When looking for traces of the old Guangzhou library, I went to several e-commerce websites, tried to use the "Haishan Xianguan series" as a keyword search, the result can not but be said to be a surprise, this set of xiguan rich merchant Pan Shicheng engraved large series of books not only published by the publishing house, but also really have some fans. Originally engraved two hundred years ago, this large-scale series of books originated from the First Garden in Lingnan, the Haishan Xianguan on the shores of Lychee Bay, and was the first to dominate the country because it contained a large number of new works of science and technology. Like Yue Xuelou and Yue Ya Tang, the Haishan Immortal Hall could not escape the fate of being raided and destroyed. Fortunately, the books it engraved are still preserved, and the knowledge passed down through it is still not outdated even in the era of e-commerce.
▎Seamount Fairy Hall ▎
The writings of the Greek sages are included in the sub-collections
The name "Haishan Xianguan" always reminds me of the poem "Overhearing that there are immortal mountains on the sea, and the mountains are in the void", this private garden located in the area of LizhiWan two hundred years ago was built by the merchant Pan Shicheng on the ruins of changhuayuan, the royal garden of the Southern Han Dynasty. Pan Shicheng was a descendant of the Pan family of Tongwenxing, who made his fortune in the salt industry and was the most influential Confucian merchant at that time, and the Haishan Xianguan was also well known in Guangzhou.
According to the records of the "Panyu County Chronicle", this private garden garden with "ten thousand red ferns, smoke in the wind corridor, and more than ten miles in the wind corridor" is extremely luxurious and has countless treasures, of which there are more than 300 cloisters that display the ink treasures of famous artists in the past, and the rare Song and Yuan classics it collects are more attractive. In the Haishan Immortal Hall, whether the owner is at home or not, guests who are acquainted with it can come uninvited, or enjoy rare books, or exchange knowledge, the Haishan Immortal Hall can be said to be a joke and a great confucian, there is no white Ding, and its "admission qualifications" have a considerable weight in the eyes of the elite in the city.
Nineteenth-century Guangzhou merchant Pan Jia Garden "Sea Mountain Fairy Hall", painted by the British painter Thomas Allom
However, what really makes the Haishan Xianguan "crowned in Lingnan" is not "chandeliers studded with precious stones" and "sandalwood columns dotted with mother-of-pearl, gold and silver", not the pavilion water pavilion that "carved algae ornaments, all work", or even the more than 300 cloisters that collect the authentic works of celebrities in the past, but the bookstores and printing houses not far from the gate of the garden, where Pan Shicheng printed the "Sea Immortals Series" that refreshed the intellectual circles. From the perspective of today's people, Pan Shicheng is a complex two-sided body, on the one hand, he is elegant and ancient, and he also loves to chant poetry in addition to business, and his level is not lower than that of the literati and inkers who often come to xianguan; on the other hand, he is proficient in foreign languages and has a strong interest in Western science and technology, and he even built a chemical laboratory, which is filled with various acids for the development of detonators and gunpowder. Later, under the promotion of Qi Ying, the governor of Liangguang, Pan Shicheng vigorously built shipyards, made gunpowder, and made guns in addition to operating salt affairs, and became the backbone of Guangdong's foreign affairs circles. Because of this personal experience and style of "combining East and West", Pan Shicheng had an extremely unique vision when he engraved and printed the "Haishan Xianguan Series".
Science books engraved in the Seisan Fairy Museum. (File photo)
"Haishan Xianguan Series" is still classified according to the traditional "scriptures, histories, sub-collections", traditional precious classics do not need to be said more, with "rare in the world, precious enough" words can be summarized, the biggest highlight of the series of books is in the "sub-department". In Pan Shicheng's eyes, in addition to the chinese sages, the "sons" also include the academic giants of ancient Greece and the European Renaissance. Euclid's "Geometric Origins" and "Surveying the Law of Righteousness", the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci's "Same Text", "Huanrong Doctrine", the British doctor Hexin's "New Theory of the Whole" written by the British doctor Hexin and the first to open the treatment of Western medicine in Guangzhou, the German missionary John Tang's great work on firearms manufacturing, "Fire Attack essentials", etc., all included in the "sub-department" of the series, according to scholars' statistics, "Haishan Xianguan Series" nearly 500 volumes, of which the new books accounted for nearly a quarter, at that time, let alone in Guangzhou, even in the country is also unique.
The current situation of Haishan Xianguan (Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City reporter: Shao Quanda photo)
The demise of the Haishan Xianguan is another tangled story, After Pan Shicheng reached his old age, because of the loss of patronage in the official field and the huge deficit in the operation of salt affairs, he was raided by the government, and the Haishan Xianguan was also "nationalized" by Nanhai County, because the price of the Xianguan was too high, Nanhai County could not find a buyer for a while, and actually came up with a way to sell lottery tickets to realize, and the winner was a private school with a head in winter. He suddenly became rich, suddenly ate, drank, gambled, and did everything, the classics, calligraphy and paintings, antiques, and even mountain stones and furniture in the Xianguan were gradually sold, exchanged for prostitution gambling funds, and within a few years, the Haishan Xianguan was completely broken, the former pavilion and water pavilion became a broken tile, the lotus pond became farmland, and as for the bookstore and printing house that carved the "Haishan Xianguan Series", it was also full of cobwebs, and no one cared. Fortunately, Pan Shicheng died of depression not long after he was raided, and he did not have to be sad about such a scene anymore.
