Riding an old yellow horse, followed by Da Biao, Zhuzi and other young men, and two old men, Yang Dayan and Doctor Zhao, rode a donkey, and the group was very imposing.

Carrying five thousand copper coins is also considered confident success.

The purpose of going out today is very clear. First, I will buy some paper, ink, pen and inkstone with Yang Dayan. Since I want to open a school to educate my children, I must invest less. You can not buy books first, and Yang Dayan can copy them by himself, but you have to buy some paper and pen first.

Then we buy grain. This time we have to buy more food at a time. It is best to buy enough food for next summer. If you have grain at home, you will not feel panic. Now, mutual assistance and cooperation in the village are considered as a model of mutual assistance. We eat big pot rice and work together. Li Xiao has to prepare everyone’s food first.

Fortunately, the price of grain is relatively stable now, and the prices of grain, oil, side dishes, seasonings, etc. are very expensive, but the grain is still not high. You can buy forty stones of corn for a thousand dollars. A farm of about forty bites, and a hundred stones of corn is definitely enough to eat until the summer harvest next year.

It's still the same grain store as last time, and the same price.

Li Xiao bought 100 stones of corn at a time, then bought a few stones of rice, some wheat and some millet.

I also bought some soybeans, sorghum, wheat bran, etc. for my family's mules as feed.

It cost a total of 3,000 yuan, and the shopkeeper also said that he would ask the shopkeeper to take the cart and horses to deliver it directly to his home. This kind of service is indeed home.

"Thank you, the shopkeeper."

Leaving someone staring at him, Li Xiao accompanied Yang Dayan to buy stationery.

The shop selling paper, ink, pen and inkstone is the best place on the street and is at the intersection. It can be said to be a place where golden horns gather wealth. The store decoration is also very stylish and tasteful, with a scent of books.

Even the guys who welcomed guests at the door of the store were wearing long robes and were very gentle.

After entering the store, Li Xiao asked about the price and couldn't help but be shocked.

It's expensive, it's really expensive.

Paper is sold per piece, but the price is outrageous. The most expensive ones are hemp paper, as well as velvet paper, straw paper, bamboo paper, etc. Hemp paper also includes jute paper and white hemp paper.

For example, the paper used for official writing is almost all hemp paper, among which the imperial center and the palace used the jute paper produced and paid tribute from Shu.

The shopkeeper knew everything about his own paper and talked freely, but Li Xiao looked ugly when he heard it.

After buying the food, I came to this store and came out of my house to bring five thousand yuan. I just spent three thousand yuan, but now I still have two thousand yuan on it.

I just bought more than 100 stone grain for 3,000 yuan, but now I can’t buy a few pieces of paper here for 2,000 yuan.

"Shopkeeper, your paper is too expensive." Da Biao couldn't help but say. A thin piece of paper could actually weigh a pig. This is simply a pig slaughter.

The shopkeeper stroked his beard and smiled calmly, "Several customers, the shop is honest and never opens high prices randomly. Just say that this hemp paper has white hemp paper and jute paper. The white hemp paper is white and smooth on the front, and the back is slightly rough. It has grass stick confetti sticks adhered, but it is very thin and tough, and it is very durable. As long as it is not damp, it will not deteriorate for a long time."

"The jute paper in the small shop was transported from Shu, and it was made of authentic jute in Shu. It is slightly yellow in color, slightly thicker than white bed paper, and looks rougher than white hemp paper, but the paper pattern is wider, about two fingers. This is the best writing paper nowadays. Even the royal palace and the imperial center use this paper. Books made of hemp paper are not afraid of being exposed to the wind and sun. As long as a jute paper book is well preserved, it can even be passed down for thousands of years and is still as complete as new."

Yang Dayan is a teacher and is an expert in paper. He told Li Xiao, "The hemp paper in this store is all good paper. Although the price is high, it is the same as the market price."

Li Xiao was a little helpless. One of the cut jute papers in the store was a scroll type and the other was a folding page type. The size was about the same, that is, they could copy tens of thousands of characters. The Tang people usually made a book of ten thousand words into a volume. Such a book usually had eight to ten lines per page, and each line was eighteen and twenty-four characters, so a book was about fifty pages.

And such a jute paper that can copy a book costs 1,000 yuan.

If you only buy a piece of white paper for a thousand pennies, you can only write 10,000 words. What is this not robbery? Guo Dabiao can't make a few cents even if he kills a pig. He sells a whole pig, but he doesn't even sell it for a thousand cents.

This is just a piece of white paper. If it is a copy of a book, the price of a book like a Thousand Character Text will increase by two or three times.

No wonder it is said that the knowledge of this era is in the hands of the gentry families, so who can read ordinary people?

A bucket of corn is only two and a half cents, and a thousand coins can buy forty stones of corn, but only one piece of jute paper.

"If the customer thinks hemp paper is expensive, you can buy velvet paper, straw paper, and bamboo paper. These papers are a little cheaper." The shopkeeper's attitude is very good.

But once you ask the price, it's not much cheaper.

The cheapest one is straw paper. As the name suggests, paper made directly from grass is rough, the paper has a rough texture, and the back is a bit broken, thick and crisp. Bamboo paper and velvet paper are better, but in Li Xiao's opinion, they are also very poor.

Just like this, the cheapest piece of straw paper costs two hundred yuan.

"Where is this mulberry paper?"

"This is velvet paper with mulberry bark, three hundred dollars a piece."

Dabiao felt that his heart couldn't stand it after hearing this, "If you don't buy it, it's better to write it directly on the cloth."

"How can cloth be compared with paper?" said the shopkeeper.

"Shopkeeper, I'll give me two pieces of this kind of velvet paper." Although it's very expensive, I still have to buy the paper. However, now I don't have money, so Li Xiao has to buy two pieces first.

In fact, papermaking had a technological explosion in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Therefore, the use of paper is now very common, but paper is still common in the government and gentry levels, and ordinary people still cannot afford it.

Not to mention that it is used to wrap paper for packaging, some ordinary people may never touch a piece of paper in their lifetime.

Paper is expensive, and books are even more expensive. Moreover, books in this era are basically copied, and printed books are carved boards, mainly printed scriptures, etc., and they are expensive.

Line-bound books have not appeared in this era. At this time, books were the same as paper sold in this store. They were either scroll-style, with axes on both sides and opened like a picture-style scroll. The other was album. The style of memorials that the emperor read was album. When folded, they could be pulled apart. Most Buddhist scriptures were album-style.

The books that were bound pages in later generations had not yet appeared, and printing with movable type was even more useless.

In this era, there are very few people who can read books, so those who can read literacy have a high status. Even if they are in a bad state, even if they copy books, their income will be very high. In general, the price of copying a book is 1,000 yuan.

A book is only ten thousand words. A thousand words and hundreds of dollars are simply more profitable than writing a book.

When you buy paper, you have to buy pens, ink and ink. Paper is very expensive, and these are not cheap either. Any brush can cost dozens or hundreds of dollars, which makes Li Xiaoya so sad.

"Let the children practice calligraphy on the sand first." Yang Dayan said helplessly. If he bought paper, ink, pen and inkstone for several children at home, he would not be able to afford it at all.

Da Biao was worried, "I only realized now that studying is so expensive, and it is also the most profitable to make paper and print books. If I know how to make paper, my descendants will not have to worry about it for generations."

Yang Dayan smiled, "The papermaking workshops are all controlled by those rich families of gentry. No one else can interfere, and it is impossible to get the technology."
Chapter completed!