On the eve of the arrival of the Xin Ugly Year, the business building of the Shandong Provincial Cultural Relics General Store located at the head of the Ximen Bridge was completely demolished, pulling many people's thoughts back to the antique city in Jinan in the old days.
As an ancient "fudi", Jinan has a collection of humanities, culture, and many antique lovers, and the antique city is also quite traditional. From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, Jinan and Weixian (present-day Weifang), Qufu, Yidu (present-day Qingzhou) and called Qilu the four major antique markets. Most of Jinan's antique shops are concentrated in the old city of Buzhengsi Street (now Provincial Capital East and West Street), Donghuaqiangzi Street, Qushuiting Street, Yuanyuan Gangzi Street, Houzaimen Street, Furong Street, and Ximennei Street and Fudong Street, which today become Quancheng Road. Thirty-two years after Guangxu (1906), antique dealers in Japan and other countries opened a number of antique shops in newly opened commercial ports. According to the "Rural Survey Of Shandong Counties", there are 23 antique shops in Jinan (excluding those opened by foreigners). After the "918" incident, it was reduced to 10 in 1933. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the antique business unexpectedly rebounded. According to the statistics of the "Jinan Industrial and Commercial Survey Report" in 1938, there were 30 antique shops in Jinan at that time. In 1951, after the founding of New China, the number of antique shops in Jinan reached its peak, with more than 50.
Old Jinan antique stall
Qushuiting Street and Shanshuigou are famous far and wide
Most of the antique merchants have the number of the store, there are also some so-called "sitting merchants" who do not have a store market and operate exclusively at home, and there are also so-called "merchants" who go around for antique dealers and collectors to buy cultural relics. Miao Hainan, who returned from studying abroad and later became a well-known entrepreneur, specially hired Li Jietao to collect calligraphy, paintings and seals for him.
Qushuiting Street, which runs along the water on the south bank of Daming Lake, is a famous antique stall at that time, commonly known as "ghost city". The buyers and sellers of antiques on the stalls are different from the shops, and the sellers have a small number of professional antique dealers, as well as dignitaries with dilapidated families, literati and inkers or their descendants, who cash in on the "relics" left by their ancestors; there are also some tomb robbers or "gentlemen on the beams" who make quick money with the treasures dug up or stolen. Buyers are either antique dealers or wealthy collectors. Buyers and sellers are reluctant to reveal their true identities, so everyone cooperates with tacit understanding, most of them take advantage of the silence of the night, carrying a horse lamp to trade, shadowy, sneaky, mysterious, some even use bib to wrap their faces tightly, for fear of being recognized by acquaintances, really like thieves. When the day dawns, the people in the market quickly withdraw their stalls, the animals and birds scatter, and the people go to the streets, and the "ghost market" is worthy of its name.
Of course, the antique shop on this street is still the protagonist of weekdays. In 1926, after the modern writer Fan Yanqiao traveled to Jinan, he was deeply impressed by the antique shops on Qushuiting Street, and he vividly described in his essay "Records of Smoke and Clouds under the Calendar": "There are antique shops on both sides of Qushuiting, although There are moizi steps, and Ding Yi is on the shelf, and the calligraphy and paintings are full of walls, similar to Suzhou's Dragon Guard Street." Weixian turned sand bronze ware, very good at it, so the Buddha statues are touching, solemn and simple, like hundreds of years ago, and the price is only a Buddha (silver dollar) or so. In 1938, Pu Songling studied everyone and the Zichuan people's road wilderness, and found a six-volume set of "Liaozhai Anthology" in Juguzhai on Qushuiting Street, the price was not cheap, and he had to ask an acquaintance to be a guarantee, and borrowed the book home to read it overnight, because the loan period was only one day. Perhaps by chance, 13 years later, his family also moved to the courtyard of Qushuihe East (now Qushuiting Street) on Qushuiting Street (now No. 8 Qushuiting Street) to live with his children and grandchildren. The "Qushui Book Nest" inscribed by Huang Binhong, a calligrapher and painter, and the "Liaozhai Book Map" painted by Pu Xinshe have been hanging on the walls of his home.
