Chapter 868 - Printing Workshop

"I noticed your establishment's fine décor and came in specifically to take a look." Zhou Dongtian spoke in his oddly-accented Guangdong Mandarin. Fortunately, Mandarin in this timeline wasn't too different from the Nanjing dialect, and as long as the shopkeeper spoke slowly, Zhou Dongtian could follow.

The environment here was indeed pleasant. This Pan Jianyuan Bookshop had a small courtyard situated between the storefront and the rear workshop. Pebble-paved paths wound past several clusters of bamboo, with various potted flowers arranged on the ground. Under the spring sunlight, it was a riot of color.

On bare sections of wall hung swords with blue-green patina. Below stood a small purple sandalwood table supporting a qin brick, upon which rested an ancient guqin. In a Wanli-era imitation Xuande censer, wisps of blue smoke rose, and a rich, fragrant aroma drifted through the air.

"You flatter me, Master," the shopkeeper said with a smile. "By your appearance, you surely hold an examination degree?"

Of course he didn't—Zhou Dongtian wasn't an external intelligence agent and had no need to obtain credentials. But ancient times lacked any nationwide networked degree verification system, and Guangdong was a thousand li away. Fabricating a false identity and education wasn't difficult. Zhou Dongtian didn't dare claim to be a juren—provincial graduates were still limited in number per province, and with Nanjing being an auxiliary capital, people from every province were present. Careless boasting might get him exposed, and that wouldn't just mean losing face.

So he claimed to be a xiucai—county graduates were far more numerous than juren, and there was considerable variety among them as well.

"Ah! From Master's radiant expression, you'll surely pass the provincial examination with flying colors. Congratulations in advance!"

"Thank you. 'Don't discuss essays in the examination hall'—it all depends on luck."

"Since Master Zhou has come to Jinling for study, might you be selecting some new examination essays?" the shopkeeper ventured. "This humble one has several personally-annotated compilations of examination essays by Master Qishan. They're all splendid writings, like clusters of flowers..."

Master Qishan was Zhang Zilie. Few in the old timeline knew of him. But Zhou Dongtian did: while working at the printing office, he had printed books using modern equipment, including the Kangxi Dictionary. One of that dictionary's precursors, the Zhengzi Tong, was this Master Qishan's work.

Zhou Dongtian knew that Zhang Zilie was currently a National University student in Nanjing and had never passed the jinshi examination. From the shopkeeper's tone, it seemed this Master Qishan was highly accomplished in eight-legged essay writing—so accomplished that the examination essay compilations he edited had become a major selling point.

He waved his hand. "No need. Do you have any novel and interesting books?"

"How could we not?" The shopkeeper, studying Zhou Dongtian and Mei Lin, concluded they were wealthy young merchants from Guangdong with examination degrees—probably having already greased the right palms in the examination system. Such people prioritized novelty. He thought for a moment, then retrieved a new book from the shelf. "I wonder if Master Zhou has seen this? It's a Western work."

Zhou Dongtian looked—it was Xu Guangqi's translation of Elements of Geometry. The book should have been published in 1607. That it was still available for purchase in Nanjing suggested sales probably weren't strong—ancient Chinese mathematics was highly advanced in algebra but relatively backward in geometry. A book filled with entirely new concepts and terminology would probably interest only a very small number of people. Few would bother with it.

"This book is truly extraordinary. It was compiled by Minister of Rites Xu of Shanghai. I'm told it's a Western original, personally translated by Minister Xu. But few can understand it."

Zhou Dongtian opened it and began reading. The printing was very fine, and some chapters even included illustrations. Seeing references to "right angle," "obtuse angle," "similar triangles"... Zhou Dongtian felt transported back to middle school. So these terms already existed!

He didn't know that these geometric terms, including the word "geometry" itself, had all been coined by Xu Guangqi's translation.

Seeing his interest, the shopkeeper hurriedly fetched several other books, piling them one by one on the desk. Zhou Dongtian examined them. Most were Xu Guangqi's works or translations of missionary texts: A Treatise on Sweet Potatoes, Miscellaneous Notes on Agriculture, Draft Agricultural Manual, Western Hydraulic Methods, Illustrations of the Celestial and Terrestrial Spheres, and quite a few others. The variety was diverse, including agricultural works—such as several of Xu Guangqi's compositions; mathematical books like Guide to Calculation in the Common Script and Methods of Measurement; astronomical and hydraulic treatises; and finally even Matteo Ricci's On Friendship, a collection of aphorisms.

Zhou Dongtian leafed through them one by one. He wasn't actually interested in the content—none of these books would be more advanced than those in the Grand Library. What he was examining was the binding and printing.

A characteristic of ancient books was their unusually large characters. The font size in these volumes, by modern standards, was equivalent to at least size-one type. Zhou Dongtian had always wondered about this—why did ancient printed books use such large characters? Some said it was a printing technology issue; others claimed ancient lighting was too poor, requiring larger characters for readability.

