The night in Lingnan is as quiet as the Central Plains, in addition to the rustling of the breeze from time to time outside the window, there are many unknown insects and pigs, chirping endlessly, which is more lively.

Xu Ping sat at the table, leaning against the window, blowing the slightest cool breeze from outside through the window, and reading Lin Suniang's family letter brought by Sun Qilang by the bright candlelight.

The letter tells the story of the changes in the farm, how much rice was planted, how much wheat was planted, how much grass was planted, and how many cattle and sheep were raised. Some personnel changes, except for Sun Qilang to follow Xu Ping, Director Tan of Baisha Town Restaurant went to the capital, and Xu Chang and his wife went to pick up the restaurant.

At the end of the letter, Lin Suniang not only reported to Xu Ping the safety of the old people, but also told him that her daughter Panpan had learned to speak, and from time to time she would babble and ask where Daddy was.

Xu Ping read and looked at this letter, and was reluctant to put it down in his hand. The joy of being a father is like pouring honey into my heart, but with a little regret. When he returns to the capital after his two terms as magistrates, his daughter will run away, and it is likely that the two will meet for the first time at that time.

In the same year, Xu Ping was not the first to be promoted, and the champion Wang Yaochen Huzhou Tong was appointed to the official for a year, and on behalf of their Jinshi returned to Beijing to report to the emperor, he was also promoted to the author Zuolang, and changed to the value of the Xianyuan. Since then, he has followed the emperor and taken the position of the museum. There are Jinshi backgrounds and museum positions that can be transferred beyond seniority, and Wang Yaochen has these two honors at the same time, and he has left them far behind in the same year. This is the honor of the champion, the natural leader of the same Jinshi, as long as he does not die like Hu Dan, Wang Yaochen will stand at the forefront of their Jinshi for a long time, leading everyone to move forward in their careers.

Among the others, even Wen Yanbo, who was appointed to the county, moved to an official, and Xu Ping was just not pulled down by these people. Only Bao Zheng was too far away from home because of his elderly parents, and the court really couldn't meet his requirements, and he was too far away from home after changing the official twice, so he simply didn't go out to support his parents at home. Bao Zheng's treatment was so envious that Xu Ping's saliva was about to flow out, and he didn't want to run thousands of miles to Lingnan to suffer, how good it was to honestly guard his parents, wife and children at home, and he had a good life, and he didn't have Bao Zheng's connections.

Xu Ping came from an ordinary background, and there was no one to take care of him in the court, and his promotions all relied on real political achievements, and he couldn't make any tricks. The promotion speed can catch up with those eunuchs, and in the eyes of others, they are already terribly capable.

In the small courtyard on the other side, Xiuxiu and Liu Xiaomei sat in the courtyard, blowing a cool breeze, watching all kinds of small animals and birds make a fuss. Xiuxiu read Su Er's letter, and told Liu Xiaomei about the richness and prosperity of the capital, every day the people on the street flow like a big river, where there are candy sellers, where there are toys to sell, how many tiles are in the city, how big each tile is, and all kinds of fun and beautiful things in it.

Liu Xiaomei seems to be listening to the story of another world, she has never even been to Yongzhou City, which is countless times larger than Yongzhou City, and the most prosperous capital in the world has completely exceeded her imagination.

Life is plain and plain, it looks colorless and transparent, but the human eye is a prism, and the colorless life is imprinted into the soul through the human eye, which reflects the colorful colors.

Not far from Xu Ping's station, in a sunny place, two huge pools were built on the edge of a dense bamboo forest, and they were filled with white pulp. One pool is made of hemp stalks, while the other is made of bagasse.

In the shadows next to the bamboo forest, Sun Qilang and Gao Daquan debugged the paper machine, and said: "Official, I just can't understand, this pulp is obviously the same, why should it be divided into two pools?" ”

Xu Ping bent down to look at them, and said: "The paper made by different pulps is different, and the paper made by mixing with each other is different, it's similar to grabbing medicine, this is the formula, do you understand the formula?" ”

Sun Qilang shook his head, he always felt that Xu Ping's statement was a bit mysterious, it was obviously the same.

