One of the four great inventions in China. Outstanding achievements in the history of human civilization.
Function of paper
Paper is a sheet fiber product used for writing, printing, painting or packaging. Generally, it is made from the aqueous suspension of plant fibers through pulping, staggered combination on the net, preliminary dehydration, compression and drying. China was the first country in the world to invent paper. According to archaeological findings, in the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC to 8 BC), China already had hemp fiber paper. Rough quality, small quantity, high cost and unpopularity.
The invention of 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.
In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xu Shen talked about the origin of "paper" in his first well-organized and systematic dictionary Shuo Wen Jie Zi in China. He said: "paper" comes from the side, that is, from the side of silk. "At that time, the paper was mainly spun silk, which was completely different from the paper in the present sense. The invention, development and spread of paper also went through a tortuous process.
/kloc-after the invention of papermaking in 0/05, papermaking spread from Henan to other economically and culturally developed areas. Cai Lun sealed the Dragon Pavilion in Yangxian County, Shaanxi Province, and papermaking spread to Hanzhong area, and gradually spread to Sichuan. According to the folklore of Cai Lun's hometown Leiyang, Hunan, Cai Lunsheng had taught papermaking to his hometown before. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Shandong's papermaking was also relatively developed, and it was an expert in papermaking in Donglai County (now Yexian County) of Zuo Bo. In addition, paper and decorative books first spread to the northern minority areas through the Silk Road.
Since the Jin Dynasty, many famous painters and calligraphers have appeared in China, which greatly promoted the development of calligraphy and painting paper. For example, Wang Xizhi, a calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, greatly improved the paper used for painting and calligraphy during the father-son period. Writing paper in the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties was made of hemp and bamboo bark, coated with starch and white mineral pigments, and polished.
After the Sui Dynasty unified the north and south, the Tang and Song Dynasties inherited and developed hundreds of years of papermaking achievements, which opened the heyday of manual papermaking in the Tang and Song Dynasties: the popularity of calligraphy and painting and Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty increased the demand for paper, and the raw materials for papermaking expanded to rattan and mulberry bark. Painting and calligraphy paper is also coated with nitrate starch before waxing, and finally polished with coarse cloth or stone. Warp writing paper is also dyed yellow with phellodendron to avoid smoking. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Anhui used the method of night drying and late harvest to bleach bast fiber to make paper. The base paper was smooth, white and durable. In the Southern Song Dynasty, bamboo paper was abundant in southern China. Both Wang Anshi and Su Dongpo like to write with bamboo paper. They think that bamboo paper has bright ink color and bright brushwork, which was imitated by many literati at that time, thus promoting the development of bamboo paper. In the Song Dynasty, bamboo paper was not only abundant, but also rice and wheat straw was used to make paper. Su Yijian in the Northern Song Dynasty recorded that people in Zhejiang made paper pulp from wheat and rice stalks, and made paper with oil vines.
By the Ming Dynasty, the technology of making paper from bamboo in China had been perfected. At that time, Song's Tiangong systematically described the production process of making paper with bamboo, with illustrations of production equipment and operation process. This book has been translated into Japanese, French and English and spread to Japan and Europe. It is the earliest book in China that systematically describes papermaking technology.
After hundreds of years in Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, by the middle of Qing Dynasty, China's hand-made paper was quite developed, with advanced quality and various varieties, which became the material conditions for the development and spread of China culture for thousands of years.
The spread of papermaking
After China invented papermaking, paper books were first taken abroad, and then papermaking gradually spread abroad.
Papermaking began to spread eastward to Korea and Japan in the early 7th century (late Sui and early Tang Dynasties). In the 8th century, it was introduced to Samarkand, later Arabia and then Baghdad. 10 century to Damascus and Cairo; 1 1 century was introduced to Morocco; /kloc-was introduced to India in the 0/3rd century; From14th century to Italy, many cities in Italy built paper mills, which became an important base for the spread of papermaking in Europe, and then spread to Germany and Britain. /kloc-was introduced to Russia and Holland in the 6th century; /kloc-spread to Britain in the 0/7th century; It was introduced to Canada in the19th century. The invention and spread of papermaking greatly reduced the carrier cost of words and realized the popularization of knowledge among the common people, thus greatly promoting the development of science, technology and economy in the world.
