At the northern foot of the Lonely Mountain, by the crane pavilion, the small building "Lin She" with flying eaves and angles is quietly facing a pool of West Lake water.
"Lin Gong, Beijing Lu Lin, Qingdao Lu Wei, our juniors, see you are coming." On the afternoon of January 4, two middle-aged men from afar from the north bowed to the Lin Qi Memorial Statue next to the Lin She.
Sitting on a stone bench, the bronze statue "Lin Qi" is dressed in a robe from the late Qing Dynasty, touching the stone table with his hand, smiling and kind-eyed.
As soon as the words fell, two egrets in the water of the West Lake that were wading through the water to feed suddenly flapped their wings, crossed the crane pavilion, and flew straight into the sky.
The lakes and mountains witnessed as if they understood the moment.
Who are these two people? Why did you travel thousands of miles to Hangzhou to meet Lin Qi, the prefect of Hangzhou, who died 121 years ago?
They and Lin Qi on the side of the Crane Pavilion on lonely mountain
What does it matter?
Lu Lin and Lu Wei are cousins, although they are northerners, but their ancestral home is Hangzhou. Before their grandfather Lu Jixin, the family lived in Hangzhou for generations. Lu Jixin grew up in the Lu family mansion by the West Lake in Hangzhou, and at the age of 15 went north to Beijing to study, and his grandfather was Lu Yuanding, a native of Renhe (now Hangzhou), Zhejiang, who had served as the inspector and governor of Caoyun at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and his family was well-off. Further back, this branch of them belonged to the Descendants of the Lu clan of Shanyin (present-day Shaoxing) in Yuezhou, and happened to be the 29th generation grandson of the great poet Lu You of the Southern Song Dynasty.
I think that in the celebrity circle of Hangzhou in the late Qing Dynasty, Lu Yuanding and Lin Qi, who are only one year apart, should be acquainted. In 1900, Lin Qi died of illness at the age of 62 and was buried in the Crane Pavilion in The Lonely Mountain of Hangzhou. Lu Yuanding, who later served as the speaker of the Zhejiang Provincial Academic Affairs Council and presided over the Zhejiang Academic Affairs, wrote an inscription poem for Lin Qi: "Education and silkworm mulberry, three years of sages and labors are too shou; followed by plum cranes, a niche incense fire and a lonely mountain." ”
Did the descendants of the Lu family come for this verse? Apparently not.
Lu Lin and Lu Wei, who also have another identity, are their grandmother Shao Qiuxiu, the eldest daughter of Shao Zhang, a Bibliophile, Calligrapher and Educator in Hangzhou.
Who is Shao Zhang? Lin Qi was a very important disciple of Gaozu, and the two were both masters and apprentices and confidants. Lin Qizhi Hang's four years, the biggest achievement is to establish education, creating a precedent for modern education in Hangzhou, he is the predecessor of Zhejiang University "Qiushi Academy", the predecessor of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University "Hangzhou Silkworm Academy" and the predecessor of Hangzhou Senior High School "Yangzheng Shushu".
Because of his outstanding ability, Shao Zhang was able to reuse these new-style schools at the beginning of their establishment. For example, after Shao Zhang assisted Lin Qi in founding the Silkworm Academy, he served as the director of the museum (i.e., the curator); in the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu (1899), Lin Qi established the Yangzheng Shushu on the original site of the Yuantong Temple in DafangBoyuan, and two years later, the shushu was renamed Hangzhou Fu Middle School, and Shao Zhang served as the supervisor (i.e., the principal). It is this Hangzhou Fu Middle School that has come out of the poet Xu Zhimo and the literary scholar Yu Dafu.
A hundred years later, when we mention Shao Zhang again today, we may be talking more about the history of creating a library and inheriting the context. The story also begins with a "Donation Ceremony of Mr. Shao Zhang's Relics and the Academic Symposium on Mr. Shao Zhang's Life" at the Zhejiang Library on the morning of January 4.
Two late Qing robes and two cowhide suitcases
"The Return of the Gentleman"
On Monday, January 4, the library was closed, and the reading room in Zhejiang Wasu was closed, but there were still studious young people who wrote and read in front of tables and chairs in the library corridor.
In the rustling of the book, they did not know that a "gentleman" had quietly "returned". He is Shao Zhang, the first director of the Zhejiang Library in its 121-year history.
Navy blue Xiangyun Swastika satin, black curly lamb skin inner cardigan robe, light brown satin silver fox skin inner placket robe, plus two late Qing Dynasty large cowhide coat box... As Shao Zhang's great-grandson, Lu Lin and Lu Wei came here to donate Shao Zhang's relics to the Zhejiang Library.
2020 is the 120th anniversary of Zhejiang Library, and we have combed through the long history of Zhejiang.
There is a nunnery next to the Caishi Bridge in the east of Hangzhou called "Shen An". In the twenty-second year of Guangxu (1896), Shao Zhang, who was 25 years old at the time, was invited by Lin Qi to build an East City Lecture House in Shen'an and served as the head of the house. In the winter of the year of Lin Qi's death, Shao Zhang, together with Hu Zaoqing, the nephew of the red-topped merchant Hu Xueyan, created a library building in the Dongcheng Lecture House, called "Hangzhou Library Building". This is the first library building in China to be open to the public, sounding the clarion call for traditional libraries to turn into butterflies for public libraries. Shao Zhang, as the supervisor, is, in today's words, the curator.
In 1903, Shao Zhang and others expanded the Hangzhou Library into the Zhejiang Library, and moved to Dafangbo Lane in Hangzhou (now Jiefang Road, Hangzhou). Public library business in Zhejiang emerged. This is the oldest library in Hangzhou and one of the earliest provincial-level public libraries established in China.
