The Sinan must be rotated on a smooth chassis, and the chassis must be kept flat, otherwise it will affect its guide function and even cause it to slide off the chassis. Therefore, after people invented Sinan, they continued to research tools to improve the guide.
Guide Fish In 960 AD, Song Taizu established the Song Dynasty, ending the feudal separatist situation during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. During the Northern Song Dynasty, agriculture, handicrafts and commerce all had new developments. On this basis, our country's science and technology has made brilliant achievements. During the Song Dynasty, my country also made great progress in the manufacturing of compasses, just like papermaking and printing.
About the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, my country created another guide tool - the guide fish.
There was a famous military work at that time called "Martial Arts General Essentials", which said: When marching, if it is cloudy and dark, and the direction cannot be determined, the old horse should be allowed to lead the way. Or use a compass and a guide fish to identify directions. The book "Wu Jing Zong Yao" was written before the fourth year of Qingli reign of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 1044). That is to say, at that time, our country already had guide fish and applied it to the military.
The guide fish is made of a thin piece of steel and is shaped like a fish. It is two inches long and five minutes wide. The belly of the fish is concave, making it float on the water like a small boat.
The fish made of steel sheets is not magnetic, so it has no guide function. If you want it to guide, you must also use artificial magnetism to turn it into a magnet and have magnetic properties.
As for how to carry out artificial magnetism transmission, there is no clear record in "Wu Jing Zong Yao", but it points out that the guide fish must be "collected with a secret weapon", that is to say, a sealed zygote must be used Hide. From this point of view, the artificial magnetism method at that time was roughly as follows: put the fish made of steel sheets and the natural magnet in the same sealed zygote, so that they are in contact. Over time, the fish made of steel sheets will also It becomes magnetic and becomes a magnet.
It turns out that every molecule in steel, whether magnetized or not, is a "little magnet". Without a magnetized steel bar, its molecules are arranged in no order, and the magnetism of the "little magnets" cancels each other out. In a magnetized steel bar, all the "little magnets" are neatly arranged, with the magnetic poles of the same sex facing in the same direction. Needless to say, the entire steel bar is magnetic. If you take a magnet and rub it tightly against an unmagnetized steel bar, always moving from one end to the other, then due to the attraction of the magnet, the molecules in the ordinary steel bar will also be arranged in one direction, so , the work of "magnetic transmission" is completed. The "secret weapon collection" mentioned in "Wu Jing Zong Yao" may refer to this artificial magnetic transmission method.
The Chinese people invented the use of artificial magnets to make guide fish, which is a great progress. This shows that our people already had considerable knowledge of magnets more than 900 years ago.
Using Guide Fish is more convenient than using Sinan. It does not need to make a smooth copper plate, just a bowl of water. Even if the bowl containing water is placed unevenly, it will not affect the function of the guide because the water surface in the bowl is flat. Moreover, since the friction of liquid is smaller than that of solid, it rotates more flexibly, so it is more sensitive and accurate than Sinan.
At that time, there were not only guide fish made of steel sheets, but also guide fish and guide turtles made of wood. "Shilin Guangji" of the Song Dynasty records the method of making a guide fish out of wood: Use a piece of wood to carve the shape of a fish, as big as a finger, dig a hole in the mouth of the fish, and put a magnet inside to make it S-level. Facing outward, seal the mouth with wax. In addition, insert a needle into the fish's mouth, and the Muro Nan fish is ready. Place the guide fish on the water and the needle in the fish's mouth will point south.
The guide turtle is also carved from wood, and the magnet is inserted into the tail in the same way as the wooden guide fish.
The guide turtle is not placed in the water. People dig a hole under its belly and mount it on a smooth bamboo nail so that it can rotate freely. The needle on its tail will automatically point to the south.
This kind of wooden guide fish and guide turtle were probably created by some alchemists who knew alchemy, and were only used to perform tricks after they were made. Therefore, the author of "Shi Lin Guang Ji" regarded them as "immortal illusions".
