Chapter 220
The papermaking factory was completed about forty days ahead of schedule.
It was possible because we used the magic of a performance-based pay system, known in the technicians’ professional jargon as “yarikkiri.”
"What a sight."
“This factory will be ten times larger than the one outside Changuimun. Naturally, it has to be magnificent.”
It was a large-scale factory measuring 50 jang (150 m) in width and 80 jang (240 m) in length, with a total area just shy of 11,000 pyeong.
Ten large water-powered bark peelers, twenty large mortars, and machines that replaced the sheet-forming process had been installed.
More than 300 jijang—artisans who made paper—worked here.
“Well, then, let’s first check whether the factory is running properly. Come along, Jeong Cheomjeong (Jeong Bun).”
“Yes, Deputy Director.”
If all I had to do was check that the factory was running properly, I could now return to the Jiphyeonjeon.
Once I returned to the Jiphyeonjeon, I could take revenge on Hwang Hui and Jo Malseng for forcing me to be promoted to a dangsanggwan.
Just you wait. Once I return, I’ll bury you under a mountain of work.
For the next month, I’ll make you eat nothing but Mandeok’s rice balls for lunch, since you’ll consider taking time to eat a waste.
“Heh heh heh, excellent...”
Seeing me laugh evilly, Jeong Bun asked with an uneasy expression.
“What on earth are you so pleased about?”
“Once we can produce paper on a large scale, won’t we need to make a lot more metal type as well? If we build another type foundry nearby and then establish a printing house, more than 1,000 people could make a living just from the artisans working at the papermaking factory, type foundry, and printing house.”
“I heard that the magistrate of Jaeryeong petitioned the court because so many people had crowded into the area where he established the ironworks that the surrounding area had to be separated into a hyeon. Do you think this place will become like the ironworks?”
People gather and cities form in places that are good to live in.
This has been an unchanging principle from ancient times through the twenty-first century.
And the standard for whether a place is good to live in is whether it has jobs that people need to make a living.
If I built a papermaking factory, a type foundry, and a printing house, artisans would gather, more factories serving as their subcontractors would spring up, and markets would be established...
Before long, this place would become a new paper-manufacturing city and a new publishing city.
Even after all that, the supply of paper would still fall short of demand, and once everyone learned that the court was making a fortune from it, they would all begin entering the paper and publishing industries in earnest.
“Are you thinking of buying up some land nearby in advance?”
After hearing me, Jeong Bun nodded.
“My son will be getting married soon. Shouldn’t I give him a generous share of my property?”
“Land prices here will rise considerably. In ten years, they’ll probably be about three times higher.”
“Three times?”
“People come to live where there are jobs, and the more people who want to live there, the higher land prices rise.”
I, too, had bought some land whenever I could spare the time while building the papermaking factory.
I bought fallow land—land no longer being farmed—from landowners and independent farmers at about 1.3 times the market price.
If I built apartments here, the rental income alone would be quite handsome...
‘Anyone who knows this and still doesn’t buy is a fool.’
“Enough of this idle chatter. Let’s go watch the paper being made.”
“Yes, my lord.”
After walking a little farther, I saw a water-powered bark peeler stripping the bark from a tree.
The paper mulberry mounted on the peeler spun around and around as its bark was removed.
“It’s much faster than doing it by hand.”
If people did it themselves, they would have to wield a bark-stripping knife, shaving away at it with strokes this way and that.
But because a machine was doing the work instead of a person, it was progressing at ten or even twenty times the speed.
“The results are clear. But tell me, how are you processing the paper mulberry left over after removing the bark?”
“We grind that with the bark peeler as well. Of course, paper made from material ground from the wood itself rather than from the paper mulberry’s bark is lower in quality than paper made from the bark, so... we keep it separate and make it into a separate grade of paper.”
“Producing a large quantity of paper is important, but there’s no need to make only low-quality paper. There’s a need for both high- and low-quality paper.”
Official documents used by the court, royal decrees, various important records, and diplomatic documents had to be written on the finest paper.
Strictly speaking, their contents could still be conveyed if they were written on cheap paper...
But etiquette and propriety existed in this world, and receiving something like a royal decree written on cheap paper would hurt the recipient’s feelings.
