AHQ: Were the Ming ever more technologically advanced than Europe?

China had paper, the printing press was invented in Korea and spread to China first, they literally invented gunpowder and cannon.
But IIRC their printing press was not letter-based and as such much less efficient. As for gunpowder, they did not manage to come with the effective firearms and even while they did produce the cannons by the XVI they were clearly behind Europeans in the terms of firearms-based warfare.
That’s the problem: they could invent things but not figure out how to use them efficiently.
 
Hard to make western-style printing presses if you need at least two or three thousand different characters just to write standard texts. Korea has an alphabet with 40 letters.
 
Economics is also a major factor to be considered. Just because China or Europe did something doesn't mean that the other was incapable of it, it only implies that for whatever reason there wasn't an economic reason for it.
 
Hard to make western-style printing presses if you need at least two or three thousand different characters just to write standard texts. Korea has an alphabet with 40 letters.

But, IIRC (not sure), even initial European printing was along the lines of cutting the whole page instead of assembling it using separate letters.
 
But, IIRC (not sure), even initial European printing was along the lines of cutting the whole page instead of assembling it using separate letters.

Yes, that's correct - they borrowed the technique from fabric printing, which uses bigger blocks. Too cumbersome in the long run, I guess.
 
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