Outside the city, Nanguan Shan Shuigou is a somewhat curved sunken road, mainly considering the needs of flooding. On every Second And Seventh Day, the open space along both sides of the ditch was set aside as a large collection of old goods, which was a well-known "broken city" at that time, and its Chinese houses and four treasures, antique calligraphy and paintings, and old books accounted for a considerable proportion. Wang Xiantang, a famous philologist and collector in Shandong, liked to catch up with the "Taobao" of the Shanshuigou Collection, and he also entrusted an antique dealer from Jingguzhai to buy a copy of the Old Collection of Haiyuan Pavilion engraved huangjingpu hand school "The Biography of Mu Tianzi" here. Fan Yanqiao's article also mentioned The Shanshuigou: "Every value of two or seven, the Shanshuigou has a collection, along the street cloth stalls to sell old things, the price is cheaper, but you must get the wonderful products in the morning, because of the small theft of the night, similar to the black market in Nanjing, there are many fakes, not with giant eyes, can not get cheap." ”
The flea market on the banks of the shanshui ditch during the Republic of China
Another feature of this Shanshuigou market is the trade in Chinese herbal medicines. The west side of Shanshuigou is Baotu Spring Front Street, and the original Yaowang Temple on the street is dedicated to the gods of medicine such as Nongshi, Bian Que, Hua Tuo, Sun Simiao, Li Shizhen and so on. Every year in March of the old calendar, a half-month-long Yaowang Temple Fair is held in front of the temple. In the early years of the Republic of China, due to the increasing number of people rushing to the meeting, the temple fair was moved to Shanshuigou and nearby streets and alleys, becoming a large-scale pharmaceutical market conference. Lao She, who was employed by the Institute of Traditional Chinese Studies of Qilu University at that time, lived very close to here, and after wandering around here, he sighed: "I love this collection very much", and wrote an essay for this purpose, "The Medicine Collection of Jinan", which was published in the June 1932 magazine "Nianhua". After 1949, the Yaowang Temple was abolished, and in 1965, the last medicinal materials conference was held in Shanshuigou, which reached tens of thousands of people, becoming the largest medicinal materials trading conference in North China at that time, and also became the best song of this medicine collection. In November 2009, the nostalgic Jinan people built the Yaowanglou Mall on the banks of the East Industrial and Commercial River in Tianqiao District, and at the same time opened an antique city, so that Chinese herbal medicines and antique trade were once again married. At its peak, more than a thousand antique dealers gathered in this building with Qinhuai architectural style.
The 1960s and 1970s
Provincial Cultural Relics General Store, Jinan Cultural Relics Store "Two Branches Of Competition"
In the two years of 1955 and 1956, the country vigorously promoted the "public-private partnership" of various types of private enterprises, and most of the antique shops in Shandong and Jinan were also "public-private partnerships" during this period. In January 1959, Jinan's private Jingguzhai, Baofengtai, Xihongge, Chunpu Pavilion and other four antique shops merged to form Jinan Lixia Antiques Entrusted Store, located in Yuanxi Street. In April 1961, the antique entrusted shop was acquired by the government at a discount, and on this basis, the Shandong Provincial Cultural Relics General Store was established, and the original Zidong Wang Shengfu, Liu Hanqing, Huo Jieqiu and Liu Chunpu became the staff of the main store. The store site was originally located in the north of Yuanxi Avenue Road, and the name of the store was inscribed by Guo Moruo. In 1965, this street was integrated and transformed into Quancheng Road, and the house number of the cultural relics general store was No. 324 Quancheng Road. At the beginning of its establishment, there were only 8 employees in the store, the first manager was Zhao Zhongsan, and the deputy manager was the aforementioned Li Jitao.
Leaders and guests who participated in the opening ceremony of the business building of the Provincial Cultural Relics General Store visited the calligraphy and painting collection.
Zhao Zhongsan, a native of Pingyi County, Linyi, was an "old qualified" cadre. In 1938, he resigned as the township chief of Nanyang Township in Fei County, the Nationalist government, and ran to become the township chief of the same township controlled by the Communist Party, which was also the first democratic township government in the local area controlled by the Communist Party. Later, he joined the guerrilla brigade of the Eighth Route Army, also joined the party, and in the early days of the founding of New China, he served as deputy county magistrate of the People's Government of Qufu County and president of the Jining Municipal People's Court. Zhao Zhongsan's dormitory was in the old site of Guangzhiyuan, and the front and back yards of my family, and when I was a child, I often went to his house to play. My deepest impression of his house was the wooden swivel chair with the broken cushions revealing cotton wool, and a tall floor clock, which swayed from side to side and ticked.
