Shanghainese who like old buildings are no strangers to Hudak, and when it comes to Le Binsheng, he knows that he should be a fan of music. In terms of influence, Hudak's architecture was rooted in Shanghai, and Le Binsheng's record empire radiated throughout the Chinese-speaking region.
E. Lee Labansat was a member of the Committee at the French Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai that year
As we all know, China's record industry originated in Shanghai, and the first record produced in Shanghai was from the Frenchman Le Binsheng (E. Labansat bought a piece of land on Xujiahui Road and built the record factory of the French merchant Oriental Pathé Company. On this history, Ge Tao's book "Records and Social Life in Modern Shanghai" is very detailed, and this book is also a famous study of the early history of China's recording industry, and its content is widely cited. Unfortunately, Le Binsheng is a frozen yellow fish without a tail in Ge's pen; we can't read the end of The Story of Le's Shanghai, of course, these problems are equally insoluble in other existing writings.
"Records and Social Life in Modern Shanghai"
Recently, because of my research on Li Jinguang, I spent several hours every day flipping through the newspapers and periodicals of the Republic of China, and before the Spring Festival, I read the "Declaration" of March 16, 1939, and I came across this news - "The Death of the Former Chairman of the French Shanghai Daily", and what amazed people was the subtitle "Hand Creation BAIDAI Company Has a Very Wide Business Scope", and what was completely shocking was the beginning of the article: "According to the fifteenth French Shanghai Daily, the former chairman of the French Shanghai Daily, Na Bang Shajun, recently died in France, and it is a pity that according to the Na Bang Sha lineage in 1910, he came to China and founded the Baidai Company... It is unbelievable that the text mentions that "Na Bang Sha" is obviously another translation of Le Binsheng, and Le Binsheng actually came to China in 1910. If this account is true, then the first chapter in the history of China's recording industry will be torn down and rebuilt. Taking Ge Tao's "Records and Social Life in Modern Shanghai" as an example, he wrote: "In the mid-1890s and the later 1890s, Le Bangsheng crossed the ocean to Shanghai... After many twists and turns, Le Binsheng finally found his own way to make a living - setting up stalls along the street to play records, which was already in the early 20th century. (Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, June 2009 edition, p. 235) The document he cites is from the website of China Records Shanghai, an article titled "The Old Chinese Record Industry."
Obituary of the Declaration
With this doubt, I consulted Le Binsheng in the historical records of the late Qing Dynasty; the Chinese part was extremely indifferent to him, but Zhang Changfu (the Chinese manager of Baidai, formerly Li Xitang, the notice of the handover of the two work is detailed in the "Declaration" of October 2, 1913) often appeared in the media; the English part, the "Zi Lin Xi Bao" of March 1, 1932, recorded that Le Binsheng would take a boat to Paris in another one to two weeks. March 1932 was confirmed to be the time when Le Binsheng bid farewell to Shanghai and returned to France for his retirement, which was recorded in the "Declaration" on March 16, 1939, and the obituary of Le's published in the "Zi Lin Xi Bao" on March 15, 1939. That issue of Zi Lin Xi wrote: "Mr. Labansat first arrived in China in 1910, after having established branch offices for his firm in india, the Strait Settlements, Indo-China and Hong Kong." The gist of it was that he had already opened branches in several British and French colonies before coming to China, in other words, he may not have been involved in the recording industry after coming to China, but came to Shanghai to expand his business. The news also mentions the main achievements of Le Binsheng, which is quite contradictory to the history recognized by the academic community, for example, we once thought that Le Binsheng was the founder of Oriental Emiy, and the report only gave a "former general manager of Messrs.Pathé-Orient in Shanghai"; for example, we once thought that he had been working in Shanghai for many years, but the report said: "After successfully." marketing the products of Pathé-Orient in Shanghai, the deceased went to North China were another office was opened at Tientsin. These various branches had been successfully engaged in business for some time when the world war broke out, M. Labansat being mobilized in Tientsin where he served as instructor, only returning to Shanghai in 1919.” To the effect that after making achievements in Shanghai, he expanded north and was stationed in Tianjin, returning to Shencheng only once in 1919.
