Xuancheng's Xuan Pen making skills have been listed in the national intangible cultural heritage list, and the hair used to make Xuan Pen is rabbit hair. The technique of making rabbit hair of Xuanbi in Xuancheng is to ensure the excellent quality and good writing experience of Xuanbi.
In the process of making Xuanbi in Xuancheng, the selection of materials is very important. Craftsmen who make Xuan pens will carefully select only the best quality, soft and elastic rabbit hair. This kind of wool is fine and soft, which can provide good elasticity and flexibility when writing, so that ink can penetrate into the pen tip evenly, making writing smooth and changeable.
The production process of Xuan pen is very unique and needs to go through many processes. Firstly, the rabbit hair was washed and dried to remove impurities and moisture. Next, craftsmen will classify rabbit hair and divide it into different grades according to its thickness. Then.
Craftsmen will carefully cut and trim the appropriate rabbit hair according to the needs of the nib to ensure the quality and shape of the nib. Finally, the prepared rabbit hair is skillfully combined with the pen container to make a complete mysterious pen.
Xu Anbi has a long history:
The history of writing brush is longer. Before the Qin Dynasty, the writing brush had different names. Chu called the pen "Yu" and Yan called it "Fu". After the Qin Dynasty unified China, the writing brush was given a unified name. Xu Anbi can be said to be the birthplace of writing brush. Because a long time ago, Xuancheng had the saying that "Mao Ying's martial arts is the best in the world".
About the origin of Xu Anbi, there has been a saying that Meng Tian wrote it since ancient times. According to Han Yu's Biography of Mao Ying in the Tang Dynasty, in 223 BC, Meng Tian, a general of the Qin Dynasty, led an army south to attack the State of Chu, and arrived in Zhongshan area (that is, in Xuancheng). There are two different opinions about the specific direction. One said that Zhongshan is in Xuanzhou District and Jingxian County of Xuancheng today.
On the other hand, Zhongshan is in Lishui County, Jiangsu Province. According to the twenty-eight volumes of Yuanhe County Records, Zhongshan is fifteen miles southeast of Lishui County in Xuanzhou. Lishui County was under Xuanzhou's jurisdiction because of its vast territory in Tang and Song Dynasties. Meng Tian found that Zhongshan rabbit's hair was long and fat, with the best texture, so he made a brush with bamboo tube as the pen and rabbit hair (also called purple hair) as the pen tip. The world calls it "Mengtian Pen", which is the originator of Xu Anbi.
Reference to the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia-Xu Anbi