Chapter 987 983 [Printing Revolution]
Although Zhao Kuangping only thinks about making money, he knows very well what is a big thing and what is a small thing.
Just like before when he discovered a loophole in the prince's business, his first reaction was not to take advantage of the loophole, but to run to his father to tell him about the matter to see if the loophole could be plugged.
When he met the inventor this time, Zhao Kuangping immediately took the man into the palace to meet the saint.
"Common people thank you for your wealth, let's bow to the emperor!" The inventor knelt down and worshiped the emperor when he saw him.
Zhao Han attached great importance to this matter and put aside all official duties to meet him. He smiled and said: "There is no need to salute, just get down quickly."
The guards moved the seats, and Xie Fu sat down in panic.
"Come closer, don't sit too far away." Zhao Han said.
"Thank you, Your Majesty!"
Xie Fu was both excited and nervous. He was getting closer to the emperor. His mind went blank. He was so excited that he didn't know his last name.
Zhao Han asked: "How did you make this calligraphy method? Do you have any drawings?"
Xie Fu quickly stood up and said, "The drawings are with the palace officials."
The guard came directly with a stack of drawings, and there were drawings for every step.
First, use hundreds of refined steel and cast the steel mold using traditional methods. Then the huge power of the steam engine is used to directly punch out the copper mold with the steel mold. With the copper mold, the movable type is cast using traditional methods, and the metal movable type uses a European alloy formula.
This type casting method seems to be more complicated than the traditional type casting process, but when it is actually used, the efficiency is increased by hundreds of times, and the cast metal movable type has extremely small errors.
Another time and space also appeared, probably during the Opium War, when it was invented by the Englishman Dale specifically for Chinese movable type. However, it only took more than ten years before it was eliminated by the American Jiang Bieli's technology. The Americans directly adopted the electroplating movable type method, which was lower cost and more efficient. It was used by Chinese publishing houses until the Republic of China.
As for Gutenberg’s metal movable type formula, it is no secret.
Gutenberg was involved in power struggles in his later years and was exiled by the church. His printing factory workers were scattered all over Europe, and their recipes for metal movable type and printing ink were also spread. European missionaries brought these technologies to Asia and had printing plants in Manila and Coconut City, mainly printing books such as the Bible.
After China occupied Manila and Coconut City, it also took over printing plants and printed textbooks in various subjects in Chinese.
European metal and ink formulas spread to the mainland and are now widely used in China.
The formula for Gutenberg's metal type is: lead (80%), antimony (12%), and tin (8%). It has good inkability, low melting point, short solidification time, and the cast movable type is full and clear. This alloy ratio has been used until modern times.
The formula of Gutenberg printing ink is: linseed oil, turpentine, and carbon black are mixed to prepare oil-based ink. As a solvent, linseed oil has low surface tension. Turpentine further reduces the tension and improves the adhesion performance, enabling very small and clear Chinese characters to be printed.
The combination of these two formulas means that what used to be three or four pages of Chinese character content can now be accommodated in one page, and it is even clearer to read.
After the lead alloy movable type was produced, even the copper movable type from China's official printing factory was ordered by Zhao Han to be melted down to make copper coins. There is no need to hide anything. Chinese copper movable type is just not as useful as European lead alloy movable type.
Zhao Han looked at a few drawings and was very curious: "What did you do before?"
Xie Fu said: "Caomin's father used to be a domestic slave of the Xie family in Foshan. When the heavenly soldiers came to kill him, my father was freed from slavery, but he still worked as a servant in the Xie family. Caomin dropped out of middle school and went to work in the Xie family's iron factory. In the past few years, the common people came up with several inventions, but they were all occupied by the Xie family, and they were only rewarded with one tael of silver each time."
Although patents are good for inventions, they are not necessarily good for inventors.
Xie Fu continued: "Later, the common people learned to be smart. Xie allowed the common people to invent with peace of mind, so the common people used Xie's machine to invent this new set of calligraphy methods. The invention was completed, but it was not made public, only that it was not finished yet. Then he claimed he was ill and fled to Jiangxi, applied for a patent in Nanchang, and then took a boat to Nanjing."
Afraid that the emperor would think he was disloyal to his employer, Xie Fu explained: "Your Majesty, Cao Min's inventions in the past few years have earned at least tens of thousands of taels of silver for the Xie family. But Cao Min doesn't even have the right to sign the patent, so it all belongs to the young master of the Xie family. Invention. The grassroots people...the more they think about it, the more unwilling they become, so they ran away this time."
"Do you plan to go back for revenge in the future?" Zhao Han asked.
Xie Fu shook his head and said, "The Xie family was kind to Cao Min and his son. Now that the grudge has been cleared, Cao Min just wants to bring his parents to Nanjing and will no longer have any contact with the Xie family."
Zhao Han continued to flip through the drawings and found a few tables at the back. He was suddenly surprised and said: "Hey, you have thought carefully about this new calligraphy method."
Xie Fu explained: "The current method of casting characters has unclear specifications and different sizes. The common people think that since the error of steam engine characters is small, why not use a unified standard? So the common people secretly count..."
"Caomin has counted 30 books on the market with a total of more than 1.2 million words, all of which are best-sellers. There are only 13 words that are used more than 10,000 times, more than 200 words that are used more than 1,000 times, and those that are used no more than 25 times. There are more than 3,700. Therefore, the common people divide the number of uses of Chinese characters into commonly used characters, spare characters, and rare characters."
