Regular script is one of the scripts of Chinese characters, also known as “proper script,” “true script,” or “model script.” To reduce the curviness and waviness of Han Dynasty clerical script, rectify the undisciplined and unregulated cursive script, facilitate writing and enhance intelligibility, calligraphers shifted toward a simpler style of writing, making both horizontal and vertical lines straighter. Thus, it evolved into the regular script. Characters written in this style looked neat and well laid out, upright and square, showing due reverence for rules governing the writing of calligraphy. This is precisely how it came to be called “model script.” It first emerged toward the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, became better known in the Wei and Jin dynasties, and fully matured and became widely accepted in the Tang Dynasty. It has been flourishing to this day. If divided by historical periods, regular script falls into two styles: Wei stone tablet regular script and Tang regular script. The former represented a transition from clerical script to regular script over the Wei, Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties period. The latter was Tang style regular script. Gaining its maturity in the Tang Dynasty, it witnessed many great calligraphers rising to fame, including Yu Shinan (558-638), Ouyang Xun (557-641), and Chu Suiliang (596-658 or 659) in the first years of the Tang Dynasty, Yan Zhenqing (708-784) in the mid-Tang Dynasty and Liu Gongquan (778-865) in the last years of the same dynasty. These calligraphers have since been honored as paragons of Chinese calligraphy. Numerous practitioners have been using their calligraphic works as models of calligraphy through the ages.

During the Jianchu period (76–84) of the Eastern Han, a man named Wang Cizhong gradually changed clerical script to regular script. The regular script of that time was the same as the model script of today. Believing that regular script facilitated writing, calligraphers started to popularize it.

(Collected Works of Calligraphy Compiled by the Imperial Court During the Xuanhe Years of Emperor Huizong)

[Li Chong] exceled at regular script. He had a comprehensive and thorough understanding of the true meaning of the calligraphy of Zhong Yao and Suo Jing. Both his contemporaries and later generations have respected and admired him for his calligraphic skill.

(The History of the Jin Dynasty)