聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

欽定武英殿聚珍版程式

8 min read

Text ID
KR2m0057
Date
1773–1776
Dynasty
清

Qīndìng Wǔyīng Diàn Jùzhēnbǎn Chéngshì 欽定武英殿聚珍版程式

Imperially-Commissioned Manual for the Wǔyīng-Hall “Assembled Treasures” Movable-Type System by 金簡 (撰)

About the work

A one-juǎn technical manual on the operation of the Jùzhēnbǎn 聚珍版 (“Assembled Treasures Edition”) wooden movable-type printing system established by Jīn Jiǎn 金簡 (d. 1794) at the Wǔyīng diàn 武英殿 (Hall of Military Eminence) — the imperial palace printing office — under Qiánlóng patronage. It is at once an imperial printing-office handbook and the most detailed technical record of pre-modern East Asian wooden movable-type printing. Composed in 1776 (Qiánlóng 41) and presented to the throne; the Sìkù recension submitted in Qiánlóng 46 (1781). The work consists of (1) the original imperial zòuyì 奏議 (memorials, principally Jīn Jiǎn’s of Qiánlóng 38, 1773) explaining the proposal and its acceptance; (2) detailed sections on chéngzào mùzǐ 成造木子 (manufacturing the type-bodies), kèzì 刻字 (carving the characters), zìguì 字櫃 (storage cabinets), cáobǎn 槽版 (chase-frames), jiātiáo 夾條 (column-spacers), xiàngmù 項木 / zhōngxīnmù 中心木 (head- and centre-pieces), lèipán 類盤 (sorting-trays), tàogé 套格 (registration-frames), bǎishū 擺書 (composing), diànbǎn 墊版 (make-ready), jiàoduì 校對 (proofing), shuāyìn 刷印 (impression), guīlèi 歸類 (distribution), and zhúrì lúnzhuǎn bànfǎ 逐日輪轉辦法 (daily-rotation work-flow with a specimen production schedule); together with sixteen technical illustrations and nineteen explanatory notes. As the tíyào observes, “every illustration was tested in actual practice, and every illustration is therefore directly applicable in execution.”

Tiyao

Imperially-commissioned Wǔyīng diàn jùzhēnbǎn chéngshì, 1 juǎn, respectfully composed and submitted by Jīn Jiǎn 金簡, Vice-Minister of Revenue (Hùbù shìláng 戶部侍郎), in the forty-first year of Qiánlóng (1776).

In Qiánlóng 38 (1773), the imperial decree was issued for the compilation of the Sìkù quánshū, with the further command that worthy manuscripts should be selected, collated, and engraved for printing, to enrich the world of letters. Jīn Jiǎn was placed in charge of this business. As the labour of cutting jujube-wood blocks was very heavy, he memorialised proposing the use of movable type for the printing of various books, by which much labour would be saved and yet much work be done. The imperial nod of approval was received, the system was given the auspicious name Jùzhēnbǎn 聚珍版 (“Assembled Treasures Edition”) and recorded in imperial yùzǎo 睿藻 verses. After three years of practice, printed editions clothed the empire. Jīn Jiǎn accordingly described the system in this manual.

We have examined Shěn Kuò’s 沈括 Mèngxī bǐtán 夢溪筆談, which records that in the Qìnglì era (1041–48) a commoner Bì Shēng 畢昇 first made movable blocks: the method used hardened-clay characters, thin as the rim of a coin, each character a separate seal, fired hard. An iron plate was set as the base, covered with a paste of pine-resin, wax, and paper-ash. To print, an iron frame was set on the iron plate; the type was pressed densely into the frame to form one printing-block. The block was held over the fire to soften the paste, and a flat board pressed against the surface to make the type level as a whetstone. Hence movable-type printing has existed since the time of Sòng Rénzōng. But the clay characters were not finely formed and easily broken, and the pine-resin and other materials were heavy and bothersome to manage; therefore Wáng Zhēn’s 王禎 Nóngshū 農書 substitutes wooden blocks for the type, with a revolving-tray storage system, swifter and handier — but it is not yet fully detailed. As to the lead-type method recorded in Lù Shēn’s 陸深 Jīntái jìwén 金臺紀聞, lead being soft and easily damaged, it cost more time and effort still.

