As early as Jinggangshan period, Comrade Mao Zedong called Shu Tong "a pen in the Party and a calligrapher of the Red Army". His calligraphy skills are profound, his strokes are vigorous, his statutes are rigorous and his style is unique, so he is known as "free". 1936 during the preparation of Yan' an Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, relevant comrades asked Mao Zedong to write the name of the university. At that time, Mao Zedong was writing On Practice, so he recommended Shu Tong to write it. The name and motto of Yan 'an Anti-Japanese Military and Political University are inscribed by Shu Tong. When Shu Tong was the first secretary of Shandong Provincial Party Committee, he studied calligraphy six times in 1959 to discuss the art of calligraphy. Once, when Mao Zedong visited Daming Lake in Jinan, he said to Shu Tong, "The word' Gan Long' is everywhere, but it has no bones. I really don't like it. " But he often praises Shu Tong's calligraphy to others.
The famous Red Army calligrapher is from dongxiang county, Jiangxi Province. His father supports his family by doing farm work and cutting hair. Although his family was poor at that time, his father sent his son to a private school in the country in order to make him successful. Shu Tong recalled, "I was only 6 years old when I entered a private school, and my family was very frugal for me to go to school. From then on, I began to learn calligraphy and became interested in it. " Hard training in primary and secondary schools laid a solid foundation for Shu Tong's exquisite calligraphy art. Because of his poor family and lack of money to buy paper and pens, he picked red chalk from the river and grinded it into red ink, mashed wild cucumbers into yellow ink, used waste dyes as black ink from the cloth dyeing room, made tender bamboo into a "writing brush" and made paper from banana leaves, and thus he was trained. He writes with clear water first, then with yellow water when it is dry, and finally with black dye. If he can get a piece of toilet paper, it will be even more precious. /kloc-when he was 0/2 years old, he was famous in his hometown. /kloc-When he was 0/4 years old, a Mr. Bagong in his hometown celebrated his 60th birthday and invited Shu Tong to write a plaque for his birthday. At that time, Shu Tong had a large sum of money in his hand, and with a wave of his hand, he won a big word: "Like pine and cypress". Mr. Bagong praised him after reading it, saying that his words were vigorous, powerful, magnificent and broad-minded.
Since then, his calligraphy has attracted people's attention in his hometown. Every holiday, people come to his house to ask him to write couplets. When Shu Tong 16 years old, when he was studying in Jiangxi No.3 Normal University, many people asked him to write on Xuan paper and then mount it as a work of art. Some of his ink at that time has been preserved to this day. It can be said that the artistic cornerstone of this famous calligrapher was completely laid in primary and secondary schools, relying on his attitude of diligent study and practice. To sum up, he was determined to become a success since he was a child, and made unremitting efforts towards his chosen goal in middle school, thus stepping into a higher realm of calligraphy art that he loved step by step.
It is the habit he developed since childhood that made him insist on learning calligraphy in the following years, whether in the battlefield filled with smoke, in the leadership position with busy official duties, or even in the "bullpen". Today, Shu Tong's calligraphy is a household name in China, and "calligraphy style" is deeply loved by people.