Wentang

Chapter 649 Journal and Wax Seal

Er Ya Lou is fighting again?Yue Shan shook his head speechlessly.

Eryalou refers to the compilation team of the Great Dictionary. For some reason, Yueshan split up Longshoushan Academy.The original academy became a primary and junior high school, and the newly built Weishui Academy became a university.

It seemed inappropriate for the dictionary compilation team to stay in Longshoushan Primary School, and it would be too troublesome to move out. Fortunately, when the school was built, the land was relatively large, so a wall was added to separate the two sides.

The completely independent dictionary compilation team has attracted more people to participate, and the composition of personnel has become more complicated, and disputes occur every day.

At first everyone was very restrained, but later it developed into a competition of voice and fist.It was Yue Shan himself who really made this contradiction completely irreconcilable, and he put forward a new suggestion two years ago.

Accent innovation.

In the official spoken language of the Tang Dynasty, many pronunciations were difficult. For example, some pronunciations required rolling the tongue against the palate and exhaling forcefully. The result was that it was easy to become a troll.

It is literally a sprayer. If you are not careful, the saliva will be sprayed out with the airflow, and the people on the opposite side will suffer.Yue Shan suffered a lot from it.

There are also some pronunciations that must make the tongue tremble continuously as a small electric motor.

To put it mildly, this kind of pronunciation is called cadence, but it is actually as uncomfortable as holding your breath.Especially for people like Yue Shan who are used to Mandarin in later generations, they can't bear this feeling.

So two years ago, on a whim, he proposed to reform the voice.Change all those pronunciations that require tongue rolling, tongue shaking, jetting out, etc.

Let the spoken pronunciation become smoother and more friendly.Not many people agreed at first, thinking he was messing around.

Without a word of excuse, Yue Shan replaced the desks of these people with long tables that were one meter wide and several tens of meters long.

Then put the two groups with different opinions face to face on the same desk to work, in the name of facilitating communication.

It didn't take long for him to propose to modify the spoken pronunciation again, which was almost unanimously approved.

Spoken language innovation is more complicated. First determine what needs to be changed, and then discuss how to change it.

Moreover, changes cannot be made out of thin air, but must have a practical basis.The best way is to learn from or directly copy the local dialects with flat pronunciation.

Here comes the problem again, Datang is too big and has tens of thousands of dialects.Everyone wants to replace the official accent with their own local dialect, although it is only a change of one or two words, it is also an honor for them.

If the determination of the meaning of a certain word was an academic dispute, then the determination of the pronunciation of the word is purely a dispute of local honor, and no one is willing or dared to make concessions.

Just imagine, after the big dictionary is compiled, people from your hometown come to ask why the newly revised pronunciation does not have the pronunciation of your hometown, how do you answer it.

Just say I didn't get anything?Social death in seconds.

At first Yue Shan wanted to make peace with it, but later he simply threw it all over to Wang Ji, so you can do whatever you like.

It wasn't until the sun went down that Wang Ji came back angrily. Seeing Yue Shan, he said angrily, "From now on, you can clean up this mess yourself. Don't look for me, I can't take care of it."

"Don't worry, I'm here to send you a solution." Yue Shan said with a smile.

"You really have a solution?" Wang Ji asked in disbelief.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you take it out before?"

"Just thought of it."

Yue Shan took out the pages from Tian Xuechen's letter about Zhou Shifang's invention of the salt washing method and handed it to him.

Wang Ji took the doubtful letter and read it carefully, and was completely angry: "You son, how dare you play tricks on this old man."

Yue Shan laughed and said, "Why did I play tricks on you?"

"Where is the method you said? Why didn't I see it."

"It's written in the letter, you can blame me if you don't see it yourself."

"Come, come, tell the old man where the method is. If you can find the old man, then...just..."

"So what?"

"Just think it's not as good as it is, and immediately resign and go home to farm."

"Uh..." Yue Shan didn't dare to tease him anymore, if he really drove the old man away, who would help him to go to the academy.He quickly pointed to a passage in the letter and said:
"Look here, Zhou Shifang was inspired by the essays of Gewuyuan and invented the saturated salt washing method, focusing on the essays."

Wang Ji said suspiciously: "I know the essays, that is, everyone has new discoveries and new ideas, but they can't write a book alone, so they write it in a special record book for everyone to read. What does this have to do with solving the problem of Erya Building?"

Yue Shandao: "This essay gave me inspiration. If we specially organize a group of people to collect and print these essays, and publish them regularly for everyone to read... I will call this model newspapers."

"Newspapers and periodicals are specially classified, such as qualified objects, literature, law, etc... We can encourage everyone to take the initiative to submit their discoveries and articles to newspapers and periodicals for publication, and even ask special people to write essays... Give them a bonus."

"Anyone who has new ideas and new discoveries that are not enough to write a book alone can publish them in newspapers and periodicals. You can write down your impressions about a certain article or book..."

"You can even submit your own novels to our newspapers for publication..."

"For example, in the dispute in Erya Building, can you publish your thoughts in the newspapers and let everyone judge together?"

