Tianjin Library Research Librarian Li Guoqing
Mr. Albino
At 6:20 a.m. on July 6, 2021, Mr. Albino Passed away in Beijing at the age of 91 due to ineffective medical treatment. My relationship with Bai Lao began twenty years ago, and the events were vividly remembered, as if in front of me.
Twenty years ago, Bai Lao wrote a book review for the humble book "The Annals of the Han Weng Collection", which was published in the second issue of the Jintu Academic Journal in 2001. It was the first thing I did with him.
This book review is less than a thousand words, but it provides a lot of information. Speaking of the situation of the ancient books and books that have been handed down, it said: "From the beginning of liberation, our era has long been an era of turning private into public, and this is particularly evident for rare books. The Cultural Revolution destroyed many books and accelerated the progress of the above situation. There are only a few good books in existence, and it is said that there are only a thousand kinds of real Song ben (mainly southern song ben) left. Most of the rare books, from the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties, to the Song, Liao, Jin, Xixia, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, etc., are mostly hidden in Chinese and foreign large and small libraries. ”
In the long river of historical development, ancient texts have experienced man-made and natural "doom" such as soldiers, fires, insects, moths, etc., and there is no one in existence, and very few have been passed down from generation to generation. Bai Lao said that there are only more than a thousand kinds of real Song Ben left, which is indeed true. In recent years, the state has invested a lot of money in compiling and printing the "Chinese Reconstruction Rare Books", which almost includes the ancient books of the Song and Yuan dynasties that have been handed down to the world, so that these precious ancient books can be incarnated into thousands of generations and passed on to future generations forever. Elder Bai served as the academic advisor of this national set of "Chinese Reconstruction Rare Books", and I benefited a lot from the opportunity to listen to his high opinions because I was a clerk in the book compilation office.
Elder Bai also mentioned Mr. Zhou Shutao's book collection in the book review. He said: "As a private bibliophile, there can never be a big bibliophile like Han Weng again. He was arguably the last of his great private bibliophiles. To say that Han Weng is a bibliophile is by no means an exaggeration. Because his old man turned almost all of his collection of books (especially all rare books) into private and public. In this way, the countless stifling books below the 'Five Ers' of Sui Niu hong's treatise, as quoted in books such as "Ancient and Modern Classics Gathering and Scattering Examinations", were avoided, especially the gathering and dispersion of private collections in the Qing Dynasty. In particular, it should be pointed out that Han Weng was a bibliophile based on reading and using books; his old man not only had to read books logistically, but also wrote the most diligently, leaving behind a large number of inscriptions, criticisms, and a large number of correspondence and other materials related to books. ”
Mr. Bai's statement that "Han Weng can be said to be the last private bibliophile" is in the traditional private bibliophile style. In his book "Beijiang Poetry", Hong Liangji of the Qing Dynasty divided bibliophiles into five classes: "Bibliophiles have several equals: to obtain a book must be pushed to the original, it is the right lack, it is said to be a bookkeeper; the second is to identify its editions, note its mistakes, it is said to be a school chicken family; the second is to search for different books, the upper is to supplement the death of the stone room JinKui, and the next can be prepared for the browsing of Dr. Tongren, who is a collector; the second is to seek a fine book, the sole love of Song carving, the author's will is not fully explored, and the year and month of the engraved book are the most deeply known, which is a connoisseur; and the second time is to sell his collection cheaply in the old home. The rich book lovers demand that they be good at a good price, do not look at the truth, know the ancient and modern, the Fujian ben Shu ben, one must not be deceived, Song Shu Yuan, see and know, is called a robber. In short, the first two-class examiners and school collectors refer to scholars, whose books are for academic research; third-class collectors, who are ordinary bibliophiles; fourth-class connoisseurs, who are traditional bibliophiles; and fifth-class looters, who are book dealers, whose collections are for profit. Mr. Zhou Shuhan inherited the style of China's traditional bibliophiles, and the rare books and ancient books he collected according to the "five good collections" standard he set up were large in quantity and quality, and had special value in terms of cultural relics, scholarship and artistry, and after donating to the country, they became the treasures of the national library and other collections. Because the main book collection activities of Han Weng ran through the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China period, it became the temple army of traditional bibliophiles in China, so Mr. Bai called Han Weng the last great bibliophile in China.
