"I saw that the furnishings here are quite good, so I came here to take a look." Zhou Dongtian spoke a strange Cantonese Mandarin. Fortunately, there is not much difference between the Mandarin in this time and space and the Nanjing dialect, and the shopkeeper can still understand him even if he speaks slowly.
The environment here is really good. Pan Jianyuan's bookstore has a small courtyard between the shop house and the backyard door. There are some bamboos planted along the stone paths and various potted flowers on the ground. They are colorful under the spring sunshine.
scene.
In the blank space on the wall, a blue mottled sword hangs. Below is a rosewood table with piano bricks and a guqin. A Wanli-year imitation Xuande stove is curling up with green smoke, and a puff of
The fragrant and fragrant aroma floats faintly in the air.
"The master is very complimentary." The shopkeeper said with a smile, "Looking at the master, he must have a distinguished academic background."
Of course, there is no name for the subject. Zhou Dongtian is not a foreign intelligence agent, so there is no need to create a name for the subject. However, in ancient times, there was no nationally networked academic qualification inquiry system, and Guangdong is thousands of miles away. It is not difficult for Zhou to make up a fake identity and fake academic qualifications.
Dongtian did not dare to brag that he was a juren - the number of juren in each province was still limited, and Nanjing was the capital of the capital, with people from all provinces across the country. Bragging might be exposed, and it would not be a loss of face.
So he claimed to be a scholar - there are many more scholars than scholars, and there are many tricks in them.
"Oh, oh, look at me, my face is full of spring breeze, I will definitely win the provincial examination. Congratulations in advance, congratulations in advance!"
"Thank you. 'Don't write papers in the field', it just depends on luck."
"Mr. Zhou is coming to Jinling for a study tour. Do you want to choose a few new books on Wei Mo?" the bookstore shopkeeper speculated and recommended, "Xiao Lao, here are several books on Wei Mo hand-picked by Mr. Qi Shan. They are all very good.
Word……"
Mr. Qishan is Zhang Zilie. Not many people knew about this person in the old time. But Zhou Dongtian knew that when he was in the printing house, he used modern printing equipment to print some books, including the "Kangxi Dictionary". And one of the blueprints of the "Kangxi Dictionary"
"Zheng Zi Tong" is exactly the work of this Mr. Qi Shan.
Zhou Dongtian knew that Zhang Zilie was a student at the Nanjing Imperial College at the time and had never been admitted to the Jinshi. Judging from the tone of the bookstore owner, it was obvious that Mr. Qishan had a high level of attainment in the eight-part essay, so much so that the Wei Mo he was responsible for compiling became a kind of call to action.
He waved his hand: "No need. Do you have some new and interesting books here?"
"Why not?" The shopkeeper looked at Zhou Dongtian and Mei Lin. They were probably the children of wealthy businessmen in Guangdong. They had a lot of fame. They probably had their joints opened long ago in the examination room. For such people, reading books must first be novel. He thought for a while
, took a new book from the bookshelf, "I wonder if Mr. Zhou has read this book? It is a Thai-Spanish work."
Zhou Dongtian took a look and found that it was "Elements of Geometry" translated by Xu Guangqi. This book should have been published in 1607. It can still be bought in Nanjing now, but it seems that the sales of the book are not very good - ancient Chinese mathematics is in
Although he is very accomplished in algebra, he is relatively behind in geometry. Except for a very small number of people who are interested in such a book full of brand-new concepts and terms, I am afraid that few people are willing to read it.
"This book is really novel. It was compiled by Xu Shanghai, the Minister of Rites. It is said to be an original work by a Westerner, and translated by Xu Shangshu himself. But few people can understand it."
Zhou Dongtian opened it and looked at it. The printing of the book was very exquisite, and some chapters had pictures. He saw that "right angles", "obtuse angles", "similar triangles" were mentioned from time to time... Zhou Dongtian suddenly returned to junior high school. Times. It turns out that these terms existed at that time!
He did not know that these geometric terms, including the word geometry, were translated by Xu Guangqi.
Seeing that he was very interested, the shopkeeper quickly fetched other basic books and put them in a pile on the desk. Zhou Dongtian looked at them. Most of them were works by Xu Guangqi and some were translated by missionaries: there was "Sweet Potato Book", "Miscellaneous Agricultural Relics", "Drafts of Agricultural Books", "Taixi Water Law", "Hungai Tongxian Illustrated Commentary", etc. The categories are quite complex, including agricultural books - such as several works by Xu Guangqi; There are mathematics books: "Tongwen Suanzhi" and "The Meaning of Measurement"; there are also works on astronomy and hydraulics, and finally there are collections of aphorisms such as "On Friendship" by Matteo Ricci.
Zhou Dongtian looked through them one by one. In fact, he was not interested in the content of the books. These books were not technically superior to those in the big library. What he saw was the binding and printing of the books.
The characteristic of ancient books is that the characters are very large. The font size of these books is at least size 1 according to modern standards. Zhou Dongtian has always considered this question, why do ancient printed books use such large fonts? Some people say that this is Some people say that problems with printing technology are due to poor lighting in ancient times, and larger fonts must be used for easier reading.
