At the end of 15 and the beginning of 16, copper movable type printing became popular in southern China.
Clay movable type printing initiated by Bi Sheng in Song Dynasty is one of the four great inventions in China, which enjoys a world-renowned reputation. Later, movable type printed books made of wood and tin appeared. In Ming Dynasty, copper movable type printing was widely used. Wuxi Huashi and Anshi are the most famous copper movable type printed books. In the third year of Hongzhi in Ming Dynasty (1490), Huaxiang (1439 ~ 15 13) first printed 50 volumes of Collected Works of Ministers of Song Dynasty, and then published Splendid Flower Valley and Hundred Rivers Learning Sea.
At the end of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, there were bronze characters in the yamen, and several books on astronomy and mathematics were printed. In the sixth year of Yongzheng (1728), The Collection of Ancient and Modern Books in Chen Menglei was divided into 10000 volumes and 64 volumes, each with 5020 volumes. This largest well-preserved kind of book has always been an important reference book for Chinese and foreign scholars. The folk bronze plate has the printed version of Jiangsu Chuili Pavilion, which is earlier than the bronze characters of Neifu. In the 12th year of Jiaqing (1807), Wulong, the commander-in-chief of Taiwan Province Province, carved bronze characters and printed "Guang Yu". Lin Chunqi, a native of Fuzhou, made the most bronze figures. In the 26th year (65,438+0,846) of Daoguang, it took 265,438+0 years to carve more than 400,000 beautifully lettered large and small bronze characters, which were printed with Gu's On Rhyme and Poetry Rhyme in Qing Dynasty, and were called "Futian Book Sea". In Hangzhou, there are also poetry collections printed by Juzhen Copper Plate, which are almost the same as those of Futian. Changzhou has a genealogy of the Xu family in Piling for eight years (1858), which is the only copper movable type in the genealogy.