?" ”

Qu Hengjiang explained: "It's a repetitive word, like if you want to print the Lanting collection preface of the king's right army, you need to prepare twenty-one copper mold characters for 'zhi'. ”

Hearing Qu Hengjiang say this, all the disciples shook their heads: "Flashy." ”

Lin Yanchao knew from the discussion of his disciples that yes, it was precisely because of this that movable type printing could not be promoted. Engraving printing is still the mainstream of society, and movable type printing is only secondary, and even epoch-making metal movable type is flashy.

Because in addition to the mold is too expensive, copper movable type also uses copper, but the amount of copper produced in China is scarce, and copper is a circulating coin, who will use copper to cast the mold.

There are nearly 100,000 Chinese characters, and more than 3,000 commonly used Chinese characters, not to mention the four ways to write Hui Zi. Only the Ming Dynasty, where scholars carved books became popular, would be idle to use copper movable type.

But when movable metal type arrived in Europe, it was a different story.

How many letters are there in English, Latin? Their movable copper type is a hundred times simpler than ours.

After Gutenberg invented movable type printing in Europe, movable type printing was fully implemented in Europe in 1480, and the books published in the next two decades exceeded all the books published in Europe in the previous 1,000 years.

By the 16th century, the Ming Dynasty had been left far behind by European book publishing.

As we all know, the gap between China and the modern civilization of the West lies in the Renaissance.

How many thinkers did the Western Renaissance lie in? A few epoch-making inventions? In Dante? Leonardo da Vinci? Is it in the steam engine?

Actually, no, the Renaissance was about the cheap dissemination of knowledge, which caused a great collision of ideas.

It can be said responsibly that without movable type printing, there would be no Renaissance!

But is there really a difference between China and the West in movable type printing?

Lin Yanchao said to his disciples, "Do you know Taixi? ”

The disciples shook their heads and nodded again.

One said: "I heard that Tessie is the place of the red-haired ghost. ”

One said: "No, I heard that Tessie is the place of the Francis. ”

The two argued for a while, and Tao Wangling asked, "Why did Mr. Tittesy do you?" ”

Lin Yanchao said: "Taixi's writing is different from Chinese, for example, Taixi has a country named England, and its text is only 26 letters, and the meaning of the word is a patchwork of letters. They have been printing books with movable copper type for a hundred years, and they are a hundred times more effective than me! ”

All the disciples were shocked when they heard this.

"In the Qin and Han dynasties, bamboo slips were used as books, thousands of people were rated, scholars were only five or six, and the Sui and Tang dynasties were printed with engravings, and scholars were not as good as two or three, and now I am rich in the Ming Dynasty, and culture and education are prosperous, but when it comes to reading and literacy, one of the twenty people?"

"And after the people of Taixi used copper movable type, the proportion of literate people has far exceeded that of China."

The disciples were shocked when they heard this.

Qu Hengjiang said nervously: "Isn't this the law of the Chinese people learned by Taixi, and Taixi is ten times better than me, what is the strategy of Mr. ”

All the disciples asked in unison.

Qu Hengjiang does not ask this question, and the Chinese will also ask it hundreds of years later.

Hundreds of years after the Western Renaissance, the original barbarians came to the East and forcibly knocked on the country's door.

The Qing Dynasty court lamented the strength of the foreigners' ships and artillery, and set the national policy of 'mastering the skills of the master to control the country', and decided to use the Chinese body and the West to set up foreign affairs.

The Qing court procured countless Western guns and ships to pacify the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and create a Xiantong Zhongxinglai.

The Westernists were full of ambition and felt that they could wrestle with the powers, and Li Hongzhang, the minister of foreign affairs and a scholar in the two ranks, also forgot the sage books he read when he was young, and said that Confucius could not shoot foreign guns, and now it is not expensive.

But after the First Sino-Japanese War......

Everyone realized that even if we lost to the foreigners, we couldn't even beat the neighboring Japanese countries now.

Is it because we don't have enough guns and ships?

The court is corrupt, blame the government?

The Qing court was wary of the Han Chinese?

Institutional issues?

Li Hongzhang, Ding Ruchang's strategic and tactical problems?

The thickest black is still the one that foreigners taught us to keep a hand? Didn't teach the skill of climbing the tree?

But this question is the most unreliable, the Meiji Restoration and the Westernization Movement arose almost at the same time, why did the Japanese learn from the foreigners, but we did not?

Foreigners don't hide their secrets at all.

Moreover, the Westernization movement advocates the use of Chinese and Western bodies.

The Meiji Restoration, it was a foreign talent with a soul. Everyone's approach is pretty much the same.

But Lin Yanchao knew that there was a detail that many people didn't have an idea. That is, the literacy rate of its citizens in Japan is even higher than that of Britain after the Industrial Revolution in the same era, and this figure was before the Meiji Restoration, not after the Meiji Restoration. The Qing Dynasty of the same era was only 10 percent.

It's a wild talk, but it's true.

Why is that?

Because of the extensive promotion of terakoya in Japan, it was the first country to educate people in the Edo period.

The so-called terakoya is an education for the children of the common people, both men and women, and its content is similar to that of today's elementary school education. With such a high literacy rate among the people, it was like piling up countless firewood and having a strong accumulation, and when the Meiji Restoration and Western learning poured in, the general trend rushed straight into the fire.

The past is far away.

Lin Yanchao returned to reality, but the matter of the temple house inspired him.

Japan missed the explosion of ideas for movable type printing along with us, but that doesn't mean missing everything.

If the scholars and doctors of the imperial court can be less important than the arts, not more righteous than profitable, and can talk less about the scriptures and more about the merits, then it is nothing to miss the movable type printing.

If the national policy is applied to the world, pragmatic and based on China's vast land and abundant human and material resources, it will always come up with an alternative way.

Movable type printing, the instrument is also, but the Tao can be used as a weapon.

This is the truth of science, but this is not the way of science.

Thinking of this, Lin Yanchao's gaze became distant.

PS: Well, I'm going back to the court soon.