Zhou Dongtian had no time to examine the content carefully, so he instructed Cai Yibang to purchase everything and bring it all back. When paying, he discovered that book prices were quite steep. Given the price levels of the era, ordinary people could hardly afford them. Even buying a complete set of the Four Books and Five Classics wasn't easy for the poor. No wonder scholars in this timeline enjoyed all manner of privileges—the money and time required to obtain examination credentials ensured that knowledge would remain monopolized.

The bookshop owner had made a handsome sale and was beaming with delight. Zhou Dongtian seized the opportunity to propose visiting the woodblock printing workshop.

"The workshop is all black ink. I'm afraid it might stain the two young masters' clothes..." The shopkeeper seemed somewhat surprised by this request. Many scholars came to buy books from him, displaying all manner of personalities, but never had anyone expressed interest in seeing the printing workshop.

"No matter. These two gentlemen are book lovers and very curious about how books are printed. Please be so kind as to accommodate them." Cai Yibang added his support.

The shopkeeper considered for a moment. There was nothing in the workshop that couldn't be shown. Besides, woodblock book printing had no "secret techniques" worth protecting. Find a few carving, printing, and binding craftsmen and you'd learn everything. These two masters were curious and wanted to see—no harm in that.

"Very well, this humble one shall lead the way." The shopkeeper rose, gave instructions to his clerk, and promptly led them toward the rear courtyard.

The group passed through the back courtyard door, walked down a corridor, and faced a wind-fire wall worn by years of weather, crowned by an impressive gate tower with upturned eaves. This was the printing workshop. The buildings were predominantly gray brick, white walls, and black tiles.

Pushing open the door, they entered a large courtyard paved with flagstones. The layout formed a character-shaped plan, symmetrical about a central axis, with the main hall as the focal point. Upper, middle, and lower halls connected together, with one to three rows of wing rooms flanking each hall—serving as workers' dormitories and workrooms. In the courtyard stood a pond for collecting rainwater, alongside drying platforms arranged on rows of racks.

Zhou Dongtian noticed that the halls had remarkably high ceilings, and between courtyards rose very tall wind-fire walls. Printing books required storing vast quantities of wood, paper, and finished volumes—all highly flammable materials. The water reservoir in the courtyard and the wind-fire walls separating the courtyards served essential fire prevention purposes.

People were busy in the halls and wing rooms, and workers periodically crossed the courtyard carrying materials. In one room, scribes were transcribing manuscript copies based on selected source texts. Selecting a quality source text was the first step in carving a quality book. Source texts, besides commissioned manuscripts from authors, were selected from existing fine editions—ancient times had no concept of copyright, and whether works by contemporary or ancient authors, as long as the bookshop owner found them suitable, they could be carved and printed.

Because quality source texts were crucial, bookshop owners were often themselves textual scholars with discerning judgment, skilled at unearthing useful manuscripts from old bookshops and piles of dusty paper. Some owners befriended famous book collectors to obtain their privately held rare editions and unusual works. In Nanjing, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, there were also so-called "book-carving experts" who combined the roles of literati and collectors. They were mostly learned scholars who were also wealthy and influential gentry—such as Hu Yinglong, the Nanjing collector who had carved and published the Compendium of Materia Medica.

The Pan Jianyuan Bookshop employed about a dozen transcribers. Contrary to Zhou Dongtian's expectations, they were all essentially "copyists"—though literate and capable of writing beautiful regular script (and even mirror-reversed characters), they had little actual education. Their work was entirely mechanical. Therefore, in ordinary books, wrong characters, missing characters, variant characters, and even garbled text were common. So bookshop owners also had to hire—though "invite" was the usual term—several literati to serve as editors and proofreaders. Less fastidious bookshops would skip this expense entirely.

In the main hall, carving workers bent over their craft. Stacks of blank printing blocks, cut to size, were piled beneath the corridor eaves awaiting use. Carved blocks were stacked on the opposite side. Various printing blocks rose in mountains under the eaves. The shopkeeper explained that better carving materials were mostly pear wood or jujube wood. These fruit tree woods were hard with fine grain and reasonably priced—ideal materials for carving printing blocks. The idiom "bringing calamity to pear and jujube" came precisely from this practice.

The carving workers pasted the "writing samples" prepared by the transcribers onto the blocks. Then, using various types of carving knives, they carved the mirror-reversed ink characters into raised relief while gouging out the remaining blank areas to create indentations. The characters had to protrude one to two millimeters above the block surface.

The finished blocks were carried to the courtyard, where casual laborers brought buckets of hot water to wash them, removing wood shavings and ink residue. The carving process was then complete.

One page required one block. A book of three hundred pages required three hundred blocks. The labor and material costs were incalculable. Therefore, manuscripts with uncertain market prospects would rarely be published unless the author privately funded the carving. The scarcity and expense of books were hardly surprising.