Chapter 349: Cangjie Creates Writing

Sweet Spring Mountain lies thirty li north of Yunyang County, named for the clear spring on the mountain. The place stays cool even in the height of the sixth month, so Qin built a detached palace here, calling it "Forest Light Palace."

Forest Light Palace not only served for escaping the heat and hunting, but because it was not far from Beidi and Shang Commandery, it could also be used to drill troops and overawe the Rong and Di barbarians, and to feast and entertain the vassal tribes. Every year, the First Emperor would arrive at Forest Light Palace in the fifth or sixth month, and only return to Xianyang or Zhangtai in the eighth or ninth month.

Following the custom that the Emperor never left government affairs behind wherever he went, every year many policy decisions were deliberated and settled here.

This year was no exception. The First Emperor's carriage had just entered Forest Light Palace, and he had just let Huhai and the other princes amuse themselves, when without pausing to rest he summoned the three accompanying officials: Commandant of Justice Li Si, Prefect of the Palace Chariots Zhao Gao, and Grand Astrologer Hu Wujing.

After winning the debate over feudalism versus commanderies and counties, Li Si had already surpassed the Left and Right Chancellors to become the empire's true chief minister. When the Emperor deliberated state policy, he often called Li Si directly for consultation; once sovereign and minister reached consensus, they merely informed the Chancellor and the Imperial Secretary...

As for why the Emperor had brought him along to Forest Light Palace today and summoned him immediately upon arrival, Li Si had a fair idea.

A glance at Zhao Gao and Hu Wujing to his left and right, and the three great calligraphers of Qin were all assembled.

The two men respectfully invited him to go ahead; Li Si did not stand on ceremony, smiled faintly, and was the first to enter the hall.

The First Emperor wore a set of deep black "Jun Xuan" robes and stood with his hands clasped behind his back in the center of the hall. Beneath his feet lay white silk, covered with many written characters. The Emperor was staring at these characters in silence.

"Your servants pay homage to Your Majesty!"

The three men bowed down in unison. The First Emperor turned around and, without wasting words, said bluntly: "Ever since King Ping of Zhou moved east, the feudal lords governed by force and no longer united under the old ways. They hated how rites and music harmed their own interests and all discarded their classical texts. Thus, caps and robes diverged in form, speech diverged in sound, and writing diverged in shape."

"Now, across the lands under Heaven, customs differ every five li, and speech differs every ten li. The elegant tongue of ancestral Zhou is no more, a problem too deep-rooted to reverse. That would be one thing, but writing is the same. The Greater Seal script has been altered, and Qi, Chu, Yan, and the Three Jin have each formed their own systems."

He looked at Li Si: "Commandant of Justice, you are a calligraphy master renowned across the land. You once served as a petty official in Chu and know Chu script. You also studied under Master Xun and learned the Three Jin script from him, and you spent several years at Jixia, so Qi script is not unfamiliar to you. If I recall correctly, when We made war and diplomacy with Yan, it was also the Commandant who translated Yan's letters into Qin seal script for Us. Today, come and examine these scripts and speak of them!"

Li Si assented, then shifted his steps to a spot somewhat north in the great hall. Treading on the Yan characters beneath his feet, he said: "Your Majesty, the people of Yan are descendants of Duke Shao, a great state of the Ji surname, and they are most fond of reviving antiquity. They studied the abdications of Yao and Shun, and even in writing, they often imitate the ancient. Yet what they imitate is not the Greater Seal script, but the even older oracle bone inscriptions."

"Stubbornly clinging to antiquity without digesting it." The First Emperor held the people of Yan in the greatest contempt.

Having spoken, Li Si shifted his steps to the center of the hall. Looking at the scripts of Zhao, Wei, and Han, he said: "In the lands of the Three Jin, the folk customs are rash and impatient, living by chasing profit. Even their writing exudes an unbearable haste. They oversimplified the Greater Seal script until 'horse' no longer looked like horse, 'tiger' no longer looked like tiger, and people from other states could not understand it at all."

Next came the Chu script. Li Si showed no mercy at all to the writing of his former homeland, stating coldly: "Chu script has always differed from the Central Plains. It resembles birds and insects, and is thus called bird-worm seal script. Over the past century, its writing style has grown increasingly flowing and sloppy, elusive and hard to grasp."

Finally, he pointed at the Qi characters and said: "Qi is fond of Confucianism, influenced by the culture of Zou and Lu. The scripts of Qi and Lu are both rather square and upright, bearing some resemblance in form to Qin seal script. But when it comes to the specific strokes..."

Li Si smiled and shook his head, then bowed to the First Emperor again: "In summary, the scripts of the six states are extremely disordered in form. At the low end, a character like 'horse' has over twenty ways of being written; at the high end, some have over a hundred ways. All are difficult to distinguish."

