Chapter 81: Movable Type Printing

In Mingyu Ward in the western part of the inner city there was a Bozi Hutong—bozi being curtains woven from reed stalks—and because this alley had a great many shops selling such curtains, it came to be called Bozi Hutong.

On this day, the Crown Prince's procession arrived at Bozi Hutong, throwing the whole street into an uproar.

Just as he reached the eastern mouth of Bozi Hutong, Zhu Cilang spotted an imperial temple—the Huguo Shengzuo Longchang Temple, built in the forty-fifth year of the Wanli reign.

The mountain gate was one bay wide, and the stone lintel bore the carved inscription "Imperially Founded Huguo Shengzuo Longchang Temple." Zhu Cilang hesitated briefly, then decided to go in and have a look.

The great temple faced south, its several main halls imposing in scale, with incense burning vigorously; within stood a tall bell tower, grand in size and majestic in bearing, very much in the Ming style.

Early Ming architecture resembled that of the Song and Yuan dynasties—plain and vigorous—while mid-Ming architecture was known for its rigor, and late-Ming architecture trended toward the ornate.

At the center of the Huguo Shengzuo Longchang Temple stood a cast bronze Buddha nearly five meters tall, set upon a thousand-petal lotus pedestal, with a small Buddha cast into each petal—hence the name "Thousand Buddhas Surrounding Vairocana."

Zhu Cilang first went into the Great Thousand Buddha Hall to burn a few sticks of incense and pay his respects, then toured the Heavenly King Hall and several other main halls. The temple had been built less than twenty years before and was well maintained on ordinary days, so it still looked fresh and solemn.

In later ages, the ancient temple at Xisi North Third Alley in Beijing's West District was precisely this imperial temple before his eyes—only, through the erosion of time and the vicissitudes of history, its bell and drum towers had long since been demolished.

The bronze Buddhas of the Five Directions in the Great Thousand Buddha Hall had been moved to Fayuan Temple for enshrinement; the remaining statues were gone, and the Heavenly King Hall, the Great Thousand Buddha Hall, and the front west side hall had been used as warehouses by various shops, while the other halls had been turned into residences.

A sacred Buddhist ground of former days had, in later ages, become a crowded compound where ordinary folk dwelled. Zhu Cilang sighed—war and dynastic change had destroyed so much of Chinese civilization.

After leaving the Huguo Shengzuo Longchang Temple, Zhu Cilang had his procession proceed directly to his destination—the Han Scripture Factory.

The Han Scripture Factory, located in Bozi Hutong, was the Ming dynasty's imperial printing works, responsible for carving blocks and printing Buddhist sutras, Confucian classics, and court documents, as well as popular reading matter such as the Hundred Family Surnames.

Hearing that the Crown Prince's procession was about to arrive, the factory's registrar immediately ordered the whole premises swept clean inside and out, then led all the officials and craftsmen to stand a hundred meters from the gate to await the Crown Prince's arrival.

None of them could have imagined that the Crown Prince himself would deign to visit the Han Scripture Factory—a lowly imperial institution with so little presence it might as well be eighteenth-rate! In over two hundred years of the August Ming, this was utterly unprecedented.

They recalled that the highest official ever to visit the Han Scripture Factory had been a fourth-rank junior director-eunuch from the Directorate of Ceremonial, and that dead eunuch had only come on imperial orders to urge the printing of sutras, putting on quite an air of self-importance.

At last the Crown Prince's procession arrived, and the officials of the Han Scripture Factory were all abuzz with excitement, each bowing joyfully. Guided by the sixth-rank registrar, the Crown Prince's procession entered the factory at a leisurely pace.

Zhu Cilang paid no heed to the eager officials, and first made a simple inspection of the factory's printing workshops.

He found that the Han Scripture Factory was not large in scale—covering only a little over a thousand square meters, with roughly a hundred craftsmen—but its printing equipment was quite complete.

Zhu Cilang asked the factory manager who had been accompanying him all the way, saying: "Does the Han Scripture Factory use carved blocks or movable type for its printing plates?"

The factory manager was named Shi Zhidong, forty-six years old, a sixth-rank registrar of juren background. Because his literary skill was passable, he understood Buddhist sutras, and he had some connections in the capital, he had managed to secure himself a post at the Han Scripture Factory.

After years of struggle and striving he had finally reached the top position at the factory, and although he knew serving at the Han Scripture Factory offered little prospect of advancement, Shi Zhidong could do nothing but accept it.

