There is a Chaozi Alley in Mingyufang in the west part of the inner city. Chaozi is a curtain made of reed stalks. There are a large number of shops selling chaozi in this alley, so it is called Chaozi Alley.

On this day, the crown prince's guard of honor came to Chaizi Hutong, making the whole street noisy.

As soon as he arrived at the east entrance of Chaizi Hutong, Zhu Cixi saw a royal temple - Longchang Temple, the Protector of the Country. This temple was built in the 45th year of Wanli.

The mountain gate is one room wide, and the forehead of the stone gate is engraved with "Edict to build the National Protector Saint Zuo Longchang Temple". Zhu Cixiang hesitated for a while, and finally decided to enter the temple to have a look.

The main temple faces south, and several halls are magnificent and full of incense. There is a tall bell tower in the temple, which is large in scale and majestic, showing the style of the Ming Dynasty.

The architectural style of the early Ming Dynasty was similar to that of the Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty, simple and majestic. The architectural style of the mid-Ming Dynasty was famous for its rigor, while the architectural style of the late Ming Dynasty tended to be cumbersome.

There is also a bronze Buddha statue nearly five meters high in the center of Zuo Longchang Temple, the protector of the country. There is a thousand-petal rosette underneath, with a small Buddha cast on each petal. It is called "Thousand Buddhas Surrounding Pilu".

Zhu Cixiang first went to the Daqian Buddha Hall to burn a few sticks of incense and paid his respects, and then visited several major halls such as the Tianwang Hall. This temple was only built twenty years ago, but it is well maintained and still looks new and solemn.

In later generations, the ancient temple in Xisibeishiao, Xicheng District, Beijing was the royal temple in front of us. However, due to the erosion of time and changes in history, the bell and drum towers of this temple in later generations have long been demolished.

The bronze five-direction Buddha in the Daqian Buddha Hall has been moved to Fayuan Temple for worship, and the other Buddha statues are gone. The Tianwang Hall, Daqian Buddha Hall, and the front west side hall are used as warehouses by some shops, and other temples are also used as residences. .

The Buddhist holy land in the past has become a large courtyard where all living beings live in later generations. Zhu Cixiang lamented that wars and dynasty changes have caused so many Chinese civilizations to be destroyed.

After leaving Longchang Temple of the Protector of the Nation, Zuo Zuo, Zhu Cixiang directly asked the guard of honor to go to the destination of his trip - the Han Jing Factory.

The Han Jing Factory, located in Chao Zi Hutong, was the royal printing factory of the Ming Dynasty. It was responsible for engraving and printing Buddhist scriptures, Confucian classics and court documents, as well as popular books such as "One Hundred Family Surnames".

Hearing that the Crown Prince's guard of honor was about to arrive at the Han Jing Factory, the director of the Han Jing Factory immediately ordered the inside and outside of the factory to be cleaned at full speed, and then led all officials and craftsmen to stand a hundred meters away from the gate to welcome the Crown Prince's arrival.

None of them could have imagined that the Crown Prince would come in person to the Hanjing Factory, an eighteenth-tier imperial institution with a very low presence! This was the first time that the Ming Dynasty had happened in more than two hundred years.

I remember that the biggest official who ever came to the Han Jing Factory was the right young eunuch of the fourth rank of the Li Jian. That dead eunuch came here to urge the printing of Buddhist scriptures. He looked very awesome.

The crown prince's guard of honor finally arrived, and the officials of the Hanjing Factory were very excited. They saluted cheerfully one by one. Under the guidance of the Sixth Grade Dianbook, the crown prince's guard of honor entered the Hanjing Factory in a hurry.

Zhu Cixiang ignored the enthusiastic officials and first briefly inspected the printing workshop of the Han Jing Factory.

He found that the scale of the Han Jing Factory was not large, covering an area of ​​just over a thousand square meters, with about a hundred craftsmen, and complete printing equipment.

Zhu Cixiang asked the manager of the Han Jing Factory who was accompanying him all the way: "Is the printing plate of the Han Jing Factory engraving or movable type?"

The manager of the Han Jing Factory is Shi Zhidong. He is forty-six years old this year. He is a sixth-grade Dian Shu and was born in Juren. Because he is pretty good at writing and calligraphy, he is familiar with Buddhist scriptures, and he has some connections in the capital, so he managed to get a job in the Han Jing Factory.

