Li Yu is currently with Fan Xiren in Rongbaozhai, which specializes in selling the Four Treasures of the Study.
He originally wanted to ask him about a place to buy some manuscript paper, but he didn't expect Fan Xiren to directly drag him here!
What kind of international joke are you kidding me? How can I afford this?
Li Yu had seen Rongbaozhai when he went to Liulichang with a rich classmate before. It occupied almost half of Liulichang West Street. The things inside were quite high-end, and every Chinese painting was made of
Counting thousands.
Speaking of which, Rongbaozhai has been operating the Four Treasures of the Study for three to four hundred years. It is an absolutely time-honored brand. Its original name was Songzhuzhai.
During the Opium War, Songzhuzhai was severely damaged by the war, but the emaciated camel was bigger than a horse, and it was well-known in the literary circle. So the original name of the store was changed from "Songzhuzhai" to "Rongbaozhai" and invited
The great calligrapher Lu Runxiang, who was the number one scholar in the Tongzhi period, came up with the name of the shop with three characters, and soon the business became prosperous.
The products at Rongbaozhai are good, but they are so expensive!
Fan Xiren is a kid from a rich family and doesn't care about money. When he walked in, he took a fancy to the rice paper placed on the shelf.
"Boss, how do you sell this ream of paper (500 pieces)?"
The receptionist replied: "Sir, you have good eyesight. The rice paper you are holding is produced in Jingxian County, Anhui Province. It just arrived yesterday. It is the best rice paper in our store. It only costs 1,300 yuan per order."
Fan Xiren touched the paper and said: "It is indeed a good thing. Is the price still negotiable?"
The clerk had a very sharp eye, and he could tell at a glance that Fan Xiren was definitely interested in it, so he immediately started selling: "Sir, the land transportation is not smooth now, and there are not many Haosheng brochures that can be shipped. If you don't take it with me today,
, maybe it will be gone tomorrow.”
Fan Xiren only took a few seconds to make up his mind: "Okay, I want this paper."
Really bad at bargaining!
The waiter immediately wrapped him up and said sweetly: "I wish the guest officer will improve his studies and go to high school as soon as possible."
"High school or middle school. I'm not going to take the Jinshi exam now. I'm going to be a high school if I can get into the Capital University."
Only then did Fan Xiren realize that Li Yu was standing next to him and didn't move at all, "What's wrong, Brother Li, this is the best store in the capital."
Just because this is the best store!
Li Yu thought to himself that 500 pieces of paper would be close to one tael of silver, which would be enough for him to eat mutton noodles for a month! His current net worth is only 2 taels of silver, and he asked Ding Haoliang to advance it in advance. He can't spend half of it just to buy some paper.
He instantly understood the reason why Zeng Guofan spent 4,000 yuan to buy "The Complete Book of Zhu Xi".
Of course, the diary expert also records the huge expense of paper. In his diary, he once recorded that he spent 2,000 pieces of paper to buy a post.
——What about "poor" scholars? It was not easy to be a scholar in ancient times!
Li Yu hesitated and said: "I...want to buy smaller and thicker manuscript paper."
The clerk was very clever and immediately said: "Sir, do you want letter paper? Of course our store has it! Look at this, it is high-quality letter paper, produced in Tianjin, Zhili Province, and it costs 1,400 pieces per ream."
Well, this one is more expensive because of its smaller size.
Li Yu looked confused: "Is there any manuscript paper with smaller grid spacing and arranged horizontally?"
"The guest wants paper from foreigners!" said the waiter, who seemed to be less enthusiastic than before. "We don't have anything from foreigners in our store."
Li Yu was relieved, but he didn't know the price, if any.
Fan Xiren felt it was a pity and advised: "Brother Li, the thickness of the letter paper is actually okay. After all, it belongs to Rongbaozhai..."
Li Yu quickly waved his hand: "Thank you, brother, I'm just used to it."
The two of them visited a few more stores, but couldn't find any that sold this kind of manuscript paper. Not only the manuscript paper, but also the pens were not sold.
There was no other way, so Li Yu had to take advantage of the time when the Tongwen Library was empty and went there to find some. Most of them were used by foreign teachers in the past, so he grabbed a small stack.
As for the pen, luckily I still have a pencil.
Returning to the Third West Courtyard of Prince Qing's Mansion, Li Yu sat at the table and began to think carefully about what kind of article he wanted to write.
Last year, in 1901, the first-ever Nobel Prize had just been awarded. The physics prize was awarded to Röntgen for his discovery of X-rays.
The most popular thing in Western academia right now is rays. Almost all universities and laboratories have built X-ray machines to take pictures of this and that.
It’s so interesting to pat someone and then swipe them to reveal a skeleton!
Li Yu decided to start with it and get a wave of traffic!
Spreading out the manuscript paper, Li Yu held the pencil and quickly started writing in beautiful English handwriting:
"X-rays were discovered six years ago. As a pioneer discovery of radioactivity, they are great. Here, I would like to make the following analysis of the properties of X-rays from my personal point of view."
"..."
Even though everyone knows about X-rays now, the top scientists at that time didn't know what X-rays were, or even whether they were electromagnetic waves or particles.
Moreover, at this time, the atomic model had not yet appeared, and even the original plum pudding model had not been born, so it was impossible to fundamentally explain the cause of X-rays. Li Yu could only write about its related properties in a popular way.
In the article, he first discussed the principle of X-ray imaging, which is because the density of human tissue is different and the degree of absorption of X-rays is different.
Then I wrote in detail how to make a simple set of X-ray equipment and made a sketch.
These are acceptable to everyone and are very tenable.
Then he used the "existing theories" at the time, such as Maxwell's equations and the theories of Faraday and others, to conduct deductions and predicted that X-rays were an electromagnetic wave!
Li Yu also calculated the frequency and wavelength of X-rays, and also gave methods on how to verify his theory: Since the frequency of X-rays is extremely high and the wavelength is extremely short, he proposed that the neatly arranged atoms in the crystal can be used to conduct diffraction experiments.
Finally, Li Yuze focused on explaining the harm of X-rays, because at that time no one really knew how harmful its powerful energy could be to the human body.
He strongly appealed to all scientific researchers to control the direction of rays as much as possible to avoid irradiating the human body!
All in all, I wrote 20,000 to 30,000 words without realizing it.
Fortunately, these things are not difficult for him. After all, any high school student now knows that X-rays are electromagnetic waves. However, it is more troublesome to verify and derive them. He also has to avoid the atomic model theory as much as possible, so it took a lot of time.
A lot of space.
After Li Yu finished the manuscript, he was very satisfied with the article in his hand. He copied it again in beautiful continuous printing. It was almost evening when he finished the article.