Wang Zhen, an inventor in the Yuan Dynasty of China, has no biography in official history. His deeds can be seen in the chronicles of Anhui and Jiangxi. According to legend, there was a county magistrate named Wang Zhen in the Yuan Dynasty who served as a magistrate in Jingde County, Xuanzhou when he was young. He discovered that since ancient times, farmers have been farming in a "depending on the sky" approach, which has stagnated agriculture. Therefore, he actively promoted mulberry farming and made many contributions to China's agriculture.
Wang Zhen’s first major contribution to agriculture is the invention of green fertilizer. The method is to soak large piles of green grass and then apply it to the fields as fertilizer. Seeing Wang Zhen's crops growing very luxuriantly, farmers followed suit. Then, Wang Zhen invented another great agricultural tool: the water mill. This is an invention that uses the power of water to impact a water wheel to generate power and guide water from a low place to a high place. Shortly afterwards, Wang Zhen improved the water mill into an agricultural machine - a water wheel - that could divert water and grind rice, flour and spring grains at the same time. For hundreds of years, this invention has liberated people from heavy physical labor and greatly reduced farmers' workload.
Wang Zhen also made another important invention, which was the creation of wooden movable type printing after Bi Sheng's clay movable type plate. He also stipulated the specifications of wooden movable type and invented the wheel typesetting frame. Finally, the method of making wooden movable type and the technical processes such as typesetting, typesetting, and printing were compiled into the article "Making Movable Type and Printing Calligraphy", which was appended to his book "Agricultural Book". This is an important historical book recording printing technology in history.
"Nongshu" is a book about farming that Wang Zhen spent seventeen years writing. The book is 140,000 words long, has 37 volumes and 300 illustrations. There are six pictures, and there are more than 100 kinds of various mechanical tools introduced in the book.
Wang Zhen not only made extremely important contributions in the history of agricultural science, but also made glorious achievements in the history of machinery and printing. A versatile scientist like him is a rare talent in the history of Chinese science.