The earliest inventor of movable type printing in the world was Bi, a commoner in the Song Dynasty in China. The time is the calendar year of Renzong in the Northern Song Dynasty (104 1
-1048), 400 years earlier than Johannes Gutenberg. Regarding Bi's clay movable-type printing, Shen Kuo recorded in detail in Volume 18 of Bi Tan, Shu Men: printed books were not popular in the Tang Dynasty, but were printed by the Five Classics and Wang, and all the classics of later generations were printed on printed books. There is a piece of cloth in the celebration calendar, which is a movable edition. Its method: use clay to carve words, as thin as money lips. Every word is a seal, and the fire makes it strong. First set up an iron plate, and sprinkle rosin vinegar and paper ash on it. If you want to print, put an iron fan on the iron plate and print it densely. The iron fan is full of plates and it will be on fire. If the medicine melts a little, press it with a flat plate and the words will be as flat as a rock. It won't be easy if you stop printing three or two books. If you print hundreds of thousands of copies, it will be very fast. Often used as the second iron plate. One board is printed and the other board is self-printed. As soon as the printer was finished, the second board was already available. More interoperability and immediacy. Each word has several seals, such as "Zhi" and "Ye", and each word has more than 20 seals to prevent duplication on one board. Stick it on paper when not in use. Each rhyme is a paste, stored in a wooden lattice. There are grotesque figures, who are unprepared. If you spin them, the grass will burn them, and it will be done in an instant. Those who don't use wood as a material are dense in arts and sciences, but they are high-level when they touch water. They are still attached to medicine, which is not desirable. If it burns out, burn it again after use, so that the medicine will melt. When you brush it with your hand, their seals will automatically fall off without pollution. Death, its seal is the income of the group, and it has been treasured so far.
The earliest scientific record of movable type printing in the world is here. Although it is only over 300 words, its connotation is quite rich.
Rich, basically including the whole process of movable type printing:
1. printing: lettering with clay, movable type as thin as money lips, printing a word, quenching by fire, is actually ceramic movable type. each
Each word has several movable types to repeat the words in the manuscript. There are two other situations that are often encountered in typesetting. One is commonly used words such as "Zhi" and "Ye", and each word has more than 20 movable types to prevent more repetition in one edition. Then there are the rare words in the manuscript, not the original movable type. Now make up the engraving, burn it into solid movable type with grass, and you can typeset it right away.
2. Typesetting: First, prepare an iron plate to loosen the grease, wax and paper scraps, and then put an iron plate on the iron plate to hold the movable type.
3. typesetting: the layout is closely arranged on the board, and the iron plate is the board.
4. Fixing plate: heat the iron plate with fire to melt the medicine, and then press the printed surface with a flat plate to make the text smooth and fixed.
5. Printing: After the plate is fixed, it can be inked, coated and printed. In order to print conveniently and quickly, two iron plates are generally used.
When printing, the other board is typesetting. After printing, the other board has been arranged and handed over for use, which can improve efficiency.
6. Disassembly: After printing, heat the iron plate with fire to melt the medicine, and drop the movable type with your fingers without contamination.
7. Storage of words: When not using movable type, stick it on paper, one for each rhyme, and store it in a wooden lattice.
8. Efficiency: If only three or two copies are printed, it will not be easy. If you print hundreds of thousands of copies, it will be extremely fast.
9. Where to go: After Bi's death, his movable type was obtained by Shen Kuo's sons and nephews, and it was still preserved when Shen Kuo wrote Meng Qian Bi Tan.
This number not only increases the credibility and authority of this record, but also shows the close relationship between Bi and Shen.
There were seven or eight kinds of movable type printed books in Song Dynasty, but the basis was not sufficient and most of them were not credible. most
According to textual research, in the fourth year of Shao Xi in Song Guangzong (1 193), Zhou Bida published Miscellaneous Notes of Yutang in Tanzhou (now Changsha, Hunan) with clay bronze plate. Wen Zhong Ji Volume 198 Zhou Bida wrote to Cheng Yuancheng: "Recently, Shen Cun's neutralization method was used to copy with clay copper plate, and now it has become 28 incidents of Yutang Miscellanies." Shen Kuo's words are stored, and the method should refer to arranging the words on a copper plate with clay, and then copying them with paper.
There are also many records of printing activities in the Yuan Dynasty. According to-Sui's Collection of Fifteen Years of Mu 'an, Yuan Shizu Kublai Khan's counselor Yao Shu (1201-kloc-0/278) taught his disciple Yanggu to be a trap for Shen Shi, and compared it with recent thoughts and Donglai classics. It took about 13 years from Yuan Taizong to three years after losing contact.
Yuan once said, "Making Movable Type Printing Calligraphy" attached to his "Agricultural Book": "Some people have another skill, which uses iron as a helmet, burns it with thin asphalt in the boundary, cools it, and simmers it on the fire to make the cooked tiles line up and make a movable type printing plate. Because of its inconvenience, mud is used as a helmet, thin mud is used as a boundary, cooked tiles are arranged, and then they are burned in a kiln, or they can be printed as movable type. " Before that, it was said that Bi used hard clay type to print books on the iron frame. Later, someone put the burnt clay type in a clay frame and burned it again to make a whole piece of pottery board for printing books.