My life skills in Daming Liver

"Boss, this black tea is really hard to sell."

Sitting opposite Su Ze, Zhou Guanshi said with a sigh.

Su Ze waited until the kettle was bubbling, then poured boiling water into the tea bowl, and the red tea soup quickly precipitated. Su Ze divided the tea soup into two teacups, and handed one of them to Zhou Guanshi.

These are Lapsang souchong roasted in the tea garden. Judging from his current Lv1 "tea ceremony" skill, there is almost no difference in taste from the black tea of ​​later generations.

Manager Zhou took a sip. He saw that although the black tea was not as fragrant as green tea, it was still very fragrant. Why couldn't it be sold?

This made Manager Zhou very anxious. Tongmu Town couldn't sell it, so he asked people to bring it to Nanping City to sell it, but it still couldn't be sold.

"Boss, I asked someone to inquire. Zhang Tuiguan of the government office said that our black tea is tea for villains, not tea for gentlemen. Those big households who were ready to try something new have all returned their orders."

Guanshi Zhou had a sad expression on his face. The Tuiguan of the government office was a big man he looked up to. I heard that this Tuiguan Zhang was a relegated Jinshi master.

With his comment of "the tea of ​​the villain", it will be difficult for black tea to stand up.

This year was his first year playing for Su Ze, and he wanted to make some achievements, but he didn't expect to get a bad start.

"The villain's tea?"

Su Ze showed a smile, and he was stunned by the debate between the gentlemen and the villains, and even the tea had to be divided between the gentlemen and the villains.

However, it is true that black tea is not suitable for the tea-drinking habits of the high society in the Ming Dynasty, but Su Ze was not planning to sell black tea to Nanping County, his target was those foreigners who harvested tea in China.

In a few days, the county school will be on holiday, and Su Ze is going to go to Yuegang to sell this batch of black tea.

But as soon as my father-in-law leaves in the future, this pusher will say "the tea of ​​a villain". It seems that my father-in-law is very accurate in judging people.

Su Ze doesn't care about Zhang Tuiguan's comments, but how can he sell the black tea that Ming people don't drink at a high price?

Su Ze said to Zhou Guanshi:

"You go to the painter in the city to order a batch of exquisite tea boxes, you can spend as much as you want, remember to be exquisite!"

Manager Zhou had a puzzled look on his face. Tea leaves that cannot be sold still need to be packaged with money? Will the boss really do business?

Su Ze asked again: "How many tea gardens in Wuyi Mountain follow us to make black tea?"

Manager Zhou replied honestly: "There are seven or eight families making black tea with us, the largest of which is Xiong's tea garden."

Su Ze didn't expect Mother Xiong to be such a courageous person, so he said to Manager Zhou:

"You go back to them and sign a contract with them. We will buy black tea from them at the normal market price of Wuyishan tea."

Manager Zhou was startled, all the things he fired were in his hands, and he went to buy other people's homes?

This new owner can't be a money-scattering boy, can he?

Su Ze ignored Manager Zhou's astonishment, but continued: "Besides, you sign a contract with them, and the black tea they copy will be sold to us first."

Zhou Guanshi had no choice but to return to Wuyi Mountain with the order.

After finishing his work in the tea garden, Su Ze went to the printing workshop.

Yao Chun is now in charge of the printing workshop, and five printing workshop masters from Jianyang followed him to learn movable type printing, and he brought four apprentices from the local newsboys.

Now, Yao Chun doesn't need to typeset each issue of "Surprise" by himself, it's handed over to his apprentices to do it, and Yao Chun can just proofread it at the end.

Although he is Su Ze's domestic slave, Su Ze treats his family very well and never treats him as a slave.

Yao Chun was grateful in his heart, and secretly vowed to do a good job in the printing workshop.

When Su Ze came, Yao Chun was carving a block. Su Ze walked over and saw that Yao Chun was carving words on a round lead cylinder.

Su Ze didn't bother Yao Chun who was concentrating on his work. After he finished making, Su Ze asked, "What is this?"

The middle of the cylinder is a log, and the outer layer of the log is a circle of lead cylinders. Yao Chun carved the characters one by one on the lead cylinders.

This is different from movable type printing and block printing.

If you say it is printing with movable type, the characters are all fixed on lead cylinders. If you say it is woodblock printing, it is not engraving on a straight wooden board.

When Yao Chun saw Su Ze was about to kneel, Su Ze pulled him up. Yao Chun said, "Master, this is the printing cylinder I invented."

"Printing cylinder?"

