Japanese Crime of Destruction and Plunder of Korean Cultural Assets in the Past (8)From Friend.com.kp

From Friend.com.kp

http://friend.com.kp/index.php/articles/view/5306

 

Ukida Hideie, the then head of the Japanese invasion army plundered in total 89 814 copper types and printing machines from the type foundry of the Kyosogwan seated at the foot of Mt. Nam immediately after the occupation of Hansong (Seoul) in May 1592 to present them to Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Kyosogwan was a central organ in the time of the feudal Joson dynasty in charge of publishing and printing.

Japan looted more than 200 000 metal types from Korea during the war. Many of them are still kept in the Japanese printing companies.

Japan developed the printing industry from scratch with the metal types they pillaged in Korea.

They are said to have printed at first with wooden types that were imitated from the metal types, because they were quite new to the metal types, and several years later they began to apply the metal types to printing.

Tokugawa Ieyas, founder of Edo government, confiscated many types the subordinates of Toyotomi Hideyoshi had plundered in Korea to print many books. Political, military and economic books and the like were printed with the Korean metal types in the earliest time of the Edo government.