Not far away, Tan Hu and two soldiers were burning a stove, and the hot gas was led to the drying roller of the paper machine through the clay pipe, and the paper was directly dried, and what came out was the finished paper, which did not need to be dried anymore.

"Alright, alright! Tan Jiejie, you call a few more people to come and scoop the pulp from the pool to it, the pulp can't be broken, and the paper that comes out of it will not be a bundle! ”

Hearing Sun Qilang's words, Tan Hu agreed, turned his head and shouted, five soldiers turned behind the bamboo forest, and after listening to Tan Hu's instructions, one of them took a big iron bucket and stood by the pool.

The iron bucket in their hands is Xu Ping's recent masterpiece, and after thinking about it for a long time, they remembered this method of hot-dip tin plating on a thin iron plate, which was the so-called tinplate in his previous life, which was used in large quantities to make canned food. The melting point of tin is low, the iron plate can form a stable plating layer in the molten tin liquid, it is corrosion-resistant, it can be soldered with tin, and it is shiny and beautiful, with this technology, cheap iron can replace tin and copper products in large quantities.

Let Gao Daquan hold the crank, Sun Qilang carefully instructed: "Your strength should be even, not fast or slow, especially if you can't stop in the middle, don't remember!" ”

Gao Daquan agreed one by one, and Sun Qilang said to the five soldiers standing there: "You scoop the pulp, remember one by one, just take your time, and listen to my orders!" ”

All the soldiers agreed together, and Sun Qilang began.

The first bucket of pulp was poured into the pool of the machine, and Gao Daquan shook the machine unhurriedly. The conveyor belt carries the pulp into the middle of the two rollers, presses it into a thin layer, turns it to flattening, and then passes through several sets of rollers, and the paper is formed before passing through the final drying rollers, and then rolling up at the end.

Xu Ping was behind the machine, touching the slightly hot paper roll and checking the fineness of the paper. Although it is not perfect, it is much better than the previous hand-copied paper, with uniform thickness and white color.

It wasn't until the five rolls of paper were made that the pulp in the machine was cleaned and replaced with bagasse pulp in another pool. Compared to the two, hemp pulp is stronger, which is due to the long length of natural fibers.

After making three more rolls of paper, Xu Ping asked the three soldiers to come and hug him, and went back to his residence with him. Instructed Sun Qilang and Gao Daquan to continue to try here, mix the two kinds of pulp together, and divide them into different proportions to see how the effect is.

Now it is woolen paper, with a rough surface, which is not suitable for direct printing or writing, and needs to go through a rolling process. In addition to rolling, there is also a process to prevent the ink from seeping, the most popular in this era is to wax and then press, Xu Ping used later starch and white dyes such as lime to complete this process. After the whole process is completed, it is a relatively high-end printing paper, and the printed books will definitely become the best products of this era.

As for the newsprint that Xu Ping used in large quantities for ordinary book printing in his previous life, because it was mechanical pulping, it did not remove the lignin in it, and the fine grinding technology was impossible to do in this era anyway. The paper Xu Ping is making now is actually a high-grade paper in his previous life, although the quality is far inferior, the cost cannot be reduced.

When I returned to my lodgings, there was a room on the east side that had long been vacant, and in it there were long cases with rolling rollers at one end of the case, and beside the cases there were large vats of paste and limestone powder, and several large brown brushes were inserted into it.

Several women who had been transferred to do this work were sitting and chatting, and when they saw Xu Ping coming in, they hurriedly got up and saluted.

Asked the soldier to put the whole roll of paper on the long case, Xu Ping dipped a brush dipped in lime with a paste, and gently smeared it on the paper. After trying it a few times, he gave the brush to the woman and told them to do the same.

The paper was brushed, and when it was dry, it was led to a roller on the side of the desk, where one soldier shook the handle, and the other soldier rolled the paper again.

After making a volume, Xu Ping took it and looked at it, it was unevenly smeared, and there were many flaws, but it was much better than the paper used before, and it could be used to print books. Things are not done all at once, as long as you figure out the steps and improve a little bit, you don't need to force perfection.

Leaving two soldiers to press the paper inside, Xu Ping let the other one hold the paper and went out with him.

