Briefly discuss the invention and development of papermaking in ancient China

Paper making is one of the four great inventions of China. The invention of paper, the development and dissemination of human culture has played a great role, is a major contribution of the Chinese nation to the world of science and culture. Paper, as a writing material, is not never there. According to legend, there was a time in ancient China when people used knotted ropes to keep track of things. At that time, there was no writing, let alone paper for writing. In the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, when writing had matured, but there was no paper, our ancestors came up with various ways to record words. They initially engraved the text on the turtle's belly armor and cattle, sheep and other animals on the scapula. The writing engraved on these bones is called ? In 1898, the farmers in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province, when plowing, unintentionally unearthed a lot of engraved text? Oracle bone? which were bought by people who purchased medicinal herbs. The following year, the paleographer Wang Yirong discovered the writing on these bones by chance. The area around Xiaotun in Anyang was originally the ruins of the Yin Shang, so scholars have identified it as a Shang Dynasty script. These oracle bone fragments are about 3,500 years old, and their contents are mostly records of divination by the slave-owning class of the Shang Dynasty, so they are also called ? So it is also called "divination". However, oracle bones were laborious to obtain and inconvenient to inscribe, so they were not used for a very long time. Moreover, in the Shang Dynasty, besides oracle bones, people also carved words on stones and bronzes. After the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period, our ancestors began to use a new record of the text of the material - the letter and thick waterproof silk. Jianszhi is a general term for several things. Bamboo, wood split into small, narrow pieces, and then the surface of the scraping smooth, this is used to write a long narrow piece of bamboo or wood is called bamboo or wood, wider pieces of bamboo or wood is called bamboo or wooden documents. Jane's length varies, some three feet long, some only five inches. Scriptures and laws were generally written on janes that were two feet and four inches long. Letters written on the Jane a foot long, so the ancients also called the letter ? Shakuji? The words written on each simple are not the same as many, some write thirty or forty words, some write only a few words. Longer articles or books used more bamboo slips, shall be numbered in order, line up, and then with a rope, silk thread or cowhide strips braided together, called? C? Or? Book? At that time, in addition to the use of documents, silk also began to be used as a writing material. Thick silk was made of silk, and often a book was written on a roll of thick silk, so later there was the saying of counting books by rolls. As a writing material, thick silk and simple documents have obvious advantages over oracle bones and bronze. The production of bamboo and wood production materials, bamboo and wood from a wide range of sources, processing is also convenient, can be written with ink and pen, write the wrong can also be cut with a knife to rewrite. Thick silk is soft, smooth, thin, easy to pen, scroll. 1972 April and early 1974, China's archaeologists have been from Changsha Mawangdui one and three of the two Western Han Dynasty tombs, unearthed more than 900 bamboo briefs, above the text is ink script script, there is a written more than 120,000 words on silk and five beautifully painted silk paintings. This shows that, until the Western Han Dynasty, simple documents and thick waterproof silk is still widely used writing materials. Although the letter and thick silk has its advantages. But they also have shortcomings. Simple documents are heavy, not easy to read and carry. Some stored for a long time, but also tend to crack. Will Jane string up the leather rope a break, bamboo pieces scattered, is not easy to restore the original. History books say, Qin Shihuang that year, the daily approval of the bamboo brief official documents, weighing more than a hundred pounds. In the Western Han Dynasty, Qi Dongfang Shuo wrote to Emperor Wu of Han, using three thousand wooden slips, by two strong men to carry them into the palace. It took Han Wudi two months to read it. During the Warring States period, the thinker Huishi went on a study tour and carried five cartloads of books with him. The story of Huishi's five carloads of books. The allusion. Such a lot of simple books, transportation, storage are very troublesome, people often describe that:? Sweat horse and cow? The book is often described as Fill the building? Thus, the formation of? Sweat cow full of buildings? idiom. Thick waterproof silk also has many inconveniences. Although it is lighter than the letter, but the price is too expensive, ordinary readers can not afford to use. Just because the documents and thick silk are not ideal writing materials, so the working people in the long-term production practice, continuous exploration, continuous innovation, to find a writing material for the majority of people to use - paper will slowly invented. China's earliest paper is made of what raw materials? Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty in his preparation of our country's first clearly organized, systematic dictionary "Shuowen Jiezi" about? Paper? The etymology of the word said:? Paper? From the side of the system. This shows that early paper is related to silk. Our ancestors have long been planting mulberry silkworms, reeling silk weaving. Before the Shang Dynasty, planting mulberry silkworms, to the early Western Han Dynasty, silk weaving in the social economy has occupied an important position. At that time, the general use of better cocoons silk weaving silk, with the remaining poor cocoons do silk. Do silk, the first cocoon boiled, washed, and then put into the submerged in the water on the scorn of the mat beat, until the cocoon was whacked rotten, and then take out a piece of silk out of the silk, which is bleaching flocculation. Bleaching after the flotsam, flotsam will inevitably have a layer of interwoven messy