: Thousands of Poverty and Fifty ()

This old man who reads "The Biography of Ruyijun" has a short beard in his green robe. He is about fifty years old. His face is clear and his ten fingers are slender and dry. He holds the book in one hand and gently twists the short beard under his jaw with the other. He looks quite contented and doesn't seem to notice Zheng Xiaoguan who is beside him.

Zheng Guofan stood by the old man for a while and became more and more embarrassed. Why? The version of "The Biography of Ruyijun" that the old man read was still an embroidered image version.

What is an embroidered image version? It has a large number of exquisite illustrations. Because it is outlined with lines and is exquisitely drawn, it is called embroidered images. For example, the famous Chongzhen version of "Jin Ping Mei" in later generations has 200 illustrations, and there are fewer illustrations. There are illustrations in front of each chapter directory, which is called the full picture version.

There is also a difference between this embroidered image and an embroidered image. One is a printed book, which is the so-called woodblock print in later generations, and there is also a hardcover embroidered image, which is hand-painted. Most of them are drawn by girls from ordinary families in coastal areas at home. Many notes from Ming people record similar situations, saying that families in Ningbo, Suzhou, Wenzhou and other places, their daughter's houses were sitting at the window to depict them, and people are not ashamed of seeing it.

This is the typical market economy of the Ming Dynasty. People in the Ming Dynasty need to get married for sexual enlightenment. Generally, the mother gives it to their daughter when their daughter gets married. The vigorous novel publishing requires a lot of illustrations. Scholars are not willing to draw these pictures. However, the coastal people have broadened their horizons due to the Ming Dynasty and overseas trade, and they are not afraid of paintings by female relatives at home. What's more, they can make money, so why not do it?

The old man looked at the hardcover embroidered image of Ruyijun Biography. It is not necessarily true that the paintings are vivid. From the perspective of Zheng Guofan, it is much worse than the illustrations in later generations. The proportion of characters is mostly out of tune, but the depiction is delicate and delicate, and it is indeed quite exquisite.

He looked around curiously for a while, and during the period, there were about seven or eight people who were in short shirts, all of whom were wearing short shirts. It can be seen that the literacy rate was quite high at this time. However, in the words of Master Gao, recognizing characters and reading are two different concepts. When ordinary people were young, they had to call recognizing characters and passing on their families through farming and reading, but they had no fame and fortune. Only those who were like Zheng Xiaoguan were qualified to call them scholars.

Every person who borrows books uses a piece of mulberry paper. The old man will carefully copy the bibliography of the book to be borrowed on the paper, then fold the mulberry paper on the book of his own accounting, and use a wooden stamp to poke a seal. In this way, there will be half a seal on his own account book and mulberry paper. Then he will hold the mulberry paper in the book and hand it to the person who borrows books. Zheng Guofan looked at it, thinking that this was probably a borrowing card!

Zheng Guofan was wearing a moon-white Confucian robe with his hands behind his back and looking around. This moon-white Confucian robe sounded elegant. At first glance, he felt that he had a literary character. But in fact, the so-called moon-white is the true color of cloth. In other words, it is so poor that he can't afford to buy dyed cloth. Wearing a moon-white Confucian robe is often the best footnote to the word "poverty".

After the old man sent away the last borrowed book, he frowned when he saw Zheng Guofan still looking around. Although Zheng Guofan was old, with red lips and white teeth, he looked like a half-aged child, but he was wearing a Confucian shirt and tied a Confucian belt. Although the Confucian shirt was white in the moon, he knew that his family was in poor condition at first glance, but he also brought a servant, so he didn't seem to be wielding away as if he was ordinary people.

"This little official." The old shop owner asked. The old shop owner called him a little official. Many people also called Zheng Guofan the little official of the Zheng family. This is a kind of praise for the Ming Dynasty, which means a beautiful boy. For example, Westerners call children a little angel, and there is a kind of intimacy in it. Of course, in a few decades, this word will deteriorate and become a homosexual, like the word "lady of later generations".

"But you want to sell Shiwen?" The old shop owner looked at Zheng Guofanyue's white Confucian shirt and thought he was poor. At this time, the bookstore was generally not separated from printing books. In other words, he rented books, sold books, and printed books, and took the route of a small private workshop.

The article is the test paper for scholars to pass the exam. During the Chenghua year, the Hangzhou Tongzhe Shen Cheng engraved a book of the article, which was re-engraved seven times in three years. The money was so jealous that it soon formed a trend, similar to the "Guidelines for College Entrance Examination" and "Collection of College Entrance Examination Questions" of later generations. Bookstore owners followed suit, while scholars flocked to it.

Of course, there are many people who oppose it, believing that this is a shortcut to Zhongnan, abandoning the right path of Confucianism, not the right path of scholars, and even causing trouble to the court to "burn out all the texts in the bookstore when printing them", but it cannot withstand the needs of the people. Who doesn't want their children to be able to read a fortune? Even if they can't be an official, they can be exempted from taxes and labor. As for the right path of Confucianism, how much is that thing sold? How much is a pound of silver? How many Yongle Tongbao has to do with us ordinary people?

Zheng Guofan didn't understand what Shiwen meant for a while. He looked at the old shop owner and smiled, saying, "Old sir, I want to ask for something, how much does a word cost for this article?"

The old shop owner looked up and down at him, twisted his beard, and raised five fingers.

A word of five cents? Zheng Guofan was surprised and happy. Then he thought, "No, if it is really so good, there will be no more books describing poor scholars in the future."

He blinked and tried to stretch out his hand, "Thousand words, five hundred words?"

"Hahaha!" The old shop owner laughed, "Young husband is really good at joking." The tone of the name changed. The name "Little Official" is like a marketing lady in a hypermarket selling men's cosmetics "Handsome guy, this one is very good". Changing the "Little Queen" means that the marketing lady finds that the customer seems to have no money and changes her face and says, "Comrade, this one is very expensive."

Looking at the old shop owner's contempt, Zheng Guofan immediately understood, "Okay, I know, I said the relationship is expensive, I said it's so easy to sell, and Pu Songling would not have been so miserable in later generations.

"Thousand words and fifty words." He said to himself, and then thought to himself that he had read a paper on the price of the Ming Dynasty. It was explained that one cent of dynasty is about 30 cents, and fifty words and fifty words and fifty words, that is, fifteen yuan for a thousand words.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help frowning. Damn, this is too cheap. Brother, I'm not the price! The price fell by twenty times.

He frowned there, rubbed his face and smiled bitterly. The old man first curled his lips and seemed to sneer. However, even though he was a businessman, he was also a seed of study, so he coughed twice and said, "Little husband, what I said is, one article is a timely article, five cents."

"What?" Zheng Guofan seemed to be struck by lightning, and his mouth twitched, "One article? Five cents?"

Seeing his expression, the old shop owner smiled, "My little husband, the price is two cents to three cents at this time. I think my little husband is not a good person, so he only offers five cents." What he meant was, I think you look good, and I guess you are a little talented, so I would like to give you a high price of two cents.
Chapter completed!