If the ancients who wrote with a brush made mistakes, how did they correct them?

Writing is a simple and complicated thing for educated people. This is because the Chinese characters invented by the ancients not only have complex structures, but also have many strokes. For children who have just started to learn to write, it is easy to write wrong words if they are not careful, which is simply an unbearable torture.

China's Chinese characters are actually a kind of square characters, which have many functions such as form, meaning and ideographic expression. Practicing more at ordinary times can not only imprint the strokes firmly in your mind, but also write beautiful calligraphy. But even the best calligraphers sometimes make mistakes, let alone children who are just getting started.

In real life, many people have obsessive-compulsive disorder, and strive for perfection no matter what they do. Especially when doing homework or practicing calligraphy, once you accidentally make a typo, you will tear up the whole page directly. The author thinks that there are many ways to solve typos in real life.

For example, you can erase the typo with an eraser and rewrite it; Or directly coated with correction fluid; Of course, you can also stick the typo with tape. Both methods can correct typos. But in ancient society, because there was no such advanced method, once the ancients wrote typos, it was a very difficult and big trouble.

The Evolution of Ancient Writing Carriers and the Methods of Writing Modification

In ancient times, due to the improvement of productivity, people's ideology began to improve gradually. In order to better carry out production activities, people have invented many small methods that are beneficial to production and life according to their own life experience. Among them, "Knot Notes" is a great-span progress of human wisdom to a higher level.

Simply put, "knotting notes" means tying a knot on a rope according to certain rules and recording different things. For example, some daily chores can be summarized, while some more important things will be tied up. And the knots will be classified according to the law of time.

The author believes that this relatively primitive method of taking notes not only laid a preliminary foundation for the origin of culture, but also laid a foreshadowing for later people to take notes with bamboo slips, brocade and silk.

Although "knotting notes" have nothing to do with typos, a slight negligence may make a wrong knot. At the same time, it laid a solid foundation for the appearance of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bamboo slips and paper.

1. Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Zhong Ding

It appeared as early as the Yin and Shang Dynasties, and the inscriptions on Oracle bones were engraved on the back of tortoise and Zhong Ding. According to textual research, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest written form in China, and Oracle bones and Zhong Ding are the earliest written carriers. However, due to the writing of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the inscription, it will be severely limited by the materials, and it is impossible to popularize it on a large scale. So in the end, we can only gradually withdraw from the historical stage with the passage of time.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Zhong Ding are also engraved with the words of the Zhou Dynasty. If analyzed from a practical point of view, Oracle Bone Inscriptions carved on the turtle's back was actually a symbol when people divined good or bad luck at that time, so it was not a literal word in a strict sense. Most of the inscriptions on Zhong Ding are related to praising Zhou Tianzi or offering sacrifices to ancestors and gods.

In fact, lettering in Oracle Bone Inscriptions or Zhong Ding is also prone to typos. However, because Oracle bones and Zhong Ding are not easy to modify, they are usually discarded when misspelled. Of course, there is another situation where you can continue to write without making any changes. This actually caused great obstacles and difficulties for later historians and cultural scholars to study Oracle Bone Inscriptions or inscriptions.

2. Bamboo Slips Write Books

With the development of society in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, although people didn't invent paper at that time, they chose a writing carrier that could use local materials. And this carrier is now called "bamboo slips". The so-called "bamboo slips" are actually carriers made of bamboo pieces, which can be recorded simply.

Generally speaking, bamboo slips are mostly made of bamboo pieces, but the manufacturing process is not as simple as everyone thinks. First of all, we should choose bamboo with moderate moisture, and then we can cut and scrape it through three steps: cutting, boiling and baking. Bamboo slips made to this degree can be engraved on it.

(1) lettering on bamboo slips

Under normal circumstances, scholars in the pre-Qin period or officials specializing in taking notes will carry bamboo slips and carving knives with them according to actual needs. When necessary, bamboo slips will be taken out and carved with a carving knife. Although the difficulty of this writing style is lower than that of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the inscription, compared with the writing style of modern society, it is simply an unacceptable pain.

Because you need to be very careful when carving, otherwise the bamboo slips will crack easily. In addition, shallow carving is easy to be blurred by long-term friction, and deep carving is easy to damage bamboo slips. Therefore, lettering with bamboo slips is not a simple matter. At the same time, if you are not careful, you will engrave wrong words. It is also particularly troublesome after encountering this situation.

(2) The method of modifying typos on bamboo slips.

The first method is to scrape off the typo directly with a meat cleaver, and then correct it where the typo was originally written. Another violent modification is to discard it directly. Even if you write a step by step, you should give up what you love and start all over again. Otherwise there is no better way than these two methods.

After writing, we should carefully drill holes in bamboo slips, and then weave them together with cowhide ropes, which is called "bamboo slips", so that a gradually written book is completed.

Of course, if it is a long speech, it will use a lot of gradualism. Moreover, the probability of writing typos will be higher, and it will be very troublesome to modify. This is also the key to the slow writing of ancient books.

