Bi Sheng (? -105 1), a native of Caopan, Yingshan County. Famous inventor of Northern Song Dynasty. Song Dynasty Song Qing Dynasty (1041-kloc-0/048) invented movable type typesetting (Shen Kuo's "Meng Qian Bi Tan" said: "In Qing Dynasty, Bi Sheng with cloth was movable type"), which had a great response in the printing industry at that time.
Bi Sheng's life
There is no second document about Bi Sheng's life and the process of his invention of movable type printing, except that recorded by Shen Kuo in Meng Qian Bi Tan.
Shen Kuo only said that he was a commoner, but he didn't give any explanation about his native place and life experience. The so-called cloth clothes literally mean ordinary people who have never been an official. There have been various speculations about Bi Sheng's occupation before, but the most reliable statement is that Bi Sheng should be a craftsman engaged in block printing. Because only those who are familiar with or proficient in carving technology can become the inventors of movable type. Because Bi Sheng has been engaged in engraving for a long time, he found that the biggest disadvantage of engraving is that every book has to be re-engraved, which not only takes a long time, but also increases the printing cost. If you change to a movable type version, you can print any book by engraving a pair of movable type, and movable type can be used repeatedly. Although the project of making movable type is bigger, it is very convenient to print books in the future. It was under this inspiration that Bi Sheng invented the movable type edition.
About Bi Sheng's native place, Shen Kuo also did not explain. We only know that after Bi Sheng's death, the clay sculptures he made were collected by Shen Kuo's nephew. From this point, we infer that Bi Sheng and Shenyang are either relatives or close neighbors. Shen Kuo is from Hangzhou, and Bi Sheng may be from Hangzhou. Hangzhou was a developed area of block printing at that time, and the invention of movable type printing here was also in line with historical laws.
The invention of movable type printing is a great revolution in the history of printing and one of the four great inventions in ancient China. It has opened up a broad road for China's cultural and economic development and made great contributions to the development of world civilization.
It is said that the descendants of Bi Sheng were found by the imperial court for forging coins with movable type mud, which implicated the nine clans. Those who escaped by luck changed their surnames to Tian and Wan. Nowadays, although there is a place called Bijiapu in the local area, there are many Tian surnames and Wan surnames, but there is no Bi surnames.
1990, Bi Sheng's tombstone was found in Bijiaao, Wugui Village, Caopan, Yingshan. Bijiapu Cemetery is located 3 km west of the city, at 1 km south, and is called Prime Minister Bi. There is a tomb of Prime Minister Bi Hanru at 15 km east. Entrusted by China Printing Technology Association, China Printing Museum Preparatory Committee, Hubei Provincial Cultural Management Committee and other units, it was appraised by 28 experts and scholars, including Shi Shuqing, researcher of China History Museum and vice chairman of the National Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee.
Who invented papermaking?
/kloc-in 0/05, Cai Lun summarized the previous experience in Luoyang, the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and improved papermaking, using bark, hemp head, rags and old fishing nets as raw materials. It greatly improves the production efficiency of paper quality, expands the source of raw materials for paper, reduces the cost of paper, opens up new prospects for paper to replace bamboo and silk, and creates favorable conditions for the spread of culture. Regarding the ancient records of Cai Lun's invention of papermaking, The Biography of Cai Lun in the Later Han Dynasty said: "Since ancient times, books and deeds have been compiled with bamboo tubes; People who use it are called paper. Expensive and simple, inconvenient for people. Lun intends to use bark, hemp head, cloth and fishing net as paper. " Later generations revered him as the inventor of China's papermaking.
What about gunpowder?
Ge Hong. According to historical records, it was the Jin Dynasty.
The earliest gunpowder formula in the world: the method of co-combustion of sulfur, saltpeter and saponin.
Gunpowder was invented by ancient alchemists in China in the process of alchemy. Ge Hong, a famous alchemist in ancient China, once lived in Luoyang for a long time. Sun Simiao, a great medical scientist, lived in the early Tang Dynasty of Sui Dynasty and was born in Jingzhao Huayuan (now Yaoxian County, Shaanxi Province). He has participated in hundreds of academic studies on Confucian classics and history, and has a good understanding of Taoist classics and Buddhist scriptures. He summarized the theory of clinical attack before the Tang Dynasty, collected prescriptions, acupuncture and other contents, and compiled books such as Qian Jin Fang Yao and Qian Jin Fang Yi, which made great contributions to medicine and was honored as the "King of Medicine" by later generations. He is not only a great physician, but also a famous alchemist, calling himself "Sun Zhenren". On the basis of summarizing the experience of previous alchemists, he collected the formulas of alchemists in Heluo area and Guanzhong area, and finally put forward a more effective formula of sulfur burning method. In a word, the invention and spread of gunpowder are inextricably linked with Sun Simiao.
Who wrote the service calendar? Timing calendar is the calendar name implemented from the end of Yuan Dynasty to the eighteenth year of Yuan Dynasty (A.D. 128 1). It is named after Kublai Khan of Yuan Shizu, and it is called the time calendar in the original works and history books. This method takes 365.2425 as one year old, which is only 26 seconds away from the modern observation value of 365.2422. Its accuracy is equivalent to the Gregorian calendar, but it was adopted more than 300 years earlier than in the west. Every month is 29.530593 days, and the month without gas is a leap month. Formally abolish the cumulative year of Shang Yuan in ancient times, and intercept any year in modern times as epoch. Dali, which was promulgated in the early Ming Dynasty, is basically a Calendar of the Dynasties. If these two calendars are regarded as one, they can be said to be the longest calendar in the history of China, reaching 364 years. The almanac was compiled by Xu Heng, Wang Xun, Guo Shoujing, Yang Gongyi, etc. The time was from June in the 13th year of Yuan Dynasty (A.D. 1276) to February in the 17th year of Yuan Dynasty (A.D. 1280), and the historical books of Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties were arranged in this order. Historical materials of the Yuan Dynasty, such as A Brief Introduction to Yuan Mingchen and Wen Yuanlei, all recorded that Xu Heng was the editor-in-chief of Shoushi Calendar. In particular, Xu Heng's "Xu Suichu" has the full text of "Shoushi Calendar-Shoushi Calendar Classic".