Zhou Dongtian had no time to read the contents carefully, so he asked Cai Yibang to buy them all and returned home with a full load. When paying, he found that the books were quite expensive. According to the price level at that time, it was difficult for ordinary people to afford them. Even poor people wanted to buy all four books. The Five Classics are not an easy task. It is not surprising that readers in this time and space can enjoy various privileges - the money and time required to gain a reputation are destined to monopolize knowledge.
The owner of the bookshop made a good deal and was very happy. Zhou Dongtian took advantage of the situation and proposed that he wanted to see a workshop that printed books.
"The workshop is full of black ink. I'm afraid it has stained the clothes of the two husbands..." The shopkeeper was a little surprised by this request. There were many scholars who came to him to buy books with various personalities, but no one had ever been interested in printing books. I was interested in the workshop.
"No problem, these two are both good readers. They are very curious about how books are printed. Please ask the shopkeeper to be accommodating." Cai Yibang also helped to speak.
The shopkeeper thought for a moment, and found that there was no unknown person or thing in the workshop. Furthermore, there was no "secret skill" that could be kept secret about engraving and printing books. As long as he found a few engraving, printing and binding masters, he would know everything. It doesn't matter if a gentleman wants to take a look out of curiosity.
"Okay, let me lead the way." The shopkeeper stood up, gave the waiter a few words, and immediately led them to the backyard.
A group of people walked through the backyard gate and walked along the corridor. They were faced with a wall that had been eroded by wind and rain for a long time. The gatehouse stood tall and the cornices were raised. This is the printing workshop. The house is made of blue bricks, white walls and black tiles.
host.
Pushing the door and entering, there is a large courtyard, paved with bluestone slabs. The plane is in the shape of a back-shape, with a symmetrical central axis, with the main hall as the main body. The upper, middle and lower halls are connected, and there are one to three rows of wing rooms on both sides of the hall.
It serves as dormitories and workshops for workers. There is a pond to collect rainwater in the yard, and there is a sunbathing floor paved with rows of shelves.
Zhou Dongtian noticed that the halls here are very elevated, and there are high wind and fire walls between the courtyards. Printing books requires the use and storage of a large amount of wood, paper and books, all of which are flammable. The storage in the courtyards
The pool and the wind and fire walls that separate each courtyard play the role of fire prevention.
There are people busy in the hall and wing rooms, and there are people moving around carrying materials from time to time in the yard. In one house, someone is writing book samples based on the selected blueprint. Choosing a good blueprint is the first step in printing a good book.
Step. In addition to collecting the author's manuscripts, the blueprint is based on rare books from the past. In ancient times, there was no concept of copyright. No matter whether the works of modern or ancient people, as long as the bookstore owner thinks it is suitable, they can be used for publication.
Because good manuscripts are crucial, bookstore owners are often discerning copyists themselves, and are good at searching for useful manuscripts from old paper piles in old bookstores. Some bookstore owners make friends with famous bibliophiles to obtain their private collections.
All kinds of rare and rare books. In Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou there are also a group of so-called calligraphers who are literati and bibliophiles. Most of them are well-educated people and they are wealthy and powerful gentry themselves: such as once published
Hu Yinglong, a Nanjing bibliophile who published "Compendium of Materia Medica".
There are always more than a dozen copyists in Pan Jianyuan's bookstore. Contrary to Zhou Dongtian's imagination, they are all real "book copyists". Although they are literate and can write beautiful regular script - they can also write reverse script.
They have little literacy, and they do a completely mechanical job. Therefore, typos, omissions, typos, and even illiteracy often occur in ordinary books. Therefore, bookshop owners also have to hire people - but they usually use the word "extend".
This term means that several scribes act as editors and editors. Some less sophisticated bookshops will save this cost.
In the main hall, engraving workers were working at their desks. Blank book boards cut out according to size were stacked under the eaves of the corridor for use. The carved boards were stacked on the other side. Various book boards were piled up under the eaves of the corridor. The shopkeeper's
It is said that the better engraving materials are mostly pear wood and jujube wood. Fruit trees are hard in texture, have fine texture, and are not expensive, so they are the best materials for engraving boards. The idiom "Harm the pear, harm the jujube" comes from this.
The engraving workers pasted the "writing sample" of the transcriber's handwriting on the board, and then the engraver used different types of carving knives to carve the reversed ink on the board into raised characters, and at the same time carved the remaining blank parts of the wood board.
Remove it and make it recessed. The words engraved on the board should protrude one to two millimeters from the surface.
The carved book board was sent to the yard, and the casual workers brought buckets of hot water to wash the carved board to remove the sawdust and ink marks. The carving process was completed.
A page of a book is a board. If a book has 300 pages, it must have 300 boards. The manpower and material resources spent are immeasurable. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain a manuscript without knowing the market prospect unless it is published by a private person at his own expense.
Publishing. It is not surprising that books are rare and expensive.