During the Sui and Tang dynasties, especially in the Tang Dynasty, the need for more and better paper promoted the further development of the paper industry, which was inseparable from the political economy at that time. Under the situation of political unification in the early Tang Dynasty, culture flourished with the so-called "rule of Zhenguan (627-649)" of economic development and stable life. Classical books such as the Nine Classics (Zhou Yi, Shang Shu, Mao Shi, Zhou Li, Li Li, Li Ji, Spring and Autumn Left Biography, Spring and Autumn Ram Biography, and Spring and Autumn Liang Biography) were re-dissolved separately, with a total of 363 volumes, accounting for 87% of the 416 volumes of the Thirteen Commentaries on the Thirteen Classics. This is complemented by lu deming's 30 volumes of Classic Interpretations. In terms of historical books, 130 volumes of the Book of Jin, 80 volumes of the History of the South, 100 volumes of the History of the North, and 85 volumes of the Book of Sui were compiled, while Yan Shigu also annotated 120 volumes of the Book of Han. In terms of similar books, Yu Shinan wrote 160 volumes of "Beitang Shuqian" and Ouyang Qian wrote 100 volumes of "Art and Literature Cluster". In terms of Buddhist scriptures, Xuanzang "returned to The Beijing Division (Chang'an) in the nineteenth year of Zhenguan, and continued to translate 73 books and 1330 volumes during the nineteenth year of Long Shuo's reign (645-663) on February 6, 2019, until October of the third year of Longshuo. (Liang Qichao's "Drinking Ice Room Collection", No. 60, p. 17) These are only part of a shorter period of writings in the early Tang Dynasty, and by the time of "the heyday of The Kaiyuan (713-741), more than 80,000 volumes were recorded, of which more than 28,000 volumes were written by Tang Dynasty scholars themselves." (Zhang Xiumin, "The Invention and Influence of Chinese Printing", p. 19) At that time, there were so many volumes of writings that were unprecedented in previous generations. Before the book is written, it belongs to the manuscript, and after the book is completed, it is necessary to copy, and if there is no certain amount of paper suitable for writing, it is not a good thing. "At the end of the Qing Dynasty, a large number of books were found in the Thousand Buddha Caves (ancient name Mogao Grottoes) in Dunhuang, Gansu, mostly relics of the Six Dynasties and Tang Dynasties. ...... About 10,000 volumes were stolen by Stein, Bochhehe, and now in London and Paris. The remaining 8734 volumes, with fragments of Page 1192, are stored in the Beijing Library. All that beijing has in its collection are Buddhist scriptures... Most of them were written in the seventh and eighth centuries, so they are commonly known as the Tang Dynasty." (Ibid., p. 20) From this precious cultural relic, we can partially see the quantity and quality of the paper used in the Tang Dynasty to write books.
Chinese History of Chemistry, Yingko High, Beijing Publishing Co., Ltd., October 2021.
Another factor that promoted the development of paper was the prosperity of tang dynasty art, mainly painting and law books. The exquisiteness of calligraphy and painting will inevitably lead to the emphasis on paper, which is easy to understand, as long as we realize that ancient calligraphy and painting also had silk Ayamoto. Here we do not want to list the deeds of the famous calligraphers and painters of the Tang Dynasty to illustrate, but only to highlight that a style of imitation appeared in the early Tang Dynasty, and put forward a new requirement for paper. Tang Taizong Li Shimin, because of his love of Wang Xizhi's characters, sent Xiao Yi to deceive the original "Orchid Pavilion Preface" from the hands of the debater, so he taught the group of ministers to copy the lin of the good book. "To use paper next to the ancient post, to observe its situation and learn it." ...... The imitation is said to be on a thin paper retro paste, and expand it with its size" (Song Huang Bosi's "Eastern View of Yu Theory (Volume 1) on the Two Methods of Copying"). This kind of paper for imitation, it must have a high degree of transparency to be easy to use. To achieve a certain degree of transparency, the texture of the paper must be thin or it must be coated with oil scalding wax. Tang Zhang Yanyuan said: "Good deeds should be placed on a hundred pieces of rice paper, and the wax should be used for imitation." In ancient times, he was good at painting, and he did not lose his vigor. According to Yan Yuan, the art of imitation is used not only for words but also for painting; the paper used is not only thin, but also waxed. Whether it is used for writing or painting, and whether the paper used is inherently thin or waxed, it must have a certain degree of transparency, there is no doubt about it. Although the paintings copied by the Tang Dynasty have not survived, there is more than one copy of the law book. The Palace Museum has four kinds of Lanting that are said to be copied by the Tang Dynasty, and according to expert approval, the Shenlong can be confirmed as a copy of the Zhenguan era. Although it has gone through more than thirteen centuries and several times of mounting, the original appearance of the paper has changed greatly, but its texture is still not difficult to deduce according to this. The demand for this type of paper is not very large in quantity, but quite high in quality.
