The gold and silver coins worth three million guan were finally issued, but in fact there were not many. The five guanfangs that undertake the issuance of gold and silver coins all had their own large customers. They notified the big customers to purchase first. As a result, after the wealthy and wealthy families bought the gold and silver coins, they each stored them, and they were not circulated in the market at all. Only more than 200,000 gold and silver coins worth three million guan appeared in the market, but they all disappeared in less than a month.

After all, the war is still going on, the world is far from unified, and it is still a chaotic world. People with good conditions want to store some gold and silver. The emergence of gold and silver just meets the storage needs.

This result was really beyond everyone's expectations. None of the various plans carefully prepared before were used. Even Pan Liao ridiculed himself. He would have sold gold and silver ingots directly if he had known it. Why would he have been working hard to mint money?

However, with three million guan, the two major projects implemented by Guo Song, the camel project and the sea ship project, began to be fully launched.

By October, the first batch of 20,000 camels arrived in Zhangye, and they used wartime materials transportation between Lanzhou and Zhangye.

It was gradually October. On the morning of that day, the Bureau of Weights and Measures, which had been planned for three months, was officially listed. Literally, this is the department that manages weighing instruments and measuring instruments, but in fact, it is a department that specializes in formulating various manufacturing process standards and processes of the official workshop, which will definitely play a huge role in promoting the development of Datang handicraft industry.

In fact, this is not an innovation. Rulers of all dynasties have promoted the development of production technology, and attached particular importance to the promotion of agricultural technology. From the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, five major agricultural works, including "The Book of Victory", "The Essays of Qi Min", "The Book of Chen Fu Agricultural", "The Book of Wang Zhen Agricultural", and "The Complete Book of Agricultural Affairs" have appeared one after another.

As for handicrafts, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was a book called "Kaogong Ji", which recorded the various types of work and manufacturing processes of official handicrafts. By the Ming Dynasty, Song Yingxing wrote "The Heavenly Gong Kaiwu", which represents the peak of handicrafts. After it was passed on to Europe, it directly laid the foundation of European industry.

The first achievement of the Department of Weights and Metrics was printing, which was completed as early as the establishment of the Department of Weights and Metrics.

Guo Song has always wanted to vigorously promote official schools and let more children read and read. It does not mean that they must cultivate many excellent talents. No, as long as an ordinary person reads literacy, he has the courage to take his family to the city to explore. Otherwise, he will not know a word and cannot even understand the street signs and notices. It is difficult to have the courage to go out and can only live in a place he is familiar with.

However, the first obstacle encountered by promoting official schools is that there is not enough textbooks and paper pens and ink. It is one aspect to provide sufficient stationery and paper production, but promoting printing is also the top priority. Although woodblock printing was invented in the mid-Tang Dynasty, most books are still hand-copying, and there are still too few books printed.

In the afternoon, Guo Song, accompanied by a large group of officials, came to the official printing workshop to visit. This is an official printing workshop with a history of more than 100 years. It was found in the Sui Dynasty. There are currently more than 300 craftsmen. The famous woodblock printing technology was invented here.

Woodblock printing did not appear suddenly. It also gradually developed from the earliest inscriptions to plaque printing, and then slowly developed into wooden board printing, which lasted for hundreds of years. Generations of craftsmen have accumulated a lot of experience. These experiences are passed down by word of mouth, from master, apprentice, father and son, and have not formed a standard or standard.

Of course, there are many reasons for this. On the one hand, it is because of the secret skills that are self-recognized. Most old craftsmen will never easily impart the skills of eating to outsiders except their apprentices and sons. On the other hand, it is because the craftsmen are from the bottom and most of them are illiterate. They can't understand them by writing them into books.

"The most prosperous time here was when Empress Zetian was in power. At that time, there were more than a thousand people here, printing Buddhist scriptures day and night, and at least hundreds of thousands of Buddhist scriptures were printed and passed on to temples all over the world."

Of course, printing requires technology. It must be printed with clear black characters and unstained ink. This involves how much ink is used, the choice of paper, and the grasp of the heat. Otherwise, inexperienced apprentices will do it, ensuring that the printing is a mess. However, the core of the technology in printing is plate making, which is what Guo Song is most concerned about.

"Then aren't there a large number of carved plates piled up here?" Guo Song said with a smile.

"That's right, please follow me."

Guo Song came to the backyard, which was a large yard. The corner of the yard was filled with discarded carvings, all of which were failed carving boards, piled up like hills.

There were three large houses in front. One of them opened the lock and opened the door. Guo Song walked into the house surrounded by people. There were rows of wooden frames filled with stacks of carved plates. Guo Song picked up a board, which was a carved plate of the Diamond Sutra. The carved plates were vigorous and powerful. The wood was made of sturdy jujube wood, which was very black and shiny. It seemed that it was a bit old.

