How high are the calligraphy skills of the traitorous officials Qin Hui and Cai Jing?

In addition to the "Four Calligraphers of the Song Dynasty", what other calligraphers were good in the Song Dynasty?

Cai Jing and Qin Hui.

Cai Jing was a Jinshi in the third year of Xining. He was first a local official and later a member of Zhongshushe. He changed the Longtuge system and knew Kaifeng Prefecture. In the first year of Chongning, he served as a right servant and a servant, and later became a grand master. The battle of Xinghua Shigang; the salt method and the tea method were changed, and ten large coins were minted. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, Chen Dong, a student of Taipei University, wrote a letter calling Cai Jing "the leader of the six thieves". After Song Qinzong ascended the throne, Cai Jing was demoted to Lingnan and died in Tanzhou on the way.

Qin Hui, who was a Jinshi in the fifth year of Zhenghe's reign, was a scholar of Chinese Ci and Maoke, and was appointed as the Xuezheng of Taixue. During the reign of Emperor Qinzong of the Song Dynasty, he successively served as Zuo Sijian and Yushi Zhongcheng. In the second year of Jingkang, because he wrote a letter to Jin Shuai against the establishment of Zhang Bangchang, the two emperors Hui and Qin were captured and sent to Jin Dynasty for laziness. Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty returned to Lin'an in the fourth year of Jianyan's reign and advocated peace negotiations between the Song and Jin Dynasties. In the first year of Shaoxing, he was promoted to participate in political affairs, and then he became the prime minister. He was impeached and dismissed the next year. He became prime minister again in eight years of Shaoxing, and he was in power for nineteen years. He was granted the title of Duke of Qin and Wei, and won the favor of Emperor Gaozong. In the twenty-fifth year of Shaoxing, Qin Hui died of illness.

Although these two people are out-and-out traitors and should be scolded as bad guys for tens of thousands of years, their calligraphy skills are really high! If we look for any of their handed down works, we can see their extraordinary calligraphy skills. However, the extraordinary is extraordinary, and their level is still far from that of the famous people. The current evaluation of their calligraphy is somewhat exaggerated.

First of all, let’s talk about the excessive praise of Cai Jing’s calligraphy:

The reason why Cai Jing became one of the famous calligraphers was mostly due to a conversation between him and Mi Fu.

One time, Cai Jing asked Mi Fu, who is the best calligrapher? Mi Fu replied: "It used to be Mr. Liu Gongquan. After him, I'm afraid only you and your brother are left." ?Some people think that this is a compliment to Cai Jing, and they really regard Cai Jing as a better calligrapher than the four calligraphers of the Song Dynasty.

Actually, what Mi Fu said was quite good. It seemed like he was flattering Cai Jing, but in fact he was scolding him. With Cai Jing's identity, anyone who wants to get along in Bianjing must please him. Therefore, if Mi Fu, like others, said how great Cai Jing is and how he is the best in the world, Cai Jing would probably think that he was perfunctory.

That’s why he moved out Liu Gongquan first, and then Cai Jing. It is a fact known to everyone that Cai Jing copied Liu Gongquan. Comparing Chae Kyung to his idol would make this sycophant even better. Some people may ask, according to this, Mi Fu is just a flatterer. Does such a person deserve to be called the "Song Family"? Don't worry, in fact, comparing Cai Jing to Liu Gongquan has a deeper meaning.

Mi Fu had previously made an evaluation of Liu Gongquan’s calligraphy: “Liu Gongquan’s master of European calligraphy is not far behind him, but he is the ancestor of ugly and evil calligraphy.” There have been secular books since the Liu Dynasty. ?Obviously, in his eyes, Liu Gongquan's calligraphy also has serious traces of imitation, and he is the ancestor of "ugly monsters". Combined with this comment, we can see that the flattery he shot was mixed with private goods. To put it bluntly, he was saying that Cai Jing's nickname was also Chouguai Ezha, and that it was similar to Liu Gongquan, the ancestor of Chouguai Ezha.

This is clearly scolding Cai Jing for his poor handwriting. How could it be a compliment? How high is Mi Fu's vision? Although Cai Jing's calligraphy is not unsightly, how can he be ranked among the best calligraphers in the world?

After talking about Cai Jing, let’s talk about Qin Hui.

If the world's praise of Cai Jing is untrue, then the praise of Qin Hui is purely fabricated. Qin Hui's level is good, and he can compete with Zhao Ji and Cai Jingyou, but he is also not up to the threshold of "master".

Chinese characters of this level are actually praised as the "ancestor of Song-style characters". They say that the square characters we type on the keyboard are the artistic creations of Mr. Qin Hui. What does it mean to talk nonsense? I don't think so. Although there is the character "Song" in the Song-style script, it is not a product of the Song Dynasty, but a product of the Ming Dynasty. In the printing industry, the scientific name of this font is "serif imitation Songti".

We know that imitation Song fonts appeared in the Southern Song Dynasty, while serif imitation Song fonts only appeared during the Ming Dynasty. We might as well search for a copybook of Qin Hui on the Internet to see if his calligraphy is highly similar to the "Song style" calligraphy, and the truth will be revealed.

So, is it possible that the imitation Song font was invented by Qin Hui.

From the "History of the Development of Printing in China" we can see that there were many types of engravings in the Northern Song Dynasty. For example, the printing industries in Sichuan and Fujian used the calligraphy of Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan as models. In order to unify the fonts, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty stipulated that all printing industries should use "thin gold style".

However, this font is purely calligraphy and is obviously not suitable for the printing industry. In order to complete the tasks assigned by Emperor Laozi, the craftsmen modified Song Huizong's font until the Northern Song Dynasty changed to the Southern Song Dynasty, and the "Imitation Song Dynasty" was released. Although Qin Hui's "Qin Ti" was born out of "Slender Gold Ti", the two are not the same thing, and there are also differences between "Slender Gold Ti" and "Imitation Song Ti".

Originally, discussing calligraphy in print is a relatively stupid act. If you don't even know the origin of the printed matter and just copy it mechanically, that would be the most ridiculous thing in the world.

It’s like someone concluded that Li Bai was a master of swordsmanship in the Tang Dynasty based on the information that he likes to do vertical and horizontal skills, fencing, be a knight, and kill many people with his hands, and that Li Bai wrote poems for General Pei, and even praised him as a master of swordsmanship in the Tang Dynasty. Like a sword fairy. Unless we find evidence in historical data that Li Bai and General Pei were neck-and-neck for hundreds of rounds, all these inferences are untrue.