Physician of the Song Dynasty: Zhang Kai and Li Qingzhao have a private life-long contract

"The oldest writing, Oracle!"

The officials couldn't help but frown, looking suspiciously at the oracle bones in Fan Zheng's hands that looked like ghostly drawings.

"Impossible, isn't the oldest writing written in bronze?" Yang Wei frowned, thinking that Fan Zhengding must have made up the oracle bone inscriptions to get away with it.

All the officials nodded.

As Yang Wei said, scholar-bureaucrats regarded writing as gods and regarded it as the beginning of civilization. For a long time, everyone believed that the earliest recorded writing was the bronze inscriptions from ancient times.

Bronze inscriptions are characters cast on bronze vessels. The ancients called copper gold, so it is also called "bronze inscriptions". In the Song Dynasty, bronze inscriptions were considered the earliest recorded writing, and this is recognized throughout the world.

However, Fan Zheng actually made a traditional Chinese medicine dragon bone. Just based on a few strange carvings on it, he said it was the oldest writing, said to be oracle bone inscriptions.

Fan Zheng explained: "The dragon bones are naturally not the bones of real dragons, but the bone fossils of some ancient animals. They have the effects of calming the nerves, calming the liver and subduing yang, and astringing and consolidating astringency. Each dragon bone is extremely old."

"Yes, the dragon bone does have a long history!" Su Song on the side testified for Fan Zheng.

"So what?" Yang Wei sneered.

Fan Zheng looked around and said loudly: "As we all know, metals have also been evolving, such as bronze in the pre-Qin period, to later iron tools, and now steel. When bronze inscriptions appeared, humans could already make metal, and they were already extremely powerful. , but how could humans record words when they didn’t know how to make metal?”

Faced with Fan Zheng's rhetorical question, Baiguan was suddenly surprised. If writing had been created before humans created bronzes, they would naturally have found the hardest and most common objects around them and engraved words on them for long-term preservation. "

"Carapace and oracle bones!" Zhao Xu blurted out.

Fan Zheng nodded and said, "Yes, it's carapace and bones. The ancients recorded writing on turtle shells and hard bones, which is the most primitive writing in existence, oracle bone inscriptions."

"Oracle bone inscriptions, why are there no existing oracle bone inscriptions?" Cai Jing asked rhetorically.

Fan Zheng solemnly said: "Because with the emergence of bronze inscriptions and letter slips, oracle bones were gradually eliminated, and oracle bones were gradually abandoned and forgotten and buried in the soil. Fan accidentally discovered that the medicinal materials of this dragon bone had something similar to it in the doctor's medicine shop. Others would definitely think that the carvings of the characters were random carvings. However, Fan thought that he still had some literary talent, and he could tell at a glance that they were characters, an extremely ancient character, and they were quite similar to today's characters. After careful comparison and research, I discovered the oracle bone inscriptions!"

Cai Jing didn't believe it at all: "You just took out an engraved medicinal material and dared to claim to have discovered oracle bone inscriptions. It's too childish!"

He admitted that Fan Zheng had some literary talent, but it was hard to believe that just because a medicinal material with inscriptions on it was an oracle bone inscription.

Fan Zheng waved his hand and immediately presented some oracle bones and said solemnly: "After Fan learned that these might be ancient writings, he immediately ordered doctors all over the world to send all the dragon bones with writings on them to Kaifeng Mansion. Now, We have collected hundreds of oracle bones with characters on them, and after careful comparison, we found that they are the origin of today’s Chinese characters, oracle bones.”

"There are hundreds of oracle bones!"

All the officials in the court couldn't help but be shocked. If Fan Zheng's words were true, it would be a major event that shocked the literary world.

Fan Zheng nodded and said: "Not only that, Fan discovered that most of these dragon bones were unearthed from Anyang, not far north of Kaifeng. Local doctors have been ordered to rush to Anyang overnight to excavate the oracle bone inscriptions here."

"Anyang! The old capital of the Yin and Shang Dynasties!" Su Song blurted out with a thought in his heart.

