Datang romantic little landlord

Since I have copied all of them myself, when printing "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", I would like to promote the punctuation marks together.

"Wonderful! It's really wonderful! Teacher, this punctuation mark is really a magic tool. In this way, there will be no more mistakes in punctuation."

Facing Ma Zhou's praise, Li Wangyou nodded indifferently again, expressing that he is such a genius...

263 Printing costs

Ma Zhou looked at Li Wangyou even more scorchingly, and now he can't care that "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is just a novel.

This is the first engraved and printed book in the Tang Dynasty, and the first book that uses punctuation marks!

Yan Liben was able to draw illustrations and sign the name, so how could he not make Ma Zhou's eyes hot.

"Hey, teacher, what do you think I can do for you as a disciple? I also want to do my part for your book, teacher." Ma Zhou said embarrassedly, rubbing his hands.

Li Wangyou looked at Ma Zhou with a smile in his eyes, but suddenly he thought about it.

Such good free labor is not in vain.

He copied "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the most tiring thing is to use a brush to transcribe stroke by stroke.

Because this manuscript is going to be sent to the bookshop for engraving, every word must be sloppy, so I have to concentrate on writing carefully, which is very tiring.

If you accidentally write a wrong word, the entire manuscript has to be rewritten, and there is no chance to alter it.

In the past few days, Li Wangyou has been very impatient for copying.

Although Ma Zhou can't give his mobile phone, if he can just copy it out without worrying about writing, and then ask Ma Zhou to help him rewrite the manuscript seriously, it will save a lot of time.

"Bin Wang, are you willing to help me transcribe the manuscript? This manuscript will be sent directly to the engraving block. From now on, the book "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" will be written entirely by you, King Bin. How about it, are you willing?"

Ma Zhou nodded like a chicken pecking at rice: "Yes, of course I am willing. It is a student's honor to serve the master."

Li Wangyou was very happy, patted Ma Zhou on the shoulder and gave him a sweet date: "I will write your name on the cover of this book, indicating that it is your Ma Zhou Ma Binwang's ink manuscript."

These words made Ma Zhou even more excited, wishing he could start copying now.

Ma Zhou was very satisfied that he could not only leave his name on the teacher's book, but also see the "updated" content in the first place.

And Yan Liben, who was concentrating on painting, couldn't help but raised his head when he heard this, and looked at Li Wangyou eagerly, his eyes full of expectation.

Li Wangyou saw Yan Liben's small eyes, and immediately gave a sweet date: "Liben will naturally leave his name on the cover, draw illustrations, Yan Liben."

Pretending that he didn't care, Yan Liben bowed his head in silence and continued to paint, but the corners of his mouth could not help but curl up, obviously extremely satisfied.

Li Wangyou had already finished transcribing the first volume of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", that is, the first five chapters, so there was no need for Ma Zhou to transcribe it again.This made Ma Zhou very regretful, and could only wait for Li Wangyou to write the rest of the manuscript.

While the two were talking, Yan Liben had already completed a drawing, dried the ink and handed it to Li Wangyou.

"Master, can you see if this is okay?"

Li Wangyou took the manuscript, and after looking at it, he almost wanted to keep the manuscript for himself, it would be a waste to use it for engraving.

I have to say that asking a master like Yan Liben to draw illustrations for himself is really a cannonball to beat mosquitoes, and a sledgehammer to kill chickens is an overkill.

Yan Liben was originally good at drawing figures. After studying sketch perspective with Li Wangyou for a period of time, the lines of the characters he drew were strong and round, and the clothes were simple and heavy, making them more realistic and lifelike.

What he painted was the scene of three sworn brothers, Liu, Guan, and Zhang, in the peach garden.

Yan Li is known as the "Danqing Myth". The level of illustrations he draws is higher than that of later generations of illustrators. Li Wangyou is very satisfied.

"Liben, this illustration is very good, very good. There are still four chapters left, you can draw them together, and I will send them to the bookshop for engraving, and try to print them into a book in ten days."

After being praised by the teacher, Yan Liben nodded immediately, ran back to the desk, and bent over the desk to paint again.

Because it only needs to draw lines, and the size of the illustrations is not large, Yan Liben drew all the illustrations of the five chapters.

Li Wangyou also wrote the cover of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and under the expectation of Yan Liben, he wrote a line of small characters: "Illustrated drawing Yan Liben"

These seven characters made Ma Zhou's eyes very hot. He wished he could re-transcribe the first five chapters now, so that Li Wangyou could also write on the cover: "Transcribe Ma Binwang".

The manuscript for the first volume of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was all ready, Li Wangyou was going to strike while the iron was hot, and sent it to the bookstore today, trying to print it out as soon as possible.

If it is launched one day earlier, those who have read this book will be able to understand the pain of "chasing updates" one day earlier, wow, hahaha, wouldn't it be great!

Li Wangyou took Niu Wu and rode to Hu County Bookstore.

Sun Fangzhu of the bookstore saw Li Wangyou coming, and quickly stepped forward to salute: "I have seen the man from Hu County, is there anything I can do for you?"

Li Wangyou smiled, reached out and handed over his stack of manuscripts.

"Fangzhu Sun, this is a book I plan to print. Let's see how long it will take to print it."

Fangzhu Sun took the manuscript with both hands respectfully, and flipped through it briefly: "Men from Hu County, I can print it naturally, I wonder how many copies of this book you need to print?"

Li Wangyou thought about it, this is the first book, and he should not print too much for now, if he can't sell it, he will lose a lot of money.

Although "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is one of China's four great classics, what if people in Tang Dynasty don't like it?This is not necessarily impossible.

Li Wangyou originally wanted to print [-] copies. Anyway, the service life of the woodblock engraving is about [-] printings. Printing [-] copies just completed the service life of the engraving.

However, out of cost considerations, he decided to test the waters by printing less: "Let's print a thousand copies first, and if it sells well, just print more."

After Fangzhu Sun heard about it, he hesitated: "Men from Hu County, look, this wage...how is it calculated?"

The last time I helped Li Wangyou print leaflets, because I only carved a few engraving blocks, and in order to obtain the engraving printing technology, Fangzhu Sun was very generous and did not charge Li Wangyou's engraving labor costs.

But now the stack of manuscripts that Li Wangyou took out has almost more than 100 pages, which means that more than 100 engravings need to be engraved.

The labor cost of engraving is not cheap.

The engraving craftsmen in the bookstore charge for engraving and printing, which is actually the same as engraving seals, and they charge based on the number of words.

For every hundred characters engraved, Fangzhu Sun needs to pay the craftsman two hundred copper coins, and the engraving of a page of manuscript is almost four hundred coins.

This thick stack of more than one hundred pages of manuscripts is all engraved, and only the labor cost of the engraving craftsman requires [-] copper coins, which is equivalent to forty guan.

As for other labor such as paper, ink, and printing, Fangzhu Sun doesn't know how much he needs.

Because although he has obtained the woodblock printing technology, he has never printed a book, so he can only roughly estimate how much it will cost.

But Fangzhu Yisun silently calculated in his heart, and the figure he got shocked him.

According to his estimation, excluding the cost of engraving, just the printing cost of paper and ink, the cost of the book that Li Wangyou wanted to print would not be less than a hundred coins.

That is to say, if Li Wangyou wanted to print a thousand copies of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", it would only cost about 140 guan for the capital of the bookstore, with an average of 140 copper coins per copy.

With such a large expenditure, Fangzhu Sun couldn't help but be careless.