Yao Chun ordered two apprentices to lift the cylinder full of characters to a machine with a large handrail, and another apprentice came to paint the cylinder with ink, loaded the paper into the machine, , Yao Chun began to shake the armrest.

I only saw the cylinder rolling, and the paper began to feed as the cylinder rolled, and the text was printed on the paper.

As the cylinder rotates round and round, each page of text is continuously printed onto the long paper shaft.

Su Ze looked at Yao Chun in surprise. Every time the printing tasks assigned to Yao Chun were completed very well, Su Ze hadn't had a printing workshop for a long time.

Su Ze didn't expect Yao Chun to figure out the technology of printing cylinder printing by himself, and even achieve automatic paper feeding!

"You invented this?"

Yao Chun nodded quickly, and Su Ze asked again:

"Is the Guwen Guanzhi printed with printing cylinders?"

Yao Chun shook his head first, then nodded again, and said:

"In the beginning, it was printed with movable type, but it was too troublesome to retype each page, so I came up with this method."

"Boss, printing newspapers is naturally because you are good at printing with movable type, but when printing books, each page has to be re-typeset. In fact, movable type is not as convenient as engraving."

Su Ze nodded. In fact, woodblock printing is not as useless as later generations imagined. Engraving is obviously more convenient when printing books. You only need to engrave the engraving and ink when printing.

Movable type, on the other hand, required each page to be retypeset.

"I then thought, is there a way to combine the advantages of engraving and movable type printing?"

"My master wants to print a book, so I engrave characters on the lead cylinder according to the engraving method, and then apply ink to the lead cylinder for printing."

Su Ze asked, "What about the cost?"

Yao Chun said with some embarrassment: "If you talk about cost, it is natural that the cost of movable type printing is the lowest. It can be printed with only typesetting. Even if the lead type is worn out, it can be recast."

"The cost of engraving blocks is the highest. Be very careful when engraving words on wooden boards, and you can't engrave a single word wrong. Moreover, large pieces of wood are expensive, and there is no way to print them again after wear and tear."

"This lead cylinder is between the two. The lead cylinder is not afraid of engraving wrong words. If it is wrong, it can be covered with lead liquid again. The lead cylinder can be printed repeatedly. As long as I make all the lead cylinders of Guwenguanzhi, there is no need to Each page was retyped like movable type."

"The lead cylinder is not disposable. If the handwriting is blurred in the future, you can re-cast the lead cylinder and then make it into a lead cylinder to engrave."

Sure enough, the working people are the creators of history, and Su Ze never expected that Yao Chun would improve movable type printing so quickly.

Su Ze also found that the apprentices had folded the long printed paper, and then carried the folded paper to a big creasing knife. The short apprentice jumped up and grabbed the creasing knife, and the edge of the page was crushed with one knife. After both sides are rolled, the sheets are separated.

Su Ze pointed to the rolling knife and asked, "Whose invention is this?"

Yao Chun said: "This is invented by my apprentice newspaper boy. That kid is smart and smart, and he is also the best seller when he sells newspapers on the street."

"Mo Dan! Come here and show me!"

Su Ze saw a half-grown child with ink all over his face rushing towards him. He had some freckles on his face and had braids in the sky. He was about the same age as Lin Liangjun.

Obviously he is still a little radish, but just now Su Ze has seen him directing other apprentices to do things.

"Where did all this lead come from?"

Yao Chun said: "Last time, I told Xiong Wu about this idea. I heard that the lead from Eunuch Hu's side is worthless. Xiong Wu helped me pull it from the mine."

Su Ze nodded, and he immediately asked Yao Chun to gather all the printing craftsmen and apprentices, and then praised Yao Chun and Ma Dan'er in public.

Su Ze directly rewarded Yao Chun with twenty taels of silver, and gave Ma Dan'er another ten taels of silver.

Su Ze also announced that he would invest fifty taels of silver in the printing workshop as a special award to reward those creative inventors who improve the printing process and increase production efficiency.

The printers and apprentices were even more excited. They dealt with engraving ink every day, so naturally they had many ideas for improving the craft.

But they all do things with money, and they don't have much enthusiasm for work.

Now that Su Ze offered money as an incentive, and the offer was so generous, there were a few printers with ideas ready to make a move, and they all had to improve the process and improve the printing efficiency.

Su Ze encouraged Yao Chun again, reminding him to pay attention to lead poisoning, and then left from the printing workshop.

At the same time, on the official road.

Wang Daokun had the inspector's guard of honor taken away, and he arrived at Nanping County in a leisurely manner along the way.

