Legend of Yixian craftsmen

Legend of Yixian craftsmen

——Zaozhuang ancient handicraft papermaking base cultural collection style

Shao Mingsi Qin Lihu Daniel Zhang

There are many ancient handicraft papermaking bases in Laoyi County, one of which is in the paper mill village of Shanting District, Zaozhuang City. In the mountain sets of mountains around Paperfang Village, such as Dongjiao Mountain, Longmen Mountain, and Cheshao Mountain, the mountains are full of mulberry trees, catalpa trees, catalpa trees, garnet trees, and primitive trees such as reeds, kudzu vines, and hemp, all of which are raw materials for papermaking. The "Tiangong Kaiwu" records that bamboo is the best product for papermaking. There are not only green bamboo and moso bamboo in the mountain set of paper fang village, but also "Yixian Zhi" specially points out that Chexiaoshan has "burning bamboo Yu" and is rich in burning bamboo. This side is rich in large natural resources, which provides an innate advantage for the ancient folk handicraft papermaking. According to the "Qi Min Zhi Shu", folk papermaking mainly has seven steps and more than 20 processes, mainly including: raw material cutting, bleaching pond dipping, pounding and softening, lime water bleaching, rolling mud, suspension, copying, steaming, shaping, baking and drying and a series of work processes. The folk papermaking industry in Shandong, including Yixian County, is very developed.

Papermaking is one of the "four major inventions" of the mainland, it is the crystallization of the blood, sweat and wisdom of the vast number of working people, and it is the practical creation of the peasant masses to exert the spirit of craftsmen in the production struggle. The invention of papermaking was a revolution in writing materials. Before this, the ancients could only write on oracle bones, jade, bamboo, and silk. History says that the inventor of papermaking was the eastern Han eunuch Cai Lun, in fact, as early as the Western Han Dynasty, there have been accounts of papermaking, Cai Lun from extensive papermaking to meticulous and standardized. According to research, the papermaking bases in Yixian County were all built in the Song Dynasty, and only a "Yuanwai Paper Mill" in Paper Mill Village was built in the early Ming Dynasty, and the latecomers came first, and it also has many legendary stories.

Our delegation of four people visited more than ten elderly people in Paper Mill Village, and was introduced by Zhang Jinping and Zhang Zhenyou, and visited Mr. Zhang Chuanmao (87 years old), the 13th descendant of the founder of "Yuanwai Paper Mill". A preliminary exploration of the origin of Paper Mill Village was explored. Historically, for more than 13 years from the second year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty to the first year of Zhengde, there were two currencies in market transactions, one was copper coins (making money) and the other was paper money (banknotes). During this period, Zhang Chuanmao's ancestor (name unknown), Zhang Mou, served as an official of the "Repair Case" under the envoys of the Third Division of the Imperial Household Department, and the official rank was Congliupin. Although Zhang Mou's position is not high, he belongs to the professional real power faction, and he supervises the quality of the official paper mill and is specifically responsible for printing the paper money "Daming Bao Banknote". Zhang Mou lost power in the factional struggle of the imperial court, so he resigned and left Beijing and returned to his hometown of Yixian Canal South Beachhead Village. At that time, people were collectively called "renwai" for retired officials, so he was called "old staff outside" and his son was called "small member outside". Once, Zhang Yuanwai's father and son rode horses to the che a little mountain to play, saw that there are more than ten small paper-making workshops under the mountain, the business is prosperous, the folk customs are simple, and the forest and sea in the mountain set are reckless, the green is all over the mountain, the spring stream is babbling, and the clear stream is intertwined. Based on the current situation of rich and colorful ecological resources and abundant water resources, the old members were surprised and moved their families from the South Beachhead Village of the Canal to the Shantao Paper Fang Village. The Zhang family built one of the largest paper mills in the village, known as the "Yuanwai Paper Mill". At first, like the paper mills in the village, they all made fine paper (writing paper, window paper) and coarse paper (mulberry paper, wrapping paper, straw paper, grave paper). Later, after a change, the old staff changed their normal behavior, brewed fine paper, and started the smuggling business.