"This is the Diamond Sutra engraved during the Tianbao period. In fact, we originally had three sets of Diamond Sutra boards. The boards in the Shenlong period were damaged by insects, and only two were left. Now the boards from the Dali period were printed in front, and this set of boards from the Tianbao period was used as a backup."

"How many sets of boards are there in total?" Guo Song asked.

"There are 2,000 sets of boards here, mainly Buddhism, Taoist scriptures and Confucian scriptures, which are commonly used boards. Many of the boards entrustment of poems and essays engraved by individuals are not here. We also have a warehouse in Feng'anfang, and there are four or five thousand sets of boards there, but they are not used much. It's a pity that they are destroyed, so they are piled there."

Guo Song nodded and walked around the warehouse. The strong smell of Chen Mo inside made everyone feel a little overwhelmed. Everyone didn't stay there for a long time and left the warehouse.

"Where is that?" Guo Song asked, pointing to a larger yard to the right.

"Report to Your Highness, it is the carving and the place for plate making."

"Let's go! Look."

Guo Song was immediately interested and brought everyone to the carving institute. There were three large rooms here, which were extremely quiet. He saw more than twenty carving makers sitting inside, carving boards with all concentration.

Seeing that distinguished guests came in, all the craftsmen put down their carving knives.

Guo Song took a look and found that the craftsmen inside were not young, and they were basically middle-aged and had not seen any young people in their twenties or thirties.

"Do they don't have apprentices?" Guo Song asked strangely.

"There are all apprentices, but the apprentices are not here. They are learning carving in Feng'anfang. Here they are making carvings. The Ministry of the Ministry of Education commissioned us to print three thousand copies of the "Dibao".

Guo Song said in a little puzzled manner: "At most five boards are enough for the mansion newspaper. Do so many people need to carve it together?"

"Your Highness doesn't know that the Ministry of the Ministry of State had to print it early the morning after tomorrow. We had to break the five boards into twenty small pieces, each carve a small piece, and then put it together to print it."

This method is good. Guo Song was immediately interested and asked quickly: "Is it because he carved a wrong word, so he would not have to invalidate the entire board, just a small piece of it?"

"Report to Your Highness, that's exactly what it is."

After hesitating, the manager sighed again and said, "But it's a pity that a small piece will also cost a lot of manpower and material resources."

"Listen to me!"

Guo Song clapped his palm and smiled at more than 20 craftsmen: "Let's discuss it and see if there is a better way to solve this problem."

King Jin spoke, everyone calmed down. Guo Song picked up a small board and said, "I think, what would happen if every word on the board was turned into movable type?"

The officials next to them couldn't understand what King Jin was saying, but the professional craftsmen understood as soon as they heard it. The room suddenly became noisy. King Jin's suggestions came too suddenly. Every craftsman's mind was activated and he was talking to each other.

What Guo Song said was of course movable type printing. After the invention of movable type printing in the Northern Song Dynasty, it has actually not been paid attention to because it is not practical and unnecessary.

Just imagine, when we use movable characters to spell an article, we need to search for thousands of Chinese characters for a long time. Not to mention the workload of typing, what if a few of the same characters appear in an article? How many 'words', 'zi'' are needed to print a book "The Analects of Confucius"?

After printing, you have to remove the movable type that you have worked hard to piece together. You have to print something else. Just now, if the shopkeeper suddenly runs away and says, "You have to print fifty more copies."

Or you have to print multiple books at the same time, each with hundreds of pages. How many sets of movable types do you have to prepare?

It is not necessary to say that movable type is because a set of carved plates can be used for many years. If you print a book called "The Analects of Confucius", you only need to prepare a set of carved plates, and you can print as many books as you want. If you don't have carved plates, you can still borrow them.

There are so many classic Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhist scriptures from ancient times to the present, and there is no need to prepare many carved versions, just private printed collections or spend money to make carved versions, and you can print as many copies.

In fact, movable type printing is more suitable for the West, with only a few dozen letters, which are easy to spell and find, especially after the letter typewriter appears, the real advantages of movable type are fully reflected.

But what Guo Song mentioned at this time was another concept, that is, to improve the effectiveness of the carving board. If a word is engraved in the carving board, the entire board will be scrapped, and all of them were engraved in vain before.

But if it is engraved by word, and finally it is made into a complete carved plate, and it is sealed with a lid when not in use, and it will not be taken apart. It is still used as a carved plate. If you engrave a wrong word, you only need to engrave another word.
Chapter completed!