Aztec Eternals

After leaving the palace, Xiulot strode forward, all the way to the east. Berthard calmly guarded behind him. Facing the warm morning sun, everyone hurried to the place of enlightenment.

The boy was obviously in a good mood. With a warm smile on his face, he nodded slightly to the nobles and warriors who saluted along the way.

Not long to the east of the palace area is the majestic Great Temple. Shulot looked up, his eyes fixed. He keenly discovered that the Rain Temple, one of the twin pyramids, was being rebuilt.

Beside the fluttering veil of the God of Rain, the veil of the God of War unfolds at the same time and is above it. Most of the wind and rain symbols symbolizing the god of rain have been removed and replaced with hummingbird carvings symbolizing the god of war. Although he couldn't see the god statue in the inner hall clearly, the young man was sure that there would also be changes there.

This is one of the priesthood's New Year's preparations. Starting from this year's sacrificial ceremony, the main god will gradually take over the agricultural priesthood of the rain god. The priests will also use the prepared myths to explain, and use a buffer time of several years to allow the people to slowly accept the promotion of the main god.

After the Great Temple, there is the chief minister's palace where the elders live in seclusion. Shulot looked from afar, and the front of the palace was cold and chilling. The elder guards were still as solemn as sculptures, but the old man who had crossed the centuries could not be seen. After crossing the temple and palace, he continued eastward, and soon he arrived at the busy divine apocalypse.

Looking at the name written by himself, the boy's heart fluctuated slightly. In the towering palace, are the calm eyes of the elders also looking at the future here?

After a while, Shulot came back to his senses. He didn't think about it anymore, and went directly to the southern area of ​​the folk artisans. The first thing to look at is woodblock printing, which he is most concerned about.

The study of woodblock printing is located in a side hall on the east side. In the exquisite and gorgeous side hall, various thick wooden boards, blue and black ink and pure white paper are piled up. As soon as the young man stepped into the side hall, he could smell the fragrance of pine wood, the fragrance of ink, and a faint pungent smell.

Shulot's eyes swept over, slightly stagnating. He took a few steps closer, staring at the white paper like snow, and fell silent.

Noticing the arrival of His Highness, Equila immediately put down the engraving in her hand, and knelt down to salute. The young man raised his hand, motioning for the senior middle-aged jade craftsman to stand up. Then, he stretched out his hand and pinched the white paper in front of him. It was evenly thick and of high quality. And the faint pungent smell also came from the white paper.

"Equila, is this paper sent from the crafting center?" Shulot was a little puzzled.

"Dear Your Highness, this is the latest refined paper from the papermaking department of Shenqi Institute. It is more suitable for engraving and printing. It was invented by a young craftsman, and it was delivered early this morning in a hurry. They are not far from next door. house."

Equila looked calm and told the truth.

Xiuluo nodded. It seems that the papermaking department has indeed discovered a new craft. I have to inquire carefully later, to compare it with the memory in my mind, and see if I can find anything else. Then, he looked at the calm and steady middle-aged jade craftsman.

"Is the engraving of the engraving smooth? How is the printing effect?"

Equila bowed, and stretched out his hand to make a false pretense.

"Your Highness, everything is going well. Please let me demonstrate for you."

As he said that, Equila took out a carved thick wooden board, on which was the reverse version of the thousand-character inscription left by His Highness. The anti-style characters on the engraving block are carved into raised Yang characters, and the remaining blank parts are removed from the depressions. The young man stretched out his hand to feel it, and found that the inscription was extremely fine, only slightly protruding from the printed surface, but the edge of the shallow nail protruded by about 1-3 mm.

Then, the middle-aged jade craftsman carefully painted the engraving with even blue ink with a brush. This ink is the most commonly used Mayan blue in the Union of Mexica. It is made by mixing the plant indigo extracted from the leaves of wild green trees and the mineral binder extracted from palygorskite clay. Mayan blue has a high yield and is often used in sacrificial ceremonies to smear the entire body of the sacrifice.

After observing the degree of inking, Equila carefully covered the white paper on the board, and used another flat board to cover it stably. Soon, he lifted the paper from the printing plate again and placed it on a wooden table in the shadow of the corner to dry in the shade.

Xiulot looked carefully, and there was already a piece of paper that had been dried in the shade. The Chinese characters on it were as big as a thumb, and the handwriting was clear and accurate. There are also pages with majestic depictions of deities, and the Alliance's calendar sunstone. The pictures are extremely detailed and equally lifelike.

"Equila, how many sheets of paper can you print in a day? How many times can a printing plate be printed?" The boy asked urgently.

Equila thought for a while, and answered cautiously.

"Your Highness, as long as there is enough paper, a printer can print more than 1,000 sheets a day at the speed I just said. If he is busy day and night and skilled, he can print up to 2,000 sheets. The number of times the engraving block is used depends on the material of the wood. I haven't used it yet." It’s broken a pair of engraving plates. Judging by the degree of wear and tear, there will always be thousands of times.”

