"On the eve of the Spring Festival in 1957, there was a long queue outside the Wangfujing Bookstore, and people were waiting in the snow to buy a publication, which was the first issue of "Poetry Magazine". At the 2024 Beijing Book Fair held recently, Yang Liangzhi, librarian and senior editor of the Beijing Research Institute of Culture and History, is giving a lecture on "Review of the Classic Editions of Chairman Mao's Poems".
Lead readers to appreciate "old books and new knowledge"
Giving lectures to disseminate the knowledge of old books can be said to be a familiar road for Yang Liangzhi. The most rare thing is that he not only speaks by himself, but also organizes and plans a series of lectures on "Old Books and New Knowledge" to lead more readers into the rich and wonderful world of old books.
During this year's Spring Festival, the first lecture of "Old Books and New Knowledge" at the Yanyilou Store of China Bookstore was held, and Yu Runqi, a researcher at the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature, gave readers a humorous and humorous introduction to the rich world of Tang Tao's collection with the theme of "New Literary Rare Book Tour: A Glimpse of Tang Tao's Collection". Up to now, 12 sessions of the "Old Books and New Knowledge" lectures have been held in the Yanyinlou store of China Bookstore, and each lecture is full.
Yang Liangzhi put a lot of thought into gathering these keynote speakers and determining the theme of each lecture. In 2022, Yang Liangzhi served as the executive editor-in-chief of the 16-volume "Beijing Central Axis Cultural Travel" series, which benefited from the fact that he was surrounded by a group of scholars, publishers and writers who love Beijing's history and culture, and have research and experience in ancient book culture. After the publication of the "Beijing Central Axis Cultural Travel Classic", it received a good response, and these 16 authors became an "expert database" of cultural lectures, and the characteristics of each of them were "explored" by Yang Liangzhi in an all-round way. "These old and young masters, everyone listen to the call and come forward, don't shirk, take your turn. Yang Liangzhi said.
The group of keynote speakers contacted by Yang Liangzhi first "went everywhere" in 2022 to spread all aspects of the culture of Beijing's central axis. Since the beginning of this year, under the inspiration of Yang Liangzhi, they have achieved a perfect transformation and devoted themselves to the "Old Books and New Knowledge" series of lectures, so that the culture and connotation hidden in the pile of old papers can be disseminated in a lively and interesting form.
"Old books are a vast ocean, we should read books in the sea to dig out the good things that are worth excavating, forget the old books, that is a stupid nation. Yang Liangzhi specifically mentioned that in the process of studying the central axis with college students, he found that many college students were quite unfamiliar with the books published before the reform and opening up, and he wanted to change this status quo, so he hit it off with the Chinese bookstore Yanyilou Store and launched a series of lectures to lead more readers to start the journey of "old books and new knowledge".
Collecting good books has also missed good books
Yang Liangzhi's vigorous promotion of the culture of old books stems from his collection of old books for more than 30 years. He laughed, "I collect old books almost unclassified, I buy whatever I am interested in, and I hide what I have." Books of the Qing Dynasty, books of the Republic of China, and books and periodicals after the founding of New China are all involved. ”
In fact, on the long road of collecting, Yang Liangzhi initially held the traditional collection concept of classics, histories, children, and collections, but in the face of reality, he finally recognized the facts, whether it was economic strength or time cost, it was difficult to cope. Therefore, he decisively shrank the "front" and focused his collection on the classic editions of Mao Zedong's poems and the precious editions of Beijing's history and culture.
In order to achieve such a goal, Yang Liangzhi often haunts second-hand bookstores and auctions, and experiences many interesting "battles". He recalled that in the "Nineteen Poems of Chairman Mao" published by the People's Literature Publishing House in July 1958, he lost a battle for an auction and only succeeded in another auction after a few years.