That summer, Bai Yunfei, the leader of the bandits who was entrenched in the mountain, passed by the paper mill village, and when he saw Zhang Yuanwai's grandson dressed in silk silk and wearing boots made of python skin at his feet, he decided that the child was a prince of the official family. Out of hatred for the government, the bandit leader ordered the child to be cut up and dismembered. More than a hundred villagers and neighbors knelt down together and said, "Zhang Yuanwai's fourth generation is a single transmission, this child is a single seedling..." Bitterly begging the little bandits who carried out the beheading to forgive the child, the bandits shook their heads and refused. In desperation, the child's uncle stepped forward, willing to act as a stand-in for his nephew, and died under the knife. This tragedy deeply touched the veterans, who wanted to sacrifice himself to the villagers, determined to risk the crime of killing the head and take the risk. Veterans perform their own unique skills, secretly making fine paper for printing banknotes. Relying on his old connections with the officials of the household department, he colluded up and down, using two mules to carry black goods to the night road, and sent the forbidden paper to the outskirts of Beijing for the household department to print money. From the time of the old man to the death, he has made a large profit in decades of smuggling activities. According to the will of the staff, the illegally smuggled ill-gotten wealth was listed as a special fund, which was used for "the place of legal justice", doing good deeds for the villagers, building a strong village mansion, and guarding the infrastructure of the royal bandits.

Relying on the relatively strong family foundation, the Zhang family began to build a large number of civil engineering and began to build a private school, first of all, to invite a full range of wise men to teach, free of charge to let the children of the peasant families in the mountain tao study. Then, around the paper mill village high bluestone to the top of the stone wall, the east gate and the west gate were built, the gate was built bunkers, and at the same time, knives and guns, bows and arrows, artillery shotguns were purchased, martial arts teachers were hired to teach martial arts, and a security vigilante group was formed to stand guard to prevent bandits from invading. The new Paper Mill Village creates a beautiful landscape in the mountain cover of the deep mountain and old forest. Not only the Paper Mill Village, but also the Paper Mill River in the village shines with the light of civilization in the minds of the fathers and villagers in the mountains!

In the middle of the Ming Dynasty (1507), inflation occurred, prices rose rapidly, commodities were scarce, banknotes depreciated significantly, and the market was in chaos. The Zhengde Emperor, who had just ascended the throne, issued an edict to revoke the issuance of paper money and strictly tracked down and cracked down on illegal people who privately made money and printed paper. A court official denounced that the Zhangjia Paper Mill in Yixian County, Shandong Province, was the biggest suspect of illegal smuggling. The prefect of Yanzhou and the county order of Yixian County acted jointly and sent commissioners to file a case for review. At this time, the old member has passed away, and the paper mill has long since changed from evil to the right and turned to legal production. The special case officials did not find out the problem, and the people of the mountain set jointly used the staff to make a guarantee for the paper mill outside the staff, and the result was not resolved.

According to Zhang Chuanmao and other elderly people, around the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, due to the accumulation of bamboo trees in the village, the straw wheat poles were stacked, and the "Heavenly Fire Burning Village" was caused by lightning hitting the trees to burn dry firewood, and it was burned twice in a row, which can be described as jade burning, and no one was spared. Most of the paper mill people have lost their homes, and even the Zhang family of the outer factory has been greatly injured. Villagers help each other by helping each other, and rebuilding their homes on the rubble. Everyone thinks bitterly, everyone is in danger, and everyone thinks that this is "Providence" that does not allow the mountain people to open paper mills again. More than a dozen handicraft workshops in the village, including the Yuanwai Paper Mill, were all closed. Since then, there have been no paper mills in the village, and the mountain people have lived a poor life of moving blocks with their backs to the sky facing the loess.

At present, the south slope of the paper mill village still has 8 ancient wells (3 light and 5 dark) of the Song Dynasty, obviously they are in service for papermaking, and several paper mills around the well group have traces of clues and ants, and under the desolation, there are only boulders, scattered, and a wolf. To its north is the ruins of the Yuanwai Paper Mill, which garrisons the "milling plates" and "milling stones" that used to crush pulp with cows and horses, and cultural relics such as "stone wastes", "stone mortars", "sink ponds" and "drying platforms", as well as historical relics such as "cattle shackle rings", "cattle nose hooves", "iron hooves horseshoe horseshoes", "machetes" and "shovels" unearthed. Buried, supine and stacked on the ruins of ancient villages are undercover stones and laneway steps that have been carved and baptized by wind and fire, reminiscent of the craftsmanship of the former workshops, and their bustling and thriving scenes. Although the name of The Paper Mill Village is not worthy of its name, there is still a "Paper Mill River" that originated from the Longmen Temple and flowed into the Canglangyuan, which has not been renamed since the establishment of the Paper Mill. The roaring river water and the roaring mountain wind seem to be broadcasting the symphony of the ancient style of the country, it seems to be the labor trumpet of the craftsman to tackle scientific and technological problems, as if the heroism of acura conquering nature and daring to take responsibility, as if showing the people-oriented spirit of creating civilization and selfless dedication.

One point number book mountain Shao Mingsi