Liu Yu's eyes lit up: "You mean, Confucianism, education?"
Liu Muzhi put down the water glass in his hand and said seriously: "Don't forget, when we were doing the preface, we discussed Confucianism and metaphysics. We must be loyal to the emperor and patriotism, and the power should be concentrated in the court. Then We have to promote Confucianism, but if we want to continue the aristocratic family world, we have to talk about metaphysics. Since the Jin Dynasty moved to the south, metaphysics has been very popular, and it is also integrated with the corresponding aristocratic family world. What we want is the so-called Taoist eldest son, heaven and earth, Xuanhuang and other irrelevant things. The purpose of these things is to evade the power of the emperor in the world and prevent the country’s orders from being issued to the places actually controlled by these aristocratic families.”
Liu Yu nodded: "Yes, so at that time we invited Confucian scholars and offered wine to the great Confucian Fan Tai as the prefect of Jingkou. We also found dozens of Confucian disciples to teach the children of Jingkou. Originally, they learned very well in more than half a year. Okay, but then suddenly the Southern Yan invaded, attacked Jiangbei, and plundered my people. We had to prepare for war. Some of the students who were studying had to go back to the battlefield to enlist in the army, such as Xiao Sixian and dozens of other descendants. In addition, they had to make compromises and compromises with the noble families. The transaction has been temporarily suspended, and it may not be easy to reopen it in the future."
Liu Muzhi nodded, took out a large booklet from his sleeve, and handed it to Liu Yu: "I was too busy with military affairs a while ago and didn't have time to tell you this. How about you read this?"
Liu Yu took it and saw that it was a book bound together by dozens of pieces of rice paper. It looked a bit like a book from later generations. One side was sewn together with thin threads, just like an original version of the thread binding. The book, and the first page of the book is full of neat characters, which is far different from the colorful handwriting. It is the book of The Analects of Confucius.
Although Liu Yu had little education before traveling through time, he had also studied the Four Books and Five Classics after arriving in this world. He was still very clear about the content of the Analects, but he had only read the handwritten manuscripts at Liu Mu's house before. Most of the words on the ancient books are the copyists' attempts to practice calligraphy. There are all kinds of dragons and phoenixes, running script and cursive script. There can even be more than a dozen different calligraphy on one page, just like that The preface to Lanting's collection is the same, but every word is different. This is also a characteristic of this era. Different calligraphy is used to express personality. There is some truth in the so-called reading of calligraphy to identify people.
But the Analects that Liu Muzhi gave him was every word in perfect order. Even several identical words that appeared on the same page, even the details of the strokes were exactly the same. Liu Yu understood it at a glance. This must be printed words, not handwritten.
Liu Yu felt excited and looked at Liu Muzhi: "Is this engraving printing technique successful?"
Liu Muzhi smiled slightly: "Whether it succeeds or not, doesn't it all depend on you?"
Liu Yu excitedly flipped through the Analects page by page. Although it can be seen at the back that the colors of the characters are not the same. As you go to the back, some characters appear lighter, but Liu Yu knows that it is because of the ink. The quantity is not easy to control, and after many printings, the fonts may not be as sharp and sharp as before, but in general, the tens of thousands of words in this Analects can be clearly identified, and the use of Printed with the same font, it can be said that in this era, it is already an out-and-out black technology.
Liu Yu finished flipping through the book and saw the last word. He breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Liu Muzhi: "Are these books printed with the typeface I mentioned?"
Liu Muzhi nodded: "The idea you brought up is great. At first we used logs to make the fonts, but it was difficult to carve, and the edges of the wood were smoothed out after just two brushings. Later we Instead, we used burnt clay as the clay mold, but it was not hard enough and cracked easily. Finally, we came up with a good idea. We mixed lead with copper blocks and finally made small character molds. We were just like making armor tablets. , make an earthen mold, and then pour this gold water mixed with copper and lead into it, and finally form small pieces like this."
As he spoke, he took out a few more metal lumps from his sleeves. They were about the thickness of his index finger and about five or six centimeters long. They looked like a miniature seal. He handed them to Liu Yu. Liu Yu took them in his hand and saw only a traditional Chinese character. The word "Lun" is exposed, and the entire font protrudes outward, just like the word "Lun" in that book.
Liu Yu said with a smile: "I didn't expect that it would be so easy to get these metal lettering molds for you so quickly."
Liu Muzhi was a little confused: "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 were beyond Liu Muzhi's understanding, and he said: "Isn't that copper also used as a substitute for gold in the Han Dynasty? All these hard things, gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, etc., I call them Their metal is the kind that can be formed into hard blocks, melted into water, and then solidified. Let’s call it that from now on.”
Liu Muzhi nodded: "This is a good name. The biggest advantage of this copper-lead, oh, metal module is that it is hard. It is not like a block of wood or a block of earth that will wear out after being touched several times. As long as it is done well A modular word can be used for a long time.”
Liu Yu looked at this traditional Chinese character "Lun", and suddenly his heart moved, and he said: "If this character has too many strokes, it will be more troublesome to carve the mold. It is better to use the characters in regular script, which have many strokes and few strokes. It is getting simpler and easier to recognize and learn. The students in Xiangxu last time also like to learn those with fewer strokes. In the future, we will popularize this kind of education and make it as simple as possible. These characters can be called regular characters in the future. , or called simplified Chinese characters.”
Liu Muzhi nodded with satisfaction and said: "I found that you really have a lot of genius ideas. Maybe it's because we read too many and complicated books, and our brains are not as flexible as yours. I have made these fonts a few times. Thousands can be sorted according to the order of a book, using a fixed font template for each page, and then printing out a full page. I have tried it. If the ink is matched well, thousands of sheets of paper can be printed, and one template is used for each paper. It only takes a few dozen editions to print the entire book."
Liu Yu laughed. When he looked at Liu Muzhi, his eyes also shone with excitement. A sense of satisfaction in using the science and technology of future generations to truly benefit this era also filled his heart. Liu Yu He nodded seriously and said: "Okay, great. According to what you want, Fatty, you are to use this printing technique to print a large number of books in Qilu and quickly educate the people to read and write, right?"
Liu Muzhi smiled and said: "Let the Xianbei people learn it first."
