Chapter 10 4. The invention of paper and its influence on the history of books

The invention of paper is a milestone in the history of books in our country.The emergence of paper not only revolutionized the tools for recording and disseminating knowledge, but also became an indispensable item in people's daily life, which played a major role in promoting the development of cultural undertakings and social progress. In the Western Han Dynasty, there were records of the use of thin paper made of silk wadding in our country, which was called "he hoof" at that time. In 1957, the Baqiao paper from the period of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty was unearthed from the ancient tomb of Baqiao in Xi'an. This is the earliest ancient paper ever discovered. In 1974, two pieces of Western Han hemp paper made of hemp tendons, rope ends, and rags were unearthed at the Han Dynasty site in Juyan, Gansu Province. They are estimated to be relics from Emperor Xuan to Emperor Ping at the end of the Western Han Dynasty.

At the same time as the ancient papers of the Western Han Dynasty were unearthed in archaeology, papers of the Eastern Han Dynasty were also unearthed beside the Ejina River in Inner Mongolia, and some of them still had characters on them. Compared with paper, the quality has been greatly improved.All this shows that during this period, a new writing material - paper was produced and developed.By the Eastern Han Dynasty Cai Lun's improvement of papermaking technology, the manufacture of paper had reached a very high level. "Book of the Later Han" Volume 18 "Cai Lun Biography" records that during the Eastern Han Dynasty and the emperor, "Lun is a creative idea, using tree skin, hemp heads, cloth, and fishing nets as paper, and played it in the first year of Yuanxing (105). Emperor If you are good at what you can do, you can use it accordingly, so the world calls it 'Cai Hou Zhi'".When Cai Lun was Emperor He, he was promoted from Huangmen to Zhongchang servant, and later served as Shangfangling.When he was in charge of the production of daily necessities for the palace as an official, he had the opportunity to meet various workers and noticed the common properties of hemp, bark, waste fabrics, etc., and thus used them as raw materials to produce high-quality paper. , to expand the source of papermaking raw materials, and objectively played a role in promoting the popularization of paper production.On the other hand, Cai Lun improved the technical level of papermaking.Making paper out of hemp and bark requires complex technological procedures, especially bark, which needs to go through processes such as peeling and cutting, retting, steaming, boiling, pounding, copying and shaping, and bleaching.Cai Lun successfully experimented with making paper from bark and promoted this craft. The appearance of "Caihou paper" is the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people in ancient my country.Cai Lun's contribution to the development of papermaking is indelible.The invention and popularization of paper made ancient Chinese books gradually develop from the era of bamboo slips and silk to the era of manuscripts, which expanded the scale of ancient books and influenced the reform of the book system.

Although paper had been invented in the Han Dynasty, paper did not completely replace bamboo slips and silk between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD, and it was still the era when bamboo slips, silk, and paper were used together.The use of paper for books has already begun in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Fan Ye's "Book of the Later Han·Jia Kui Biography" said that Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty ordered Jia Kui to teach students to learn "Zuo Zhuan", and gave "one pass for each of the bamboo slips and paper scriptures". The paper version of "Spring and Autumn Classics" and "Zuo Zhuan" each.Three Kingdoms period paper has been used in the upper class.With the continuous improvement and improvement of papermaking technology, the scale of papermaking continued to expand, and the superiority of paper was continuously revealed. By the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, paper had become the main writing material, and writing books replaced bamboo slips.