Chapter 23 1. The reform and development of printing in Ming and Qing Dynasties

After the invention of engraving and printing, the working people of our country continued to practice and explore, and finally Bi Sheng invented movable type printing (mastic movable type printing) in the Qingli period of the Northern Song Dynasty.Following the invention of clay movable type, wooden movable type was invented.In the Ming and Qing dynasties, wooden movable type printing was widely promoted. In the Ming Dynasty, it was common to use wooden movable type to print books.Gong Xian from the Qing Dynasty once said that the people of the Ming Dynasty used wooden movable type boards to print books, "the wind is the prosperity".There are more than one hundred kinds of titles that can be tested.Wooden movable type printing is not only popular in Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Fujian and other coastal areas, but also developed to Sichuan and Yunnan.Among them, the feudal government, academies and private individuals all used movable type to print books.The content is also very extensive, most of which are collections of poems and essays.

Book printing with wooden movable type was more common in the Qing Dynasty.Regardless of whether it is official, private or private, printed copies continue to appear.The earliest and most exquisite engraving is the ten volumes of "Tang Meishan Poetry Collection" (written by Tang Geng) returned to An Wangliang in the third year of Yongzheng (1725).In the Qing Dynasty, the largest book printing activity using wooden movable type was the printing of "Wuyingdian Juzhen Edition Series" in the thirty-eighth year of Qianlong (1773).When Emperor Qianlong was editing the "Siku Quanshu", he issued an edict to publish a large number of lost ancient books compiled from the "Yongle Dadian" in the Ming Dynasty.Due to the large quantity, the edition would consume money, manpower and time. The organizer, Jin Jian, suggested using wooden movable type for printing, which was approved by Emperor Qianlong, so it was renamed "Juzhen Edition".There are 253,500 jujube wooden movable type carved by hired workers on the golden bamboo slips, which have been printed into 134 kinds of "Wuyingdian Juzhen Edition Series" successively, with more than 2,300 volumes.Later, the Jin Jian also wrote the experience of engraving into the book "The Imperial Palace of Martial Arts Collected Treasures Edition", which explained in detail the production of wooden movable type and the method and procedure of printing books. It is an important document introducing movable type printing.Since then, all parts of the country have followed suit, and printing books with wooden movable type has become more common.It is estimated that there are about 2,000 kinds of books printed with wooden movable type in the Qing Dynasty that have been handed down to the present.

Wooden movable type is the most widely used type in ancient Chinese printing.In the process of using wooden movable type printing, my country has successively adopted tin movable type, copper movable type and lead movable type printing.The most famous one is "Zou Yi of Song Dynasty Officials" printed by Huasuihui Tongguan in the third year of Hongzhi (1490), which is considered to be the earliest metal movable type printing, and it should be tin movable type printing.Copper movable type is the most used metal movable type in my country, and the earliest printed version of copper movable type may be "Yushi Ce" printed in the Yuan Dynasty.Copper movable type printing was popular in my country at the end of the 15th century, mainly in Wuxi, Changzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing in Jiangsu, Jianning and Jianyang in Zhejiang and Fujian, among which Huajia and Anjia in Wuxi are the most famous.

In the fifteenth year of Hongzhi (1502), the Hua family printed Lu You's "Weinan Anthology" and "Jiannan Poetry Draft" with copper movable type.Huajian and his son also used copper movable type to print "Cai Zhonglang Collection", "Baishi Anthology", "Yuanshi Changqing Collection", etc., and each volume of the printed books has the words "Xishan Lanxuetang Huajian Copper Plate Printing". The same famous book printer who used copper movable type as Fahrenheit is Anjia of Guipo Pavilion.There are ten kinds of books that Anshi printed with movable copper type. Among them, Zhengde's "Dongguang County Chronicle" is the only local chronicle printed with movable copper type in China.

In the copper movable type printing books of the Ming Dynasty, there is also the "Zhicheng Copper Plate" "Mozi" printed in blue, the most famous in Jianyang, Fujian. Books were printed with copper movable type in the Qing Dynasty. During the Kangxi period, the court had engraved copper movable type and printed books on astronomy, mathematics, and music.The largest is the "Imperial Collection of Ancient and Modern Books" engraved by the Imperial Palace in the fourth year of Yongzheng (1726). A total of 64 volumes were printed, each with 10,040 volumes and 5,020 volumes.It is a pity that this batch of copper movable type was melted down during the Qianlong period and used as raw material for casting coins.

During the Daoguang period, Lin Chunqi, a native of Fujian, spent more than 20 years of work and invested more than 200,000 taels of silver, and hired people to cast more than 400,000 large and small copper characters for printing books.Because Lin was originally from Youtian, Fuqing County, the copper character was named "Futian Shuhai".This batch of copper movable type has printed seven kinds of books including Gu Yanwu's "Yin Lun", "Shiben Yin" and a military series "Secretary of Water and Land Offensive and Defense Strategy".Lin Chunqi also wrote an article "Copper Plate Narrative", which records the reasons and processes of his engraving copper movable type.This is the only document on the manufacture of metal movable type in my country.In addition, Taiwan's general Wulong Ayu made copper movable type in the thirteenth year of Jiaqing (1808), and printed it into "Sheng Yu Guang Xun".

There are still more than 20 types of copper movable type printed copies left over from the Ming and Qing dynasties, most of which are collected in the National Library today. Block printing developed to the Ming and Qing dynasties, and a set of printing technology appeared.Ordinary engraving printing can only print one color at a time, which is called "single printing"; while books printed by engraving method have two or more colors.It is made by painting different colors on different parts of the layout with exactly the same specifications, and repeatedly overprinting, so it is called "overprinting" or "double printing".This set of techniques is called register printing.Books printed in this way are called "overprints".In the early days, two colors of vermilion and black were often used for printing, and the books printed in this way were called "Zhu Moben", or "double printed version".Later, it was developed to use four-color and five-color overprinting.Books that are overprinted according to the number of colors used are called "four-color books", "five-color books" and so on.

The earliest surviving copy of the Ming Dynasty in my country is the book "Girlfriend" printed in Shexian County, Anhui during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty.Most of the overprints we see today were engraved by Wu Xing, Min Qiji and Ling Yuchu during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty.Min and Ling's two families engraved many overprints, amounting to about 140 kinds, including scriptures, Zishu, history transcripts, poetry anthology, novel remnants, etc., with a wide range of content.The layout of the overprint has a frame around it, and there is no line in the middle, which is convenient for making eyebrows at the top of the sky, and the lines are circled.

Overprints were inherited in the Qing Dynasty.The official engravings include the five-color version of "Quan Shan Jin Ke" in the Shunzhi period of the early Qing Dynasty, the Zhumo version of "Qupu" in the Kangxi period, and the four-color version of "Yuzhi Tang and Song Wenchun", etc.There are also excellent works in folk private workshops. Only "Du Gongbu Poetry Collection" includes the six-color edition of Lu Kun in Zhuozhou during the Daoguang period and the five-color edition of Ye Yun'an in Guangdong.