In 223 BC, Meng Tian, the general of the State of Qin, went out to war. He regularly wrote battle reports and presented them to the king of Qin. At that time, people wrote with bamboo sticks, which was very inconvenient. They dipped in ink several times without writing. One day, while hunting, Meng Tian was inspired when he saw a rabbit's tail dragging blood on the ground. He immediately cut off a rabbit's tail, put it on a bamboo tube and tried to write with it.
But rabbit hair is shiny and does not absorb ink. Meng Tian tried several times, but the effect was still not good, so he threw the rabbit brush into the lime pit in front of the door.
One day, he happened to see the brush he had thrown away. After picking it up, he found that the wet rabbit hair became whiter. He dipped the rabbit brush into the ink tray, and the rabbit tail became "obedient" and wrote fluently. It turns out that the water in the sinkhole contains calcium. After soaking in alkaline water, the grease of rabbit hair is removed and becomes soft. Legend has it that this is the origin of the brush.
Extended data
China has developed its splendid culture for 5,000 years, and the ancient "Four Treasures of the Study" is the external embodiment of traditional culture. Four Treasures of the Study is a "pen, ink, paper and inkstone", and the brush, the first of Four Treasures of the Study, is a unique cultural product of China.
For thousands of years, China literati used it to express their strange thoughts and feelings. Scholars use pens as hoes and paper as fields, so the long history of China has become "Spring and Autumn".
The history of writing brush is longer than that of reed pen in ancient Egypt and feather pen in Europe, but the latter has withdrawn from the historical stage. Brush, pen, pencil and ballpoint pen, which appeared in modern times, are also called the four great contemporary pens, and still shine brilliantly in the history of painting and calligraphy today, with amazing vitality.
There are different opinions about when the brushing began. The most telling thing is a pen written by Meng Tian, the general of the State of Qin. It is recorded in history books, natural history, etc. Meng Tian, who had imperial orders outside, was too slow to carve with a knife, so he made a brush with dead wood as a barrel, deer hair as a column and wool as a quilt.
Because of this legend, Meng Tian was honored as the ancestor of the writing brush. Shanlian people in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province built the "Meng Gong Temple" and held a grand sacrifice ceremony on Meng Tian's birthday every year, which has been passed down to this day. But according to historians, the origin of Chinese brush is much earlier than this, with a history of at least 6000 years.
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People's Network-Brush: China's Unique Cultural Invention