3. Write on silk and brocade

(1) Discard directly

With the change of dynasties and the development of culture, people have more and more Chinese characters, and the ideas they want to express are becoming more and more perfect. Therefore, this primitive and ancient writing method of bamboo slips has been completely eliminated in the constant updating and changes. During the Western Han Dynasty, bamboo slips were juxtaposed with silks and satins, brocade and silk. Of course, some people say that "draft paper" has appeared at this time.

People who can write with silks and satins are basically princes and nobles. This is mainly due to the high price of silks and satins. For example, imperial edicts or daily official documents are written with these two substances. Once the typo is written, it doesn't need to be revised at all, because these two styles of official documents are not allowed to be revised.

Folk writing basically follows the method of lettering on bamboo slips. Because silks, satins and brocade are expensive, some people may say that you can write directly on "draft paper".

But in fact, this so-called "coarse paper" is actually more expensive than silk and brocade. This is mainly because the papermaking technology at that time was very backward and could not achieve the purpose of popularization.

(2) graffiti

But if calligraphers write on silks and satins, there are actually many ways to correct typos once they appear. For example, you can paste a patch directly in the original place, and then write the correct text on the patch; Of course, if you don't want to go to so much trouble, you can put a cross on the wrong word and modify it next to it.

Ancient great calligraphers, such as Wang Xizhi and Yan Zhenqing, often wrote wrong characters when creating calligraphy works. Because there was no professional trowel or correction fluid at that time, they would directly erase the typo with a brush. Wang Xizhi's Preface to the Lanting Pavilion and Yan Zhenqing's Manuscript for Sacrificing My Nephew are all covered with their graffiti.

In fact, with the development of time to the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cai Lun summarized the experience of predecessors in papermaking and updated the papermaking technology to some extent. Therefore, the utilization rate of paper increased in the Eastern Han Dynasty, but not everyone could write on paper casually. Because the price of paper is also very high at this stage.

Although "Luoyang paper is expensive" is used to describe the world-famous articles, the original intention of this idiom is that people will use a lot of paper when writing a long book.

At that time, paper was particularly expensive, so there was a saying that Luoyang paper was expensive. But since then, due to the gradual improvement of papermaking technology, paper has gradually entered the homes of ordinary people.

The modification method of ancient people's writing typos with brush.

There are different opinions about the birth of writing brush. There is also a more reliable statement, which was initiated by Meng Tian, a general of the Qin Dynasty. The author thinks that the appearance of brush completely subverts the writing history of China people. It can be said that it is an unprecedented invention to directly change from engraving with a carving knife to writing.

When the brush met Cai Lun's papermaking, China people entered a new chapter in writing history with pen and paper. In particular, square Chinese characters are not only particularly suitable for calligraphers to splash ink, but also allow more people to enter the ocean of knowledge from ignorance. However, when people write with a brush, the probability of typos is actually very high.

If there is a typo in the usual practice, in fact, you don't have to care at all, just erase it and you can continue to write. But if it is an exam or writing calligraphy works, it is really troublesome to write typos.

Although there was no professional correction fluid in ancient times, the ancients also came up with many tricks to deal with typos.

1. Ancient typo nemesis "orpiment"

Orpiment is just a common mineral for modern people. Because this substance contains sulfide and traditional Chinese medicine, even modern society will still treat diseases as traditional Chinese medicine. But in ancient society, orpiment was the best companion of literati. This is mainly because orpiment can decorate calligraphy.

According to Meng Xi's "Bi Tan", a story and a record, "There is something wrong with the online version of the new book in the pavilion, so it is painted with orpiment";

There are also sayings in Qi Yaomin's Book, such as "treating books with yellow" and "treating books with orpiment". Orpiment, also known as cockscomb stone, is a kind of painting pigment. However, it is possible to erase those strokes that say "everything has its vanquisher". .

When writing a calligraphy work with a brush, once you write a typo, you don't want to directly smear or "repair" the work. In this case, you can actually use orpiment directly and smear it repeatedly on the typo until it is wiped clean. This is actually the use of sulfide in orpiment, because sulfide is very effective in diluting ink.

Later generations created the idiom "believing in orpiment" according to the characteristic that orpiment can change the brushwork. This idiom comes from Yang Jinqiu: "Wang Yan, a word, can speak, and those who are uneasy about his intentions are more likely to act, and his words are orpiment." Metaphor to speak upside down, nonsense.

conclusion

Whether ancient people or modern people, it is normal to write typos. When writing, careless or poor knowledge, ideas are interrupted, you will write typos. In modern society, because people use pencils, pens and ballpoint pens to write, they can use correction fluid, correction paper or correction tape to correct typos.

However, due to the backward technology in ancient society, there is no such high-tech thing at all. However, according to the actual situation, the ancients also invented many methods to correct typos. For example, scrape it off with a knife, stick a small note or wipe it off with orpiment. Of course, for some calligraphers who are free and easy by nature, they just need to smear or cross out typos with a brush to continue writing.