Although Johannes Gutenberg's modern lead movable type printing was created under the influence of Bi Sheng's invention of movable type printing in the Northern Song Dynasty of China about 400 years ago, it successfully invented lead movable type made of lead, antimony and tin in a scientific and reasonable proportion and printed it by mechanical means. Guided by this, under the impetus of Renaissance and Industrial Revolution, western countries started a new era characterized by mechanical manipulation in the world printing history.
Letterpress printing and plate-making machinery entered China as early as the 18th year of Qing Dynasty (1590) when European Jesuits published and printed the Latin "Japanese Ambassador to Rome" in Macau (Figure 13-2). Since it is printed in Macao, it is natural to use lead printing equipment shipped from Europe. This batch of lead printing equipment may be the lettering printing equipment that was brought back to Nagasaki, Japan from Europe during the Taisho period (1573- 159 1), and then transferred to Macau because the shogunate prohibited the belief in foreign teachers. Although this batch of equipment entered China earlier, it was in Macau and printed in western languages, so it did not affect the mainland. We can't regard western modern printing technology and its equipment as the earliest introduction to China. Therefore, it is more appropriate to say that modern western lead printing equipment was introduced to China at the beginning of19th century.
Figure 13-2 The first book printed by China, Japanese Embassy in Rome.
Why did western modern lead movable type printing and machinery and equipment stay in Macao for more than 200 years without moving, infiltrating and popularizing to the mainland? This is an incredible problem for many scholars. There are two reasons: first, the Qing government adopted a policy of strict restrictions on the introduction of western religions into China, especially after the dispute between the Pope and the Qing emperor about the etiquette of worshipping Confucius and ancestors when preaching in China in the early18th century; Secondly, printing Chinese books and periodicals in China needs to make Chinese movable type, while Chinese characters in China are word by word, with complicated strokes and many words, so it is difficult to break through the difficulty of making movable type. This is completely different from the situation that the western bronze engraving still stayed in the Qing court and was not popularized. The earliest lead movable type printing plate-making equipment introduced to China was the clapping casting furnace. The manual word casting furnace has low efficiency and poor quality, and can only cast ten words per hour. With the development and progress of copper mold manufacturing technology, pedal casting furnace and manual casting furnace are gradually replaced. Although the efficiency of pedal and manual casting furnaces has increased to 700 or 800 pieces per hour, it is still difficult to meet the demand of the fast-developing society for the speed and quality of movable type production. It was not until the early years of the Republic of China that China began to adopt Thomson automatic engraving machine that the situation changed. This new type of automatic movable type casting machine not only achieves the efficiency of 15000 words per hour, but also casts movable type in good condition and can be used, without scraping, grinding and planing. Quality is far from clapping, pedaling and hand-casting. Since then, movable type casting technology and equipment have developed rapidly, and there have been ten thousand-year casting machines and universal casting machines. Among them, the structure and function of Wannian type casting machine are roughly similar to Thomson type automatic type casting machine first adopted by Commercial Press, but it is easier to change types than Thomson type and more suitable for casting small type. The universal casting machine is made in Japan, so it is widely used in printing houses in Northeast China. Compared with Thomson and Wannian casting machines, it has lower efficiency and is suitable for die casting and small movable type production.
The further development of lettering machinery and equipment is the emergence of typesetting machine which integrates lettering and typesetting. Mono and Lino, two casting machines in western languages, were used earlier. These include:
Mono letterpress automatic casting machine is a casting machine consisting of two parts: punch and casting machine (Figure 13-3). These two parts are completely separated and work together, and they are indispensable. Before casting, punch holes corresponding to the original text on the punched paper tape with a punching machine, and then load the punched paper tape into an automatic single-character casting machine for casting. Finally, it is cast into a complete board surface. This machine was invented by American Tolbert Easton in 1899. You can cast 1450 words in one minute, which is quite rapid.