It would also diminish the king’s authority to some extent.
'It would be like wearing a T-shirt instead of a suit to an important meeting.'
So although we were producing paper in large quantities, we were also making high-quality paper.
"When making the finest paper, we follow the existing complicated process exactly. For example, we still do things like 'removing specks,' which we omit entirely from the ordinary papermaking process."
The most labor-intensive part of producing hanji was removing specks.
It sounds simple, but in reality, it was a task that required extreme patience and effort...
The bark of the paper mulberry was boiled in lye for about three days to bleach it, then spread out so a person could manually remove every last tiny speck, making it extremely labor-intensive.
Even a skilled artisan could process only about 1 kg a day, so this step was immediately removed from the mass-production process.
That alone greatly increased production efficiency.
"All the fuel used to boil the lye is coal, and the pulp ground in the large mortars goes through the sheet-forming machine..."
Although I already knew all this, touring the factory while listening to Jeong Bun’s explanation still filled me with renewed wonder.
A huge mortar connected to a waterwheel spun around and around, grinding up the bark, after which the ground bark was mixed into water and made into paper sheets.
"Once you’ve made the sheet, put it in the frame and squeeze out the water!"
At someone’s instruction, the papermaking artisans put the paper pulp into a frame and pressed it firmly with a press.
The water seeped out of the paper pulp, leaving behind the familiar, perfectly square shape of a sheet of paper.
All that remained was to dry it for several days in the shade, away from direct sunlight, and it would become paper.
"Remarkable. So is there any problem using this paper for printing?"
If the paper was too weak, it would be impossible even to print something using metal type.
The paper would simply tear when pressed against the type plate.
Instead of Jeong Bun, the person in charge here answered.
"Of course, my lord. We’ve just finished making a new batch of paper. Please take a look."
The person in charge immediately brought over a sheet of paper and set it down in front of me.
I immediately picked up a brush and wrote some characters.
Since I was the overall supervisor of the site, I wrote them thinking that I should be the one to write this place’s motto as well.
'Books are vessels containing teachings that form the foundation of a nation.'
I wrote it elegantly in Chinese characters.
Although its quality was somewhat inferior because it had been mass-produced by machine, there was no difficulty at all in writing on it.
"Very satisfactory. At this level, it should be perfectly suitable for writing relatively unimportant records at the court as well."
"Thank you, my lord. Now, we’ll try printing on japchoji, the grass paper you proposed."
Japchoji was, just as its name suggested, paper made by mixing weeds such as rice straw with tree bark and other materials.
It was a cheap paper whose raw-material cost was only 10 percent—or rather, less than 5 percent—of that of producing high-quality hanji.
If we succeeded in printing on this, we would be able to supply books throughout Joseon at extremely low prices.
"Set the type! Press it with the printing press!"
The artisan operating the printing press exerted all his strength to press down on the paper.
Once he had pressed it firmly enough, he immediately removed the paper, revealing the first page of Sohak printed on it.
It wasn’t perfectly clear, but it was still readable enough.
"Now all we have to do is print them in bulk like this. You’ve all worked very hard."
"Thank you, my lord."
The artisans cheered when they heard that.
"I have a great deal to do, so I’ll take Deputy Director Jeong and hurry back to the court. And today, you should all finish only the urgent tasks and then rest."
You can’t keep people under constant pressure without showing any flexibility.
Even an ox must be fed fodder and allowed to rest at the proper time if you want it to plow a field... If you work it without rest, it will soon drop dead in the middle of plowing.
That was why, whenever the officials, clerks, or even slaves under my command showed signs of exhaustion, I gave them some spending money and let them rest comfortably.
That way, they would work hard again the next day.
The employees working at the papermaking factory were people too, so I had to make sure they got proper rest when it was time to rest.
"Go to the tavern nearby, eat and drink whatever meat or liquor you like, and rest. I’ve already settled the bill, so don’t worry about money."
When holding a company dinner, it was generally considered virtuous for a high-ranking person to hand over only the 'corporate card' and leave.
It was wrong to tag along for the first and second rounds just because you wanted to get closer to your subordinates.
And I needed to return as quickly as possible to take revenge on Hwang Hui and Jo Malseng.