Since the advent of paper, with the development of economy and culture, more and more people are reading books, and the demand for books has greatly increased.

In the early years of the Jin Dynasty, there were 29,945 books in the government. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Emperor Liang Yuan collected more than 70,000 books in Jiangling, and the Sui Dynasty collected 370,000 books in Jiazetang, which is the highest collection record of the ancient National Library of China.

Besides official books, there are more and more private books. For example, Mrs. Guo of the Jin Dynasty has a collection of 5,000 volumes; When Zhang Hua moved, one person used thirty cars to transport books.

Before the invention of printing, only the government and the rich like Mrs. Guo and Zhang Hua could have so many books, and it was not easy for ordinary people to get one or two, because all the books at that time were manuscripts. How much manpower it takes to copy so many manuscripts! If this situation does not change, how can we meet the needs of society?

It is often the case in history that a scientific invention will appear as long as it is urgently needed by society and has material conditions for production. This is the emergence of block printing.

Before block printing appeared, seals and rubbings were widely used in society.

There are two kinds of seals: Yang Wen and Yin Wen. The words engraved in Yang Wen are convex, while those engraved in Yin Wen are concave. "If you use a seal in Yang Wen, it will be printed on black paper with a white background, which is very eye-catching. However, seals are generally small and the number of words printed is limited.

Inscriptions are generally written in female, and the development is white on a black background, which is not eye-catching. Moreover, the rubbing process is complicated and it is not convenient to print books. But rubbings have a great advantage, that is, the area of stone tablets is relatively large, and many words can be rubbings at a time.

What if we learn from each other's strengths and combine the characteristics of rubbing? Of course the situation is different.

Inspired by the two methods of rubbing, the working people in our country invented block printing.

The method of block printing is as follows: saw the wood into pieces of boards, write the words to be printed on thin paper and stick them on the boards, and then carve Yang Wen one by one with a knife according to the strokes of each word, so that the strokes of each word stand out on the boards. After the board is carved, you can print books. When printing a book, first dip the brush in ink, brush it on the carved board, then cover it with self-paper, brush it gently on the back of the paper with a clean brush, and then take off the paper, and a page of the book will be printed. After page-by-page printing and binding, the book is a success. This printing method is lettering printing on wooden boards, so everyone calls it "block printing".

When did China invent woodblock printing? Historians have not yet reached an agreement on this issue, but most people think it was invented in the Tang Dynasty.

At the end of Sui Dynasty and the beginning of Tang Dynasty, the large-scale peasant uprising promoted the development of social production and the vigorous development of cultural undertakings, which objectively produced an urgent demand for block printing.

According to Shao Jingbang's book Hong, the Empress Stone of Emperor Taizong collected the stories of typical women in feudal society. I wrote a book called "Women's Rules". After ten years of Zhenguan, the eldest grandson of the earth died, and someone in the palace gave this book to Emperor Taizong. After reading it, Emperor Taizong ordered it to be printed by block printing.

The tenth year of Zhenguan was 636 AD. The publication date of the women's rules may be this year or later. This is the earliest print mentioned in China literature. Analyze from these data. Perhaps at that time, people had begun to print books with block printing, so Emperor Taizong thought of printing women's rules. The invention of block printing certainly predates the publication of Women's Rules.

By the ninth century, it was quite common for China to print books by block printing.

There was an outstanding poet named Bai Juyi in the Tang Dynasty. He compiled his poems into a collection of poems-Bai Changqing Collection, which was held on December 10th in the 4th year of Changqing (AD 825 1 2nd). Bai Juyi's friend Yuan Zhen wrote a preface for Bai Juyi's Changqing Collection, saying that Bai Juyi's poems were "copied" and sold everywhere.

In the past, people called the carved stone "mole", but in the Tang Dynasty, the carved stone was also called "mole". The word "Moller" here means block printing.

There is such a record in the Book of Old Tang Dynasty. In December of the ninth year of Daiwa (AD 835), Tang Wenzong ordered all localities not to engrave almanac privately. What's going on here? According to other ancient books, it is like this: people in Jiannan, Liangchuan and Huainan Road at that time. Almanac is printed by block printing and sold on the street. Every year, Si Tiantai, who is in charge of calendars, has never called a new calendar, but new calendars printed by the people are everywhere. It was the privilege of feudal emperors to issue calendars. Su Feng, our envoy to Dongchuan, called for banning private publication of almanac in order to safeguard the prestige of the imperial court. Almanac is related to agricultural production and farmers need it very much. How to ban orders? Although Tang Wenzong gave this order, the almanac engraved by the people is still popular everywhere. Even in the same area, there is more than one kind of folk printed almanac.

During the Huang Chao Uprising, Tang Xizong fled to Sichuan in panic. The emperor also escaped, and of course no one came to take care of the prohibition of printing almanac. So the local people in Jiangdong made up their own almanac and sold it. In the first year of Zhonghe in Tang Xizong (AD 88 1 year), two people printed an almanac, which was one day later than the sun and the moon, and there was an argument. A local official said, "We are all in the same business. What's the difference between a day and a half? " How can an almanac be one day worse? What the local officials said really made people laugh. This tells us that there are at least two printed almanac in Jiangdong alone.

