PS: I'm sorry, my dad had surgery today, and he was busy in the hospital for a day, and now he has to release the chapter, and it's a little late.

As soon as I heard Yan Shigu tell him that he could go to Guozijian to print the pinyin textbook, he was about to be happy, but he immediately heard another sentence that he needed to wait for a long time, and he was suddenly not happy.

In addition to this pinyin textbook, there are several other textbooks that are being compiled, all of which need to be printed, and at least one must be published after two months, so that the 300 people can use the textbook.

"Uh, Master Yan, I don't know how long it will take, how long will it take?" Xia Hongsheng asked Yan Shigu: "The students want to print this thing and use it as a textbook for those soldiers to study, but this matter is unacceptable, and I ask Master Yan to instruct the students what to do?" ”

The meaning in these words is obvious, that is, let Yan Shigu help, if he Xia Hongsheng goes to the Guozijian to let the printing of things, let alone the sacrificial wine of the Guozijian Kong Yingda, even the people in charge of the printing inside will not bird him. But if Yan Shigu goes, it will be different, with Yan Shigu's prestige and status, it will definitely have priority, and this kind of thing will definitely be able to do it.

However, Yan Shigu shook his head and smiled bitterly, and said, "This favor, even if the old man wants to help, I'm afraid he can't help." Jingshi, you still don't know, since you dedicated the punctuation method of sentence breaking, the old man and others have been re-annotating some ancient books, and until now, there are only seven books that can be printed. The printing is slow, not in the printing itself, nor in the number of prints that need to be printed, but in the engraving. Thousands of words in a classic book need to be carved by a craftsman before it can be printed, that is, if there is a change in one word, the previous engraving can no longer be used at all, and can only be newly engraved. So it's slow. This pinyin method is that tomorrow the old man will take it and hand it over to the Guozijian, so that the craftsman will start carving the plate, and wait for it to be carved into a plate. It's going to be almost two months. ”

Listening to Yan Shigu's words, Xia Hongsheng slapped his head, by the way, how could he forget this stubble! At this time, it was still woodblock printing. Printing needs to be engraved first, printing is fast, but stereotyping is very slow, and if there is a change in one stroke, the whole shift is ruined. It also had to be re-engraved, which seriously hindered the efficiency of printing and hindered the publication and dissemination of books.

Engraving is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and the storage of a large number of book plates is inconvenient, easy to rot, difficult to preserve for a long time, in addition, there are errors are not easy to correct, a little change has to be destroyed and remade. These three points are the biggest defects of engraving printing.

Later, someone improved the printing technique, which not only promoted the development of the printing industry. It has promoted the dissemination of books and made great contributions to the dissemination and preservation of Chinese cultural classics. Even after it was later introduced to the West, it directly contributed to the Renaissance in the West. Movable type printing is Bi Sheng's invention and the pride of the Chinese people. Just empty words, may not be enough to explain the promotion of movable type printing to engraving printing, in the Song Dynasty in later generations, after Bi Sheng invented movable type printing, someone made a comparison. The Tripitaka published in the Song Dynasty has more than 5,000 volumes. At first, it was printed with engraving, and a total of 130,000 wooden boards were carved, which could not fit in several rooms, and it took more than 100 craftsmen many years to complete. Later, movable type printing was used. It took a dozen or so people only a few months to do it easily.

Thinking of this, Xia Hongsheng immediately said to Yan Shigu: "I see, Master Yan, this problem can be solved by the student." ”

"Oh?" Yan Shigu looked up at Xia Hongsheng: "How do you solve it?" ”

Xia Hongsheng smiled and said, "What the student said is that there is a way to solve the disadvantages of engraving printing. In the future, engraving will not be required for printing. ”

"What?!" Yan Shigu stood up abruptly and looked at Xia Hongsheng with a shocked expression.

"The students are saying, since engraving printing is so inconvenient, why don't we adopt a more convenient method?" Xia Hongsheng said to Yan Shigu: "For example, movable type printing! ”

Yan Shigu's face was serious, and he stood there staring at Xia Hongsheng with two eyes tightly: "What is movable type printing?" ”

Xia Hongsheng bowed to Yan Shigu and said, "The student will explain to Master Yan that the student can borrow paper and pencils." ”

After speaking, Xia Hongsheng took out a piece of paper from Yan Shigu's desk, took a pen and wrote some words on it, and then tore off those words one by one and lined them aside. Fu pulled out another piece of paper and wrote a sentence on it.

