What can be seen from the "Wucheng Han Jian" written before 2000?

　　China News Agency, Hangzhou, October 9th: What can be seen from the "Wucheng Han Slip" before 2000?

　　Author Tong Xiaoyu

　　Do people before 2000 also memorize the ninety-nine multiplication table?

What was written on the "Hukou Book" in the Western Han Dynasty?

What does their "perpetual calendar" look like?

The answers to these questions can be found in the recently published "Wucheng Han Jian".

　　Wucheng, historical place name, is in present-day Huzhou, Zhejiang.

In 2009, Wucheng Hanjian was unearthed at an infrastructure construction site on Renmin Road, Huzhou City, and has been scattered among the people since then.

After many rescues and collections by people of insight, nearly 350 pieces are currently preserved.

　　The Wucheng Han Slips are the real objects left by the Wucheng County Office during the Han Dynasty, and it is also the first time to discover and unearth a large number of Han Dynasty calligraphy in Zhejiang.

The contents of wooden slips are mainly official documents, administrative affairs and public and private letters, involving politics, economy, culture and military fields.

　　In 2019, Cao Jinyan, a paleographer and director of the Institute of Chinese Character Culture at the China Academy of Art, led the team to start the sorting of Wucheng Han Slips.

It is reported that the "Wucheng Han Slips" published this time presents the actual high-definition pictures of the slips, infrared scanning images, the size of the original slips, partial enlarged drawings, interpretations, related classifications, etc., so that the Chinese slips that have been dormant for 2000 years are re-launched.

　　What can be seen from the "Wucheng Han Jian"?

Shi Liankun, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Chinese Character Culture at the China Academy of Art, is one of the editor-in-chiefs of Wucheng Hanjian.

　　For example, the "demotion of the rank of the first class, and the acquisition of the rank of the second class" recorded in the bamboo slips are related to the Han law; "the king pays 4,000 yuan in May" and "the king pays 4,000 yuan in November" reflects the salaries of officials at that time; "There are three hundred and thirty four soldiers in the building: fifty-six of them are Yue, and two hundred and seventy-eight are Chu", which has reference value for the contemporary understanding of the composition of the navy soldiers in Wucheng during the Han and Han Dynasties.

There are also many public and private letters that reflect the daily interactions of people at that time.

　　On a wooden slip it was written: Wu Cheng went to the pavilion.

Yuji Chengyin.

Since the death of Dinghai in February.

Shi Liankun said that this wooden slip was a document sent from Yuji (now Xiaoshan, Hangzhou, Zhejiang) to Wucheng 2000 years ago.

　　In ancient China, there was a saying that "eighty miles one post, thirty miles one shop, ten miles one pavilion".

The kiosk has many functions, such as mediating disputes, hunting down thieves, announcing decrees and mailing.

Shi Liankun said that this document was passed through the pavilion, station by station.

　　In addition, there are arithmetic tables, daily books, alchemy and other contents in the wooden slips, and one of them is a nine-nine multiplication table.

The author saw that the multiplication formulas recorded above were recited by contemporary students.

　　It is worth mentioning that the Wucheng Han bamboo slips have a large age span, mainly between the early Western Han Dynasty and the late Eastern Han Dynasty, which lasted for more than 400 years.

This stage is also a critical period for the evolution of Chinese characters from Zhuan to Li and from Li to Cao.

　　"The ancient clerical script in the transition stage from seal script to clerical script, the standard clerical script, and the cursive script which gradually increased and matured in the late Western Han Dynasty. It provides new information." Cao Jinyan said that this batch of wooden slips fills the gap of materials that have not been found in Zhejiang, and is of great value to the study of the related history of the Han Dynasty in Zhejiang.

　　After 2000 years, why did these wooden slips not rot?

Shi Liankun said that the Wucheng Hanjian has been preserved to this day because it is buried deep in the ground and isolated from oxygen.

However, because some bamboo slips are severely damaged, it is difficult to see the handwriting in high-definition color photos.

　　"In addition to high-definition pictures, we also took infrared photos. For unclear places, we zoomed in on this area to identify carefully, and then used the texts on bamboo slips in other areas of the Han Dynasty as a reference, and combined the contextual meanings to determine what words should be. "Shi Liankun said that he hopes to use the power of science and technology to make the cultural heritage "live", so that more people can experience the civilization temperature that travels through time and space at zero distance.

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