Liu Pi, who fled to Sichuan with Tang Xizong at that time, also said in the preface of family instruction that he had seen many books about Yin and Yang, miscellaneous notes and dreamers in the bookstore in Chengdu. Most of these books are woodcut. It can be seen that the printing industry in Chengdu was relatively developed at that time, not only printing almanac, but also printing various other books.

There is only one book, The Diamond Sutra, which was carved in the Tang Dynasty by Xian Tong in nine years. Xian Tong was nine years in 868, and it has been more than one thousand years since now. How did this printed matter 1000 years ago survive? This is another story.

There is Mingsha Mountain in the southeast of Dunhuang, Gansu. As early as the Jin Dynasty, some Buddhists made holes here, carved Buddha statues and built temples. With more and more caves, the number of Buddha statues is also increasing, so people call it "Thousand Buddha Cave". /kloc-in 0/900, when Taoist Wang was repairing a cave, he came across a closed darkroom. He opened it and found bundles of paper rolls, many of which were copied in the Tang Dynasty, and one was the Diamond Sutra carved in the Tang Dynasty.

The Diamond Sutra is about one foot long and one foot high. This is a piece of paper made of seven printed sheets. There is a painting in front of the scroll, which depicts the immortal story of Sakyamuni's statement to his disciples, and the expression is vivid, followed by the full text of the Diamond Sutra. There is not a word in the volume, which means that it was engraved by Xian Tong in nine years.

This book is the earliest woodcut printed book in the world. This painting is also engraved on a whole page, which may be the earliest printed matter in the world.

During the Five Dynasties, there was a feudal bureaucrat named Feng Dao. He was a big official in the short five dynasties and four dynasties, and he was a despicable guy. He saw all kinds of printed books sold by people in Jiangsu, Sichuan and other places, except Confucian classics, and suggested to the emperor that Confucian classics should be printed by block printing in Changxing three years in the late Tang Dynasty.

At that time, * * * printed nine kinds of scriptures, which took four dynasties, and it took 22 years to engrave them all until the last three years of Zhou.

Because this kind of engraving had a great influence, it was of course wrong to think that printing was invented by Feng Dao in the Five Dynasties.

In the Song Dynasty, the printing industry was more developed, and books were carved all over the country. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Chengdu printed the Tripitaka, with 130,000 pieces of rigidity; Imperial academy, the central educational institution of the Northern Song government, has more than100000 books on Indian history. From these two figures, we can see the scale of printing industry at that time. There are more than 700 kinds of books printed by block printing in Song Dynasty, with neat and simple fonts and elegant appearance, which have been consulted by Chinese people ever since.

Woodcarving was widely used in the Song Dynasty, but some people carved it with copper plates. The Shanghai Museum has the copperplate used in the printing advertisement of "Liu Jinan Jiagongfu Needle Shop" in the Northern Song Dynasty, which shows that the technology of carving copperplate was mastered at that time.

When it comes to printing books, block printing is indeed a great creation. A book can be printed in many copies as long as it is engraved once, which is many times faster than handwriting.

But in this case, you have to carve a board once to print a book, and it still takes a lot of manpower, and it is impossible to print a large number of books quickly. Some books have a lot of words, and it often takes years to engrave them. In case the book is printed once and not reprinted, no matter how well carved the board is, it is completely useless.

Is there any way to improve it?

By the middle of 1 1 century (during the Qing Dynasty in Song Renzong), an inventor named Bi Sheng in China finally invented a more progressive printing method-movable type printing, which greatly improved the printing technology in China.

Bi Sheng made a long rectangular column out of clay, engraved with words and hardened with fire. This is a movable type. When printing books, prepare an iron plate, put rosin and wax on it, and there is an iron frame around the iron plate. Iron shelves are all movable type, and an iron shelf is a version. Then bake it under the iron plate with fire to melt the rosin and wax. In addition, a movable type board is arranged by pressing the arranged movable type with a flat plate and flattening the words. Like engraving, it can be printed as long as the words are inked.

In order to improve efficiency, he prepared two iron plates and organized two people to work at the same time, one for printing and the other for typesetting; When one board is printed, the second board is ready. The two iron plates are used alternately, and the printing speed is fast.

Bi Sheng carved a few words every word; It is very convenient to carve more than 20 unfamiliar words in Chinese characters, then carve them temporarily and burn them with fire. After printing, heat the iron plate on the fire to melt the rosin and wax, and then the movable type can be removed for next use.

This is the earliest invention of movable type printing. This type of clay is called clay type. Compared with Printing 2 invented by Bi Sheng today, it is primitive, but the three main steps of movable type printing-making movable type, typesetting and printing-are already available. So Bi Sheng's contribution to printing is very remarkable. Shen Kuo, a famous scientist in the Northern Song Dynasty, recorded the movable type printing invented by Bi Sheng in Meng Qian Bi Tan.

After Bi Sheng invented movable type printing, the Korean people began to print books with clay type, and later printed books with wood type. /kloc-In the 3rd century, they first invented printing books with copper movable type. China printed books with copper movable type later than North Korea. The Korean people also created lead movable type and iron movable type.