An old newspaper published in 1931 recently appeared in Tongliao City Antique City, which is believed to be the earliest Tongliao newspaper with the earliest circulation date found in tongliao area.
Li Gengwen carefully studied this old Tongliao "Business Daily"
The reporter saw the newspaper called "Shang Bao" in the studio of collector Li Gengwen. On the eve of May 1 this year, a Tibetan friend from a foreign country found the newspaper from a paper antique shop in Meihekou City, Jilin Province, and he saw the word "Tongliao" in the newspaper, so he informed Li Gengwen of the news. After several turns, this newspaper was bought back by Li Gengwen.
"Business Daily" as it was (published on March 14, 1931)
This newspaper is very old, the yellowed pages are printed on one side, slightly smaller than the A4 paper, a straight stroke of letters, carved on wax paper, the masthead is written "Grain Bank Daily", indicating "Twenty-sixth day of the first month of the 20th year of the Republic of China, March 14, 1931 in the Western calendar", "Tongliao County Huichang Xin Qianmi Dangye Journal". The entire newspaper is printed in the form of a table in two columns on the left and right, with the content on the right being "Futures Market, Front Field, And Back Field" and "Receiving Side, Delivering Party, Present Market, and Money Market" on the left. The content of the table is roughly the transaction of grain, including yuan beans (soybeans), red grains (sorghum), road grains, snake's eye grains, large melon seeds, two melon seeds, small melon seeds, hemp seeds, two hemp seeds, small hemp seeds, ji beans, jiang beans and so on. The business names that appear in the table were once the old old brands of Tongliao, such as Defayuan, Renfahe, Juchenggong, Defachang, Deshengtai, Yichangsheng, etc., which are now hidden in the red dust of history.
Li Gengwen is the president of the Tongliao City Collection Association and the famous "Liao Qian Wang" in the national collection circle. He not only collected coins, but also devoted himself to collecting objects related to Tongliao, and preserved many collectibles of special value for Tongliao. His valuable point is that every time he finds a collection, he conducts in-depth and meticulous research on the collection. When he studied the newspaper, he found that there was a lot of information in the small space. The "Business Daily" also mentioned a business name "Dong Tai Long". According to his understanding, this East Tailong is the predecessor of the current Tongliao Mongol King Wine Industry. As early as 1921, a handicraft owner named Bao Zengquan in Tongliao opened the "Tai Bone Family" workshop, in 1928 Bao Zengquan resold the workshop to Danghangzhou and renamed it "Yiqing", in 1932 "Yiqing" was resold to Cai Zuoqing, one of the "Eight Great People of Tongliao", renamed "East Tailong XiYao", in May 1947, Tongliao was liberated, the people's government took over the West Pot, renamed "Tongliao Shochu Manufacturing Factory", and then changed its name several times, until 2008 to form inner Mongolia Mongol King Industrial Co., Ltd. This "Shang Bao" also indirectly proves the historical evolution of the "century-old wine industry" of the Mongol king.
In this "Business Daily", Li Gengwen also found that the numbers used in business transactions at that time were the rare "Suzhou codes" that we use today, and this number is very different from the Arabic numerals we use today. "Suzhou yard", also known as grass code, flower code, fanzai code, business code, is China's early folk commercial figures, produced in Suzhou, China, born out of the Chinese cultural history of the chip, and now in Hong Kong and Macao and other areas of the street market, old-fashioned tea restaurants and Chinese medicine pharmacies are still occasionally seen. A small piece of Tongliao's early "Business Daily" not only records the economic state at that time, but also remembers a period of historical changes. (Textu/Reporter Zhou Jing)