Yue Shan originally thought that Wang Ji would be so shocked that he would fall to the ground in admiration, and then he would bow down and say that he was ashamed.But in fact, Wang Ji chuckled and said:

"You can just say that it is an imitation of the imperial palace newspaper. But have you thought about a problem, the imperial palace newspaper is directly distributed to each yamen, and the cost is borne by the imperial court. How do you, the so-called newspaper, deliver it to those who need it? "

"Have you considered the cost? It takes a lot of money to print a newspaper you mentioned, and the more you print for free, the more you will lose. Who can afford this money?"

Yue Shan was embarrassing at first, then shook his head and said: "You still don't understand what I mean, who said that it is free, but you have to pay for it. We can calculate how much each newspaper costs, and sell it at this price. "

"Anyone who can read a book can't lack this book. If you are really poor, you can buy a copy together."

Wang Ji was still not optimistic, and said: "Ten Wen and Eight Wen? You really don't know how much money is expensive. Do you know how much it costs to make a block? There is also paper and ink."

"How many copies of this newspaper can be sold? Calculated on a hundred copies, the cost of one copy is also sixty or seventy cents. How many people do you think are willing to pay so much for an essay?"

Yue Shan smiled and said, "What if it sells three to five thousand copies?"

Wang Ji laughed and said, "What are you thinking? The Imperial Palace Newspaper only prints [-] copies per issue, and you can sell so many copies with just one newspaper? Who will buy it?"

Yue Shan said: "Why is no one buying it? If there was such a newspaper, would you buy it?"

"Of course I'll buy it to see, but I'm an academy and I just need to know these things, ordinary people won't buy them." Wang Ji retorted.

Yue Shan shook his head and said, "You still lack a little imagination. Do you know how many scholars there are in the capital? Do you know how many scholars there are in Guanzhong? How many of these people are concerned about literary trends?"

"It's not just scholars, don't those dignitaries, businessmen, and wealthy households care about these things? Maybe they don't pay attention to academic matters, don't they care about business matters? Don't they care about current affairs?"

"We can try to draw them in by writing what they're interested in and make them our customers."

"Just imagine, if you can sell [-] copies in one place in the capital, what it will mean to our academy and Xinxue."

Wang Ji said: "I understand everything you said, but it's difficult. If you insist, we can try it. Anyway, the academy still has a lot of spare money."

Yue Shan was very happy, not afraid that you would not understand, but afraid that you would not do it: "Money is not a problem, if the academy has no money, I can pay for it myself. And I also know a simpler printing method, which is most suitable for small batch printing Materials, the cost is so low that it can be ignored.”

Wang Ji's eyes lit up. He is not optimistic about newspapers, but he is interested in this simple and cheap printing method. You must know that the academy needs this thing too much: "Tell me about this new printing method."

Yue Shan said: "Use an iron pen to write on the stencil, and then spread the stencil on the white paper to brush ink. A piece of stencil can print sixty or seventy copies."

Wang Ji slapped the table and said excitedly, "Why did you say such a simple method earlier?"

The principle of this thing is too simple, Yue Shan understood what was going on just by talking about Wang Ji.Started complaining in turn about why he didn't find some way to get this idea out.

What Yue Shan is talking about is the stencil mimeograph technique that has been popular for decades. The principle is very simple and it is suitable for printing materials in small batches.

Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was a lack of materials such as lead in the liberated areas, so this method could only be used to print propaganda materials. This stuff has made great contributions to the Rabbit Party.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, due to reasons of national strength, the majority of campuses and government agencies still use this technology in large quantities to print test papers and materials.

When Yue Shan was in middle school and high school, computer printing was not yet popular, and his school organized mock exams and often printed the test papers by himself.

Because of his beautiful handwriting, he is often called by teachers of various subjects to engrave wax paper, so he is very familiar with this thing.

It's just that he didn't touch it after he was in college. When he became a teacher, computer printing became popular and stencil printing was completely eliminated, so he forgot about this bug-level printing technique.

After crossing, he only thought about doing big things, but he didn't think of this simple magic skill.

It was Wang Ji who said that the cost of printing newspapers was high before he suddenly remembered that there is such a thing.

……

Wang Ji acted resolutely, immediately pulled Ma Cong out of the laboratory, watched Yue Shan and the others personally make a set of wax printing tools.

The problem of not having wax paper is also easy to solve. To put it bluntly, wax printing is a kind of stencil printing. You can find a few pieces of paper and carve a few words with a sharp knife, but this kind of ordinary paper is not as good as wax paper and resistant to erosion.

Put the engraved paper away, brush it with ink several times, and then uncover it. Sure enough, there are a few clear large characters printed on the white paper below.

Seeing that the wax printing technique is indeed feasible, he promised Yue Shan that he would organize people to run the newspaper as soon as possible.

At the beginning, the reason why he was not optimistic about the newspaper was not because he knew the benefits of the newspaper, but because the cost was too high.

Do you really think that the ancients were fools who didn't know that printing their own works and giving them to others could promote their own knowledge?The problem is that you can't afford that overhead.