The invention of gunpowder
One of the four great inventions in ancient China. When ancient alchemists made medicine, they gradually discovered that the mixture of sulfur (S), nitrate (KN□) and charcoal (C) had the ability to burn and explode. In the late Tang Dynasty (904-906), gunpowder arrows began to appear in wars, and there were also records of "engines flying fire", that is, using trebuchets to throw gunpowder packets as incendiary weapons. In the Song Dynasty, Kaifeng Mansion in Tokyo (now Kaifeng, Henan Province) set up a siege operation, including a gunpowder production department. The book "Wu Jing Zong Yao" records three formulas of gunpowder, and the production of gunpowder has reached a considerable scale. Although the production technology was strictly kept secret, it was still introduced to the Liao Dynasty. Therefore, while large quantities of sulfur were imported from Japan, the export of sulfur and flame salt to the Liao Dynasty was strictly prohibited. During the reign of Emperor Shenzong Zhao Xu of the Song Dynasty, the border guards were equipped with a large number of weapons such as gunpowder bows and arrows, gunpowder artillery arrows, etc. During the reign of Emperor Daozong of the Liao Dynasty, he also had a "daily parade of artillery" in Jinfu, Nanjing (today's Beijing). During the Southern Song Dynasty, the navy was also equipped with thunderbolt cannons, artillery, rockets and other weapons. There were gunpowder weapons manufacturing industries in cities such as Jiankangfu (now Nanjing, Jiangsu Province) and Jianglingfu (now Jiangling, Hubei Province). Early gunpowder weapons had limited power and could not replace cold weapons. However, since the middle of the Southern Song Dynasty, the proportion of gunpowder weapons in weapons has increased significantly (see color picture) Rockets (models) tie the gunpowder barrel to the front of the arrow, and use the backward thrust generated when the gunpowder burns to drive the arrow forward. The Song Dynasty army One of the gunpowder weapons equipped). The gunpowder manufacturing technology of the Jin Dynasty originated from the Liao Dynasty. At the beginning of the Jin army's attack on the Song Dynasty, artillery was already used. Since then, gunpowder was used more and more frequently in the wars between the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties. When the Jin Dynasty fought against the Mongolian army, they used thunder, flying muskets and other firearms. In the Song Dynasty, iron artillery similar to modern artillery shells appeared, but they were still projected by trebuchets; they also invented the musket, which used giant bamboo as a tube to fire "zi nests", similar to later generations of guns, but did not yet use metal launch tubes. This was the limit of the progress of gunpowder weapons in the Liao, Song, and Jin dynasties, but it has determined the development direction of gunpowder weapons in later generations. In short, the Liao, Song, and Jin dynasties can be regarded as the foundation periods for human use of gunpowder. In the Yuan and Ming dynasties, tubular firearms made of copper and iron—guns and cannons—were discovered.
Fireguns During the Southern Song Dynasty, the use of gunpowder became more and more common, and firearms also developed further. In order to defend against the intrusion of the Jin soldiers, the military strategists of the Southern Song Dynasty constantly tried to improve weapons. At the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, in the second year of Shaoxing (1132 AD), Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty, a military scientist named Chen Gui invented a tube-shaped firearm - the musket, which was a unique invention in the history of firearms. Big progress.
This kind of musket is made of a long bamboo pole, and the bamboo tube is filled with gunpowder. During the war, two people would hold it, light it on fire, and shoot it out to burn the enemy.
This is the earliest tubular firearm that appeared in our country. Putting gunpowder in a bamboo tube to make a musket was a great progress in the application of gunpowder. It is not easy to hit the target accurately when using a trebuchet to launch gunpowder; with tubular firearms, people can launch the gunpowder more accurately and properly control the detonation of gunpowder.
After the invention of the musket, after continuous improvement, in the late Southern Song Dynasty, someone invented the musket again. The musket was made of a thick bamboo tube, with gunpowder and something called a "zi nest" placed in the bamboo tube. After the gunpowder is ignited with fire, a flame will emit at first, and then the "zi nest" will shoot out and make a sound like a cannon.
What exactly is this "zi nest"? It is probably one of the earliest bullets, but unfortunately there is no explanation in the ancient books.
The function of the musket is only to burn people, but the musket can shoot out burps to hit people, which is a step further than the musket.
Both muskets and muskets are primitive tubular firearms made of bamboo tubes. They are not very powerful, but they are the ancestors of modern guns. Modern guns and cannons slowly developed from them.
The invention of papermaking
In the first year of Yuanxing in the Eastern Han Dynasty (105), Cai Lun reformed and promoted papermaking technology based on the previous artificial papermaking technology. The new papermaking technology turned the old hemp paper, which was inconvenient to write on, into a good paper craft that has not changed its general structure to this day.
