Engraving printing first developed in Buddhist temples in the middle of the Tang Dynasty in the first half of the 8th century. However, the technology of engraving books and the supply of books did not develop considerably until the Song Dynasty. In terms of the quality of the book and the charm of the aesthetics, the Song edition book is incomparable. However, the phenomenon of a large number of books being engraved did not appear until the middle of the Ming Dynasty.
As we keep mentioning, the founders of the Ming Dynasty were extremely enthusiastic about education, and as early as the first year of Hongwu, they issued a decree granting tax exemption to all books, and Ming Taizu twice ordered that the northern provinces that did not have easy access to books were given free of charge such as the Five Classics and the Four Books. In the fifteenth year of Yongle, the government also promulgated the Five Classics, the Four Books, and the basic work of Song Lixue, which had been recognized as orthodox by the state, the Complete Encyclopedia of Sexual Theory.
The Ming emperors of the early 15th century expressed continued concern about the establishment of a royal collection, but only 30% of the total of about 20,000 kinds of imperial collections and nearly one million volumes were engraved, and the rest were written, which shows that printing equipment was still very limited at that time. In the long run, general peace, government support expenditure, economic recovery, and the gradual rise of the love of books, especially the large increase in the number of official school enrollments, and the growing importance of the examination system have stimulated the development of the engraving book industry. By the Jiajing period, in addition to its original task, the Nanjing Guozijian had also shouldered the task of printing the Thirteen Classics and the Twenty-first History to meet the growing demand for basic texts and books.
After the first engraved book board was damaged by fire, the newly engraved book board was completed between the fourteenth and twenty-fourth years of the Wanli calendar. These large-scale reproductions of basic books have played a great role in disseminating knowledge and popularizing books. Although the Beijing Guozijian is not as important as the Nanjing Guozijian as the center of the engraving, it also pays basic attention to the engraving of these voluminous basic books, and also independently engraves books, and the Beijian ben is widely circulated. The Si Li Supervisor, the Ceremonial Department, the Bingbu, the Ministry of Works, the Duchayuan, the Qin Tianjian, the Tai Hospital, and many provincial authorities also carried out some work of printing books, although most of the books they published were mostly related to their professions. The inscriptions of the middle of the Ming Dynasty are known for the creation and progress of technology, which is the result of the efforts of individual people. Hua Fu and his descendants in Wuxi, southern Jiangsu, were important pioneers in the use of copper movable type printing, and some of the large number of books they printed were extremely useful literary encyclopedias.
Anguo, a rich man in the same region, even though he does not have the largest variety of books printed, is known for his excellent quality. It is worth noting that Wang Yanzhe, the eldest son of the university scholar and bibliophile Wang Jun, was a pioneer in the development of shadow engraving technology to copy ancient rare rare rare books. Mao Jin, who was in Changshu, southern Jiangsu, published 600 kinds of books in his lifetime, including the highly demanded "Thirteen Classics" and "Seventeen Histories". The center of the Ming Dynasty engraving and book industry was mainly in Nanjing, Hangzhou, Huizhou, Beijing and Jianyang in the mountains of northern Fujian. The Jianyang area is rich in bamboo and other raw materials for paper-making fibers; in terms of quantity, Jianyang plays a particularly important role in circulating cheap versions of basic books.
The Ming Dynasty engraving book industry was characterized by its emphasis on publishing examination texts for those who were chinese in the imperial examination, and from about the middle of the 16th century onwards, such practical publications appeared in an insatiable market. In the late Ming Dynasty, not only could the basic classics and books be supplied to the needs of the whole country at any time, but also the rare books and tomes of the early years were constantly reprinted, which greatly broadened the academic vision and realm of scholars. After the engraving industry stagnated for more than half a century after the late Ming and ming civil unrest and the Qing Dynasty unification war, the equipment of the engraving book industry in the Qing Dynasty expanded again. The Qing Dynasty did not particularly care about the quality of engraved books, which also made the number of books published more than in the past, and the price of books was cheaper. Government agencies, officials, large bibliophiles, and large private academies all engaged in large-scale book engraving.
It is no accident that many famous bibliophiles, great engravers and university scholars appeared in the middle of the Qing Dynasty. Indeed, the Qing Dynasty's enthusiasm for engraved books and the number of times the publication of books were well known; the late Professor Zhai Lisi concluded a claim that has not yet been challenged: until fifteen years before Qianlong, There may have been more books engraved in China than the whole world combined.
Obviously, the development of the Ming and Qing dynasty engraving and publishing industry helped to spread knowledge to the Hansu people, but the actual impact of this on the social mobility of the Hansu people is not easy to estimate. On the one hand, in the early Ming Dynasty, the government and non-governmental engraving and publishing industry paid attention to the reproduction of a large number of basic original texts, classics and similar books, which seemed to give people from humble backgrounds a better opportunity to study the necessary examination books, thus helping them to enhance their social status. During the years of Hongzhi and Zhengde, when the engraving equipment began to expand, Lu Rong, an extraordinary and observant scholar and retired official, lamented that the hard-working poor students and people in the partial state were no longer able to obtain more professional and expensive treatises.
Indeed, the success of the humble people in ascending to social status depends on a series of conditions, and the engraving and publishing industry brings abundant cultural achievements, which is one of them. The rise of large private private collections of books in the 16th century, a coincidence in which the humble find it increasingly difficult to compete with the children of official families is noteworthy. As we use of the 18th-century roster of scholars, jurists, and tributes, the era of the great bibliophiles may also have been the era of the smallest success rate of the Han sushi. If part of the reason for the continuous surge in books is the continuous disparity in educational resources between the rich and the poor, this may squeeze the success rate of the people who are humble, and only people with unique talents and lofty ideals can achieve the final success.