Baidu nerd worships Chongzhen

  Not long after Yang's reform had been going on, Wang Chengen brought a group of people to Yang. According to Wang Chengen, there were "printing masters" from the Imperial Printing Office and "masters" who made paper money from the Ministry of Revenue. Wang Chengen was also thoughtful, fearing that if he didn't find them all at once, the emperor's affairs would be delayed. With one order, they all came.

  ……

  "... (grass people) We knock on the emperor, the emperor ten thousand years old... " It's probably the first time to see the emperor, so it's very exciting, so the voice is uneven, high and low, not in a good shape. Fortunately, when knocking heads, it was very "fierce", one by one quickly fell to the ground, then used their heads to knock on the floorboard.

  ……

  "Get up, all of you. I have summoned you today for a task that requires your completion. If completed, there will be heavy rewards, not to mention silver, and it is also possible to become an official. I will definitely make good use of you. Your lives will also be rewritten. One person completes the task, one person gets the reward; several people form a partnership to complete the task, all partners get the reward..."

  Yang Reform has already spent a bit of "capital" at the beginning, silver, Yang Reform is temporarily not lacking, tens of thousands of taels, hundreds of thousands of taels can still be taken out for the time being. As for officials, it's even simpler, just casually assign them and they become officials. It's also very easy to use this to lure these people in.

  "Ah!", "Hiss……", the crowd exclaimed, one by one suddenly lifting their heads, wide-eyed and staring intensely at His Majesty the Emperor. They were truly stunned by the Emperor's words! Such good fortune would also come to us? Their eyes grew even more ardent as they gazed at the Emperor.

  Yang Reform suddenly felt as if there were dozens of laser beams scanning his body back and forth! Looking at the gaze of these people, he understood that it was a mixture of enthusiasm, passion, excitement... and so on, forming a "human laser beam".

  Yang's reform is speechless, this person's desire is really too big!

  Wang Chengen could no longer bear to watch, you bunch of commoners, how dare you stare at the emperor with your eyes, don't you want to live? He immediately shouted: "Silence!"

  A group of people suddenly came to their senses, realizing that this was the imperial palace and they were meeting with the emperor, not visiting relatives at home. One by one, they hastily lowered their heads.

  ……

  "This matter is actually quite simple, I plan to issue something called a lottery ticket, which requires printing receipts for others, timely and quick printing receipts, and also needs anti-counterfeiting, anti-fraud, but the price must be very low, cannot exceed one cent..."

  Yang Gaizheng thought for a moment, said all the places he had thought of, and continued: "Dabang, first show them those white jade balls, then tell them the rules... listen to them..." Yang Gaizheng suddenly thought, still show them things, see if they have any good ideas, see if their own double-colored ball can be settled.

  "Yes, Your Majesty." Wang Chengen replied.

  ……

  Suddenly, thirty-three white jade balls and sixteen emerald balls appeared before the crowd. After they had looked at them for a while, Wang Chengen explained the rules of the two-colored ball game and the emperor's riddle.

  These people are also confused. Fortunately, there are a few smart ones. After reading it, I thought about it for a while and finally had some ideas.

  "I have come to report to Your Majesty, I am a humble subject, Ah Wu. The person who came forward to report is about twenty years old. He looks quite lean and has some spirit in his eyes. Presumably he is someone with some ideas, unwilling to spend his whole life under others, a young man who wants to stand out."

  Yang looked at the reform and didn't feel very real. Between the emperor and that group of people, Wang Chengen used a Taoist curtain to separate them, blocking their line of sight. Yang felt in agreement with this operation. In the future, Yang also planned to leave the palace and didn't want more people to recognize him, bringing trouble.

  "Are you Ah Wu? Well, speak up and tell me what's on your mind. If you can provide a good solution to my problem, I won't be stingy with silver or positions of power." Yang Reform had invested "a lot of capital". In reality, it was just plucking one hair to benefit these people.

