Chapter 35 Chapter Four The Development of Traditional Chinese Science and Technology

Printing is a great invention of China, and it is also a great contribution of China to the development of world civilization.Technically speaking, it has experienced two stages of development in history, one is the engraving printing stage, and the other is the movable type printing stage. Engraving printing was invented at least in the early Tang Dynasty in the second half of the 7th century AD, and was initially used to print Buddhist classics.The earliest printed matter that has been discovered so far is the woodcut printed Buddhist scripture "Dharani Sutra" found in Korea. It was printed between 701 and 751 AD. It is believed that it was introduced to Korea after printing in China.In the Tang Dynasty, printing was mainly popular among the people. In addition to printing a large number of Buddhist scriptures, it was also used to print cultural books, medicine, calendars and other books.After the Five Dynasties, printing began to be valued by the government and used to print Confucian classics.

The process of engraving printing is relatively simple. Generally, fine and solid wood is selected as the raw material, sawn into a certain size of wood board, and then planed, and the text or image to be printed is engraved on it into reverse writing (convex) word), and then ink printing.Although the engraving is time-consuming, it has been used until the end of Qing Dynasty because of its simple process and clear printed matter.In addition to wooden boards, copper plates and lithographs are also used for printing. Movable type printing was invented by Bi Sheng during the Qingli period of the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 1041-1048).The method is: use clay to make printing blanks of the same size, engrave one character on each printing blank, and engrave several to twenty commonly used characters, and then grill it with fire to harden the pottery to form clay movable type. .Clay movable type is classified according to phonetic and rhyme and placed in wooden grids for later use.When printing, two iron plates are used, and iron frames are added around them, and typesetting is carried out in the frame.First spread a layer of adhesive mixed with turpentine, wax and paper ash on the iron plate. After the characters are filled with the iron plate, bake it with fire for a while to melt the turpentine and wax to stick to the movable clay type. After the words are flattened, they can be printed with ink.The two iron plates, one for typesetting and the other for printing, are used alternately.The printed version is still baked with fire to melt the pine resin and wax a little, then the movable type is removed and put back into the wooden grid for reuse.During typesetting, if you encounter movable type that has not been engraved before, you can make it and use it now.Movable type printing overcomes the shortcomings of woodblock printing that only prints one page and cannot be changed, so it is labor-intensive and material-intensive, and it improves work efficiency. It is a major advancement in printing technology.

Bi Sheng also tried printing with wooden movable type, but because the wood texture is sparse and dense, the degree of expansion and contraction is different after being wetted with water, the layout is uneven, and the wood printing will stick to the adhesive, making it difficult to remove, so it was discarded.In the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Zhen successfully used wooden movable type for printing. In 1298 AD, he printed "Jingde County Chronicles", and printed 100 copies in less than a month.He made many improvements to the movable type printing process, among which there are two outstanding ones.One is to clamp the words of each line with bamboo slices during typesetting, and then fill them tightly with small wooden blocks and sawdust, which overcomes the trouble and defects of using adhesives.The second is the invention of the rotary typesetting frame.He made a large wheel with a diameter of seven feet out of wooden boards, placed it on a three-foot-high axle, and the wheel could rotate around the axle.The roulette is divided into areas one by one according to the phonology, and the wooden movable type is placed in different categories.When typesetting, one person sings the characters, and the other sits between the two roulettes and takes out the required movable type.Later, metal movable type such as tin, copper, and lead was created in movable type printing, but because ink was not used in ancient times, the coloring effect of brushing ink was not good, so it was not popularized.

From about the 12th century, Chinese woodblock printing was spread to Egypt and Iran, and Europe also began to adopt woodblock printing at the end of the 14th century.In the 13th and 14th centuries, movable type printing was also introduced to Egypt, Iran, and Europe.The application of printing in Europe greatly promoted the Renaissance movement and accelerated the process of the world entering the modern historical stage.