Prime Minister

Chapter 78 Knowledge is Money
Hearing that Xuezheng suddenly mentioned his second brother.

Zhang Yue was stunned and asked, "I have been studying in the county for many years, and I don't know what my second brother is like when he is studying right?"

Xuezheng smiled slightly, remembering the previous rumor that Zhang Erlang did not send home letters to his family.This made him a little ugly in front of the magistrate.

But Zhang Yue suddenly asked about it, and Xuezheng didn't think much about it, but said: "When Erlang entered the county school, the old man was still a teaching assistant for the county school, but Erlang was extremely talented, and he was only seen in the old man's life. Said. But Erlang's ability to have today's talent and learning is also his own proof step by step."

Immediately, he learned the truth and turned the corner: "One person is born with virtue and career as the first, and talent as the supplement. This old man has seen many people in his life, who have taken shortcuts with their wisdom and gone farther. No matter how high their talents are, they should still be brothers and sisters. Love is the most important thing.”

Zhang Yue didn't know what Xuezheng's words meant, and there was some feeling in the fog, which seemed to be both emotional and criticized Zhang Erlang.

I still don't know why my second brother resigned as a jinshi. If he really passed the jinshi exam to change his official status, he would never give up his job.

However, I heard that because of the sudden change of nationality to take the exam, many people were dissatisfied, but I thought that these discussions would subside after a while, so I wouldn't give up the job because of this.

It can be heard that my brother was No. 20 in the provincial examination, but he fell to the fourth in the palace examination.

The rank of Jinshi is divided into five tops.This list of Su Zhe is the fifth one.

And his elder brother Su Shi was ranked fourth, and Su Shi was originally ranked fifth like his younger brother, but because he won the first place in the "Spring and Autumn" in the provincial exam, he won the first place in the palace exam.

However, the No. 20 provincial examination, the palace examination fell to the fourth place, which may also represent the official opinion.

There may be too much difference between the top and bottom, and this is why the second brother is reluctant to grant him an official position.

Zhang Yue thought carefully as he walked, any intersection between himself and his second brother before crossing.

He suddenly remembered that a year before his second brother escaped from marriage, he once scolded himself for not being enterprising, and he only knew how to play with friends all day long.

At this moment, Zhang Yue has a flash of inspiration, and the second brother has not given letters to his family. Is this the way to make himself understand that he should not think about hugging his thighs all day long, and that everything depends on himself?The second brother really still has me, this is really well-intentioned!

Zhang Yue smiled. In fact, he didn't help the second brother to beautify in his mind, didn't the eldest brother also make excuses for the second brother's failure to give Jiaxin frequently?
After all, he is a famous iron-blooded prime minister in history. If he really feels that he is still the same waste as before his rebirth, he can do it without admitting this brotherhood.

Now I can only work hard and get the approval of my second brother, otherwise how can I enjoy happiness in the future?Prosperity and wealth have nothing to do with me.

Wrong, wrong, it seems that I have some admiration for Ronghua, so I should work hard in the name of brother and brother Gong.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yue has also completed the step of 'righteousness'.

Zhang Yue walked back to the den and sat down and was about to read, but when he saw that Guo Lin had already returned to the den, he had a look of joy on his face.

Zhang Yue looked Guo Lin up and down and asked, "What's the happy event? Could it be that Sanniang is willing to run away with you?"

"Junior brother, don't make fun of me."

Guo Lin saw Wu Rang, and Qian Qiming was not at home, so he said: "Junior brother, you should say something good to you, don't be too happy."

"A good thing?" Zhang Yue was full of doubts.

Guo Lin said with a smile on his face: "I just asked Zhai Chang, if the county school has a commission book? Zhai Chang said that he was responsible for the transcription, and he only needed to talk to him, so I reported both your name and my name. It was given to the head priest."

"It's so easy?" Zhang Yue said in his heart that if the job was a very sought-after job, it wouldn't be the two newcomers' turn.

Guo Lindao: "But there is only one money per page, and there is not much work to do on weekdays."

Zhang Yue suddenly wondered why he couldn't recruit anyone.

The county annals recorded that the county school field was [-] acres and [-] acres and [-] percent. In addition, the government also allocated dozens of corridors to the county school, which were rented out to the common people for rent on weekdays.This Fanglangzhuang class is the main income of the county school.

However, the daily expenses of the county school are not small. In addition to the academic officials, the official salary expenditure of the academic staff is also the food and clothing supply for one-third of the students.

Therefore, it is very good that the county school is able to balance the income and the exit, and even if it is not enough, the county will sometimes take out vinegar money, and the minister's money will be subsidized by one or two.

