105: Chapter 105 When the youth are strong, the nation is strong.

The people Li Si could assemble were all master-level figures with the finest craftsmanship.

After being recruited by Li Si, they resided within his manor.

Li Si had someone bring these masters to meet Zhao Fusu.

"This is His Majesty the Head of State."

Li Si introduced Zhao Fusu to the masters.

"Greetings, Your Majesty the Paramount Leader."

Over a dozen masters dressed in hemp clothing immediately bowed to Zhao Fusu.

"Greetings, masters."

Zhao Fusu said, "I need to produce a large quantity of Movable Type with uniform specifications and relatively small dimensions."

"Movable Type?"

Whether they were masters of ceramics or seals, none of them understood what Zhao Fusu meant.

"This Movable Type works like this."

Zhao Fusu began to explain Movable Type to them.

"Use sticky clay to make uniform blanks. On one end, carve a single character in reverse. The height of the raised strokes should be like the thickness of a copper coin's edge. Then, bake them hard with fire to become individual clay Movable Type pieces."

"Oh!"

After hearing Zhao Fusu's explanation, the masters nodded in understanding.

Zhao Fusu picked up a newspaper and said, "Look at the size of these characters. The Movable Type you produce should be crafted according to this size."

Both the ceramic masters and the seal masters stepped forward to look at the font size on the newspaper.

It was a bit small.

The masters frowned slightly.

The font on a newspaper couldn't be too large; it was just enough for reading. Elderly people would need reading glasses to see clearly what was written.

This was very delicate work.

Indeed, only master-level figures like them would have a way to make Movable Type so finely.

Zhao Fusu continued, "For each common character, craft fifty pieces of Movable Type. As for rare characters, we will craft them as they are encountered."

If there were 2,500 common characters and fifty pieces were crafted for each, that would require 125,000 pieces of Movable Type.

This workload was quite substantial!

Zhao Fusu looked at Li Si and said, "Construct a Movable Type manufacturing workshop next to the Great Qin Empire General Administration of Press and Publication to produce the type."

"This way, it will be convenient to produce whatever Movable Type is needed."

"Mhm."

Li Si agreed.

"The newspaper and Movable Type printing will be the responsibility of the Parliament."

"The investment will also be handled by the Parliament."

Zhao Fusu did not intend to invest his own money into the newspaper and Movable Type printing.

He was collaborating with Li Si and the others to do it.

Once the newspaper and Movable Type printing were established, there would certainly be immense profits.

The Movable Type printing factory could also print paper books for sale.

Zhao Fusu believed that many nobles—and even commoners at the bottom—would want to buy books.

In the Qin Dynasty, one became an official through recommendation.

Becoming an official was equivalent to a carp leaping over the Dragon Gate.

But to be recommended, besides having connections, you had to have knowledge yourself.

Your knowledge had to be recognized by many, and you needed a certain reputation.

Only then would someone have a way to recommend you.

To gain knowledge, one had to learn from books.

The content recorded in a single book was comparable to that of a hundred catties of bamboo slips.

The cost of books was far lower than bamboo slips, allowing the price to be kept very low.

Even more people would want to buy them.

However, he didn't plan to take everything on himself.

Firstly, his focus was on the development of heavy industry; he didn't have enough energy to be fully responsible for the newspaper and book publishing business.

Secondly, he didn't have the money to run the newspaper and book publishing business.

But he wasn't completely giving up the profits from the newspaper and book publishing either.

He decided to share the profits with the Parliament by taking a stake through technology.

Since the Parliament provided the people, the venue, and the equipment, and was also responsible for the main operations, Zhao Fusu did not plan to ask for too large a share from them.

Thirty percent was enough for him.

"Understood."

Who was Li Si? His vision was extremely sharp; how could he not see that newspapers and book publishing could earn massive profits?

It was entirely worth it for the Parliament to invest so much manpower and resources into the newspaper.

Moreover, newspapers could guide public opinion.

The methods of guiding public opinion in the Qin Dynasty were still quite primitive.

For instance, to make Xiang Yu move the capital to Pengcheng, Zhang Liang specifically composed a nursery rhyme.

"Today there is a man, ringing a bell next door; only his voice is heard, but his form is not seen. To achieve wealth and honor without returning to one's hometown is like walking in the dark wearing embroidered clothes."

Then there was Chen Sheng stuffing notes into fish bellies, Wu Guang mimicking a fox's cry at night, and Liu Bang's slaying of the white snake.

"After you have produced the Movable Type, you will begin typesetting."

Zhao Fusu spoke of the specific process.

"On an iron plate with a frame around it, spread a layer of adhesive made of pine resin, wax, and paper ash. Then, pick out the required clay Movable Type pieces one by one from the spare wooden grids and arrange them into the frame."

"Once a frame is full, it becomes a plate. Then bake it with fire until the adhesive melts slightly, and use a flat board to press the surface level. After the adhesive cools and solidifies, it becomes the printing plate."

"The next step is printing. Brush ink onto the plate, cover it with paper, and lightly brush the back of the paper with a palm brush so the ink is evenly printed. Peel off the paper, and a page of a book is printed."

"Finally, there is disassembly."

"After printing, bake the iron plate again until the adhesive melts. Remove the Movable Type and place them back into their respective wooden grids for the next typesetting."

"Mhm."

The masters all nodded.

The difficulty of typesetting and printing wasn't high; the main challenge lay in producing the Movable Type, which was delicate work.

After arranging the research and development of Movable Type printing, Zhao Fusu's eyes also revealed a look of anticipation.

Once Movable Type printing was successfully developed, it would greatly improve the efficiency of printing books, allowing them to be copied more quickly and in larger quantities.

The increase in the number of books would also lower the cost of learning, giving more people the opportunity to receive an education and raising the cultural level of society.

If the youth are strong, the nation is strong!

Speaking of education.

Zhao Fusu narrowed his eyes slightly.

In this regard, he had to start making plans.

He was going to set aside a sum of money to build the New Oriental School.

Not to train New Oriental chefs.

He was going to teach bilingualism.

Simplified characters and lesser seal script.

One only needed to be able to recognize the lesser seal script, but for simplified characters, writing was required.

The pronunciation of simplified characters and lesser seal script was the same.

Great Qin's "Mandarin" was Elegant Speech (Yayan). Its phonological system was the Old Chinese system, and to this day, no dialect can fully correspond to it.

Elegant Speech was based on the local languages of the Zhou Dynasty, with the language of the Zhou capital serving as the national Elegant Speech of that time.

During the Qin and Han periods, Elegant Speech gradually took shape and was perfected through dynastic unification, becoming the official language.

Zhao Fusu not only wanted to teach Elegant Speech in the New Oriental School but also modern Mandarin.

To learn Elegant Speech, usually the teacher would speak, and the students would repeat after them.

Or it was memorized through nursery rhymes.

In terms of learning pronunciation, it certainly wasn't as fast as using pinyin.

Modern Mandarin used pinyin for phonetic notation.

Of course, Elegant Speech could also be noted with pinyin, but Zhao Fusu had never encountered that.

He could use the pronunciation methods of modern Mandarin and the pinyin alphabet directly.

As long as the children of Great Qin learned the pronunciation of initials and finals, they could perform phonetic spelling.

Afterward, he could also use pinyin to create dictionaries.

When Great Qin's children encountered a character they didn't know, they could just look it up in the Dictionary.

Zhao Fusu's plan was that once there were enough Great Qin people who knew simplified chinese characters and spoke modern Mandarin, they could replace the lesser seal script and Elegant Speech.

The lesser seal script was still too difficult to write; it wasn't as easy to write and promote as simplified chinese characters.