If you traveled back to ancient times, while others ate Guanyin clay, you would actually have giant

"See Your Majesty."

"Zhou Wu, I heard you've invented movable type printing."

The matter was of great importance, so Li Tiancheng went straight to the point.

"Yes, Your Majesty, please take a look."

Zhou Wu never expected that movable type printing would attract the emperor's attention, because Zhou Wu had no understanding of the current state of book knowledge in this world.

The invention of movable type printing was entirely due to the fact that when they wanted to print Journey to the West, their subordinates said that the only two methods were copying and fixed-plate printing. Both of these methods were not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also very expensive.

It was only then that people around them realized that movable type printing didn't exist in this era. Carving these things wasn't technically difficult, so Zhou Wu arranged for carpenters to make them.

"This is movable type printing?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Zhou Wu happened to be at home writing, and just as he finished the first page, the emperor summoned him to the palace. The box contained the completed first page of Journey to the West.

When the emperor saw the box of small cubes, he immediately understood their ingenious use.

"Brilliant, brilliant! What are the costs for Zhou Wu's project?"

"Your Majesty, we are still in the experimental stage. If the wooden ones are not usable, we will use iron ones instead. But what we can be sure of is that the price will not be very high. Moreover, these things can be combined and reused at will. If we calculate it this way, the cost is almost negligible."

The ability to combine and reuse materials freely is the greatest advantage of printing.

"Zhou Wu, I have another problem. Can you help me solve it?"

The biggest problem for children from poor families is access to books. Because they have little money, and books are expensive due to the monopoly of aristocratic families, children from poor families are completely at a disadvantage compared to children from aristocratic families when it comes to accessing books.

The only way to change this situation is to lower the price of books. There are two reasons for the high price of books. One is the printing problem. A large number of books cost hundreds, if not thousands. The woodblock printing alone is enough to drive people crazy.

The second reason is paper. The price of paper remains high, which is why books are so expensive—due to cost and the monopoly of established families.

"Your Majesty, I will certainly do my best."

"I know you're good at these strange and ingenious techniques... well, unorthodox methods... no, it's just, um..."

"Your Majesty, please get to the point."

Li Tiancheng originally wanted to praise Zhou Wu for his ability to arrange things, but Zhou Wu's talent was so great that he couldn't find the right words to praise him.

"Can you make paper?"

"We can give it a try, it shouldn't be a big problem, but Your Majesty, don't we already have papermaking technology?"

Although Zhou Wu had never made paper before, as a top student, he still knew the principles. However, Zhou Wu didn't know why Li Tiancheng wanted to make paper, since paper seemed to already exist in this era.

"The current papermaking technology is complex and is controlled by established families. To be honest, I want to help children from poor families rise up, but because books are so expensive, they are simply unaffordable for them. So I want to bring down the price of books."

"Take it down," that phrase sounds familiar.

"Your Majesty understands. Now that we have printing technology, the task is to reduce the cost of papermaking. I accept this task."

To put it bluntly, Li Tiancheng's support for the poor was to resist the powerful and aristocratic families, which was something Zhou Wu was happy to see. Therefore, Zhou Wu was very willing to contribute. Most importantly, he himself disliked the powerful and aristocratic families.

"Good, good, good. You truly are a good subject. Just tell me what support you need, and I'll provide you with money or manpower."

"No need, Your Majesty. Just grant me a piece of land to use as a paper mill."

"it is good."

Li Tiancheng was deeply moved. At this moment, he was convinced that Zhou Wu wanted to use his own money to help the emperor. Li Tiancheng silently remembered Zhou Wu's noble sentiments.

After chatting briefly with Li Tiancheng, I left.

No sooner had Zhou Wu arrived home than the eunuch followed, bringing with him the deeds to the building and land of the character-making workshop.

"It seems His Majesty takes this matter very seriously."

. . . . . . . .

The next day, Zhou Wu found the papermaking workshop based on the location of the land deed. He originally thought it was a courtyard, but when Zhou Wu arrived, he was a little confused.

"With so many houses here, which one is it?"

Zhou Wu turned to ask the village chief beside him.

"Reporting to you, sir, according to the decree issued by the superior yesterday, the entire village is under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court."

"Damn, they're turning the whole village into a paper mill? That's huge!"

Zhou Wu had underestimated Li Tiancheng's determination. Zhou Wu thought to himself, "It seems I have to get serious."

"Are all expenses paid by the imperial court?"

"Yes, my lord."

"That's good. Prepare the writing materials. The first thing we need to do now is to do some simple renovations to the village."

Papermaking requires many pools and water sources. Although the village is large, to be honest, the current conditions are not suitable.

Fortunately, papermaking doesn't require any high-end, precision instruments; only minor modifications to the hardware are needed.

Soon the construction team moved into the village, and the progress of the construction once again showed Zhou Wu Li Tiancheng's determination to print the book. In just three days, the book was completely rectified according to Zhou Wu's instructions.

"Then let's get started."

The workers in the paper mill were the villagers. Over the past few days, Zhou Wu had gained some understanding of the village. It was located close to the capital, but compared to the prosperity of the capital, the village was very poor.

It's not that the villagers are lazy, but the village is located in a mountainous area with very little arable land. On weekdays, the villagers cultivate a few small plots of land, while the young people go to the forest to hunt and supplement their family income.

This village was also a poverty-stricken village that the local government found extremely difficult to help. In this era, people had almost no other means of making a living besides farming, so the government was powerless to help them.

However, just then, Zhou Wu was about to build a workshop, and the emperor issued an edict to his officials to select a large area for Zhou Wu to build the workshop. The officials immediately thought of this place, since many performance indicators for local officials were closely related to the wealth of the village.

Originally, the officials only wanted to get rid of this poor little village, but no one expected that this village would become the richest village in the area under Zhou Wu's leadership.

"start."

At Zhou Wu's command, the villagers, who had undergone several days of training, began to carry out their tasks in an orderly manner.

It was a stroke of luck, really. Just a few days ago, Zhou Wu was thinking about how to solve the problem of raw materials for papermaking. Then one day, while he was strolling around the village, he followed a group of kids to a reed marsh.

The endless reed marshes immediately transformed into sheets of snow-white Xuan paper in Zhou Wu's eyes.