Hello everyone, I take the time out of my busy schedule today to bring you the following article, welcome to taste it together!
Paper was written before the invention of the note material
(1) From the end of the 19th century to the 20th century, when archaeologists excavated the Yindu site in Anyang, Henan, they found many words engraved with knives on the tortoise shell and ox shoulder blades, dating back more than 3,000 years. Call it Oracle. The Yin people used to carve their words with the belly armor of turtles, cattle, and a few sheep and pigs, as well as the skulls of deer and even people. They sacrifice ancestors, conquest, hunting, old age, wind and rain, snow and disease, etc., all have to first gubu, and when they are inside, they drill or chisel some holes in the turtle carapace, and then roast the holes with fire to see its "claws" (cracks) to determine the auspiciousness.
Near zhao, it is recorded that a certain day of divination is recorded, the text is simple, and the font is very small. Each piece of oracle bone contains more than 50 words, and the maximum number of words is up to 180 words. Most of the oracle bones are simplified hieroglyphs, and they have also developed to use the so-called "huiyi", "false loan" and "shape sound", and the single word has reached about 3,000 words. The oracle bones seen today are from the time of Wuding (1324-1266 BC) to Luxin (1154-1123 BC), which contain historical materials on socio-political economy, science and technology.
(2) The source of the golden stone oracle bone is limited, and it is inconvenient to engrave, carry and keep. With the manufacture of pottery and the increasing maturity of copper-tin alloy smelting and casting technology, people cast characters on bronze as a supplement to the memorable material. There are many types of bronzes, Shang, Zhou, Spring and Autumn, Warring States period bronzes have bells, dings, plates, cups, cards, guo, wash, ge, swords, etc., small one, two pounds, as large as hundreds of pounds or thousands of pounds, magnificent and beautiful, exquisite patterns, rich in artistic value. Inside (inner walls) or at the bottom of these artifacts are written, mostly recording the honors and status obtained by slave owners after participating in major activities, as well as records of rewards, gifts, and exchange of land.
Archaeology has carved them on bronzes, especially bells and dings: the text is called inscriptions (or jinwen, zhongding). In addition to bronze, the text, including the provisions of the law, is sometimes engraved on iron, called the punishment. Sometimes large-scale heavy d'êtres with inscriptions became treasures and symbols of power, so in ancient times the intention to seize power was called a triumph. The Zhong Ding inscription, like the oracle bone bu ci, has important historical value. Among the more paper-bearers are Mao Gongding, Sanshi Pan, Song Zhou Zhong and Zhou Wuzhuan Ding. In addition to oracle bones, bronzes, and iron tools, ancient China also carved or written on jade and stone, and preserved them as documentary records. As far back as the Shang Dynasty, jade, like many other writing materials, was used to carve and write words.
It is said that since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the emperor has appointed empresses, noble concubines or princes, often engraving words and filling in gold on the jade books. For example, in the winter of 1956, the site of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BC) in Houma, Shanxi Province, unearthed hundreds of documents written on jade plates with red pigments, called Danshu in ancient times. These documents were a kind of alliance between the princes of the Spring and Autumn Period, dating back to the 5th century BC.
(3) The oracle bones and gold stones are both heavy and hard, which are inconvenient to write and keep, and the scope of application is not too wide. The most commonly used ancient writing chronicle materials on the mainland are Jian and Mu. The rectangular smooth bamboo chips and wood chips that have passed through "killing green" or "sweat green" are called bamboo jane and wooden chair respectively, referred to as "jane" and "mu". Because the south is rich in bamboo, I use Jane more, while in the north, I use willow or poplar trees as raw materials to make mu but use books to write. After jian mu is made into writing with lacquer or ink, it is then connected piece by piece with leather strips or threads, which is called a book or a strategy.
The rope that is condensed into a book is called weaving. Jian Mu may have existed in the Yin Dynasty, and was already prevalent through the Western Zhou dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The history of Confucius reading the "Yi" "Three Absolute Compilations" should refer to the book written by Jian Mu. Jian Mu was one of the early forms of Chinese books. After reading each book, it can be rolled up and placed on the shelf or on the case. If the handwriting is not clear, it can be supplemented by a new Jane, and when writing a typo, it can be scraped off and rewritten with a book knife. The weight is much lighter than the famous stone, it is more convenient to read and carry, and the bamboo material is inexpensive and easy to obtain. Because of these advantages, Jian Mu was the main writing material for a long time. Most of the pre-Qin classics that have survived today were originally written in pamphlets.
(4) Taiba China is the birthplace of sericulture technology, and silk has been produced for a long time. And the silk fabric made of silk is called "grass drapery", which can be used to cut clothes and write and paint. In the Han Dynasty, in addition to writing books with bamboo draperies, the "transmission" (pass) of entering and leaving the pass was also written in the use of bamboo draperies. It can be cut at will according to the length of the article and the size of the western side, and after mounting, it is raised with a wooden shaft valley, called a roll.