Another need is printing paper. According to the research of experts, the technology of printing books was established in the early Tang Dynasty. According to legend, "Xuanzang printed the statue of Puxian on Huifeng paper, applied it to the four directions, and rode five times a year." Judging from this story, the quality of the Huifeng paper is quite elaborate, and the number of five horses per year is not very small. But in general, of course, it will not match the number required for transcription.
As for the paper needed for people's daily life, such as pasting window ledges and pasting lanterns, it has also left a solid and reliable record in The Tang Dynasty literature and cultural relics. In view of the above, in order to meet the needs of social and cultural life and material life at that time, the working people of the Tang Dynasty further developed the papermaking industry on the basis of the previous generation.
The area where the paper industry developed in the Tang Dynasty was quite extensive. According to the Records of the New Book of Tang Dynasty, the Atlas of Yuanhe Counties, and the Tongdian Food And Goods Code, there are eleven prefectures such as Changzhou, Hangzhou, Yuezhou, Wuzhou, Quzhou, Xuanzhou, Shezhou, Chizhou, Jiangzhou, Xinzhou, and Hengzhou. These eleven prefectures are in the five provinces of present-day Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Hunan. In addition, Yizhou (Sichuan), Shaozhou (Guangdong), Puzhou (Shanxi), Julu County (Hebei) and other places in the north and south also produce paper, and some are more famous for their specialty paper. These are all recorded, which is enough to explain the wide range of paper production at that time; as for the lesser-known origin and thus the loss of load, there may be more.
Top: Tang Tilu 2nd Year (680) Hemp Paper (Magnify eight times)
Part II: Tang Kaiyuan Sixteenth Year (728) Hemp Paper (Enlarged eight times)
(From Journal of Archaeology, No. 1, 1956)
There are many varieties of Tang paper, and as far as the raw materials used in papermaking are concerned, hemp, rattan and millet are the most important. The paper used for official documents is a large category of hemp paper; according to the official rank and the category of documents, it is divided into three types: white linen paper, jute paper, and five-color hemp paper. Hemp paper is the most famous produced in Sichuan and is in great demand. According to the New Book of Tang and Yiwen Zhi, it is necessary to supply 5,000 times of Shu County's linen paper to the scholars of the Jixian Academy every month. During the first year of the new century, The Western Capital Chang'an and The Tokyo Luoyang each had four library books, namely the Classics, Histories, Zi and Ji, totaling 125,960 volumes, all of which were written on Yizhou Hemp paper according to the Old Book of Tang and the Chronicles of the Classics. It can be seen that the quality of Sichuan hemp paper was good at that time, and the output was huge. Of course, this does not mean that only Shu County produces hemp paper, because hemp paper itself has its long history, and different regions have inherited and developed. For example, Yangzhou Liuhe paper is a kind of good hemp paper. Song Mi Fu tasted and praised, "Tang Dynasty pulp Liuhe slow hemp paper, written clearly and thoroughly, old and old, into the water is not wet." This can be used as an illustration.
Rattan paper is slightly different from hemp paper, and it is a relatively new breed. It only appeared in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and developed in the Tang Dynasty. Its original main production area was Yuezhou Zhixi, but it was gradually extended to Hangzhou, Quzhou, Wuzhou, Xinzhou and other places. According to the "Atlas of Yuanhe Counties", Hangzhou and Wuzhou were produced in Yuquan County, and Xinzhou in Yuanhe, and Yuquan In Hangzhou, Yuquan Mountain, Yuquan Village, produced rattan paper. "Tang Liudian Hubu" Li Linfu notes also known as Qu and Wu Erzhou Gong Rattan paper. According to these records, the rattan paper of the Tang Dynasty is roughly from the areas bordering the mountains and rivers in the present-day provinces of Zhejiang and Gansu. At that time, the official government used paper, and the vine was second only to hemp. There are also certain rules for the purpose of use: white rattan paper is used for edicts of granting, conscription, proclamation, and punishment, green rattan paper is used for the text of the Taoist Temple of the Taiqing Palace, and yellow rattan paper is used for edicts, arguments, and edicts. (Notes on the Six Classics of Tang (Vol. 9) and Li Linfu) At the same time, the literati of the two capitals also praised each other with rattan paper. Gu Quan wrote a "Song of Cutting Paper", in which there is a sentence in the cloud: "The paper of the creek is raw and the vine is ripped, and the spray water is pounded into banana leaf ridges." If you want to write a golden man, send it to the monks of the San'in Mountains. The poem praises the rattan paper as smooth as a banana leaf and can be used for scripture writing. All aspects of the trend have become the trend of short supply, as Shu Yuanyu said in the "Sorrowful Creek Ancient Vine Text": "Everyone writes tens of millions of words... Natural remnants are easy to live. "Although the working people at that time opened up a new source of rattan paper in areas outside the River, the growth of rattan was neither as good as the harvest of hemp a year, nor as good as the three-year cut, which still hindered the expansion and promotion of the rattan paper industry. We can think that rattan paper was both greatly developed and limited in the Tang Dynasty.
