Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 104 Movable Type Printing, Doubled Salary [Subscription Request]

Liu Kuan rode over on horseback.

I found a very simple wooden sign hanging on one side of the gate, which read: Sancai Printing House.

Probably hearing the noise outside, an old man in shorts and with white hair and beard came out.

Seeing Liu Kuan in his official robes, he immediately knelt and said, "Greetings, Master."

Liu Kuan quickly dismounted, helped the old man up, and said, "Sir, there's no need for such great courtesy. I'm Liu Kuan, the owner of this printing house."

The old man stood up and bowed again, "So you are the owner, I am Lin Ajiu, the head craftsman of this workshop. I didn't know you were coming, so I apologize for not coming to greet you."

Lin Ajiu?
Could it be that the clan members call him Uncle Nine?
Liu Kuan muttered to himself, and subconsciously glanced at Lin Ajiu's eyebrows again. Seeing that his eyebrows were not straight, he put away his strange thoughts and said, "Let's talk inside."

"Master, please."

After entering, Liu Kuan found that the courtyard was not very big and was only divided into two parts, front and back.

Half of the front yard was covered with a shed, with several rows of wooden shelves underneath. On one of the rows, some printed papers were drying in the shade.

Two young men came out of the main house, looking at them curiously and nervously.

Lin Ajiu glared at the two of them and said, "This is the owner, Master Liu. Why don't you come and greet him?"

The two young men immediately came over and knelt down, "Greetings to the owner!"

Liu Kuan said, "Stand up. I don't like people to perform formalities all the time. From now on, you don't have to kneel when you see me. Just bow."

Lin Ajiu was a little at a loss because he didn't know whether Liu Kuan was speaking for fun or the truth.

Liu Laifu said: "Don't think too much, just do as the master says."

"I'll remember this."

Liu Kuan was not in a hurry to visit, but planned to get to know the craftsmen in the workshop first.

"Uncle Lin, how many craftsmen are there in this workshop? What are their duties?"

Lin Ajiu said, "Sir, there are only three craftsmen. I and my two sons are all engravers, and we also take on the job of proofreading the text."

"In addition, my wife is responsible for cooking, cleaning and other miscellaneous chores during her spare time."

After saying this with a guilty conscience, Lin Ajiu felt a little uneasy.

His family has been engaged in printing in Jiangnan for generations. According to his father, they had their own printing shop during the Zhao Song Dynasty and lived a good life.

But in the early Yuan Dynasty, his family first became official craftsmen, and then were assigned to the powerful and wealthy to become slave craftsmen - in fact, they went from being slave craftsmen of the Yuan Dynasty court to slave craftsmen of the powerful and wealthy.

Why is it called a craftsman slave?

Because craftsmen in the early Yuan Dynasty had no personal freedom, their marriages were decided by officials or powerful people. Even if they had good skills, they could only earn enough to make a living and could not make money by doing private work.

Therefore, when Emperor Zhu arrived in Jiangnan and killed many Mongolian dignitaries, Lin Ajiu and other craftsmen were generally very happy.

Later, Emperor Zhu also registered them as artisan households.

Lin Ajiu was very nervous at first, worried that he would become a slave again, and even wanted to bribe the officials in charge to become a civilian.

But later I learned that the craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty were different from those in the previous Yuan Dynasty. They only needed to spare ten days a month to serve in the official workshop, and the rest of the time they could do private work to earn wages to support their families.

Since he could make money as a craftsman in the Ming Dynasty, Lin Ajiu wanted to use his ancestral skills to support his family, and even buy a printing shop to restore his ancestral business.

However, more than ten years later, although he married and had children, he was still far away from the goal of restoring his ancestral heritage - the cultural affairs of the pre-Yuan Dynasty were already neglected, and they became even more neglected after the war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

When the Ming Dynasty was first established, there was a lot of work to be done. For example, there was almost no end to the work of carpenters, bricklayers, etc. Although printers had more work to do, it was not worth mentioning compared with other craftsmen.

He originally worked in a large government-run printing house, and almost all of his daily printing tasks came from the government. Under such circumstances, he could only earn enough to feed his family and a little subsidy.

Later, he offended a minor clerk and was transferred to this small printing house.

There were very few tasks assigned by the government. Only occasionally scholars would come to print a few Confucian classics, and monks and Taoists would come to print some Buddhist and Taoist scriptures.

