In China's history, there are many capable people and people, and there are naturally many inventions and creations. But the most famous is of course the "four major inventions", these four inventions are the crystallization of the wisdom of the vast number of working people in ancient China for thousands of years, and today we will focus on Cai Lun, who invented papermaking.
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty, written by the Southern Song dynasty historian Fan Ye, "has been compiled from the ancient book Qiduo in bamboo jane, and its use of silk paper is called zhi paper. Expensive and simple, it is not convenient for people, and Lun is a deliberate, using tree skin, hemp head and cloth and fishing nets as paper. In the first year of Yuan Xing, the emperor was good at his ability, and he could not use it. Therefore, the world is called 'CaiHou Paper'. ”
This is the source of the earliest claim about Cai Lun's papermaking in the Han Dynasty.
Cai Lunsheng was born in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty in a blacksmith family under the Mountains, and the family had been making a living from blacksmithing for generations. In the second year of Jianwu, Wei Sa took up the post of Taishou of Guiyang Commandery. At that time, Leiyang County was rich in iron ore, and the people of other counties often gathered together to smelt iron, but unexpectedly they attracted outlaws, and many treacherous things happened. Therefore, Wei Sa set up an iron official and no longer allowed private cast iron, so the old Cai family hooked up with the imperial court officials.
At that time, the emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Ju, the Emperor of Han Zhang, sent people all over the country to select intelligent teenagers to enter the palace as eunuchs. Cai Lun was also recommended for being too good, and Cai Lun, who was only fifteen years old, was unfortunately taken thousands of miles away to luoyang, the capital city, and entered the palace to begin his career as a eunuch.
Because Cai Lun was clever and hardworking, he became a small yellow door the next year, and then he was promoted to be a yellow door attendant who was in charge of official documents, which gave him the opportunity to contact the emperor and empress.
Emperor Zhangdi's empress was the famous Empress Dou, and although she was a concubine of the palace, she did not have any heirs. In order to consolidate her position, the vicious Empress Dou would try to get rid of any palace concubines she was not accustomed to, and the sympathetic Cai Lun had since become Empress Dou's right-hand man.
Among them, Empress Dou instructed Cai Lun to frame the crown prince Liu Qing's mother, Song Guiren, forcing him to commit suicide, and deposing the crown prince and demoting him to the title of King of Qinghe; Cai Lun also anonymously framed Liang Guiren, the birth mother of the crown prince Liu Zhao, and forcibly took Liu Zhao, who was still in his infancy, as his own son, and made the emperor crown prince.
In 88 AD, Emperor Zhang of Han died, and the 10-year-old Liu Zhao succeeded to the throne as Emperor He of Han. Empress Dou transformed into Empress Dowager Dou and began to bow to the government. Cai Lun was also promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General Attendant to accompany the little emperor Liu Zhao, and could even participate in major state affairs, and Feng Lu was as many as two thousand stones.
When Empress Dowager Dou died in 135, Cai Lun did not hesitate to defect to the new emperor Han he's empress Dowager Deng Sui. Empress Deng loved to write and paint at the time, but the paper at that time was very rare, and even if you were an empress, you had to save it. She hopes to have a good texture and cheap paper to write and draw. Cai Lun saw that it was an opportunity, so he volunteered to be in charge of Shang Fangling, and from then on he concentrated on improving papermaking technology.
Cai Lun was indeed very clever, in 105 AD, Cai Lun presented han and emperor with a fold written with hemp, torn clothes, rotten fishing nets and bark, together with paper presented to the han and emperor emperors, who immediately issued an edict to the world and vigorously promoted their use. Nine years later, Cai Lun was named "Marquis of Longting", with 300 households, and people called this new type of paper "Caihou Paper".
In the same year, Emperor He of Han died prematurely. The 13-year-old emperor's nephew Liu Hu succeeded to the throne, that is, Emperor An of Han, and Empress Deng naturally became Empress Dowager Deng.
As the saying goes, "The heavens are good for reincarnation, and the heavens have spared no one." Liu Hu, the Emperor of Han'an, was the son of Empress Dou and Cai Lun who had designed to frame the deposed crown prince Liu Qing of Qinghe. Naturally, once Empress Dowager Deng died, Emperor Han'an's pro-government Cai Lun naturally could not escape the revenge of Emperor Han'an.
In the first year of Jianguang, Cai Lun died because he was instructed by Dou Hou to participate in the persecution of Emperor Han'an's grandmother Song Guiren, and deposed the crown prince. Emperor An of Han sent Cai Lun to the court to collect his guilt. Cai Lun did not want to be humiliated, so he dressed up and hat after bathing and took poison and died.