During the Northern Song Dynasty in China (104 1 ~ 1048), Bi Sheng invented clay movable type, which was the beginning of movable type. Later, tin type, wood type, copper type, lead type and clay type were developed. Among them, the clay type invented by Bi Sheng has a great influence on later generations, second only to woodcut. There used to be iron movable type in ancient Korea. Modern lead alloy movable type was created by German Johann Gutenberg in 1950s.
Basic introduction of Chinese names: movable type mbth: type pinyin: húo zì Athena Chu: ㄏㄨㄛㄗㄧ?, basic information, quotation explanation, basic concept, history, function, advantages, evolution, production method, overseas promotion, and basic information of movable type disk. Invented by Bi Sheng in Song Dynasty. Before the Qing Dynasty, it was made of cement, wood, tin, copper, lead and other materials, but now it is made of lead, antimony and tin alloy. Shen Jin Tai Ji: "Recently, Baling people use copper and lead as movable type, which is particularly convenient to print on wooden boards." Cao Hongkui's Movable Type Typesetting Technology, Chapter 1, Section 2: "So some people create words to typeset. If there are typos, missing sentences and multiple words, it will be convenient to correct them. This single character is called movable type. " 2. refers to the flexible use of words. Ming Hu Yinglin's "Si Robbie Xin Lu Dan cited the Shaoshi Mountain House": "Note the cloud to repair food, as a movable type." Legend has it that "Robbie" is a kind of stuffing noodle food that ethnic minorities Bi Shi and Roche (actually not) like, so it is a flexible word to use "Robbie" to represent this noodle. 3. Refers to words that are still in use. Lu Xun's Letters to Yao Ke: "Actually, it is a lie to look for movable type in ancient books. For example, if we open the Selected Works, how can we decide whether its words are alive or dead? The so-called' living' person is nothing more than a word that you can understand at a glance. " The basic concept of movable type is a single typesetting word made of metal or nonmetal materials. An inverted word or symbol at the top of a square cylinder or cuboid. Commonly used printing movable type, commonly known as movable type, is mainly made of metal lead, with a certain proportion of tin and antimony metals, and is cast by movable type casting machine. The distance from the letter of movable type to the foot of movable type is called the height of movable type. The height of movable type is measured in metric system and the unit is millimeter. The distance from the back of movable type to the front of movable type is called movable type size, also called font size. In China, movable type is measured in a mixed system with dot system as the supplement and number system as the main measure. Printing is one of the four great inventions in ancient China. It was invented by the ancient working people in China after long-term practice and research. Since the invention of paper in Han Dynasty, writing materials are much lighter and more economical than Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bamboo slips, stone carvings and silk books used in the past, but copying books is still very labor-intensive and far from meeting the needs of society. During the Xiping period (AD 172- 178), the method of copying and rubbing stone tablets appeared. In the Sui Dynasty around 600 AD, people were inspired by carving seals, and engraving printing was invented for the first time in human history. Engraving printing is to paste the neatly copied manuscript on a smooth wooden board with a certain thickness. The thin and almost transparent manuscript paper is stuck on the front of the board, the words become reflexive and the strokes are clear and distinguishable. The engraver uses a carving knife to cut off the part of the page that has no handwriting, and it becomes a convex text, which is completely different from the concave inscription. When printing, apply ink to the raised font, then cover it with paper and gently wipe the back of the paper, and the handwriting will remain on the paper. Song Dynasty was the heyday of block printing. Block printing has played an important role in cultural communication, but it also has obvious shortcomings: first, block printing is time-consuming and laborious; Second, it is inconvenient to store a large number of books; Third, it is not easy to correct typos. Bi Sheng, a civilian inventor in the Northern Song Dynasty, invented movable type printing and improved block printing. Bi Sheng was an ordinary civilian intellectual in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, and was called Buyi at that time. He summed up the rich practical experience of block printing in past