The Calligrapher — Liǔ Gōngquán 柳公权
Tang regular-script master famed for 'bones' of strength; rival to Yan Zhenqing.
Tang calligrapher (778–865), master of regular script — Tang master of bone-strength regular script, paired forever with Yan Zhenqing as 'Yan sinew, Liu bone'. Tang dynasty
Cultural Story
Mencius distilled the agrarian ethic into four words — plow deep, weed often — and promised the harvest would follow. 耨 named the short hoe of summer's crouch between rows, the patient blade that decided whether millet or pigweed owned the field. Daoist farmers preferred its rhythm to the sword, and the idiom still heads chapters on steady effort.
Common words & phrases
- 深耕細耨 deep plowing and careful weeding
- 耨鋤 hoe · to weed
Read the story behind the character
Modern sentence-writers reach for it deliberately: a tutor's log describes a semester of 深耕細耨 (deep plowing and careful weeding) with a struggling student; a village cooperative orders 耨鋤 (hoe, to weed) in bulk when overnight rain brings the weeds up all at once. Homestay tourists borrow the short hoe for an afternoon and discover why weeding once fed the philosophers their parables.
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