Mr. Bai said that "the gathering and dispersion of private collections in the Qing Dynasty" mainly refers to the two hundred precious Song and Yuan editions of ancient books privately collected by the Song Lou in Zhejiang Province at the end of the Qing Dynasty, which were bundled up by the Japanese and put into the Japanese Jingjiatang Library, becoming a cultural pain history. And what he said about Han Weng "being the most diligent in writing, leaving a large number of inscriptions and criticisms" is indeed the truth. As a contemporary sage who combines politicians, businessmen and bibliophiles, Han Weng especially has a special love for ancient books and rare books, and he is engaged in politics and business, and does not hesitate to spend huge sums of money to visit ancient books and rare books. After obtaining the book, take different versions of their own collection and proofread, occasionally gain, be interested, write on the book, or proofread the text, or write the language. This is something that the average bibliophile wants to do but can't do. It was these precious school sayings left by Han Weng that provided me with first-hand precious documents for writing the Book Of Han Weng (published in 2000). Twenty years later, I have the privilege of obtaining the "Diary of Han Weng" provided by the Zhou family, and selected the part of it that involves the collection of books and added it to the revised edition of the "Annals of the Book Collection of Han Weng".
The Annals of the Book Collection of Han Weng, Huangshan Book Club, 2000
As a result of working at the Tianjin Library, I had the privilege of reading the Ming and Qing editions of ancient books donated by Shou Hanweng and have been in contact with the Zhou family for many years. It is worth mentioning that I actually became the manager of the Tianjin Library to receive the last batch of books donated by the Zhou family. These books commonly used in the desks of The Emperor were the only surviving items of the fruit, and I, on behalf of the museum, and I and a few colleagues went to the house of The Munong in Mu Nan Road in the former British Concession area to collect the books. In 1942, He Weng made a will and instructed his descendants to donate all the books to the government when the world was at peace, turning private property into public. By the time the last batch of books on the desk of The Ben weng was donated, this wish to donate books was finally fulfilled. Si Juwei, the british name passed down through the generations.
To this day, I can never forget a sentence that Mr. Bai once said to my face, "I can use 'no ancients before, no one after me' to say That Wong", which can be described as a word to break the key. The so-called "no ancients before" refers to the general bibliophiles before, no one like Han Weng, who made a will to donate books long before liberation, and realized the will to donate books after liberation; the so-called "no ones who have come after" refers to the precious rare books and ancient books that have been circulated in the world, and most of them are now successively entering the Tibetan public treasury, and there are few people circulating in the folk like morning stars. After that, there will be no more bibliophiles with the size and weight of books.
Mr. Ichira wanted to see me, and it was also Bai Lao who told me. This news made me overjoyed and sincerely afraid. The former is because Mr. Ichira, as a well-known historian of Peking University, has a very high academic status, and I am a librarian, and it is a rare opportunity to meet Mr. Ichira; the latter is because if Mr. Ichira raises some academic issues related to the Annals, or points out some errors in the Annals, it would not be shameful!
The ugly daughter-in-law always has to see her in-laws. One day, with a feeling of uneasiness, I found Mr. Yiliang's home according to the time and address provided by Elder Bai. The gentleman sat in a wheelchair and held out his hands to me, and I rushed forward and held his hand, and when I saw that the gentleman was kind and kind-eyed, very kind, and suddenly felt worried about the superfluous. Mr. Yiliang shook my hand and said, "Thank you Mr. Guoqing, you have done a good thing for the Zhou family, compiled the Book Collection For your father, and done something that we wanted to do but could not do." After a brief conversation, in order not to disturb Mr. Ichira, I got up and resigned. He gave me two works, "After all, he is a scholar" and "Notes on the History of the Southern and Northern Dynasties of Wei and Jin" to me. I have read both books many times, and each time I have a new one. Maybe that's the difference between everyone's work and general reading. On the way back to Tianjin, Mr. Ichira's words, "You did something we wanted to do but couldn't do," kept swirling in my head. All of Han Weng's collection was donated to the National Library and the Tianjin Library, and Mr. Yiliang, as a descendant of Han Weng, really did not have the opportunity to check these books, even if there were university questions, he could not cook without rice.
A few months later, Mr. Ichira died of ineffective medical treatment at the age of eighty-eight. The first time we met, we ended up saying goodbye forever. I miss and admire this old man, and I also thank Mr. Albino Wen, who gave me this opportunity to meet.
The second thing I did with Mr. Albino was twenty years ago. Mr. Zhou Shaoliang is a contemporary bibliophile, famous for collecting Rare Books such as Ming and Qing Opera novels and Tang Dynasty epitaph rubbings. Mr. Bai was entrusted by Mr. Shaoliang to assist in the transfer of the Tang Dynasty epitaph rubbings he had hidden. After Mr. Bai consulted with the Chinese bookstore, these Tang Dynasty epitaph rubbings were finally transferred to the National Library and the Tianjin Library respectively. Because I was fortunate enough to participate in it, I knew a little bit about the original committee of Si Shi.
