In the twenty-second year of the Republic of China (1933), Yu Jue, a former Qing dynasty official, decided to build a house at the site of Fan Chengda's Tianjing Pavilion. The following year, this private mansion consisting of more than ten houses and eight or nine stone banks was formed. The new home is open to the lake, simple and elegant, and not far away from the upper mountain, which is a real near the water and far away from the mountain, and the scenery is extraordinary. Yu Jue named the courtyard "Jue'an" and set up a special Fushou Hall to commemorate his wife Shen Shou, who had died more than ten years ago.
This courtyard, in Suzhou folk, is called Yuzhuang. In 1965, Suzhou officially acquired and restored it, and it was called a fishing village.
Eighty years later, on a drizzly spring day, I arrived at the fishing village with the mentality of a tourist, and the whole garden was quiet, as if everywhere was filled with an old atmosphere of the past.
Shen Shou statue
We have to start with Yu Jue and Shen Shou's life history.
Yu Jue, born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province in the seventh year of Qing Tongzhi (1868), Guangxu Twenty-eight Years (1902), he was intelligent and studious, talented, good at calligraphy and painting, wide communication, and married the embroidery artist Shen Yunzhi when he was a young man living in Suzhou. In the eyes of the world, their talented and feminine appearance is simply a perfect match in the world. Sure enough, the days after marriage were happy and harmonious, Yu Jue read for half a day, studied embroidery with his wife for half a day, and integrated his calligraphy and painting art into his wife's embroidery, so that Shen Yunzhi quickly stood out from Suzhou, where there were many embroidery women, and became famous in Suhu.
In the thirtieth year of Guangxu (1904), the seventieth birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi, Yu Jue's friend and official of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, Shan Shusheng, paid tribute to Shen Yunzhi's embroidered "Eight Immortals on the Shou Map" and three "Immeasurable Life Buddha Diagrams". Originally, this was just a small courtesy incident of an official's submission to Cixi, who preferred embroidery, and who would have expected that it was this inadvertent act that completely changed Shen Shou's fate in life--the embroidery of shanggong was rewarded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, and also received verbal praise from Cixi's "peerless divine product", and Cixi also wrote the words "Fu" and "Shou" in handwriting to give Yu Jue and his wife. Shen Yunzhi's embroidery name suddenly became famous all over the world, and even the name was changed to "Shen Shou", and Yu Jue was also changed to "Yu Fu".
The Fushou Hall in the fishing village got its name from this.
The large and elegant Fushou Hall, above the "Fushou Hall" plaque hanging in the middle, also hangs another plaque, which reads four big characters: Yi Zhi Commendation. The right side of the cloud: Qin gave the four pins of shangxun Zhejiang juren YuBei Xiong to set up an industry to commend the award.
A corner of Fukujudo
Yu Jue was well-trained and good at seizing opportunities, so he seized the joy of Empress Dowager Cixi and wrote in time to suggest the establishment of a girls' embroidery school. After obtaining approval, the couple was given the opportunity to go to Japan to investigate craft education, and after returning to China, they led Suzhou embroidery teachers and other cadres to report to Beijing, With Yu Jue as the general office of embroidery engineering and Shen Shou as the chief teacher. The sociable Yu Jue has flourished in Beijing, and its social popularity has become higher.
It is such a couple, in the not far away late Qing Dynasty, there are gods and immortals.
Their careers in Beijing were thriving, coinciding with the wave of industry saving the country sweeping the country. As a result, Zhang Xiao, the representative figure of industrial salvation of the country, was closely linked to the fate of the couple.
And what strings them together is Shen Shou's unique embroidery art!
In 1910, the Qing government held the first National Nanyang Persuasion Association in Nanjing, and Zhang Xiao, then president of the Jiangsu Consultative Bureau, was appointed as the censor of the congress. At that time, there was a large screen of Gu Embroidery Dong Qichang's book that needed to be identified - Gu Xiu was embroidered by the female relatives of the Gu ming family in Shanghai Luxiang Garden in the Ming Dynasty, which was very famous. Zhang Xiao was difficult to judge the true and false for a while, and when he heard that Shen Shou's embroidery skills were superior, he specially asked her to check the true and false. As soon as the embroidery was unfolded, Shen Shou judged it to be genuine, and Zhang Xiao asked, "By what is the judgment?" ”
Shen Shou replied, "When you look at the stitches, it is not difficult to distinguish." ”
This time, Zhang Xiao was greatly impressed by Shen Shou's appreciation. In October 1912, Zhang Xiao, who was the chief of industry in the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, earnestly invited Shen Shou to serve as the director and embroidery instructor of the Female Red Transmission Institute attached to the Nantong Women's Normal School. Around 1913, during the construction of the Female Red Transmission Institute, Zhang Jian sent five letters, inviting Shen Shou, who was then the director of the Tianjin Self-Reliant Female Red Transmission Institute, to teach in Nantong. In October 1914, Shen Shou finally could not resist Zhang Xiao's sincere invitation and went to Nantong to serve as the director of the Female Red Transmission Institute and the director of the embroidery department.
