flowers") and rockets ("Chinese arrows"). Persians called saltpeter "Chinese salt" or "salt from Chinese salt marshes" ( ). Historian Ahmad Y. al-Hassan argues – contra the general notion – that the Chinese technology passed through Arabic alchemy and chemistry before the 13th century. Gunpowder arrived in India by the mid-14th century, but could have been introduced by the Mongols perhaps as early as the mid-13th century. Printing The first known movable type system was invented in China around 1040 AD by Pi Sheng (990–1051) (spelled Bi Sheng in the Pinyin system). Pi Sheng's type was made of baked clay, as described by the Chinese scholar Shen Kuo (1031–1095). The world's first metal-based movable type was invented in Korea in 1234, 210 years before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in Germany. Jikji is the world's oldest extant movable metal print book. It was published in Heungdeok Temple in 1377, 78 years prior to Gutenberg's "42-Line Bible" printed during the years 1452–1455. Early Modern History Ming dynasty: 1368–1644 The Ming period is the only era of later imperial history during which all of China proper was ruled by ethnic Han. All the counties in China had a county government, a Confucian school, and the standard Chinese family system. Typically the dominant local elite consisted of high status families composed of the gentry owners and managers of land and of other forms of wealth, as well as smaller groups that were subject to elite domination and protection. Much attention was paid to genealogy to prove that high status was inherited from generations back. Substantial land holdings were directly managed by the owning families in the early Ming period, but toward the end of the era marketing and ownership were depersonalized by the increased circulation of silver as money, and estate management gravitated into the hands of hired bailiffs. Together with the departure of the most talented youth into the imperial service, the result was direct contacts between the elite and subject groups were disrupted, and romantic images of country life disappeared from the literature. In villages across China elite families participated in the life of the empire by sending their sons into the very high status imperial civil service. Most of the successful sons had a common education in the county and prefectural schools, had been recruited by competitive examination, and were posted to offices that might be anywhere in the empire,