Pyongyang, February 10 (KCNA) — The war of aggression, ignited by Japan against Korea in 1592 (Imjin Year), is sometimes called the “Hwalja (metal type) War”.
This is because the Japanese aggressors wantonly looted the metal types associated with the creative wisdom and talents of the Korean people during the Imjin War.
The metal types were made in Korea for the first time in the world.
On the basis of experience gained in developing the technology of printing with wooden types in the period of Koryo (918-1392), the Korean people made metal types and used them for publishing and printing. In the period of the Feudal Joson Dynasty (1392-1910), they made hundreds of thousands of metal types to print many books such as the Chronicles of the Feudal Joson Dynasty.
Most of the metal types showing the excellence of the Korean people were looted by the Japanese aggressors during the war to seriously hinder the cultural development of Korea.
More than 200,000 metal types were plundered by the Japanese aggressor forces during the war. Japan printed books of political, military, economic and other fields by developing the printing, which was as good as scratch, with recourse to these metal types.
A Japanese scholar commented that the war was something regrettable but occasioned by it, the printing “revolution” began in Japanese society.
This sheds light on the vicious nature of Japanese aggressors.
Owing to the “Hwalja War”, type foundries were all burned down and most of the bronze types disappeared in Korea, the world’s first metal type maker. Since then, the type printing had suspended for about 70 years.
Japan’s plunder of metal types was a brutal act of obstructing the cultural development of the Korean people.
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