Around the beginning of the 7th century, the earliest block printing in the world was born in the Tang Dynasty (6 18 ~ 907). Engraving printing needs to write words on paper according to the required specifications, then stick them on the polished board, and then engrave the words in Yang language according to the words, thus making engraving. Then, apply ink on the plate, spread paper, print with a brown brush, and then uncover the paper to become printed matter. Carving the layout requires a lot of manpower and material resources, but once it is carved and printed, it shows the advantages of high efficiency and large printing volume. In some methods, block printing is better than casting movable type printing. For example, a language like Chinese has a large character set, and block printing will be cheaper at the initial investment. This craft also has more freedom of artistic painting, such as drawing and charting. However, the printing plate is not durable, and it will be damaged quickly in printing, so it needs to be replaced constantly, which limits the possibility of batch printing. The earliest block printing we can see now is the Diamond Sutra, which was discovered in Dunhuang and printed in the Tang Dynasty in 868 AD.
Block printing is an intangible cultural heritage with outstanding value, distinctive national characteristics and highly concentrated traditional skills. It embodies several excellent traditional crafts such as papermaking, ink making, carving and copying in China, and finally forms this unique cultural craft; It created a technical precedent for later movable type printing, is the oldest technical source of modern printing in the world, and has made outstanding contributions to the development of human civilization; Its implementation provides the most convenient conditions for cultural and civilized exchanges.
Woodblock printing, known as the "living fossil" in the history of printing, was officially listed in the national intangible cultural heritage protection list last year. Yangzhou is the birthplace of block printing in China and the only city in China that has preserved a set of ancient block printing techniques. At present, Yangzhou has nearly 300,000 ancient books since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and has published a large number of thread-bound books of ancient books through block printing, making it the largest thread-bound book processing base in China.