Now these treasures are carefully cared for by Yang Liangzhi, and his wife even helped to label and number them to make it easier to find. The reporter saw the inaugural issue of "Poetry Magazine" on January 25, 1957 at Yang Liangzhi's home, and he said: "The inaugural issue published 18 poems of Mao Zedong with the general title of "Eighteen Poems in the Old Style", which is the first time that Mao Zedong's poems have been published publicly. ”
In 1958, Yang Liangzhi published "Nineteen Poems of Chairman Mao", Yang Liangzhi has two editions: the People's Literature Publishing House and the Cultural Relics Publishing House. He introduced that the Humanities Society version of the rice paper thread binding, exquisite small folio, the cover is rose red fine satin material, 1,000 copies were printed that year, and the price of each volume was 0.80 yuan. The Cultural Relics Publishing House version 8 folio, rice paper line binding, according to the Song version of the book format, the cover is porcelain blue, printed 4,000 copies, priced at 1.40 yuan. "As early as the 80s of the last century, I found a version of the Cultural Relics Publishing House in the second-hand book market, and this book was out of line, with many yellow spots on the pages, and the pencil in circulation on the colophon marked with a very high price. In Yang Liangzhi's view, these versions have been baptized by the wind and dust of the years, and the turbulence of the times, and they can be present in the market and are precious.
For Yang Liangzhi, those missed good books have also become unforgettable memories. "In the Xinjiekou store of the China Bookstore, the Hong Kong Commercial Press published ten editions of "Art Forest Records" in the sixties and seventies of the last century, and a chance encounter picked three, five, and eight of them, each for 30 yuan. At that time, I also had the idea of buying all ten copies, but my brain short-circuited and I didn't implement it for a while. He lamented that when he inquired again two days later, he had already sold it, and then he bought it again on the Confucius Used Books Network, and the price was ten times higher.
"Rescue" the out-of-print book of Beijing flavor
Yang Liangzhi was born in 1945 in Heyan Hutong (later renamed Dongbuqiao Hutong) on the east side of Wanning Bridge. Over the past few decades, he has searched for the historical and cultural context of Beijing in the pile of old papers, and through publishing, writing books, lectures and other forms, he has rescued the out-of-print books of Beijing flavor that have disappeared from the public eye.
Yang Liangzhi carefully took out his collection of two letters and fourteen volumes of "Old News Under the Sun", which was written by Zhu Yizun, a famous scholar in the Kangxi period. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Yu Minzhong, Yinglian and others researched and supplemented on the basis of "Old News under the Sun", and wrote the book "Old News under the Sun".
"Old News Under the Sun" placed in Yang Liangzhi's bookcase was auctioned by him at an auction company in Shanghai that year, and the pages of the book have long been yellowed, and the traces of time are silently soaked in it. However, in his opinion, as the "grandfather" of "Old News under the Sun", its value should be rediscovered through sorting and publishing. It is under his urging that a doctor majoring in classical literature in the Department of Chinese at Peking University has been "cultivating" punctuation books for many years.
Yang Liangzhi's home also treasures the famous literati Guo Zeyun during the Republic of China period edited by the wax engraving mimeographed copy of "Zhihanxuan Tan Hui", which is jointly compiled by Guo Zexuan, Fu Zengxiang, Xia Renhu, Huang Binhong and other dozens of literary and historical people, not only the recollection of old news and anecdotes, but also the in-depth excavation of the research field, which is of great value. After several punctuation and repeated checks, in 2015, Beijing Publishing House launched a typeset edition. Prior to this, the great collector Zhang Boju's 1962 "Spring Outing Trivia" and Liu Bannong's disciple Li Jiarui's 1937 "Beiping Customs and Customs" also came out in the hands of Yang Liangzhi.
Yang Liangzhi explores the bits and pieces of Beijing's history and culture in the world of old books, and these realizations have also been transformed into books he has compiled. He devoted himself to collecting the writings of Jin Shoushen, the master of old Beijing, and edited Mr. Jin's articles on Beijing's cuisine into "Koufu Old Beijing"; since he was a child, he had a relationship with Zhu Jiajun, a great expert of the Forbidden City in Beijing, and collected Mr. Zhu's articles about Beijing as "Beijing Wenjianlu"; he once specially played and appreciated the bamboo branch poems that sang about Beijing since the Qing Dynasty, and edited more than 300 poems that everyone liked to hear and see into "Taste of Old Beijing"; because his former residence was on the edge of the Jade River in the Beijing section of the Grand Canal, he published "Reading the Grand Canal" to write a strong sense of nostalgia.
"I cherish this land, and I am willing to love it, protect it, and make it develop better. Yang Liangzhi said that every time he enters the old city from the North Third Ring Road, he has to go around the Wanning Bridge, Nanluoguxiang, Baita, Xuannan and other areas where his old residence is located, and he wants to pass on his infinite love for Beijing to readers through more books and lectures.