To be clear, in ancient China, the way official documents were written was actually the development history of calligraphy, a treasure of Chinese culture. In official documents, there are both running script and cursive script.
As early as the Zhao Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago, the writing of Chinese civilization was not truly unified. Each place had its own writing method, and each Chinese character had its own writing style in different places. Different ways of writing, although everyone uses hieroglyphs. Official writing can be traced back to oracle bone inscriptions. After the sacrifice, God's will and prayer messages were engraved on tortoise shells or animal bones. Oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, seal scripts, etc. were all official writing forms before the Zhou Dynasty.
During the Warring States Period, it was the State of Qin that standardized official writing for the first time, which had a lot to do with their vigorous promotion of Legalist thought. Since Qin Xiaogong re-enforced Shang Yang's reform, the state of Qin has been governed by law. There have been a large number of official documents exchanged in various regions across the country, and they will basically be concentrated in Xianyang. The large number of documents using the previous seal script will not be able to meet the demand, and the efficiency is very low. As a result, clerical officials in various yamen used a writing called "official script" instead of seal script. The emergence of official script is actually not an official compulsory act, but an invention of the lower-level officials. Subordinates include petty officials and miscellaneous servants.
The development of official script has taken a long time. This form of writing is much easier than seal script, but it is not so beautiful. From an aesthetic point of view, it cannot make the viewer more happy. Therefore, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the beginning of the Jin Dynasty, these low-level officials improved the official script and evolved into regular script. In fact, both regular script and official script have the same characteristics: they are regular and easy to recognize. It is very standardized. These two characters give the impression that anyone who is literate can understand them, which is very consistent with the official requirements.
The Jin Dynasty was the first dynasty in Chinese history where calligraphy and painting culture flourished. Scholars were popular and many literati pursued a higher aesthetic realm, so many high-quality literati added regular script to the regular script. A more personalized writing form: running script and cursive script. These two writing methods are actually the category of art. When this highly ornamental calligraphy method appeared, a small number of officials actually adopted running script as the official writing standard. For example, the best calligraphy treasure in the world is Wang Xizhi of the Jin Dynasty. For the scholar-bureaucrats of that era, being able to write beautiful running script and cursive script was definitely a status symbol.
In the Tang Dynasty, the development of Chinese calligraphy reached its peak. Various schools of running script, regular script, and cursive script appeared. The calligraphers of the Tang Dynasty had raised Chinese calligraphy culture to a very high level, especially It is the high-ranking aristocrats and the central elite of the imperial court who must have good calligraphy, such as Liu Gongquan, Chu Suiliang and others. Their calligraphy schools and techniques are still influencing every Chinese to this day. At this time, official writing basically used running script.
In the Yuan and Song Dynasties, the requirements for official calligraphy entered a standardized and widespread development. Especially in the Song Dynasty, many calligraphers improved regular script and running script, forming a new official regular script form. , and this regular script was officially used until the Qing Dynasty.