Movable type printing was invented by the Chinese people as early as the 11th century during the Northern Song Dynasty. As one of the "Four Great Inventions" in ancient China, printing has had a significant impact on the process of world civilization and the development of human culture.

Movable type printing is an ancient printing method, which was invented by the ancient Chinese working people after a long period of practice and research. First, make a single word of the Yang text reverse text mold, and then according to the manuscript to select the single words, arrange them in the word plate, ink printing, and then remove the word mold after printing, and leave it for the next typesetting to be used again.

The invention of movable type printing was a great technological revolution in the history of printing. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Bi Sheng invented movable type in China, marking the birth of movable type printing.

He was the first inventor in the world, about 400 years before the German Johannes Gutenberg movable type printing. Wang Zhen of the Yuan Dynasty successfully created wooden movable type and invented wheel typesetting. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, copper movable type was widely used in Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou and other places in Jiangsu.

Movable type printing, which has been inherited for more than 700 years, is not too shocking when it is reproduced on paper!

The movable type printing technology invented by Bi Sheng is not at all the same when it is actually used

Movable type printing, one of the four great inventions in ancient China, was inventored by Bi Sheng. This is a general knowledge of history that we learned in elementary school.

Movable type printing, compared with cold computer typesetting, has a bit of rough sexiness.

Engraving printing can print hundreds or even thousands of books, which has played a great role in the spread of culture, but engraving is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and most of the books often take several years, and the storage of plates takes up a lot of space, and it is often damaged by deformation, moth-eaten and corrosion. Books with a small print run that don't need to be reprinted, the plates become waste. In addition, typos are found in the engraving, which is very difficult to correct, and often requires the entire plate to be re-engraved.

Movable type plate making just avoids the lack of engraving, as long as enough single movable type is prepared in advance, it can be imposed at any time, which greatly accelerates the plate making time. After the movable type plate is printed, it can be disassembled, the movable type can be reused, and the movable type occupies less space than the engraving plate, which is easy to store and keep. In this way, the superiority of movable type is manifested. The idea of printing with movable type has been around for a long time, and Bi Sheng invented movable type printing to improve the efficiency of printing.

However, his invention was not valued by the rulers and society at that time, and after his death, the movable type he created was not preserved, but the movable type printing technology he invented was passed down.

Zhou Bida, a Song dynasty who was once named the Duke of Jiguo, learned Bi Sheng's method from Shen Kuo in his old age and printed his own writings. He also made a small change from an iron plate to a copper plate. Copper plates have better heat transfer than iron plates, and it is easy to melt the viscosity, but copper plates are more expensive than iron plates. Yao Shu of the Yuan Dynasty advocated movable type printing, and he taught his son Yang Gu to use movable type printing to print books, which were printed into Zhu Xi's "Primary School" and "Recent Reflections", as well as Lu Zuqian's "Donglai Jing Historical Commentary" and other books.

However, Yang Gu's clay type is a technique improved by the Song people after Bi Sheng, not Bi Sheng's original technology. In the sixth year of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, Zhai Shiqi served as the official of Raozhou, collected magnetic households, and made a green magnetic "Book of Changes".

According to the analysis of experts, the so-called green magnet may be a pottery type fired from the porcelain clay used to make celadon. In 1718, Xu Zhi, a native of Tai'an, Shandong, customized pottery movable type and printed "Zhou Yi Shuo Luo". He calcined the clay and made movable type for typesetting and printing, using the same method used by Bi Sheng.

In the 19th century, Zhai Jinsheng of Jing County, Anhui Province, came up with the idea of printing books with clay movable type because he read the Bi Sheng clay movable type technique described in Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan". It took him 30 years to make more than 100,000 movable clay types. In 1844, it was printed as the "First Edition of Clay Plate Trial Printing".

Since then, he has printed many more books. In the 60~70s of the 20th century, thousands of clay movable types made by Zhai Jinsheng were also found in Jing County. These movable types are available in five sizes, sizes. He proved the feasibility of Bi Sheng's invention with his own practice, and broke some people's doubts about the feasibility of clay type. In 1962, Zhai's clay movable type mold was discovered in Huizhou, Anhui Province.

Wang Zhen, a contemporary of Yang Gu, created wooden movable type. Wang Zhen is a native of Dongping, Shandong, an agronomist, who served several terms as a county official, and he left a book summarizing the experience of ancient agricultural production - "The Book of Agriculture".

Wang Zhen's methods of engraving, repairing, selecting, typesetting, and printing are all attached to this book. He asked craftsmen to carve more than 30,000 movable wooden characters in Jingde, Anhui Province, and in the second year of Yuan Chengzong Dade, he tried to print more than 60,000 words of "Jingde County Chronicles", and in less than a month, 100 copies were printed -- >>