Li Mengxi originally thought that if he had to rush out fifteen printing plates, three days would not be enough.

Therefore, he had already come up with excuses, and was prepared to find a reason to give the craftsmen some rewards to boost their morale even if they exceeded the time limit.

However, Li Mengxi obviously underestimated how capable the craftsman camp he had established was, and also clearly underestimated the fatal attraction of heavy rewards to the craftsmen.

February 9th was the third day that Li Mengxi assigned the task of making wooden boards. Just before noon on the third day, the leader of the craftsmen came over excitedly and said that the wooden boards were finished and could be printed.

When he heard the good news, Li Mengxi was slightly surprised at the speed of the craftsmen, and he happily followed the carpenters to the carpenters' camp.

When we arrived at the carpenters' camp, the carpenters were gathering under the small hut to watch the printing results.

When Li Mengxi came, the craftsmen all looked at Li Mengxi and took the initiative to make way for him.

Li Mengxi walked to the front and saw a long row of door panels leaning against the carpenters' workbench.

On every door panel, there are neat block-sized words.

All the wooden panels have been tested with ink, so the door panels are dark.

Li Mengxi curiously walked over and looked at the first board. Because the words were backwards, Li Mengxi did not see what the content was at first glance.

But after a few glances, Li Mengxi discovered a flaw. He clearly saw that there was a mark on the lower left corner of the board that looked like it had been patched up.

Li Mengxi leaned closer and took a look. After a quick look, Li Mengxi discovered what was going on.

No wonder it looks disharmonious. It turns out that the craftsmen dug holes in the door panel, then drove in square wooden wedges from the back, and carved characters on the wooden wedges.

Li Mengxi was confused and asked the carpenter next to him why it was like this.

The carpenter was a little embarrassed because the things he made were not very good. He scratched his head and explained awkwardly, because many of us were illiterate and had never carved anything before. In addition, the work schedule was tight and the work was done in a hurry. Therefore, when carving,

, a lot of mistakes were made.

But once the carving is wrong, it cannot be corrected or repaired, so the wood can only be chiseled. But as soon as a hole is chiseled into the wood, the words will be dented and cannot be printed.

So someone figured out a way to find out which word was wrong. Just knock out the piece of wood that contains the word and the word, then cut a piece of soft willow wood and stuff it into the hole, and then carve it all over again.

As soon as he heard this, Li Mengxi understood that this was the use of wooden molds for movable type. He was a little stunned. He really didn't expect that the wooden molding technique could be combined with the movable type technique.

Looking at the door panel in front of me again, I saw the dark printed part in the middle of the door panel. After careful observation, I saw that there were quite a few holes that had been dug and stuffed with wood and then repaired.

With just one glance, Li Mengxi counted at least thirty or twenty similar places.

It seems that the probability of making mistakes when carpenters are carving out words is very alarming. However, no matter how unfamiliar the carpenters' skills are and how many mistakes they make, the carpenters have successfully made a woodblock that can be used for printing.

The whole made wooden board gave Li Mengxi a very rough feeling. It was shockingly rough. The roughness could not be said to be a skill at all, but more like a piece of broken wood that had been patched up and made into a toy.

.

I took the paper that the carpenters tried to print and looked at it. It was a large piece of paper with black square-shaped words neatly arranged on it.

The inscriptions on the board are reversed, and they will be correct when printed. Check from the beginning, from left to right, name, place of origin, examination subject, [Confucian classics]

The first question is, The Analects of Confucius.

Many loose sentences.

As he looked at it, Li Mengxi suddenly discovered that there was a large blank space in the middle of the words that had been arranged one after another.

I checked again and again and found that some content was indeed missing.

Li Mengxi frowned and pointed the question to the carpenter, "There must be four or five characters here, where are the characters?"

The carpenter quickly went to fetch some long and slender pieces of wood.

The carpenters said carefully, "If there is a missing word, use this to seal it..."

Li Mengxi took the piece of wood and took a look. The ugly looking piece of wood was flat at the bottom and had words engraved on it. I bet it was a seal.

Li Mengxi was immediately surprised. He asked, "Why don't you just put the wood in and carve it? Instead of using a seal, wouldn't it be a waste of effort?"

The carpenter's face was full of embarrassment and he explained in a low voice, "Hey, I can't fill it in. There are so many wrong words in that sentence that I can't fill it in..."

Li Mengxi understood. It turned out that if a word or two was wrong, a piece of wood could be chiselled to make it up. But if several wrong words were put together, a piece would have to be chiseled out, and the wood would not be able to fit in.

So I was forced to carve a seal and planned to fill in the missing words later.

Li Mengxi was silent. This was indeed a method.

Later, Li Mengxi checked all the printed test papers. He saw that not only the words were printed, but also the complex graphics of the continuous arithmetic problems were printed. However, it may be because the graphics were too complicated and not good.

After printing, the carpenters enlarged the graphics so much that the entire test paper became extremely wide and long.

This is not the most troublesome content. The most troublesome content should be the more complex diagrams, such as [Ordnance General Knowledge], such as the weapons maps and building sketches in the [Engineering Technology] volume.

Li Mengxi found the test papers with pictures, and the result was that the parts with pictures were all empty.

Li Mengxi raised his head and looked at the carpenter on the side. Without waiting for him to ask, the carpenter quickly explained that the pictures were really difficult to carve, and all the carvings were damaged, so he could only find small and large wood blocks and carve a few more, but he could always carve a good one.