Along the way, he also met a caravan who came to Nanping County to buy books. Wang Daokun simply went to Nanping with the caravan.

The owner of the caravan saw that Wang Daokun had an extraordinary bearing, and his followers were all strong and strong. When he was a son of a wealthy family who came out to visit the mountains and rivers, his attitude was very humble, and he answered Wang Daokun's questions without fail.

"You went to Nanping to buy books? Did you buy "Surprise"?"

The owner of the caravan took out a previous issue of "Surprise" and handed it to Wang Daokun.

The paper is rough raw Xuan. The ink on this kind of paper is easy to melt and become a mess, but the words on the newspaper are very clear.

The ink is fragrant, it seems that special ink was used.

Wang Daokun's family is a wealthy businessman. He quickly estimated that the cost of this newspaper was indeed not high, and it was no wonder that the large-scale printing could be sold at a low price.

Open the newspaper, and now the layout of "Surprise" has been expanded to six pages, and the format and content have also been fixed.

The first edition is local news, and major events from the imperial court to the Fujian government may be edited into news and published on it.

The content comes from the notices posted by government offices and county offices, but the words are written in a more vernacular style, and some are even compiled into doggerel and doggerel, which is more convenient for the people to spread.

The second edition was the serial "The Peony Pavilion". Wang Daokun flipped through it in disappointment. This issue was a newspaper from a month ago. He had already read this play in the pirated collection.

The third edition contains two short stories, one of which is Liaozhai written by Su Ze, and the other is a work submitted by a scholar in Nanping County imitating Su Ze's writing style, which was also selected by Lin Qingcai and published together.

After reading it, Wang Daokun felt his hairs stand on end. Su Ze's story did not describe the ghost positively, but the ghost seemed to be standing in front of him, which made Wang Daokun feel addicted.

The fourth edition is also submitted. This is an excerpt, with the Peony Pavilion in front of it. This play is indeed a little dry, but the subject matter and content are very novel. In Wang Daokun's opinion, it is also a good work, and it is also a Nanping scholar. Contribute.

The fifth edition contains some miscellaneous notes, jokes, travel notes, fairy tales, and anecdotes about mountains and rivers. They are all short stories of one or two hundred words, but the content is lively and interesting. There is also interest in playing.

The last edition is the advertisements, and in the eyes of Wang Daokun, who loves to read, these advertisements are also quite interesting.

He closed the newspaper, handed it to the owner of the caravan and said, "Sure enough, it's a good newspaper! Shopkeeper, you came to Nanping to buy newspapers?"

The caravan owner said with a smile: "Of course not. Now "Surprise" has started to be sold simultaneously in the nearby prefectures, and the price is the same as in Nanping City. There is no profit in selling newspapers."

"We went this time to buy "Guwenguanzhi" and "Children's Learning Qionglin" at the request of the county's lords."

Wang Daokun has read a lot of books, he has never heard of these two books, and asked:

"Is this Nanping's new book?"

The boss nodded and said: "This "Children's Learning Qionglin" is a newly edited elementary school textbook by Mr. Su, and everyone who has used it has said it is good. Fifty masterpieces by famous masters, all of which are first-class masterpieces of famous masters, and Mr. Su also made annotations and comments, and all of them are sold out in Yanping Mansion."

Inexperienced? Essays?

Wang Daokun was even more surprised, this Su Ze is just a scholar, how could he make up such a thing?

Don't look at the elementary school books that seem simple, but writing elementary school is quite a difficult job.

It is necessary to explain the knowledge in an easy-to-understand manner, and to establish a correct worldview in the children's minds.

This is the merit of enlightening the world! Non-great Confucianism must not do it!

The same is true for the collection of essays. Since the pre-Qin period, there have been countless essays by famous writers, but not many of them can be called famous.

To be able to select good articles from voluminous articles, and make annotations and comments, this is something that a well-educated scholar can't do!

If it weren't for Su Ze's "Peony Pavilion" pearls and jades in front, Wang Daokun would have thought that Su Ze was deceiving people.

"Shopkeeper, do you have these two books on hand?"

The shopkeeper shook his head and said, "It's hard to find a single page of these two books outside of Nanping. We came to Nanping this time to try our luck."

Wang Daokun returned to his carriage, and after watching "Surprise", his inner desire to create also skyrocketed.

That's how people are. After reading a good story, they can't help but write and express the good story in their minds.

Driven by this desire for expression, Wang Daokun took up his pen and wrote:

"For the first time, Ximenqing's ten brothers Wu Erlang met his elder brother and sister-in-law coldly."