Introduction of seal script font
After Qin unified China, under the policy of "the same book and the same column", Li Si, the prime minister, took charge of the unified writing of Chinese characters, simplified the original seal script of Qin State, and cancelled various variants of other six countries.
Chinese characters developed to the stage of Xiao seal script, and gradually began to shape (outline, strokes, structure). The pictographic meaning is weakened, which makes the characters more symbolic and reduces the confusion and difficulty in writing and reading. This is also the product of the first large-scale use of administrative means to standardize writing in the history of China. The Qin Dynasty unified the national characters with the sorted seal script, which not only basically eliminated the phenomenon of different lines of characters in different places, but also greatly changed the situation of different fonts in ancient Chinese, and played an important role in the development history of China characters.
Xiao Zhuan was popular in China until the end of the Western Han Dynasty, and was gradually replaced by official script. But because of its beautiful font, it has always been favored by calligraphers.