Chapter 155: Trial Run

The curator's expression gradually grew stern. He stood up and fixed his gaze intently on Wei Renshi. "What is meant by movable-type printing?"

Wei Renshi bowed slightly to the curator and replied, "I will explain it to the curator right now, if you would permit me to borrow some paper and a brush."

With that, Wei Renshi pulled a sheet of paper from the curator's desk, picked up a brush, and wrote a few characters upon it.

Then, he tore those characters out one by one and arranged them to one side.

Next, he pulled out another sheet of paper and wrote a complete sentence upon it.

"Curator, so-called woodblock printing involves first carving the entire content to be published onto a single block and then printing from it. Let us take this sheet of paper as an analogy for a printing block." Holding up the paper with the sentence written on it, Wei Renshi circled a single character with his brush and continued, "Now suppose we wish to alter this sentence and change a few characters. Under the woodblock printing method, this entire sheet of paper would have to be discarded and remade. That wastes far too much time."

"Let us look at these instead." Wei Renshi brought over the scraps of paper he had torn apart earlier, and as he arranged them into a sentence, he spoke further: "It is the same sentence, but these paper fragments represent individual seals that have already been prepared in advance. I select the characters needed for this sentence from among them and arrange them thus—done. If a few characters need to be changed later, I merely need to pick out the seals for those specific characters and replace them with the ones I wish to substitute. You see, it is as simple as that."

The curator was stunned. Suddenly, a brilliant light flared in his eyes. He took a sharp stride forward, leaned in close to the pile of paper fragments, inspected them from side to side, and then suddenly slammed his hand down on the desk. "Brilliant! Simply brilliant!"

Wei Renshi pressed on. "Curator, the characters we use frequently in our daily endeavors number only a few thousand at most. Even if we include rare characters, it does not exceed ten thousand. If we commission artisans who carve seals to carve these characters one by one and have them ready, whenever we need to publish any text, our printing artisans simply need to select the required characters from the pre-prepared movable types, piece them together, and they can immediately form the text for printing. In this way, not only do we save the time required to carve entire blocks, but the types can also be used over and over again. Would not the efficiency of printing be vastly enhanced by this? If we were to carve multiple sets—dozens of sets—of these frequently used characters, could we not simultaneously print different books? Would this not resolve some of the current distress caused by the scarcity of books throughout the realm?"

"Indeed it would! Hahahaha... Indeed it would!" The curator abruptly stood up and burst into laughter, overcome by such intense emotion that he could scarcely control himself. He grabbed Wei Renshi by the hand, which startled the young man somewhat.

Having spent a fair amount of time at the Chongwen Academy, Wei Renshi had never seen the curator lose his composure to such a degree.

As he laughed, tears welled up in the corners of the curator's eyes.

"Curator..." Wei Renshi felt a pang of concern. Given the man's advanced years, such overwhelming joy might harm his health and easily trigger a sudden illness.

The curator gripped Wei Renshi's hand tightly, as though afraid that if he let go, Wei Renshi would vanish into thin air. "It is nothing, Renshi, it is nothing! I am simply overjoyed! My heart is filled with joy! If this method succeeds, the realm will no longer suffer from a shortage of books. Scholars across the land will no longer need to worry about having no books to read. Countless scholars of humble origins will have books available to them, and every school of thought under heaven can be compiled into books and spread far and wide! Hahahaha... This achievement—this achievement will surely be recorded in the annals of history, leaving our names immortal. All the scholars of the world will know our names and receive our grace! Come, let us go at once to seek an audience with His Highness the Crown Prince!"

With these words, the curator pulled Wei Renshi along and strode toward the exit.

The curator dragged Wei Renshi along at a brisk pace as they headed out of the Chongwen Academy. Along the way, students bowed to the curator in greeting, but the curator acted as though he could not see them, pulling Wei Renshi straight toward the outside, which drew the astonished gazes of the students and set them to whispering quietly among themselves.

Just as they reached the outer gates and were about to make their way toward the Crown Prince's palace, the curator suddenly halted his steps and stopped in his tracks.

"Curator?" Wei Renshi inquired.

The curator shook his head and murmured, "Wait. Such a method is undoubtedly feasible, but we cannot simply go before him empty-handed. Come, let us first visit the annex!"

Changing direction, he headed toward the annex instead.

Upon reaching the annex, he walked straight toward the rear.

Wei Renshi could already catch the lingering, rich fragrance of ink, signaling that this was the domain where woodblock printing took place.

Among the many rooms in the center, some doors stood open, allowing Wei Renshi to see numerous people seated inside, diligently transcribing texts.

Prior to the Sui dynasty, the primary books were still handwritten manuscripts. Copying books by hand was time-consuming, laborious, and costly—a task beyond the means of anyone other than the imperial family and high-ranking officials. Thus, the collection of books was essentially a "government-funded project." For ordinary scholars, merely laying eyes on a book was already a rare fortune, let alone owning a collection.

China's woodblock printing originated in the Sui dynasty and flourished during the Tang, but it was truly put to use for the mass production of books only during the Song dynasty, after woodblock printing was improved into movable-type printing.

Although woodblock printing already existed at present, unless massive quantities of a text needed to be published, copying by hand remained relatively quicker and more convenient by comparison.

These individuals were known as the copyist artisans.

Walking all the way to the very back, Wei Renshi indeed spotted a group of artisans carving printing blocks. On a small wooden panel roughly the size of a single sheet of paper, many characters had to be carved, and moreover, they had to be carved in reverse, with every single stroke neat and aesthetically pleasing—a genuinely arduous task.

The curator led Wei Renshi over.

The artisans inside hurried over to pay their respects.

"Rise. Where is Master Mi?" the curator asked.

Someone immediately ran off, and shortly thereafter, brought back another veteran artisan.

"Greetings to the curator!" the veteran artisan offered his respects as he approached.

Without waiting for him to bow fully, the curator pulled him close and said, "I need you to personally carve some characters for me."

The veteran artisan was taken aback for a moment, then nodded and replied, "The curator has only to give the command!"

However, the curator pointed at Wei Renshi instead and said, "You need only follow his instructions."

The veteran artisan was even more astonished, but he kept his counsel, turned his gaze to Wei Renshi, and awaited his arrangements.

Wei Renshi remembered that the movable type of later generations was made of lead, but for the sake of a quick demonstration right now, they would start by trying carved wood. Later on, ceramic type could be developed, and as for how to forge lead type, that could be left for these artisans to research in the future.

Wei Renshi pointed to a nearby printing block and explained, "It is carved just like a woodblock, except that the characters on the block are separated. Each character is carved individually, just like a seal, keeping the exact same size as the characters on a standard printing block. Once these characters are carved, they can be pieced together to form a printing block once again."

"Carved like this?" The veteran artisan clearly had never carved anything of the sort before, but the task was not difficult for him, and he nodded.

With that, Wei Renshi asked further, "A mold can be made, can it not? Its size should be slightly larger than a single printing block, capable of holding those individual characters and rearranging them back into a form resembling a solid printing block."

The veteran artisan pondered for a moment, nodded, and said, "That is not difficult either."