Chapter 859 - Hangzhou Printing Office

Zhao Yingong's application report encountered no objections during the Planning Commission's project review. However, the supervising department—the External Intelligence Bureau—harbored reservations about his immediate entry into the silk industry. In Jiang Shan's view, and that of others, the proposal was reckless. Silk was a lucrative sector in which officials and gentry were deeply enmeshed. For Zhao Yingong to establish a modernized silk-reeling factory now would be a textbook invitation to disaster.

"He's preparing to be a fattened pig, just waiting for the slaughter. We absolutely must stop him." Li Yan spoke bluntly in the conference room. "The moment a silk-reeling factory opens, it will create an earth-shaking spectacle—just like the Leizhou sugar factory. He claims he'll confine himself to reeling, staying out of distribution and weaving. Well, the Leizhou Station thought the same thing, and they were immediately targeted. If Leizhou hadn't been just across the strait, with the Elder Council rushing support at full speed, they would have been annihilated."

Jiang Shan nodded. "I agree. But we can't be paralyzed by caution either. He's eager to generate revenue and establish a foothold—I understand that. Without money, he can't open up the situation."

"There are many ways to open up a situation. Besides, doesn't he have land and sea route support? Wanyou is about to open a Hangzhou branch..."

"He has no authority to draw freely from Wanyou's funds—you know the financial discipline." Jiang Shan reminded him. At a recent inter-departmental meeting, they had coordinated financial protocols for overseas-stationed elders. The rule stipulated that no elder could directly withdraw cash from land and sea route businesses beyond their designated intelligence allowance. Emergency borrowing was permitted within strict quotas, but nothing more.

This rule existed to prevent overseas elders from fancying themselves commercial geniuses and privately engaging in business ventures. Wasting operational funds was bad enough, but if their schemes failed and crashed enterprises entirely—that would be genuinely embarrassing. So whether state-owned or joint-venture, the land and sea route enterprises remained under centralized commercial department control. Unless an elder was specifically designated to manage and operate such outlets, their role was limited to providing support for overseas stations.

"He can find other ways to make money, starting with low-capital industries," Li Yan said. "I suggest beginning with the book business. Publishing."

Hangzhou's publishing industry was only "mid-tier" by Ming Dynasty standards—far below Suzhou and Nanjing. Bookshops were relatively few, their influence modest. Compared to the silk industry's extraordinary profits, the book-carving trade was capital-intensive, slow to turn over, and not particularly lucrative—hardly an industry that officials and gentry scrambled to dominate. Li Yan believed that having Zhao Yingong start with book-carving represented the optimal choice.

Jiang Shan said, "But Zhao Yingong's enthusiasm is very high. And his proposal immediately captivated the Light Industry Department, the Foreign Trade Company, and the Agricultural Committee. Those departments will probably express enthusiastic support. I suspect it will sail through the Elder Council committee meeting in one vote."

If the Standing Committee approved it, the project would become a Planning Commission operation. Even objections from the External Intelligence Bureau would have little effect.

He paced several circles, then stopped. "No matter. The equipment for a modernized silk-reeling factory cannot be completed overnight—it will take at least half a year. In the meantime, we'll have the Agricultural Committee assist the Hangzhou Station with silkworm egg improvement and mulberry cultivation technology—that's the foundation of sericulture reform, and Zhao Yingong won't object."

Improving silkworm varieties and mulberry planting would attract minimal attention—far less dramatic than immediately erecting a new-method reeling factory. To people of this era, such work was merely "agricultural fundamentals"—gentry could personally manage such operations without anyone looking down on them. In fact, it was considered quite respectable.

"This will occupy at least most of a year. By the time Zhao Yingong is ready to build his reeling factory, the situation should have evolved. Building the factory then won't pose a problem." Jiang Shan was quite pleased with himself.

Li Yan recognized this as a stalling tactic, but he acknowledged the logic was sound. He also considered that Zhao Yingong's report had outlined two directions: a silk-reeling factory and a printing-publishing business. Given Hangzhou's available manpower and resources, pursuing both simultaneously was impractical. Focusing on one project for now was entirely reasonable, and Zhao Yingong would probably accept the reasoning.

Li Yan first consulted with the Planning Commission, then summoned Tan Ming, the printing factory director, and Zhou Dongtian from the publication guidance group. Several people convened to discuss how to approach publishing in Hangzhou.

Wu De's opinion was straightforward: for now, there was no need to establish printing operations in Hangzhou. They could simply ship books from Lingao for sale. Lingao's printing factory had already installed lithographic equipment and could produce lithographic materials at considerable scale. Shipping a certain quantity of books to Hangzhou was entirely feasible.

