Meng Tian’s creation of the brush

There is a story about General Meng Tian’s creation of the brush.

In 223 BC, General Meng Tian of the State of Qin led his troops to fight abroad. He would regularly write battle reports and submit them to the King of Qin.

At that time, people used bamboo sticks to write, which was very inconvenient. They had to dip in ink again after writing a few times. One day, while hunting, Mengtian saw a rabbit's tail dragging blood on the ground, and he couldn't help but feel inspired.

He immediately cut off some rabbit tail hair, inserted it into a bamboo tube, and tried to use it to write. But rabbit fur is shiny and does not absorb ink. Meng Tian tried a few more times, but it still didn't work, so he threw the "rabbit hair pen" into the stone pit in front of the door. One day, he accidentally saw the brush he had thrown away. After picking it up, he found that the wet rabbit fur had become whiter.

He dipped the rabbit hair pen into the ink pan, and the rabbit tail became very "obedient" and he could write very smoothly. It turns out that the water in the stone pit contains lime. After being soaked in alkaline water, the grease on the rabbit hair was removed and it became supple. Legend has it that this is the origin of the brush.

There are also some records in history about the Qin Dynasty general Meng Tian making pens. At that time, Qin general Meng Tian led his army to attack Chu and went south to the Zhongshan area. Seeing that the rabbit hair there was very good, he used it to make brushes, and the brush was born. "Taiping Yulan" quoted from "Natural History": "Meng Tian made the brush." ??Cui Bao also said in "Annotations to Ancient and Modern Times": "Since Meng Tian began to make it, it is the Qin brush ear. It uses dead wood as the tube, deer hair as the column, and wool as the pillar." For quilt. The so-called Canghao is not a rabbit-haired bamboo tube. "

In fact, unearthed cultural relics have proved that the writing brush existed long before Mengtian made it. But Meng Tian's contribution as an improver of brush making technology is also indispensable. It is said that Meng Tian made his pens from the finest autumn rabbit hairs in the Zhongshan area of ??Zhao State, which produces the best rabbit hairs. The three bamboo brushes unearthed from the Qin Tomb in Yunmeng, Hubei Province were made of bamboo tubes. A hole was drilled at the front of the tube, the pen tip was inserted into the hole, and another bamboo tube with the same length as the tube was made as a pen cover. The brush is placed in the pen case and glued firmly.

To make it easier to take out the pen, an 8.5 cm long rectangular hole is cut into the middle of the pen cover. The bamboo tube is painted with black paint and painted with red lines. It can be seen that the production of this Qin pen has adopted a complete set of production techniques, and is quite similar to the current pens and their production methods. It has made great progress compared with the Chu State pens during the Warring States Period.

According to legend, Meng Tian once took sheep hair to make pens in Shanlian Village, and was regarded as the ancestor of pens by the local people. It is also said that Mengtian's wife Bu Xianglian was from Xibao, Shanlian. She was also proficient in pen-making skills and was worshiped as the "Empress of the Pen". Meng Tian and his wife taught their pen-making skills to the villagers. In order to commemorate them, local pen craftsmen built Meng Gong Temple in the west of the village. The small river that goes around the village was renamed Mengxi, and Mengxi became Shanlian's nickname.

According to legend, March 16 and September 16 of the lunar calendar are the birthdays of Meng Tian and Bu Xianglian, and the villagers will hold a grand temple worship meeting to commemorate their pen ancestors. Therefore, although Meng Tian could not obtain the patent for the brush, the brush he made was better than his predecessors and he contributed to the reform of the brush.

There are some records in history about Meng Tian making pens. "Taiping Yulan" quoted "Natural History" and said: "Meng Tian made the brush." ??Cui Bao also said in "Annotations to Ancient and Modern Times": "Since Meng Tian started making it, it is the Qin brush ear. It uses dead wood as the tube, deer hair as the column, and wool as the pillar. For quilt. The so-called Canghao is not a rabbit-haired bamboo tube." But in fact, unearthed cultural relics have proved that the writing brush existed long before Meng Tian made the brush. This means that Meng Tian’s contribution as an improver of brush making technology is also indispensable. Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" of the Eastern Han Dynasty said: "Qin calls it "Bi", Chu calls it "Yu", Wu calls it "irregularity", and Yan calls it "Fu". There is no word "bi" in pre-Qin books, but the word "yu" is early. It appeared in the Shang Dynasty, but Qin Shihuang only unified the name of the pen, which shows that the pen existed earlier than the Qin Dynasty. Zhao Yi, a great scholar of the Qing Dynasty, wrote in the article "The creation of the brush did not begin with Meng Tian" in "Yi Yu Cong Kao": "The creation of the brush did not begin with Meng Tian Ming. Perhaps Tian made it and was better than his predecessors, so he was uniquely good at it. "Ming Er." It seems that this comment has some basis.

Han Yu's "The Biography of Mao Ying" of the Tang Dynasty also mentioned that Meng Tian attacked Zhongshan and captured Mao Ying. Qin Shihuang favored her and named Mao Ying "Guanchengzi". Later generations used "Mao Ying" and "Guan Chengzi" as the nicknames for the pen. In addition, the aliases of the writing brush include "Mao Zhuzi", "Zhongshu Jun", "Dragon Xuyou", "Pointed Slave", etc.