Especially for the newspaper that Yue Shan wants to run, Wan Guan's wealth is not enough.

According to his thinking, the price of a newspaper should not be higher than ten cents, otherwise almost no one would buy it.

The sales volume of newspapers in the early stage was definitely very low, and it would be good to sell a hundred copies.Regardless of whether it is copying or woodblock printing, the average price per copy is more than sixty or seventy.

If you sell one copy, you will pay fifty or sixty cents, and if you sell one hundred copies, you will lose fifty or sixty cents.This is five or six guan, not five or six essays.

It only costs a few pennies for a strong man to go to the wharf to carry sacks for a day, and the wages of workers in the bustling business of Dizhou are only around ten pennies, and it takes a hundred days to earn a consistent amount.

Even if the sales volume is increased by ten times, with [-] copies per issue, the average price will be around [-] to [-] yuan.If you sell it for ten coins, you will lose thirty to fifty pennies in one installment.

The sales volume of [-] copies can reduce the cost to more than [-] or [-] yuan, and it will also cost [-] to [-] yuan.

It is too difficult to keep the cost down to less than ten cents, at least tens of thousands of copies per issue.Don't even think about the legendary one penny, the paper and ink for printing newspapers cost several pennies.

Even if Yueshan is rich, it is not this kind of tossing method.

As for selling ads... don't even think about it for now.

But with stencil printing, the cost will plummet, not to mention the labor savings, but only the materials.

Use a stylus to write on wax paper, the font can be very small, and the size of soybeans is no problem.For the same article, a few pages are needed for woodblock printing, but only a palm-sized area is needed for wax paper printing.

Only paper and ink can save several times the cost, and if it works well, it might be possible to start newspapers and periodicals without spending money.

It doesn't matter whether you make money or not, as long as you don't lose money, or the amount of money you lose is within the acceptable range, you can start a newspaper.

The new learning needs the right to speak too much. With the newspaper Wang Ji dared to say that it would not take long for the old learning to be completely driven out of the capital.

You have learned literary and martial arts and sold them to the emperor's family. Your theory can't even enter the gate of the capital. What do you expect to compete with others.

Especially in the context of the revitalization of the imperial examination system, whoever's theory can occupy the capital will be the winner and the mainstream.

Wang Ji took Yue Shan to chat carefully about the situation of the newspapers and periodicals.

The name of the newspaper was finally determined to be Weishui Journal, and it was temporarily divided into four sections: Literature, Gewu, Current Affairs, and Novels.

The first few issues were run as a school newspaper and distributed to scholars in the capital for free.

After figuring out the inside channels and the staff have mastered the skills of running a newspaper, they will invite famous experts to learn articles and strive to make the newspaper famous all at once.

Among them, the two had a dispute about the manuscript fee, and Yue Shan proposed to pay the manuscript fee.Wang Ji thinks that if I spend money on newspapers to help you publicize your academic ideas and make you famous, it would be good if I don’t charge you.

It is estimated that many people think this idea is very weird, in fact, it was like this in ancient times.

At that time, the circulation of information was poor, and few poems and articles could sell well in the whole country. Most of them were famous only in some areas, so the books were not easy to sell.

If you want to make money by publishing books, that is a dream.

Those who can really make a fortune in poetry and writing are rare throughout history.For example, for a certain great poet in the Song Dynasty, prostitutes offered money to invite him to play, and when he died, they collectively pooled money to bury him.But how many such people are there?

At that time, if you want to publish a book, you have to pay for it yourself. You spend your own money to print the book and send it to the library to sell it. Basically, you lose money and gain fame.

"Xu Xiake's Travel Notes" was almost lost because Xu Xiake had no money to publish the book.Later, it was his grandson who collected and published the lost manuscripts page by page, so that this book can be handed down.

Not only did Yueshan not accept any money from those authors, but he also gave people a running fee for running a newspaper. This was indeed a historical precedent, and it was normal for Wang Ji to object.

But Yue Shan easily convinced him that the newspaper has no technical content, we can do it and others can do it, and the aristocratic family headed by Bailu Academy will not watch us occupy the right to speak.

Therefore, we can win over a large number of literati and scholars with the pen fee in advance, and do not give others a chance to surpass.

As for the source of the pen fee, Yue Shan said that he paid the money himself.If there is too much money at home, it will rust, so why not spend it.

Yue Shan has already said that, what else can Wang Ji say, let's do it.

After discussing everything, it was already midnight when Yue Shan returned home.

In order not to wake up Li Lizhi, he originally planned to sleep in the wing room overnight, but when he got home, he found that the lights in his room were still on, and Li Lizhi was still waiting for him to come back.

This scene moved him very much. What is the warmest thing in life?Among them, there is definitely an item of 'someone leaves a light when they go home at night'.

……

Almost at the same time, in the sea area thousands of miles away to the east, a huge fleet took advantage of the night and quietly split the huge waves and sailed towards the front quickly.

　At the end of the month, ask for votes.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)