Bi Sheng, a Buyi nationality in the Northern Song Dynasty and a native of yingshan county, Hubei Province, was an engraver in a bookstore in the early Song Dynasty. During the Song and Qing Dynasties (104 1- 1048), he invented movable type printing technology according to his own practical experience. Bi Sheng died before this technology was popularized. His handwriting was collected by Shen Kuo's family.
Movable type printing has many advantages, such as multi-purpose, repeated use, fast printing speed, saving time and labor, and saving materials. Compared with block printing, it has made a qualitative leap, which has had a great and far-reaching impact on the progress of printing and even world civilization in later generations.
Development and dissemination of movable type printing
Bi Sheng's clay movable type first spread to North Korea and was called "Tao movable type". Type printing in the Tang Dynasty was very popular in China. It spread to Korea, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Iran and other countries in the13rd century, and movable type printing spread to Europe in the15th century.
In A.D. 1456, Goldenberg printed the Goldenberg Bible with movable type, which was the first movable type printing in Europe, 400 years later than the movable type printing history in China. Movable type printing spread rapidly to more than a dozen other countries through Germany, which promoted the arrival of the Renaissance.
/kloc-in the 6th century, movable type printing spread to Africa, America and Moscow, and/kloc-in the 9th century, it spread to Russia and Australia.