Bamboo slips are written materials from Warring States to Wei and Jin Dynasties. It is a kind of long and narrow bamboo (also called wood chips, called wooden slips), which are wider than Jane's. Bamboo slips are called bamboo slips and wooden slips are called wooden slips. All the books are written with brush and ink. Books for writing imperial edicts and decrees are three feet (about 67.5cm) long, books for copying scriptures are two feet four inches (about 56cm) long, and letters for folk writing are one foot (about 23cm) long, so people also call letters "letters". Important discoveries have been made in Changsha, Hunan, Jingzhou, Hubei, Linyi, Shandong, Dunhuang, Juyan, Wuwei and other northwest regions. Among them, books from the Eastern Han Dynasty were unearthed in Juyan.

Bamboo slips originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty and were widely used during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Around the 4th century AD, bamboo slips were replaced by paper manuscripts because of the widespread use of paper.

Calligraphy value

Bamboo slips are important materials for studying Chu characters in the Warring States and calligraphy in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty. In the pre-Qin era, characters moved from application to art. At this time, calligraphy was closely related to the changes of characters, and gradually improved from the naive stage, thus establishing a special position in the history of calligraphy in China. 1975 12000 bamboo slips with ink on them were unearthed from the Qin tomb in Yunmeng Crouching Tiger Land, Hubei Province. According to the archaeological materials, the characters on some wooden signs and bamboo slips in the Warring States and Qin Dynasties tend to simplify seal script, reduce strokes, change the font into square flat and use wave pen. This is the bud of official script. In the Western Han Dynasty, the elements of Li style in calligraphy were further increased. The silk painting "Lao Zi Jia Ben" unearthed in Mawangdui, Changsha has obvious official meaning.

Bamboo slips in the Warring States period were written by hand. The strokes of these characters are elastic, the starting and ending points are sharp, and the middle or front part is slightly thicker, which fully shows the characteristics of writing with a brush. This is different from the stroke form of bronze inscriptions, which changes from late weight to beauty, and the strokes and styles are simpler than those of seal script. It can be seen that the early official script was popular long before Qin Shihuang popularized Xiao Zhuan. "Bamboo Slips" is a school of calligraphy in China in recent years (also known as "Bamboo Slip Calligraphy"). This is a "Guli" style that imitates bamboo slips and silk scripts in Qin and Han Dynasties, that is, it imitates ancient calligraphy on bamboo chips, wood chips and silk fabrics in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties, that is, it uses a unique Chinese painting pigment to prepare ancient ochre yellow, and brushes vertical strips similar to bamboo slips on raw rice paper with a blackboard brush. The fonts are written on these ochre "bamboo slips", which has the following characteristics.