Feng Dao

Feng Dao (882 – 21 May 954), courtesy name Kedao, posthumous title the Wenyi Prince of Ying, was a Chinese inventor, printer, and official. He was a government official during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, who served (in chronological order) Jie Yan and the Later Tang, the Later Jin, the Liao, the Later Han, and the Later Zhou dynasties. He was chancellor of the Later Tang, Later Jin, and Later Zhou dynasties. For his contribution to improving the block-printing process for Chinese works, scholars have compared him to the German inventor and blacksmith Johannes Gutenberg. Traditional historians such as Ouyang Xiu and Sima Guang praised him for his various virtues but also vilified him for not being faithful to a single dynasty but being willing to serve a number of successive dynasties.