What are the names of things used to write calligraphy and press paper in ancient times?

In ancient times, things used to write calligraphy and press paper were called paperweights, and they were often called weights and scales.

Towns have a long history as tools to suppress things.

Ancient literati often put small bronzes and jades on their desks to appreciate, because they all have a certain weight, so while appreciating, people will also press paper or books with their hands, which has developed into a stationery-paperweight over time.

Ancient paperweights mostly used three-dimensional shapes of rabbits, horses, sheep, deer, toads and other animals, which were small in area and heavy in weight and made of jade, ceramics, copper and crystal.

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the materials and shapes of paperweights also changed. In addition to copper and jade, stones, rosewood and ebony are added, which are mostly rectangular in shape. For this reason, paperweights are usually called weight scales and pressure scales.

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Historical allusions about paperweights

1, Zhenjiang Mountain

Xiao Daocheng, the Emperor of Qi, was smart and eager to learn since childhood. He loved calligraphy and was good at cursive writing. When he became a prince, he often began to write and learn calligraphy in his spare time. After Qi Gaozu succeeded to the throne, he felt that the imperial clan was extravagant and wasteful, and ordered all things in front of the palace and the palace to be frugal: all gold and copper utensils should be replaced by iron, and he also set an example by replacing the gold paperweights before the case with iron ones.

One day, when he checked the handwriting of the emperor's son, he found that his handwriting was crooked and obviously careless. Emperor Qi was furious and wanted to punish his son, but he didn't have the right tools at hand, so he grabbed the iron paperweight in front of him. After studying under the Emperor Qi, the Prince studied calligraphy seriously.

Qi said to the teacher, "paperweights are a good thing." They can hold the paper for me. If they are made of iron, they will be more diligent and can also be used as a warning! " This sentence of Emperor Qi has therefore become a much-told story.

2. Small towns and rivers and lakes

Tao An, a modern writer, collected a pair of military rulers inscribed with "Knowing courtesy and shame, being responsible for discipline", entitled "Jia gives Cao Zhenduo". Cao Zhenduo, member of Chiang Kai-shek Group, 1948 The biggest resistance force in Jinan Campaign. Jia belonged to Feng Yuxiang's department. Although he later concentrated on rural affairs, did not ask politics, and never went out again, he had many personal relationships with the military and kept in touch with Cao Zhenduo.

After the battle of Jinan, Cao Zhenduo pursued the principle of "keeping the car to protect the handsome" and tried to find out the March route of the PLA. In the name of delivering rations, he drove a big carriage full of wheat, crossed the Yellow River via Qihe River and arrived in Tianjin via the Liberated Area. He went to Qingdao and then fled to Nanjing by plane for the rest of his life.

This paperweight must have a congenial taste when Jia and Cao Zhenduo first met, and then they went to a place where they enjoyed each other and were in a state of war. After the washing of war and feud, it not only won a desk, but also calmed the master's mood and the rivers and lakes at that time.

3. True happiness

According to Du Guangting's "Strange Stone", there is a Jinshi Li Tiao in Huiji, who is free at ordinary times. Before Jinshi, he picked up a small stone on his way home. It was black and blue, smooth and playful, and it looked ok. So he found a friend to carve it and put it on his desk as a paperweight.

Whenever a friend comes to visit him, Li Tiao boasts that the paperweight he got is given by fate and can bring him good luck. As a result, when he really won the Jinshi, all his friends believed it and took this paperweight to watch and play.

China Net-Brief Introduction of Paperweight