Before the emergence of Cai Lun’s papermaking technology, in China, oracle bones were used in the Shang Dynasty, bronzes were used in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and bamboo slips, wooden slips, and silk were used as record materials in the Spring and Autumn Period. During the Han Dynasty, agriculture was developed, the economy was prosperous, national power was strong, and cultural undertakings were booming. Bulky bamboo slips and expensive silk fabrics could no longer meet people's needs. It became a trend to seek new writing materials, and papermaking came into being.
According to the ancient hemp paper unearthed in Xinjiang, Shaanxi, Gansu and other places since the mid-20th century, experts have confirmed it to be the sheet fiber material of hemp paper in the Western Han Dynasty, indicating that papermaking may have appeared before Cai Lun, and may have It is related to people's processing of hemp for textile use. However, no identifiable written characters have been found on these ancient hemp papers of the Western Han Dynasty. In addition, there are different interpretations of the laboratory analysis results. There is still a lot of controversy in the art circles about whether papermaking has appeared in the Western Han Dynasty. The record of Cai Lun's invention of papermaking in the "Book of the Later Han: Biography of Cai Lun" is the earliest record of papermaking that accurately records the time and person so far, and is widely recognized.
Cai Lun (62-121), courtesy name Jingzhong, was born in Guiyang (now Chenzhou, Hunan). He entered the palace as an eunuch in the 18th year of Emperor Yongping of the Ming Dynasty (75). In the first year of Emperor Zhanghe's reign (87), he was appointed Shang Fanling and took charge of the palace handicraft workshop. In the first year of Emperor Yuanxing's reign (105), papermaking was invented. In the first year of Emperor An's Yuan Dynasty (114), he was granted the title of Marquis of Longting. Emperor An died in the first year of Jianguang's reign (121) and was buried in the fief.
The "Book of the Later Han Dynasty·Cai Lun Biography" records: Before Cai Lun made paper, the paper on which he wrote notes was actually silk fabric (silk). Cai Lun used bark, hemp heads, rags, and fishing nets, which were frustrated, A series of processes such as pounding, copying, and drying are used to produce plant fiber paper, a good paper whose general structure has not changed to this day, and it is also paper in the true sense. In 105, Cai Lun presented paper to Emperor He of the Han Dynasty and was praised by Emperor He. Papermaking became widely known throughout the world, and the paper made by Cai Lun was called "Caihou Paper"; 105 is generally regarded as the year when papermaking was invented.
Cai Lun's reform and promotion of papermaking made the use of paper increasingly popular after the Eastern Han Dynasty. Judging from the ancient Eastern Han Dynasty paper excavated by archeology, many of them have written characters, and the quality has been significantly improved. These ancient Eastern Han Dynasty papers, either poems, letters, or remnants of letters, are all products of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and should accurately date from around the fourth year of Yongchu (110). Scientists conducted a detailed scientific analysis of the ancient paper with writings unearthed from a tomb of the late Eastern Han Dynasty in Wuwei, Gansu Province in 1974. They found that the ancient paper has a certain strength and flexibility, and its thickness is equivalent to that of modern machine-made manuscript paper. The raw material is hemp. Such as hemp fibers, the fibers are evenly intertwined and are coated on one side, indicating that the papermaking process at that time was quite sophisticated and the papermaking technology had reached a certain level.
The use of paper in the Eastern Han Dynasty is recorded in many manuscripts and documents. For example, the tribute paper mentioned in "The Book of the Later Han: Chronicles of Empress Deng" and the Shaofu Gongshou Ling and Shangshu Ling Youcheng who specialize in paper and ink in the palace are mentioned in the "Book of the Later Han: The Records of Hundred Officials", indicating that paper was in the palace has been widely used. The writing paper and writing paper contained in the "Book of the Later Han·Yandu Biography" and the letter paper contained in the "Beitang Shuchao" show that ordinary officials and scholars also used paper to write.
The invention of papermaking is one of the greatest inventions in ancient China and one of the most outstanding achievements in the history of human civilization. The emergence of paper is the foundation of human civilization. As a new information carrier, it first appeared in China, making the civilization of the Han Dynasty flourish more than other civilizations. Around the eighth century AD, Arabs began to use Chinese technology and equipment to make paper.
