Li Zhi followed Feng Bangning to see the typesetting room, and then went into the printing room to have a look. I saw an identical machine with wooden crosses and iron hoops placed inside the room. It looked weird and I didn't know how to use it.
Seeing that Li Zhi wanted to inquire, Feng Bangning asked the foreman to demonstrate it to Li Zhi. The foreman immediately arranged for a worker to put the type plate that had been typed and proofread into the brushing machine and turn it upside down, with an iron plate that looked like black clay holding it underneath.
Li Zhi pointed to the iron plate and asked Feng Bangning, "What is this?"
Feng Bangning explained: "This is a mold. The plate is filled with a mixture of rosin, wax and other things. I don't know the details. It is also sold by Rishenglong."
While talking, Li Zhi saw the worker turn on a copper lamp with a long mouth under the machine, use fire to heat the iron plate holding the movable type, and then turn over an hourglass on the side.
Before tea time, all the sand in the hourglass was gone. The worker turned off the oil lamp, put down an iron plate with a wooden handle above the printing press, and pressed it against the bottom of the lead type.
After tea time, the workers lifted up the iron plate and movable type, and pulled out the iron plate. When Li Zhi came over to look at it, he saw that a complete printing template had been made at the bottom of the iron plate.
Li Zhi walked over and touched it. It was as hard as iron and neatly organized, as good as the engraving.
Li Zhi was dazzled and asked Feng Bangning with a smile: "How long will it take to make the calligraphy and mold making together?"
Feng Bangning replied: "If four quick hands work at the same time to make a newspaper with 5,000 words, it can be completed in two hours, which is much faster than engraving."
While talking, the worker took out the prepared template and fixed it on the other end of the printing press. Take off two leather hammers with wooden handles from the side of the machine. The tops are greasy with some black oil, and then use the two leather hammers to gently beat the made character mold.
Feng Bangning said to Li Zhi: "Brother, this is the step of filling the ink. Take a closer look at this printing. This is amazing."
Li Zhi saw the worker put the leather hammer back in place, opened a message on the machine, and then put down a heavy leather roller, which happened to be placed at one end of the template filled with ink. Feng Bangning pointed to the roller and explained: "The outside of this roller is covered with soft leather, and the inside is probably a solid iron rod. It is difficult for me to hold it with my strength."
After hearing this, Li Zhi glanced at Feng Bangning and said with a smile: "Do you have the strength? What a shame!" Feng Bangning was furious.
The assistant next to the machine had already placed a hollow flat plate with paper next to the machine on top of the typeface. The worker pressed the roller handle with his hand and rolled it over. Then the assistant lifted the flat plate, and a book page full of handwriting was ready. become.
Here, the flat plate of the printed paper is removed, and another assistant next to him puts in the hollow paper flat plate from the other side, and the roller rolls in the opposite direction to print another sheet. When this piece was printed, the previous assistant had replaced it with a new flat plate, and the worker rolled the roller in the opposite direction.
In this case, he painted thirty sheets in a row. When he saw that the handwriting was a little light, the worker filled in the ink again. While he was filling in the ink, two workers next to him put the pieces of paper into the hollow wooden boards, flattened them and pressed them.
Li Zhi secretly counted the time and found that a machine with three people waiting on it could print more than a hundred sheets in one stick of incense. It was as fast as lightning. He sighed and said: "What a wonderful thing. Tianji Pavilion deserves the money it earns!"
...
The eighteenth day of June in the third year of Wanli is a day that Nanjing citizens have talked about for decades. It was a cloudy day because of the unfavorable weather, and the whole city of Nanjing was shrouded in black clouds.
However, the appearance of "Huang Ming Nanjing Daily" was like lightning piercing the dark clouds, shocking all Nanjing scholars and citizens.
And "Whose Fault Is the Songjiang Civil Rebellion?" that was polished by Li Zhi. 》The majestic and majestic prose hits the hearts of Jiangnan like thunder!
Immediately for three consecutive days, the "Huangming Nanjing Daily" published three powerful and powerful articles: "Investigation Report on Jiangnan Annexation", "Exploration of the Imperial Court's Reaffirmation of the Slavery Prohibition Order", and "Relationship between Jiangnan Land Annexation, Taxation and Small Farmers" The article stirred up people in Jiangnan.
The whole Jiangnan was like a big hornet's nest, which was thrown into chaos when Feng Bangning and Li Zhi poked it with big sticks. And then, "Huang Ming Nanjing Daily" became completely popular, and the popularity spread to the sky!
Because the newspapers were given away for free in the first three days, the daily newspaper office delivered a total of 5,000, 10,000, and 18,000 copies of newspapers in Nanjing within three days.
On the fourth day, when money was collected to sell newspapers, 5,500 copies of the two-column newspaper were sold that day, and the number increased day by day. In less than half a month, almost all businesses with shops in the city had subscribed, and some large restaurants even ordered more than a dozen copies. The total sales volume of the newspaper finally stabilized at around 10,000 copies. Subsequently, businessmen and travelers from neighboring state capitals such as Susong and Hangzhou were moved by the news, and representatives from various fast ships crowded the Nanjing Daily office.
