Cai Lun, born in an ordinary peasant family, grew up farming with his parents, but he was smart and charming. Cai Lun was elected eunuch of Luoyang Palace in Yongle 18, when he was 15 years old. He can read and write, with excellent grades, and served as Xiaohuangmen in the first year of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Since then, he has served as assistant minister of Huangmen, in charge of official communication inside and outside the palace, guiding the kings to translate and arranging seats. Dou Taihou, the imperial palace, had no children, so Cai Lun framed Song Guiren, the princess of Zhang Di, and made her commit suicide. Liu Qing, the son of Song Guiren, was demoted to the king of Qinghe. Dou Taihou also ordered a flying book to frame the princess Liang Guiren of Zhang Di, took his son Liu Zhao as his adopted son, and made him a prince. In 88 AD, Emperor Zhang died, and he succeeded to the throne at the age of 10, and Dou Taihou was in charge. Cai Lun was promoted to be a constant servant because of his work, accompanying the young emperor, participating in state secrets, and earning a salary of 2,000 yuan, which is equal to Jiuqing. In the history of China, eunuchs intervened in state affairs, which also started here.
In the ninth year of Yongyuan, Dou Taihou died and ruled with the emperor. In the 14th year of Yongyuan, Emperor He Li Deng Sui became the queen, and Cai Lun immediately took refuge in Queen Deng. Deng Sui likes dancing and writing, and Cai Lun is willing to condescend to serve as an official, in charge of the royal palace vessels and the royal palace manual workshops. During this period, he summed up the experience of papermaking since the Western Han Dynasty, improved papermaking technology, and extracted high-quality paper from raw materials such as bark, rags, hemp heads and fishing nets, which was praised by Emperor He and promoted papermaking. In the same year, the 100-day baby born to Emperor He and Empress Deng ascended the throne and died in less than two years. After Deng, Liu Hu, the nephew of the 13-year-old emperor, ascended the throne as Andi. Liu Hu is the son of Qing Liu, the king of Qinghe. However, since he just acceded to the throne, the Empress Dowager Deng still holds the power of state affairs, and Cai Lun continued to be reused, and was named Longtinghou, thus entering the ranks of nobles. The paper he supervised was called Cai Hou's paper. About five to six years in the early Yuan Dynasty, Cai Lun was promoted to assistant minister of Changle, which was equivalent to his older age. He became the chief servant of Empress Dowager Deng, and was flattered by all the officials in Manchu Dynasty. Just when his power was in full swing, Empress Dowager Deng died in the first year of Jianguang, and Andi ascended the throne. Cai Lun was tried and investigated for being instructed by Dou Hou to participate in persecuting Song Guiren, the grandmother of Qin Shihuang, to death and depriving his father Liu Qing of the right to inherit the throne. Cai Lun knew that the death penalty was inevitable and committed suicide. Cai Lun served as an official in the imperial palace all his life, served four young emperors, took refuge in two queens, rose step by step, lived the life of a marquis, and was honored as a minister with nine grades there, but ended in tragic death. However, when he respected Fang, he promoted the development of handicraft industry and was called a scientist in the Eastern Han Dynasty, so he won the praise of historians.
When Cai Lun was in power, he tried his best to please, and everything the emperor and queen liked was refined in the party. Deng Houxi likes writing, history, paper and ink, which once made all counties pay tribute to paper and ink. Therefore, Cai Lun became a key figure in promoting the development of papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Because of its location, Cai Lun was able to observe and get in touch with production practice. Every time he is free, he closes the door and goes to the workshop for technical inspection to learn and summarize the rich experience accumulated by craftsmen for many years. Coupled with his own ingenious innovation, it played a great role in promoting the development of metal smelting, casting, forging and mechanical manufacturing processes at that time. For example, the steel knife at that time was made of wrought iron, and after many forging, it became steel. The artifacts made at that time were indeed made by seiko in quality, performance and appearance, and were imitated by later generations.
Cai Lun's most outstanding contribution in technology is still in papermaking, which can be reviewed from three angles. First, the production and meticulous work of high-grade hemp paper were organized and popularized, which promoted the development of papermaking. Secondly, it promoted the creation and development of leather paper production in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Thirdly, under the supervision of Empress Deng, the classics collected in the Forbidden City were revised and copied, which formed a large-scale paper climax, making paper books the most powerful tool for spreading culture.
Papermaking is one of the four great inventions of ancient science and technology in China. It is a very valuable contribution made by the Chinese nation to world civilization, which greatly promotes the spread and exchange of world science and culture and profoundly affects the process of world history.
According to historical data and the research of relevant experts, papermaking originated from dental floss and is closely related to retting. At this point, the ancient working people in China wrote a glorious page in the history of human civilization with wisdom and diligence. The great invention of paper should be attributed to the working people who have been engaged in bleaching and retting for a long time, especially the women who are mainly responsible for such work. As early as the early Western Han Dynasty, hemp fiber paper was made of discarded hemp rope ends and rags. 1986 hemp paper with a map was unearthed from the tomb of the Western Han Dynasty in Fangmatan, Tianshui City, Gansu Province, in the period of Wendi and Jingdi. 1957 Xi Baqiao also unearthed hemp paper not later than the period of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty. After the capital of Luoyang was established in the Eastern Han Dynasty, hemp paper in the Western Han Dynasty continued to develop. When Cai Lun was in charge of court documents and files, he also felt that silks were expensive and simple, which brought inconvenience to people, so he decided to make better paper than the Western Han Dynasty. To this end, he summed up the technical experience of the previous generation and the same generation of hemp paper and organized the production of high-quality hemp paper. Under his promotion and organization, by the Eastern Han Dynasty at the beginning of the 2nd century A.D., China had completed the paper-making innovation technology with great significance.
Due to the limitation of the process, the original papermaking process has low output and high cost, which is not suitable for popularization. The development of new raw materials and the adoption of new technologies make papermaking independent from the textile industry, which is a major turning point in the history of papermaking development. Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, the production of paper has developed rapidly. Cai Lun's other contribution to papermaking is the exploration and popularization of the manufacturing technology of leather paper. Hemp paper and leather paper were the two pillars of China paper during the period from Han Dynasty to Kloc-0/200, and China culture developed rapidly under the supply of these two kinds of paper. With the improvement of papermaking technology, the cheap and high-quality writing materials that human beings dream of are finally born and grow rapidly. Papermaking soon spread all over the country, and bamboo slips and silk were gradually eliminated by history. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, paper has basically replaced backward bamboo and silk as the only writing material in China, which has effectively promoted the spread and development of science and culture in China.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, papermaking was further developed and began to spread abroad. China's papermaking first spread to Korea and Viet Nam. Around the end of Sui Dynasty, it spread from Korea to Japan. In the tenth year of Tianbao, some paper workers in the Tang Dynasty brought papermaking to Arabia. /kloc-In the middle of 0/2nd century, Arabs introduced papermaking to Europe. More than 400 years later, papermaking spread to the United States. /kloc-in the 0 th and 9 th centuries, Australia also built a paper mill. In this way, the papermaking invented by working people in our country spread all over the earth, making indelible and outstanding contributions to the progress of human civilization. With the spread of papermaking, Cai Lun's name spread all over the world, and he was called an ancient scientist in China by historians.