Cai Lun papermaking classical Chinese
Since ancient times, most books and deeds have been made of bamboo slips, and what is made of silk (that is, silk cut according to the needs of writing) is called paper. Expensive and simple, inconvenient for people. Aaron invented bark, hemp head and cloth. Fishing nets are made of paper. In the first year of Yuanxing, play it. The emperor is good at what he can do, so he is called "Cai Hou Paper" in the world.
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Since ancient times, people have written or carved words on bamboo pieces and then compiled them into books. Silk used for writing is called paper. Silk is expensive and bamboo slips are too heavy for people to use. Cai Lun then came up with a way to make paper from bark, hemp head, rags and fishing nets. In the first year of Yuanxing (the year of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty and Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty), the emperor praised his talents and used his paper from then on, hence the name "Cai Hou Paper".
Cai Lun (AD 62- 12 1) was born in Leiyang, Hunan. He made great contributions to papermaking, one of the "four great inventions" of ancient science and technology in China, and was regarded as the originator and "paper god" by papermaking workers.
Bitter tears in the palace
In people's minds, Cai Lun's name is associated with papermaking, which is a name worthy of pride of the Chinese nation. But who would have thought that there was so much wind and rain and bitterness behind Cai Lun ... Cai Lun was born in a poor family in Leiyang County, Hunan Province, and his family has been worried about food and clothing.
Cai Lun Jr. is very studious, but due to family conditions, he can't study. He pays attention to the novel phenomena in life everywhere, and will not stop until he understands what he doesn't understand. Cai Lun is clever and resourceful, so he is resourceful.
When Cai Lun was thirteen years old, people from the palace came to his hometown to recruit eunuchs.
In ancient times, there were two main sources of eunuchs. One is to recruit from the private sector, and there is really no way out and no one wants to apply; Another source is imprisoned sinners. In ancient times, castration was one of the punishments for felons and one of the "five punishments". In this way, Cai Lun, who was only thirteen years old, was forced to be an official because of his poor family. He was sent to the palace and began his miserable life.
In feudal society, eunuchs were a special class. Eunuchs serve in the palace, serving the diet and daily life of the emperor, the queen, the emperor's concubines and other members of the royal family. To enter the palace, you must first "castrate", that is, be castrated (also known as corruption, that is, cut off your genitals). Because these people can't have children and can't carry on the family line, they are considered to humiliate their ancestors and go against nature. Although they were closely related to the royal family, lived a superior life and held many powerful people, they were still despised by the people at that time and called them "bureaucrats."
The castrated person is not only a physical victim, but also a spiritual destruction. Sima Qian, the imprisoned author of Historical Records, described this mentality in his letter to his good friend Ren An.
He said: "Nothing is uglier than insulting ancestors, and nothing is more humiliating than castration. A castrated man cannot be compared with a gentleman. This kind of understanding is no longer a generation, and its roots are far away. In the past, Wei Linggong and eunuch Yong Kun sat in a car with Confucius. Confucius was ashamed, so he left Wei for Chen. Shang Yang was introduced by eunuch Jing Ke, and the sage Zhao Liang was chilling ... All these show that I have despised eunuchs since ancient times ... I was ridiculed by my fellow villagers and colleagues for my careless remarks, and the insult was very serious. So I feel sad nine times a day, but I feel very lost at home and often don't know where I am when I go out. Whenever I think of this shame, I don't sweat and get wet ... "
The pain described by Sima Qian is only the pain felt spiritually because of being despised by others. In people themselves, castration leads to endocrine disorders, resulting in physiological and psychological abnormalities.
Cai Lun didn't leave any words to describe his painful mentality, but from the Biography of Cai Lun in the later Han Dynasty, it was vaguely revealed that he was also very painful. He "builds a car behind closed doors" and does not associate with people; The "violent body field" exposes one's body in nature, which can be said to be the distortion of the mind caused by the pain caused by castration. But these are only one aspect of Cai Lun's life tragedy.