Shen Shou, this exquisite woman who was described by Yu Fan as a "needle god", has since been inseparable from the career of a generation of industrialists Zhang Xiao.
If there is no trip to Nantong in that year, perhaps, history would be a different look.
But how can history assume?
Now, combing through the interaction between Shen Shou and Zhang Xiao is actually the process of Zhang Xiao and Yu Jue from acquaintance, acquaintance, and finally to misunderstanding. At first, the couple came to Nantong, and Yu Jue was sent to Shanghai by Zhang Xiao to set up an embroidery and weaving company because of the needs of work, and Zhang Xiao and Shen Shou also had more opportunities to get closer. At that time, Zhang Jian resigned from his post as chief executive because he did not support Yuan Shikai's imperial activities and returned to Nantong, coinciding with Shen Shou's illness and bloating and chest tightness. Zhang Xiao was particularly concerned about her, and promptly asked for medical treatment, and also let Shen Shou move from the dormitory of the training center to the quiet environment of the "Qianting Pavilion" for recuperation, accepted her as an apprentice, and personally taught poetry. Zhang Xiao selected 73 ancient poems from the "Ancient Poetry Sources", copied and annotated them by hand, and even made marks for Ping Shusheng, and bound them into a pamphlet with the title "Shen Shouxue Poetry Reader". In his poems to Shen Shou, Zhang Jian used the words "flounder", "flounder" and "mandarin duck" to boldly and directly express his admiration for Shen Shou, and Shen Shou was only a weak woman after all, afraid of rumors, and did not dare to reveal his admiration for Zhang Shou, so he had to write some sentences in the poem that "the heart has its own master, and does not follow the wind".
In 1919, Shen Shou's old disease recurred, and Zhang Jian was doubly concerned, and specially sent a special turn to Shanghai to invite the famous Chinese medicine physician Sha Jian'an to come and treat him. He thought that Shen Shou had long had the will to write embroidery notation, "afraid that his art would not be passed on and there would be no end", so he asked Shen Shou's consent to take a little time every day, Shen Shou dictated several embroidery notations, he was responsible for the record, spent 3 months to record shen Shou's experience and innovation accumulated over more than 30 years. Zhang Xiao divided its strips into eight parts: embroidery preparation, embroidery introduction, stitching, embroidery, embroidery, embroidery, embroidery, and embroidery, and then compiled it into a chapter, called "Xueqi Embroidery Spectrum" - Xueqi, which is Shen Shou's number. The completion of this monograph condenses the painstaking efforts of two people, and Zhang Xiao recalls so fondly in the "Preface": "Accumulated for several months to form this spectrum, and repeated questions, and review, and easy drafts, such as repeatedly, there is not a word that does not come out of itself, and there is not a word that does not come out of itself." ”
The Republic of China edition of the "Snow Eunuch Embroidery Spectrum" book shadow
In 1919, the "Snow Palace Embroidery Notation" was printed and published by Han Molin Book Company, which was also the first work in mainland China to systematically introduce the theory and techniques of embroidery.
On June 8, 1921, Shen Shou died at the age of 48.
The 72-year-old Zhang Xiao completely disregarded his status and tears in front of Shen Shou's body and wrote "Forty-Eight Truncated Sentences of Regret". In accordance with Shen Shou's last wishes, Zhang Xiao buried him in the southeastern foothills of huangni, where he could see the Yangtze River and the land of southern Jiangsu, and Zhang Xiao's handwritten letter was engraved on the forehead of the tomb door:
The tomb of the world artist WuXian Shen
A stele is erected behind the tomb, and the front of the stele is engraved with the "Spiritual Table of Ms. Shen of The World Artist Wu County" written by Zhang Xiao.
I have to admit that all kinds of signs show that Zhang and Shen are an unspeakable emotional entanglement, with career support, love in daily life, and more love and admiration. Whether it is seeing each other and hating each other late, or feeling sorry for each other, this has become the root cause of Yu Jue and Shen Shou's final confrontation, and finally ended with Shen Shou buried in Nantong. According to historical records, Yu Jue disagreed with Zhang Xiao on the aftermath of Shen Shou's rehabilitation, and left Nantong alone in a fit of anger. If we put aside morality and benevolence, and only speculate on the psychology of Yu Jue from a man's point of view, we can actually understand his suffering. After Yu Jue returned to Suzhou, he always wanted to seek liberation from the Buddhist scriptures, so he became a monk on the shore of Taihu Lake, and in his later years he returned to the customs and engaged in cultural and artistic research in the Suhu area. However, no matter where he was, he did not stop thinking about Shen Shou and reflecting on his own life path. In the end, he painfully thought about it, took the name "Si Xue" to commemorate his wife, and also called himself "Jue" to show that he was awake.