The emergence and promotion of paper gave a new look to the cultural life after the Han Dynasty. The quality of paper is getting better and better. In the second year of Hanzhongping (185), Shandong papermaking expert Zuo Bo (named Ziyi) created "Zuobo Paper", which was known in history as "Ziyi's paper, beautiful and brilliant". From the 2nd to the 5th century AD, Zuo Bo's paper, Zhang Zhi's pen and Wei Dan's ink were once favored by literati. However, throughout the Han Dynasty, the dominant writing materials were still bamboo slips and silk.
It was not until after the Jin Dynasty that economic development and papermaking technology spread to the Yangtze River Basin and Jiangnan, and papermaking materials were abundant, and more and better paper appeared. The popular reading, copying and collecting of books in the Jin Dynasty all benefited from the popularization and promotion of paper. The craze for copying scriptures and collecting books, as well as the popularity of paper in Luoyang due to the spread of Zuo Si's "Sandu Fu", are all unprecedented phenomena that emerged after the popularization of paper.
The invention of printing
Since the invention of paper, with the development of economy and culture, more and more people are reading, and the demand for books has also greatly increased.
In the early years of the Jin Dynasty, the government had 29,945 volumes of books. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Emperor Yuan of Liang had more than 70,000 volumes of books in Jiangling, and the Jiaze Hall of the Sui Dynasty had 370,000 volumes of books. This is the highest collection record of the National Library in ancient my country.
In addition to government collections, there are also more and more private collections. For example, Mrs. Guo of the Jin Dynasty had 5,000 volumes of books; when Zhang Hua moved, he used thirty vehicles just to move the books.
Before the invention of printing, only the government and rich people like Mrs. Guo and Zhang Hua could have such a large collection of books. It was not easy for ordinary people to get one or two books, because the books at that time were all Codex. How much manpower it would take to copy so many manuscripts! If this situation does not change, how can we meet the needs of society?
This is often the case in history: a scientific invention will appear very quickly as long as society urgently needs it and there are material conditions to produce it. Such was the advent of engraving and printing.
Before the advent of woodblock printing, seals and rubbings were widely used in society.
There are two types of seals: yang and yin. The characters engraved in yang are convex, while the characters engraved in yin are concave. "If you use a Yang script seal, it will be printed on the paper with black characters on a white background, which is very eye-catching. However, the seal is generally small, and the number of words printed is limited after all.
The monument is usually carved in Yin script, and the rubbings are White characters on a black background are not eye-catching enough. Moreover, the process of rubbing a stele is complicated and inconvenient for printing books. However, a big advantage of rubbing a stele is that it can cover many characters at a time.
What if the strengths and weaknesses are combined and the respective characteristics of the tablet and the seal are combined?
The working people of our country are using the two methods of rubbing the tablet and the seal. Inspired by , he invented block printing.
The method of block printing is as follows: saw the wood into pieces of wood, write the words to be printed on the thin paper, and stick it on the wood board. Then according to the strokes of each character, use a knife to carve the characters one by one so that the strokes of each character stand out on the board. When printing the book, use a knife first. The brush is dipped in ink and brushed on the carved board. Then, the self-made paper is covered on the board. Another clean brush is gently brushed on the back of the paper. The paper is taken off and a page of the book is printed. Okay. After printing each page, it is bound into a book. This printing method is to carve the words on the wooden board and then print it, so it is called "block printing". /p>
When was woodblock printing invented in my country? There is no unified opinion among historians on this issue, but most people believe that it was invented in the Tang Dynasty.
At the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, due to the large-scale peasant uprising, the development of social production was promoted, and cultural undertakings also prospered. Objectively, there was an urgent need for woodblock printing.
According to Shao Jingbang's "Ming Dynasty". It is recorded in the book "Hongjian Lu": Empress Changsun of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty collected the stories of typical women in feudal society and compiled a book called "Nu Zhi". In the tenth year of Zhenguan, the queen Sun died, and someone in the palace took it. This book was sent to Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. After Emperor Taizong saw it, he ordered it to be printed with woodblock printing.
The tenth year of Zhenguan was probably the year when "Nv Zhi" was published. This year, or maybe later. This is the earliest engraving mentioned in our country's literature. Based on this data, it may be that people had already begun to use woodblock printing to print books, so Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty thought of printing "Nv". "Principles for Women" was printed. The invention of woodblock printing must have occurred earlier than the publication of "Principles for Women".
