Clerical script is a variety of Chinese calligraphy during its evolution, also known as the “official script” or “ancient style of calligraphy.” It evolved from and was a simplification of seal script. In terms of execution of strokes, clerical script changed rounded turns to abrupt turns. Structurally, each character was wider and flatter, with longer horizontal lines and shorter vertical ones, featuring an elegant style like “a silkworm’s head and the tail of a wild goose,” and “one wave and three bends.” Clerical script is said to have been invented by a junior clerk named Cheng Miao who lived in the Qin Dynasty but actually it originated during the earlier Warring States Period. Cheng Miao was responsible only for putting into order and standardizing this calligraphic style. Compared with the seal script, clerical script was simpler in structure and more convenient to write. It became popular in the Eastern Han Period, reaching an unprecedented height of development. In the Wei and Jin period, the clerical script was also referred to as regular script, or proper script, which is similar to clerical style, but with left-falling and right-falling strokes.

The First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty ordered the burning of the classics and sent large numbers of government functionaries and soldiers for forced labor or garrison along the border, leaving a huge amount of routine matters at government offices and prisons unattended. As a result, clerical script was invented to make it easier to deal with the increasing amount of document writing.

(Xu Shen: Explanation of Script and Elucidation of Characters)

The seal script was adopted in the Qin Dynasty. Later, because matters became numerous and it was very difficult to write with the seal script, the Emperor ordered junior clerks to help copy government documents. Hence the name “clerical script.” The Han Dynasty continued to use this style of calligraphy, except when carving characters on a commander’s tally, an imperial seal, banners used as tallies, horizontal inscribed boards or pillars at the entrance to a hall. The clerical script evolved from the seal script into a more convenient form of writing. (The History of the Jin Dynasty)