Although Zhang Xiao and Yu Jue's encounter, mutual help, and acquaintance until the final mistake are a sad past with thousands of twists and turns, if you look at the development of Su embroidery art, both of them are meritorious ministers in the development of Shen Shou's embroidery career. Without the support of Yu Jue's early stage, Shen Shou's embroidery may not be able to enter the art hall; if there is no respect and recommendation from Zhang Xiao in the later period, Shen Shou's embroidery art may not be able to inherit and sublimate into an art classic.
Years later, when I was in a fishing village, it was obviously shallow to travel through it as a garden by a stone lake—I had to touch the texture of things with the palm of history in order to see the world clearly from the fog of time. Later, I read an article, yu jue's daughter Yu Jie was less than 20 years old when she was ordered by her father to write a fu for the fishing village, the order before the endowment, the order, the order, the endowment is as follows:
My family newly moved to Shihu Yujia Village, and built a villa on the site of the Song Dynasty's participation in the government Fan Chengda's "Heavenly Mirror Pavilion", with the inscription "Jue'an". The lake and the mountain have a Lord, the wind and moon are boundless, and the father of the family is destined to make a gift:
The red sun is born, the green mountains are blue, the sand gulls are two or three, and the fish are thousands. The sound of the stalk is slightly read, and the human language is shallow. The fog breaks and gradually appears as a shore shadow, far away from the village and near the village; the smoke opens and suddenly appears in the mountains, and the old stones and new stones. Xi Fan participated in politics and lived here also. The waves are clear and clear, the shores are curved, the weeping yang is far away, and the herbs are finely paved. People build the house of Yayi, the map of the famous places in the sky. And live is better, the red beans are the most pitiful in the southern country; between the cola, the stone lake is also like the West Lake. Strike fishing and return to the rest, the shadows are full of people, the boat is tied to the shore, and the willow is folded to carry the fish. Sunset and people cook, autumn is deep and the water is sparse. Try to see the more and more streams, no villages and no water; more than Wulingyuan, there are boats and fishing. It is the village also, the silkworm mulberry is happy, the chickens and dogs are not noisy, people come to sell wine, and guests come to cook tea. Open the xuan and face the garden, put the wine and talk mulberry. Smoke-filled deep willow mille-feuille, wine curtains everywhere; a piece of slanting sun near the water, fishing net home. Song: White clouds come out of the country, mangrove trees are in the wall, geese pass in the long sky, and crows turn over near the water. Fan Gong went to Xi For a thousand years, and my family came to Xi a door. The old site was rebuilt as the Pavilion of the Mirror of the Heavenly Mirror, and the new residence was small and lived in the village of the Xi Fisherman.
This article, which was praised by Fan Yanqiao as "pure words and wonderful thoughts, really not a scholar also", diluted the historical past, focused on describing the landscape environment, and also used the five characters of "Shihu Yujia Village" embedded in the last part of each paragraph as a rhyme, which can be described as a good intention, with the painstaking heart and deep meaning of turning dry gorgon into jade.
The current fishing village is a scenic spot in the Shihu Lake Area. I often go for walks in Stone Lake and like to take a detour to the fishing village because there are two excellent couplets. One pair is:
Roller blinds only white water hidden a few green mountains
The other pair is:
Water clear fish reading moon mountain quiet birds talk about the sky
The first one is clean, also quiet, with a secluded wind. The latter pair is made by Yu Jue changing the numbers from the poet Monk's Eight Finger Tou Tuo's "Water Clear Fish Chewing Moon, Mountain Quiet Bird Sleeping Clouds". Yu Jue changed "chewing the moon" to "reading the moon", changed "sleeping clouds" to "talking about the sky", and the tranquility and charm of the shihu landscape came out at once, with a strong taste of books and volumes, and also the deep meaning of history.
A corner of the fisherman's village
In addition, the west garden of the fishing estate is also my favorite place.
At that time, Yu Jue planted medicine, vegetables, flowers, and bamboo here, and a person who experienced great compassion and joy was spending the sun and moon in this land of bullets, and his scene can be imagined. The current fishing village, the central building is called "NongpuTang", which was relocated from the Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute in the early 1990s.
Farm Garden
The three characters of "NongpuTang" are collected from Fan Chengda's poem "Four Hours of Pastoral Miscellaneous". (Editor-in-Charge: Sun Xiaoning)