dynasties. After repeated experiments, he made clay movable type in Song Renzong in the Qing Dynasty (A.D. 104 1- 1048) and printed it in typesetting, thus completing a major revolution in the history of printing. The function of block printing can print hundreds or even thousands of books, which plays a great role in the spread of culture. However, block printing is time-consuming and laborious, and large books often take several years, and the storage of block printing takes up a lot of space and is often damaged by deformation, moth-eaten and corrosion. Books that have a small print run and do not need to be reprinted become waste. In addition, typos are found in the carving, which is very difficult to correct, and it is often necessary to re-carve the whole carving. Advantages 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 the edition at any time, which greatly speeds up the plate making time. After printing, movable type can be disassembled and reused. Moreover, movable type takes up less space than lettering and is easy to store and keep. In this way, the superiority of movable type is shown. The idea of printing with movable type has a long history. Qin Shihuang unified national weights and measures and stamped 40 letters on pottery. Archaeologists believe that "this is the beginning of China's movable type typesetting, but although he has invented it, it has not been widely used". Ancient seals also have some enlightenment to movable type printing. Shen Kuo, a famous scientist in Song Dynasty, recorded movable type printing for the first time in Meng Qian Bi Tan. In a.d. 104 1~ 1048, Bi Sheng, a civilian, made characters out of clay, and each character was a seal, which was hardened by fire and made into pottery. When typesetting, prepare an iron plate and relax the mixture of incense, wax and paper ash. Put it on an iron plate with an iron frame around it. The iron shelf is full of words to be printed, and it is a plate. Then bake it with fire to melt the mixture and integrate it with the movable type block, and press it on the movable type with a flat plate while it is hot to make the text smooth. You can print it. In this way, it is inefficient to print two or three copies. If there are many copies, dozens or even thousands, the efficiency will be high. In order to improve efficiency, two iron plates are often used, one for printing and the other for typesetting. After printing one sheet, the other sheet will be rearranged, so it is efficient to use it alternately. Common words, such as "Zhi" and "Ye", are each made into more than 20 words, so as to be used when there is duplication in a version. Unusual words that were not prepared were carved temporarily and immediately burned by vegetation fire. All the words removed from the printed board are put in a small wooden box with the same word, and the labels classified by rhyme are attached outside for retrieval. At first, Bi Sheng used wood as movable type, but found that the density of wood grain is different, which is easy to expand and deform when it meets water, and it is not easy to come down after being consolidated with adhesive, so he changed it to clay. Bi Sheng invented movable type printing, which improved the printing efficiency. However, his invention was not valued by 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. 1965 The publication "Five Hands of Buddhist Scriptures" discovered in Baixiang Pagoda, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province was identified as a movable type book from Fuyuan to Chongning in the Northern Song Dynasty (1/kloc-0 ~1103). This is the earliest historical testimony of movable type printing technology in Bi Sheng. Zhou Bida (1 129~ 1204), a native of Song Dynasty, used to be named Ji. In his later years, he learned Bi Sheng's methods from Shen Kuo and printed his own works. He also made a small change, changing the iron plate into a copper plate. Copper plate has better heat transfer than iron plate, which melts easily, but copper plate is more expensive than iron plate, which is nothing to a duke. In the Yuan Dynasty, Yao Shu (120 1~ 1278) advocated movable type printing, and taught his son Yang Gu to use movable type to print books, which became Zhu's Primary School, A Record of Recent Thoughts, and A History of Donglai Classics. However, Yanggu clay type was improved by Song people after Bi Sheng, and it was not an original technology in Bi Sheng. In the sixth year of Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty, Zhai Shiqi was an official in Raozhou, collecting magnetic households and writing the Book of Changes. According to experts' analysis, the so-called celadon (movable type) may be a ceramic movable type fired from porcelain clay for making celadon. 