Riding the wind of rebirth

"That's it, sit down quickly." Mr. Qiu led the two of them to sit down at the big desk: "You are all rare guests, but I have long wanted to chat with you in person."

"Mr. Qiu, this is a little gift I brought you." After sitting down, Zhou Zhi took out a few books from his bag: "This is "Xue Shanggong's "Xue Shanggong" from the Song Dynasty, which I found in Qi Gong Qi Lao's collection. There are several volumes that are not available in the Shanghai Library. I thought you would definitely need them, so I brought them to you this time."

"Really? Show me quickly." Qiu Xigui was overjoyed: "How many inscriptions are there on Mr. Qi's calligraphy?"

"I did a comparison and found seventeen more inscriptions on the artifacts." Zhou Zhi said.

"That's great." Qiu Xigui was very familiar with this fragment and quickly turned to the unfamiliar part: "That's great!"

Seeing that Qiu Xigui was already caught in surprise, Zhou Zhi had no choice but to look through the rubbings he had brought and introduced to Jiang Shuyi: "Shuyi, we Chinese started studying the ancient writings left on bells and tripods from the Northern Song Dynasty. , Ouyang Xiu, Sima Guang's father Sima Chi, as well as Liu Xun and Liu Fengshi in "The Three Lius of Mozhuang", including the familiar Su Shi, as well as Lu Dalin and Wang Fu, are all researchers of ancient Zhongding characters."

"Xue Shanggong was born in the Shaoxing period of the Southern Song Dynasty. He was a Tongzhilang at first, and later he became an official and decided on the affairs of the Jiangjun Jiedu magistrate's office. He was knowledgeable about ancient times and was proficient in seal script, bells and tripods. In Lu Dalin's "Archaeological Map" and Wang Fu's " On the basis of the "Xuanhe Bogu Tu", he extensively compiled and researched the inscriptions of ancient vessels, compiled the achievements of various textual scholars in the past dynasties, and compared, analyzed, corrected and corrected them, and finally compiled the twenty-volume "Tip of the Marks of Zhongding and Yi Ware in the Past Dynasties". and seven volumes of "Chongguang Zhongding Seal Yun"."

"Among them, the "Recognition Stickers of Bells, Tripods and Yi Wares of the Past Dynasties" contains a total of 511 sets of inscriptions."

"It is a pity that with the passage of time, the Shang and Zhou bronzes recorded by Xue Shanggong that were unearthed in the Song Dynasty have been lost in the long river of history."

"Fortunately, in June of the 14th year of Shaoxing, Lin Shi, the governor of Jiangzhou County, engraved the book on a stone tablet and placed it in the Jiangzhou public treasury. At that time, there were twenty-four stones. Although the original manuscript and the stone tablet were lost after the death of the Song Dynasty, It no longer exists, but the Song engraving and Song manuscripts have been handed down."

"Rubbings have been very precious since the Ming Dynasty. There are currently some fragments of them, which are collected in Taiwan Island, Shanghai Library, and the National Institute of Social Science and Archeology in the capital."

"The woodcut biographies currently include the Wanli version of the Ming Dynasty, the Chongzhen version, the Kangxi version of the Qing Dynasty, the Jiaqing version, the Guangxu version, etc."

"This book collected by Qi Lao is a copy of the Ming Dynasty Jiguge written by Lu Youtong in the 58th year of Kangxi's reign collected by Miao Quansun, who is known as the 'Father of Modern Chinese Libraries.' There are twelve volumes in total, which have been verified by Qi Lao By comparison, it is believed that this volume has the largest number of extant copies and is an original copy of the Song Dynasty. Since the Ming Dynasty, it has been passed down by the Luo family, the Changshu Gui family, Tao Zhulin's Wuliuju, Huang Pi's Martyr's Ritual House, Wang's Yiyun Bookstore, and Cheng Wenrong's ancient building. The collection and circulation are orderly and clear, which is another precious feature of this set of calligraphy.”

"Not bad, not bad, a great achievement!" Qiu Xigui was overjoyed, but complained a little: "Mr. Qi, why are you hiding such a good thing?"

Zhou Zhi said with a smile: "Qi Lao is a calligrapher, but not a calligrapher. What he values ​​and studies on this set of manuscripts is the calligraphic value of the bronze inscriptions, bird seal characters, and seal characters on them, but he has not thought about his influence on ancient calligraphy workers. research value."

