Datang: I am the prince of salted fish, I impeach Li Er at the beginning

Chapter 177 Graphite, a Brand New Writing Tool
The official with the roster in his hand thought for a moment.

Feeling that what Li Zhi said was really okay, he hesitated for two seconds before handing over the roster in his hand.

"Your Highness, these booklets are reserved for comparison with the imperial examination students. Don't lose them or mess them up carelessly, otherwise it will be bad luck for you to be dismissed from office. Please don't mess around."

While handing over the roster, the officials did not forget to remind them with a pleading tone.

Li Zhi shook his head and smiled lightly, and comforted him: "Don't worry, this king is just looking at it for a while, and it won't affect your work."

He asked for the roster to confirm the identity of each student.

During the exam, all candidates will gather in one place.

This has brought great convenience to Li Zhi's ability to recognize people with his eyes and to observe everyone's ability value.

But at the same time, if he doesn't know the identities of these students, he can easily pick the wrong recruits.

For example, the sons of noble families and officials, these are not within the scope of his recruitment.

But it's different with the roster, he can tell at a glance which ones are nobles and which ones are poor.

In order not to accidentally pick a member of the gentry when selecting talents, and waste a lot of youth.

Under the leadership of the officials, the students took their seats one after another.

And Li Zhi is also busy here, constantly staring at every student who is seated, checking their various values.

When he saw a slightly better value, he would stop and look through the roster to find the corresponding character.

In this way, when the chief examiner of the Ministry of Officials announced the official start of the examination, Li Zhi had already observed all the candidates and returned the roster to the officials who were watching him anxiously.

"Okay, I've finished reading what I should read, and I'll trouble you for the rest. I won't stay here to make trouble for you."

For Datang, the imperial examination was the absorption and selection of talents.

This is undoubtedly a very serious matter.

Li Zhi's follow-up here has already caused some inconvenience to the examination room, so he doesn't feel embarrassed to stay any longer.

Anyway, what he wanted to observe had already been observed.

You just need to wait until the imperial examination is over, and visit those talents with relatively high numerical values ​​one by one.

As for whether it will compete for talents for the court?

This matter is not within the scope of his consideration.

To put it bluntly, the students recruited today are all fresh blood prepared for him.

Waiting for this batch of candidates to come out on top, it will have to wait a few years, more than ten years later.

At best, he can be regarded as robbing himself of talent from himself, robbing the court's talent or something, it doesn't exist.

Leaving the officials in a mess in the wind, Li Zhi stepped away from the scene.

Then, he pinched an object on his chest and hurried to Miyagi.

The main purpose of entering the imperial city today is to observe all the candidates, so that I can know these talents well.

In addition, he also wants to promote a new object.

As for how to promote this thing, it still depends on Li Shimin's power to push it forward.

When he came to Ganlu Hall, under the leadership of the eunuch, Li Zhi successfully found his father.

Li Shimin, who was reviewing the memorial, raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw Li Zhi approaching.

"It's really strange. It's rare to see you come to me on your own initiative. Did you come here this time to ask for something?"

Li Shimin asked curiously, put down the brush in his hand, and waited for Li Zhi's answer.

Li Zhi didn't delay, seeing that Li Shimin was a little busy, he simply went straight to the topic.

He took out something wrapped in a handkerchief from his arms and put it on the table.

"I came here this time to show you something, Father. You can see if you can promote this object so that I can use this thing to replace brushes."

"Ok?"

Li Shimin was a little surprised by Li Zhi's words, and he untied his handkerchief with puzzled eyes.

When he untied the handkerchief, he saw a cylindrical black charcoal lying there quietly.

Li Shimin took the thing in his hands and asked suspiciously, "What is this?"

Li Zhi took a step forward, stretched out his hand and made a gesture of asking for it, Li Shimin put the thing in his hand.

Then, Li Shimin saw Li Zhi holding the small black stick and began to write on the rice paper.

After the pen is gone, the delicate words are presented on the paper.

Lines that are less than the thickness of a fine needle make up each character, filling the top row of the rice paper.

"Looking at Jieshi in the east, you can see the sea. The water is so smooth, and the mountains and islands stand tall. The trees are overgrown, and the grass is luxuriant. The autumn wind is bleak, and the torrents are surging. The sun and the moon are in it, and the stars are shining, as if they are in it. Fortunately, It’s even true, singing to sing about ambition.”

"This is "Guan Canghai" written by the kings of the Han and Wei Dynasties."

"Write it all down, and it only takes up one line of paper?"

"Hmm... interesting."

As Li Shimin said, he opened his right hand towards Li Zhi.

Without saying anything, Li Zhi put the charcoal pen in Li Shimin's hand.

After Li Shimin took it in his hand, he adjusted it according to Li Zhi's posture of holding the pen just now.

Then, he wrote "Will Enter the Wine" under "Guan Canghai" in the same size of text.

Not surprisingly, "Jiang Jin Jiu" only took up less than two lines of grids, and it was all recorded on paper.

The same is for writing, the brush can only write more than a dozen characters, but with this strange pen, hundreds of characters can be written.

Li Shimin understood what Li Zhi meant.

He wanted the imperial court to use this brand new charcoal pen to replace the brush.

In this way to save writing space, but also to save paper consumption.

"What is this, is it coal?"

Li Shimin saw the value of this pen and asked Li Zhi.

Li Zhi shook his head and replied, "It's not coal, but a dissimilation product contained in coal. You can call it graphite."

"Shi Mo." Li Shimin nodded, tapped his fingers on the table lightly, "So you came here for...?"

Li Zhi took a deep breath, and said seriously: "Arrange people to mine graphite in large quantities, and use graphite to replace traditional writing brushes as the mainstream writing tool."

Speaking of this piece of graphite, he actually got it by accident.

The source was the cartload of coal mines brought by Huang Fu. For some reason, a few pieces of graphite were entrained in the coal mines.

After Li Zhi discovered it, he did a simple test and was sure that it was graphite ore.

In other words, there are likely to be natural graphite deposits in the Guanzhong Plain.

If these graphites can be mined, even if the output is very small, they can replace brushes and become the mainstream writing tool in this era.

Just spread the pencil.

To some extent, the production cost of books can be reduced.

In this way, the cost of promoting knowledge is reduced.

If you want to break the monopoly of knowledge, you will have the soil for realization.

(End of this chapter)