Writing dilemma
Being in the court made Cai Lun understand the brilliant achievements of the Han Empire in science, culture and foreign exchange. The understanding of these achievements made him deeply feel that he must break through the predicament of writing. Biography of celebrities in China Inspirational Network
How were the original Chinese characters written? The original Chinese characters were not written, but carved on tortoise shells and animal bones, which is what we call Oracle Bone Inscriptions today.
Of course, carving on tortoise shell bones takes a lot of effort, and the speed is naturally quite slow. In order to save some energy and speed up, engravers often have to engrave that meaning, which was understandable to the locals at that time, but times have changed and people often don't know what it means. It is also for this reason that a large part of the Oracle bone inscriptions unearthed now are indistinguishable. At that time, there may be more sources of tortoise shells and animal bones than now, but according to the conditions at that time, it was not easy to get them. Tortoise shells and animal bones also have limited surface areas and cannot carry a lot of information. It is almost impossible to weave a large number of tortoise shell bones together without confusion: it is heavy, irregular in shape and requires a lot of work. Therefore, lettering on tortoise shell bones is only used to record Oracle Bone Inscriptions and royal blood, not to spread culture. Another original method of recording Chinese characters was to cast Chinese characters on a bronze bell, which is now called a bell. It's very expensive and it's not conducive to communication at all. It is only used in the records of national laws and basic systems. This bronze ware is a symbol of state power. When it is done, it will be handed to Zhou, and Jiuding belongs to this category. When the Zhou Dynasty declined, disobedient princes sent envoys to ask Zhou Wang how to deal with this matter, which meant to replace Zhou Wang's position, so "seizing the throne" became synonymous with coveting the throne. Today, we call this attempt to take the lead and win the championship "winning the championship".
The clock is used to record important events of the country or the royal family, and has no other use. The length of the clock is very short, and there is no long and huge system.
In addition to casting characters on Zhong Ding, in ancient times, characters were also cast on military symbols. The emperor sent his generals and soldiers with military symbols as evidence. The military symbol is made of metal and has words on it. It is divided into two parts, half in the army and half in the court. The emperor sent a general to command the army and gave him half his hand. He matched this half with half of the army and gained command. During the Warring States Period, Qin attacked Zhao, surrounded Handan, the capital of Zhao, and Zhao asked Wei for help. Wei's son Xin tried to save Zhao, but the generals of Wei stopped him. Xin had no choice but to lead his disciples to the battlefield to fight to the death. The gatekeeper at the gate suggested that he steal the other half of the military emblem in the palace through the princess. Later, Xin used the stolen bugle to defraud the right to transfer troops and sent troops to solve the siege of Handan.
In the Qin and Han Dynasties, the important activities of the emperor were recorded in another form, and the words were engraved on the tablets, such as the trip of Qin Shihuang and the sacrifice of Mount Tai.
Taking Chinese characters as one of the most important ways to record cultural communication is to carve Chinese characters on bamboo slips and wooden slips-bamboo chips and wood chips. At this point, we have left the word "literary bamboo slips", which comes from wooden slips. Later, China's silk weaving was fully developed, and there appeared a "silk book" written on silk. Qin Shihuang burned books to bury Confucianism, and later generations wrote poems satirically;
Bamboo smoke eliminates the imperial industry and closes the door to the ancestral home.
Liu Xiang didn't study before the Grey Cold Shandong Rebellion.
The "bamboo slips" in the poem refer to bamboo slips and silk books. [
Recording characters on bamboo slips and wooden slips is also a huge project, and this kind of record is also engraved. Moreover, in order to preserve the bamboo slips for a long time, after lettering, they must be baked with water and fire to make the bamboo pieces yellow, which is called "Sha Qing". The final version of the article we wrote today is called Sha Qing, which evolved from here. After bamboo slips and wooden slips are carved, they should be strung together one by one with ropes, which is called "books". The capacity of each bamboo slip or wooden slip is very limited, so an article often uses many bamboo slips and wooden slips. This kind of "book" is strung with hemp rope, silk rope or cowhide rope, and each string is called "book" or "roll". From the "book"
As can be seen from the shape of the word, the word means that two pieces of wood are strung together, and the roll means that it can be rolled into a roll. This is the source of a large number of works. But at that time, the volume of a book was far less than it is now, and articles with few words were often divided into many volumes. Bamboo slips are strung together with ropes. If the wear is serious or the rope breaks over time, the bamboo pieces will be scattered and several different books will be piled together. Once scattered, it is difficult to arrange, which is also an inconvenience of bamboo slips.