Figure 13-3 single row casting machine
Lino automatic casting machine was invented by British general Tarad in 1886. Its typesetting method is quite similar to western typing, that is, according to the original text, a row of copper molds are arranged on the typesetting machine, and a row of type is cast, so it is also called "strip typesetting machine". The advantages of this tape casting machine are that a row of type is used as a unit, the layout is neat and the printing speed is fast; The disadvantage is that in a row of type, as long as one is misplaced, even a punctuation mark needs to be rearranged throughout the page. This machine can cast more than 50 kinds of western languages, which is very convenient for typesetting western languages.
The appearance of Mono and Lino typesetting machines marked the evolution of movable type casting technology from mechanical casting to overall automatic casting typesetting, and it was also at the time of the rise of modern printing industry in China. Later, the research and application of China automatic casting machine began, which is not the content of this chapter, and will be discussed later. With the evolution of relief printing technology from direct printing of cliche to casting of cliche copy with clay or paper, the printing machinery used in relief printing gradually evolved from simple flat pressing to circular pressing and circular pressing, until the web rotary printing machine and multi-color overprint color printing machine for continuous printing of newspapers appeared and were used in production, and the relief printing machinery had reached a quite advanced level at that time. The introduction and development of relief printing machines are roughly as follows:
The first letterpress printing machine brought to China by western missionaries was a manual lever frame (Figure 13-4). The printing speed is extremely slow, and only a few hundred sheets are printed every day. Therefore, the inking process is improved, and the original manual inking is changed to automatic inking from the ink feeding frame, which improves the printing speed.
Figure 13-4 Wrench Frame
In the eleventh year of Tongzhi (1872), the Shanghai declaration hall began to use hand-operated rotary machines. Although the printing speed has increased to several hundred sheets per hour, it is still unsatisfactory and consumes a lot of manpower. In order to reduce the burden of manpower, Mohai Library used a tractor instead of manual printing, which was an anecdote at that time. Some scholars recite poems to commemorate their views. Kong Rong, a poet from Jiaxing, Zhejiang, visited Wang Tao in Shanghai Mohai Library on June 27th, 1858+065438, and saw the scene of printing with a tractor in the printing study room of Mohai Library. He wrote a poem in memory of it. As the poem says: "the car turns over the sea, and hundreds of anecdotes spread in the universe;" Busy solving the problem of the old cow, not farming and planting books. Bo Xi recorded this poem in the book Old Shanghai. There is also a man named Huang Junshan, who wrote a unique poem "Ode to the Mohai Library" after seeing the Mohai Library printing books with a machine pulled by cows: "The Mohai rises from a tall building and worships the immortal Li Yehou"; I'm afraid the secretary didn't see it. Wen Changyan borrowed cattle. It can be seen that at that time, the printing of Mohai Library with ox-pulling machine has been circulated in the society as an anecdote, and at the same time, as an allusion in the history of printing development, it has been circulated in future generations. Since then, steam engines and self-ignition engines have been introduced and used to replace human printing machinery, and the printing speed has doubled. s
In the 24th year of Guangxu (1898), Shanghai bought a batch of European rotary printing presses copied from Japan, which were used by Chinese people because their prices were lower than those made in Europe.
In the thirty-second year of Guangxu (1906), a single-cylinder printing machine with motor was purchased from England, and the printing speed reached 1000 sheets per hour. Hua Fu Thai's single-cylinder printing machine was invented by William Dawson and He Tolai of Hua Fu Thai in 1860, commonly known as "big printing machine".
In the first year of the Republic of China (19 12), Shanghai Declaration Museum purchased the double-rotary printing machine of Yahua Company, and the printing speed has reached 2000 sheets per hour.
In the eighth year of the Republic of China (19 19), the Commercial Press purchased the double rotary platform printing machine invented by American Robert Michler in 1889. After the machine is started, the drum keeps rotating, which greatly improves the printing efficiency, and the printing quality, especially the printed pictures, is clear and of good quality. This is commonly known as Millie machine. Milling machines include monochrome milling machines, two-color milling machines and double-sided milling machines. Among them, the double-sided Millie machine is very convenient for printing books and periodicals with double-sided pictures and texts.