Unlike hemp paper and rattan paper, the use of paper has not yet been found in the Tang Dynasty literature. This is probably because since Cai Lun invented the new art of papermaking, paper has been developing in its own way and has been used so widely that it is difficult to delineate the scope. Some of the famous processed papers of the Tang Dynasty, such as five-color golden flower Aya paper and Xue Tao's crimson small colored notes, may have been made from paper. Yuan Renfei wrote in the "Shu Notes", talking about the Tang Dynasty Guangdu (present-day Shuangliu County North) also produced paper, divided into four types, all cleaner than Huanhua notes. Huanhua notes, or Xue Tao notes, can be considered to be a clue to the processing of paper. Tang Liu Ke's "Records of The Mountains" and Duan Dao's "Records of the North Household" both mention that Luozhou (in present-day Lianjiang County, Guangdong) produced a kind of fragrant paper, but "the paper was slow and weak, and it was rotten when it was wet", which was far inferior to the paper. It can be seen that at that time, the paper was taken as the standard for measuring paper quality.
Top: Tang Tianbao 12 years (753) hemp paper (enlarged eight times)
Bottom: Tang tree bark paper (magnified eight times)
The above is a simple description of the three main types of paper widely used in the Tang Dynasty. There are other varieties, such as bamboo paper, moss paper, mulberry paper, and the incense paper mentioned above, which have not developed to such a status, so we will not talk about it. As for the processing of paper, such as the famous Xue Tao notes at that time, we very much agree with ming song yingxing's words: "Its beauty lies in color, not in the material." ”
In the study of the situation of the Tang Dynasty's paper for writing, it is worth paying special attention to the two results obtained by Mr. Wang Ming's physical appraisal and measurement. Mr. Wang Ming took the seven pieces of Tang Dynasty documents obtained by Mr. Huang Wenbi in Xinjiang Archaeology (now in the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences), all of which have annual models written on them, starting from the second year of the Lulu (680) and ending in the fifteenth year of the Great Calendar (780, that is, the first year of Jianzhong), just one century. "After identification by the Beijing Industrial Laboratory, their paper composition belongs to the hemp class. In addition, three pieces of Tang paper from Turpan have also been identified, one piece is hemp paper, one piece is bark paper, and one piece is bark paper. From this, it can be seen that the composition of these papers is roughly no external hemp and bark. A tree is a tree. At the same time, it can be understood that there are quite a lot of hemp paper and paper in the Tang Dynasty and the traffic is quite widespread. In particular, hemp paper, no matter coarse and fine, is the most versatile."
Another result is the length and breadth of tang paper. Mr. Wang Ming took two of the above seven documents, the sixteenth year of the New Century (728) and the twelfth year of Tianbao (753); since they themselves were all made of four pieces of paper, each of which was measured, "Its length is about 45 centimeters, and its width is about 30 centimeters." From this, we can understand the situation of this hemp paper size in the Tang Dynasty." He further measured 11 scriptures written by Emperor Taizong of Tang from the fourth year (630) to the first year of Emperor Zhongzong 's reign (881) from the Dunhuang Stone Chamber in the Beijing Library, and 5 Tang dynasty scriptures from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "From the 11 Tang dynasty scriptures in the Beijing Library, it is known that the length of each piece of paper is 42-52 centimeters (except for the fact that each volume of Tianbao's three-year volume is about 76 centimeters long, which can be regarded as particularly long), and the width is 25-29 centimeters; among the five Tang Dynasty scriptures collected by the Institute of Archaeology, the length of each piece of paper is 45-52 centimeters, and the width is 26-28 centimeters, which does not exceed the range of the approximate size of each of the 11 scripture scrolls mentioned above." The size of the paper amplitude is a measure of the level of papermaking technology, of course, it is developed to meet the needs of the society at that time. Here we can get specific data on the size of the paper used for general writing in the Tang Dynasty.
Conducting scientific experiments on ancient cultural relics of reliable sources and of certain times is an extremely important method for studying the history of ancient science and technology on the mainland.