Li Zhi followed Feng Bangning to see the typesetting room, and then went into the printing room to have a look. He saw that there were exactly the same machines with wooden hoops and iron hoops placed inside the room. They looked strange and he didn't know how to use them.
Seeing that Li Zhi wanted to ask, 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 a black clay put underneath.
The same iron plate supports it.
Li Zhi pointed to the iron plate and asked Feng Bangning: "What is this?"
Feng Bangning explained: "This is a mold, and the plate is filled with rosin, wax and other things mixed together. 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 was gone from the hourglass. 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 the movable type, and pulled out the iron plate. When Li Zhi went 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 does 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. He took off two leather hammers with wooden handles from the side of the machine, which were greasy with black oil, and then used the two leather hammers to lightly
Lightly tap the prepared lettering template.
Feng Bangning said to Li Zhi: "Brother, this is the step of filling 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
The bread is covered with soft crust, and the inside is probably a solid iron rod. It's hard for me to hold it even 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 to roll it over, and then the assistant lifted the flat plate. A page full of handwriting was ready.
become.
Remove the flat plate of the printed paper here? Another assistant next to you puts in the hollow paper flat plate from the other side. The roller rolls in the opposite direction. Another page is printed. Wait until this one is printed? The previous assistant
A new flat plate has been replaced, 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 faint, the worker filled in the ink again. While waiting for him to fill in the ink, two workers nearby put the sheets of paper into the hollow wooden board, flattened them and pressed them.
Li Zhi secretly counted the time, and found that a machine with three people waiting on it printed more than a hundred sheets in one stick of incense. It was really as fast as lightning. He sighed and said: "What a wonderful thing? Tianji Pavilion made this money"
A share of money? You deserve it!”
...
The eighteenth day of June in the third year of Wanli is a day that Nanjing citizens have talked about for decades. Due to the unfavorable weather, it was a cloudy day, 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 the majestic and majestic prose "Songjiang Civil War? Whose fault?" polished by Li Zhi struck the hearts of Jiangnan people like thunder!
Then for three days in a row, the "Huangming Nanjing Daily" published three 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. When Feng Bangning and Li Zhi stabbed it with a big stick, it became a mess. And what followed? "Huangming Nanjing Daily" became completely popular, and the fire 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 merchants with shops in the city had subscribed, and some had large subscriptions.
The restaurant family even ordered a dozen copies, and the total sales of the newspaper finally stabilized at around 10,000 copies. Later, businessmen and travelers from neighboring state capitals such as Susong and Hangzhou got wind of the news, and representatives from various companies 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 were the four powerful Jiangnan families with deep roots. They were surrounded and uprooted by troops from the Jinyiwei Jiangnan Bureau for manipulating public opinion, coercing 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. The imperial envoy Hai Rui did not detain the suspects, but released them after the investigation was completed.
After waiting in fear for a month and a half, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that the imperial court had not responded. The imperial court paid taxes to Jiangnan. It seemed that the imperial court's generous nobles might not be able to kill them. What's more, now there are people in the rivers and rivers.
We have made a mistake in promoting water conservancy projects. Wouldn’t it be enough to donate more food and provide more work?
As a result, 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 "Huang Ming 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 launched a large-scale war, which frightened all the noble families. The four families whose houses were confiscated had many melons and branches, and had many economic contacts with various ethnic groups in the south of the Yangtze River. For a while, the south of the Yangtze River was in a state of panic, and all the vegetation was covered with soldiers.
The Zhou and Gao families are just fine, but they have a lot of money and land, and a few Jinshi candidates are not very promising. The Dong and Wang families are famous families that have produced many prominent officials.
"Family" enjoyed great fame in the south of the Yangtze River. During the Jiajing Dynasty alone, the Dong family had two assistant ministers, Tian Lian Qianmo, who could be called a wealthy family.
The Wang family is even worse. At this time, Wang Shizhen was given the title of Censor of the Duchayuan Youqiandu and an important minister who supervised 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
During the Jiajing Dynasty, Yan Xianfeng was overthrown, and Gong Lun died unjustly.
Wang Shizhen was like Mount Tai and Beidou in Shilin. Together with Li Panlong, Xu Zhongxing, Liang Youyu, Zongchen, Xie Zhen, and Wu Guolun, he was known as the "Last Seven Sons" of the dynasty, and they were the leaders 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, Songjiang Xujie, Mr. Xu, published a signed article in Nanjing Daily [Biquge www.biqugexx.co], linking the four families and instigating the Xu family to lead the civil uprising.
——This counterattack directly knocked the four families into the abyss, with no hope of recovery.
The imperial edict arrived in Yunyang in a hurry, and Wang Shizhen was dismissed 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 edict, his head was empty, and he fell to the ground unconscious.
On August 20th of the third year of Wanli, when the whole of Jiangnan was still troubled by the "Songjiang Slave Rebellion", the imperial court finally ended the investigation of Wang Shizhen and acquitted him. When he walked out of prison, he returned to Taicang, Suzhou
Finally, what greeted him was his ears full of crying and his eyes full of mourning for his heir.
All those involved in the Songjiang Civil War from the four major families, including the Wang family, were detained in Nanjing to await judgment. Almost all their family property and land were confiscated; all men within the fifth class had their honors and honors stripped away by the court.
As Zhu Yijun expected, the major wealthy families and literary leaders who had had close contact with the four criminal families were all stunned and silent as quails. Officials at all levels, including Pan Jixun, the minister of co-management of the river, commanded the wealthy gentry from all over the country.
, they are all like arms and fingers, and no one dares to defy the odds.
What makes these four families extremely fortunate is that when the imperial court auctioned the salt fields for the third time last year, each family used some of their old capital to buy some salt fields; in addition, the imperial court did not confiscate the sacrificial fields, so these families still
No one lives on the streets.
The luxurious enjoyment of Zhong Ming Ding Shi 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.
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 frightened him and woke him up in the middle of the night every day was not the nightmare. It was the "Huang Ming Nanjing Daily" published in Nanjing every day - which could be sold to Suzhou by fast ship the next day.
Public opinion is sweeping across the country like a mountain, sweeping all the so-called "Scholar's Qing Discussions" in Jiangnan into the garbage heap of history.