"Master Yan, the so-called engraving printing is to first engrave the content that needs to be printed into a plate, and then print it, let's compare this piece of paper to an engraving plate." Xia Hongsheng took the piece of paper on which a sentence was written, and then circled a word on it, and said: "Now that we have changed this sentence, we have changed a few words, if it is printed according to the engraving, this piece of paper will be destroyed and redone." That's a lot of wasted time. ”

"Let's look at that again." Xia Hongsheng took the paper that was torn into pieces again, and continued while arranging them into sentences: "It's still this sentence, these pieces of paper represent seals, and they have already been prepared, and the students pick out the words needed for this sentence from them, so in a row, okay." If there are a few words that need to be changed, the student only needs to jump out of the seal of those words and replace them with the seal of the word that needs to be changed, you see, this is it. ”

Yan Shigu was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly his eyes were shining, and he suddenly came to the pile of papers, and suddenly slapped the table: "Wonderful!" Wonderful! ”

Xia Hongsheng continued: "Master Yan, the words we often use on weekdays are only thousands in total, and counting those rare words, it is not more than 10,000. If you ask the seal carver to carve out these characters one by one, get ready. If we need to publish any article, we only need the printing craftsman to select the words that need to be used from the movable type that has been prepared, put them together, and they can be arranged into a text immediately, and then printed. In this way, it not only saves the time of engraving, but also can be recycled, so that the efficiency of printing can be greatly improved. ”

"Truly! Hahahaha...... Indeed! Yan Shigu laughed, he was so excited that he couldn't control himself, and grabbed Xia Hongsheng's hand, but Xia Hongsheng was startled, he had never seen Yan Shigu excited like this, he smiled and smiled, and tears appeared in his eyes.

"Master Yan......" Xia Hongsheng was a little worried, Master Yan was old, so ecstatic, it was not good for his health, and it was easy to cause an emergency.

Yan Shigu squeezed Xia Hongsheng's hand tightly, as if he was afraid that Xia Hongsheng would disappear as soon as he let go of his hand: "It's okay, Jingshi, it's okay!" The old man is happy, the old man is happy! If this law is successful, the world will no longer worry about the lack of books, and the world's scholars no longer need to worry about the lack of books to read. Hahahaha...... This move will surely make the name of Jingshi go down in history, leave a name for sweat and green, and the world's scholars will know the name of Jingshi and receive the grace of Jingshi! Let's go, let's go to Guozijian! ”

As he spoke, Yan Shigu pulled Xia Hongsheng and walked outside.

Yan Shigu ordered people to prepare a carriage, and went straight to the Guozijian with Xia Hongsheng, and when he arrived at the Guozijian, he pulled Xia Hongsheng in, and even turned a blind eye to the guards' visits, and the students along the way saluted Yan Shigu, but Yan Shigu seemed to be unable to see them, and pulled Xia Hongsheng and went straight to the back, which caused the students along the way to pay attention and talk quietly.

"That person, isn't it Xia Hongsheng who taught punctuation and sentence breaking in the Hongwen Pavilion?" A student from Guozijian who went to Hongwen Hall to listen to Xia Hongsheng's lecture recognized Xia Hongsheng, and said suspiciously: "The punctuation and sentence breaking method we use every day is what he came up with. ”

"Xia Hongsheng? This person has also heard of it, and he has a bit of literary talent. Another student said.

"How many points?" The student who recognized Xia Hongsheng turned his head when he heard this, and a hint of sarcasm appeared on his face: "This brother, don't say such things, if you have someone Xia Hongsheng's 'a few points' of literary talent, it will be considered a creation!" ”

"You!" When the man heard his words, he immediately became angry, and when he saw that his classmates around him were laughing, he suddenly lost his face and stomped his feet: "Hmph, I'll go and meet him here, ask him for advice, and see if it's as my brother said!" ”

The person who recognized Xia Hongsheng sneered and shook his head: "For the sake of my classmates, I persuaded this brother to say a word, don't go to humiliate yourself." ”

With that, he turned and left, leaving the student there to gnash his teeth.

As for Xia Hongsheng, he had already been dragged to the back by Yan Shigu to find Kong Yingda, and he didn't know what was going on in front of him. At this moment, he was respectfully saluting Kong Yingda: "Student Xia Hongsheng, the word Jingshi, meet Master Kong!" ”

Although Xia Hongsheng is a military position, he is also a Confucian student, and all Confucian students in the world are disciples of Confucius, so when he saw this descendant of Confucius and a great Confucian in the world, he greeted him with the etiquette of a student to his teacher, not a position.

"You are Xia Hongsheng?" Kong Yingda looked Xia Hongsheng up and down, and saw that Xia Hongsheng was very polite and the etiquette was in place, so he said in a harmonious voice: "I often hear Mr. Li and Mr. Yan mention it, and the old man has already heard of you. ”

"Student ......"

"It's important to get down to business, don't be polite!" Yan Shigu suddenly dragged Xia Hongsheng over: "Jingshi, let's wait outside first." ”

Xia Hongsheng was about to speak, but was interrupted by Yan Shigu, and dragged him directly, there was no way, so he went out with a word of resignation.

Kong Yingda looked at Yan Shigu in surprise, how many years had he known Yan Shigu, and he had never seen Yan Shigu so disrespectful! Seeing Yan Shigu's overjoyed face, he suddenly became even more surprised and curious in his heart. (To be continued.) )