Also known as "Qin Zhuan". It was popular in the Qin Dynasty. The shape is long, even and neat, and it evolved from Da Zhuan. Xu Shen's Record of Explaining Words in the Eastern Han Dynasty said: "Qin Shihuang is the first emperor in the world, so ... let it go. (Li) The company wrote Cang Xie, the CRRC office ordered Zhao Gao to write Love Calendar, and the Taishi ordered Hu Wujing to write Bo Xue, all of which were based on history as a big seal, or quite preserved, so-called small seal. " Today's remains (Langyatai Stone Carvings) and "Taishan Stone Carvings" (pictured) are the representative works of Xiao Zhuan.
The unification of Qin Shihuang is a feat in history, because it has real pioneering significance. He proclaimed himself emperor for the first time and established a unified and highly centralized feudal dynasty for the first time. Many of its systems have been borrowed and circulated by later generations. We can prove that the Qin Dynasty was mighty and powerful through various materials. However, from the establishment of the Qin Dynasty in 2265438 BC to its demise in 206 BC, there was only a short period of 15 years, and there were different opinions on Qin Huang and Ying Zheng in history. Interestingly, his contradictory personality and distorted psychology also brought him the whole era. The brevity of the Qin Dynasty is the embodiment of this contradiction and distortion. The deletion and revision of "books are the same, cars are the same" and the "feat" of "burning books to bury Confucianism" appeared almost at the same time. We believe that historically, this is not a groundbreaking reform, but a cultural embodiment of the military and political forces of the Qin Dynasty. The development of calligraphy in Qin dynasty can be said to have undergone great changes. During the Warring States period, the characters used in various countries, especially the inscriptions on bronze, were very diverse in both the calligraphy style and the ownership of the characters. That kind of rich, changeable and flexible beauty can be said to be everywhere at that time, and characters and calligraphy have long developed into beautification and decoration characters according to their own development laws. However, with the command of Qin Shihuang, everything was over and the development of calligraphy beauty was disillusioned. Instead, it is a cold letter with uniform shape and uniform stroke thickness. People call it Xiao Zhuan, which is the end of the characters in Qin Dynasty. Its characters are mainly official script of Qin dynasty, and refer to six books, which are kept by Li Si. In all fairness, Qin Xiaozhuan does contain many factors of formal beauty, such as symmetry, interpenetration and distribution, but it shows absolute order and norms. We can hardly modify Xiao Zhuan, because its structure and lines are impeccable and powerful. It can be seen from historical facts that this font has not been accepted by the broad masses of the people from beginning to end. Even officials have taken some stopgap measures because of their slow writing and wasting time, such as the appearance of Cao Chuan and Qin Li, which are all good explanations. But if you think about it carefully, our calligraphy history has gone all the way, and in the changes of various styles and styles, this font is still inseparable for a moment. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze its value theoretically. Although the appearance of Xiao Zhuan pushed the development of characters to a dead end, it led itself to the extreme of a character. We say that extremes meet, although we regret that Xiao Zhuan has hindered the development of calligraphy from natural evolution. However, according to the principle that extremes meet, what you lose is what you gain. Indeed, the appearance of Xiao Zhuan played a considerable role in promoting the appearance and evolution of official script in later generations. I think the meaning of Xiao Zhuan is twofold, which is manifested in two aspects. The first aspect is its significance to the study of ancient Chinese characters. The development of Chinese characters in the Warring States period is rich and diverse, which is a great thing for the style change of calligraphy art, but it is very troublesome for philology. Because people don't have a common or standardized writing standard, after the six countries entered Qin, the government needs to write in a unified way. Based on this, we affirmed the significance of Biography. In the study of ancient Chinese characters, it is the first time to make Chinese characters easy to identify, which can be said to have played an inestimable role in the standardization and development of Chinese characters in the future. For example, Xu Shen, a scholar of Great Mencius in Han Dynasty, directly benefited from Biography. On the other hand, although standardized and unified characters hinder the development of characters to calligraphy and beautification and decoration characters from the perspective of natural evolution, they at least give us a writing paradigm to learn from, especially as the last stop of seal script characters. Secondly, the appearance of Xiao Zhuan, because of its strong binding nature, made calligraphy have to rethink the road of development, which made the development of calligraphy turn for the better. It can be said that the appearance of Xiao Zhuan stimulated the progress of calligraphy to a certain extent and also made it die out. Thirdly, due to the impossibility of popularization and application of Xiao Zhuan, some more expedient writing forms and written expressions appeared in the society. In the Qin Dynasty, the history of calligraphy began to appear in a double-line form, that is, Qin Zhuan and Qin Li coexisted, regular script and cursive script coexisted, and stone carving carriers and bamboo and silk carriers coexisted. These creative calligraphy contents have been greatly developed in the later evolution of calligraphy, which can also be said to be an unexpected gain brought by the appearance of Xiao Zhuan. This is my understanding of the significance of seal script in the study of ancient Chinese characters and the development of calligraphy in Qin Dynasty. The original frustrating Xiao Zhuan and the regrettable Qin Dynasty actually gave us another understanding. In fact, the investigation of Xiao Zhuan can also be explained from the material writing, thus adding a material resource to the history of calligraphy. However, our investigation of the significance of Biography seems to have more theoretical value. So, let me look back at Xiao Zhuan now, with less regrets and more memories!