Weird Stories is the largest sharing platform for strange things in China. The webpage has always maintained a simple, refreshing, and convenient style, and based on the four major requirements of professionalism, scale, functionality, and visuals, with the advantages of stability, speed, and richness, Qiwengeshishi has served as a guide and model for similar sites, and has Through good word-of-mouth, it spreads among the vast number of exotic enthusiasts. So when it comes to "strange things", we have to talk about ancient books that record strange things.
What are the ancient books that record strange stories?
There are many novels in ancient China that record strange stories. I will list one or two here for reference only. (Ranked by age)
"The Classic of Mountains and Seas", "Huainanzi", Qu Yuan's "Chu Ci", Lie Kou's "Lie Zi", Zhuang Zhou's "Zhuangzi", "Yishi", "The Book of Songs" "? (Pre-Qin era. The literature of this period refers to China from ancient times to before Qin Shihuang unified the country in 221 BC. Foreigners call this period the age of mythology. Chinese mythology is very rich, but because it is passed down orally , many of which have been lost. Most of what we see today are scattered information in the above documents. "Records of Prefectures", "Stories of Hanwu" and "Internal Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty" by Ban Gu (by name), "Biography of Lieyi" by Cao Pi (old title), "Natural History" by Zhang Hua, "Biography of Immortals" by Ge Hong , Tao Qian (by name)'s "Afterword of Searching for Gods", Jin Wangjia's "Supplementary Notes", Song Dongyang's "Qixie Ji" undoubtedly, Song Liuyi's "Netherworld Record", Qi Wangyan's "Mingxiang Ji", Liang Wujun "Xu Qi Xie Ji" and "The Record of Wrongful Souls" written by Yan Zhitui of the Northern Qi Dynasty? (During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. The novels of this period can be divided into novels about ghosts and ghosts and novels about people. Among them, there are many novels about ghosts and monsters, but most of them have been lost. There are still There are more than 30 kinds. They describe unrealistic stories such as magical magic, ghosts and witches, strange objects, Buddhist supernatural beings, etc. They also record some anecdotes and folklore, many of which are full of novel and strange romanticism. "Mo Xie", "Song Dingbo", "Li Ji" and other widely circulated stories)
Wang Du's "The Ancient Mirror", the anonymous "Bujiang Zongbai Yuan Biography", Zhang Jue's "You" "The Immortal Cave", Shen Jiji's "The Story of the Pillow" and "The Biography of the Ren Family", Chen Xuanyou's "Legend of the Soul", Li Chaowei's "The Biography of Liu Yi", Li Gongzuo's "The Biography of the Prefect of Nanke", Du Guangting's "The Biography of the Qiu Bearded Guest" , Bai Xingjian's "Three Dreams", Xue Tiao's "Wu Shuang Zhuan"? (The above are works from the Sui and Tang Dynasties. During this period, especially the Tang Dynasty, legendary novels developed from the novels about strange people and people in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Most of them are It is about strange things, so later generations will collectively refer to the novels of this period as "legends")
Song Ci's "Record of Wrongs" and Li Fang's "Taiping Guangji" (this is a Song Dynasty story-telling novel. . )
Wu Chengen's "Journey to the West", Xu Zhonglin's "The Romance of the Gods", Luo Maodeng's "The Three Treasures Eunuch", Deng Zhimo's "Xu Xian Iron Tree", "Lv Xian Fei Jian Ji" and "Sa Zhenren" "Journey to the South" and "Journey to the North" by Yu Xiangdou, "Journey to the East" by Wu Yuantai, and "Journey to the West" by Yang Zhihe (different from Wu Chengen's "Journey to the West", and together with the above three travel notes, they are collectively called "Journey to the West" "Journey to the West") by Zhu Mingshi, "The Biography of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" by Zhu Mingshi, "Quotations of Zen Master Jidian in Yuyin, Qiantang" (i.e. "The Biography of Jigong") by Shen Mengzhen, "Journey to the West" by Dong Shuo? (The above are novels about gods and demons in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Following After "Journey to the West", a large number of novels about gods and demons appeared in the Ming Dynasty), as well as Feng Menglong's "Three Words" (i.e., "Yu Shi Ming Yan", "Warning Words", "Awakening Words") and Ling Mengchu. "Er Pai" (i.e., "Surprise at the First Moment" and "Surprise at the Second Moment") (the above are novels from the Ming Dynasty, but they are collections of short stories, including many masterpieces of gods and monsters, such as "The Old Man in the Garden Meets the Fairy at Night". )
Pu Songling's "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", Ji Yun's "Notes from Yuewei Thatched Cottage", Li Ruzhen's "Flowers in the Mirror"? (The above are novels from the Qing Dynasty.)