"But I don't know how many books Hangzhou needs, or what types." Tan Ming was uncertain. Production capacity had increased, but the printing factory's workload remained crushing—the massive volume of textbooks and instructional pamphlets kept the facility extremely busy.

Zhou Dongtian said, "Looking at his application, Hangzhou will definitely require many varieties in small quantities. That will be somewhat difficult for the printing factory."

Many varieties meant composing numerous different typesetting runs with low print runs each—quite uneconomical for a printing operation.

The final decision was this: first ship a batch of existing books from Lingao to Hangzhou; simultaneously, ship simple printing equipment. Zhou Dongtian recommended sending two types. The first was the simplest hand-cranked printing press, which required no typesetting—it used paper or lead stereotype plates for printing.

Although many people think of "movable type printing" when modern printing is mentioned, true movable type was actually not widely used. Including modern phototypesetting, most printing technologies followed the principle of block printing—the only difference was that the speed and efficiency of making blocks had dramatically improved compared to carving wooden plates.

In the "movable type printing" era, book printing used movable type composition, then thick cardboard or thin lead plates were pressed onto the composed type to create "paper stereotypes" or "lead stereotypes." These stereotypes were then mounted on printing presses. After printing was complete, this method greatly reduced lead type wear. Moreover, paper and lead stereotypes could be preserved for considerable periods. If a book might be reprinted, stereotypes could be retrieved from storage and printed immediately, eliminating the need to recompose with lead type. This essentially combined the advantages of both movable type and block printing.

Paper and lead stereotypes were lighter, smaller, and cheaper than heavy wooden printing blocks. They remained the most common book printing technique before modern photographic plate-making technology spread. Zhao Yingong's planned Hangzhou printing office could not possibly train a new batch of specialized typesetters, so the simplest solution was to duplicate the various paper and lead stereotypes currently stored at Lingao's printing factory and ship them over. Hangzhou need only prepare a few simple manual printing presses to meet its needs.

"I recommend the Albion type," Zhou Dongtian said. "This manual press has been considered the finest of its kind since its invention. Many print shops in the twentieth century still used it. To this day, printing enthusiasts revere this machine."

The Albion press was simple and lightweight in structure, yet produced powerful printing force—an excellent choice for Hangzhou's printing office. The drawback was common to all platen presses: flat-plate pressure meant printing efficiency could not match that of cylinder presses.

"Last time, when we researched replicating this machine with the machinery factory people, we concluded we could improve it to increase production efficiency—including using water wheel or steam engine power. We'd also eliminate the spring."

The Albion press relied on a key spring component; after research, they had devised an alternative mechanism to replace it.

"But proceeding this way means typesetting work still falls to Lingao's printing factory. And most of our current stereotype stock isn't suitable for sale in Hangzhou anyway." Tan Ming noted that the factory's typesetting queue was already overburdened.

Lingao's printing office had accumulated over a thousand types of stereotypes, but the vast majority were technical and management pamphlets for internal Lingao use, various textbooks, and propaganda materials. Books suitable for sale in the Ming Dynasty were limited to modest quantities of the Four Books and Five Classics, Qing dynasty annotations of the Thirteen Classics, some common classics, histories, philosophers, and collected works, plus Catholic Church and New Daoist religious pamphlets.

Zhou Dongtian acknowledged the constraint. "That cannot be helped. We'll gradually build up local typesetting capacity later."

The second piece of equipment was a lithographic press. Lithography was essentially another form of block printing, but it used protective coatings and etching agents as materials. The technique was well-suited for printing images and small-batch text materials—quite appropriate for the Hangzhou printing office's anticipated need for small quantities of many varieties.

Though these two types of equipment seemed simple, they still could not be replicated with seventeenth-century technology. There was no possibility of the "technology leak" that the Elder Council most feared.

Zhou Dongtian said, "I've applied before, wanting to visit the Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Suzhou area to observe the local woodblock printing industry. I'd also like to see if I could recruit some master woodblock craftsmen—the printing factory has great demand for block workers. This time, I'd like to accompany the books and printing equipment to Hangzhou, help Zhao Yingong establish the printing office—after all, I'm a professional. I can also examine Jiangnan's printing industry and recruit a few craftsmen."

Zhou Dongtian had submitted this application long ago. At the time, there was no base in Jiangnan, so the Planning Commission had naturally declined to approve it. Now that he was raising it again, his reasons seemed quite sound. Wu De naturally offered no objection. He turned his gaze to Li Yan.

"He hasn't received training—is there a problem sending him to Jiangnan?"

Li Yan said, "Escorting him to Jiangnan isn't a problem. We have contingency plans for elders making short-term trips to red zones."