There are more than 10,000 merchants in the east and west cities of Chang'an City. Although most of them are barely making a living with a meager family fortune, there are still countless wealthy merchants among them. There are countless famous chambers of commerce in the entire Tang Dynasty.

I will open a few shops in the future.

Grain stores were always indispensable in the feudal dynasty. Regardless of the low price of grains and rice, the profits seemed to be meager. But those who could afford to open rice stores were mostly businessmen and giants. They also had the support of aristocratic families.

.These people are the best people to provide funding.

"No..." Lu Xuan directly rejected this idea without even thinking about it.

The tyrannical Sui Dynasty was destroyed at the hands of the aristocratic family. Several generations of emperors in the Tang Dynasty tried their best to suppress the aristocratic family. At this time, if Li Heng went to trade with the aristocratic family again, the blood of generations of Tang Dynasty people would be lost.

It was all in vain. In a sense, Lu Xuan was even more wary of the aristocratic family than An Lushan.

One of the reasons is that he disclosed a large number of practical technologies. The upper class blocked all good things, leaving the lower class people to barely survive. In order to maintain the stability of the class, this was the consistent practice of the feudal dynasty. Lu

Xuan cannot completely break this pattern, but at least it can weaken it. One of them is to suppress the aristocratic family.

"Except for those aristocratic families, other merchants can't provide much money."

"Are you sure? Do you know that during this period of time, the Western Regions were fought for years and countless small countries were torn to pieces. Khotan, Qiemo, Ronglu, Shule, Pishan... some small countries perished almost every day.

Then a new regime is established."

"Do you want to attract the attention of the exiled royal family?"

"Since it is a small country, it probably doesn't have much oil and water. But it is no problem to provide a Jing'an Division. His Highness the Crown Prince's appearance is an irresistible temptation for the exiles from the small country."

Don't blame Li Bi for not thinking of this. In fact, in this era, except for a few powerful foreign tribes such as Turks and Uighurs, the entire Tang Dynasty was actually proud to be Tang people. Even those exiles who arrived in Chang'an also called themselves

Tang people. The Tang people of this era are so charming. The Tang people of this era are so confident. How different from later generations...

"This is feasible, I will inform the prince immediately."

Li Mi left in a hurry, and Lu Xuan went into a small courtyard specially prepared for him by Jing'an Division. A group of craftsmen were busy inside.

"How's it going? Lu Xuan asked casually."

A supervisor immediately came to respond.

"Come back to school. The finished product is ready and the first trial printing is in progress."

"Very good, take me over and have a look."

Movable type printing was Lu Xuan's first move against the aristocratic families. How could these aristocratic families remain undefeated for thousands of years? In addition to the resources they control and the huge population, there is also an extremely important factor, that is, most knowledge only

It is in the hands of these aristocratic families and the royal family. The poor people work hard to have enough to eat, so where do they have the time and energy to study?

Even if you want to study, the price of books in this era is so high that a wealthy family will struggle to support a child to study. But if the child studies, the family will have one less labor force, and the wealthy family may no longer be wealthy.

In this way, a vicious circle is formed. The truth is always in the hands of a small group of people. Certain things become more and more solid.

To break these things, the first thing Lu Xuan had to do was to lower the price of books. And if you want to print books on a large scale, you must use movable type printing.

In fact, engraving is not as slow as imagined. It can even be said to be very fast. However, its shortcomings are too obvious. First, engraving is time-consuming and laborious, and it also requires a large amount of materials. Second, if the engraving is too large, it is difficult to store it.

Inconvenient. Thirdly, as long as there is a slight error in the engraving, the entire engraving will be ruined. These shortcomings make the engraving price high, and the price of the book will naturally be high.

It is said that some engravings carved by famous artists are even collected by people. It can be seen that printing books in this era is an elegant and exquisite thing, which is not something ordinary people can afford. However, if books cannot be popularized, they will actually lose their value.

meaning.

Reducing costs is the basic thinking for every modern person to start a business. The same is naturally true for Lu Xuan. He convened a group of craftsmen in Jing'an Division and then gave a general idea and let them experiment on their own.

At first, craftsmen used wooden movable type. However, because of the uneven texture of wood, it was difficult to carve a uniform font. Secondly, wooden movable type would deform when exposed to water. Later, they tried to use various metals to make movable type. However, the cost

It was a bit high. Finally, under Lu Xuan’s reminder, I tried to use a fine clay to make it.

I saw a few craftsmen drying the movable type made of clay, and then arranging them into an iron frame. There seemed to be some kind of glue at the bottom of the iron frame, which could firmly stick the movable type.

.I have to say that Lu Xuan never mentioned these small details, but these craftsmen have already thought about them very carefully.

After that, another craftsman carefully brushed a layer of ink on the surface of the movable type. Then he took out a piece of paper and carefully laid it on it.

When the paper was peeled off, a neatly printed page appeared on the paper. The entire printing room suddenly burst into cheers.

"Why are you so happy?" The prince's voice came from outside the door. The craftsmen were frightened and saluted quickly. Lu Xuan also bowed slightly and saluted. Fortunately, in this era, there is no need to kneel. Otherwise, he would have rebelled long ago.

"Back to Your Majesty, the movable type printing technology that I mentioned a few days ago has been successfully produced."

"Oh, is that what you said, the kind of technology that can make scholars all over the world thank me?"

Lu Xuan introduced the prince into the room and introduced to him in detail the advantages and disadvantages of movable type printing. Movable type printing, if printed in small quantities, is actually very troublesome, even worse than engraving printing. But if this thing is used on a large scale, the cost will be

It plummets. The more you print, the lower the cost.

The prince and Li Mi were both smart people, and they quickly realized the mystery. Then, by extension, they thought of the situation where aristocratic families controlled books, and the children of poor families could only live under the aristocratic families for the sake of books.

After a long time, the two of them woke up from some complicated shock. Li Mi was the first to speak.

"With this movable type printing, we still need to find ways to reduce the cost of papermaking." Following Lu Xuan, he also learned the word cost. "In this way, one day, the world's books will be as cheap as chaff. Ordinary people can have them in their homes.

Purchase. At that time, all the princes from poor families in the world will be the disciples of the prince..."
Chapter completed!