Bi Sheng
Movable type was invented and improved in China centuries before Hua Sui. As written by the polymath Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), the commoner and artisan Bi Sheng (990-1051) was the first to invent movable type, with his ceramic type invented in the Qingli period (1041–1048). During the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368 AD), the governmental magistrate and scholar Wang Zhen (fl. 1290-1333) was an early innovator of wooden movable type, as his process improved the speed of typesetting as well. Much like Bi Sheng experimenting with wooden movable type in the 11th century but finding it unsatisfactory, Wang Zhen also experimented with metal type printing using tin. Wang Zhen wrote in the book of the "Nong Shu" (1313 AD):