"It is exactly as the Commandant of Justice says. Now the six kings have all admitted their crimes, and the six states have been transformed into commanderies and counties, with uniform decrees and laws. Yet recently, reports from the governors and assistants in various places say that because the scripts of the six states differ, when decrees from Xianyang are sent to the localities, they must be translated into the local script before those locally selected officials can understand them..."

"This is truly outrageous. Is this the six states being unified under Qin, or Qin being unified under the six states?"

The First Emperor was quite displeased by this. With a flick of his sleeve, he said: "Whether Mohists, Confucians, or Legalists, all say that the realm under Heaven must be settled into one. But speaking of it, what is true unification?"

"Is it merely to be like the House of Zhou — 'Under the whole Heaven, every spot is the sovereign's ground; to the borders of the land, every individual is the sovereign's minister' — and then govern by following their customs?"

His ambition did not stop there. Shaking his head, he said: "We shall not only destroy the state altars of the six kingdoms and unify the territory."

"We shall unify the laws, measures, and weights of all under Heaven, so that the zhang, chi, and cun of Jiaodong are the same as those of Xianyang, and the zhong, shi, and dou of Kuaiji are the same as those of Ba and Shu."

"We shall unify the cart tracks under Heaven, all six chi wide, so that officials and merchants everywhere may travel to and fro without hindrance."

"And now, We shall also unify the writing, so that letters and correspondence among the thirty-six commanderies all use Qin script, with no further need for translation and recopying, so that even a petty clerk in Yuyang Commandery can understand Our edicts. Only this will be true unification!"

Zhao Gao was the first to flatter him: "Unifying weights and measures, making cart tracks uniform, and making writing uniform — this is a grand feat unseen since the first division of Heaven and Earth. Your Majesty's far-sighted vision fills your servant with admiration."

The First Emperor also announced the purpose of summoning the three men: "We wish to abolish those scripts that do not conform to Qin writing. Beginning from the first month of next year, should any official again use the scripts of the six states, first offense will be fined from his salary, second offense will be dismissal from office!"

He added: "You three are of exquisite calligraphy, renowned across the land. Starting today, following the example of the Zhou-era 'Shi Zhou Chapters,' take the three-thousand-odd Qin seal characters, discard the complex and adopt the simple, and write them on bamboo slips in rhythmic, easy-to-recite phrases. These will then serve as model texts, distributed to the thirty-six commanderies, for officials and academy students to copy and study. We must ensure that Qin writing is promoted in all commanderies, and utterly extinguish the variant scripts of the six states!"

Li Si, Zhao Gao, and Hu Wujing assented. They were not unfamiliar with the "Shi Zhou Chapters" — it was a literacy primer compiled by the Grand Astrologer in the time of King Xuan of Zhou. The First Emperor's meaning was for each of them to use Qin seal script to compile a literacy textbook suitable for all ages, and promote it across the realm...

"Your Majesty, your servant Heifu comes to report on his mission!"

Just as the three men were taking their leave after receiving orders, a loud voice rang out from outside the hall. It was Heifu, the Prefect of the Palace Gentlemen, who had been dispatched to Yunyang County the day before yesterday — he had returned!

Having obtained permission, Heifu hurriedly entered the hall. The First Emperor looked at him and said: "The convict clerk Cheng Miao is not yet dead?"

"Thanks to Your Majesty's benevolence, Cheng Miao is fortunate not to have died."

As he spoke, Heifu presented with both hands a piece of silk cloth and a bamboo slip from his bosom.

"Your Majesty, this is Cheng Miao's personal statement!"

"Only now he makes a personal statement?" The First Emperor sneered. "What was he doing ten years ago when Fan Yuqi rebelled?"

The First Emperor did not wish to take it, but Heifu kept holding it up. He had also seen the hall floor covered with the scripts of the six states, and thought to himself that he had come at exactly the right time. He bowed his head and said:

"Your Majesty, Cheng Miao knows he is guilty. Therefore, he spent ten years accomplishing a great matter beneficial to the state!"

Then, without omitting a single detail, Heifu reported to the Emperor how Cheng Miao, in Yunyang Prison, had pondered deeply for ten years, modified the round brushstrokes of the Greater and Lesser Seal scripts, combined them with the shorthand style Qin clerks used for recording case reports and legal documents, and produced three thousand characters of clerical script.

The First Emperor's attitude softened slightly. This matter was something Cheng Miao had been working on before his imprisonment, and it was precisely for this reason that he had spared Cheng Miao's life, wanting to see what results he could produce.

But the First Emperor was not a patient man. This time he had sent Heifu to inspect; if there were results, well and good. If there were no results, Cheng Miao would likely have to experience true prison life.

He took the silk letter and bamboo slips Heifu had brought and saw that the memorial was written in both seal script and clerical script respectively.