This commission book was used as a way of working-study study, and the commission book money for one page per page, to be honest, Zhang Yue is now disliked.

But for Guo Lin, he was still very happy to have such a job, and he asked himself if he would like to go with him, and he even made an agreement with the head chef.

Zhang Yue couldn't bear to take Guo Lin's good intentions, but he thought that the fine tradition of work-study program should not be lost, so he agreed.

"Then let's go to see the head priest in the afternoon."

"Let's go empty-handed?" Zhang Yue asked.

"Is it possible?" Guo Lin looked blank.

Zhang Yue shook his head and said, "I'll go out first."

In the afternoon, Zhang Yue and Guo Lin quietly came to Zhai Chang's lodging with a bamboo basket of sesame cakes.

"It's long overdue to come and see the Zhaichang, a little snack is not a respect." Zhang Yue said.

Zhai Chang smiled when he saw this, and arranging a servant to book was just a small effort for him, and a basket of sesame cakes was not worth much.But he likes the attitude of others.

"Have you eaten some snacks yet?" asked the head chef.

"Eat." Guo Lin replied quickly.

Zhang Yue said, "Not yet."

"What's the matter, let's sit down and eat together." Immediately, the head of the veterinarian gave the hu cakes brought by Zhang Yue to a few people in the same bed.Both himself and Zhang Yue had one hand, Guo Lin wanted to refuse, but the head of the veterinary forced Hu Bing into his hand.

Zhai Chang leaned one foot on the slump, kicked his shoes with one foot, and said while nibbling on the cake, "Are you the Saburo of the Zhang family?"

Zhang Yue nodded.

Zhai Chang said: "I know your family's Erlang, and he can learn. Although your talent is not as good as him, he is a good person!"

Zhang Yue said with a stern expression in his heart: "Zhai Chang has lifted it up, and I will ask him to take care of him in the future."

Zhai Chang finished the sesame cake in two mouthfuls, and slapped a lot of sesame seeds on the ground with both hands.He didn't care about the indifferent tone: "It's easy to say, I'm not polite to you, but we like to eat flower cakes, remember next time."

Zhang Yue, Guo Lin was about to go out the door.

"Wait!"

Zhai Chang shouted out two people: "I will go with you to see."

The transcription office is next to the library.

Zhai Chang, Zhang Yue, and Guo Lin opened the door and entered, but saw two people sitting in the house early.

One is carving characters with a knife against several wooden blocks, and the other is fiddling with molds.They looked up and saw Zhang Yue, Guo Lin wearing tucks, and Zhai Chang behind them.They were busy getting up and asking first: "I have seen the head of the fast."

Zhai Chang said: "I still don't understand?"

The two said: "I have met two officials. The villain, Chen Zhong (Chen He), is an official school engraver."

While talking, Zhang Yue approached the craftsman named Chen Zhong and asked, "Are you a carver? You know how to print with movable type?"

It's really new, the movable type printing of the legendary Song Dynasty, but for the first time I saw it for myself.

Chen Zhong didn't know why Zhang Yue's opponent was so new to this thing, so he couldn't help but say, "This official, what do you mean by movable type printing?"

Zhang Yue said, "Then this is?"

Chen Zhong smiled and said: "We Jianyang call this a letterpress, which is different from the printing that officials are used to on weekdays. The villain has nothing to do, so he can give it a try when he is free."

"How did you try?"

Seeing the other party's interest, Chen Zhong shook his head and said bitterly: "It's hard, the villain also heard that the Hangzhou Bookstore has used clay as letterpress, how mysterious it is, but I don't know how the clay was fired, so I don't know how. The villain thought of using wood for lettering, but..."

Having said that, Chen Zhong shook his head again.

Zhang Yue smiled slightly when he saw this: "It's not good to use this wooden character to engrave."

"The official said it, does the official know the letterpress?"

The head chef was also surprised: "Yeah, could it be that Erlang also knows how to print?"

Zhang Yue smiled and said, "I know a little bit."

Zhang Yue looked at the two and said, "Are you brothers?"

"Exactly."

Zhang Yue said: "The two of us are here to serve the book, and we will disturb more in the future."

"The official is being polite, I don't dare to say this." The two saluted at the same time.

Zhai Chang did not know what Zhang Yue's name was.

But Zhang Yue said: "You use wood carvings as letterpress, but the texture of wood is dense and dense, and it is uneven when wet, and how can it be even when it is adhered to ink medicine. I heard that the craftsman who used clay as letterpress was named Bi Sheng. , First of all, it is impossible to make words out of wood, and then it is changed to cement.”

After listening to Zhang Yue's words, the two craftsmen were in awe, Chen Zhong then said: "So that's the case, it really is a scholar, if I had heard you say, we wouldn't have to spend so much time making this letterpress wood lettering. "

Not necessarily.