Of course, using silk is much more convenient than bamboo slips and wooden slips, and it is also easier to write, carry and preserve, and it is also stronger than the current paper. However, this kind of writing material is too expensive, and most people can't afford it except for princes and middle-class landlords.
The problem of written materials can not be solved, which greatly hinders the spread of cultural knowledge and the progress and development of social culture. Han Dynasty is a dynasty with great economic and cultural development. Bamboo slips and wooden slips can no longer meet the needs of recording and disseminating cultural knowledge, and there is an urgent need to obtain a convenient, durable and cheap writing material. The whole society is calling for the birth of this new material.
Cai Lun invented paper to meet this requirement of society. The invention and popularization of papermaking made Cai Lun's name among the giants of science. The achievements of the scientific and cultural giants who appeared in front of and behind him were widely circulated because of his development.
Cai Lun and paper.
"Where there is a will, there is a way." Cai Lun summed up the scattered experience of making embryonic paper from the folk, and combined with his own creation, invented a set of systematic and practical papermaking technology, which laid the foundation for the popularization and use of paper. Cai Lun made use of his position and the power of centralization in the Han Dynasty to promote papermaking throughout the country. In this way, Cai Lun finally made an extraordinary contribution to breaking through the writing dilemma with his intelligence.
Legend has it that one day, when Cai Lun was in the palace, Empress Dowager Deng sent someone to bring him a pack of fresh lychees. It turns out that local fresh fruits are presented to the palace every year. Empress Deng was especially kind to Cai Lun because he worked hard and diligently. Cai Lun looked at the litchi for a long time and suddenly asked the bearer, "Is the person who sent the fruit still in the palace?" Someone shook his head.
So Cai Lun sent people to recover the tribute day and night. This is an old man with white hair. When he saw the messenger in the palace, he didn't know whether it was a curse or a blessing, but he couldn't help himself at this time and had to follow him into the palace. To the old man's surprise, the court officials regarded him as a guest and asked him a lot about his hometown. Finally, they asked about the "wadding paper" that wraps fruits, which is a naturally formed silk tissue paper. Faced with such a kind official, the old man certainly told the whole story about how to make catkins, and took his daughter into the palace to show Cai Lun how to make catkins. Inspired by this, after many experiments, Cai Lun invented the papermaking technology that is still used today, and finally created "Cai Hou Paper".
In China, sericulture and silk-making have a long history, and China was once called "the country of silk". According to legend, the concubine of the Yellow Emperor was the first person to raise silkworms and make silk. It can be seen that sericulture and silk-making began when the Chinese nation entered the farming culture. After silkworms spin cocoons, high-quality cocoons are boiled in boiling water and spun. Poor quality is used to make silk cotton. The method is to put the cocoon in a breathable container, soak it in water and beat it repeatedly, break it into pieces, then put it on a chair and dry it in the shade. Rinse with clear water every day to make the silk whiter. After five or six days, it is dried and taken out, and it is made into silk cotton, which is used as a filler for warm clothes. In Mencius Liang Wang Hui, Monk once described his ideal kingdom. He said that fifty people could eat meat, wear clothes and wear silk. The so-called "clothing system" means wearing clothes made of silk and cotton. The above-mentioned method of making silk cotton is bleaching flocculation. The craftsman who made silk cotton took the silk cotton off the bamboo mat and found a thin layer of cotton on the bamboo mat. After this layer of fiber is dried and peeled off, it can be used to write and become the original "paper". [Celebrity Biography] China Inspirational Network Celebrity Biography
In China, the history of planting and utilizing cannabis plants is as long as sericulture and silk making. This can be traced back to ancient legends and descriptions in The Book of Songs.