17 18 a native of Taian, Xudong, made pottery movable type and printed the Book of Changes. He calcined clay and made movable type for typesetting and printing books, still using the method used by Bi Sheng. Zhai Jin was born in the 9th century A.D./KLOC-and came from Jingxian County, Anhui Province. He came up with the idea of printing books with clay type after reading the technique of Bi Sheng clay type described in Meng Qian Bi Tan by Shen Kuo. It took him 30 years to make 65,438+10,000 clay movable types. 1844, printed as the first edition of clay printing trial printing. Since then, he has published many books. In the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of clay figures made by Zhai Jinsheng were also found in Jingxian County. These movable types come in five sizes. He proved the feasibility of Bi Sheng's invention with his own practice and broke some people's doubts about the feasibility of clay type. 1962 The clay figurine of Zhai discovered in Huizhou, Anhui Province. Wang Zhen (127 1~ 1368), a contemporary of Yanggu, created wooden movable type. Wang Zhen, a native of Dongping, Shandong Province, is an agronomist. He worked as a county magistrate several times. He left behind a book summarizing the experience of ancient agricultural production-Agricultural Book. This book is accompanied by Wang Zhen's methods of lettering, editing, word selection, typesetting and printing. In the second year of Yuan Chengzong Dade (1298), he hired craftsmen to carve more than 30,000 kinds of movable type in Jingde, and tried to print more than 60,000 words of Jingde County Records. In less than a month, he printed 100 copies, which was very efficient. This is the first printed wooden movable type version on record. Wang Zhen's other contribution to printing technology was the invention of the rotary typesetting disk. The big wheel made of light wood is about 7 feet in diameter and the axle is 3 feet high. The roulette wheel can rotate freely on the axle. According to the classification of ancient rhyme, put wooden movable type into the grid on the plate respectively. He made two such big roulette wheels, and the compositor sat between them and turned the roulette wheels to find words. This is what Wang Zhen said: "People are based on characters, and characters are based on rhyme". This not only improves the typesetting efficiency, but also reduces the physical labor of typesetters. It is a pioneering work in typesetting technology. Although the printed version of wooden movable type in Yuan Dynasty has been lost, there were hundreds of kinds of Uighur wooden movable type handed down at that time. There were many wooden movable types in the Ming Dynasty, most of which adopted the traditional crafts of the Song and Yuan Dynasties. In the 14th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1586), Jiajing's Tang Leiyuan, Records of the Remains of the World Temple, and Bi Shui Qun Ying Hou Wen Hui Yuan (about151530) were all woodblock printed. In the Qing Dynasty, wood movable type technology gained unprecedented development because of its support. Wooden movable type prevailed in Kangxi period, and the large-scale printing of wooden movable type books began with the publication of Yingwudian Juzhen Edition Series in Qianlong period. There are 253,500 kinds of movable type carved in this book. Printed into "Yingwudian Juzhen Edition Series" 134 kinds, 2389 volumes. This is the largest printing of wooden movable type books in the history of China. Making movable type with metal materials is also a development direction of movable type printing. Before Wang Zhen, people used tin as movable type. However, tin is not easy to print with ink and is difficult to popularize. At the turn of 15 and 16 century, copper movable type became popular in Wuxi, Suzhou and Nanjing, Jiangsu. Copper movable type printing entered a new era in Qing Dynasty. The biggest project is to print 10,000 volumes of ancient and modern books. It is estimated that the number of copper movable type is100 ~ 2 million. Making method Bi Sheng's method is as follows: make a blank with the same specification with clay, carve reflexive characters at one end, the height of the characters is as high as the thickness of the copper coin edge, and then harden with fire to become a single clay movable type. In order to meet the needs of typesetting, there are usually several or even dozens of commonly used words available for reuse in the same version. If you encounter uncommon words, you can use the system if you are not prepared in advance. In order to facilitate the selection of characters, the clay type characters are put into the wooden lattice according to rhyme and marked with a note. When typesetting, an iron plate with