Bi Sheng

Inventor of movable type printing, revolutionizing information dissemination

Bi Sheng (990–1051) was a Chinese artisan and inventor during the Northern Song Dynasty who pioneered movable type printing, one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China. Before his innovation, woodblock printing dominated Chinese publishing, which was time-consuming and impractical for large-scale text reproduction.

Bi Sheng's system used ceramic type pieces arranged in an iron frame. This allowed:

• Reusable character components
• Faster typesetting compared to carving whole blocks
• Cost-effective small print runs

Though later replaced by metal types during the Yuan Dynasty, Bi Sheng's invention directly influenced Gutenberg's printing press development in 15th-century Europe. His technology became a cornerstone for global knowledge sharing, enabling:

1. Mass production of Confucian classics
2. Spread of Buddhist texts across Asia
3. Later scientific revolution in Europe