Each volume is equivalent to a condensed or child's chapter. It is a high-quality writing material, both light and easy to use, and has many words, so after Jane was eliminated, it was used as a calligraphy and painting for a long time. It's just that the price is expensive, and the average reader can't afford to use it, so there is a saying of "poor and unsophisticated", and it is easy to decay and decay, which is inconvenient to preserve.
Definition of paper
In ancient times, the meaning of the word "paper" was mostly recorded, but the ancients had different understandings of the concept of paper, and the gap with the current understanding was large. This article intends to draw on the views of modern and contemporary scholars on the basis of ancient documents, and use modern concepts to scientifically define the paper. The earliest explanation of the meaning of the word "paper" is xu shen's "Explanation of Words in The Text" of the Eastern Han Dynasty, which says: "Paper, tired a flute also." From the department, clan sound. Xu Shen believes that the paper characters will mean to follow the system, and the sound will be from the clan (zhi). According to this, it can be seen that there are two main factors in papermaking, namely floc and name, floc is the raw material, and the basket is the tool, that is, the fiber body and the curtain mold, which is very compatible with the definition of modern paper.
The real paper in the traditional sense should be based on plant fibers as raw materials, after beating and percussion in water, so that the fibers have the ability to interweave and complex and bond and fix, and then dehydrate on the Internet and dried and copied into a sheet with a certain tension, which is suitable for writing, painting, printing, packaging and other plant fiber paper.
Therefore, it must have the following two main conditions: plant fibers as raw materials, not animal fibers, inorganic fibers or artificial fibers: after percussion, beating and other effects. Whether the fibers are pulped or not is the key to distinguishing paper from other paper forms. That is to say, only when it uses plant fibers as raw materials, embodies the whole set of papermaking art, operating methods and equipment principles, and has the function of writing, it can be called real paper.
Cai Lun's outstanding contribution to papermaking
Cai Lun's outstanding contribution to papermaking is indelible. First of all, the production process has creativity and breakthroughs, invented the "pounding" beating method, and established the method and basic process of papermaking. So, what is the process of Cai Lun papermaking? Or what are the methods and procedures for making paper? After the relevant experts have studied and tested, this view is more consistent, that is, the summary is: the waste hemp head, rags, bark, old fishing nets, etc. are soaked and chopped in water, boiled with herbs and ash swallows, pounded in spring, fishing paper, burning and other orders.
Specific methods and procedures such as: the first is "selection", the selection of "tree skin, hemp head and cloth, fishing net" as raw materials. Animal fibers such as silk wool were abandoned, and pure plant fibers were used. The second is "to", that is, cutting the raw material short and crushing. The third is "boiling", that is, the raw materials that have been prepared are steamed to decompose the adhesive between the fibers. The fourth is "pounding", that is, the raw materials that have been steamed are put into the white for spring pounding, and the modern papermaking language is called pulping and percussion, so that the fibers are broomd. This is the key to forming the chastity of paper.
The fifth is "copying", that is, sending the pulp mashed in the spring into the paper pool and suspending it with water, and then copying it with "waiting" or "praising". This is the ancient method of paper forming, which includes the "paper copying method" and the "pouring paper method". "Cai Hou paper" was made after the above process, and the papermaking in later generations was more and thinner than this, but these five were the most basic. Cai Lun's greatest creation is to establish the basic process and method of papermaking, and his papermaking process is also indiscriminate for modern papermaking technology.
Secondly, pharmaceuticals were invented and applied. The ancient "paper medicine" refers to those plant viscose liquids added to the pulp suspension when copying paper, commonly known as "water skiing" or "glue". It plays a very important role in the papermaking process, breaking through the final difficulties that are difficult to uncover after wet paper pressing, thus creating a writing paper that can be mass-produced, uniform, complete and straight. Specifically, it has three functions: one is to suspend and disperse, so that the paper is uniformly formed; the other is to protect the coffin, so that the wet paper is exempt from "embossing": the third is to prevent the fibers from sticking to each other, so that the wet paper is easy to peel off.
The cause of Cai Lun's papermaking
In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, due to the development of economy and culture, the invention of the brush, and the spread of writing to the entire ruling class, bamboo, wooden, silk, and drapery began to prevail. After the unification of the Six Kingdoms of Qin, there was a brief destruction of culture, and at the beginning of the Han Dynasty, social production had been seriously damaged, the population had plummeted, and the economy was withering, and it was impossible to talk about the restoration and development of culture at all.
After emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ascended the throne, public and private school education arose, and the number of students enrolled soared, although the enrollment of scholars was promoted by the mountain "Lu Li", but it played an important role in promoting the popularization of social culture. After the establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the imperial court recruited literati as officials from the people, and set up officials such as doctors, liangshi, Mingjing, and Maocai, so that reading became a way to advance, and also stimulated the trend of social schooling and preaching, and the flourishing of classics and the proliferation of writings soared. The increase in the number of readers and arithmetic, the use of wooden Jane, wooden mu to make a book is very inconvenient, and the silk is expensive, the average person is not in a condition to use, people hope to have a more economical, more convenient writing materials to replace bamboo Jane, wooden and silk, shuai.
Due to the popularization and improvement of social and cultural levels, the Eastern Han Dynasty and the public were very popular in writing history, in addition to the "Book of Han" and the official "Dongguan HanJi", the folk are also compiling. The writing of historical records throughout the country has also surged, forming a social foundation that the world will not be able to use after the invention of papermaking. Social demand was the driving force behind the invention of papermaking, and the contradiction between the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the large number of writing materials in society promoted the invention of papermaking.
Technical conditions and mechanical conditions The creation and invention of any science and technology needs to have a long-term accumulation process of the technical experience of predecessors, which is philosophically called the most changeable process, and the creator and inventor are making breakthroughs and innovating on the basis of summarizing the experience of predecessors, so that the quantitative change has undergone qualitative changes. Cai Lun papermaking is also inseparable from the experience accumulation of predecessors. Of course, this is not to say that before Cai Lun, people already had papermaking production experience, but some experience in the production of predecessors gave Cai Lun new inspiration and reference, and then invented papermaking technology. As mentioned earlier, our ancestors were the first human beings to have silkworms to extract silk for weaving, and legend has it that it began with the concubines of the Yellow Emperor.
In the Spring and Autumn Period, the State of Qi was able to use silk to "weave pure and beautiful things such as ice, silk, silk, embroidery, etc., and called the crown and clothing to walk the world". During the Warring States period, there were many types of silk fabrics, including Luo, Qi, Brocade, Embroidery, Silk, Shuai, Silk, etc., and it is likely that from the late Western Han Dynasty to Cai Lun's experiment with papermaking, people began to get inspiration from the process of bleaching, trying to use waste silk rice to make items that replaced Zhu Jian. Therefore, the "Popular Literature" has "square paper", but this "paper" is very thin and brittle, and it cannot replace the writing materials of the shu and the jian mu, not the real sense of the paper.
Cai Lun undoubtedly understands the process of sichuan silk making "paper", and he should be on the basis of summarizing the experience of his predecessors to develop new papermaking raw materials and methods. As far as the general level of social productive forces is concerned, due to the relative political unity and stability of the Western Han Dynasty for more than two hundred years, as well as the accumulation of long-term production experience and culture, by the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, new breakthroughs were made in agriculture, handicrafts and commerce, especially in science and technology. Paper is created under such conditions.
At that time, the handicraft system made cailun papermaking possible The main handicraft industry of the two Han Dynasties was monopolized by the imperial court, and the institutions that managed and operated the handicraft industry were Shaofu and Jiangzuo Shaofu. The task of the Shaofu is to "control the taxes of the mountains and seas and ponds to provide for the offerings", while the task of the Shaofu is to "control the palace". There were many subordinate officials in the Shaofu Province, among whom those who specialized in managing handicrafts were Examination Workers, Shang Fang, East Gardeners, and Eastern and Western Weavers. The workers of the handicraft workshops under the Shaofu are mainly from criminal prisoners, which provides labor for papermaking, and also requires that the Secretaries, Servants, Weaving Room Servants, and Shang Fangling of the Shaofu Must Understand and Master Certain Handicraft Techniques.
According to the Book of The Hundred Officials of the Later Han Dynasty, the officials under the Shaofu were Zhongchang shi, Xiao huangmen, and Huangmen Ling. Eunuchs were stipulated to be appointed by eunuchs, and the scope of eunuchs' appointments after Emperor Zhang and Emperor He was expanded. Chalun was emperor Yongping Shuinian entered the palace, Emperor Zhang built a junior high school as Xiaohuangmen, and when Emperor He ascended the throne, he transferred to Changshi, and then added the position of Shang Fangling, and the eunuch served as Shang Liling, which was started from Chalun, indicating that he was proficient in handicraft technology. These all created the conditions for him to invent paper.
postscript
Paper is a writing material, and after the invention of printing, it was used to print words. Its uses are very extensive, penetrating into all aspects of people's lives. With the continuous improvement of technology and the continuous increase of varieties, its impact on people's lives is also far-reaching. It has brought great convenience to people's lives and greatly improved people's work efficiency. It broadens people's horizons, enriches people's lives, and cultivates people's sentiments, thus greatly improving people's quality of life.