Heifu also relayed on his behalf: "Cheng Miao believes that after Your Majesty unified the realm, government affairs, whether in the central court or the commanderies and counties, have grown increasingly numerous. The rounded seal script is too slow to write and no longer suits the heavy workload. The clerical script Cheng Miao created takes Qin seal script as its standard, mixes in the shorthand writing methods of Qin clerks from various places, and replaces the round turns of seal script with square, angular strokes. The clerks of Yunyang Prison tested it and found that copying a five-hundred-character decree in seal script takes a quarter and a half of an hour, but in clerical script it takes only a quarter of an hour..."

He had served in the grassroots government, so he knew that because of Qin's unique system of laws and ordinances, even a small county office had to handle a great volume of lawsuits every day, receive many decrees, and send out numerous legal documents.

Therefore, whether in the central court or the commanderies and counties, there existed a great number of brush-and-knife clerks. In an age without printing, the only method was copying by hand, and the speed of copying directly determined work efficiency.

The First Emperor was also a man who placed extreme importance on efficiency. Even casting a bronze statue or building a palace demanded rapid completion. Sometimes, if the Imperial Secretary's office failed to copy his issued edicts in time, the Emperor would fly into a thunderous rage and have the brush-and-knife clerks dismissed, replacing them with a new batch.

Now, hearing that clerical script could increase work efficiency by a third, how could he not be pleased?

After reading Cheng Miao's personal statement, the First Emperor asked: "How many clerical characters has Cheng Miao created in total?"

Heifu said: "Over three thousand three hundred in total. Every seal character has a corresponding clerical form..."

The First Emperor mused: "We wish to make all writing under Heaven uniform, to have the thirty-six commanderies discard the scripts of the six states and use Qin seal script. To discard the old scripts of the six states and simultaneously establish a new script — would that not be inappropriate? If this clerical script were distributed to the localities, would the officials be able to recognize it?"

Heifu did his utmost to advance the matter: "Cheng Miao has said that clerical script is the shorthand of seal script. He did not create new characters from scratch, but only slightly modified them; the character forms and strokes have not changed greatly. Moreover, your servant has heard a saying: 'In rites, simplicity is best.' Ever since Lord Shang's reforms, Qin has been streamlining rites and eliminating the cumbersome. Why can writing not also be streamlined?"

"When your servant was in Nan Commandery, he discovered that the brush-and-knife clerks in the commanderies and counties had long been using similar methods to simplify character forms for easier writing and greater speed. But because each person's habits differ, variant character forms often appeared. If this continues for long, it will instead be a bad thing. Blocking is not as good as channeling. It would be better to use the Small Seal script as the standard formal script, used for edicts and official documents, and clerical script as the auxiliary script, used for ordinary records. In this way, whether in the Nine Ministers' offices or the commanderies and counties, when handling government affairs, one can follow what is expedient and simple, achieving twice the result with half the effort. Why not gladly do so?"

These words dispelled the First Emperor's last trace of hesitation. He nodded and said: "Let it be as you have said. Order Cheng Miao released from prison to come to Forest Light Palace for an audience, and have the clerical script taught to the brush-and-knife clerks. Once the Commandant of Justice, the Prefect of the Palace Chariots, and the Grand Astrologer have each produced their seal script chapters, have everyone copy them in clerical script and distribute them together across the realm!"

Having spoken, the First Emperor sighed with emotion: "In ancient times, Cangjie created writing to instruct future generations, and only then did the realm under Heaven have a script. And now, a convict clerk has created clerical script to follow what is expedient and simple. Cheng Miao's past crimes can thus be offset..."

"Your Majesty is sagaciously wise!"

Seizing the opportune moment, Heifu bowed again and said: "Inspired by Cheng Miao, your servant also has an idea that might become an aid to Your Majesty's unification of writing!"

The First Emperor laughed upon hearing this: "Could it be that you also want to learn to create characters? First a convict made clerical script; now, do you also want to make a kind of 'Heifu script'?"

"B-black… bold characters?"

Heifu nearly coughed up blood. That style of writing would actually exist in later ages, but that wasn't what he was driving at — his mind was working on the writing medium itself…

To capture the First Emperor of Qin's attention, Heifu simply started boasting.

Pointing with one hand at the bamboo and wooden slips piled throughout the hall, and lifting a piece of white silk on the floor bearing the scripts of the Six States with the other, he said: "Bamboo and wooden slips are heavy and clumsy. Your Majesty reads a hundred and twenty catties of memorials a day, and the receptionists are worn out just carrying them back and forth. Silk is expensive — none but the high ministers and nobles dare use it. Each has its merits and drawbacks."

"Now, your servant wishes to combine the merits of both and produce for Your Majesty a material that is as light and convenient as silk, yet cheaper than bamboo and wooden slips. On it, seal script and clerical script can be written, so that Your Majesty's ideal of unifying the written word may spread throughout all under Heaven!"

"Your servant believes this would be an event no less significant than Cangjie's invention of writing! I beg Your Majesty to permit your servant to overstep his office and offer this proposal!"

(End of chapter)