Song Dynasty Woodblock Printing

Timeline

1. 1131–1132Lin'an · ZhejiangAfter the Jingkang Incident, all Northern Song Directorate of Education printing blocks were destroyed; the early Southern Song lacked the capacity to recarve them in-house, so Lin'an Prefecture and the Liangzhe, Lianghuai, Jiangdong, and other circuits took on printing, returning the blocks to the Directorate. Local official printing rapidly rose to become the mainstay of Southern Song publishing.
2. 1132Yuanjue Chan Monastery, Sicun, Huzhou · HuzhouObservation Commissioner of Mizhou Wang Yongcong funded the printing of over 5,400 volumes of the Buddhist canon at Yuanjue Chan Monastery in Sicun, Huzhou, completed within a year—the earliest large-scale woodblock project of the Southern Song. Many printers came from Lin'an, showing Hangzhou's highly mature craft and cross-regional deployability.
3. 1133–1138Yuyao County, Shaoxing Prefecture · ShaoxingIn Shaoxing 3, Yuyao County printed Zizhi Tongjian; after the Huzhou project finished, some printers moved to Shaoxing and elsewhere. Printers in Lin'an, Huzhou, and Shaoxing supported one another, forming an eastern Zhejiang printing network with steadily rising quality and scale.
4. 1139–1140Lin'an Prefecture · ZhejiangIn Shaoxing 9, Lin'an Prefecture printed 100 volumes of Tang Wen Cui, 7 volumes of Qunjing Yinbian, and 3 volumes of Han Guan Yi, each bearing a colophon reading 'Printed by Lin'an Prefecture'; in Shaoxing 10, 5 volumes of Xi Han Wen Lei followed. Ye Mengde stated 'printing in Hangzhou is finest under heaven'; Hangzhou printing represented the highest level of Chinese woodblock printing of the era.