Li Jietao, a native of Jining, is a professional cadre proficient in antique business. He graduated from Shandong Agricultural College in his early years, and later worked in Jinan Fengda Bank and the then Provincial Department of Finance. In 1939, he was hired as a member of the Provincial Library Finishing Committee, engaged in the collection and appraisal of cultural relics, and had a high appreciation ability for calligraphy, paintings, porcelain and inscriptions. In 1964, his book "Gao Fenghan" was published by the Shanghai Fine Arts Publishing House, which was also the first public publication in the history of the Provincial Cultural Relics General Store.
My impression of the old shop of Quancheng Road Cultural Relics General Store is still fixed in the 1970s and 1980s, the store is not large, but the windows are bright and clean. Dark shelves and counters, altar jars, pens and ink paper, jade bronzes, wire-bound ancient books, a variety of dazzling. Old calligraphy and paintings hang on the walls, which are quaint. In the street window there is a figure of ZunGen, an old man, a fairy wind Dao bone, beautiful hair, happy shape, lifelike, often attracting passers-by to stop.
In August 1961, four months after the establishment of the Provincial Cultural Relics General Store, the Jinan Cultural Relics Store was established, its predecessor was the public-private partnership jinan Sanyi entrusted shop antique department mainly formed by the private Cuibao Zhai, which was originally at No. 28 Jingsan Road, which was also a few bungalows, with only five employees and total assets of less than 20,000 yuan. The plaque at the door is the ink of Guan Yousheng, the head of the "Four Greats" of Jinan calligraphy and painting. In 1988, it was relocated to Jingsi Road, Wei 2nd Road, just one road away from the lively Daguan garden.
In the early 1990s, the business hall on the first floor of the Provincial Cultural Relics General Store
With the state's restrictions on the circulation of cultural relics and monopoly, the huge Jinan is two cultural relics stores in this province and city, and the average person retreats from those "sealed, funded, and repaired" antiques. The sales targets are mainly foreign guests, Chinese, overseas Chinese, Hong Kong and Macao tourists who come to Jiji to travel to the "four kinds", as well as a small number of Hong Kong antique dealers. Business is naturally very light. In 1971, during the "Cultural Revolution", the then "Cultural Group of the Political Department of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee" abolished the provincial cultural relics general store, and the antique purchase and sale business was stopped. What is valuable is that during the "Cultural Revolution" The Jinan Municipal Cultural Relics Store insisted on operating as usual, when Jinan City set up a cultural relics book receiving station, which was mainly responsible for the Municipal Cultural Relics Store, and its key task was to select the cultural relics in the "broken four olds". They traveled through 4 districts, 40 offices, and many organs, factories, and schools in Jinan at that time, and selected tens of thousands of pieces from millions of various "four old" cultural relics, many of which were extremely precious cultural relics, including the Bada Shanren's "Lotus Flower Bird Map", Gao Fenghan's "Crow Array Picture Scroll", and the works of Li Kuchan, Wang Xuetao, Yu Xining and others.
In 1975, the provincial cultural relics store resumed work. The following year, the main store compiled and printed the "Handbook for the Identification of Scattered Cultural Relics", which interpreted ancient porcelain bronze ware, bamboo and wood ivory carvings, jade jade ware, pearl agate, ancient calligraphy and paintings, inscription seals, etc., and became a guide for internal exchange and learning. Since 1980, after the reform and opening up, in order to meet the increasing needs of foreign guests visiting and increase exports and earn foreign exchange, provincial and municipal cultural relics stores have set up export departments and opened special counters for foreign guests to buy and sell, which became the only two travel agencies at that time, namely the Jinan Branch of China International Travel Service and Shandong China Travel Service, which were necessary places for foreigners, foreign Chinese, overseas Chinese, overseas Chinese, and Hong Kong and Macao compatriots to travel and shop. Calligraphers and painters and calligraphy and painting enthusiasts are also the first choice for mounting calligraphy and paintings, and purchasing pen, ink and paper here.