The "Zi Lin Xi Bao" reported that Le Binsheng was about to leave Shanghai
The "Zi Lin Xi Bao" reported on the death of Le Binsheng
Worse is the follow-up paragraph: "Shortly afterwards, the firm decided to build a factory which now stands on Avenue Petain and which had the rare dictinction of having been the first firm to make gramophone records in." Shanghai.” This quotation follows the return to Shanghai in 1919, in other words, Le Binsheng led the construction of the factory no earlier than 1919; Avenue Petain, the old name of Hengshan Road, where the record factory was demolished due to municipal relocation in the early 2000s, leaving only the Hundred Generations Little Red House. The point in time in 1919 was truly shocking, and in Ge Tao's book, the history of EMI producing China's first record is described as follows: "EMI decided in early 1915 to buy land and build a factory in Shanghai... After more than two years, The Factory of The Company was finally completed in 1917 and was officially put into operation shortly thereafter. (pp. 246-247)
I reckon that the above-mentioned reports in Zi lin xi and the declaration are reproduced from the French daily newspaper Le Journal de Shanghai founded by Le Binsheng. I didn't have the chance to see this newspaper, but even if I turned to the source of the news, it would be difficult to shake some of the conclusions of China's record history with these few reports alone.
So, I turned over the Republic of China's "Enterprise Investigation" - The North-China Desk Hong List ( "Zi Lin Xi Newspaper List"). The existing "List of Banks" began in 1872 and ended in 1941, initially as an annual journal, published in January, changed to a semi-annual publication in 1909, and published in January and July, mainly publishing information on commercial banks, enterprises and institutions in Shanghai and major cities in China. As a large foreign company, EMI naturally has no reason to be absent. I found the evidence, the specific why, not for the time being.
Let's first look at Ge Tao's argument. He said that Le Bin was born in Shanghai in the mid-to-late 1890s, put on a record of "Foreigners Laughing" at Nanyang Bridge to passers-by, collected 10 copper coins each time, and a few years later had a small fortune, bid farewell to his career as a street vendor, and founded his own company "Baide Foreign Firm" in 1908 (Baide is a transliteration of the French Pathé, pp. 235-237). Reading Gurdjieff's text, Le Binsheng gave me the feeling that he was a foreign man who came to Shanghai to pan for gold, and this "French phoenix" would take many years to take off. However, such a legendary character, Mr. Ge cannot prove it in the book, and it is not as convincing as when he examines the relationship between Bai de & Co. and EMI. Bai de & Co. was the predecessor of EMI, and the hardest proof came from a set of advertisements published in the Declaration in late April 1910. Ge Tao believes that Bai de Foreign Firm was founded by Le Binsheng in 1908, what is the basis? It doesn't seem to be mentioned in the book. I checked Bai De Foreign Firm (Ge Teacher should also check it), and the earliest record I could find was from the "Declaration" of July 28, 1908, or an advertisement, not an opening notice, but: "The bank moved to the new ocean room at No. 99 Sichuan Road, North of The Yingda Road on the third day of July, and traded the electric light and shadow machine and the new film generator as usual, and its special sound singing machine New twelve-inch double-sided drama film was created by the famous Chicken Brand Factory in Paris, France..." The second half of this migration notice was to promote the variety and quality of records, the entrepreneurial time, the identity of the owner are all underserved, but the business scope of Baide Foreign Firm, which has been involved in the three major fields of film, record player and record as early as 1908.
Advertisement for the Declaration of April 19, 1910
The earliest record of Bai De Foreign Firm in the Declaration
This is in line with the introduction of the "List of Zi Lin Xi Newspapers" published by Bai De Foreign Firm in January 1909:
"Pathe Phono-Cinema-China
Phonographs and Cinematographs Moving Pictures.”
The January 1909 edition of the "List of Rows" of Bird records
Here's the problem. The "List of Rows" then gave a list of Key Players: Lucien Dreyfus, the first in command, the General Agent for China; Le Bris, the second in command, as the manager; and three names in the back, no E. Hamas. Labansat）。 Branch information mentions that in addition to its storefront at 99 Sichuan Road in Shanghai, PAK also has branches in Mumbai, Kolkata, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tianjin and Hankou.