Zhang Yue smiled and said: "It's not worth mentioning. I don't know how Hangzhou's clay letterpress is, but the characters made of clay are fragile and easy to melt. If there is no special method, it may not be easy to store."

"Tao Jian, Gao Jian." The two brothers were already full of admiration for Zhang Yue.

Zhai Chang also showed admiration to Zhang Yue.

"Zhaichang, they just said that they have nothing to do. Don't there be no seals in the county school?"

Zhai Chang sighed: "To be honest, we are the only two people who make plates in our county school. It takes a long time to carve a volume of books, so the county plate printing team would rather go to Jianyang."

Zhang Yue said: "I heard that there are engraving workshops in Yongzhong Lane, Jianyang, and Chonghua Lane, both official and private. There are hundreds of engraving workshops with hundreds of people and as small as a few people?"

The two craftsmen smiled and said, "Yes, our Jianyang supervisor can be as famous as Shuben and Zheben. Both of our brothers are from Jianyang, and they have carved books for generations, and Zhai has hired us for a long time. From Pucheng."

Zhang Yue said to Zhai Chang, "So you say that the official school is owned by Zhai Chang?"

Zhai Chang nodded and said: "The county school engraving workshop can't make ends meet, so I asked the official to buy it, but so far I can't make ends meet, so I should buy this shirt."

Zhang Yue suddenly realized that Zhaichang had entered the county school by this means.

Purchasing was very popular in the Song Dynasty.

That is to say, if the government's industry cannot be managed by itself, it is contracted to the private sector.The private sector promises how many years and how many returns to the government, and then manages it by itself.

Zhang Yue said: "If I have a book for you to print, what should I do?"

The head chef didn't say anything, but Chen Zhong said, "Our brothers are idle all day, and of course we want to find something to do. If the officials are interested, one hundred dollars per edition will be fine, but I don't know if the engraving and ink are made by you or by yourself. Are we going out?"

Zhang Yue did not immediately agree.

The head chef said again: "If you think it's too expensive, eighty dollars is fine. Their brothers are idle anyway, and haven't opened for a few months."

Zhang Yue nodded and immediately said: "Zhaichang, you two, if you want to make wood movable type, you can't use sour jujube wood, pear wood, which is usually used for carving wood, should use jujube wood or Populus euphratica wood. drying."

Zhang Yue doesn't mind, this knowledge is learned, because these are all very simple crafts, and it is very easy for others to copy and plagiarize.

Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty used jujube wood movable type to engrave imperial books. Of course, it does not mean that jujube wood does not have the shortcomings of expansion and deformation, but it is more suitable for wood movable type than ordinary wood.

This is based on the experience of hundreds of years of practice, and the folk carver researches which kind of wood is more suitable for wood type.But for Zhang Yue, it is very simple, to put it bluntly, it is a matter of one sentence.

The Chen brothers glanced at each other, trying to figure out what Zhang Yue said.

The head priest asked, "Is this method feasible?"

The Chen brothers said, "You will only know if you try it."

The head chef looked at Zhang Yue and said with a smile, "I didn't read you wrong, you really are a neat person. If this method is feasible, I will pay for the ink and engraving money for you to engrave the book, and you don't need to give the money for the printing of the book in the future."

The county school holds monthly private exams and public exams every year. The papers used in the exams are all published and printed by the county school bookstore.Although not much, it can save nearly a consistent amount of money a year.

"Zhai Chang's words are true, the book I want to print is not thin."

Zhai Chang thought about it for a while and said with a smile: "Since I promised you, there is no reason to break my promise."

Zhang Yue smiled and said, "Zhai Changfang is a cool person, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Both laughed.

A few days later, the Chen brothers have successfully trial-produced the wooden type, which is much more durable than the original wooden type.

And Zhang Yue is also going to write well for publication.

This is the 'Cheng Wen' of recent years.

Cheng Wen of the Song Dynasty refers to a program article, that is, the examiner creates a topic and writes an article by himself, and asks the students to imitate the article to write.The article written by the examiner is Cheng Wen.

However, Cheng Wen in the Ming and Qing Dynasties refers to the articles written in the examination room by the imperial examination and the first graders.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, the concept of jinshi did not yet exist, and the imperial examination was also a stage of exploration. From the beginning, people learned by themselves, and each of them was literate. Later, the articles were full of algae and no classics.Yes, this sentence criticizes the 'Xikun style' created by Yang Yi, a fellow from Zhangyue Pucheng.

In today's Jinshi examination, the style of writing is dominated by the 'Taixue style'.Taixue style can be said to be specially used for imperial examinations, and created a first-class style of writing.

