In the ancient times, to record the events, experience and knowledge, the ancestors created the previous character symbols and sought for the media for recording symbols. Under the circumstance of rugged environment, people only made notes by pyrophorus. As people carve the words in the cliff, leaves, animal bone, stone, bark etc. At that time, rare material recorded the character cost them a lot, ancestors just took notes the important events. So, oral style was still taken as a major mode of transmission, affecting the social development.
During the Qing Dynasty (618-907), Hanzi (Chinese Characters) being unified and regulated, had a booming development. Until the Eastern of Han Dynasty (25-220), the book “shuo wen jie zi” had embodied the word (Hanzi) quantity up to 9353. The book “yu pian” written in the northern and southern dynasties (420-589) had formed about 22,000 words. Therewith, the development of the Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and other ancient philosophers, the works continuously increased, book “wenyizhi” had corrected 14,994 rolls of various works. With the growing of scholars, Buddhist and Taoist, the social demands for varieties of books increasely went up.
The invention of paper (Han dynasty) provided superior, light-carry and cheap writing material, and also boosted the development of books to the extent. Gradually Manuscript was thriving during the northern and southern dynasties and promoted the spread of culture. However, due to the loophole of time-consuming manuscripts, easy to make errors, on the other hand, it prevented the development of culture to the extent. People imperiously needed one technology to replace the manuscript.
Until the Tang Dynasty (618-906), the significant technology-Printing had invented as one of the most important invention, which had been a great promotion to the Chinese ancients, even to the word people. Firstly, woodblock printing (618-907) had been as a tech for printing textiles, paper and other religious texts for Buddhist. The premier block-printing we have found nowadays is the book “Jingangjing” - Buddhist scripture, published in the Tang Dynasty in 868 A.D. at Dun hang cave. The craftsmanship appears rather exquisite and elegant. Dated from 11th century, the movable type- substitute for the block printing was used at first. Until Song Dynasty ((960-1279), the printed books was thriving extensively in China. The advantageous characteristics can enable to promote the efficiency of printing, easy to correct and anti-erosion etc. Later the movable-type printing continuously developed in Yuan Dynasty and to Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), wooden movable-type hit the development of printing technology supported by the government. This Tech had gained unprecedented development during Emperor Kangxi (1661-1722). To the date, the most scales of wooden movable-type in the world is the book “Yingwudidanjuzhenbancongshu” published in Emperor Qianlong period, with a variety of 124, 2389 rolls totally.
The Spread of Printing Technology
As the place of origin for printing technology, the tech spread many countries and promoted the economy development world-wide. Japan became one of the earliest countries affected by Chinese printing tech. Block printing had been used in Japan for Buddhist scripture during 8th century. Korea was also deeply affected by Chinese printing technology. During the years of 998-1009, the tech had spread to Persia, later to Egypt and Europe.
The development of Printing has not only accelerated the social progress and economy prosperity for the world-wide people, but printing technology as Chinese greatest invention has made Chinese printing service a higher step nowadays and enjoy a great reputation for our recent printing technology.