In the July 1909 edition of the "List of Works", Rakuhama was still absent; in the July 1910 edition, the first-in-command Lucien Dreyfus left and the second-in-command Le Bris replaced him, canceling the title of General Agent for China and changing it to Director and Genera Manager, and changing the name of the company from "Baide" to "Hyakudai". Ge Tao said that Le Bangsheng came to Shanghai in the mid-1890s; in 1939, the "Declaration" and "Zilinxi Bao" said that Le Bangsheng came to China in early 1910; and E. Labansat's first appearance in the "List of Works" was as late as the July 1913 edition (the January edition of that year was scattered). Considering the time-consuming and delayed compilation and printing of the "List of Works", E. Labansat became the "Commander-in-Chief" of the French Andy Oriental EMI Company, which should have occurred from the second half of 1912 to the first half of 1913.
The July 1910 edition of the "List of Rows" is a collection of Hyakusei records
The "List of Acts" in july 1913 edition of the Hyakusei Chronicle
There are also two historical documents mentioning Le Bangsheng that can be circumstantially corroborated. On November 3, 1931, the "Declaration" published an article entitled "The Best-selling Of Hundred Generations of Four-Minute Records", and on the same day, "The News" published an article entitled "The Achievements of Hundred Generations' Four-Minute Records", except for the title difference of two words, the content of the two brief messages was the same: "The Hundred Generations Company has been open in Shanghai for a long time, has issued more than 3,000 kinds of records, is popular at home and abroad, has been hanging for more than twenty years, since the legal person Lai Pengsa became the prime minister, it has been striving for excellence, the business is particularly prosperous, and this spring it has invented a four-minute minute record..." This should be the press release of the Hundred Generation Company to the media." Repensa" is another translation of Rakuhama's name, and the meaning of the quotation is obvious, after the Frenchman became the general manager of HYYO, the company's business went up another level.
The report on the "Declaration" "Bestseller of Emissary Four Minutes Of The Record"
Based on these new materials, I deduce that Rakuhama was not the founder of the "Oriental Hundred Generations", but the commander of the airborne landing; it is even more arbitrary to say that Rakuhama Sei founded the Baide Foreign Company in 1908, and there is no historical data to support this. Instead, there is a document that pushes the time forward by a year. In 1928, vol. 8, No. 2, The Bank Monthly, published an article entitled "The Profits of the French Emile Company in China", which began: "The French Far East Film And Record Company, abbreviated as the Oriental Emily Company, was founded in August 1907 with a total capital of 2.666 million francs. Recently, there is a legal report investigation, and its business situation in the past five years is as left. The article then appends the (annual) net profit and (annual) dividend of EMI from 1922 to 1926, and the data is accurate to single digits. The news was reprinted from the "Law Newspaper", as mentioned above, Le Bangsheng was the founder of the French Shanghai Daily, and on December 6, 1927, the "Declaration" had a brief article mentioning that the French Shanghai Daily was scheduled to be published on the tenth day. I estimate that the French-language daily, which was founded on December 10, 1927, published the financial report of THE EMI Company in an issue of the newspaper in 1928, both of which belonged to Le Bangsheng, otherwise it would be difficult to explain how such confidential data was leaked. Therefore, I believe that the information reproduced in the French newspaper is credible, as the predecessor of THE EMI company, Baide & Co., Ltd., was founded in Shanghai in August 1907.
"The Profit of the French EMI Company in China"
From 1922 to 1926, EMI's net profit and share dividend
Then I flipped through the "List of Rows," which contained some information that would answer the mystery of when the record studio was created. The first time a record factory appeared in EMI's corporate information was in the January 1920 edition of the "Line List", and the factory manager (factory mgr) was M. Girardot、A. Grelet。 The title factory mgr is not found in the Emiss information in the July 1919 edition of the "List of Lines", from which I deduce that the record factory was built in 1919 (consistent with the statement of the "Zi Lin Xi Bao").
The "List of Rows" in the January 1920 edition of the Hyakusei Chronicle
My inference has three other sets of evidence.