"See what you think of! These clothes and suitcases are cultural relics for ordinary people, but for us in Zhejiang, they are the relics of the first curator, which are extremely precious. Today, looking at the gentleman's robe, it is like his soul has returned. Chu Shuqing, director of Zhejiang Library, revealed that this is the first time in the history of Zhejiang Tu that clothing donations have been received.
Founded in the history of Hangzhou
The first girls' school founded by the Chinese
At the invitation of Cai Yuanpei, he went north to become a principal
"Shao Zhang is not only a pioneer of the library, but also one of the founders of modern education in Zhejiang." Zhao Daxiong, former director of the Digital Resources Department of Zhejiang Library, said.
As a friend, proud protégé and right-hand man of Lin Qi, a pioneer in modern education, Shao Zhang inherited the legacy of his mentor and founded the first girls' school in Hangzhou's history founded by Chinese people in Jishanfang in 1904. The emergence of this girls' school was three years before the Statute of the Women's Normal School and the Statute of the Girls' Primary School issued by the Qing government.
In 1906, the Zhejiang Government Two-Level Normal School (now Hangzhou Normal University) was founded in Hangzhou, and the Zhejiang Tixue Envoy appointed Shao Zhang as the first supervisor. Zhejiang Two-Level Normal School is the center of Zhejiang New Culture Movement and one of the first six famous higher normal schools established in China.
In 1912, the first year of the Republic of China, Cai Yuanpei, the chief education officer in Beijing, invited Shao Zhang to go north to Beijing to serve as the principal of the Beijing Law and Politics College. Since then, Shao Zhang's family has moved to Beijing, when he was 40 years old.
Shao Zhang is middle-aged in Beijing.
At that time, Lu Lin's grandparents, Lu Jixin and Shao Qiuxiu, were only 15 years old and had just been engaged in the city of Hangzhou. Probably the young Lu Jixin, who wanted to study in a broader world to realize his dreams, decided to follow his father-in-law Shao Zhang and his fiancée Shao Qiuxiu to Beijing, gave up the rich real estate in Hangzhou, left it to his three sisters, and only picked some calligraphy and paintings from home to go to Beijing. Lu Jixin later graduated from Beijing University of Political Science and Law and worked at the Museum of Antiquities at the Palace Museum in Beijing.
Iii Shouzo
Donate back to your hometown of Hangzhou, get what you want
"The robe was made after the great-grandfather arrived in Beijing, and it is estimated that the year will not exceed 1914 at the latest, so it can be seen that the best material was used at that time, and the best tailors in Beijing were specially found to make it." Lu Lin said, "The clothes passed from my grandmother's hand to my father, and after my father died, it came to my hands again." Three generations of us have been doing our best to guard the relics of our great-grandfather. My father, in particular, made a tall wooden frame for the two suitcases, topped to the roof, so that the rainy season could play a role in blocking the tide. ”
The robe is carefully wrapped in several layers of protective cloth bags, and when the box is opened, the whole house emits a mixture of camphor and camphor wood. Chen Yi, director of the Ancient Books Department of Zhejiang Library, carefully examined the robes and clothes boxes: "After more than half a century, these clothes still look like new, which is not easy. The two cowhide boxes are made of camphor wood bottom plate in the late Qing Dynasty, plus a cow leather cover, and finally protected by a large lacquer, and the workmanship is extremely fine. These treasures have witnessed the inheritance of a large cultural family in the long river of history. ”
According to traditional Chinese customs, when a loved one dies, the clothes will be buried with them, so why does the Lu Lin family guard a few robes of the great-grandfather Shao Zhang? Lu Lin told us the story of his grandmother Shao Qiuxiu inheriting her father Shao Zhang's inheritance: "My great-grandfather died in 1953, and there were three children before his death, my grandmother was the eldest daughter, and there were two younger brothers at the bottom. My great-grandfather had several properties in Beijing, but my grandmother, like my grandfather who gave up the property and left Hangzhou, proposed that she was the eldest daughter, so she did not have to inherit these family properties, leaving it to her two younger brothers, as long as she went to her father's house to pick up a few favorite things and keep them as a souvenir. Thus, there were these robes and suitcases, all of which were close to my great-grandfather. For my grandmother, it was a thought. ”
Shouzang III, why did he donate to his hometown of Hangzhou today? Lu Lin explained with four words, "What is right": "I learned about the history of the 120th anniversary of Zhejiang Tu on the Internet, as well as the story of my great-grandfather. I think that if my grandmother were still alive, she would have hoped that her father's relics would return to the places he had fought for and dreamed about. ”
On January 5th and 6th, the brothers Lu Lin and Lu Wei stopped and walked in Hangzhou, constantly looking for the footprints left by their great-grandfather. Wandering around the Caishi Bridge several times, the former Dongcheng Lecture House and Hangzhou Library have long since disappeared and are nowhere to be found.
I don't know, Shao Zhang a hundred years ago, would he have thought that one day the small library he personally created would become today's behemoth "Zhejiang Library"? We guess that the gentleman who "returned" through time and space and saw that his ideal had been realized in the hands of the new generation of Zhejiang Tu people, he would be very happy and cry. (Thanks to Zhao Daxiong, former director of the Digital Resources Department of Zhejiang Library, and Chen Yi, director of the Ancient Books Department of Zhejiang Library, for their contributions to this article)
(The original title was "Two Men Donate Two Robes and Two Cowhide Suits from the Late Qing Dynasty to Their Hometown hangzhou!") The first director of Zhejiang Library "Mr. Returns". Edited by Wong Wai Sin )