When improving papermaking, Cai Lun was responsible for supervising all kinds of utensils used in the palace. He picked out bark, rags, old fishing nets, etc. And let the craftsmen chop them up and soak them in a big pool. After a period of time, the sundries in it rot, but the fibers are not easy to rot, so they stay.
He asked the craftsmen to pick up the soaked raw materials, put them in a stone mortar, and kept stirring them until they became slurry, then picked up the sticky things with bamboo sticks, dried them and turned them into paper. Cai Lun and his craftsmen tried again and again, and produced light, flexible, easily available, widely available and low-priced paper.
In the first year of Yuan Xing (A.D. 105), Cai Lun presented paper to Han and the Emperor, and Cai Lun presented the paper to the Emperor as a memorial, which was appreciated by the Emperor, used and promoted by imperial edicts inside and outside the imperial court, and regarded as a miracle by the imperial court and various government offices all over the country.
Nine years later, Cai Lun was named "Longtinghou" with 300 restaurants. Because the new paper-making method, which was gradually implemented throughout the country, was invented by Cai Lun, people called this kind of paper "Cai Hou Paper".
Cai Lun's papermaking has spread all over the world along the Silk Road through Central Asia and Western Europe, making an indelible contribution to the inheritance and development of world civilization.
Extended data:
The value and significance of papermaking;
Papermaking, especially improved by Cai Lun in the Eastern Han Dynasty (also known as "Cai Hou Paper"), is a revolution in writing materials. It is easy to carry and has a wide range of materials, which has promoted the cultural development of China, Arabia, Europe and even the whole world.
With words, the most important thing is to have a good carrier. The ancient Egyptians used papyrus of the Nile to describe history; In ancient Europe, people used animal skins, such as sheepskin, to write words for a long time. In China, before the invention of papermaking, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bamboo slips and silk were used for writing and recording in ancient times.
However, Oracle bones and bamboo slips are relatively heavy, and Qin Shihuang has to read a whole car a day; Although silk is light, it is expensive and not suitable for writing.
By the Han Dynasty, due to the rapid development of economy and culture in the Western Han Dynasty, Oracle Bone Inscriptions and bamboo slips could not meet the needs of development, thus promoting the improvement of writing tools and the invention of paper.
Papermaking is an important chemical process. The invention of paper is a very valuable contribution made by China to the spread and development of human culture, a great achievement in the history of China and an important influence on the history of China.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Cai Lun