With no work to do, the government only gave the family food rations and no subsidies. Not to mention saving money, there was no money even to buy clothes for his wife and children for the New Year.

Most craftsmen had a much better life since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, but his family could only barely make ends meet, which made him feel even more depressed than before the Yuan Dynasty - although everyone's life was not easy at that time, the gap was not so big.

Of course, if he were asked to go back to the life before the Yuan Dynasty, he would definitely not agree.

I just can't bear to live in such poverty.

He originally thought that the situation was bad enough, but a few months ago he suddenly heard the "bad news" - this Sancai Printing House was awarded to a minister by Emperor Zhu.

When the manager told him about this, Lin Ajiu felt a chill in his heart and thought to himself: Isn't this just like the old Yuan Dynasty's old tricks?

Although there was no such thing as craftsman slaves in the Ming Dynasty, this workshop had become someone else's. If the owner didn't use him, his family would probably have no way to feed themselves.

As for returning to the printing house, he had offended someone, so how could he go back?

Even if the owner did not drive him away, if he was stingy and provided him with rations worse than those provided by the government, his family would still starve and freeze.

Just when Lin Ajiu was panicking, Liu Lai Fu came with the boss's message.

Not only did they keep his family, but they also provided them with rations and subsidies according to the standards of a large government-run printing house, which finally put his mind at ease.

As his life became more stable, Lin Ajiu became more active and thought about showing off in front of his boss so as to get better treatment.

Unexpectedly, the boss never showed up, making him wait for more than two months.

Now the boss has finally arrived. He looks kind, but the first question he asks makes him feel guilty.

He had worked in a large printing house before, so he knew that Sancai Printing House was pitifully small. He was afraid that Liu Kuan would get angry and take his anger out on his family.

After he finished answering, he looked carefully and saw that Liu Kuan was just frowning and not angry, so he breathed a sigh of relief.

Liu Kuan asked, "From what Uncle Lin said, the printing house can only do woodblock printing, not movable type printing?"

Lin Ajiu was afraid that Liu Kuan would be dissatisfied, so he said, "If the workshop can add wooden movable type and rotary typesetting plates, it can also do movable type printing."

He was worried about Liu Kuan's lack of experience, so he continued, "Wood movable type can save materials and labor, but the printing quality is far inferior to that of woodblock printing. Therefore, only large government-run printing houses use it." After a slight hesitation, he gritted his teeth and said, "Boss, the biggest problem facing the workshop right now is that there are not many people coming to print. We are unable to make ends meet."

Liu Kuan was slightly surprised to hear Lin Ajiu's consideration for the profitability of the workshop, but he did not ask Lao Zhu for the printing house for the purpose of making money, at least he was not prepared to make money in the early stages.

He asked, "Mr. Lin, have you ever heard of copper movable type and lead movable type?"

This time it was Lin Ajiu's turn to be surprised. He had no idea what Liu Kuan was thinking, so he could only answer honestly, "I've heard of clay movable type and Tao movable type, but they're said to be not as good as wooden movable type. As for copper movable type and lead movable type, I've never heard of them."

Hearing this, Liu Kuan fell into silence.

He wanted to publish a publication, but it was not cost-effective to keep using woodblock printing.

Not to mention, he also hoped to introduce newspapers and periodicals into the Ming Dynasty, at which time the requirements for printing technology would certainly be higher.

Wooden movable type, clay movable type and the like are simply not up to the task; it is necessary to develop copper movable type and lead movable type technology.

However, there was no such material in his computer and he knew very little about it, so he could only rely on the Ming Dynasty craftsmen to study and experiment based on the work of their predecessors.

This will inevitably cost a lot of money and take a long time.

Although his family has some money now, they cannot spend it on this.

"We still have to find Old Zhu and Little Zhu. After all, the improvement of movable type printing technology has benefited the entire Ming Dynasty and the Ming imperial family - his family also has the national treasury to pay for this."

Thinking of this, Liu Kuan decided to use woodblock printing for two years - as long as the intervals between publications were longer, woodblock printing would work.

Coming back to his senses, Liu Kuan said, "Take me to see where you work."

Seeing that Liu Kuan asked about movable type printing and then stopped talking, Lin Ajiu became more and more nervous, but he didn't dare to ask more questions. He led the way and showed Liu Kuan around the front and back yards.