The first set of evidence comes from the EMI archives collected by Zhongsheng Shanghai. In 2012, the "China Old Record Protection Project" was included in the mainland's "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", and Chen Jianping, the former deputy editor-in-chief of China Singing Shanghai Company, who had retired at that time, returned to the unit to participate in the collation of old records in the Republic of China, focusing on the collation of documents. I asked Mr. Chen to review the EMI file, and her reply to me was: "Among the documents retained by EMI, at least three documents involved the purchase of land and the construction of a factory: 1) the earliest plot of land, drawn in 1918; 2) a note left by a man named Wang Yaoshan in February 1919 stating that he would sell a piece of land to EMI Company, and the land was adjacent to the land on the map in 1918; 3) The list of construction dates of all the properties of EMI Company, the earliest construction date on it was 1919. It can be inferred from this that HYDAI purchased land no later than 1918 and built a factory no later than 1919. Is it earlier? At least for now I don't see conclusive evidence. ”
The materials cited by Teacher Chen have been sorted out by her one after another since 2012. She told me that the earliest document in the current Collection of Emily archives in the collection of Zhongsheng is 1918. She cannot give the exact time of construction and production, but she has seen in a recollection of an old employee that "In 1919, HYEY began to produce diamond needle records"; there is also a document that records that the earliest construction time of HYEY's factory building was 1919, not specific to the month; and it is also recorded that EMI Company had 16 tablet presses put into production from 1919 to 1920, and there was no record of the month.
Combining these new materials, I deduce that EMI bought the land near Xujiahui in 1918, and the factory was completed in 1919, producing China's first record in the same year.
There is a directive from the Ministry of Finance of the Beiyang Government that supports the above point of view, entitled "Fashang Baidai Company set up a factory in Shanghai to manufacture the microphone tray taxation method order Yang complied with the handling document", which was promulgated on December 26, 1919, and included in the "Financial Monthly" of Volume 7, No. 73, 1920, and the instruction recorded: "During the seventh year of the Republic of China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was allowed to consult, and the French Merchant Emissary Company planned to set up a factory in Shanghai, manufacture the microphone tray, and ask for assistance in the imitation of Western-style goods. Pay the export tax. The letter of envoy to The Right Minister now requests whether it should be consulted to check the reasons for the review. When the Department sets up a factory in Shanghai to manufacture a telephone microphone with the French Merchants Hundred Generations Company, it shall first be sent by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Minister of Law, and the samples examined by the company shall be sent to the Department for testing, and then the examination and review of the office shall be carried out..."
Instructions from the Ministry of Finance of the Beiyang Government
The original text of the directive is punctuated, there is a sentence to read, up to two pages long, mentioning that in October 1918, the Baidai Company submitted an application through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Beiyang Government to prepare to open a factory in Shanghai to produce record players and records, and to import a batch of machines, and the purpose of the application was to hope that the Beiyang Government could reduce the import and export tax. The word "proposed" in the text indicates that it was only an intention at that time, and it was not implemented, which also echoed the earliest plot map drawn in 1918 in the existing EMIS archives - first buy land, then build a factory. In addition, the directive mentioned a series of efforts made by EMI to reduce taxes for goods: Initially, the relevant departments hoped that EMI could first submit samples (three pieces of a talking tray), EMI submitted, and after acceptance by the relevant departments, they found that these samples were not domestic goods in the true sense, and then rejected the application of legal merchants, and also required that the goods manufactured in the Shanghai factory in the future must be marked in Chinese with the words Shanghai EMI Company and so on, and BAIDAI did so, which enjoyed the preferential treatment of tax exemption.
At the end of 1919, after the "Hundred Dynasties Directive" issued by the Ministry of Finance of the Beiyang Government, the provinces responded one after another, and Zhang Zuolin, governor of Fengtian Province, Lü Tiaoyuan, governor of Anhui Province, and Hu Xianglin, director of the Jiangsu Department of Finance, each signed the order, and the relevant historical materials are detailed in the Fengtian Gazette, No. 2812, 1919, The Anhui Gazette, No. 557, and the Jiangsu Provincial Gazette, No. 2174, 1920.
In addition, there is a third piece of evidence, which was found under the inspiration of Teacher Ge Tao. Baidai Company left tens of thousands of traces in the newspapers and periodicals of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, and there were 10934 articles in the "Declaration" alone, I tried to read it word by word, plus screenshot archiving, and the most diligent day only digested more than three hundred articles. Thanks to a passage from Teacher Ge, it pointed out the direction for me: "After the production, the 'rooster' of Oriental Baidai soon sang in Shanghai, and even all over China... Now that there is a factory, 'new films to Shen' have become 'new films are out again'. (p. 65)
To understand this text, it is necessary to popularize the early spread of records in China: at first, it was purely imported, it was foreign content, foreign manufacturing; the second stage was Chinese content, foreign manufacturing, this kind of record was recorded in China, the original was sent to abroad to make a master, mass production, and the finished product was shipped back to China, so the record company advertised in the newspaper when it sold new goods, often using words such as "new film to Shen". I dare not say that "a new film is out again" can be equated with the domestic production of the record, but Mr. Ge does provide a perspective on the study of literature, along with his train of thought, I changed nearly ten keywords, in the records found, involving "new film" The earliest one from the "Declaration" on May 31, 1919, is an advertisement placed by EMI. Assuming this logic holds, the first record was produced in China no later than May 1919.