Part-time official.

After years of hard work, he finally made it to the top of the Hanjing Factory. Although he knew that there was no future in working as an errand in the Hanjing Factory, Shi Zhidong could only do this.

Nowadays, it is not valuable to recruit people. It is very difficult to get a serious job. It is good to have an official job.

The workload of the Han Jing Factory was very small, and he had a lot of time to study knowledge every day. Shi Zhidong could write anthologies and other things if he had nothing to do. If he wrote well, he could print a few copies himself and leave his name in history.

With this mentality, Shi Zhidong worked in Hanjing Factory for twenty years and knew everything about Hanjing Factory.

Seeing the Crown Prince's question, Shi Zhidong said respectfully: "Reporting to Your Highness, the Han Jing Factory has both printing and movable blocks, but engravings are more commonly used, because most of the scriptures and books that the palace requires to be printed are already engraved here.

Engraving is extremely convenient for printing, except for some urgently needed new scriptures and small manuscripts, which are printed with movable type."

Zhu Cihong nodded and understood that the so-called engraving meant carving the words on the board in advance. When printing the book, he first dipped a brush in ink and brushed it on the carved board.

Then cover the board with white paper, and use a clean brush to lightly brush the back of the paper. Take off the paper and the book will be printed one page at a time. After printing each page, bind it into a book.

A book was successfully printed.

Block printing was invented in the Tang Dynasty and became commonly used in the middle and late Tang Dynasty. Although movable type printing was invented in the Song Dynasty, block printing was still commonly used.

In letterpress printing, the characters are first made into a positive and negative character mold, and then the characters are selected according to the manuscript, arranged in a type plate, and printed with ink. After printing, the character mold is removed and left to be used again in the next printing.

The range of scriptures required by the royal family was limited, so it is no wonder that the Han Jing Factory still used the old-fashioned woodblock printing.

In fact, historically, whether in the Ming Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty, letterpress printing has never surpassed woodblock printing, and woodblock printing did not withdraw from the Chinese printing stage until the fall of the Qing Dynasty.

At this time, Wu Zhong, who was beside Zhu Cixiang, said: "Sir, our family has some doubts in our hearts. I wonder if you would be willing to explain something to us?"

Seeing the father-in-law beside the crown prince asking questions, Shi Zhidong dared not refuse and said hurriedly: "Father-in-law, please speak. I will tell you everything I know."

Wu Zhong asked curiously: "Although our family was born poor, we also know that someone invented movable type printing in the Song Dynasty. But why is this movable type printing more advanced than engraving printing and why do people still use engraving printing? Engraving requires two or three months in advance.

If you don’t have enough time to engrave, it shouldn’t be easier if you don’t have movable type printing, right?”

Zhu Cihong was also a little puzzled. Movable type printing had been invented for nearly a thousand years, but the mainstream printing in China until the end of the Qing Dynasty was still block printing, and movable type printing was rarely seen.

Shi Zhidong saw that what he knew was finally put to use, so he explained: "Back to my father-in-law, the requirements for letterpress printing are relatively high. If you use wooden molds to print about 200 books, the wooden molds will be soaked and swollen.

The handwriting becomes blurred.

For iron molds and lead molds, since the current mainstream ink is smoked ink as pigment, it is easy to turn into ink beads on iron molds and lead mold movable types, and it is easy to print a ball of ink.

To solve this problem, you must use highly absorbent paper. As a result, there will be ink marks on the back of the paper, making it impossible to print on both sides, which in turn increases the cost of printing. It is not as good as wooden movable type.

Only copper movable type molds can solve these problems well. However, there are not many copper mines in Ming Dynasty, and copper is the raw material for making currency. Copper type molds are too expensive and most people cannot afford them, so copper movable type cannot be used on a large scale.

The movable type plates used by our royal Han Jing Factory are copper molds. In addition to the Han Jing Factory, as early as a hundred years ago, copper movable type printing had become popular in the economically prosperous Jiangnan area.

The most famous among them are the Hua family and Anjia family in Wuxi, the Sun family in Suzhou, and the Zhang family in Nanjing. The books they printed and sold with copper movable type are widely circulated, and the printing effect is also very good."

Wu Zhong bowed his head and said: "We understand, thank you so much for clarifying this."

Zhu Cihong thought to himself that Shi Zhidong had a few brushes that could be used.
Chapter completed!