Bi Sheng

Bi Sheng (畢昇, died 1052) was the inventor of movable type printing in between 1041 to 1048 in China. His types were made of clay. Wang Zhen improved it with wood.

Bi Sheng was a cloth vendor by trade 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) by Shen Huo (沈活). Writings Beside the Meng Creek, however, gave detailed and sufficient description on the technical details of Bi Sheng's invention of movable type.