Fan Zheng nodded and said: "Yes, if Fan's guess is correct, these oracle bone inscriptions were handed down from the ancient capital of the Yin and Shang Dynasties. The Yin and Shang period was the outbreak period of bronze inscriptions. These oracle bone inscriptions were gradually buried and have not been seen until today. .”

Su Song nodded and said: "From the time, place and shape of the characters, we can all guess it correctly. If there are no accidents, the oracle bone inscriptions are indeed the oldest writing."

The old and new parties suddenly fell into silence. Those who were able to sit in the court were all bachelors who had read poetry and books. However, they saw that the inscriptions on oracle bones were very different from the existing Chinese characters, but they were also related to each other, and even In the same vein.

The officials couldn't help but give Fan Zheng a strange look. The oracle bone inscriptions are the dragon bones of traditional Chinese medicine, which are inaccessible to others. In addition, Fan Zheng is proficient in poetry and naturally has extraordinary literary talent. This means that the person who discovered the oracle bone inscriptions must not only be proficient in medicinal materials, but also have literary talent. I'm afraid It is none other than Fan Zheng.

This credit cannot be taken away by others even if they want to. Fan Zheng is simply fed by God, which makes all the officials envious and jealous.

Lu Dafang suddenly sneered and said: "Even if the oracle bone inscriptions are true and you discovered that the oracle bone inscriptions are meritorious, it still cannot erase your crime of randomly changing the characters."

Oracle bone inscriptions are indeed of great significance to writing. Fan Zheng's random adaptation of words to create simplified Chinese characters is even more unforgivable, not to mention that he has a doctor's style that is like a ghost painting.

Fan Zheng retorted: "Fan took out the oracle bone inscriptions not to ask for credit, but to tell you that although writing is sacred, it is not always fixed. From the oldest oracle bone inscriptions to bronze inscriptions, writing has already appeared It’s not a small change. Before the Qin Dynasty, the script used in the world was called the Big Seal Script. The Qin Dynasty unified the world, and the First Emperor issued an order to unify the world’s scripts with the same text. The more convenient Small Seal Script replaced the Big Seal Script, which is different from the characters we have today.”

The officials nodded slightly. Although Fan Zheng made evil mistakes, no one could refute his knowledge. The current writing itself evolved from Xiaozhuan.

"The writing currently being promoted in the Song Dynasty evolved from Xiaozhuan. It improved pictograms, radicals, borrowings, annotations, etc., making the writing more perfect and standardized. However, it has a shortcoming that no one can deny. , that is too cumbersome. Since the characters are constantly changing, doctors need to write too many medical records and are overwhelmed, so why not decide to create simplified characters!" Fan Zheng said loudly.

"Writing has been changing?" The officials couldn't help but remain silent. They wanted to refute Fan Zheng, but they had to admit that what Fan Zheng said was correct. From oracle bone inscriptions to bronze inscriptions, from large seal script to small seal script, and now to traditional Chinese characters, the characters are indeed Always changing.

"The essence of characters is to record. Today's characters seem to be full of meaning, but they have one of the biggest shortcomings, that is, they have too many strokes. Not only doctors, but even scholars are overwhelmed. Fan thinks it is time to let characters return. It's as simple as oracle bone inscriptions back then." Fan Zheng said without any secret.

Baiguan frowned. When Oracle was first created, it was indeed much simpler than the current writing.

Fan Zheng continued: "Simplified characters not only retain the structure and writing rules of traditional characters, but also ease the writing rules of people all over the world. From Fan's point of view, simplified characters are the most perfect characters in the world. In the future, they will surely become traditional Chinese characters and become The written words of the world’s scholars.”

Listening to Fan Zheng's unabashed ambition, all the officials in the court were in an uproar again.

"Officials, please see, Fan Zheng has finally revealed his ambition!"

Yang Wei jumped up immediately and said angrily.

Fan Zheng said disapprovingly: "People need doctors when they have diseases. When words have diseases, they also need medical treatment. Nowadays, words in the world are extremely cumbersome, which makes Mongolian students all over the world suffer. Simplified Chinese characters came into being. Furthermore, traditional Chinese characters The writing is not the most original writing, so why should we consider it to be orthodox and not allow for change?"