What are the forms of ancient books?
The main forms of ancient books are: bamboo slips, gold carvings, stone carvings, animal skins, silk, and paper books (engraving and movable type printing)
< p> First, we will introduce bamboo slips, gold carvings, stone carvings, and silk fabricsIn the order of appearance, there are bamboo slips first, then gold carvings, stone carvings, then silk fabrics, and finally paper.
These forms all have the characteristics and functions of books.
①Jianju: Also known as "Jian Ce", it can be said to be the earliest book in China. A jian is a piece of bamboo, similar to a page in a book, and can usually write a line of Chinese characters. A jian is made by weaving multiple bamboo pieces together with thread or cowhide to form a book. In oracle bone inscriptions, the pictographic character for a jian is the word jian. Many bamboo pieces are connected together, like a book today. The materials used to connect the bamboo pieces are mainly hemp rope and cowhide rope. Those connected with cowhide ropes are called "weft knitting", so there is an idiom called "the three unique features of weft knitting". According to the records in the pre-Qin classics, this kind of simplified book has already appeared in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, because there are written records in the "Shangshu" about the ancestors of the Yin Dynasty who have books and canons. However, there have been no archaeological discoveries to confirm it until now. It is difficult to preserve simple policies, so the simple policies of the Shang Dynasty were not handed down. The size of the Jane varied across dynasties. The writing method of bamboo slips was originally lacquer writing, that is, writing on bamboo slips with lacquer. Later, graphite was used instead, and later Mengtian of Qin State invented the brush. After the Qin Dynasty, brushes were used to write simple policies. The biggest disadvantage of Jian Ce's books is that they are large and bulky. According to historical records, Qin Shihuang read 150 kilograms of official documents every day. This is because the official documents written by Jian Ce could only write a few words on a piece of bamboo, and a large number of bamboo pieces were bundled into a volume. According to historical records, during the Qin and Han Dynasties, some ministers had to be carried into the palace by two big men when writing official documents. This shows that Jian Ce is very inconvenient as a carrier for articles. For example, during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the scholar Dongfang Su presented a memorial to the emperor, which actually took three thousand bamboo slips and sent two people to carry it into the palace.
②Gold carvings and stone carvings: Gold carvings refer to inscriptions cast or engraved on bronze vessels. From the Zhou Dynasty to the Han Dynasty, there are inscriptions on many bronze vessels such as bells and tripods. The contents of the bronze inscriptions of the Zhou Dynasty are mostly about promoting the achievements of Zhou kings, commemorating the achievements of ancestors, and recording important events. In other words, general things are not worthy of being cast or engraved on bronze vessels. The longest inscription of the Zhou Dynasty is 500 words. The value of historical materials is very high. Most of the gold carvings after the Warring States period include the supervisor, caster, date and time, etc. There are very few long and flat giants.
Stone inscriptions refer to inscriptions carved on stones. It is a widely spread form to use inscriptions as books. The earliest existing stone inscriptions in my country are the "Stone Drum Inscriptions", which is known as the "ancestor of stone inscriptions" in the world. Because the text is carved on ten drum-shaped stones, it is called "Shiguwen". There are ten stone drum inscriptions in the Palace Museum in Beijing. On the ten drum-shaped stones, a group of ten four-character poems were engraved in large seals, describing the hunting conditions of the King of Qin. It was carved during the Spring and Autumn Period during the Qin Dynasty. These ten stone drum inscriptions were unearthed in Baoji, Shaanxi in the early Tang Dynasty. His calligraphy has always been highly regarded. Now one of the stones has been worn away, and the other nine are also incomplete. This is the earliest existing stone inscription. There were stone carvings in all dynasties in the future. The greatest book function of stone carvings is the carving of "stone scriptures". Wang Mang of the Han Dynasty ordered Zhen Feng to copy the ancient texts "Book of Changes", "Shang Shu" and "Zuo Zhuan" and carve them on stone, which was the first of its kind to create stone classics. Since then, there have been stone scriptures in all dynasties, all of which have engraved classic works on the world. The main values ??of stone classics include: First, the stone classics of Han, Wei, and Tang Dynasties. Because there were no engravings at that time, the ancient texts based on them were passed down to future generations, so they are of high value and serve as the basis for the revision of classics by later generations. Second, the method of rubbing was invented in the Tang Dynasty. After rubbing the ink, the paper could be joined into a scroll, which became a popular book at that time. (Copybooks) The essence of stone carvings from past dynasties is in the Forest of Steles in Xi'an. "Forest of Steles" is the largest stone carving museum in China.
