In 1840, the Opium War broke out, and the British invaders used cannons to blast open the gate of the Qing Empire, which had faded in the afterglow of the prosperous world, and the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history helplessly went to a period of internal and external difficulties. The Western powers, which have coveted China for a long time, have viciously set off a frenzy of armed division, and the peasants who have been forced into a desperate situation by feudal rule have swept the whole country under the banner of rebellion, and the war is endless. Jiangnan is the hardest hit area of modern war, and the economy and culture of urban and rural areas have been hit hard. Fortunately, despite the harsh environment, Suzhou's book collection and engraving activities have not stopped, such as the Gu and Pan clans in the county town.
The engraving activities of the leaf-sweeping mountain house, from Kangxi to Guangxu, almost continued throughout the Qing Dynasty, and are the representatives of the Suzhou engraving book industry, and also a microcosm of the development of the modern Suzhou engraving book industry, which is narrated here.
1. Bibliophiles' book-engraving activities
During the Daoguang Period, those in Suzhou who are good at collecting books and engraving books in Jiangnan are Gu Yuan, who has opened up the Frontier Garden.
Gu Yuan, zi xiang zhou, yi zi lan, canglang fisherman father, Changzhou people, Daoguang Zhongzen official teaching. His ancestors had been awarded the ancient Yan by the Qing Dynasty, so he named his residence Zhiyantang. Xiangzhou has been reading poetry since childhood, but does not aim at Shida. What he loves is the family style of hiding secret books and the family science of appreciating antiquities. Therefore, since the initiation of the bundle, there is a desire to search for the golden stone map. Decades of careful management, the collection of books has accumulated to more than 100,000 volumes, more than 4,000 kinds of inscriptions, more than 1,000 calligraphy and paintings, and hidden in the Yihai Building. Yihai Lou was located in his Beiye Frontier Garden on Fuqiao West Street in Juncheng, and according to the records of the time, thirty-six bookcases were arranged vertically and horizontally on the upper floor, which were similar to each other by the subset of history. Downstairs is the Jijin LeShizhai, the Tibetan merchant Yi Zhou Ding, and the Jin Ti Tang Monument. In the collection, "Wuzhong Dynasty Documents and Fang Zhi from near and far are especially prepared." Where the Song and Yuan editions and celebrity commentaries are published, there are ten in one and two; the Ming edition and the manuscripts, ten in three or four, and the Yu Yi initial prints are many."
With the rich Wu Chinese in the Yihai Building, Gu Yuan worked diligently and diligently, and compiled hundreds of huge compilations such as "Wu Junwen Compilation", "Wu Jun's Poetry Record", and "Jiang Zuo Jinshi Zhi", all of which were unpublished manuscripts. The Wujun Wenshu (吴郡文編) is a collection of 246 volumes, with more than 4,000 articles, and is now in the collection of 80 manuscripts in the Suzhou Museum. The school engraved the "New Edition of the ShiYanTang Series", which is dedicated to the writings of qing people, and seeks to be full of books. Originally planned to be 100 kinds, imami four episodes and forty-one kinds, including scripture history, geography, poetry, art, grid objects, etc., Daoguang Decade (1830) Changzhou Gu clan engraving. There are also forty kinds of "Unexscribed Manuscripts of the Zhiyantang Series", which are also written by qing people, with the content of poems, ququ, palace words, music houses, miscellaneous and the like, and the end of each volume has the imprint of "Xiangzhou Hand School" or "Changzhou Gu's Collection", which should be the unpublished manuscripts among the hundred kinds of plans, which are now in the Shanghai Library.
Gu Yuan's compilation and publication of preserved township documents, as well as "Yuan Miao Guan Zhi" and "Canglang Pavilion Zhi", but the most famous is that Dao Guangzhong presided over the engraving of "Wu County's Famous Sage Figures". According to Peng Shaosheng of the Qing Dynasty, it began with Wang Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty, who compiled one hundred and eighteen famous sages of the Ming Dynasty, and it was to pass on the praise. At the beginning of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty, Zhang Toad obtained the fragments of the Wang clan, re-added the imitations, and extensively searched for supplements, and obtained more than 220 people, belonging to the old people such as Jin Junming, Zheng Shijiao, Wen Wei, Xu Shupi, Zhu Yongchun and other famous people of a time, wrote a biography, and collected it into a huge book. At the beginning of Daoguang, Gu Yuan found Zhang Ben and added more than five hundred and seventy people under Wu Jiza. In the seventh year of Daoguang (1827), Inspector Tao Shu and envoy Liang Zhangju rebuilt the Canglang Pavilion, and decided to embed it in the wall and build the Canglang Pavilion Famous Ancestral Hall. Liang Zhangju proposed that each sage add a small biography and engrave it into a book. From his words, Gu Yuan had the compilation of "Wu County's Famous Sages And Praises". "Wu County's Famous Sage Figure" is the first crown canglang pavilion mingxian temple map, the main text is passed on by one person, the small transmission comes from the hand of Zhang Yinglu in Taicang, and the portrait is Kong Jiyao's handwriting. Kong Jiyao, Zi Yanxiang, Lianxiang, Kunshan people, painting landscapes, flowers and birds are all fascinated, especially fine characters. Another book edited by Gu Yuan, Xiantuzan,"Biography of ancient sages", was also copied by Kong Shi. Zheng Zhenduo once highly praised Gu Yuan's contribution to the cause of Suzhou printmaking, saying: "Gu Yuan's publication of "Five Hundred Sages of Wu County" and other huge works are several kinds, which are not lost in the pioneering form of Wudi carving. ”
In the second year of Gu Yuan's death, Pan Zuyin, a high school scholar known for his book collection and engraving, began his wonderful book industry cultural activities.
