The first thing that Liu Bei thought of was to sell the horses of his personal guards, which were as many as three horses per person, in exchange for 120 horseshoe gold cakes.
After that, Liu Bei began to relax and enjoy life in Luoyang.
Liu Bei knew many horse merchants in Luoyang.
In addition, the Zhen family had been doing this business all year round, so they could ask the Zhen family to help them sell it for a higher price.
Before Liu Bei and Li Tian left, Zhen Yan had given them some tokens and inscriptions.
He told them that if they had any business needs, they could look for the Zhen family branch in Luoyang at any time.
The so-called essay was the letter of introduction in this era.
Carving on wooden planks to prevent damage, the paper of this era was too fragile.
As for the money he earned from selling the horses, other than the money he needed to enjoy his life for the next few days, Liu Bei gave the rest to Li Tian.
Obviously, Liu Bei knew a little about the current rules of officialdom and knew that everything had to be done with money.
Since Li Tian was so capable in this aspect, he had to be careful.
Because of Liu Bei's trust, Li Tian's money, along with the reward money, had swelled to more than 200 pounds of gold. He couldn't carry it all by himself.
Liu Bei sent Guan Yu to Li Tian to act as a porter and protect the money.
……
This was the second day since they arrived in Luoyang.
Early in the morning, Ju Shou came to inform them,
It was said that the Great General He Jin would summon him tomorrow to ask about Zhang Chun's situation.
He told them to prepare in advance, but they could still move around freely today.
Li Tian was ready to leave. Guan Yu asked with concern,"
"Where is Boya going? I'll protect you."
Li Tian politely declined,"
"No need. I'll take some time off to go to the Imperial College to carve the monoliths. Second brother, you can stay and look after the money.”
As he spoke, he took three to five gold cakes from his luggage and left.
When he was selling the horses yesterday, he had also bought some large pieces of paper, brushes, and brushes from the Zhen family's shop. He planned to go to the square at the entrance of the Imperial College early in the morning to try his hand at copying a few stone scriptures.
After all, he was prepared to respect Ju Shou's teachings.
This would not only be beneficial to him, but it would also help him get closer to Qiushou.
He had also seen the tablet in his later life, so he roughly knew how to operate it.
Today, the stone of the stone tablet was black. When it was carved, the words engraved were white.
In this way, as long as one was careful enough when applying ink,
He pasted it on an ink silk that had been completely soaked in ink before taking it off to ensure that the ink did not stick to the sunken words and would not affect the reading of the inscription itself.
As for the originally black stone, a little more ink wouldn't be able to tell at all. The people in charge of the Imperial College shouldn't mind or stop it.
Li Tian had left early, and the eunuchs were now in power.
There was no day for the Imperial College students to shine, and most of their studies were neglected. There was actually no one coming and going at the entrance of the Imperial College.
Li Tian made a large basin of ink and soaked a few pieces of silk in it. After soaking them in the ink, he let them dry and carefully pasted them onto a stone tablet.
Then, he removed the ink silk and covered the same place with a piece of pure white paper. The ink on the stone tablet was transferred to the paper again.
However, the paper seemed to be too fragile and easy to seep through, and the strokes of the inscriptions on the stone tablet were too thin.
After a while, the white words on the paper were seeped through by the black ink beside it, turning the entire paper pure black. Not a single word could be seen clearly.
After a few seconds, the entire piece of paper was soaked in too much ink.
"Oh no, this Cai Hou paper is too weak. He can't even carve a monolith.”
Li Tian cursed inwardly.
The paper made from this kind of broken fishing net and rags had obvious fiber leakage.
If he used a brush to write on it, the amount of ink was small, so it didn't matter if it seeped a little. However, most of the paper was dyed with ink when he was carving the stele, so it seeped in an instant.
"Oh right, yesterday when I was getting the paper from the Zhen family's shop, didn't the Zhen family's manager give me a few rare pieces of paper?”
Li Tian was a person who would solve any problem he encountered, so he didn't waste too much time and immediately started to think of a solution.
It turned out that the Zhen family's steward had given him a few good pieces of paper called Uncle Zuo's paper yesterday. It was said that they had come from Donglai County in Qingzhou.
Cai Hou paper was invented more than 70 years ago, and it was produced all over the Great Han Dynasty.
Zuo Bo paper was invented by a Donglai man called Zuo Bo ten years ago, and it was still only produced in Qingzhou.
This kind of paper had evolved from Cai Hou paper in that it was more particular about its raw materials.
It was necessary to use a certain proportion of mulberry bark to make paper, which was similar to the mulberry bark paper of later generations.
Therefore, Zuo Bo paper was much stronger than Cai Hou paper, and it was not easy for it to rot due to excessive soaking in water and ink. It was also much more expensive.
Li Tian did not re-apply the ink after a while. He used the remaining ink that had been applied to the stone tablet for the first time to re-apply a piece of Uncle Zuo paper.
After observing for a while, he realized that the paper was not soaked this time.
However, the problem of the ink seeping and extending along the mulberry bark fiber was still unsolved.
The words that were carved out could be vaguely seen.
However, it was as if it had cracked. One could see that the patterns on the bark fibers had absorbed the ink.
"No, it seems that all the paper in the Han Dynasty can't be copied.
No wonder the printing of inscriptions in history started in the Wei and Jin Dynasties.
I remember that in the later generations, ordinary Xuan paper could be casually used to make tombstones.
What was the difference between Xuan paper and Zuo Bozhi's formula…
He couldn't remember the details, but he had gone to Xuanzhou's Xuan paper museum to take a look.
It was said that all kinds of Xuan paper were made of paper mulberry bark.
Could it be that the difference between the most basic Xuan paper in the future and the current Zuo Bo paper was the tree bark used to make the paper?”
Li Tian thought to himself.
"There's no other way. If we want to expand the monoliths, or even do printing in the future, and help the lord do publicity work, we must first solve the problem of paper.
Engraving was convenient. If he couldn't make an engraving in Yang characters, he would first make an engraving in Yin characters.
Later, he would find a way to buy the bark of the paper mulberry tree, and then find the Zhen family's workshop to try to make new paper.”
Having made up his mind, Li Tian decided to pack up and go back.
Today's monument creation had ended in failure.
He had just packed his things when he noticed that there were already a few students gathered behind him, pointing and gossiping.
"Hmph, what an insult! Too lazy!"
"Scholars from all over the world come here for a pilgrimage and all of them personally copy the handwriting. There are actually people who want to cheat and take advantage of the situation by directly printing the handwriting back!”
Li Tian didn't argue with them and apologized sincerely,"
"It's because I'm not knowledgeable enough, my handwriting is too ugly, and I don't have time to stay in the capital, so I wanted to print the original Cai's handwriting back and slowly learn it.”
"You bastard, wash the monument clean! Otherwise, don't even think about leaving today!"
"I'll wash it immediately."
Li Tian wasn't ashamed of trying out new techniques, so he washed the stone clean.
Seeing that his attitude was so good, the students did not have any excuse to continue finding fault with him.
He immediately felt bored and left.
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