Things like tabloids had appeared as early as the Song Dynasty, though they were mostly popular among entertainment houses and the gentry.
After all, ordinary people could not read.
But after the Ming Dynasty was founded, Old Zhu promoted community schools and military academies, so more people among the common folk learned to read and write, and tabloids spread.
At first, they were mostly copied by hand. Later, as printing and papermaking developed, coupled with cultural diversity, they began to be printed and published.
Yet in the early Ming, there were many heterodox sects, most of which used tabloids to recruit followers. To strike at those sects, Old Zhu vigorously banned tabloids, and thus the civilian Newspaper Industry failed to develop.
Civilian tabloids had not developed, but official newspapers had, with court gazettes as their main form.
Unfortunately, court gazettes mostly contained policy-related matters and generally circulated among officials.
Over the past two years, anti-pirate activities in the martial world had increased, Imperial Court policies had changed greatly, and Pan Yun had widely solicited new devices. Civilian tabloids therefore began developing spontaneously again.
At first, teahouses and bookshops worked together, compiling collected information into booklets to sell.
Storytellers could both buy material from the booklets and write out the material in their own bellies to sell to bookshops, which would print it into booklets...
At first, such booklets came out once every half month. Later, they developed into one issue every ten days, then one every three days...
In the end, this gave rise to all kinds of tabloids, basically one sheet a day, mostly distributed in bookshops and teahouses. They were extremely popular.
After the civilian Newspaper Industry developed further, some local government offices saw its prospects and entered the field ahead of the capital.
For example, the Nanchang