"In the future, when casting movable type, more commonly used characters will be cast, fewer spare characters will be cast, and even fewer rarely used characters will be cast. When typesetting, book printing plants can also follow this standard and place movable types in categories, which will greatly shorten the time for finding and retrieving characters. "
"In addition, Cao Min also compared the books on the market and formulated font sizes for movable type. They are divided into seven types: explicit, clear, middle, line, explanation, annotation, and zhen. It is not only convenient for typesetting, but also beautiful, concise and easy to read."
Zhao Han praised: "Great kindness!"
Zhao Kuangping said: "Congratulations to my father, you must be big enough to use it."
Zhao Han said to his son: "I will lend you money, and you can set up a factory and recruit people. First order a steam engine, and then order a type casting machine. From now on, the movable type of Si Li Supervisory Factory will be purchased from your type casting factory. However, I will definitely not buy the movable type from the Ministry of Rites Printing Factory from you, and let the Ministry of Industry use this technology to run a type foundry."
Then, Zhao Han said to Xie Fu: "When you cooperate with the King of Chu, you can discuss it yourself whether to buy shares or buy out the patent. As for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Type Foundry, I will not give you patent fees. I appoint you as the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Type Foundry." Deputy Supervisor. Remember, once you become the Deputy Supervisor of the Type Foundry of the Ministry of Industry, you can no longer do business if you have an official status. Your cooperation with the King of Chu can only sell off the patent or share the patent dividend."
Can you be an official?
He is also the deputy director of the Type Foundry of the Ministry of Industry!
Xie Fu was stunned by happiness in an instant, and immediately said: "Your Majesty, if the common people can become the deputy supervisor of the Ministry of Works, they will give the patent for casting characters to the King of Chu without charging a penny in royalties!"
Zhao Han smiled and said: "The Zhao family is not the Xie family and will not occupy your invention. How to use the patent, you can discuss it with the King of Chu yourself. Remember, when you become an official in the Ministry of Industry, don't rest on your laurels. You must continue to improve the casting of characters. Fa, in the future, the one who will leave his name in history will be Bi Sheng of our Datong Dynasty!"
"I will live up to His Majesty's trust!" Xie Fu's blood surged all over his body. He left his chair and knelt down to kowtow.
Zhao Han said: "I will send travelers to bring your family to Nanjing, and then give you a mansion in the capital. The houses in the city are gone, so you can live outside the city."
Zhao Han is naturally happy. This happiness is not only due to the improvement of printing technology. There is also Xie Fu, who was born as the son of a domestic slave and graduated from a modern middle school. His current inventions all demonstrate Zhao Han's achievements.
Only the calligraphy craftsmen were injured. If this method spreads, a large number of calligraphy craftsmen will lose their jobs.
Of course, the new calligraphy method also requires calligraphers, but the number is not that large. At the Ritual Supervisory Factory and the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Works, the calligraphy craftsmen laid off this time were directly given to the King of Chu to set up factories. This not only solved the unemployment problem, but the King of Chu did not have to worry about recruiting people everywhere.
After Zhao Kuangping and Xie Fu resigned, Zhao Han called the Minister of Rites and the Minister of Work.
The Ministry of Industry was responsible for opening a new type foundry, while the Ministry of Rites was preparing to replace textbooks.
Textbooks printed in the future will all use new type casting. Moreover, using standard font sizes, the printed textbooks can have more content on each page, and are concise, easy to read and better recognized.
Old-fashioned textbooks can still be used, especially for poor children, who can just get their own used books to take classes, which can save a lot of book fees. The government is not allowed to force new books to be replaced, nor is it allowed to expel students who use old books from the classroom.
This is a printing revolution!
The revolution had already begun, starting with the adoption of European metal alloys and European ink formulas. It also started from the change of textbook printing from vertical to horizontal printing.
Xie Fu's series of inventions accelerated this printing revolution.
There are too many Chinese characters, and it’s not like Europe can handle with twenty or thirty letters. Therefore, the casting of Chinese movable type has always restricted the development of printing technology, and it is difficult to significantly reduce the cost. And Xie Fu's calligraphy skills, plus a set of clear standards, are equivalent to opening the Chinese printing door a crack, and directly kicking open most of the door.
Next, we can continue to improve and continue to improve efficiency.
But if we want to achieve another leap forward again, we have to wait until the electrical age and use electroplating to cast characters!
Xie Fu's calligraphy method is sufficient for this era.
Printing costs have been slashed significantly, and even ordinary people can afford to buy newspapers without renting newspapers to read.
The cost of books for schoolchildren is no longer so expensive, which is more conducive to the implementation of education in remote areas and accelerates the assimilation of foreign races by Chinese civilization. Administrative and military expenses in remote areas can also be reduced faster.
The more Zhao Han thought about it, the more excited he became. He was too lazy to work and asked his concubines to visit the Imperial Garden together.
The king of Chu, Zhao Kuangping, was also very excited and negotiated a patent royalty with Xie Fu. 5% of the foundry's profits were distributed to Xie Fu every year for twenty years.
Within two years, the King of Chu had the exclusive patent for casting characters.
After two years, Xie Fu can sell the calligraphy patent to other businessmen outside Jinling Mansion. After three years, the patent for casting characters can be sold to businessmen in Jinling Prefecture.
If someone infringes a patent, businessmen in the relevant areas will help litigate the case in order to protect their own interests.
For example, during the exclusive patent period, the King of Chu would be very vigilant. No matter which province he encountered a copycat factory, he would issue a proper complaint. Not only must the other party stop the infringement, but the other party must also make up for the patent fees. The compensation will be distributed by the King of Chu and Xie Fu through negotiation.