Time Travel: After Seizing the Throne, I Lead the Ming Dynasty to Take Off

"Could it be that you're going to reveal the secret you kept a few days ago to me now?"

"But can the issues of paper prices and printing efficiency be resolved so quickly?"

Zhu Xuening didn't say anything on the surface.

But he started to grumble in his heart.

Zhu Yunhuan nodded and said with a faint smile, "My Royal Sister, just wait and see."

Say it.

He then turned to look at Wang Yingxin, the leader in front of him, and asked, "Is everything ready?"

Wang Yingxin responded, "I dare not delay in fulfilling your Majesty's instructions. Following your Majesty's instructions, I, your humble servant, and my son have diligently researched and studied the process. Three days ago, we built a millstone-wood grinding machine. After a full day of debugging the day before yesterday, we successfully ground and produced cheap wood pulp and the first batch of paper."

"In addition, the more than 30,000 wooden movable type brought from Jingde County have been cleaned and sorted and are ready for use."

Zhu Yunhuan was delighted and said, "Then Second Sister, please come with me to take a look."

Zhu Xuening was a little confused and nodded without understanding why.

But I was even more worried in my heart.

A grinding stone? Cheap wood pulp? Wooden movable type? ... What the hell is going on?

However, she also knew that Zhu Yunhuan would definitely not call her over just to have fun. These things that she didn't quite understand must have their own uses.

Zhu Xuening, with a head full of doubts, followed Zhu Yunhuan deep into the newly established Industrial Department, where a strong fragrance of grass and trees wafted in the air.

Not long after.

She and Zhu Yunhuan were led into a workshop.

The first thing that caught my eye was two thick stacks of paper, but this paper was not as white and delicate as rice paper. It was gray in color and looked a bit rough.

Zhu Xuening couldn't help but frowned and said, "The quality of this paper is not high."

Or to say it is not high is to be conservative. To be honest, the quality is very low.

Wang Yingxin, standing nearby, was so frightened that he immediately knelt down. "Princess Yilun, please forgive me. I... This is all according to Your Majesty's instructions. This is the best result after careful adjustment. However, I have tested it. Although this paper may not look good, it is completely suitable for printing text."

Zhu Yunhuan waved his hand nonchalantly and said, "Don't worry, this quality is already good enough, and basically meets my expectations."

Only then did Wang Yingxin breathe a sigh of relief.

Zhu Yunhuan looked at Zhu Xuening and said, "Sister, have you forgotten? What I want is a newspaper, just a medium to spread news to the people of the world, not a book that can be preserved for a long time."

"Since the ultimate goal is a daily edition, it's something you can just read and throw away. There will be a new one the next day anyway. Given this nature, why does the paper used to carry the text need to be of such high quality?"

Paper used to print newspapers.

Zhu Yunhuan did not use the chemical method of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) to prepare pulp, but instead gave Wang Yingxin a brief description of the modern mechanical pulping principles.

By combining grinding stones, chain transmission devices, material boxes, etc., many tedious processes are eliminated and wood and straw can be directly ground into pulp for papermaking.

Wang Zhenben has profound attainments in mechanical design and manufacturing.

His descendant Wang Yingxin did not disappoint him.

of course.

The pulp produced by this method for producing newspapers has poor strength, whiteness and stability, and is even inferior to the quality of rice paper produced at that time.

But the advantage is low cost.

Making newspapers is the most suitable.

Even newspapers in the 21st century use this rough, dark-gray paper. After all, there is no need to make something elaborate if you can just read it and throw it away.

Of course, using this kind of newspaper as an English test paper is an anti-human act.

But Zhu Yunhuan had no such need.

"Well, in the future, it would be better if Europeans and Americans could use this kind of newspaper to learn Chinese." Zhu Yunhuan complained in his heart with a bit of evil taste.

After hearing Zhu Yunhuan's explanation, Zhu Xuening nodded thoughtfully.

"Your Majesty, what you said is indeed reasonable. It was my fault for not thinking it through at the moment. But...how should we deal with the engraving and printing?" Zhu Xuening couldn't help but ask.

Now it seems that this is the only question left.

Zhu Yunhuan smiled and looked at Wang Yingxin beside him. "Wang Yingxin, how about you help my sister solve this problem? Let's use... the Three Character Classic and the Thousand Character Classic as examples."

Wang Yingxin immediately said respectfully, "Of course I am willing to serve Your Majesty."

Say it.

He waved outside.

Several middle-aged men in coarse linen clothes walked in, first saluted Zhu Yunhuan and Zhu Xuening, and then walked stiffly to the other side of the room. They each divided the work and began to search among a group of neatly arranged "small wooden blocks".

The Three Character Classic has a total of 1,145 characters.

The Thousand Character Classic has a total of one thousand characters.

The required texts were quickly found one by one and arranged neatly in the order of the contents of the Three Character Classic and the Thousand Character Classic, forming printing plates.

Then comes the ink application and printing.

It didn't take much time before ten chapters of the Three Character Classic and ten chapters of the Thousand Character Classic were printed on those dark gray, poor-quality newspapers.

"So that's it! There is such a thing!" Zhu Xuening's face suddenly showed realization, and her eyes were full of surprise.

Movable type printing!

Although movable type printing was invented in the Song Dynasty.

But at present, woodblock printing is still the mainstream. In this era when information is not circulated, many people don’t even know about movable type printing. Even if they have heard of it, their impression of movable type printing is that it is a bit useless.

"We can do typesetting at will, so as long as the Media Department finalizes the content, we can quickly typeset and arrange printing according to the content."

"This technology is a perfect fit for something like a newspaper, where the content changes every day!"

Zhu Xuening exclaimed almost out loud, her eyes lighting up.

The paper problem, the printing problem...

This "newspaper" that sounds like a fantasy can actually be published!

Think of this.

She couldn't help but look at Zhu Yunhuan with surprise, examining him closely.

I never expected that in just a few days, my brother would actually gather so many craftsmen and these wooden movable type...

I really don’t know how he did it!