Why did the Siku Quanshu not use movable type but copied by hand?

Hengzhi Ugly Note: The amount of work involved in the process of writing the Siku Quanshu was very large at that time. Its workload is mainly manifested in various aspects such as collection, sorting, copying, proofreading, and even tampering and incineration.

The correction you said was not necessary, but the ruler at that time felt that it was very necessary, because he wanted to remove the elements that were unfavorable to him, and even add some whitewashing, and he did not care much about maintaining the original appearance. After the book was completed, it was not that I didn't want to print it, but that the printing project was equally huge, and the cost was too high to bear. Therefore, at the beginning, four kinds of "Eight Kinds of Yiwei", "Old Rites of Han Officials", "Continuation of Wei Zheng Gong's Advice" and "Emperor Fan" were selected and engraved, and later 134 kinds were successively printed with movable wooden type, which are collectively known as "King James Wuyingdian Collector's Edition".

A total of seven copies were copied from the Four Libraries. Among the seven parts, the Wenyuan Pavilion, the Wenzong Pavilion and the Wenhui Pavilion have disappeared, and only the Wenyuan Pavilion, the Wenjin Pavilion, the Wensu Pavilion and the Wenlan Pavilion have been handed down to this day. The cost of making a batch of movable type, including all the characters used in the Siku Quanshu, was too high for even the royal family to afford.

However, Qianlong still selected a small part of the Siku Quanshu and printed them all with movable type, that is, the Wuyingdian Collector's Edition series.

The reason why the ruler used hand copying, without printing, this is the ruler at that time in order to stabilize the people's hearts, let a large number of literati copy books, copy for decades, the longer the better, the literati have something to do, do not rebel, this is the ruler's strategy, but also the cleverness, just as (Emperor Taizong's real long strategy to earn heroes to make all their heads) Emperor Taizong is really a long-term strategy, deceived the heroes and heroes have become white hair (exhausted years), to copy books, it is the means to govern these literati, the literati do not rebel, the common people can not turn the big waves. So, instead of printing, it was copied by hand. Do you understand?

The operability is not strong, how many words are in the book? The book contains a total of 3,503 (3,503) ancient books, 79,337 (79,337) volumes, and more than 36,000 bound volumes.

4,000 people, a total of 10 years. Movable type printing is not a simple process, is it possible to print? Even now the publishing house is publishing, and it is also a vast project.

The whole book of Xiu Siku is for the emperor's family, and it does not need to be published, so it does not need to be printed with movable type.

The movable type printing of the Song Dynasty was in ancient times, and we are in the era of advanced science and technology!

The scrolls were too large for private individuals to afford printing; And this is from the Qing Dynasty"National Image Project", not for people to look at casually. In addition, this book has tampered with and destroyed many precious books.

The stereotype was for mass printing, and the "Siku Quanshu" did not want to be issued, so it was copied.

At that time, how was it printed on a large scale, only hand-copied.

The upstairs was one thing, and the other was because there were no computers at the time

Although it was a first-class project, the cost of all engraving was too high and unbearable, so a large number of people had to be hired to copy it by hand. At first, only four kinds of "Eight Kinds of Yiwei", "Old Rites of Han Officials", "Continuation of Wei Zheng Gong's Advice" and "Emperor Fan" were selected and engraved, and later 134 kinds were successively printed with movable wooden type, which are collectively known as "King James Wuyingdian Collector's Edition".

The four pavilions of the inner court in the north of the seven pavilions are indeed exclusively for the imperial view, but the three pavilions in the south are allowed to enter the scholars to read, but unfortunately they are all burned by Hong Yang.

Printing was invented earlier than the Song Dynasty, but the engraving cost is high, time-consuming and laborious, and the printing is not clear (compared to hand-copying), although the invention of movable type printing reduces the cost, but it is still time-consuming, and the printing is more unclear, plus that era, the circulation of books is very small, and the advantage of printing is not big compared with hand-copying, so in the early stage, the proportion of printing is not high, and then the printing technology continues to improve, the cost is reduced, the printing is clear, the circulation of books and newspapers is also increasing, and printing gradually replaces hand-copying.

Some large books need to be copied in a small number, such as the "Siku Quanshu" in the Qianlong period, the project is huge, and it cannot be copied more, so it can only be copied. The "Compendium of Materia Medica" and other large-circulation are printed and published.

Printing costs the same as it does now. Therefore, at the beginning, they were all hand-copied and circulated in a small area, just like the underground literature during the Cultural Revolution.

After the emergence of movable type printing in the Northern Song Dynasty, printing technology has been developing the top technology of copper movable type printing.

The reason why Western printing technology is popular is that printing is oriented to the general public, and the huge demand forces printing technology to continue to improve; In China, however, the users of printed matter are only a small number of readers, and the demand for printing is not large, so it is impossible to further develop printing.

Copper movable type is very expensive to use, so it is mainly based on wooden movable type and pottery movable type. However, these two methods have many disadvantages, such as the printed ink is easy to blur, the movable type itself is easy to deform and damage, and so on. Greatly restricted.

In addition, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was no such thing as a newspaper, and the limited information was limited to the official residence newspaper and the Tang newspaper, and the amount of information was very small. So there is no need to arrange printing specifically. Once a Di Bao comes to Beijing, the ** personnel dispatched in Beijing from all over the country and the copyists of various teahouses will send people to copy the Di Bao.

Wenchang Pavilion

In that year, Emperor Qianlong ordered people to copy 7 copies of the "Four Libraries" by hand, and ordered them to be hidden all over the country. The first four parts of the copy are stored in the Forbidden City Wenyuan Pavilion, Liaoning Shenyang Wensu Pavilion, Yuanmingyuan Wenyuan Pavilion, Hebei Chengde Wenjin Pavilion Collection, this is the so-called "North Four Pavilions". After copying the three parts of the storage Yangzhou Wenhui Pavilion, Zhenjiang Wenzong Pavilion and Hangzhou Wenlan Pavilion treasures, this is the so-called "South Three Pavilions".