In view of the unhealthy trend of trying to deny that Cai Lun was the inventor of papermaking and People's Republic of China (PRC) was the inventor of papermaking,1The 20th Congress of the International Paper History Association held in Malmedi, Belgium from August 65438 to August 22, 1990 unanimously recognized that Cai Lun was the great inventor of papermaking and People's Republic of China (PRC) was the inventor of papermaking. According to the textual research of Comrade Shi of the Editorial Committee of Luoyang Local Records. Paper House is located in the suburb of Luoyang, the ancient city of Han and Wei Dynasties. It was called Paper House in ancient times. The ancient Majian River passed through a section of the Paper River, and the original paper river inscription along the coast has been lost.
Related literature
According to historical records, Han and Emperor visited Gou Jian's home, and Gou Jian probably visited the paper mill here. Hezhizhuang (now divided into Qianzhizhuang and Houzhizhuang, located about 2000 meters east of Luoyang, the ancient city of Han and Wei Dynasties, facing Luohe) is probably the location of the paper mill in Han Dynasty. These two places have superior geographical environment for papermaking, and there are abundant papermaking resources (such as hemp and bamboo forest) nearby.
Printing-engraving
Seals existed in the pre-Qin period, generally only a few words, indicating names, official positions or institutions. All seals are engraved and reflected, and there is a difference between yin and yang. Before paper appeared, official documents or letters were written on bamboo slips. After writing, tie it with a rope, put sticky mud on the ligation place to seal the knot, and cover the seal on the mud, which is called mud seal. Mud seal was printed on mud, which was a secret means at that time. After the appearance of paper, mud seal evolved into paper seal, which was covered at the joint of several official documents or the sealing of official documents paper bags. According to records, during the Northern Qi Dynasty (550~577 AD), someone made a big seal for stamping official documents, much like a small block print. Printed in 1 and the Warring States Period (475 BC-22 BC1year). 2. Ge Hong, a famous alchemist in Jin Dynasty (AD 284-363), mentioned in his book Bao Puzi that Taoism used to be four inches square (13.5× 13.5) and had a big wooden seal 120. This is already a small block.
3. In order to make Buddhist scriptures more vivid, Buddhists often print Buddha statues on the frontispiece of Buddhist scriptures, which is much more convenient than hand painting. 4. Inscription technology is very enlightening to the invention of engraving printing technology. The invention of stone carving has a long history. Ten-sided stone drums were discovered in Fengxiang, Shaanxi Province in the early Tang Dynasty. They are the stone carvings of Qin in the Spring and Autumn Period of the 8th century BC. Qin Shihuang went on patrol and carved stones in important places seven times. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, stone tablets prevailed. In the fourth year of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty (AD 175), Cai Yong suggested that the imperial court set up seven Confucian classic stone tablets, including The Book of Songs, Shangshu, Zhouyi, Book of Rites, Spring and Autumn Annals, Biography of the Ram and The Analects of Confucius, with 209,000 words, which were engraved on 46 stone tablets. It took eight years to carve it all. Become a classic of scholars at that time. Many people compete to copy. Later, especially during the Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties, some people took advantage of being unprepared or unattended to print the scriptures on paper for their own use or sale. The results were widely circulated. 5. Rubbing is one of the important conditions for the production of printing technology. The ancients found that a slightly wet piece of paper was covered on the stone tablet and tapped with a soft mallet to make the paper fall into the concave part of the stone tablet. When the paper is dry, it is wrapped in cotton, dipped in ink, and tapped lightly on the paper, leaving the same black and white characters on the paper as the stone tablet. This method is simpler and more reliable than manual copying. So rubbing appeared. 6. Printing and dyeing technology also has great enlightenment to block printing. Printing and dyeing is to engrave the pattern on the board and print it on the cloth with dye. China's printing plates are divided into relief and hollowed-out versions. 1972 two pieces of printed yarn (about 165 BC) unearthed from the Han tomb at Mawangdui No.1 in Changsha, Hunan Province were printed by block printing. This technology may be earlier than Qin and Han Dynasties, but it can be traced back to the Warring States Period. After the invention of paper, this technology may be used in printing. As long as the cloth is turned into paper and the dye is turned into ink, the printed thing becomes block printing. In the stone chambers of Dunhuang, there are Buddha statues printed with convex plates and hollow plates in the Tang Dynasty. print
Seal cutting, rubbing, printing and dyeing technologies are mutually inspired and blended, and with the experience and wisdom of our people, block printing technology came into being. 7. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties (around the 7th century), block printing appeared. Early printing activities were mainly carried out among the people, mostly used to print Buddha statues, Buddhist scriptures, vows and almanac. In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, Xuanzang printed the image of Pu Xian on the back paper and gave it to monks and nuns. 8. During the Northern Song Dynasty (about 1 1 century), Bi Sheng invented movable type printing, which was a revolution in the printing industry and had a far-reaching impact on the cultural development of China, Europe and even the world. Especially after it was introduced into Europe, it effectively promoted its Renaissance and religious reform.