The person created by the Taixue Style was Shi Jie, because there were scholars who took this as a high priority during the Jingyou period, so it finally became popular among the Taixue students.

However, in the second year of Jiayou, the Taixue body was angrily reprimanded by Ouyang Xiu, who knew the tribute.

For example, Liu Ji, a student of the current department, wrote an article in the etheric body at the beginning of the article, "Heaven and earth are rolling, all things are flourishing, and sages are sending out".

Ouyang Xiu immediately quit when he saw it, and satirized 'scholar stab, examiner stabs'.

For the readers of the world, this is terrible.

In the past, scholars who studied Taixue style for more than ten years were hit rock bottom all of a sudden, so no one knew how Jiayou would go after the imperial examinations for Jinshi and his literary style.

So Zhang Yue himself went out to collect and entrusted Hu Xuezheng to copy the articles that were highly ranked in the provincial exams, including Su Shi's famous "On Punishment and Rewards of Loyalty and Honesty", and immediately published a book titled "Emperor Song Jia" Yu's second year Gaudi article" book.

This Cheng Wen represents the latest trend of scientific examinations, and can be regarded as a must-read for every scholar in the academic field.

After the book was completed, Zhang Yue took a look at Xuezheng himself.
Zhang Yue was a little nervous, but the more he saw Xuezheng, the more joyful he said: "Ouyang Gong once said that 'ruthlessness is like creation, and justice is like weighing', which is true! Today's articles forget about the way of education, and use coquettishness as the basis. Victory, and Duke Ouyang wants to sweep away the stagnation in the literary world, follow Han Liu and two others to implement the ancient way, aspire to the ancient way, and use the ancient way as a hengwen, which can be called the most public, the most excellent!"

"What Xuezheng said is very true. Although students are students, they also feel that quality is the first, and writing is the last."

Xuezheng smiled and said, "It's rare for you to have such an insight. This reminds me of Brother Ling, who also said such things."

"Yes, how do you plan to sell this book?"

Zhang Yue said: "The cost of printing, ink, engraving, and typesetting for the students is really not small. If you don't lose money, you will need at least [-] copies. The students plan to set it at [-] texts. They don't plan to make money, they just plan to popularize the style of writing. , and do something to benefit the students in this county.”

Xuezheng said: "This is a good thing. You can do it anyway. It would be great if the Jinshi students in this county could have one copy. Every article here can be written on behalf of Ouyang Gong, what is retro and ancient."

Zhang Yue said: "Thank you Xuezheng for your advice, the students will try their best to do it."

Immediately Zhang Yue took another ten books and put them on Xuezheng's desk and said, "This is newly printed by the students, the ink color is the latest, and the wood characters on the back are a little cracked, so I took the best one and presented it to Xuezheng. Students will send them to relatives and friends.”

Xuezheng flipped through Zhang Yue's book, and the ink color printing was really excellent.

This student really knows how to do business.

Xuezheng said with a smile: "Alright, the old man has some uses, so it's disrespectful."

Zhang Yue understood that printing a book doesn't cost much, and the most important thing is that it is expensive to print and whether it can be sold.

The book is set to be 1 words a book, which is not expensive for a book with more than 130 words.Zhang Yue calculated the cost. Ink engraving costs nothing, and after deducting the manual typesetting fee, he only needs to sell [-] copies to recover the cost.

So Zhang Yue decided to print [-] copies to test the waters in this county first. As soon as the news came out, scholars rushed to buy it, but more than half of them were sold in a few days.

This really makes Zhang Yue sigh, what is knowledge is money, and more than 30 yuan of money has already entered his pocket in a blink of an eye.

At this time, Zhai Chang couldn't stand it anymore. He found Zhang Yue, and after negotiating profit sharing with Zhang Yue, he printed another [-] copies and sent it to Jianyang to sell.

There are hundreds of bookstores in Jianyang, and if there are bookstores, there must be booksellers.It can be said that there are booksellers from all over the world. There are hundreds of booksellers here every day. They all buy books from Jianyang and then ship them back to various states to sell.

The people sent by the head priest came back within a few days, and told them that this "Second Year of Emperor Song Jiayou's High Difficulty Articles" had been sold out, and asked them to reprint it immediately.

After a few days, the booksellers in Jianyang couldn't sit still, and came to Pucheng to ask for prints in person, which was already in short supply.

In the end, "Huang Song Jiayou Two Years High Difficulty Articles" was re-published for a time, until the db book of "Huang Song Jiayou Two Years High Difficulty Articles" became rampant in the market throughout Jianyang, Jianzhou, and this trend of buying was stopped.

(End of this chapter)