On May 31, 1919, the "Declaration" published a new record advertisement
But this logic does not seem to hold. On August 25, 1920, the "Declaration" published a newsletter "New Arrival of Phonograph Films": "Emissary Company was newly transported from the Paris General Factory to a large number of phonograph films, including the Chinese national anthem, and Chinese gong songs and other films, this machine film, that is, at the European Peace Conference, the Chinese Peace Conference representatives asked the Paris EMI Company to make it." "Why did China build a record factory in Shanghai and have to customize records overseas?"
In 1920, he customized records to the Paris general factory
On October 15 of the same year, the Republic of China Daily gave an explanation, in the article "Zhonghua Bookstore Manufacturing the Origin of the Chinese National Phonograph Film", it was recorded in detail that the Zhonghua Bookstore cooperated with THE EMI Company to unify the Chinese and unified pronunciation, and customized a set of "National Tone Gramophone Films", and the reason why this set of records was listed in the early spring of 1921 was for two reasons:
"It has always been a Chinese drama film made by a company of EMI, and it is made by ordinary technicians in Shanghai and sent to France. Language films, more difficult to do than drama films, you have to ask a special family to listen.
The company has built a branch factory in Shanghai, but it can only start construction in ten years in the Republic of China, and it must be manufactured in nine years, so it has to still be sent to France. ”
The Republic of China Daily gave an explanation
On November 2 of the same year, the "Current Affairs News" introduced the "National Sound Phonograph Film", mentioning that the sample had been made: "It was remade by EMI in Shanghai with old film materials, which was not very satisfactory, and three months later the new production in Paris arrived, which will be more applicable." ”
"Current Affairs News" introduces "National Voice Gramophone Film"
Three months later, it coincided with the previous report's launch in the early spring of 1921.
Summarize my views on The deeds of Le Bangsheng in China and the establishment of a factory by EMI. I think that Le Bangsheng was not the founder of the French and Commercial Oriental Emilia Company, he arrived in China in 1910, parachuted into the head of the EMI company in 1912 or 1913, retired in March 1932, and returned to Shanghai; THE EMI company purchased land in 1918, completed the factory building in 1919, and was able to produce samples at the end of the same year, but the real large-scale domestic records should start in 1921.
Old photo of EMI Records, published in the EMI Monthly magazine in 1937
BADAI's Baofang Company specializes in EMI's records and record players
The "Li Ge" under BaoFang's signboard is a sub-label of EMI Records, and Zhang Fan's famous song "Full Field Flying" is produced by Li Ge
The above argument is difficult to call perfect, after all, I have not been able to exhaust the centuries of literature before 1949, and if someone can do this in the future, he will definitely be able to give better evidence than I do. However, looking only at the new materials quoted above, the history of China's recording industry and related papers and works written so far have obvious flaws when talking about Le Bangsheng and the establishment of the FACTORY by EMI. Academic authorities credulously believed the rumors, created a legendary personality for Le Bangsheng, and exaggerated his contribution to the mainland recording industry. Many years ago, there were a group of old architecture fans in Shanghai who only listened to their explanations, as if the best historical buildings in Shanghai could be related to Hudak.
I don't know if overseas literature can record Therahama and the Oriental EMI Company (there are no valuable discoveries). I think that in this regard, we should listen to the opinions of foreigners nearly a hundred years ago, after all, Le Binsheng is French, EMI is a foreign company, in an era when foreigners generally discriminate against Chinese and cannot speak Chinese, chinese people's understanding of them will inevitably bring some mythological colors. And the foreign media may see it more realistically because it is close to the water tower platform - at this time, looking back at the small biography written for Leshi by the "Zilinxi Bao" on March 15, 1939, it is actually eight or nine and ten, which makes people sigh.