Hearing Xuezheng suddenly mention his second brother.
Zhang Yue was stunned and couldn't help but ask: "Xue Zheng has been studying in the county for many years. I wonder what kind of person my second brother is under Xuezheng's eyes?"
Xuezheng smiled slightly, remembering the previous rumors that Zhang Erlang did not send letters to his family. This incident made him look a little embarrassed in front of the magistrate.
But Zhang Yue suddenly asked, Xuezheng didn't think much about it, but said: "When Erlang entered the county school, I was a teaching assistant in the county school, but Erlang was extremely talented, the only one I have seen in my life. As for the others, I am not that good either. Said. But Erlang’s current talent and learning was proven step by step by himself.”
Then Xuezheng changed the subject: "In a person's life, morality is the first priority, and talent is the second. I have seen many people in my life who try to be smart and take shortcuts and go further. No matter how talented you are, you should still treat yourself as brothers. Love is the most important thing.”
Zhang Yue didn't know the meaning of Xuezheng's words, and he felt a little confused. He seemed to be expressing his feelings, and he also seemed to be criticizing Zhang Erlang.
I still don't know why my second brother resigned from the Jinshi examination. If he really wanted to change his official status and passed the Jinshi examination, then he would never give up his official position.
I heard that many candidates were dissatisfied with the sudden change of registration to take the exam, but I thought that these discussions would subside after a while, and they would not abandon their official positions because of this.
But I heard that my brother ranked 22nd in the provincial examination, but fell to fourth place in the palace examination.
There are a total of five Jinshi rankings. The fifth-class people are from the same Jinshi background and cannot be directly awarded the official. They must be selected by the guards. Su Che ranked fifth on this list.
His elder brother Su Shi ranked fourth. Su Shi, like his younger brother, was originally ranked fifth. However, because he got first place in the "Spring and Autumn" test in the provincial examination, he was ranked first in the palace examination.
However, he ranked 22nd in the provincial examination and ranked 4th in the palace examination. This may also represent the official's view.
Maybe there is too much difference between the top and the bottom, which is why the second brother is unwilling to be promoted.
As Zhang Yue walked, he thought carefully about any interactions he had with his second brother before time travel.
He suddenly remembered that one year before his second brother escaped from marriage, he once scolded himself for not wanting to make progress and only playing with his friends all day long.
Zhang Yue had a flash of inspiration at this moment. His second brother had not sent a letter to his family so far. Could it be that he was using this method to make himself understand that he should not think about hugging his thighs all day long and that he had to rely on himself for everything? The second brother really still cares about me in his heart. This is really a good intention!
Zhang Yue smiled. In fact, he had helped his second brother to beautify it in his mind. Wasn't his eldest brother also making excuses for why his second brother had not sent letters to his family so far?
After all, he is a famous iron-blooded prime minister in history. If he really feels that he is still the useless person he was before his rebirth, he would be able to deny the brotherhood.
Now I can only work hard and get the approval of my second brother, otherwise how will I enjoy happiness in the future? Prosperity and wealth are no longer destined for me.
Wrong, wrong, it seems that I am somewhat in love with Ronghua, and I should be working hard in the name of brothers and sisters.
Thinking of this, Zhang Yue can be regarded as completing the step of 'rectifying his heart'.
Zhang Yue walked back to his studio, sat down and was about to read, but saw that Guo Lin had already returned to his dormitory, and he looked happy at this moment.
Zhang Yue looked Guo Lin up and down and asked, "What's the happy news? Could it be that Sanniang is willing to elope with you?"
"Junior brother, please don't make fun of me."
Guo Lin saw that Wu Rang and Qian Qiming were not at home, so he said: "Junior brother, please don't be too happy if I tell you a good thing."
"A good thing?" Zhang Yue was full of doubts.
Guo Lin said with a face full of joy: "I just asked the chief of the prison, if there is any scribe in the county school? The chief of the prison said that the transcription is his responsibility, all you need to do is talk to him, so I will give you and my name. Gave it to the chief."
"So easy?" If Zhang Yuexin was a very popular job, it wouldn't be the turn of the two newcomers.
Guo Lindao: "But a page of books only costs one yuan, and I don't have much daily living."
Zhang Yue suddenly realized that it was no wonder he couldn't recruit anyone.
The county annals record that the county school has 80 acres and 178 acres of farmland. In addition, the government has also allocated dozens of corridors to the county school, which are rented out to the people to collect some rent money. This Langzhuang class is the bulk of the county school's income.
However, the daily expenses of county schools are not small. In addition to academic officials, the official salary expenditure of school officials also provides food and clothing for one-third of the students. This is called national support, as well as sporadic expenditures.
Therefore, it is good for the county school to be able to make ends meet, even if it cannot make ends meet, so the county sometimes uses jealous interest money and the minister's money to supplement one or two.