Before the shocked and speechless scholars in the southern empire could react, on June 26, the imperial court's handling of the Songjiang uprising finally arrived in Nanjing:
Dong, Zhou, Gao, and Wang, the four powerful Jiangnan families with deep roots, were surrounded and uprooted by troops from the Jinyiwei Jiangnan Bureau for manipulating public opinion, threatening the court with civil uprisings, and seeking to carry out evil deeds.
Although the four families had been thoroughly investigated by Hai Rui before, the Nanjing court also responded to Shilin's outcry. Imperial Commissioner Hai Rui did not detain the suspects, but released them after the investigation was completed.
After waiting in trepidation for a month and a half, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that the court had not responded - the court's taxes were paid to Jiangnan. It seemed that the court's noble gentry might not be able to kill them. What's more, now all the rivers and rivers are undergoing large-scale water conservancy projects. We know that we are wrong. Isn't it enough to donate more food and work more?
So the big families in the south of the Yangtze River provided food and people one after another to cooperate with the court in building water conservancy projects. At the same time, many family heads warned their clan members that the court wanted to maintain the overall situation of building water conservancy projects, so they settled the matter this time. They would not dare to commit such a beheading in the future!
However, to everyone's surprise, it was the "Huangming Nanjing Daily" that launched the first round of liquidation. By the time everyone came to their senses and wanted to react, they had no power to fight back and even their property had been transferred. Not going out anymore.
The imperial court went to war this time, and all the noble families were frightened. The four families whose homes were confiscated had many melons and vines, and they had many economic contacts with various ethnic groups in the south of the Yangtze River. Suddenly, the south of the Yangtze River was in a state of panic, and the vegetation was full of soldiers.
The Zhou and Gao families were fine, but they had a lot of money and land, and a few Jinshi candidates didn't have much future. Both the Dong and Wang clans have produced many famous officials, and they are famous in the south of the Yangtze River for their "loyalty, filial piety and scholarly family". During the Jiajing Dynasty alone, the Dong family had two assistant ministers, Tian Lian Qian Mo, who could be called a wealthy man.
The Wang family is even more outrageous. At this time, Wang Shizhen was given the title of Censor of Youqiandu of the Metropolitan Procuratorate and an important official in charge of supervising Yunyang. His family originated from Wang Ji, a famous eunuch in the Han Dynasty. Since the Han Dynasty, famous eunuchs have emerged in succession; Wang Shizhen's father, Wang Yan, was a pioneer in the Jiajing Dynasty's overthrow of the Yan Dynasty, and he died of injustice.
Wang Shizhen was like Mount Tai and Beidou in Shilin. Together with Li Panlong, Xu Zhongxing, Liang Youyu, Zong Chen, Xie Zhen, and Wu Guolun, he was known as the "Last Seven Sons" of the dynasty, and he was the leader in the literary world of the Ming Dynasty.
However, all this was of no use. Under the repeated reports of Nanjing Daily, all the witnesses and physical evidence of the crimes of the above four families were exposed, which dealt a devastating blow to their family reputation.
Later, a signed article by Songjiang Xujie, Mr. Xu, was published in the Nanjing Daily, linking the four families and instigating the Xu family to lead the popular uprising. This rebellious blow directly destroyed the four families. Falling into the abyss, there is no hope of recovery.
The imperial edict rushed to Yunyang and dismissed Wang Shizhen from office. The imperial envoy also asked him whether he knew about his family's participation in the Songjiang Civil War. Wang Shizhen received the imperial edict, but her whole head was empty and she fell to the ground unconscious.
On August 20th of the third year of Wanli, when the whole Jiangnan was still disturbed by the "Songjiang Slave Rebellion", the imperial court finally ended the examination of Wang Shizhen and acquitted him. When he walked out of prison and returned to Taicang, Suzhou, what greeted him was his ears full of crying and his eyes full of mourning.
All the members of the four major families, including the Wang family, who participated in the Songjiang uprising, were detained in Nanjing to await judgment. Almost all their family property and land were confiscated; all men within the fifth clan had their honors and honors stripped away by the court.
The major wealthy families and literary leaders who had been in close contact with the four criminal families were all stunned, as Zhu Yijun expected, and became as mute as quails. Government officials at all levels, including Pan Jixun and the Minister of River Management, commanded the gentry from all over the country as if they were arms and legs, and no one dared to defy the rules.
What makes these four families extremely lucky is that when the court auctioned the salt fields for the third time last year, each family took out some of their old capital and bought some salt fields. In addition, the court did not confiscate the sacrificial fields, so these families still No one lives on the streets.
The luxurious enjoyment of Zhongming Dingshi was gone in one fell swoop. The gold, stones, antiques, books collected over the years, as well as the massive gold and silver accumulated in the silver cellar at home, all turned into clouds and were moved into the emperor's inner treasury by the Jin Yiwei.
And what happened to their family made many aristocratic families in Jiangnan who did not participate in the salt field auction almost feel regretful.
...
All of this kept Wang Shizhen in a trance - he often thought that maybe when he woke up tomorrow, he would find that it was all a nightmare.
However, what frightens him and wakes him up in the middle of the night every day is not the nightmare. Instead, it was the "Huang Ming Nanjing Daily" published daily in Nanjing - which could be sold to Suzhou by speedboat the next day.
Public opinion is sweeping across the country like a mountain, sweeping all the so-called "Scholar's Clear Discussions" in Jiangnan into the dustbin of history.
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