I remember that on March 15, 2002, I received an invitation letter signed by Ren Jiyu, director of the National Library, to the Sixty-Year International Symposium on the Yongle Canon. On April 17, during the seminar, Mr. Zhang Zhiqing, then director of the Rare Books Department of the National Library of China, approached me and said that there was an important matter to discuss. He said: "Bibliophile Mr. Zhou Shaoliang has recently fallen ill and is in urgent need of a treatment fee. He decided to transfer a batch of Tang Dynasty epitaph rubbings that he had collected for many years, and had already placed these rubbings in the Chinese bookstore, entrusted the Chinese bookstore to be responsible for operation, and proposed a transfer fee of two million yuan. ”
Then, Zhiqing said: "Because the national map has previously contained some Tang Dynasty epitaph rubbings, it is estimated that some of them have duplicates with this batch of rubbings. Guotu's opinion is to join hands with Tiantu to buy the collection. The national map only selects the missing part, and the rest is purchased by the tiantu. After the transfer of these Tang Dynasty epitaph rubbings was known to a Japanese, he was willing to bid 1.5 million yuan to take it. Mr. Peng Zhenyao, the person in charge of the Chinese bookstore at that time, told the Japanese: "Chinese bookstores sell ancient books and documents, and there is a principle of domestic priority, and the first consideration is to transfer them in China." ’”
Hearing Zhiqing say, "This matter is urgent and needs to be handled urgently," I immediately called the director of the Tianjin Library, Lu Xingsu, to explain the situation. Director Lu is well aware of the significance of purchasing this batch of rubbings, in addition to supplementing the lack of collection with rare and precious documents, it is more important to do his best to leave this batch of precious documents of extremely high value, and cannot let them flow out of the country, let alone leave a name. Director Lu first said to me: "This matter is very important, and I will report to the leaders of the bureau immediately." After a few minutes, he called back and said: "On National Day, the director agreed to pay for it, and the two museums cooperated to win this batch of rubbings." "That's it.
One day in late April, I made a special trip to Beijing to discuss with Zhiqing in person the implementation of the joint purchase of rubbings between the two museums, and went to the Chinese bookstore to see the rubbings together.
On May 9, Zhiqing called me and talked about the idea of the two museums cooperating to purchase this batch of rubbings. He said: "Today, Guotu advanced 1.1 million yuan to the Chinese bookstore and paid it in one lump sum. Mr. Zhou Shaoliang believes that the transfer of the national map and the heaven map of these Tang tombstones is a fortunate thing. The two million yuan set by the original family can be transferred at a 50% discount. The next step is to first select the 'Zhang Yu Collection' part of the national map (author's note: based on the seal seal yu book seal), and then the Tiantu selects the missing part of the library from it, and the remaining small part is returned to the national map and entered into the Tibetan national map replica library. ”
According to statistics, the National Library of China selected five hundred and thirty-eight kinds of five hundred and seventy-one rubbings. Among them, 498 kinds of 515 are mainly the old collection of the famous collector Zhang Yu, and a small part is the old collection of Luo Zhenyu. The remaining 2,000 or so rubbings, all of which were not collected by Tiantu, were purchased by the museum, enriching the collection. Guotu advanced the fee of 1.1 million yuan, Guotu paid 400,000 yuan at checkout, and Tiantu paid 700,000 yuan. Mr. Shaoliang received a transfer fee of 1 million yuan, and the Chinese bookstore received an intermediary fee of 100,000 yuan.
On July 29th, together with the comrades of the department of the museum, I took a special trip to Guotu to retrieve this part of the Tang Dynasty epitaph rubbings purchased by Tiantu. The inventory and handover work was taken care of by me (then the director of the Tiantu Ancient Books Department) and the leader of the Ji Yaping group of the Guotu Jinshi Group. The rubbings ended up in their place, and the matter ended perfectly.
As a contemporary book collector, Mr. Shaoliang's collection of Tang Dynasty epitaphs can be described as a quick step, with eyesight, level and scale.
Mr. Shaoliang's collection of Tang tablets began with the study of Tang history in 1936. Mr. Li's research is a dead kung fu. He took the old and new "Book of Tang" to read, recorded and sorted out the ambiguous parts, and found that there were discrepancies between the dry branch of the "Tang Dynasty" and the "Twenty Shi Shuo Leap Tables" compiled by Chen Yuan. In order to grasp the evidence and solve the academic problems, he began to collect Tang tombstone rubbings, using the dry branch of the burial date of the tomb owner to determine right and wrong. At that time, the Tang tombstone rubbings were not yet noticed, and Mr. Shaoliang accumulated over time, forming a special collection of Tang tablets and epitaph rubbings, as many as more than 4,000 pieces.
