Vol 4 Chapter 2845: Printing into a metal mold

Liu Yu's eyes lit up: "You mean, Confucianism, education?"
Liu Muzhi put down the water cup in his hand and said sternly, "Don’t forget, when we were running the preface, we discussed Confucianism and metaphysics. We must be loyal to the emperor and love the country, and the power should be concentrated in the court. You have to promote Confucianism, but if you continue the aristocratic world, then you have to talk about metaphysics. Since the Great Southern Passage of the Jin Dynasty, the atmosphere of metaphysics has been extremely strong, and it is also integrated with the corresponding aristocratic family and the world. What you want is the so-called Taoist parents, heaven and earth, Xuanhuang, these non-marginal The purpose of things is to evade the power of the emperor of the world, so that the country's orders cannot be sent to the places actually controlled by these families."
Liu Yu nodded: "Yes, so at that time we invited Confucian scholars, Fan Tai, the great Confucian scholar, to worship the wine in Jingkou. We also found dozens of Confucian disciples to teach the children of Jingkou. They had learned quite a lot in the past six months. Okay, but then suddenly Nanyan invaded and attacked my Jiangbei and plundered my people. To prepare for war, some schoolchildren had to go back to the battlefield and enlist in the army, such as Xiao Sitian and their dozens of descendants, and they wanted to make compromises with aristocratic families. The transaction has been temporarily suspended, and I am afraid it will not be easy to open it again in the future.
Liu Muzhi nodded, took out a large book from his sleeve, and handed it to Liu Yu: "The previous military affairs were too busy and I didn't have time to tell you this. How about this?"
Liu Yu took it, and saw that it was a booklet bound together by dozens of rice papers, which looked a bit like a later book. One side was sewn together with fine thread, and it was an original thread. The book, and the first page of the book is composed of neat words, which is far different from the variety of handwriting. It is the Analects of Confucius.
Although Liu Yu didn’t have much culture before crossing, he had also studied the Four Books and Five Classics after he came to this world. He is very clear about the content in the Analects, but he used to read the handwritten copy at Liu Mu’s house. In the ancient books of the edition, the characters on it are mostly the kind of attempts by the copyists to practice calligraphy. There are various dragons and phoenix dances, cursive script in running script, etc., and there can even be more than a dozen different calligraphy on a page, just like that The preface of the Lanting Collection is the same, each character is unique. This is also the characteristic of this era. The difference in calligraphy is used to express the publicity of individuality. There is also some truth in the so-called understanding of Chinese characters.
However, in the Analects Liu Muzhi gave him, every word is neat and tidy. Even the details of the strokes are exactly the same for several identical words on the same page. Liu Yu understood it at first glance. This must be a word printed with typography, not by hand.
Liu Yu felt excited and looked at Liu Muzhi: "Is this engraving technique a success?"
Liu Muzhi smiled slightly: "If you don't succeed, isn't it yours?"
Liu Yu flipped through the Analects with excitement. Although it can be seen from the back that the color of the characters is not the same, some characters appear lighter as they go to the back, but Liu Yu knows that it is because of the ink. The amount is not easy to control, and the typeface may not be as sharp as before after being printed many times, but in general, the tens of thousands of words in this Analects can be clearly identified, and it uses The same typeface is printed, it can be said that in this era, it is already an out-and-out black technology.
Liu Yu finished the book and saw the last word. He sighed and looked at Liu Muzhi: "Are these books printed in the kind of font I said?"
Liu Muzhi nodded: "This idea you mentioned is great. At first, we used logs to make the fonts, but it was difficult to carve, and it was not possible to brush twice. The wooden edges and corners were smoothed. Then we We switched to using burnt clay as a soil model, but the hardness was not enough and it was easy to crack. Finally, we thought of a good way to mix lead with copper blocks, and finally made small fonts. We are just like making nails. , Make a soil mold, and pour this copper-lead mixed gold water into it, and finally these small pieces are formed."
As he said, he took out a few more metal bumps from his sleeve. The index finger was about five or six centimeters long. It looked like a reduced version of a seal. He handed it to Liu Yu. Liu Yu held it in his hand and saw a traditional Chinese version. The narrative characters of "are exposed, and the whole character shape protrudes outward, just like the narrative characters in that book.
Liu Yu smiled and said: "Unexpectedly, it is not easy to get these metal fonts for you so soon."
Liu Muzhi didn't understand: "Metal? What is this? This is a mixture of copper and lead, not gold."
Liu Yu realized that some of the titles of later generations surpassed Liu Muzhi’s understanding. He said,
Why not that copper can also be used for gold in the Han Dynasty? All these hard things, such as gold, silver, copper, iron, and lead, I call it Their metal, this is the kind that can be formed into lumps, or it can be melted into water and then solidified. Let's call it that in the future."
Liu Muzhi nodded: "This is a good name. This kind of copper-lead, oh, this kind of metal module, the biggest advantage is that it is hard, unlike wood or dirt, which wears out after a few times. Just do it well. One module word can be used for a long time."
When Liu Yu looked at this traditional Chinese character, UU read www.uukānshu.com suddenly felt a heart move, and said: "If this character has too many strokes, I am afraid it will be troublesome to engrave the mold. It is better to use those characters in regular script. , Many strokes are less, so the characters are becoming simpler and easier to recognize, and it is easier to learn. The students in the Xu Xu last time also liked to learn those with fewer strokes. In the future, we will popularize this education and try to be as simple as possible. These characters Well, it can be called Kaiti or simplified Chinese in the future."
Liu Muzhi nodded with satisfaction: "I found that you really have a lot of genius ideas when you send slaves. Maybe we read too many books, and our brains are not as flexible as you. I have done a few of these fonts. Thousands can be sorted according to a book, each page uses a fixed font, and then a full page is output. I have tried it. The ink is well matched, and it can be printed out thousands of sheets of paper, one template per sheet, then Only if dozens of editions are made, this entire book can be printed out."
Liu Yu laughed. He looked at Liu Muzhi's eyes with excitement. A sense of refreshment that truly benefited the future generations of technology and technology in this era also filled his whole heart, Liu Yu Nodded earnestly, and said: "Okay, great, then according to the fat man, it is this Qilu land that uses this printing technique to print a large number of books and quickly educate the people to literate and hyphenate, right?"
Liu Muzhi smiled and said, "Let the Xianbei learn first."