The printing of this paragraph originated in China.
With the invention of brush and ink, scholars can not only read, but also write, without the need for an engraver to wait on them at any time as in the era of knife and pen, and it is more convenient to record ideas. Before the Spring and Autumn Period, although there were many great politicians and thinkers in the history of our country, no one wrote a book in person, which is the reason. In the Qin Dynasty, Meng Tian invented the method of soaking wool with lime water to remove the water-repellent substance on the surface of wool, which helped to finalize the manufacturing technology of writing brush, and the writing brush really became a writing tool. At this point, the ancients found a way to write fluently and save time and effort, so that writing is no longer a chore. People in the leisure class will kill time by writing a few strokes in their spare time, and strive to write beautifully, and even try to laugh at each other, thus creating a precedent for calligraphy art. Li Si in Qin Dynasty was the first great calligrapher in history, which shows the maturity of pen and ink technology. The structure of Chinese characters is complex, and everyone writes different words, some of which are beautiful and some are vulgar and ugly. An important way to promote people to pursue the art of calligraphy and improve their calligraphy skills is to imitate good calligraphy works, but people who write well generally keep accounts and their works are mostly government documents, which are difficult for ordinary people to see. Inscriptions were popular in ancient times. It is the best mode for people to practice calligraphy to find people who write well and then carve them by masons. The stone tablet is too heavy to take home and continue to imitate. Paper appeared in the late Western Han Dynasty, but at that time, the paper fiber was rough and the ink-printing performance was poor. It is mainly used to replace cloth for wrapping and padding, and occasionally notes are written on wrapping paper, such as paper with drug names found in Hangquan (or Juyan) site. Paper-making technology first draws lessons from the mature reeling technology in China, soaking fiber substances in water to mash and disperse fibers, and taking out the broken fibers and spreading them to cool. Thick fiber, thick paper and poor writing performance can not be widely used as writing materials. During the Eastern Han Dynasty and Emperor Wudi of Han Dynasty, Cai Lun reformed the paper-making method and made a new type of paper with fine, uniform and fine fibers, which greatly improved the writing performance of paper, and the main use of paper turned to writing. The paper is thin and soft, which makes calligraphy practitioners come up with a rubbing method that imitates seals and takes them home to imitate, that is, rubbing. The invention of paper made rubbings possible, so that every calligrapher could practice good handwriting, and also created a large number of calligraphers in the Three Kingdoms and the Jin Dynasty. The western alphabet has a simple structure and a small number of letters, and it is written with a hard pen. You can write flashy, but there is no art at all. After writing dozens of letters, people can write a lot. Rubbings can be written on paper without imitating other people's handwriting. There is no need to make paper, so westerners have no social basis for inventing papermaking. Yang Di established the imperial examination system and selected officials by writing articles. People who write good articles can be officials. There is a new demand for spreading good articles in society. In order to copy a lot of good articles, professional copywriters imitate rubbing technology to copy a lot of articles, and then combine seal cutting and calligraphy to create block printing. It appeared between the prosperous Tang Dynasty and the middle Tang Dynasty, prevailed in the Northern Song Dynasty, and finally matured with the invention of clay movable type by Buyi Bi Sheng. Today, there is still a saying among government civil servants that "writing a good hand and writing a good article" are the two basic skills of civil servants (that is, collectors of ancient books). Writing a good hand and writing a good article are the characteristics of Chinese characters in China, which are determined by some political systems in the history of China, and come down in one continuous line with a perfect and practical writing system, which are not available in western history, thus determining that papermaking and printing can only be produced in China!
Edit the print type in this paragraph.
The types of printing can be roughly divided into relief printing, lithography, gravure printing and stencil printing (screen printing).
Letterpress printing:
Letterpress printing has the longest history and is the most popular. The protruding parts of layout images and characters accept ink, while the recessed parts do not accept ink. When the printing plate is pressed against the paper, the ink will be printed on the paper. Printing materials mainly include movable type, lead plate, zinc plate, copper plate and photosensitive resin plate. Some books, bills, envelopes, business cards, etc. Still printed in relief; Relief printing is generally used for special processing, such as hot stamping, hot silver stamping, embossing and so on.