The present compilation, weighing the old institutions and adapting them with new ideas, prefixes the various ministerial memorials, then sets forth the order of timber-procurement and character-cutting, the methods of storage and arrangement; it has sixteen illustrations and nineteen explanatory notes — every one obtained from trial-experiment, hence every one applicable in actual operation. From this we know that when the Wúxī men of the late Míng printed Tàipíng yùlǎn with movable type, from Lóngqìng 1 to 5 (1567–1571) they accomplished only one or two parts in ten (cf. Huáng Zhèngsè’s 黃正色 Tàipíng yùlǎn xù) — because they had not got the right method. This too may be enough to show how, in the institutions and the use of implements, our sage dynasty surpasses former ages in every detail. Submitted respectfully on collation, tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781), by Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Editor-in-Chief Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The Wǔyīngdiàn jùzhēnbǎn chéngshì is the principal Qing technical document on movable-type printing and one of the most informative pre-modern accounts of letterpress technique in any East Asian language. The decision-making is fully visible from Jīn Jiǎn’s first memorial of Qiánlóng 38, tenth month, twenty-eighth day (22 November 1773), which lays out the basic economic argument: the Sìkù programme would otherwise demand woodblock cutting at impossibly heavy cost (a single Shǐjì 史記 cost roughly 1,450 liǎng in materials and labour at the standard lí-wood block rate), but a single jujube-wood movable-type fount of 150,000 sorts could be made for around 1,400 liǎng and would serve indefinitely. From the Pèiwén shīyùn 佩文詩韻 Jīn selected some 6,500 main characters; common characters were cut in multiple copies (up to 100 sorts per character) for full text and another 50,000 for footnote interlinear printing — a total of about 150,000 sorts, with 2,000 spare blank type-bodies for occasional supplements.

The technical organisation is also fully visible: ten cabinets each with eight or ten drawers, drawers subdivided into dozens of compartments holding type sorted by Pèiwén rhyme; six clerks (gōngshì) — two for setting at the chase, four for retrieving sorts, one each for píng, shàng, qù, rù tones — with a phonological retrieval protocol (“setting clerk calls a character; rhyme-keeper supplies it; tone-keeper distinguishes the tone and hands it over”). The zìguì (cabinet) plus cáobǎn (chase-frame) plus jiātiáo (column-spacer) system reduced make-ready almost to nothing once standing matter was set. The Wǔyīngdiàn jùzhēnbǎn cóngshū 武英殿聚珍版叢書 — about 134 titles printed using this system between 1774 and the early nineteenth century — is the canonical product, and one of the most important Chinese imperial publishing series before lithography.

The composition window for the Chéngshì itself is bracketed by Jīn Jiǎn’s first memorial (1773) and the work’s submission date (Qiánlóng 41 = 1776). Jīn Jiǎn’s death year is given by the catalog meta as 1795; CBDB (id 57085) gives Qiánlóng 59 (1794), following the Qīngdài rénwù shēngzúnián biǎo, used here. Jīn was a Manchu bannerman of the Bordered Yellow Banner (xiānghuángqí 鑲黃旗), who had risen through the Imperial Household Department to become Hùbù shìláng and director of the Wǔyīng diàn printing programme — the principal scholar-official of the Qiánlóng court for the technology of imperial publishing.

Translations and research

No complete English translation located. The principal Western scholarly treatment is K. T. Wu (Wú Guāng-qīng 吳光清), “Ming Printing and Printers,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 7.3 (1943); and especially K. T. Wu, “Chinese Printing under Four Alien Dynasties (916–1368),” HJAS 13 (1950). Foundational specialist work: Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin 錢存訓, Paper and Printing, vol. 5 part 1 of Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China (CUP, 1985), pp. 220–222 (on the Wǔyīng-diàn movable-type system specifically). The Chinese standard study is Wáng Tiāo 王韬 and Zhāng Xiùmín 張秀民, Zhōngguó yìnshuā shǐ 中國印刷史 (Shànghǎi rénmín, 1989; revised edition Zhèjiāng gǔjí, 2006). On the cóng-shū itself: Yáng Yùliáng 楊玉良, “Wǔyīng-diàn jù-zhēn-bǎn cóng-shū kǎo,” Wénxiàn 文獻 (1992). For the broader publishing history: Cynthia Brokaw and Kai-wing Chow (eds.), Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China (UC Press, 2005). Note also Brian Vance, “The Wuyingdian Juzhenban Imperial Printing Office and Movable Type in Qing China,” East Asian Publishing and Society 5.2 (2015).

Other points of interest

The tíyào gently corrects the historical record on movable type: Bì Shēng’s Qìnglì-era (1041–48) clay-type system as recorded in Shěn Kuò’s Mèngxī bǐtán is acknowledged as the original invention; Wáng Zhēn’s Nóngshū (1313) wooden type with revolving-tray storage is acknowledged as a partial improvement; Lù Shēn’s Jīntái jìwén lead-type method is dismissed as soft-and-fragile; the failure of the late-Míng Wúxī attempt at Tàipíng yùlǎn (1567–71) is attributed to defective method; and the Wǔyīng diàn system, with its rigorous procedural specification, is presented as the perfection of the technology. The dialectic preserves valuable information on the actual technical history of pre-Qing East Asian movable type. The Sìkù tíyào’s closing rhetorical framing (“our sage dynasty surpasses former ages in every detail”) is conventional, but the technical-historical claims it makes are essentially accurate. The Manchu version of the manual was issued the same year as the Chinese.

Graph View

Backlinks