Hearing this, Xiulot was very satisfied. Printing and books will be the most powerful ideological weapons to complete the religious reform and completely reshape the spiritual world of the Mexica!

The priesthood has compiled a concise teaching of thousands of words called the "Book of Amakrī", or simply the "Ali Sutra". In the Nahua language, the meaning of "Ama Keli" is book, revelation, reading book or ancient scroll.

The Alijing is generally a verse praising the supremacy of the Lord God and describing the creation myth of the Lord God. Its text is plain and simple, referring to the content of the thousand-character text, and it is used as the most elementary enlightenment book, just like the European Bible.

Since the engraving can be practical, the next step is to print tens of thousands of Ali Sutras and distribute them to every community military academy. When the literacy education of the first batch of priests is completed, they will go to every town and village in the alliance with brand-new ideological weapons. They will teach the will of the Lord God to every fifteen-year-old boy, popularize new religious ideas, and completely change the next generation of the alliance from then on, establishing the supreme kingdom of God on earth!

Thinking of this, Shulot's heart fluctuated. In addition to printed scriptures, engraving blocks can also depict majestic temples and complete mythological stories. In the form of an album, the revelation and teachings of the Lord God are left to the illiterate ordinary people. It can also print prayers, laws, common sense of the calendar, and agricultural illustrations to guide daily life and production.

All in all, printing and religious books will drastically reduce the difficulty of disseminating religious ideas and rapidly promote the monotheistic religious reform. From the current point of view, papermaking and printing technology must be strictly kept secret, and paper production and book printing can only be carried out in the capital.

This matter is related to the great cause of the Mexica people. For at least two generations, the core of the alliance must maintain an absolute monopoly advantage in cultural transmission, and form a cross-dimensional cultural blow to the Central American states whose writing has not yet formed!

Xiulot thought quickly and made a decision. All artisans must be closely monitored, registered, and even isolated from society. Book printing will become the taboo of the priesthood, and those who dare to set foot in this area, whether they are commoners or nobles, will only have a dead end!

This kind of move, on the one hand, is to slow down the speed of technological diffusion, and on the other hand, it is a preview to prevent European Christian invasion. Unlike the Celestial Dynasty, the early civilization did not have the cultural accumulation of all rivers. Therefore, on the ideological battlefield, it will also be a contest of life and death.

Thinking of this, he looked at Equila calmly and indifferently. The middle-aged jade craftsman suddenly felt a chill in his heart, and quickly bowed his head in salute, not daring to look directly.

Then, Xiulot continued to think about the development of movable type printing in Europe. The religious reform it brought would determine the fate of the Spanish Empire, the great enemy of the Aztec League.

Some forty years ago, in 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type printing with lead type in the Holy Roman state. Today, this technology has been introduced to major European countries, and it is still spreading rapidly at this time, gestating the opportunity of the new religious reformation.

Thirty years later, almost at the same time when the Spaniards invaded the Aztec Empire, the flames of religious reform would first be ignited in the states of Shenluo, and then Britain broke with the Roman Church and established the Anglican Church. The flame of Protestantism will gradually ignite the whole of Europe.

In history, after conquering the Americas, the Spaniards will have wealth beyond that of European countries and reach the golden age of prosperity. Under religious differences, the devout Kingdom of Spain was therefore hostile to the Kingdom of England. Then Britain supported the Dutch War of Independence from Spanish rule and privately plundered Spanish fleets in the Americas.

In the dual hostility of religion and royal power, the Kingdom of Spain finally dispatched the Armada to try to conquer Britain, and then unexpectedly failed in all battles. The Invincible Fleet was defeated in the Battle of Graveland, and coupled with the strong southerly wind, it was forced to flee northward. In the end, the Armada lost more than two-thirds, and more than a hundred ships sank in the ocean, losing effective control of the Americas.

Then came the brutal thirty-year religious war, the independence of the Spanish Netherlands, and the complete decline of the Spanish Empire, and the end of the golden age. And the finale is the War of Spanish Succession fifty years later. After this war, Spain lost almost all European territory outside the Iberian Peninsula, and the first generation of the empire on which the sun never sets came to an end. From then on, Britain established its hegemony and gradually rose to become the second-generation empire on which the sun never sets.

Looking at the paper with thoughts printed on it, Shulot fell into deep thought.

The development of history is a dynamic process. Various clues are complicated and entangled, and the era is moving forward. Important events in history are just records and manifestations of violent dynamic conflicts in the general trend. The printing press gave birth to the general trend of the Reformation, the flame of Protestantism could not be extinguished by the Roman Church, and the centrifugal force of England was also driven by the general trend.

Regardless of religion and culture, purely from a diplomatic point of view, the Kingdom of England after the Protestant Reformation and the pious Spanish Empire have always been hostile, and they are natural allies of the alliance. In the distant future, this will be an important opportunity.

After thinking for a long time, Xiulot shook his head and took his thoughts back from the history that hadn't happened yet. He again considered the craft and feasibility of movable type printing.