Lithography:
This is the most common and widely used printing method at present. Image and non-image are on the same plane. Based on the principle that water and ink repel each other, the graphic part accepts ink but not water, and the non-graphic part is the opposite. In the printing process, indirect method is adopted. First, the image is printed on the rubber drum, and the image and text are changed from positive to negative, and then the image and text on the rubber drum are transferred to paper. This printing method can be used for picture books, picture advertising samples, calendars, etc.
Gravure printing:
Gravure printing is the opposite of relief printing. Words and images are concave, and under the layout, the concave parts are inked. The depth of printing is related to the depth of indentation, deep is dry and shallow is light. Gravure printing has a protruding feeling because of the different inks. Coins, stamps and securities are printed in gravure. Gravure printing is also suitable for printing plastic films and silk. Because gravure printing takes a long time, the process is complex and the cost is high.
Template printing:
It is also called screen printing. If you saw a teacher carve wax paper in primary school, you will understand this printing method better. Use silk, metal and synthetic screen, wax paper, etc. As a printing plate, the graphic part is hollowed out into fine holes, the non-graphic part is protected by printing materials, the printing plate is close to the substrate, and the ink is infiltrated into the substrate with a scraper or an ink roller. Screen printing can be printed not only on flat substrates, but also on curved substrates, with bright colors and durability. Suitable for printing labels, bags, T-shirts, plastic products, glass, metal utensils and other objects.
The invention of engraving printing technology is editing this paragraph.
The process of block printing is roughly as follows: after the sample manuscript is written, stick the side with words on the board, so that the lettering can be done. Carvers use different types of carving knives to carve the reflexive ink on the woodcut into convex orthography, and at the same time remove the remaining blank parts on the woodcut to make it concave. The inscription on the board is probably 1 ~ 2mm publishing surface. Rinse the carved board with hot water, wash off sawdust, etc. The shaping process is completed. When printing, use a cylindrical flat-bottomed brush to dip ink evenly on the board surface, then carefully cover the paper on the board surface, and with a brush, you can print a positive image of words or pictures on the paper. Lift the paper from the printing board and dry it in the shade, and the printing process is completed. A printer can print 1500 ~ 2000 sheets a day, and a printing plate can print 10,000 times continuously. The invention time of block printing has always been a controversial issue. After repeated discussions, most experts believe that the origin time of block printing is between 590 and 640 AD, that is, from Sui Dynasty to early Tang Dynasty. Printed materials were unearthed in the early Tang Dynasty. 1900, a beautifully printed Diamond Sutra was found in the Thousand Buddha Cave in Dunhuang, with the words "April 15th, 9th year of Xian Tong (AD 868)" at the end. This is the earliest printed matter with a definite date in the world. Prints printed by block printing may only be popular among the people at first, and there will be a period of coexistence with manuscripts. In the fourth year of Changqing, the poet Yuan Zhen prefaced Bai Juyi's "Changqing Collection" and said, "Cowherd has no way to go. As for calligraphy and painting, leaves are sold in the market." "Shaping" means carving, and "selling" means selling. This shows that the spread of Bai Juyi's poems, an upper-class intellectual at that time, had been printed in addition to manuscripts.
Movable type plate making just avoids the shortage of engraving. As long as enough single movable type is prepared in advance, you can make up at any time, which greatly speeds up the plate making time. After printing, movable type can be disassembled and reused. Moreover, movable type occupies less space than lettering and is easy to store and keep. In this way, the superiority of movable type is revealed. Bi Sheng invented movable type printing, which improved the printing efficiency. However, his invention did not get the attention of the rulers and society at that time. After his death, movable type printing was still not popular. The clay movable type he created was not preserved. However, the movable type printing technology he invented has been passed down.
Powder data
A kind of explosive with low detonation velocity. A substance that can be ignited by sparks, flames, etc. When burning, it produces a lot of gas, including gunpowder.
Have the effect of explosion or propulsion (cause an object, such as a projectile, to be launched at a certain speed). The earliest application is black powder invented by China, which is composed of sulfur, carbon and nitrate. According to the nature of combustion, gunpowder can be divided into pyrotechnic powder (smoke produced during combustion, such as black powder) and smokeless powder. Smokeless powder is mainly used as ignition or propellant for ammunition.
Gunpowder is in China
Gunpowder was invented by China people, and it has been over 1000 years. The study of gunpowder began with ancient alchemy. China was the first country to invent gunpowder. In Sui Dynasty, the ternary system of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal was born. Black powder officially appeared in the Tang Dynasty (the end of the 9th century). Gunpowder was invented by ancient alchemists. From the Warring States to the early Han Dynasty, emperors and nobles indulged in the fantasy of immortality, driving some alchemists and Taoists to practice.