introduction
In June 2001, UNESCO identified an ancient Buddhist book entitled "Buddha's Direct Finger to the Heart and Body Festival" (hereinafter referred to as "Zhi Zhi"), which was the world's earliest printed material printed using metal movable type printing, which greatly excited the Korean cultural community, because since the 1960s, a group of Korean scholars have considered "Zhi Zhi" to be "the world's earliest metal movable type (body) print". At first, China did not take this matter seriously, but in 2005, the South Korean government came forward with UNESCO to hold a large-scale event to commemorate the "Zhizhi", which exposed South Korea's ambition to seize the right to invent movable type printing. Chinese scholars immediately presented evidence and directly punched Korean scholars in the face, shattering their dream of seizing the right to invent movable type printing.
Movable type printing
As we all know, gunpowder, compass, papermaking, and printing are the four inventions that every Chinese is proud of. Among the four major inventions, movable type printing was invented by Bi Sheng, a printer in the Northern Song Dynasty of China.
Born in 972 AD, Bi Sheng was a native of Huanggang, Hubei Province, and Bi Sheng came from a poor family since childhood, and at the age of 15, he went to the printing house as an apprentice worker and followed his master to learn engraving and printing. The so-called engraving printing is to print the works that you want to print word by word, hand-engraved, and then printed with ink, although this process can be repeatedly printed, but the workload of engraving is very large, the cycle of engraving is also very long, and the engraving can only be used to print this book, and can no longer be reused.
In view of these drawbacks of engraving and printing, the ingenious Bi Sheng carved a set of movable type, which can be arbitrarily selected according to the content of the book when typesetting, which greatly reduces the labor intensity of the printing workers' engraving. Although the workload of movable type engraving is also relatively large, after engraving several sets of movable type, these movable types can be reused in future typesetting and printing, which not only saves manpower and costs, but also improves the timeliness of typesetting and printing.
Regarding Bi Sheng's invention of movable type printing, there is a clear record in Shen Kuo's book "Mengxi Pen Talk", in which Shen Kuo not only introduces Bi Sheng's character life, but also describes the process of movable printing in detail. According to the record of "Mengxi Pen Talk", the world's academic circles have recognized the inventor of movable type printing as Bi Sheng, and movable type printing has become one of the four major inventions in China because of its outstanding contributions.
ambition
In the 1960s, Korean scholars challenged the invention right of printing in China, and they used the Goryeo cast print of "Buddha's Direct Finger to the Heart and Body Festival" (referred to as "ZhiZhi") as the basis to conclude the fallacy that movable type printing was invented by Koreans.
In 2001, under the persuasion of some Korean scholars, UNESCO held the "Fifth UNESCO International Consultation Conference on World Record Heritage" in Cheongju, South Korea, which recognized the printing method of the book "Zhizhi" as "the world's earliest metal movable type" and listed it as a "World Record Heritage" and issued a "certificate" to South Korea. In 2005, UNESCO again collaborated with the Republic of Korea to hold a grand commemorative event on movable type printing in the name of studying "Zhizhi", and the ambition of Koreans to monopolize the invention of movable type printing was clearly revealed.
evidence
So, was movable type printing really invented by Koreans? Of course not, this great invention belongs to our Chinese. Soon, Chinese scholars came up with conclusive evidence and punched the South Koreans in the face.
In fact, the inscriptions in the last three lines of the book "Zhizhi" have clearly explained the time, place, characters and other details of the book. The content of the inscription on the last three lines of the "Zhizhi" is "Baiyun Monk Transcribes the Buddha's Direct Finger to the Heart and Body Festival", "Xuanguang Seven Years Ding Wei July", "Qingzhou Muwai Xingde Temple Cast Character Seal Shi". The "White Cloud Monk" here refers to Gyeonghyun, the abbot of Goryeo Heungdeoksa Temple, who was born in 1298 and died in 1374; the "Seventh Year of Xuanguang" is the Northern Yuan year of Goryeo in Joseon, that is, 1377 AD; "Cast Character Inshi" generally refers to printing in copper movable type, but it may also be printed in lead or iron. The general meaning of this three-line inscription is that this Buddhist sutra was printed and distributed in 1377 using metal movable type printing to commemorate the 3rd anniversary of the death of the Monk Baiyun.
As we all know, movable type printing was invented by Bi Sheng, the inventor of the Northern Song Dynasty in China, and the movable type invented by Bi Sheng at that time was a kind of movable type made of clay glue, also known as clay movable type.
Evidence 1: At present, the earliest surviving movable type print in China is the "Buddhist Sutra on the Concept of Immeasurable Life" found in the White Elephant Pagoda in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province in 1965, which was identified by experts as a version of the Buddhist scripture printed in 1100 with movable type printing, using clay movable type. The printed version of the Buddhist Sutra on the Immeasurable Life of the Buddha, printed using movable type printing, predates the Korean one 277 years ago.
Of course, some people will say that this time Korea and we are competing for the right to invent metal movable type printing. So, when was the earliest metal movable type print in China?
Evidence two: Archaeological results show that the earliest metal movable type print in China is the paper money "Jiaozi" of the Song Dynasty in the 11th century (1000 BC), which is a paper currency called Jiaozi, and each banknote has a different number on it. At that time, when people printed this kind of banknote, they deliberately left 4 vacancies above the copper plate of the banknote in order to implant movable type numbers in the later stage, the text of this movable type number was taken from the "Thousand Character Text", each copper movable type could get 499500 kinds of numbers, and finally formed a security banknote with different codes. Metal movable type printing on the Song Dynasty was more than 300 years earlier than metal movable type printing in Korea.
It is an indisputable fact that the evidence presented by Chinese experts directly hits South Koreans in the face, whether it is movable type printing or metal movable type printing, their invention rights belong to China.
conclusion
In order to defend the invention right of movable type printing, Chinese scholars have published many academic papers related to Chinese movable type printing in recent years, such as Pan Jixing's "History of Chinese Metal Movable Type Printing Technology", Niu Dasheng's "Korean Ancient Books Related to China - Zhizhi" and so on. These papers justifiably expound the development of movable type printing, and provide a well-founded response to the fallacy that "Korea is the ancestor of movable type printing".
For the problem of South Korea's ancestors of movable type printing, some netizens joked: South Koreans really took pains to use a Buddhist scripture that was lost overseas, and did their work to the United Nations, and won the "honor" of a "world record heritage" for South Korea, of course, UNESCO is also very funny, this was originally an academic research issue, but the relevant departments of the United Nations actually certified this issue, and we have to admire the "shrewdness" of the Koreans and the "seriousness" of the work.
References: Niu Dasheng's "Korean Ancient Books Related to China - Zhizhi"; Pan Jixing's "History of Chinese Metal Movable Type Printing Technology"