Johannes Gutenberg's movable type printing consisted of two parts: the casting of movable lead type, and the wooden printing press.

The wooden printing presses here are just screw-type wine presses, turned with threads and levers, to apply steady pressure to the wooden board below for printing. This technology has been invented around AD, and it was not uncommon in China's Xia Dynasty. In fact, the printing press was never the decisive factor in the application of movable type printing, movable type casting was!

Gutenberg's lead movable type casting technology comes from the goldsmith's casting, and the technological innovation lies in the steps of Yin and Yang inversion. He first used hard metal to make Yang characters, and then used Yang characters to carve on soft metal, and then turned out a font containing Yin characters. Finally, low-melting point lead and tin were cast using the intaglio type molds to produce a large number of repeated embossed characters for layout and printing.

This technology also has no technical bottlenecks for Chinese goldsmiths. The copper plate banknotes of the Song Dynasty already used metal movable type to print different anti-counterfeiting font sizes. However, metal movable type has never been popular in China, and the root cause is the essential difference between the Chinese writing system and the Latin alphabet system.

There are more than 10,000 Chinese characters in the Chinese writing system, and thousands of commonly used characters. There are only 26 letters in the Latin alphabet, and even 21 in ancient Latin. The movable type libraries of the two are not on the same scale at all, and the difference is two orders of magnitude. This vastly different production cost determines whether the technology is practical or not.

From the perspective of the training of printing workers, Chinese movable type workers must know thousands to 10,000 Chinese characters, understand the sound and rhyme, know the position of each character in the thousands of characters, and prepare multiple high-frequency common characters. As for the moveable type workers of the Latin alphabet, as long as they can spell 26 letters, it is enough for ordinary apprentices to get started in a few days.

Xiulot pondered silently, and finally nodded his head.

After the precipitation of history, the writing system of the Celestial Dynasty completely chose engraving and printing, and metal movable type is at most only digital anti-counterfeiting. Therefore, the Mexica who embraced Chinese characters must also use engraving and printing. Block printing is characterized by low cost, low craftsmanship, long-term preservation, and low cultural requirements for workers, which is also in line with the current situation of the alliance.

Block printing will always occupy the mainstream of the alliance until the great technological progress brought about by the industrial revolution makes metal movable type extremely cheap.

In a moment, Xiu Luote set the alliance's century-old technical route. He continued to look at the ink of the block printing.

Metal movable type does not stick to water, and ink is required, that is, animal and vegetable oils and turpentine oil are added to the ink. Now that he decided to use wooden engraving, the boy only cared about the ink used on the wooden board.

There are two types of ink in the alliance, one is natural black ink made of natural coal, and the other is blue ink made of vegetable dyes and mineral clay.

Shulot pondered slightly. Natural charcoal was very scarce in Union-controlled areas and was only occasionally used as black paint. The main source of these paints is the Zapotec people in the south, which proves that there must be open pit coal mines of unknown scale.

And according to the boy's memory, the dog-born land in the north, near the future Texas, not only possesses a large amount of oil, but also stores a large coal mine formed together. These key mineral deposits are the vital points that must be occupied and the driving force for future industrial development.

In addition to natural charcoal, the common method of making ink in the Chinese dynasty was to burn wood to get smoke. Xiuluote recalled the production process of Huimo and analyzed every picture in his impression. The top-secret craftsmanship of the Ming Dynasty in this era will be freely circulated on the Internet in the future.

It's a pity that he thought about it for a long time, but he only remembered that he burned the pine wood, took the pine smoke on the surface, and then added gum to glue it. It seems that there is still a process of painting with gold? The young man shook his head, and according to the current thinking, he will arrange for craftsmen to make trial production later.

The middle-aged jade craftsman Equila lowered his head and waited for a long time before quietly raising his head, seeing His Highness shaking his head. He fell to the ground again in fear, his head pressed tightly against the ground, making a slight bump.

Shulot shifted his gaze and landed on Equila on the ground. He smiled with satisfaction and promised loudly.

"Equila, you did a good job! Starting today, I will confer you a master craftsman of engraving, which is equivalent to the military nobles of the alliance! You will have the rewards of gold, silver, gemstones and the land of Chinanpa! You can promote two The children are royal warriors, as my followers!"

Hearing this, Equila raised her head in disbelief, her face full of shock and surprise. Afterwards, he lowered his head vigorously again, kowtowed deeply on the ground, and made a fierce bang.

Shulot's eyes were deep for a moment, and he spoke slowly again.

"Starting tomorrow, I will send two warriors to guard you personally. The technology here will be listed as the top secret of the alliance. I will also send you a special apprentice. From today, you are the exclusive craftsman of the priesthood Already!"

After finishing speaking, the young man calmly watched the middle-aged jade craftsman for a moment, observing the joyful and pious expression of the other party. After a long time, he nodded in satisfaction and turned to the papermaking department.

In the new January, I sincerely ask for a monthly pass!