▎Manki Caotang ▎
Kang Youwei shot a magnificent student sitting on ten thousand books
From the late Qing Dynasty to the early years of the Republic of China, Yue Xue Lou, Yue Ya Tang, Haishan Xianguan and Wanmu Caotang were recognized as the four best library buildings in Guangzhou, and the most familiar today was of course the Wanmu Caotang run by Kang Youwei.
Wanmu Caotang is a famous school founded by the bourgeois reformists in modern China. (Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City reporter: Wang Weixuan photo)
Anyone who has studied the history of middle school knows that in 1881, Ichisuke Buyi Kang Youwei wrote to the imperial court to request a change of law, but found nothing. Kang Youwei reluctantly returned to Guangzhou and began to spread the concept of restoration and change in the circle of friends. In 1891, he rented the Qiu Clan Bookstore in Changxingli and opened the Wanmu Caotang, and a year later, the Caotang was moved to the Kwong Ancestral Hall on Weibian Street, and finally to the Yanggao Ancestral Hall on Xuegong Street. In addition to Liang Qichao and Kang Guangren, the talents cultivated by Wanmu Caotang also included Mai Menghua, the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of All Nations at that time, Xu Qin, the chief writer of the Qiang Journal, And He Shuling, and a large number of backbones of the restoration. It is said that during the period when Wanmu Caotang was running the school, there were thousands of young people who came to study here before and after, so that when Kang Youwei later celebrated his seventieth birthday, Liang Qichao also wrote a birthday greeting of "The pro-teacher covers three thousand Yan", and even directly compared Kang Youwei to Confucius and slapped him with a big slap on the ass.
What is the relationship between Wanmu Caotang and the library? The so-called library building is actually the library of the caotang. In terms of the amount of books in the collection, Wanmu Caotang is not inferior to the other three at all, of which a large part is the ancient books that Kang Youwei moved out of his former residence in Nanhai, and the Kang family lives in Lingnan, which can also be regarded as a noble family, and the collection of books accumulated for generations is about tens of thousands of volumes, except for a small part of which is left in the South Overseas, the rest are all transported by Kang Youwei into the Wanmu Caotang.
When Kang Youwei was writing the Confucius Reform Examination, the students of Wanmu Caotang helped him check a large amount of information. (File photo)
In addition, Kang Youwei spared no expense to buy new books on Western studies. There is a statistic in the academic circles that the Western studies books translated by the Shanghai Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau have only sold 12,000 copies in 30 years, of which Kang Youwei bought 3,000 copies. Kang Youwei's shot was so bold, of course, he had his own considerations, Liang Qichao once said in the "Biography of Mr. Kang Nanhai" that Kang Youwei "and Hong Kong, see the integrity of the Colonial Politics of the Westerners, the territory is so, the country's progress can be known, because of the thinking of this, there must be moral learning to think that the original, is to buy the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and the translated books, read it as much as possible." To tell the truth, due to the lack of historical accomplishment, every time I think of Kang Youwei, I can't get rid of the stereotype of a "conservative little old man with a pigtail behind my head", but after reading this passage, I can see that he can pursue the "origin of moral learning" through the appearance of "strong ships and sharp cannons", and I feel that his insight is far higher than that of his contemporaries, which is truly admirable.
However, Kang Youwei spared no effort to move tens of thousands of precious books to Wanmu Caotang, of course, not just for one person to read, but to read with students. Among the "Four Greats of Lingnan", Yue Xue Lou, Yue Ya Tang and Hai Shan Xian Guan are typical private library buildings, while Wanmu Caotang has taken on the color of a public library. Here, the borrowers of books are students, and administrators are also students. Lu Xiangfu, a famous educator in modern Lingnan, studied in Wanmu Caotang when he was young, and he recalled: "The collection of books in Wanmu Caotang, where tens of thousands of volumes, is divided into more than 100 boxes, and is stored in one room, and its books are managed by the students in the second round, which are exclusively for the borrowing and reference of the same door." For the work of librarian, Lu Xiang's father has always been tireless, because he can use it to "peek into the secrets."
Every time Liang Qichao recalls the days of wandering in the sea of caotang books, it is also an affectionate model. He said: "In Wanmu Caotang, in addition to listening to lectures, we mainly rely on ourselves to read books and write notes. In addition to reading ancient Chinese books, you also have to read a lot of Western books. For example, Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau on sound, light, chemical, electrical and other scientific translations of hundreds of dozens, all should be read. Translations of Rong Hong and Yan Fu's ancestors studying abroad, as well as translations by foreign missionaries such as Fu Lanya and Li Timothy, were read. It seems that Liang Qichao was able to become a generation of masters who studied in China and the West, and the collection of books in Wanmu Caotang was absolutely indispensable.
Interior view of Wanmu Caotang. (Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City reporter: Wang Weixuan photo)
Like the Seamount Immortal Hall, the collection of books in The Wanmu Caotang has not been able to avoid the fate of displacement. In 1898, the Penghu Reform Law failed, and the Wanmu Caotang was raided by the Qing court. According to the scholar Su Quanyou, some of the books in the Caotang collection were burned, and some of them were confiscated by the Governor's Palace, and then transferred to the Guangya Academy founded by Zhang Zhidong. After the Xinhai Revolution, Kang Youwei returned from overseas, and the Guangdong military government returned the confiscated books in Wanmu Caotang, and these books were returned to their original owners.
Text/Guangzhou Daily, Xinhua city reporter: Wang Yuehua
Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor: Lin Weilin