Datang: Acting as a celestial mystery at the beginning

"I also want to go and see my husband, but my stomach is getting bigger and bigger, so it's inconvenient to go out of the palace."

The eldest grandson Wugou caressed his swollen belly. He just watched "Legend of the White Snake" carefully and thought it was really beautiful. He wanted to ask Mr. how he wrote such a beautiful story.

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Chapter 86 Chang'an Daily

After dealing with the early government affairs, Li Shimin immediately took Li Chengqian and his brother and sister to the direction of Wannian County, knocking on the door gently.

"His Majesty!"

The first person to open the door was Yuchi Baolin, who hurriedly bowed.

"Okay, you don't need to be too polite in your husband's house."

After Li Shimin walked in, a smile finally appeared on his tense face, and he said, "Sir, I'm here to disturb you again."

Here, he let go of his posture as an emperor, without any pretensions, and is very approachable.

"Your Majesty is here, please sit down!"

Li Yi'an didn't seem surprised by his arrival.

Li Shimin felt very cordial because of the word "Lang Jun", and the husband was still so casual.

"Sir, sir."

Li Lizhi ran up quickly, happily holding Li Yi'an's hand.

"Lizhi is naughty."

Li Shimin seemed to be blaming, but he didn't mean to blame at all. After sitting down, he continued: "Have you heard of some rumors outside?"

Li Yian knew that he came because of this, nodded and said: "Obviously, the Cui family and the Lu family deliberately smeared the gentleman in order to retaliate against the grain price. Rumors and rumors are troublesome, but they are just rumors. More control may lead to failure to clean up."

"Yes!"

Li Shimin felt the deepest.

To control the rumors, he still has no way to stop other people from talking nonsense, and if he does so forcefully, he is afraid that it will arouse people's resentment.

"It's also very simple to make rumors die. There are two ways."

Li Yi'an said: "First, let time forget it, and second, create another more powerful rumor to cover up this rumor."

Li Shimin frowned and said: "From the current point of view, the first point should not be possible, what should be done about the second point?"

Li Yi'an asked: "Chengqian should have talked to Mr. Lang about printing, right?"

Li Shimin nodded slightly. This time he came, in addition to solving the rumors outside, he also wanted to see with his own eyes how his books were printed.

"Then come with me!"

They came to the factory behind the yard together, and saw more than 100 craftsmen busy here, all neat and orderly.

This is the first time for Li Shimin to see how paper is made, and then go inside to the printing area, and finally see the blocks of characters placed in front of him, and then see the craftsmen assembling the characters.

Movable type printing, it turned out to be like this.

Movable type is really convenient. If you want to print any book in the future, you don’t need to customize various engraving blocks. You only need to scramble and recombine the typefaces, apply ink and print, and one page of the book will come out.

The more Li Shimin watched, the more excited he became.

"Old Zhou."

Li Yian called a craftsman and said, "I asked you to print everything in the morning, are you ready?"

"OK OK!"

The craftsman named Lao Zhou came over with more than a dozen sheets of paper full of handwriting.

Li Shimin saw four large characters printed on the top of the paper - Chang'an Daily.

Other small characters are also the content of "Legend of the White Snake", which are used as temporary fillings.

"Sir, what is Chang'an Daily?"

Li Shimin was very curious.

Li Yi'an explained: "Chang'an Daily is a kind of newspaper. What is a newspaper? It is news, rumors, and even a carrier for policy announcement and dissemination."

Li Shimin still couldn't understand it, he had never heard of this concept.

"Then to put it another way, if you have any new regulations and policies to be publicized, do you have to post notices from all over Chang'an to tell all the people?" Li Yi'an asked.

"That's right, is this also a notice?" Li Shimin asked back.

"It's almost the same, but it's more useful than notices, and the scope of dissemination will be wider."

Li Yi'an explained: "The content printed on the newspaper can be the latest decree of the imperial court, various trends on the border, even the situation of the drought, how to solve it, etc., or even some anecdotes, such as another kind of rumor. It is issued in this way, and then passed on to every literate person in Chang'an."

Having said that, he briefly explained how newspapers are issued.

Li Shimin pondered for a long time after hearing this, and felt that this made sense.

"However, the production of newspapers and the collection of news require costs, and distribution is not free."

Li Yi'an continued, saying: "At the beginning of the publication, I can support a month of free gifts, but after one month, I will sell each newspaper for one penny."

"So cheap?"

As far as Li Shimin knew, the worst quality paper cost five yuan a piece, let alone newspapers with slow printing.

"Under the condition that the paper and fonts are determined, the more the production quantity, the lower the cost. The cost of a newspaper is less than a penny."

Li Yi'an said affirmatively: "Lang Jun, just imagine, what is the population of Chang'an? There will definitely be a lot of people who buy newspapers."

Li Shimin recalled the current situation in Chang'an, shook his head and said: "I don't think it's good. Ordinary people, traffickers and pawns, there are not many literate people, I'm afraid no one will care about it."

Li Yi'an had already considered this issue, and said with a smile: "Then we need to define a range of audiences. We push the newspapers to aristocratic families, scholars, or wealthy businessmen, officials and other people who can read."

"How will it be issued?"

Li Shimin continued to ask.

"I cooperated with the imperial court in printing, and after it stabilized, I asked the shopkeeper Fang to issue it in the name of the imperial court, and the proceeds will be distributed with the imperial court at that time."

Li Yi'an continued: "There should be a group of very special people around Mr. Lang. They specialize in collecting all kinds of information, which can also be called intelligence, but this kind of information is not enough to be used as some evidence against the family, right?"

Li Shimin looked at him in surprise, he could even figure out this point, nodded for a long time and said: "That's right."