Bì Shēng (traditional Chinese: 畢昇; simplified Chinese: 毕升; Wade-Giles: Pì Shēng; 990-1051 AD) was the inventor of the first known movable type printing press technology. Bi Sheng's press was made of Chinese porcelain and was invented between 1041 and 1048 in China.
Bi Sheng was a commoner and his ancestry and details were not recorded. He was recorded only in the Writings Beside the Meng Creek (夢溪筆談 Mengxi Bitan, or Dream Pool Essays) by Chinese scholar, official, and polymath scientist Shen Kuo (沈括) (1031–1095). Writings Beside the Meng Creek, however, gave detailed and sufficient description on the technical details of Bi Sheng's invention of movable type:
However, Bi Sheng's fragile clay types were not practical for large-scale printing.[2] The government official Wang Zhen (fl. 1290-1333 AD) improved Bi Sheng's fragile clay types by creating movable types out of wood, as his process increased the speed of typesetting as well. Afterwards, in 1230, metal movable type printing was developed in Korea. Later in China by 1490 the bronze movable type was developed by the wealthy printer Hua Sui (1439-1513).
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