It turned out that the largest newspaper in Sichuan belonged to Xiong Lan's central bank, and his newspapers were full of loan details; There are also new tax regulations from the Qin Xiucai Taxation Bureau, which are all news that various commercial banks are very concerned about. Relying on these first-hand information, Xiong Lan's newspaper was quite popular, and the newspapers under the central bank also actively promoted their newspapers to various private banks in Chengdu to earn extra money for the central bank. Comptoirs who were in dire need of loans generally subscribed to Governor Xiong's newspaper to get the financial information they needed. Later, many trading houses began to advertise in President Xiong's newspapers, but they were aimed at those who also bought President Xiong's newspapers.

For Xiong Lan, the printing press and workers are ready-made, and newspapers are printed when they are not printing money, although some people also look at it, but first, there is no first-mover advantage of Xiong Lan, and second, there is also a lack of connections and credit to compete with the central bank. It was a long time before there were some slightly larger newspapers, which were mainly sold to literate Tongxiucai, and the advertisements on them were also small shops and merchants.

Since some people discovered that publishing news is more appealing to civilians last year, many newspapers have begun to follow suit, and some people have gradually begun to be willing to spend money on advertising leaflets that are often rejected for free. Later, after Deng Ming's inquiry, all newspapers that published current political news would receive a subsidy from the government, and in addition to the central bank, which had deep pockets, this subsidy would be of great help to other newspapers. The most popular Chengdu weekly newspaper (now five days a week in Sichuan) has not only current political news, but also storytelling serials and even social gossip, and its speed of evolution has made Deng Ming, who has been secretly following it, dumbfounded.

The popularity of Chengdu Weekly is followed by Xuzhou Biweekly (every ten days), which has a lot of feng shui related in addition to current political commentary. invited a few masters of Longhu Mountain to explain the weekly itinerary to the readers; The next page is Zhou Yi's detailed explanation, which is full of in-depth daily auspicious analysis, not only to let readers know why today is an auspicious day of the zodiac, but also to let readers understand how this auspicious day of the zodiac came. As the popularity continues to grow, the Xuzhou Weekly Newspaper said that they strive to change to the Xuzhou Weekly next year.

In third place is the Tongxiucai Daily, which like other newspapers, has the first page of current affairs news in exchange for government subsidies, but it only has one page of news, and the rest is the overwhelming lace news and the story of a scholar meeting a fox girl. Because the description was too explicit, the newspaper was declared unpopular by the academies in Chengdu and Xuzhou, and the school rules forbade teachers and students to buy and read it. At the beginning of the year, the newspaper also took a different approach and opened a special column to study the detailed rules of the Sichuan Taxation Bureau, analyzing how to avoid taxes legally, from the tax on large profits, to the business tax of small shops, and even the income tax of peasant workers. As a result, the newspaper became famous and swelled, becoming the third private newspaper to be published weekly. Soon after Deng Ming returned to Sichuan, the lawsuit also came to an end, and the chief criminal officer He Daoning announced that the column teaching how to avoid taxes was reasonable and legal in the name of "the speaker is not guilty"; After the verdict was announced, Qin Xiucai first ordered a copy of the Tongxiucai newspaper for each of the officials of the tax bureau, so that the loopholes could be discovered and made up for at the first time, and at the same time instructed Pu Fu to collect the signatures of the parents, intending to sue the "Tongxiucai Daily" for offending morals and poisoning a teenager.

Suo Etu stole a lot of newspapers from Tianjin, all of which belonged to these four families, not only Feng Ziming, they read it with relish, but after getting it, they also liked to read Suo Etu. After reading it, some of the masters who had been invited to distinguish the authenticity quarreled over the different views on current affairs in several newspapers, and said that they had not studied enough of Sichuan's tricks and needed more newspaper materials.

"Movable type?" Sony picked up the newspaper and flipped it to both sides, revealing a disdainful look of disdain.

This disdain is not the first time Suo Etu has heard it, and it is far more than once, and many masters have lost interest after seeing that these newspapers are obviously printed in movable type. Although movable type printing has been around for a long time, and it is no secret for a long time, movable type printing is difficult to achieve. Needless to say, if a reader wants to write a book, he will also ask a good worker to engrave a beautiful engraving for himself, because the character is not only a carrier of meaning, but also an art, and no one wants to use uncharacteristic movable type to carry their own efforts - if it is not very rich, then use a cheaper engraving.

Due to this tendency of the gentry, the best printing masters are also concentrated in the engraving printing industry, movable type printing is a low-level industry, the level of masters and workers is far from being comparable with the engraving counterparts, and the remuneration is also less pitiful, which makes the quality gap between movable type printing and engraving printing difficult to make up.

Sony has been in the customs for a long time, and in the last ten years, he has seen beautiful small letters, and he is surrounded by well-known scholars, and he has long known that movable type printing is for those foremen who are coarse and ink-like, and they cannot enter the eyes of the auxiliary minister.

"This newspaper is different, there are almost no typos on it......," Suo Etu hurriedly explained, although these newspapers can be seen not to be produced by one family, but the quality is quite good, both paper and ink are of the highest quality; Although the newspaper is basically colloquial vernacular, it is quite particular about the choice of words and sentences, and there are no self-made words and local slang, so there is no sense of obscurity when reading the whole article; The added punctuation, of course, shows that the newspaper is not intended for readers who have the ability to break sentences on their own, but it does greatly increase the speed of reading, making Manchurians such as Suo Etu feel very comfortable. All in all, these newspapers completely subverted the traditional impression of movable type prints by Suo Etu and others, as well as those who had read the newspapers, that Suo Etu presented only a single newspaper, and he had a whole box behind him, all of which he had brought back from Tianjin.

