Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 240 Hard Pen Calligraphy and Dip Pen
Yuan Keli and Dong Qichang are old friends, so visiting each other is naturally very casual.

Arriving at Dong Qichang's home, Yuan Keli, led by the housekeeper, went straight into Dong Qichang's study.

I saw chaos in the study, with messy toilet paper on the floor, and Dong Qichang's hands were stained with ink.

Seeing this scene, Yuan Keli said strangely:

"What is Brother Dong writing?"

"How did it get like this?"

He picked up a piece of straw paper, looked at the writing on it, and frowned:
"What is written here, and why is it written horizontally?"

When he noticed Yuan Keli coming in, Dong Qichang was rude. After hearing his question, he explained:
"His Majesty was bewitched by someone before. He wanted to write with the quill pen from Taixi and asked me to teach him hard-pen calligraphy."

"But this kind of pen is not convenient for hanging on the wrist. If you write vertically, your wrist will press on the words you just wrote, your hands will be stained with ink, and the words you just wrote will be stained."

"So His Majesty asked me to write horizontally from left to right and explore hard-pen calligraphy."

The change of writing tools was already in Zhu Youjian's plan.

Although calligraphy has many advantages, the preparation of pen, ink, paper and inkstone is too complicated, and it has many disadvantages in shorthand and other aspects.

For example, Zhu Youjian used charcoal when counting votes in Tingtui. But today's charcoal pens are said to be pens, but in fact they are just charcoal strips burned into carbon.

In order to prevent the minister from getting into trouble every time he is recommended to the court, Zhu Youjian has ordered the craftsmen of the inner court to make charcoal pencils wrapped in wood. At the same time, he was looking for graphite and planned to mass-produce graphite pens imitating the pencils of later generations.

However, these all take time, and charcoal and pencil handwriting have a short storage time and are easily altered by others. Zhu Youjian now asks people who need shorthand for daily notes to use quill pens.

The quill pen was introduced from the West and has been used for more than a thousand years, so it certainly has its merits. Considering that fountain pens would be developed in the future and hard-pen calligraphy would be the absolute mainstream, Zhu Youjian ordered Dong Qichang, Zhang Ruitu, Mi Wanzhong and other calligraphers serving in the imperial court to explore hard-pen calligraphy techniques.

Now, under the guidance of Zhu Youjian, they realize that writing vertically from right to left is not suitable for writing with a hard pen, and try to write horizontally from left to right.

This is a very big change for calligraphy. In the past, words that could be connected when written vertically could not be connected when written horizontally. When writing in shorthand, it is even slower than writing with a brush.

This obviously failed to meet the emperor's requirements, so Dong Qichang and others began to try to explore running script and regular script on the basis of hard-pen regular script.

Listening to Dong Qichang's story, Yuan Keli frowned even more. Because he realized from this that the current emperor did not follow the rules and wanted to change the writing method that had been passed down for thousands of years.

Nowadays, hard-pen calligraphy is only attempted in shorthand and other aspects, but in the future, when it matures, many people will see the benefits of shorthand and other aspects, and will use hard-pen calligraphy in accounting and other aspects.

Under the emperor's forced promotion, hard-pen calligraphy and left and right horizontal writing may become mainstream.

This change is hard to accept for an old man like Yuan Keli who is used to arranging things vertically. Out of concern about the emperor's forced promotion, Yuan Keli said to Dong Qichang:

"Your Majesty is young and acting wildly. Are you going to watch like this?"

"You are His Majesty's daily lecturer, and you should advise His Majesty."

Dong Qichang smiled bitterly upon hearing this and said:
"Why haven't you advised me?" "I once told His Majesty that the quill pen also needs to be dipped in ink, and an ink bottle must be carried with you. Apart from the fact that you don't need to grind the ink temporarily, it is not much more convenient than a brush."

"Moreover, if the writing method needs to be changed, many people will not be used to it. It is better to continue to use a brush and make ink that can be carried around and dipped directly in ink."

"Although His Majesty has accepted my advice and asked people to develop ink suitable for brushes. However, he believes that hard-pen calligraphy cannot be given up. It must be as standardized as brushes and other soft pens."

"A few days ago, His Majesty ordered people to make the bamboo tube dip pen used by the ancients, so that we can use it like a quill pen. Come and take a look at this."

As he spoke, he took out a bamboo tube from the pen holder and let Yuan Keli look at it.

I saw that the front part of this bamboo tube is not the wolf hair or rabbit hair commonly used in writing brushes, but the bamboo tip divided into two parts, which can be directly dipped in ink to write.

(A double-petal bamboo tube pen was discovered in the Zhangyibao ruins in Wuwei, Gansu Province in 1972. Hard-pen calligraphy has a long history. Oracle bone inscriptions are hard-pen calligraphy, and many Dunhuang manuscripts use hard pens.)
Looking at the bamboo pen, Yuan Keli's brows gradually relaxed, thinking deeply in his heart. Because he has realized that this is probably what the ancients said "cutting wood into pen".

It’s just that compared to brushes, bamboo tube pens absorb less ink, need to be dipped in ink more frequently, and the pen tips are prone to wear, so they have long been eliminated.

But the West is different and has been using similar quills. The emperor discovered the advantages of quill pens, so he asked Dong Qichang and others to explore hard-pen calligraphy.

This made Yuan Keli realize that the emperor was not messing around, but was restoring the writing method of the ancients. This made him more accepting of the hard pen. He thought that although the emperor was not doing his job properly, he no longer had the fierce objections he had before.

However, he still disapproves of the bamboo pen, believing that this kind of thing that has been eliminated by the brush does not need to continue to be used.

The quill pens used in the West are far less suitable for Chinese characters than the brushes.

Regarding his point of view, Dong Qichang took out another pen. Compared with the previous simply whittled bamboo tube pens, the biggest feature of this pen is that it uses a gold tip instead of a bamboo tip, which is also divided into two parts to guide ink.

Holding this gold pen, Dong Qichang said:
"This is a dip pen made by His Majesty. It uses gold as the tip. It can be used for a long time and does not need to be sharpened as frequently as bamboo pens and quill pens."

"It's just not good enough right now, so I'm still using the quill."

He is very fond of this pen because he has realized that if dip pens made of gold or steel are developed maturely, they may become a mainstream writing instrument like the brush.

In this way, as one of the first people to use dip pens and explore hard-pen calligraphy, he may become the founder and be learned by all those who use dip pens.

Of course Dong Qichang was very keen on matters related to his posthumous reputation. So he accepted the emperor's task and explored hard-pen calligraphy.

Knowing the temperament of his old friend, Yuan Keli looked at the dip pen and quickly guessed Dong Qichang's thoughts, realizing that he could no longer stop this matter——

As long as the dip pen matures, it may become a writing tool alongside the brush. As a calligrapher, Dong Qichang naturally wanted to compete in this aspect.

So he gave up the idea of ​​discussing this matter and decided to ignore the calligraphy matter. Anyway, the dip pen is not mature yet, and it is impossible for the emperor to promote it. By the time hard-pen calligraphy and left-right horizontal strokes are popularized all over the world, I might have been buried long ago and there is no need to worry about it.

The most important thing now is to educate the emperor so that he can become the wise king that literati expect, rather than studying randomly and becoming another Emperor Sejong Jiajing.

(End of this chapter)