This commission book is a way to work-study. To be honest, Zhang Yue can no longer look down on the price of this commission book, which is one cent per page.
But Guo Lin was still very happy to have such a job. He asked himself if he wanted to go with him, and even made an agreement with the chief of the restaurant.
Zhang Yue couldn't bear to betray Guo Lin's good intentions, but he thought that the fine tradition of work-study study should not be lost, so he agreed.
"Then let's go see the chief in the afternoon."
"Shall we go empty-handed?" Zhang Yue asked.
"Is it possible?" Guo Lin looked confused.
Zhang Yue shook his head and said, "I'm going out first."
In the afternoon, Zhang Yue and Guo Lin quietly came to the chief's room carrying a bamboo basket of sesame and sesame cakes.
"I should have come to see the chief of the restaurant a long time ago. A few snacks would be disrespectful." Zhang Yueyan said.
The chief smiled when he saw this. Arranging servants was just a piece of cake for him, and a basket of sesame cakes was not worth much. But he likes this attitude in others.
"Have you eaten any snacks?" the chief asked.
"Eat." Guo Lin replied quickly.
Zhang Yueze said: "Not yet."
"Why are you so polite? Let's sit down and eat some together." The chief immediately gave the Hu biscuits that Zhang Yue brought to his bedmates. He and Zhang Yue each had a hand. Guo Lin wanted to refuse, but the chief forced Hu cakes into his hands.
The chief of the stall raised one foot on the platform and kicked off his shoe with the other. While chewing the pancake, he said, "Are you Mr. Sanlang of the Zhang family?"
Zhang Yue nodded.
The chief said: "I know your second husband, and he has learned a lot. Although you are not as talented as him, you are quite a good person!"
Zhang Yue's heart shivered and he said, "The chief has promoted me, please ask the chief to take care of me in the future."
Zhai Zhang finished the sesame seed cake in two or three mouthfuls, and a lot of sesame seeds fell to the ground with his hands. He didn't care and said calmly: "It's easy to say, and I won't be polite to you, but we like to eat flower cakes, so remember it next time."
Zhang Yue and Guo Lin were about to walk out.
"Wait!"
The chief of the village called out to the two of them: "I'll go take a look with you."
The transcription office is next to the library.
After the chief, Zhang Yue and Guo Lin opened the door and entered, they saw two people already sitting in the room.
One person is holding a knife to carve characters on several wooden blocks, and the other person is playing with the mold. They looked up and saw Zhang Yue, Guo and Lin wearing t-shirts, and saw the chief of the village behind them. They quickly stood up and asked first, "I have seen the chief of the fast."
The chief said: "You still don't understand?"
The two said: "I have met two officials. The villain Chen Zhong (Chen He) is a calligrapher in the official school."
While he was talking, Zhang Yue approached the craftsman named Chen Zhong and asked, "Are you a book engraver? You can actually print with movable type?"
It was really new. I saw the legendary movable type printing of the Song Dynasty for the first time.
Chen Zhong didn't know why Zhang Yue was so new to this thing in his hands, and couldn't help but said: "This official, what do you mean by movable type printing?"
Zhang Yue said: "Then this is?"
Chen Zhong said with a smile: "We in Jianyang call this a movable printing plate, which is different from the printing plates that officials are used to. I have nothing to do, so I just want to give it a try when I have free time."
"So how did it go?"
Seeing the interest on the other party's face, Chen Zhong shook his head and said with a bitter look on his face: "It's difficult, I also heard that Hangzhou Bookstore has used clay to make typefaces. It's so mysterious and mysterious, but I don't know how the clay is fired, so The villain thought of using wood to carve words, but..."
At this point, Chen Zhong shook his head again.
Zhang Yue smiled slightly when he saw this: "It's because the wooden characters are not carved well."
"The official is right. Could it be that the official knows this type of calligraphy?"
The chief of the village was also surprised and said: "Yes, does it mean that Erlang also knows about block printing?"
Zhang Yue smiled and said, "I know a little bit."
Zhang Yue looked at the two of them and said, "Are you brothers?"
"Exactly."
Zhang Yue said: "The two of us are here to serve as servants, so we will have to disturb you more in the future."
"The official is too polite, but I don't take this seriously." The two of them saluted at the same time.
The chief of the restaurant didn't know what Zhang Yue was doing.
But Zhang Yue said: "You use wood carvings as letterpress, but the texture of the wood is dense and uneven, and it is uneven when exposed to water, and how can it be made even if it sticks to the ink. I heard that the craftsman who uses clay as letterpress is named Bi Sheng. , first the characters were made of wood, and then they were changed to clay.”
After listening to Zhang Yue's words, the two craftsmen were filled with admiration. Chen Zhong then said: "So that's it. He is really a talented man. If I had listened to your words, we wouldn't have wasted so much effort on making this movable wooden calligraphy." "
Not necessarily.