  "I, a humble subject, have roughly understood Your Majesty's intention. I am a craftsman of the Ministry of Revenue's Currency Bureau. Regarding the printing of certificates and the creation of secret notes, I have some knowledge and am willing to serve Your Majesty."

  "Very well, I have taken note of it. Now speak, those who have merit will be rewarded."

  "I humbly report to Your Majesty, I think it's feasible to print 'lottery tickets' with special numbers as requested by the customers and add a secret mark to prevent counterfeiting. Our Da Ming Bao Chao is almost the same as Your Majesty's 'lottery tickets', except that you require printing a set of numbers according to the customer's wishes, which can be done, but it's more troublesome and requires specially made plates from the Ministry of Revenue. Different people need different plates, and there are countless combinations of these numbers... I dare to say, even if Your Majesty uses all the people in the Ministry of Revenue to engrave these plates, they won't be able to finish them in a short time..."

  Yang's reform was blinded. By what Ah Wu said, Yang's reform felt that his lottery plan was full of loopholes! It's estimated to be a waste. These numbers have countless combinations, and one combination requires a stencil? That stencil is probably going to use the entire city of Beijing to store.

  Yang thought for a moment and said: "What if there is movable type printing? Using movable type plates? How?" Yang refused to give up, deciding to try again.

  That person named Ah Wu thought for half a day before saying: "I humbly report to Your Majesty, I have also seen movable type printing, it is feasible. However, the characters printed by this method are somewhat blurry and require high-quality ink, so we need to specially make a batch of character molds and special ink."

  Yang Reform's ears perked up, and he exclaimed with joy: "Really? Well, if we follow the customer's request to print specific numbers, how many can we print in a day?" Modern lottery tickets are printed by computer, just a few clicks and they're out. You can have any number you want, but in ancient times, there were no such conditions. Even with movable type printing, it still required rearranging the characters. This takes time, this takes manpower.

  Ah Wu thought for a moment, then replied: "I'll report to the Emperor, at the speed of a commoner, it will probably take several breaths, or maybe ten or more breaths to rearrange these numbers. I still need some time to check and proofread, and try printing them out to see if they can be used..." This person didn't dare make any promises now. His speech became less confident.

  How many breaths? More than ten breaths? How much is that? A few seconds? More than ten seconds? Yang Reform was speechless, there was no unit of time measurement, even conversation was so difficult!

  "Let's talk about how many times you can arrange in a day with four time periods." Yang reform directly asked how many times he could arrange in eight hours a day. This is simpler.

  That Ah Wu looked flustered and pained, arranging these characters day and night? Isn't that taking someone's life? Is my life just for the emperor to constantly arrange those numbers? After thinking about it, gritting his teeth, he said: "Reporting to Your Majesty, roughly a thousand times is already the limit of a commoner... If there are more, I'll get dizzy and prone to errors in proofreading." Ah Wu didn't want to do this all day either, even if he was given an official position, it wouldn't be meaningful.

  One thousand times? Yang reform silently calculated again, Beijing's population of one million people, if each person buys one ticket, it would require a thousand people to "print" these tickets, which is equivalent to a thousand lottery stores. It's barely acceptable, but the cost of just printing the tickets is not enough, and additional costs such as storefronts and personnel are needed, all of which need to be added to the lottery. After careful calculation, the costs have increased significantly.

  ……

  "That typesetting and printing is no problem, what about anti-counterfeiting and preventing cheating? Is there a good way?" Yang Gaizhi thought for a moment, then asked.

  That Ah Wu was more familiar with this, and replied: "To report to the Emperor, preventing counterfeiting is just like protecting precious currency, it's almost no problem, secret codes and secret languages are not a problem, what's difficult is how to prevent cheating, if someone takes a lottery ticket printed after the fact to claim a prize from an earlier day, that would be more troublesome."

  "How can it be solved?"

  "I beg to report to Your Majesty, in that case, we will need to use duplicate receipts. Each lottery ticket will be printed twice, one copy given to the customer and the other copy kept on file by the government office. We will need to collect the printed receipts every day and store them in a secret location, this way we can prevent others from cheating..."

  ……