Paper is one of the four major inventions of our country, and the inventor Cai Lun is even more illuminated in the annals of history and has become a dazzling pearl in the history of our country. However, few people know that Cai Lun is actually a eunuch.
Cai Lun (蔡倫字敬仲), born in Guiyang Commandery (桂阳郡, in present-day southeastern Hunan), was a eunuch of the Eastern Han Dynasty's Han Dynasty. According to historical records, although Cai Lun was a eunuch, the emperor was very fond of him and often asked him to help with government affairs. In ancient times, eunuchs interfered in politics, but not many were clearly recorded in official history books. As for why Cai Lun was listed in the history books, this also started from the Empress Dou of the Han Zhang Emperor.
Although Empress Dou was of noble status, she had never been able to give birth to an heir for the emperor. In feudal dynasties, the succession to the throne has always been the most important and sloppy. Emperor Zhang of Han considered the inheritance of the imperial throne and decided to make the son of the Song nobleman the prince, that is, Prince Qing. Seeing that Song Gui's mother was more and more loved by the emperor, Dou Shi couldn't help but feel anxious.
In order to consolidate his position as empress, Dou came up with two strategies:
One is to pass a boy from the harem's Liang Guiren to his own name;
The second is to try to frame Song Guiren.
After succeeding to her son, Empress Dou's situation still did not change much. After thinking about it, she still decided to find a way to eliminate Song Guiren. Because even if he has a nominal son, the position of prince has been established, and the significance of doing so is really not great. However, ever since Song Guiren's son was made crown prince, Emperor Zhangdi of Han had always favored her very much, and the empress dowager was also very fond of Song Guiren.
If Empress Dou used her position as empress to forcibly find trouble for the Song nobles, then it would be easy to steal chickens and not reverse the erosion of rice. Therefore, Empress Dou could only wait quietly. Soon after, the empress dowager died of illness, and Empress Dou was eager to make a move, and planted a lot of eyeliner around the Song guiren, hoping to frame the crime. It happened that Song Guiren fell ill and wrote a letter to his family.
Empress Dou's men immediately intercepted it and found that the letter contained these eight words: "Sick thoughts are born, and the family asks for it." After receiving the news, Empress Dou took matters into her own hands and decided to make a big fuss out of these eight words. It is a plant that is often used as a medicinal herb. Originally, Song Guiren simply asked his family to help find Su to cure the disease. However, Empress Dou clung to the word "菟" and insisted that the Song nobles wanted to use it for witchcraft.
As soon as this theory came out, the entire Han Dynasty was shaken. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the plague of witchcraft broke out, and as many as 100,000 people were implicated and died, and those who heard it were all terrified. At this time, it was heard that the Song nobles had an affair with witchcraft, and the ministers and harem people stayed away from the Song nobles, lest they burn themselves. When Empress Dou saw the situation, she also drew many people to falsely accuse Song Guiren of Emperor Zhang of Han, hoping to completely confirm Song Guiren's crimes involving witchcraft.
Emperor Zhang of Han was furious when he heard this, and immediately ordered that Prince Qing and Song Guiren be deposed and that Empress Dou's adopted son be made crown prince instead. After Song Guiren was disposed of, Emperor Zhangdi of Han remembered the past of the two and could not help but feel compassion. He decided to leave Song Guiren in Cai Lun's custody, and if Song Guiren repented, he would restore her noble position again.
In this way, As a eunuch, Cai Lun was involved in the family affairs of the emperor, and also faced the problem of taking sides. Because the discord between Empress Dou and Song Guiren was already an open secret, if you wanted to survive in the palace for a long time, you had to make a choice. In the end, Cai Lun chose Empress Dou. He constantly denigrated the Song nobles, causing emperor Zhangdi of Han to dissipate the last trace of tenderness left over from the Song nobles.
Song Guiren was grieved and used suicide to destroy his life.
In this way, Empress Dou's adopted son inheriting the throne was already a foregone conclusion. After The Song Guiren committed suicide, Empress Dou placed great trust in Cai Lun, and even openly allowed Cai Lun to handle government affairs as a eunuch. Unexpectedly, Empress Dou's adopted son (Emperor He of Han) died young and died at the age of twenty-seven. Emperor Han and Emperor had only one baby three months old before they died, and they died before they were three years old.
In desperation, the courtiers had no choice but to support the establishment of the imperial family as the new emperor. He chose Liu Hu, the grandson of Emperor Zhang of Han and emperor of Song Guiren, the son of the deposed Crown Prince Qing. Liu Hu ascended the throne for Emperor An of Han. The ascension of Emperor An of Han laid the groundwork for Cai Lun's future demise. When Emperor An was young, Cai Lun could still rely on Empress Deng to maintain his glory and wealth.
However, with the death of Empress Deng and the gradual growth of Emperor An, Cai Lun's situation became more and more unexpected. When Emperor An grew up, he heard about his grandmother and father's events, ordered their rehabilitation, and severely punished Cai Lun. Seeing that Emperor Han'an had turned over the old accounts of the Song Guiren, Cai Lun couldn't help but sweat coldly. Before the relevant personnel came to examine him, he took poison and committed suicide in a panic.
I heard that in order to be decent, Cai Lun also deliberately took a bath and changed his clothes before he died. In this way, Cai Lun, like Song Guiren, who hated suicide in those years, chose to end his life by suicide.
As for Cai Lun's papermaking, there is one thing we must clarify here, that is: was he inventing papermaking?
The records of Cai Lun's papermaking in the history books are very brief, saying only that he "created his intentions" and "used the skin of the tree, the hemp head, the cloth and the fishing net as paper". As a great invention, the selection of materials, the improvement of technology, it takes a lot of time and energy, the process is bound to be difficult and tortuous, the technical problems involved are also very complex, shelved in modern times, writing dozens of papers, several books are no problem, but the historian is very stingy, only used less than 20 words to explain all. However, although this record is brief, it is very accurate, and the identification of the inventor of paper is Cai Lun, which has long been a conclusive conclusion.
In recent years, however, there have been objections.
It is said that in 1986, a piece of paper was unearthed in a Han tomb in Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu. This piece of paper is thin and soft, the surface of the paper is flat and smooth, and there are ink painted mountains, rivers, roads, etc. on it. According to research, this is the paper made of hemp in the early Western Han Dynasty, and it is also the earliest known paper in the world. According to archaeological discoveries since the 20th century, "Chinese Archaeology, Qin and Han Volumes", published in July 2010, pointed out: "As early as the Western Han Dynasty before Cai Lun, China had already created hemp plant fiber paper. ”
Later, with the continuous progress of archaeological work along the Northwest Silk Road, ancient paper made in different periods of the Western Han Dynasty was found in many Western Han dynasty sites and tombs in Shaanxi, Gansu, Xinjiang and other places, which caused a great discussion on the origin of papermaking.
Resources:
[Later Han Dynasty Scrolls 18 , Eunuch Chronicles No. 68 , Dongguan Han Ji , Compendium of Cai Lun 's Chronology " , Chinese Archaeology , Qin and Han Volumes ]