What font did Qin Shihuang write uniformly?

During the Warring States Period before Qin Shihuang completed the unification and the establishment of Qin State, the world was divided into seven countries, and there were great differences in the characters of each country. Even the same word in the same country still had different ways of writing, and the differences between them were even greater than those in other countries.

Differences in writing will inevitably bring inconvenience to the reunification of the country. China has been on and off for two thousand years, but it has continued the system of the Qin Dynasty, enjoying the benefits of unified writing, and will not bring unnecessary wars because of different languages.

The official text is "ancient official script"

Before the Qin Dynasty, I had never heard of anyone unifying the characters, but it was really puzzling that such an important event only mentioned the words "books with the same characters" in Historical Records of the First Qin Emperor. For two thousand years, China always believed that Qin Shihuang unified the six countries with Xiao Zhuan, which originated from various historical records later.

The Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Liye in 2002 have proved that the unified script of Qin Shihuang at that time was ancient official script, not seal script or small seal script. Among the 37,000 Liye Qin bamboo slips, most of them are ancient official scripts, and Xiao Zhuan accounts for a very small part, which completely denies the previous statement that Qin Shihuang used Xiao Zhuan to unify the six languages.

In fact, Guo Moruo mentioned this point long ago in the article Dialectical Development of Ancient Chinese Characters. Qin Shihuang used official script as a unified national script, and Qiu Xigui, a famous scholar, also held the same view. As for why we don't use seal script, it's because it was too complicated to write when ancient writing brushes were not popular.

The Qin dynasty lasted only fifteen years. In such a short time, in that era of inconvenient information transmission and extremely backward traffic, it is obviously impossible for all people in the country to use official script uniformly. As for the complicated structure of Xiao Zhuan, it is even more impossible. Therefore, Xiao Zhuan can only appear on inscriptions or seals to highlight the nobility of the royal family.

During the Qin Dynasty, many characters were still used by people, but official script was the most widely used. The real unity of Qin Shihuang is mainly official script, which is proved by the unearthed folk Qin bamboo slips and official Qin bamboo slips. Lishu became the mainstream of officials and people at that time with its concise writing.

Benefits of unification

Qin Shihuang unified the seven languages and weights and measures, which was an undeniable achievement of later generations. The differences in writing and measurement affect the cultural and economic ties between different regions. With the integration of the seven countries, the unification of characters and weights and measures has also become an inevitable trend of historical development.

However, the Qin dynasty spent a lot of manpower and material resources, and the great cause of unifying characters and weights and measures was basically realized in the hometown of the six countries, leaving the rest to complete the final integration and reunification.

The Western Han Dynasty completely inherited the benefits brought by the unification of Qin State. Later, although the major governors of the Western Han Dynasty made different currencies, they did not set up separate characters and weights and measures. It can be seen that the writing and weights and measures of the Western Han Dynasty have been initially stable.

Qin Shihuang's unification policy had far-reaching influence, which strengthened China's regional cultural and economic ties and became an important condition for the unification of later dynasties.

On the other hand, although Europe is about the same size as China, it has been a fragmented situation since ancient times. Apart from geography, nationality and culture, the most important thing is the differences in economy and language.

Look at China, they all use the same language. Even though some areas may not understand dialects, since Qin Shihuang unified the language, people who are not fluent can communicate through words.

A great man chosen by the times

Since the Qin Dynasty, China characters have been undergoing reform and development, from seal script to official script and regular script, which are no longer complicated hieroglyphics in the past. Qin Shihuang was able to transform the amorphous ancient prose in the Warring States period into straight and angular ancient official script, which was a great contribution to the cultural development of China.

A great man once said, "The people, only the people, are the driving force to create world history." Qin Shihuang is the representative of this unified achievement. He only promulgated these measures in line with the trend of the times, and the real creators were millions of working people at that time.

Every era needs a great man. If such a figure does not exist, the times will create one, and Ying Zheng, the first Qin Emperor, is such a great figure.

Some people criticized him for "burning books to bury Confucianism" and "traveling east to seek immortality", but he did not understand Qin Shihuang's contribution to the development of history and culture. In Historical Records, there is a clear record of the characters and process of burning books and burying Confucianism. Burning some useless books and killing some magicians who cheated the emperor, it is difficult to be sure that it is all Qin Shihuang's fault.

As for seeking immortality, there are still many people who pray to God and worship Buddha in this era, not to mention the era when they believed in the theory of destiny more than 2,000 years ago. As a representative figure of a period of history, it is very important to evaluate Qin Shihuang correctly. He can neither deny his achievements nor exaggerate his mistakes infinitely.