The front yard of Xu Ping's residence is now a large factory, where all kinds of novelties are made, and next to the paper-making room is the printing place.

Duan Yunjie took a few people to typeset in the room, both men and women, all of them were neatly cleaned up. At this time in the Song Dynasty, there was no great defense for men and women, not to mention that Yi and Han lived together, and no one paid attention to those things that only a very few old masters talked about.

It's not that Xu Ping likes to use Duan Yunjie to do this kind of thing, there is really no other candidate. In such a remote and small county, there are not many people who can read and write, and the poor people who can read and write and are willing to come out to work are even rarer, and there are not even a few in Yongzhou City. Generally, the state and county printing books are fixed several general textbooks, and the official can complete the plate making under the guidance of the officials, and all kinds of miscellaneous books like Xu Ping are printed, which is actually far beyond the ability of Yongzhou.

Fortunately, there is Duan Yunjie, this person is really smart to the extreme, especially this kind of delicate work, many things Xu Ping felt troublesome when he talked about it, but he understood it as soon as he heard it, and he could master it twice, he was born to do this kind of thing.

Seeing Xu Ping bring people in, Duan Yunjie got up and saluted, and said in a low voice with a smile: "I haven't had a chance to thank the officials, thanks to your promotion, my father finally changed the Beijing official, and he also counted his long-cherished wish." ”

Duan Fang is very persistent in changing the Beijing official, otherwise he would not have made up his mind to take office in Zhaozhou, speaking of a state, the conditions there can be worse than Hexian. Duan Fang is conceited and talented, and he can't participate in the normal imperial examination as an official as a young man, and he has worked hard for several years to take the examination, and he has to fight for a background no matter what.

The Song Dynasty's system, also known as the Great Branch, was much more difficult than the regular imperial examinations, especially in terms of the breadth of knowledge, almost to the point of perversion, and the most intelligent people had to undergo ten years of special training to have hope. In fact, in the entire Northern Song Dynasty, there were only four people who entered the third class, one of whom was Wu Yu, the provincial yuan of his term, and the other was Su Shi, as well as Fan Bailu and Kong Wenzhong. They are all admitted to the Jinshi and then take the examination of the system, and it can also be seen that the status of the system, the third-class treatment is equivalent to the champion, and the first-class and second-class are just name-ready, and they are never awarded.

Duan Fang dared to make this determination, one was conceited of his own intelligence, and the other was the knot in his heart. Juren is not an official name in the Song Dynasty, he is not a background, and his promotion is restricted everywhere, even if he is a low-level jinshi, he will not wait for so many years to change to a Beijing official.

Xu Ping said to Duan Yunjie: "We are colleagues, this is a matter of duty, you don't need to take it to heart." ”

There are some things that people who remember will naturally remember, and it is useless for forgetful people to mention them every day.

Taking the paper from the soldier's hand, Xu Ping handed it to Duan Yunjie: "This is the newly made paper today, you take it and try it to see how the printed book works, and if there is anything to change." ”

Duan Yunjie took it and said, "There is just a "Mengqiu" lined up here, and the official said so, so he will use this paper to give it a try." ”

It is Xu Ping's job to educate the people, and he has recently typeset and printed some enlightened books, which can also be regarded as his political achievements.

Inside the room is a printing press, which is still a square plate and a full page, but with the addition of a mechanism that can complete all the work alone, it can only be regarded as the prototype of a printing press. This is Xu Ping came up with himself, he has never seen what a real printing press looks like, exactly according to his own thoughts, fortunately, most of the mechanical things can be bypassed, and it is actually good to use.

Duan Yunjie didn't know the origin of this thing, and thought that the Central Plains were now printed like this, and in addition to being amazed, she also had more fantasies about the distant Central Plains.

After explaining, Xu Ping walked out of the house, stood in the courtyard and looked around, there were people busy in each room, a prosperous scene, and exhaled softly.

Originally, with his temperament, he didn't want to make too much movement, just like in Zhongmu Manor, as long as he lived comfortably, he would do something when he was interested, and live a free life. However, since leaving Zhongzhou, Xu Ping has made up his mind to build a splendid world in this remote countryside. As long as he develops here, the state of Quang Nam West Road will not be able to keep the small Chungju together.