Zhang Yue smiled and said: "It's not worth mentioning. I don't know how the clay letterpress in Hangzhou is, but the characters made of clay are easy to break and can be easily stored. If there is no special method, I'm afraid it will not be easy to store."
"Good advice, good advice." The two brothers admired Zhang Yue so much that they fell to the ground.
The chief of the village also looked at Zhang Yue with admiration.
"Chief, they just said they had nothing to do. Isn't there a book seal in the county school?"
The chief of the studio sighed: "To be honest, there are only two of them in our county school to make plates. It takes a long time to engrave a book, so the county's plate makers would rather go to Jianyang."
Zhang Yue said: "I heard that there are carving workshops in Yongzhong and Chonghua in Jianyang, both official and private. There are hundreds of large carving workshops, and there are hundreds of small carving workshops with as few as a few people, right?"
The two craftsmen smiled and said: "Yes, our Jianyang prison is as famous as Shu and Zhejiang. We two brothers are both from Jianyang and have been carving books for generations. It was the director of Zhai who hired us. Came from Pucheng."
Zhang Yue asked the Zhai Chief: "So the official school bookstore belongs to the Zhai Chief?"
The chief nodded and said: "The county school carving workshop cannot make ends meet, so I asked the government to buy it. But so far, I cannot make ends meet, so I thought I would buy this 襕shirt."
Zhang Yue suddenly realized that this was how the chief of the village got into the county school.
Purchasing was very popular in the Song Dynasty.
That is to say, if the government's industry cannot be managed by itself, it will be contracted by the private sector. The private sector hands it over to the government with the promise of a certain amount of income over a certain number of years, and then manages it on its own.
Zhang Yue said: "If I have a book and ask you to print it, what should I do?"
The chief didn't say anything, but Chen Zhong said: "We brothers have been idle all day, and of course we want to find something to do. If the officials are interested, a hundred dollars per plate will be fine, but I don't know if you will pay for the engraving and ink yourself. Shall we go out?"
Zhang Yue did not agree immediately.
The chief of the restaurant added, "If you think it's expensive, eighty yuan is fine. Their brothers are idle anyway, and they haven't opened in a few months."
Zhang Yue nodded and said immediately: "Zhai Chief, you two, if you want to make movable wood type, you cannot use jujube wood. Pear wood, which is usually used for engraving, must be jujube wood or poplar wood. After cutting it down, you must use jujube wood." drying."
Zhang Yue doesn't mind, he wants people to learn this knowledge, because these are very simple craftsmanship, and it is easy for others to imitate and plagiarize them.
Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty used jujube wood movable type to engrave imperial documents. Of course, this does not mean that jujube wood does not have the disadvantage of swelling and deforming, but it is more suitable for making wooden type than ordinary wood.
This is all summed up by hundreds of years of practical experience and folk carvers studying which kind of wood is more suitable for wooden movable type. But for Zhang Yue, it was very simple. To put it bluntly, it was just a matter of one sentence.
The Chen brothers looked at each other, trying to figure out Zhang Yue's words.
The chief asked: "Is this method feasible?"
The Chen brothers said: "You will know after you try it."
The chief looked at Zhang Yue and smiled and said: "I saw you right, you are really a nimble person. If this method works, I will pay for the ink and engraving money for your book, and you don't have to pay for the printing money in the future."
The county school conducts private examinations every month and public examinations every year. The papers used in the examinations are printed by the county school bookstore. Each examination requires a payment of paper printing money. It’s not a lot, but you can save nearly the same amount of money in a year.
"What the chief said is true. The book I want to print is not thin."
The chief thought for a while and smiled: "Since I promised you, there is no reason to break my promise."
Zhang Yue laughed and said, "Zhai Changfang is a refreshing person. It's a pleasure to be with you."
They both laughed.
A few days later, the Chen brothers successfully trial-produced wooden movable type, which was indeed much more durable than the original wooden type.
And Zhang Yue also wrote down the instructions for publication.
This is the 'Cheng Wen' from recent years.
Cheng Wen in the Song Dynasty refers to a formula article, that is, the examiner gives a topic, writes an article himself, and asks the students to imitate the article. This article written by the examiner is Cheng Wen.
However, Chengwen in the Ming and Qing Dynasties refers to articles written by those who passed the imperial examination in the examination room.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, there was no such concept of Jinshi Ke, and the imperial examination was also a stage of exploration. From the beginning, people studied for themselves, and everyone focused on literary words. Later, the articles focused on flowery topics and no classics. Yes, this sentence criticizes the 'Xikun Style' created by Yang Yi, a fellow from Zhangyue Pucheng.
Nowadays, in the Jinshi examination, the writing style is mainly "Tai Xue style". It can be said that the Taixue style was specially designed for imperial examinations and created a first-class writing style.