The main house in the front yard is the printing house, and the two wings on the left and right are places for storing carved blocks and wood.

The house in the backyard is much simpler, but it is where Lin Ajiu's family of four live.

After reading it, Liu Kuan asked, "Where do you usually carve the woodblocks?"

"My dear boss, he's basically in the courtyard."

After hearing this answer, Liu Kuan realized that his question was stupid.

This was not the later times. Not only was there no electricity, but oil lamps and candles were also expensive. Unless they needed to rush the work, carvers generally would not work at night.

Therefore, it is common to carve in the yard using natural light.

After a brief pause, Liu Kuan said, "I will use this printing house to print a certain type of book for a long time. Right now, with only you three in the printing house, it's definitely not enough."

"I'll have someone send over some money later, and Uncle Lin will take over the management of the printing house temporarily. He'll use the money to renovate the printing house and hire two or three engravers."

"We'll need to prepare some more wood for carving, as well as the paper, ink, and other materials needed for printing, so we can get ready for printing."

Lin Ajiu nodded first, then asked, "What quality of books does the owner want to print?"

Liu Kuan took a book from his companion A Rong and handed it to Lin A Jiu, saying with a smile: "Let's follow this volume of the Classic of Mountains and Seas."

Liu Kuan bought this copy of "Classic of Mountains and Seas" from a bookstore for several strings of banknotes. Not only was the text clear, but it was also accompanied by illustrations and the layout was quite beautiful.

Although the bookstore had books with more exquisite printing, they were not what Liu Kuan needed. In the absence of breakthroughs in printing technology, the more exquisite the printing, the higher the cost of the publication, which was not conducive to the distribution of the publication.

He chose this volume of "Classic of Mountains and Seas" as a sample in order to strike a balance between the printing quality and price of the publication.

Lin Ajiu flipped through the book and put it away. After a slight hesitation, he said, "Master, the Sancai Printing House is too small. It may not be easy to recruit people."

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "That's easy. We can just double the wages of other printing houses. Well, the same goes for your wages."

Last night, Liu Kuan learned about the previous "salaries" of Lin Ajiu and the other two through Liu Lai Fu's accounts.

Each person is given a fixed monthly ration of half a stone of rice. If the work is not assigned by the government, each person will be given an additional subsidy of one liter of rice and a small amount of daily necessities such as oil, salt, vinegar, and cloth.

Liu Kuan thought this "salary" was really low.

He simply doubled the price, which not only attracted new engravers to join, but also improved the overall treatment of printing craftsmen and promoted the development of the industry.

After Liu Kuan finished speaking, Lin Ajiu was stunned and asked blankly, "You didn't lie to me, did you?"

Liu Laifu shouted, "Old Lin, what are you talking about? The master is the emperor's son-in-law and a fifth-rank official. How could he lie to you?"

"I said something wrong." Lin Ajiu, startled awake, quickly admitted his fault. He then pulled his two sons to kneel before Liu Kuan and kowtowed, saying, "Thank you, Master!"

Liu Kuan quickly helped the three of them up and feigned displeasure, saying, "Didn't I tell you I don't like people kneeling and bowing to me? If you're grateful, then do your best to do the job well."

Lin Ajiu said hurriedly: "I will do my best to get things done."

Liu Kuan nodded, said no more, and left with his followers.

The Lin family father and son stood at the gate of the courtyard and watched Liu Kuan and others disappear into the distance before they came to their senses.

The eldest brother, Lin Wensheng, said happily, "Dad, our family has finally met an important person!"

"Yes." Lin Ajiu also had a look of emotion and joy on his face, but then he changed his face to a serious one and instructed, "We must seize the opportunity and not let the master down. Do you understand?"

"understand!"

···
After making some arrangements in the printing house, Liu Kuan had one more thing added to his daily routine, which was to write publications.

He had already decided on the name of this publication: Natural Science.

Of course, while compiling the publication, he also prepared lessons. Since they were all about natural sciences, it wasn't too much trouble.

It seemed like two days passed in the blink of an eye.

That morning, Liu Kuan spoke to Su Quan at the Science and Technology Department and then went to the palace with the teaching materials.

　I wrote this chapter for almost an entire night, so I can only update it twice.

　　Good night~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)