In March 1923, Jiang Ruzao, the owner of the Secret Yun Building, printed the "Guantang Jilin" in a juzhen edition. "Guantang Jilin" was personally selected, personally deleted, and proofread by Wang Guowei himself, and is an immortal academic masterpiece that Wang Guowei has contributed to the Chinese academic community. Guantang Jilin collects academic papers published by Wang Guowei in the Journal of Guoxue Series, Academic Series, Xuetang Series, and Guangcang Xueshu Series, which are divided into twenty volumes. The prefaces of Luo Zhenyu and Jiang Ruzao, which are titled before the book, are all written by Wang Guowei himself, expressing Wang Guowei's own academic history and academic views. The publication of this work provided the cornerstone for the new academic movement in China in the twentieth century, and the creation and invention of history, scripture, philology, phonology, oracle bone science, epigraphy, Dunhuang science, antiquarians and other fields provided new academic ideological resources for the in-depth development of these academic fields and became a common asset of the academic community.
The Founding Father of Chinese New Historiography (1877-1927)
Jiang Ruzao's engraving of "Guantang Jilin" should be said to be emotionally related to the moral friendship with Wang Guowei. Wang Guowei did not hand over his most important academic work, "Guantang Jilin", to the Commercial Press and the Zhonghua Bookstore for publication, nor did he let Luo Zhenyu, who had a friendship of 26 years, intervene, it should be said that he was still impressed by his personal friendship with Jiang Ruzao. It is not very clear how much it cost Jiang Ruzao to engrave the Guantang Jilin Forest. Wang Guowei did two aspects of work after the publication of "Guantang Jilin", one was to give it to his academic friends he knew, and the other was responsible for the sales of "Guantang Jilin" in Beiping. Wang Guowei has many well-known academic friends at home and abroad, and he has given away the "Guantang Jilin". "Guantang Jilin" was printed in Shanghai, and the academic friends to be presented nearby were Wang Guowei's acquaintances and Jiang Ruzao's friendship, and the scholars who were given away were Wang Bing'en, Zhu Guwei, Sun Deqian, and Zhang Mengjie. These people asked Jiang Ruzao to give them direct gifts. Wang Guowei asked Jiang Ruzao to mail the Guantang Jilin printed on thirty-five official piles of paper to the Beijing Division. At that time, Wang Guowei was on duty at the Peiping Small Imperial Court, and he gave the nineteen parts to the widows and foreign scholars of the inner court, including Chen Baochen. The "Kando Shurin" presented to the French scholar Bo Xihe was transferred by the Paris Company, and Naoki Kano and Torajiro Naito of Japan also gave a copy of "Kando Shurin" to each of them.
1959 Zhonghua Bookstore edition of "Guantang Jilin"
From the publication of Guantang Jilin in March 1923 to the tutoring of Tsinghua Guoguo College in December 1926, Wang Guowei seems to have set up some methods in the sales of the book. The Commercial Press and zhonghua bookstore were the bosses of the publishing industry at that time, and the sales channels were smooth, and Jiang Ruzao was originally ready to ask these two companies to sell on their behalf, but the conditions put forward by the business and Zhonghua were very harsh, and the settlement of the book payment was not timely, so they dismissed the idea of the Commercial Press and the Zhonghua Bookstore selling on their behalf, and chose the small bookstores in Beiping, Tianjin, and Shanghai for the sales of "Guantang Jilin". In order to sell Guantang Jilin, Wang Guowei selected three small private bookstores in Beijing: Fujin Book Club, Yi'an Tang, and China Bookstore.
The inner page of the woodcut line-bound edition of "Guantang Jilin"
Fujin Book Club is an old bookstore opened by Wang Fujin, a native of Jixian County, Hebei Province, in the Qingyunge Shopping Mall on Yangmeizhu Xie Street in Beiping. Fujin Book Club has many editions of books, and has made a lot of profits by selling the archaeological books of the golden stone oracle bones published by Luo Zhenyu and selling the albums of the Colo editions printed by major bookstores in Shanghai. Fujin Books also specializes in selling self-printed books by scholars. "Guantang Jilin" is sold by Fujin Book Society, and the payment is settled at 20% discount. Yi'an Tang is a new bookstore opened by Luo Zhenyu in Jialeli, Qiushan Street, French Concession, Tianjin, specializing in the sale of old calligraphy and paintings, and the discount for selling "Guantang Jilin" is 70% off, Wang Guowei wrote to Jiang Ruzao to send ten books for Yi'an Tang to sell; later sent twelve to Luo Zhenyu. The Chinese bookstore founded by Jin Xingxiang, which is based on old books, may be small in scale, and Wang Guowei only gave eighteen "Guantang Jilin" for it to sell. Jiang Ruzao sent Wang Guowei more than one hundred and fifty copies of the Guantang Jilin, and Wang Guowei asked His academic friends Xu Senyu and Ma Heng of Beiping to give ideas for selling these books. Xu Senyu has a wide range of contacts and contacts in Beiping, so he suggested that Wang Guowei should not sell books to bookstores and sell them directly to academic and cultural institutions. Ma Heng agreed to this proposal, so he began to publish a sales advertisement for "Guantang Jilin" in the Journal of Peking University.
Peking University Journal, which advertised Guantang Jilin
On February 26, 1924, the "Guantang Jilin" advertisement for the first time published in the Journal of Peking University read: "The "Guantang Jilin" written by Mr. Wang Jing'an, the tutor of the Institute of Traditional Chinese Studies, has now been published. Pricing: official pile paper, ocean eight yuan; white paper, ocean ten yuan; actual receipt: official pile paper, ocean six yuan; white paper, ocean eight yuan. Sales Office: Research Institute Guoxue Gate Registration Room. Two days after this advertisement was posted, the advertisement content of "Yin Virtual Text" co-authored by Luo Zhenyu and Shang Chengzuo was added. The joint book sales advertisement of "Guantang Jilin" and "Yin Xuan Character Compilation" was published in the "Peking University Daily" for eighteen consecutive days. The Guoxuemen of the Institute of Research of Peking University took twenty-five copies of the Guantang Jilin in Wang Guowei's hands, and the advertisement was also published for more than half a month, and Wang Guowei's letter to Jiang Ruzao said, "There are advertisements in the university daily journal, which have been taken away for half a month, and have not yet paid for renewal, and the number of sales is not very good. In March 1925, Wang Guowei sent the two hundred yuan of the book money of the "Guantang Jilin" that he handled to Jiang Ruzao from the mainland bank, and for this reason, Wang Guowei also wrote a letter to Jiang's son Jiang Yisun. By June 1926, Wang Guowei had been working as a tutor at the Tsinghua School guoshu for more than a year, and Ma Heng wrote to Wang asking if someone wanted to buy Guantang Jilin. At the beginning of November of the same year, 21 students from the Tsinghua School Research Institute wanted to buy "Guantang Jilin" for four yuan each. Wang Guowei wrote a letter to Jiang Yisun and asked him for help. Jiang Yisun angrily promised that the office of the Tsinghua School guoshu would prepare to remit the twenty-one books of the Guantang Jilin to Jiang Yisun. Later, the Tsinghua School purchased it from the Fujin Book Club for six yuan, and Wang Guowei wrote to Jiang Yisun that the twenty-one books of the Guantang Jilin were still settled for six yuan.
Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei took a group photo in the countryside of Kyoto, Japan
"Guantang Jilin", an epoch-making work in modern Chinese academic history, encountered a very embarrassing situation when it was first published. Let me give you the answer.