In the period before cotton was introduced to China, nobles and rich princes wore silk, ordinary people wore linen cloth, and the fillers in winter clothes were also linen. Hemp is used as a textile material. In order to process plant stem bark into textile fiber, it needs to be retted in a pond. The water in the pond is flowing and hemp is immersed in the pond. Sunlight raises the water temperature, and fungi in the pond multiply. Fungi take pectin from hemp as nutrition, absorb them, and the rest become fiber bundles for textile. This is "retting hemp"
Inspired by retting system and based on previous experience, Cai Lun decided to create a new type of paper that can be written conveniently. After repeated practice, he chose rags, waste hemp, broken fishing nets and bark as raw materials, which reduced the cost of papermaking raw materials and provided sufficient raw materials. In the process of papermaking, he invented the production process of crushing, uncovering and copying. In addition to strengthening washing, chopping and soaking, he also increased the process of cooking with lime in alkaline solution, which accelerated the decomposition of plant fiber and made it more uniform and detailed, thus improving the production efficiency and quality of paper. In A.D. 105, Cai Lun presented his paper to Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, who praised his talent and ordered the popularization of his papermaking method.
Since Cai Lun invented paper, it has gradually penetrated into every field of social life. Paper for official documents is convenient for circulation and publicity, which greatly simplifies the way the government exercises its functions; Paper was used in the trial of the case, which made the record comprehensive, accurate and easy to save; The use of paper has also prompted the government to change its management methods in sending and receiving documents, income and expenditure of accounts and so on. All these make the government's work efficiency improve, management methods strengthen and functions strengthen. In the folk, paper has been widely used in economic life, such as tenancy, trading, employment, lending and other activities.
The influence of paper on cultural development and social life is immeasurable. In short, without paper as a writing material, the development of the Chinese nation in the fields of culture and science after the Han Dynasty would be unimaginable, the invention of printing would be impossible, and the scale of the development of Chinese civilization would be greatly reduced. The emergence of paper as a writing material has greatly promoted the process of China's civilization history.
Not only that, a few years later, paper, together with printing, compass and gunpowder invented by our nation, went abroad and spread to medieval Europe, where it broke ground and sounded the death knell of European feudal society, making Europe stand at another new historical peak after Roman times. Paper has had a far-reaching impact on the whole human civilization.
Extension and continuation
Cai Lun Papermaking (Historical Event)
Papermaking is one of the four great inventions in China, and paper is the crystallization of the long-term experience and wisdom of the working people in China. Since ancient times, book contracts have used bamboo slips, which are made of silk (that is, silk cut according to the needs of writing) and called paper. Expensive and simple, inconvenient for people.
Lenny invented bark, hemp head and our cloth. Fishing nets are made of paper. Mash it into pulp, then remove the film to remove water, and then dry it to make paper. Xing first year, play it. The emperor is good at what he can do, so he is called "Cai Hou Paper" in the world.
Cai Lun was born in Guiyang (now Chenzhou, Hunan). In the last years of Yongping (the year of Emperor Hanming), he began to work in the imperial palace, and in the early years of Jian 'an (the year of Jian 'an), he served as Xiaohuangmen (the official name of eunuch). When Han and Emperor acceded to the throne, he was promoted to Zhong Changshi (eunuch official name) and participated in the discussion of state affairs. Cai Lun was learned, conscientious, incorruptible and cautious, repeatedly disobeying the emperor and stating the truth of gains and losses. Whenever they want to have a rest, they don't close the door to receive guests, and they are naked in the fields. Later, he was promoted to Shang Fangling (official name of eunuch). In the past nine years, Yongyuan supervised the secret sword (palace sword) and various instruments, all of which were precise and firm, and became the method of making instruments for later generations.