"Every line is like a mountain, let's forgive him."

Qiu Xigui cherished the manuscript and smiled and said, "You can't say that. For such precious information, next time I go to the capital for a meeting, I will definitely thank him in person."

After saying that, he nodded to Zhou Zhi: "Thank you too."

Zhou Zhi said: "I have flipped through this book, and it seems that they are not all bronze wares?" Qiu Xigui nodded: "Well, the 511 ancient wares recorded in this book were divided by Xue Shanggong according to the five dynasties of Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin and Han. Columns are arranged according to the types of vessels under each generation. It is compiled according to the style of copying the inscriptions on each vessel, appending explanations, and conducting textual research."

"In addition to the bronze wares, there are also Qing 1 with characters and Qiyang Shigu 10, which are stone wares; Hu 1 and Xi 3 are jade wares."

Zhou Zhi asked: "Mr. Qiu, I don't understand the text itself, but after reading Xue Shanggong's regular script translation and the accompanying explanations, why do I feel that... some places are too precise?"

Qiu Xigui said with a smile: "Your great advantage is that you know that 'it is better to believe in a book than to have no book at all' and you dare to raise questions."

"This book itself has some distortions in its imitation. The study of epigraphy at that time was just in its infancy and was relatively rough. Therefore, the explanatory text and textual research are often incomplete."

"Even the dating is often wrong. The Xia wares and Shang bells identified should be Zhou Dynasty wares, but some of the Zhou wares identified are from the Shang Dynasty."

Zhou Zhi breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile: "It turns out that I was right."

After saying that, he took out a book from his schoolbag: "I'm going to put it on the shelf for Grandpa Shi. I'm explaining to him an elective course called "Oracle Bone Inscriptions Appreciation" at Shu University. This is the handout I wrote. The purpose is mainly to educate the students. I also ask Mr. Qiu to help me with my corrections when it comes to popularizing science and developing hobbies."

Qiu Xigui is an expert in ancient writing. He not only studies oracle bone inscriptions, but also has profound knowledge in bronze inscriptions, currency inscriptions of the Warring States Period, pottery inscriptions, alliance letters, seal inscriptions, bamboo slips and silk documents, etc.

What he mastered was the development and changes of Chinese characters in the time dimension in various eras, as well as the differences between Chinese characters in different regions, on different carriers, and in different spatial dimensions at the same time in each ancient period. Because of such a deep and solid foundation, he By researching an ancient character, one can cite a large amount of relevant information and find various circumstantial evidence for the character.

This unique skill has given Qiu Xigui a pivotal position in the academic circle of ancient Chinese writing. Whenever the country has discovered important writings, such as bamboo slips from the Yinqueshan Han Tomb, Yunmeng Qin slips, silk scripts from the Mawangdui Han Tomb, and written materials from the tomb of Zeng Hou Yi , Jiangling Wangshan Chu Slips, Guodian Chu Tomb Bamboo Slips and Yinwan Han Tomb Slips and other unearthed documents need authoritative experts to interpret and organize work, he is the first person that everyone thinks of.

However, there are specialties in the art field. The old man is unrivaled in the world in "interpreting characters", but in "speech writing", he is not as good as Gu Lao.

Of course, this heat is also a shortcoming compared with a "perfect fire". It is the difference between a high temperature of 2,000 degrees and a high temperature of 1,800 degrees. It is not comparable to the small wood stove like Zhou Zhi's current one.

To learn paleography well, you must have a wide range of knowledge, so you must understand aspects such as ancient history, ethnology, archaeology, antiquities, philology, phonology, exegesis, etc. It is necessary to study the ancient Chinese classics Jing, Shi, Zi and Ji.

However, Zhou Zhi is a young man with a flexible mind. Qiu Xigui likes to communicate with him and feels that he can often get some inspiration from Zhou Zhi.

Although Qiu Xigui wanted to turn Zhou Zhi in the direction of ancient writing, Zhou Zhi was more insistent. His research was still based on inheriting the Sangu. It was enough to be able to thoroughly study the oracle bone inscriptions in terms of writing.

Sometimes Zhou Zhi wants to cry out to the old men in despair: "You can't ask me to speak like a man and understand words like a fur, can you?!"