③缣磛(jiānb?): In ancient China, silk fabrics were used as a carrier of recorded knowledge. It is generally called silk script, and some people call it Zeng script. Because of its white color, it is also called "plain script". Before the invention of paper, people often wrote on silk, which was called silk book. Silk script emerged at the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Silk and bamboo pieces coexist at the same time. Bamboo slips can be scraped and modified, and are often used as the first draft of a book, while silk writing is difficult to modify, so they are often used as the final version of a book. In addition, the emperor's important documents were often made of silk, while the general documents of the subjects were often made of bamboo. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, silk scripts were widely used. Later dynasties often used fine silk to write important documents. The advantage of fine silk is that it is easy to cut and lightweight, but the disadvantage is that it is too expensive and the cost is high.
④Paper books: According to archaeological discoveries, plant fiber paper was invented as early as the early Western Han Dynasty. After Cai Lun of the Eastern Han Dynasty improved papermaking, people began to use paper to write, but bamboo slips and silk books existed at the same time, and they were still the main forms of books. During the Three Kingdoms period, with the improvement of papermaking technology and the emergence of large amounts of paper, paper manuscripts replaced simple volumes and silk books as the main form of books.
According to historical records, after Chen Shou's "Three Kingdoms" was written, many people at that time loved to copy it. Zuo Si's "Sandu Fu" was written in Beijing, and the masters passed it down from generation to generation. For a time, Luoyang paper was expensive. The earliest extant paper book in my country is the fragmentary volume of "Three Kingdoms" written by Jin people.
The binding of paper and books has also undergone a series of changes. Before the Tang Dynasty, scrolls were used, but after the Tang Dynasty, folding appeared, and later loose-leaf binding (vertical typesetting) was introduced. From the Tang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, folding system and loose-leaf binding system (thread binding) were the main binding forms. For example, you can see the Ming and Qing Dynasties Memorials (folded) and thread-bound ancient books (collected into volumes). The official documents of the Ming and Qing Dynasties are called memorials because they are folded into volumes.
Engraving and movable type printing
Engraving is also called engraving. Text or graphics are engraved on a wooden or metal plate to make it a base for printing. Then ink and print on the bottom plate. This technology originated in the mid-Tang Dynasty, initially starting from the printing of almanacs and Buddhist scriptures. The "Diamond Sutra" printed in the Tang Dynasty discovered in Dunhuang, Gansu Province is the first engraving printing object discovered in my country. From the Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties, engraving and printing were extremely popular, forming a grand situation in which official engraving, workshop engraving, and folk engraving coexisted.
Movable type printing: The inventor was Bi Sheng of the Northern Song Dynasty. During the Qingli period of Renzong, he invented the method of carving single reverse characters with clay. After burning them with fire, they became pottery characters. In addition, on the iron plate with the iron frame, evenly apply an adhesive made of oil rosin, wax, and paper ash. Then arrange the movable type on the iron plate as needed, heat it to melt the adhesive, and then use another flat piece to The iron plate flattened the words. After cooling, the clay type is fixed on the iron plate and can be printed by applying ink. Bake it lightly over fire, and the movable type can be removed for later use. Later he created wooden movable type. Movable type printed books gradually became large-scale in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, copper movable type was popular, and lead movable type was also popular. The invention and improvement of Chinese printed books ushered in the historical era of books, and later spread to all parts of the world.