At the beginning of this century, thousands of Tang Dynasty epitaphs were unearthed in Luoyang and other places, which led to a boom in the collection of celebrities and scholars. The more famous collectors are Yu Youren (Mandarin Duck Seven Zhi zhai), Zhang Yu (Si Dang Zhai), Zhang Yu (Qian Tang Zhi Zhai) and Li Gen (Qu Shi Jinglu). Luo Zhenyu compiled a collection of inscriptions such as the "Remains of the Tomb of Manluo Tomb" for scholars to study. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the above collections were transferred to local museums, and with the planned excavation of cultural relics, new Tang monuments were also unearthed. However, due to the scattered stones, it is difficult to find a whole leopard, and some libraries (such as the Beijing Library) have tried their best to collect them, but they also regret that they cannot be completed. Coupled with the inconvenience of libraries, museums and other collection departments in the rubbing lending and reading, it is difficult for researchers to make full use of this batch of valuable historical materials.
In view of this, in 1984, under the auspices of the Ancient Literature Research Office of the Cultural Relics Bureau of the Ministry of Culture, under the responsibility of Mr. Zhou Shaoliang and Zhao Chao, the Compilation of Tang Dynasty Epitaphs (published by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House in 1992) was completed. At this point, ordinary scholars can use this big book to carry out research on Tang Dynasty issues. This "Compilation of Tang Dynasty Epitaphs" records 3,607 Tang Dynasty epitaphs, and the number of Tuoben is Mr. Shaoliang's self-collection, reaching 1,773, accounting for about 60% of the total.
This purchase of Tibetan rubbings, Tiantu also has a windfall. During the negotiation of the purchase of rubbings, Tiantu exchanged more and more exchanges with Chinese bookstores. We proposed to the Chinese bookstore to return more than ten kinds of ancient book engravings that originally belonged to the old collection of Tiantu, and after discussion, the Chinese bookstore agreed to return more than ten kinds of ancient book engravings that originally belonged to Tiantu to Zhao. In the early 1980s, due to the needs of Chinese bookstore business, ancient book editions were collected and borrowed nationwide in order to be printed and printed to spread them widely and increase the turnover of bookstores. More than ten kinds of ancient book engravings in Tiantu's old collection have all been borrowed by Chinese bookstores. Coincidentally, when a Chinese bookstore came to Tianjin and pulled away the engravings of ancient books in the collection, I once looked at it, but because I was young at the time, I did not participate in it, and I did not know the reason. It was a fortunate thing to borrow the Tiantu and the National Map to jointly purchase the Tibetan rubbings, and even to complete the return of the old version of the Tiantu. These more than ten kinds of ancient books were engraved in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, mainly including "Jinmen Poetry Notes", "Tianjin Jin Family Collection", "Tianjin Wen copied", "Pinglu Cong carving", "Xu Xue four kinds", "republishment of Guang plague theory", "Supplementary Notes on Guang plague theory", "Wang Ren'an Collection", "Miao Lotus Room Poetry Copy" and "Pengwu Yincao" and so on.
Shortly after the successful transfer of these Tang Dynasty epitaph rubbings, I accompanied Mr. Li Jingguo, a disciple of Mr. Shaoliang, to visit Mr. Shaoliang, who was already seriously ill, to express my gratitude. The gentleman said to me happily, "I have an indissoluble relationship with Tiantu. Before that, I donated all the Ming and Qing novels I had collected to Tiantu. This time, Tiantu and Guotu received all my Tang Dynasty epitaph rubbings. On behalf of Tiantu, I would like to present three kinds of bibliographies compiled and printed by mr. Tiantu: "Bibliography of Good Books of Tianjin Municipal People's Library" (1961 print), "Bibliography of Ming and Qing Novels collected by Tianjin Library" (1962 print), and "Bibliography of Movable Type Collected by Tianjin People's Library" (1981 print). Mr. ShaoLiang gave me a point schoolbook that had recently been discovered in Korea and photocopied and published in China, the "Type World Dialect" written by Lu Renlong in the Ming Dynasty. After returning to the library, I wrote a book review for the book.
Chinese bookstores have been operating the book industry for a hundred years, and with their responsibilities, they have won wide praise from readers. Mr. Albino Wen also has a close relationship with Chinese bookstores and has indirectly done many good deeds for everyone. Unfortunately, Tiantu Suo returned to the book edition, and I did not say it to Elder Bai in person. It is conceivable that if Elder Bai had learned of such a wonderful thing, he would have laughed at the Realm of the Nine Springs.
Editor-in-Charge: Zheng Shiliang