a frame is used as the base, and a layer of medicine made of turpentine, wax and paper powder is coated on it, and then the required clay movable type is picked out one by one and arranged in the frame. When a frame is filled, it becomes a version, and then it is baked with fire. When the medicine melts slightly, flatten the words with a flat plate, and after the medicine cools and solidifies, it will be printed. When printing, just brush ink on the board, cover it with paper, and apply some pressure. For continuous printing, two iron plates are used, one with a writing brush and the other with a typesetting board, and the two iron plates are used alternately. After printing, burn it with a torch, shake it gently with your hand, and the movable type will fall off the iron plate, and then put it back in the original wooden box according to the rhyme for next use. Bi Sheng also experimented with wooden movable type printing, but because of uneven wood grain, it is difficult to carve, and it is difficult to separate wooden movable type from chemicals because it is deformed when it meets water, so Bi Sheng did not adopt it. Bi Sheng's method of printing books with clay type is not easy if only two or three volumes are printed. If hundreds or thousands of copies are printed, the work efficiency is extremely considerable, which can not only save a lot of manpower and material resources, but also greatly improve the printing speed and quality, which is much superior to block printing. Although modern letterpress printing can't be compared with movable type printing in Bi Sheng in Song Dynasty in terms of equipment and technical conditions, the basic principles and methods are exactly the same. The invention of movable type printing has made great contributions to human culture. Among them, the achievements of Bi Sheng, a civilian inventor in China, are indelible. However, we know nothing about Bi Sheng's life story. Because Bi Sheng invented movable type printing, it was completely recorded in the famous book Meng Qian Bi Tan by Shen Kuo, a famous scientist in the Northern Song Dynasty. However, apart from several Buddhist scriptures written in Xixia characters, which are considered to be printed with movable type, there are no Chinese printed materials printed with movable type in the Central Plains! Overseas promotion of movable type printing in South Korea and Japan./kloc-At the end of 0/3, South Korea printed "The Heart of Cold Answer and Conformity" with metal movable type, which is the earliest existing metal movable type book in the world. 1376, the wooden movable type "Tongjian Outline" appeared in North Korea. 1436, North Korea printed the Compendium of General Mirror with lead movable type. /kloc-At the end of 0/6, China Ancient Filial Piety Scriptures and Persuading Learning were published in Japanese movable type. The invention and spread of movable type printing in Europe was about 1440. Johannes Gutenberg integrated some existing technologies in Europe at that time and invented movable type printing, which soon spread in Europe and greatly promoted the industrialization of printing. 1584, Gonzalez de Mendoza, a Spanish historian and missionary, proposed in his book History of Great China that Gutenberg was influenced by China's printing technology; China's printing was introduced to Germany in two ways, one was through Russia, and the other was through books carried by Arab merchants. Gutenberg used these China books as blueprints for his printing [5]. Mendoza's books were quickly translated into French, English and Italian, which had a great influence in Europe. French historian Louis Le Roy and writer Michel de Montaigne agree with Mendoza. An Tian, a sinologist, once thought that movable type printing in Europe originated in China with the title "Masterpiece of Eurocentrism Deception: The so-called Gutenberg May Be the Inventor of Printing". Italians owe the introduction of movable type printing to Europe to Paviloka Staldi, an Italian publisher born in Lombardy. When he saw the movable type books that Kyle Polo brought back from China, he printed them with movable type. To this end, the Italians specially erected a statue of him in his birthplace as a memorial. Stanislas Julien, a French sinologist, translated into French a piece of historical data about Bi Sheng's invention of movable type printing in Shen Kuo's Talk on Meng Xi. He was the first person to introduce Bi Sheng's invention of movable type printing to Europe. The type invented by Gutenberg actually contains lead, tin and antimony. Movable type alloys gradually disappeared after the popularization of computer typesetting, because they contain harmful metals such as lead, which are troublesome to use and lack of technology.