The emperor's handwriting, i adore that. There is this paper, that i will go and find later, that talks about the emperor's official handwriting and the empress using it in Song dynasty. As far as i could tell, it wasn't everything handwritten by the emperor that counted as official word of emperor, but anything written in his handwriting. And even then, there were specific people who could use it? The empress, selected officials, i assume, there were woodcarvers from the palace here. (In this case then, i would say it's not that every reproduction is the real thing but that no reproductions are allowed besides the official ones. Or that, it's not a reproduction of the emperor's hand, just the "font" for official documents.)
Re: Chapter 1
There is this paper, that i will go and find later, that talks about the emperor's official handwriting and the empress using it in Song dynasty.
As far as i could tell, it wasn't everything handwritten by the emperor that counted as official word of emperor, but anything written in his handwriting. And even then, there were specific people who could use it? The empress, selected officials, i assume, there were woodcarvers from the palace here.
(In this case then, i would say it's not that every reproduction is the real thing but that no reproductions are allowed besides the official ones. Or that, it's not a reproduction of the emperor's hand, just the "font" for official documents.)