"Enough, what's there to see about this? Lies throughout. Sony caught a glimpse of the headline on the front page of the Chengdu Weekly, which was a report on the Caoyin Transportation Agreement -- when the newspaper was published, the Caoyin Transportation Agreement had just been discussed at the Academy's meeting, and the Chengdu Weekly reported on the known content of the agreement, the debate on the agreement, and then spent half a page explaining the newspaper reporter's perception of the pros and cons of the agreement.

In Sony's view, no government would leak such a thing, and would allow anyone other than officials to express their views (whether it was a court meeting or a newspaper), so it was clear that the purpose of the newspaper could only be to coax the Qing court, which Sony believed was a deliberate ploy by Sichuan to be transported to Tianjin and then used to mislead the Qing court's top brass.

"Go and prepare well, and when the will of the imperial court comes down, you will go to Shandong to report to Prince Kang!"

Seeing his father angrily throwing the newspaper aside, Suo Etu bowed down and retired.

Before it was dark, Suo Etu went out to discuss with several other younger children of the auxiliary minister's family, and recently Yue Le, the king of Anqing, had also begun to take an interest in making money from the political power trading market. Although he hated compromising with the Sichuan people, Yue Le thought that those profits should belong to the Qing Dynasty, and since the weak auxiliary ministers could not get the silver back for the emperor, then he King Anqing had no choice but to take some silver back for the Qing Dynasty as much as possible - that is, to take back Prince An's mansion, that is also rotten meat in the pot, isn't it?

"The conspiracy that King Anqing said, which of you heard the rumors?" Gualja asked.

King Anqing intends to invest three thousand taels of shares, which is first of all a large sum of silver, and Prince An will definitely have a reward for making money; Secondly, with Prince An escorting, even if they have the backbone of the nobles who do short buying and selling, there is still Yue Le, a tall man, who is on top of the sky.

According to Prince An, there seems to be a conspiracy against him and Prince Kang recently: they found a few clothes to eat inside and outside their palace, drew a sketch of their palace, and then said that it was painted by Deng Ming—the implication is that Deng Ming went to stay in their palace. Prince An suspected that this was the auxiliary minister's attempt to manipulate him, and reported that when the "Kangxi" case broke out that year, he and Prince Kang gave the auxiliary minister a revenge that could not step down.

Everyone shook their heads together, and Suo Etu said in a low voice: "As far as I know, that picture is really not made by Ama and them, but secretly sent by Zu Zepu, it seems that it is really painted by Deng Ming." ”

"That's what my uncle said."

Several people patted their heads in frustration, and finally they were able to improve their relationship with Yue Le, but they were stirred up by Zu Zepu, a bastard - you are a sesame-like governor, why are you framing the prince when you have nothing to do? framed two in one breath, did you eat the bear's heart and leopard gall?

"Forget it, let's make it clear to the prince about the exchange first, have you run out of newspapers?" A person asked Suo Etu that several newspapers also mentioned the new thing of the regime exchange to the Sichuan Tongxiucai, and he understood it better than Niu Colu, who had already gone to Anqing.

"Go back in the evening and get it, and send it to Prince An's mansion early tomorrow morning."

Just now, because of his father's bad look, Suo Etu didn't dare to retrieve his newspaper in front of Sony, for fear that Sony would be angry when he saw it, so he asked Bao Yi to throw his baby into the fire. After returning home, Suo Etu waited until it was dark, and after thinking that Sony should go to bed, Suo Etu sneaked to his father's study, intending to remove his newspaper box.

Unexpectedly, the box that was originally placed at the door was gone, and Suo Etu sighed in his heart: "Don't be burned by Amma, right?" Or did I move into the study? No, I remember I left it at the door and only went in with one in my pocket. ”

To make matters worse, the light was still on in the study.

"No, Amma goes to bed when it's dark now, so it's time to go to bed for more than an hour, right?" It was about the newspaper that would be sent to Yue Le tomorrow, so Suo Etu could only stubbornly lean to the crack of the door, wanting to peek at the movement inside.

"The third one, right?" An old voice came from inside the door, it was Auxiliary Minister Sony: "Come in." ”

Although he knew that his father had been riding horses all his life and had very good ears, Suo Etu was still taken aback, and since he couldn't hide, he had to push open the door and go in with a smile to greet his father: "Ama hasn't slept yet." ”

In the study, Sonny was sitting in front of the candle reading the newspaper, and Suo Etu saw at a glance that his box was at his father's feet, and it was empty.

"Before I knew it, I saw the present." Sonny put down the newspaper and turned to look at his son: "You say, how much of this is true?" ”

"I don't know, my son looks like the real thing." Suo Etu replied honestly.

"This newspaper says that it can be subscribed, and even Wuchang can subscribe to the newspaper, as long as you add silver." Sony pondered for a moment: "If I want someone to order one in Wuchang, and then send it back to Beijing without Zhang Changgeng's ears and eyes, can you do it?" ”

After a pause, Sony pointed to the newspaper on the table and said, "This bank newspaper is all nonsense and worthless, I don't have time to read it; The other three copies have to be ordered, and the first side of this "Tongxiucai Daily" is fine, and the rest are all fox immortals or something, so there is no need to send them back to Jingshi. ”