Why is the Cai Jing Monument incomplete?

In the middle of the inner wall of Cave No.0/03 in Dazu Fowan, Chongqing, there is a stone tablet inscribed by Fan Zuyu and engraved by Cai Jing, which is called Zhao Jianyi Gong Tombstone, commonly known as Cai Jing Monument. Anyone who has seen Water Margin knows that Cai Jing is a scheming traitor. He was the first of the six treacherous court officials in the late Northern Song Dynasty. Although he was in power for a while, he was hated by later generations.

Cai Jing, with his excellent handwriting, ranks as the four greatest calligraphers in Song Dynasty alongside Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and Mi Fei. Cai Jing's calligraphy is rigorous but not rigid, elegant but not chaotic. Cai Jing's regular script official script, like a scholar-bureaucrat, stands on the porch, solemn and steady. Walking like a prince's grandson, radiant and lively as running water. Chinese characters are the best in ancient and modern times, and few people dare to compare them.

Cai Jing was contemptible, but his calligraphy was objectively and fairly evaluated by later generations, calling him one of the four great calligraphers in Song Dynasty. Therefore, Cai Jing tablet has always been regarded as a rare calligraphy treasure.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Mazazi, a merchant selling tablets in Dazu County, expanded more than 1,000 copies of Cai Jing Tablet every year and resold it in other places. In order to make the orphan copy sell at a good price, every expansion will destroy part of the handwriting, resulting in a large number of handwriting defects in this monument, which is really a pity through the ages.