.

I understand that it is extremely easy to make mistakes when engraving patterns on wooden boards, so I still used movable type to engrave the stamp separately. The preparation was to print the words first and then cover the stamp.

At this point, Li Mengxi somewhat understood some of the differences and respective uses of wood-blocking techniques and movable type techniques.

Simply put, the die-cut technique is suitable for full-page printing and large-area printing. However, the disadvantage of the die-cut technique is that it is complicated to produce and it is difficult to correct a single mistake.

Movable type can not only print movable type, but can also easily print seals. The advantage of movable type is that the cost of re-making is low and you are less afraid of making mistakes. At the same time, the production of movable type is very efficient. If a wooden board has a hundred characters,

If so, then this wooden board can only be made by one person, and no matter how many hands are around, it will not be possible. But with movable type, one hundred characters can be made by one hundred people at the same time.

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! This is a huge efficiency difference.

After preliminary inspection of all the printing plates, Li Mengxi learned from it the ingenious wisdom of the craftsmen. When making things, quality and quality are important, but efficiency is equally important and practicality is equally important.

The craftsmen hurriedly produced the printing plate. Although the quality could not be complimented, in less than three days, the task was completed ahead of schedule and it was enough to be used for printing, which was completely sufficient.

After the inspection, Li Mengxi looked around. He looked at the carpenters who were in ragged clothes and looked tired. It was obvious that they had not had a good rest after working overtime for the past two or three days. He also saw that many of them had rags wrapped around their hands.

, which has never been seen before.

I must have hurt my hand while carving.

The most commonly used disinfectant material in the military is high-grade alcohol, but there is not much alcohol, so there is no way to distribute it to the craftsman camp for the time being.

Li Mengxi realized that bumps and bruises were common in the craftsman camp, so alcohol and clean bandages could be used as standing supplies. They did not cost much, but were of great use.

Keeping this matter in mind, Li Mengxi smiled and said to the craftsmen, "As promised, a certain person said that it will last for three days. If you can finish it in three days, each person will have a pound of meatballs. Every morning, you will be rewarded.

One pound.

Today happens to be the third day, and it is exactly midnight, so if we convert it to half a day, it will be counted as half a catty."

Seeing the happy faces of the carpenters, Li Mengxi said, "Go back and get the things. In a moment, follow me to get the meat!"

The carpenters dispersed happily.

Later, when the meatballs were distributed, he found that there were not many meatballs and there were not enough fishballs. However, the fishballs had thorns and were not delicious. Li Mengxi asked everyone whether two kilograms of fishballs are worth one kilogram of meatballs.

Whether it works or not, the craftsmen are happy to accept it. Each person was given three kilograms of fish balls, and the carpenters who came to pick up the items each went back happily with a large bag of fish balls.

Li Mengxi stopped the carpenter who was responsible for the carpentry task. He asked about the method of repairing the inlaid wood, the method of sealing with movable type, and who thought of using door panels as carving boards, and who thought of finding a blacksmith.

Many and many carving knives can be made in a hurry. Who are these people? Each of them will be rewarded.

The carving craftsmen felt embarrassed. It was obvious that the carving was not done well and the words were carved wrong. They had to chisel out a piece of wood to make up for it. In the military division, they even called it [the method of repairing wood with wood inlays].

The craftsman himself has no shame in thinking this is a good thing.

Also, as for the sealing method, the brothers were obviously too clumsy to carve messy pictures, so they had to find a pile of broken wood and carve it out with a group of people, so that they could barely use it.

What a shameful thing, the brothers had no shame to say it, but the military advisor said it was worthy of a reward.

If it weren't for Li Mengxi's solid reputation, almost all the carvers would have thought that Li Mengxi was speaking sarcastically and deliberately leading people out to scold them.

The carver hesitated, and after thinking for a long time, he said hesitantly, "Who mentioned it without even bothering to look at it? How about I go back and ask?"

"Yes." Li Mengxi nodded, "Then, who made the suggestion for the carving knife? Within a few days of your carving camp, I saw that carving knives were everywhere. Who was responsible for this?"

The carver became even more embarrassed, scratching his head and scratching his head, "...I was thinking that all the brothers came to help, but there was nothing in their hands, so I thought that if I could make more, and give each person two handfuls, it would be somewhat useful.

."

Li Mengxi glanced at the carver in surprise, and he smiled.

Li Mengxi knew very well that this task was urgent and arduous. If the carpenters did not have useful tools, it would probably take twice as long to complete the board.

Fortunately, there are others who understand that if you want to do your job well, you must first sharpen your tools.

Li Mengxi wrote several military tickets and gave them to the engraver. He carried a pile of test papers back to the city lord's palace for verification.

The carver carried three kilograms of meatballs in one hand and held military coupons in the other. He went to the blacksmith camp first and found the blacksmith who had helped make carving knives many times. The blacksmith was busy. The carver walked to the back and made a loud snap.

Shot behind the blacksmith.

The blacksmith looked back and saw who was coming. He looked down again and saw a large bag of things in the hand of the carver. He immediately asked with a smile, "What are you carrying around in this bag in your dog days?"

?”

The carver finished the board, and the military advisor told one person about the reward of three kilograms of fish balls. Then, he thrust a military ticket into the blacksmith's hand. The carver smiled and said, "The military advisor gave it to me."

Helpers also have merit."

The blacksmith smiled and happily accepted the military coupons. Now, he got another ten kilograms of grain.
To be continued...