These days a juren was worth little; landing a proper official post was no easy matter, and having any office at all was already something.

The registrar's workload at the Han Scripture Factory was also extremely light, leaving ample time each day to pursue scholarship. When he had nothing else to do, Shi Zhidong could write collections of essays, and if they were good enough, he could even print a few copies himself and leave his name to posterity.

With such a mindset, Shi Zhidong had served at the Han Scripture Factory for twenty years and knew its affairs like the back of his hand.

Seeing the Crown Prince ask a question, Shi Zhidong replied respectfully: "To answer Your Highness, the Han Scripture Factory has both carved blocks and movable type, though carved blocks are used more often. Since the palace requires printed sutras and books, and we already have carved blocks for most of them, printing is extremely convenient. Only for some urgently needed new sutras and short manuscripts do we use movable type."

Zhu Cilang nodded, understanding well enough. The so-called carved block method meant carving characters into a wooden board in advance; when printing a book, one first dipped a brush in ink and brushed it over the carved board.

Then white paper was laid over the board, and another clean brush was used to gently brush the back of the paper; when the paper was lifted off, one page was printed. After printing page after page and binding them into a volume, a book was successfully produced.

Block printing was invented in the Tang dynasty and came into widespread use in the mid-to-late Tang. Although the Song dynasty invented movable type printing, block printing remained the more commonly used method.

Movable type, by contrast, involved first making individual raised reverse characters, then selecting the characters according to the manuscript and arranging them in a composing tray, inking and printing them; after printing, the type was broken down again and kept for reuse in the next typesetting job.

The range of sutras required by the imperial house was limited—no wonder the Han Scripture Factory still used the old-fashioned block printing method.

In fact, historically, whether in the Ming or the Qing dynasty, movable type never surpassed block printing; block printing only withdrew from the stage of Chinese printing shortly before the fall of the Qing.

At this moment, Wu Zhong, who stood beside Zhu Cilang, said: "Sir, I have some doubts in my heart. Would you be willing to explain them for me?"

Seeing that this eunuch attendant beside the Crown Prince was asking a question, Shi Zhidong dared not refuse, and hurriedly said: "Please speak, Eunuch. This humble official will tell all he knows."

Wu Zhong asked curiously: "Though I was born in poverty, I do know that someone in the former Song dynasty invented movable type printing. But since movable type is more advanced than block printing, why does everyone still use block printing? Carving blocks requires two to three months of advance work—surely movable type should be more convenient?"

Zhu Cilang was also somewhat puzzled. Movable type had been invented for nearly a thousand years, yet down to the end of the Qing, mainstream Chinese printing still used carved blocks, with movable type rarely seen.

Seeing that his knowledge had finally found a use, Shi Zhidong explained: "To answer this eunuch, movable type printing has rather high requirements. If wooden type is used, after printing around two hundred copies, the wooden type becomes swollen from soaking and the characters turn blurry.

As for iron and lead type, since the current mainstream ink is made with lampblack as pigment, on iron and lead type the ink easily beads up into droplets, producing blotches of ink on the print.

To solve this problem one must use highly absorbent paper, but the result is that ink shows through on the back of the sheet, making double-sided printing impossible—which invisibly raises the cost of printing, making it no better than wooden type.

Only copper type can solve these problems well. However, our Ming has few copper mines, and copper is the raw material for minting currency; copper type is too expensive for most people to afford, so copper movable type cannot be applied on a large scale.

The movable type used by our imperial Han Scripture Factory is indeed copper type. Besides the Han Scripture Factory, as early as a hundred years ago, the economically prosperous Jiangnan region had already begun to see copper movable type printing become popular.

The most famous among them were the Hua and An families of Wuxi, the Sun family of Suzhou in Jiangnan, and the Zhang family of Nanjing—the books they printed and sold with copper type circulated widely, and the printing quality was quite good."

Wu Zhong made a bow and said: "I understand now. Many thanks to you, sir, for resolving my doubts."

Zhu Cilang thought to himself that this Shi Zhidong had some real ability and could be put to use.

Actually, it was not because of the earlier book title's bad luck—it was because the authorities have been cracking down hard lately, you see. To avoid historical nihilism, at the suggestion of my editor brother Xu Xu, this book's title has been changed from "Returning to the Ming Dynasty as the Great Emperor" to "The Last Hard Man of the Ming." Since it's now about a hard man, it's time to get hard!