Chinese Clay Movable-Type Printing

Timeline

1. c. 1040–1088Qizhou, Hubei (around Bi Sheng's hometown) · Huainan CircuitBi Sheng carved characters in clay, hardened them by fire, and used pine resin, wax, and paper ash to make movable type that could be disassembled and reset, better suited than woodblock printing to multi-edition texts with varying character counts; Shen Kuo described its process and advantages in detail.
2. 1251–1260Lin'an prefecture and Jianyang bookshops · Southern SongIn the late Southern Song, bookshops in Lin'an, Jianyang, and elsewhere used clay and wooden type together when printing classics, encyclopedias, and statutes; since war destroyed woodblocks, movable type allowed rapid plate repair and reprinting, becoming a key technique for maintaining the circulation of texts.
3. 1260–1300Dadu and Hangzhou printing institutions · YuanAfter Kublai Khan established Dadu, he integrated Song and Jin craftsmen and bookshop resources, bringing movable-type printing into official printing and Mongol-Chinese document production, providing technical support for large-scale Yuan compilation of texts and dissemination of decrees.