A native of Shangcai, Chu (now southwest of Shangcai, Henan). It is advocated to use Xiaozhuan as the standard calligraphy style. Small seal script, also known as Qin seal script, is the symmetry of large seal script. It gives people a feeling of hardness and softness, roundness and strength, and plays a great role in the standardization of Chinese characters. The emergence of Xiaozhuan is a great progress in the history of the development of Chinese characters. According to "Taiping Guangji" quoted from "Mengtian Bi Jing", it was compiled by Li Si, a native of Shangcai in Chu State.
Li Si was a famous politician, writer and calligrapher in the Qin Dynasty. When he was young, he first worked as a minor official in the countryside managing documents. Later, he studied with Xun Qing and served as a court official. During the reign of Qin Shihuang, Li Si was appointed prime minister for his outstanding political foresight and outstanding talents.
Before the unification of Qin, due to the long-term separation and division of various vassal states, a situation of different languages and different characters was formed. Qin Shihuang had been longing for a standard font to replace the previously popular variant characters, so he found out that Li Si was good at calligraphy and gave him the task. Li Si cut out the complexity of the large seal script and simplified it, and compiled a set of characters with simple strokes and neat shapes, called Qin seal script. After Qin Shihuang saw these new calligraphy styles, he was very satisfied, so he made it a standard font and ordered it to be used throughout the country.
At that time, people were not familiar with the structure of Xiaozhuan and it was difficult to write satisfactorily. Li Si, Zhao Gao, Hu Wu and others wrote models such as "Cangjie Pian", "Yuanli Pian" and "Erudition Pian" for everyone to copy.
The year before the death of Qin Shihuang, he was not afraid of the dangerous waves of the Qianjiang River and went east to Kuaiji (today's Shaoxing). He paid homage to Dayu's Mausoleum and climbed Tianzhu Peak (later called Qinwang Mountain in Christianity). After overlooking the tidal wave of the East China Sea, he ordered Prime Minister Li Si to handwrite "Kuiji Inscription". The next day after Li Si was ordered to finish writing overnight, he quarried the stone to carve it, and then set it up on the top of Elbi Mountain in Kuaiji (later called Stone Carving Mountain). This is the famous "Kuaiji Stone Carving" in history.
The carved stones that are said to have been written by Li Si include "Taishan carved stones", "Langyatai carved stones", "Yishan carved stones", "Kuiji carved stones", etc.