Pan Zuyin, Zi Boyin, Zheng An, room name Huan Xi Zhai, Gong Shun Tang. Xianfeng II (1852) jinshi. His grandfather Pan Shien Daoguangjian official to the Crown Prince Taibao, Wuyingdian University scholar, in his later years retired to the East of Suzhou City Lindunli Fengchi Garden, quietly read the ancient books, and compiled into "Reading the History of The Mirror Ancient", "Zhengxue Compilation" and other kinds, published in the world. Zu Yin has been deeply influenced by family learning since childhood, and after leaving the family, he has been traveling for a long time, and in addition to political affairs, he is committed to searching for gold stones and books. Huan Xizhai soon became known as Xiongjiangnan with his abundant golden stone books. Among his collections are the rare books of the old collection of the Martyrs of Huang Pi. He not only collected books for many years, but also carved a large number of books. His younger brother Pan Zunian recorded in detail his activities in collecting and engraving books in the "Annals of Pan Wenqin". In the fourth year of Xianfeng (1854), he worked hard to record the "Golden Stone Record of Haidong", and then successively engraved books, which lasted for many years. In the Tenth Year of Guangxu (1884), the books inscribed in the calendar year were collected into the "Shuxi Zhai Series". At the same time, it also engraved the "Gongshuntang Series" and "Shiliju Collection Inscription".
Zu Yin's nephews Pan Chenghou and Pan Jingzheng (formerly known as Chengbi) inherited 40,000 volumes of ancestral suicide notes during the Republic of China. In 1943, Pan Chenghou died of illness. Pan Jingzheng was afraid that the collection would be destroyed once, so he began to select unpublished ancestors from his family collection, the relics of his teachers and friends, and other rare secret books, which were compiled into the "Zhiganglou Series", which was divided into two episodes, including many precious historical materials about the Pan family. For example, in the ninth year of Daoguang (1829), Pan Shi'en was sixty years old, composing "Family Qingtu", in the picture, Pan Shi'en sat on the side of the stone, Zeng Ying sat next to the case, the scroll contemplation, Zeng Shuo held the scroll with standing, Zeng Wei was still young, and he was watching the fish in the tank, which showed the elegant rhyme of the books of the family family.
Second, sweep the leaf mountain house
In the Qing Dynasty, Suzhou folk engraving bookstores lasted the longest, the largest number of engraved books, and the greatest social impact, which was the Xi's Sweeping Leaf Mountain House in Changshu following Mao Jinji's Ancient Pavilion.
Xi Shi ben Suzhou Dongting Dongshan surname Wang, its inscription began in the early Qing Dynasty Xi Qiyu. Xi Qiyu, Ziwen Xia, No. Zhi Zhai, Ming Chongzhen Shi Tai Shu Temple Shaoqing Xi Ben Zhen Jizi. In Kangxi, with thirty years of energy, he carved the "Complete Collection of Hundred Famous Artists of Tang Poetry", which opened the precedent of Xi's engraving. At the end of the Qianlong Dynasty, Xi Qiyu's grandson Xi Shichen set up a bookstore in Suzhou Zhangmen, with the name of "Sweeping Leaf Mountain House", and the engraved book edition was engraved with the words "Sweep leaf mountain house", and the name of the leaf mountain house spread in all directions along with the marketing of the engraved books. Xi Shichen swept the leaf mountain room carved books, mainly in Jiaqing, the more famous ones are "Seventeen History", "Four Dynasties And Other History", "Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty", Tang Wujing's "Zhenguan Politicians", Song Liuzhen's "Records of The Eastern View of Han", Song Xuejuzheng's "History of the Old Five Dynasties" and so on.
Saeba Yamaboku was behind Xi Shichen and continued to run the book business. In the last year of Xianfeng, the shuban of the Leaf Mountain House suffered heavy losses in the military tug-of-war between the Taiping Army and the Qing Army in Jiangnan, and the "Old Book of Tang" bookboard that the bookstore was printing was destroyed in the war at that time. In Guangxu, the business activities of the sweeping leaf mountain house have developed, and Li Zhaoluo's "Five Kinds of Li Clan" has been engraved, and five kinds of public opinion works such as "Compilation of Geographical Records of Past Dynasties" and "Compilation of Imperial Public Opinion and Land Rhyme" have been collected. According to Geng Wenguang' record, the series of books inscribed "Qing Guangxu Zhongwu County Zhu Clan Huai Lu Jia Shu Engraving Book" was actually engraved by the Leaf Sweeping Mountain House.
In the same light year, Saoye Shanfang moved the business center to Shanghai, successively set up sales offices in Caiyi Street and Qipan Street, and introduced new technologies of lithography and lead printing, expanded the printing scale and business scope, and wire-bound lithographs became the main publishing style. According to the incomplete statistics of the bibliography compiled by the Republic of China, there are more than 700 kinds of books compiled and printed by the Sweeping Leaf Mountain House, which account for a large share of the ancient book market in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty.
With the emergence of larger-scale modern private publishing enterprises in the Republic of China, such as the Commercial Press, zhonghua bookstore, enlightened bookstore, etc., the ancient book market is relatively shrinking, although the leaf mountain house is called the new bookstore in the Republic of China, but in the end due to the restrictions of the old system of bookstores, the business is becoming depressed, and finally closed in 1954 and completely withdrew from the historical stage.
Excerpted from Chapter 18 of "Introduction to Suzhou Culture: The Inheritance and Development of Wu Culture in Suzhou", edited by Su Jianya, Jiangsu Education Publishing House, 2008