By the ninth century, it was quite common in my country to use woodblock printing to print books.
During the Tang Dynasty, there was an outstanding poet named Bai Juyi. He compiled the poems he wrote into a collection of poems - "Bai's Changqing Collection". On December 10, the fourth year of Changqing (January 2, 825 AD), Bai Juyi's friend Yuan Zhen wrote "Bai's Changqing Collection". "Shi Changqing Collection" wrote a preface. The preface said: At that time, people "reproduced Mule" of Bai Juyi's poems and sold them on the streets. They were like this everywhere.
In the past, people called stone carvings "Mule". In the Tang Dynasty, engravings were also called "Mule". The word "Mule" here means engraving and printing.
There is also a record in the "Old Tang Book" that in December of the ninth year of Yamato (AD 835), Emperor Wenzong of the Tang Dynasty ordered all regions not to engrave and print almanacs without permission. What's going on? According to records in other ancient books, the situation is as follows: the people of Jiannan, Liangchuan and Huainan Road at that time. They all used engravings to print almanacs and sold them on the streets. Every year, Si Tiantai, who is in charge of the calendar, has not petitioned for the issuance of a new calendar, but the new calendars printed by the common people are already everywhere. Promulgation of calendars was the prerogative of feudal emperors. In order to maintain the prestige of the court, Feng Su, the governor of Dongchuan, petitioned to ban private publication of almanacs. Almanacs are related to agricultural production, and farmers need them very much. How can an order prohibit them? Although Tang Wenzong issued this order, folk-engraved almanacs were still popular everywhere. Even in the same area, there are more than one private almanac printers.
During the Huang Chao uprising, Tang Xizong fled to Sichuan in panic. The emperor also fled, and of course there was no one left to manage the ban on the almanac. Therefore, the people in Jiangdong compiled and printed almanacs and sold them. In the first year of Zhonghe reign of Emperor Xizong of the Tang Dynasty (AD 881), there was a dispute between the almanacs printed by two people, which differed by one day in terms of the bigger and smaller months. When a local official found out, he said: "We are all doing business together, so what does it matter if there is a difference of one and a half days?" How can the almanac be different by one day? What the magistrate said was so laughable. This incident tells us that in Jiangdong alone, there were at least two printing almanacs.
Liu Bi, who fled to Sichuan with Emperor Xizong of the Tang Dynasty, also said in the preface of his "Family Instructions" that he saw many books on Yin and Yang, miscellaneous notes, dream divination, etc. in bookstores in Chengdu. . Most of these books are engraving and printing. It can be seen that the printing industry in Chengdu was relatively developed at that time, not only printing calendars, but also printing various other books.
Of the books engraved in the Tang Dynasty, only one "Diamond Sutra" engraved in the ninth year of Xiantong has been preserved. The ninth year of Xiantong was 868 AD, more than a thousand years ago. How were these printed materials from more than a thousand years ago preserved? There is another story here.
There is Mingsha Mountain in the southeast of Dunhuang, Gansu Province. As early as the Jin Dynasty, some Buddhists opened caves here, carved Buddha statues, and built temples. As the number of caves continued to increase, so did the number of Buddha statues. People called this place the "Thousand Buddha Cave". In 1900, when a Taoist priest Wang was repairing a cave, he accidentally discovered a sealed darkroom. When he opened it, he found that it was filled with bundles of scrolls, many of which were copied from the Tang Dynasty. books, and a volume of the Diamond Sutra printed in the Tang Dynasty.
This "Diamond Sutra" is about one foot six feet long and one foot high. It is a scroll made of seven seals stuck together. There is a painting at the beginning of the volume, which shows the mythical stories that Sakyamuni preached to his disciples with a vivid expression, followed by the full text of the Diamond Sutra. There is not a single line of text in the volume, indicating that it was engraved in the ninth year of Xiantong.
This book is the earliest existing engraving printed book in the world. The picture is also engraved on a full plate, perhaps the earliest printmaking in the world.
In the Five Dynasties, there was a feudal bureaucrat named Feng Dao. He served as a high official in four dynasties in just five dynasties. He was a despicable and shameless guy. He saw that people in Jiangsu, Sichuan and other places were selling printed books of all kinds, but there were no Confucian classics, so he suggested to the emperor in the third year of Changxing's reign in the late Tang Dynasty that Confucian classics be printed on engravings.