silk sticking, bleaching flotsam more often, when the flotsam cool dry, it is attached to a layer of flotsam by the residual formation of a thin layer of silk. People stripped it down, found that it is similar to thick silk, can be used for writing, the ancients called? Heshu? Heshu? and thick silk is not the same, although it is also composed of silk, but it is not like thick silk made of warp and weft, but by the flotsam stick together and become. Heshu? was already used in the imperial palace during the Western Han Dynasty. According to ancient records, in 12 BC, Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, a woman surnamed Cao's harem gave birth to a son, arousing the jealousy of the Empress's sister, Zhao Zhao Yi, put her in prison, and sent people with? Heshu? wrapped in poison with words written on it to force her to commit suicide. Ying Shao's "Customs" says: ? Heshu, thin paper. Since the Heshu is a by-product of silk making, the source is limited and the price is high, so it is impossible to produce and use in large quantities to satisfy people's needs. However, the production method of Hirschsprung's hooves gave people great inspiration, is the important beginning of China's ancient papermaking. After continuous searching and testing, finally succeeded in inventing plant fiber paper. When was plant fiber paper invented? There is no record in the ancient books, but in 1933, China's archaeologists found a piece of hemp paper from the Xuan Di period of the Western Han Dynasty in the Han Dynasty beacon flint ruins in Lop Nur, Xinjiang, and in 1957, in a Western Han Dynasty tomb at Baqiao, Xi'an, Shaanxi, a stack of hemp paper was found, which was divided into more than 80 pieces after being uncovered and peeled. Because it was unearthed at Ba Bridge, it was called ? The Baqiao paper is so called because it was unearthed in Baqiao. It is dated to the 2nd century BC. This is the earliest plant-fiber paper ever found. Of course, it was made roughly and primitively at that time. So how to make plant fiber paper from rough and primitive to more refined? Cai Lun in the Eastern Han Dynasty carefully summarized the experience of folk papermaking, improved the papermaking process, and the selection of inexpensive bark, hemp, rags, waste fishnets, etc. as raw materials for papermaking, these things are not only easy to get, but also easy to process than the original plant. Processing method is: first of all, these things stir lime, maceration, and then pounded in the mortar, pounding the fibers scattered, and then add water to cook, mixed with a viscous substance such as gum, so that the fibers dissolve into a pulp, and then with a fine curtain in the pulp evenly fished out of these finely shredded fibers, let it dry. This made a thin, light, cheap and durable paper. In 105 A.D., Cai Lun presented his paper-making method to Emperor He of Han, who appreciated it and popularized it. In 116 AD, Cai Lun was named Marquis of Longting, and people called the paper he invented ? Cai Hou paper? Cai Lun made an indelible contribution to the history of paper-making development in China. After Cai Lun improved papermaking, a paper maker named Zuo Bo appeared at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The paper he made is even knot fine, white and bright, bright color. With the widespread use of paper, the range of raw materials for papermaking also expanded. Eastern Jin Dynasty with rice straw, straw paper, called? Soil paper? ; and with the rattan skin paper, called? Rattan paper? or? Vine angle paper? ; the northern growth of tree planting, paper made from plant bark, called? Gepi paper? ; the south produces bamboo, from the Song Dynasty to make paper from bamboo, called? Bamboo paper? And so on. Due to the expansion of the range of raw materials for paper, the paper industry naturally developed rapidly. In the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there have been people with yellow leaf juice will be dyed yellow paper; North and South Dynasties, there are more green, red, green and other colors of paper, very beautiful. 4 centuries, Sichuan, Fujian, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hunan and other places have become a famous paper production. 1637, the Ming Dynasty scientists, Song Jiayingxing in his book, "Tiangongkaiwu," a detailed record of the ancient papermaking technology. One of the methods mentioned in the bamboo paper is: first cut the bamboo into pieces, mixed into the lime immersed in the pond, and then take out a few days to cook, and then remove impurities to the pit on the fermentation; and then crushed with a stone grinder and water into pulp, placed in the tank; with a bamboo curtain taut wooden frame, from the pulp swung over, bamboo curtains on the fibers left a layer of the curtains, the curtains spread in the press, lifting the curtains, the layer of wet paper will fall; a layer of piling up of wet paper through the press drying. Wet paper is pressed and dried to create a sheet of paper. Modern industrial papermaking is a mechanized continuous process, but the basic principles of its production process, and ancient papermaking is not fundamentally different. After the Yuan Dynasty, China's paper industry in a period of slow development. Until 1891, Shanghai organized? Lun Zhang Paper Bureau? , the introduction of foreign machine papermaking technology, China's paper began to be made by hand into the stage of machine manufacturing. China's invention of papermaking, in the Wei and Jin dynasties when the first spread to Korea, 610 AD and from Korea to Japan. In 751 A.D., the Tang Dynasty fought a war with the *** people, and some Tang soldiers were captured by the *** people, among whom there were papermaking craftsmen, who passed the papermaking technology to the ***, so the *** also set up papermaking factories. Later Damascus, Syria, Egypt and Morocco, also learned our paper-making technology. In 1150 AD, Spain had a paper factory. Later, Germany, England and Holland also made paper, and after the 16th century, paper-making technology spread from Europe to North America. Since then, it has gradually spread all over the world. China's ancient invention and spread of papermaking, in our country and even the world's cultural development in the history of the contribution is indelible!