The founder of the Taixue style was Shi Jie, because some scholars during the Jingyou period regarded it as their highest ranking, so it eventually became popular among Taixue students.
But in the second year of Jiayou's reign, Taixue Ti was angrily criticized by Ouyang Xiu, who knew Gongju.
For example, Liu Ji, a Taixue student in modern science, wrote an article in the Taixue style, which begins with "The heaven and the earth are rolling, all things are flourishing, and the saints are growing."
When Ouyang Xiu saw it, he immediately stopped and sarcastically said, "The scholar stabs, the examiner brushes".
For scholars all over the world, this is terrible.
In the past, scholars who had studied the Taixue style for more than ten years were suddenly hit the bottom. Therefore, no one knows how the imperial examination style will change after Jiayou passed the imperial examination for two years.
So Zhang Yue personally collected them, and asked Hu Xuezheng to copy the articles that ranked highly in the provincial examinations, including Su Shi's famous "The Theory of Honesty and Honesty in Punishments and Rewards", and immediately published a book called "Huang Song Jia" "The Second Year of You Gao Di's Articles".
This Chengwen represents the latest trend in scientific examinations and is a must-read for every Jinshi scholar.
After the book was completed, Zhang Yue personally read it to Xuezheng.
Zhang Yue was a little worried at first, but when he saw Xuezheng, he became more and more happy and said: "Ouyang Gong once said, 'Ruthlessness is like nature, justice is like balance.' This is true! Today's articles have forgotten the way of education, and use coquettishness as their Victory, and Ouyang Gong wants to sweep away the malaise in the literary world. He follows the example of Han and Liu in promoting the ancient path, aspires to follow the ancient path, and takes the ancient path as a balance. He can be called the Supreme Duke, the Supreme Duke!"
"What Xuezheng said is very true. Although the students are students of classical literature, they also feel that quality is the first priority and the literary quality is second."
Xuezheng smiled and said: "It's rare for you to have such an insight as a Jing student. This reminds me of Brother Ling, who also said such a thing."
"Yes, how do you plan to sell this book?"
Zhang Yue said: "The cost of printing, ink, engraving, and typesetting is really not small. If you don't lose money, it will cost at least one hundred guan. The student plans to set it at 600 per book. He does not intend to make money, but only intends to popularize the style of writing." , do something to benefit the students in this county.”
Xuezhengdao said: "This is a good thing. You can go ahead and do it. It would be great if all the Jinshi science students in this county could have a copy. Every article here can speak for Ouyang Gong about what it means to restore ancient times and respect the past."
Zhang Yue said: "Thank you Xuezheng for your advice. I will try my best to do it."
Immediately Zhang Yue took ten more books and put them on Xuezheng's desk and said: "This is newly printed by the students. The ink color is the latest. The wooden characters on the back are a little cracked, so I took the best one and presented it to Xuezheng. It is sent by students to their relatives and friends.”
Xuezheng flipped through Zhang Yue's book and found that the ink printing was excellent.
This student really knows how to do things.
Xuezheng smiled and said, "Well, I happen to have some use for it, so it would be disrespectful to reject it."
Zhang Yue understood that printing a book actually costs nothing. The most important thing is that the engraving is expensive and whether it can be sold.
The book is priced at 600 words each, which is not expensive for a book of more than 10,000 words. Zhang Yue calculated the cost and found that ink engraving was free. After deducting the cost of manual typesetting, he only needed to sell 130 copies to recoup the cost.
So Zhang Yue decided to print two hundred copies first to test the waters in his county. As soon as the news came out, scholars rushed to buy it, and more than half of it was sold within a few days.
This really made Zhang Yue sigh. What is knowledge is money? In the blink of an eye, more than thirty thousand dollars had been put into his pocket.
At this time, the chief could not stand it anymore. He found Zhang Yue and couldn't sit still. After discussing the profit sharing with Zhang Yue, he printed 500 more copies and sent them to Jianyang for sale.
There are hundreds of bookstores in Jianyang, and if there are bookstores, there must be booksellers. It can be said that booksellers from all over the world gather here. Hundreds of booksellers come here every day. They buy books from Jianyang and transport them back to various states to sell.
The people sent by the chief of the prison came back within a few days and told them that the "Emperor Song Jiayou's Second Year Gaodi Articles" had been sold out and asked them to print it immediately.
A few days later, the booksellers in Jianyang were unable to sit down and came to Pucheng in person to ask for seals. The supply was already in short supply.
Finally, "Emperor Song Jiayou's Second Year of Gao Di's Articles" was published again. It was not until the entire Jianyang and Jianzhou db books of "Emperor Song Jiayou's Second Year of Gao Di's Articles" were rampant in the market that the trend of buying stopped.