At that time, Japan printed nine kinds of scriptures, which went through four dynasties. It was not until the third year of Guangshun in the later Zhou Dynasty that it took twenty-two years to engrave them all.
Because this engraving had a greater impact, some people later believed that printing was invented by Feng Dao during the Five Dynasties. This is of course wrong.
In the Song Dynasty, the printing industry became more developed, and books were engraved all over the country. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Tripitaka printed in Chengdu cost 130,000 yuan; the Imperial College, the central educational institution of the Northern Song government, printed books on the history of scriptures for more than 100,000 yuan. From these two figures, we can see the scale of the printing industry at that time. There are more than 700 books printed on engraving boards in the Song Dynasty that are now known, and their fonts are neat, simple and beautiful. They have been recognized by the people of our country since then.
Engraving printing in the Song Dynasty generally used wooden boards for engraving, but some people also used copper plates for engraving. The Shanghai Museum has a collection of copper plates used in printing advertisements by the "Jinan Liujia Kung Fu Needle Shop" in the Northern Song Dynasty, which shows that the technology of engraving copper plates was also mastered at that time.
Speaking of printed books, woodblock printing is indeed a great creation. A kind of book can be printed in many volumes by just carving the wooden board once, which is many times faster than writing by hand.
However, using this method, printing a book requires carving a wooden board, which still requires a lot of labor, and it is impossible to print books quickly and in large quantities. Some books have a lot of words, and it often takes many years to carve them. If the book is printed once and is not reprinted, then the well-carved wooden board will be completely useless.
Is there any way to improve it?
In the middle of the 11th century (the Qingli period of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty), a Chinese inventor named Bi Sheng finally invented a more advanced printing method - movable type printing, which greatly improved our country's printing technology. One step higher.
Bi Sheng used clay to make square long cylinders, engraved single characters on one side, and then hardened them with fire. These are the movable characters one by one. When printing a book, first prepare an iron plate, put rosin, wax and other things on it. There is an iron frame around the iron plate, and the iron frame is densely filled with movable type. First, bake it under the iron plate with fire to melt the rosin and wax. In addition, use a flat plate to press on the arranged movable type to flatten the words, and a movable type plate will be arranged. It is the same as engraving. As long as you apply ink on the words, you can print.
In order to improve efficiency, he prepared two iron plates and organized two people to work at the same time, printing on one plate and typesetting on the other; when the first plate was printed, the second plate was ready. . The two iron plates were used alternately to print quickly.
Bi Sheng engraved several of each single character. When he engraved more than 20 commonly used characters, he would engrave them temporarily and burn them with fire, which was very convenient. After printing, the iron plate is heated on the fire to melt the rosin and wax, and the movable type can be removed so that it can be used next time.
This is the earliest invention of movable type printing. This type of clay movable type is called clay movable type. Although the second printing method invented by Bi Sheng is very primitive compared with today's, the three main steps of movable type printing - making movable type, typesetting and printing, are already in place. Therefore, Bi Sheng's contribution to printing is very remarkable. Shen Kuo, a famous scientist in the Northern Song Dynasty, specifically recorded Bi Sheng's invention of movable type printing in his "Mengxi Bi Tan".
After Bi Sheng invented movable type printing, the Korean people began to use clay movable type and other methods to print books, and later used wooden movable type to print books. In the thirteenth century, they first invented printing books with movable copper type. Our country used copper movable type to print books later than North Korea. The Korean people also created lead movable type, iron movable type, etc.
At the end of the 16th century, Japan invaded Korea and took away a lot of Korea's copper and wooden movable types. As a result, the Japanese also learned movable type printing.
my country’s printing technology has also spread to Vietnam. In the 15th century, Vietnam began to use woodblock printing to print books. In the early eighteenth century, they also began printing books with movable wooden type.
The emergence of European printing was also deeply influenced by our country’s printing.
During the Yuan Dynasty, many Europeans came to China. They found it very novel to see that the banknotes printed by the Yuan Dynasty government could be used instead of gold and silver. In the travel notes they wrote, they recorded Chinese banknotes in great detail.
Many Europeans who came to China at that time lived in Hangzhou and other places. There are many bookstores in Hangzhou, and the engraving workers are also very skilled. Some Europeans lived there for several years, so it was natural for them to bring printing back to Europe.