After the reform and opening up
The "mass participation" of the Hero Mountain cultural market is rising
It is also this period, I don't know which day, under the shade of the north foothills of Hero Mountain, beside the road, every day for a few hours in the morning, spontaneously formed a morning market, baked cakes, fritters, soybean milk, ramen and other colors of breakfast, ceramics, calligraphy, painting, carving and other kinds of handicrafts, flowers, birds, insects, fish, cats, dogs, rabbits and turtles and other colorful playthings, as well as needles and threads, tables and chairs benches, toothbrushes and toothpaste, laundry detergent and other daily necessities, readily available, all kinds of things. In addition, those who play tai chi, practice martial arts, repair chicken eyes, sell wild medicine, and massage massage are not busy. When the sun rises, people naturally disperse. On Sundays, the whole day is turned into a festival, crowded and watery. At that time, the "foreigners" who came to Jinan to travel most liked the "morning market" project arranged by the travel agency for them, and felt that it was "very Chinese" and natural, and it was a portrayal of the lives of ordinary Chinese people. The "foreigners" got off the bus and disappeared into the vast sea of people, taking pictures of the left and right with their cameras, refusing to leave for a long time. In the late 1980s, the Hero Mountain morning market grew in size and influence, becoming the largest road trading market in the country.
In the early 1990s, along with the consolidation of the road market, the Hero Mountain morning market was banned. Bounded by Ma'anshan Road, a cultural market was built in the south of the road, and a new world mall, a Baiwang mall and a Chinese food city were built on the north side of the road, and the "retreat into the hall" that was originally "practicing stalls" here was diverted into it, and a large number of new "self-employed" were attracted to join. The Hero Mountain Cultural Market consists of rows of temporary bungalows and several two-storey buildings. At first, it was mainly engaged in book wholesale and flower retail, and later with the construction of another flower market on the northwest side of Hero Mountain, the flower business here gradually shrank, while antique calligraphy and painting, strange stone carving, ceramic jade, wood carved bronze, four treasures of the study room, and old furniture took advantage of the void to seize the land. Therefore, it has become a good place for Quancheng people to "dig for books", "treasure hunting" and "open their eyes", every Saturday and Sunday, the antique stalls are lively and abnormal, the passenger flow reaches more than 10,000 people, and the festival can reach up to 50,000 or 60,000 people, as if reproducing the popularity and prosperity of the road market in that year.
A stallholder at the Hero Mountain Cultural Market
Unlike the antique market in the old days, the Hero Mountain Cultural Market can be described as "public participation". The stall owners come from all over the country, the most in Henan, Hebei and Shanxi, qinghai and Tibet, and a small number of laid-off and retired workers in Jinan. Every day, they use cartons or sacks to transport the goods of each family, pottery, jade, bronze, coins, books, etc. are placed on the ground one by one, even the old cameras, clocks and other delicate things are also "sitting on the ground", a face of wind and dust. Most of the people who "come here to visit" have the mentality of picking up cheap and having fun, and some people just come here to look at the old things of the past and think about the past things just for nostalgia.
In 1986, the business building of Shandong Provincial Cultural Relics General Store was completed. Located at No. 1 Komsomol Road (formerly known as Jiayishi Street), the building is bordered by Wulongtan Crescent Spring in the north and Ximen Bridge in the east. The main building is four stories high, the east annex building is two stories, and the top has two floors of four-sided pavilion style, which is the top water tower, with a business area of 3200 square meters and 60 employees. Guo Moruo's inscription on the name of the shop was made into a huge copper character and installed above the entrance, the outer wall was in a pale yellow tone, and the prominent position was the decorative puzzle of the copper carriage. On May 15 of that year, the business building was officially opened, and the opening ceremony was grand and simple, but the guest specifications were very high. Liang Buting, then secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, Su Yiran, director of the Provincial Advisory Committee, Jiang Chunyun, deputy secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and secretary of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee, Wang Zhongyin, former secretary of the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission, and other provincial and municipal leaders attended the opening ceremony. Niu Ji, the father of the provincial cultural relics store at the time, presided over the opening ceremony. The bungalow of the old shop was renamed Dongdian, which operated new handicrafts such as the four treasures of the study room, and later became the Wenyuan Gold Shop belonging to the Cultural Relics General Store.
In 2000, Quancheng Road was widened and reconstructed, and the East Store was demolished. On May 1, 2016, the business building of the Cultural Relics General Store ceased to operate, and the staff was merged into the Shandong Museum, which was called the West Hall of the Museum. Jinan Cultural Relics Store was incorporated into the Municipal Museum as early as 2011. It is said that more than 90% of the country's cultural relics stores have closed their doors after their historical mission. In early February 2021, the former landmark building of the Ximen Bridge of the Provincial Cultural Relics General Store was destroyed, giving way to the reconstruction and expansion of the Wulongtan Park, the "world's first spring". (Author: Niu Guodong Photo courtesy of Niu Guodong)