In Nanxun Town, Huzhou, the silk town, there is a luxury villa that resembles the "Xiaoyingzhou" in Hangzhou's West Lake, called "Xiaolianzhuang", which was built by Liu Yong, a wealthy local merchant from Shangyu during the Qing Dynasty. Liu Yong's third son, Liu Jinzao (1855-1929), courtesy name Chengru, was a Qing Guangxu Jinshi, who served as deputy manager of the railway in Zhejiang Province and premier of the Dalian Lunbu Company, and was a famous industrialist in the late Qing Dynasty and early Min dynasty in China. His eldest son was the famous modern bibliophile Mr. Liu Chenggan.
Liu Chenggan (1882-1963), whose ancestral home is Shangyu, was born in Huzhou. The word Zhenyi, the number Hanyi, the other name of the forgiveness of the layman. At the age of 4, he was succeeded to his great uncle Liu Anlan as his heir. He was a man of integrity and open-mindedness, and in his early years, in addition to assisting his father in business and industry, he was an amateur who loved to read and buy books. In the autumn of 1910, he went to Nanjing to participate in the business activities of the "Nanyang Persuasion Association". The association is an exposition jointly organized by officials and businessmen at the end of the Qing Dynasty, which has branch halls for agriculture, medicine, education, technology, machinery, art, and armed equipment, displaying industrial and agricultural products from all over the country and displaying the latest scientific and technological achievements, which opened Liu Chenggan's eyes. He felt that in order to make the country rich and strong, it is necessary to set up schools and develop cultural undertakings, thus germinating the idea of cultural education to save the country. During his stay in Nanjing, he often went to the bookstores around The Yuanjing area and was attracted by the variety of literary and historical books. Those elaborately bound and inky ancient books of the Song and Yuan editions simply fascinated him and loved them. That is, from that year on, he bought a large number of books. Born into a wealthy merchant family, he had strong financial resources, and he also had a unique vision, and he was generous, which attracted the attention of booksellers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In addition to providing Liu Chenggan with book information often, they also provided thoughtful services and specially delivered books to their doors.
At the end of 1911, Liu Chenggan's family moved from Huzhou to Shanghai. At first, he lived in the old house of Yidri on Xiamen Road, but later the collection of books increased day by day, and the house was not enough to be applied, so he moved to the new house at the intersection of Beijing West Road and Taixing Road - "Ask for Forgiveness". Although the prayer is relatively spacious, after a few years, the collection of books has surged, and it cannot accommodate the placement. In order to completely solve the problem of book collection, he believed that the "land of gold" in Shanghai spent a lot of money to build a house, and decided to choose a place to build a library building in his hometown of Huzhou.
In 1920, Liu Chenggan invested 120,000 yuan to buy land and build a building not far from Xiaolianzhuang in Nanxun Town, Huzhou, which took 4 years to complete, that is, the famous national library building - "Jiayetang". Jiaye Hall is a quadrangle courtyard with a "Hui" glyph as a whole. The building is two stories high, each side is wide 7 rooms, for brick and wood structure, covers an area of more than 30 acres, as well as Shicui Hall, QiuShu Zhai, Jiaye Hall, Gu Xi Zhai, Song Si Shi Zhai, Li Guang Ge, Fu Xi Ju and other buildings. There is a lotus pond in front of the building, and the ring pond is dotted with mountain stones. The pavilions and galleries are exquisite and elegant, interspersed. The garden is full of bamboo trees, which is cool and pleasant. Although Jiaye hall is a library building, it is also the victory of Jiangnan Garden.
After the completion of Jiayetang in 1924, Liu Chenggan let go of his hands and feet and purchased books on a large scale. In the next 10 years, in addition to sporadic procurement from booksellers, he also entrusted people to search around for booksellers, and bought them in batches at high prices, and finally introduced the books in Ningbo" such as "Baojing Lou", Dushan "Shadow Mountain Caotang", Renhe "Jie Yilu", Fengshun "Holding Jingzhai", Taicang "Dongcang Library" and so on. By the early 1930s, The total number of books in Jiayetang was as high as 600,000 volumes.
Liu Chenggan loved books all his life, and he called himself "a love of books in his life, the same as the pearls and jade wealth of the world". He also put the pleasure of reading and collecting books, pushing himself and others, and enjoying himself with others. Jiayetang also engaged in the engraving business, the purpose is not to make money, but to engrave and print the rare orphan books and rare books that are not revealed, and send them to the academic circles. In this way, he turns one into a thousand, and the public is the best, which he believes is the greatest joy of life.
Jiayetang's 600,000-volume vast and simple book, in terms of its characteristics, has "five more":
First, there are many rare books in the Song and Yuan editions. It collects 65 Song editions, 74 Yuan editions, and 21 Song Yuanming (Three Dynasties).
Second, there are many manuscripts and manuscripts of famous artists. The total number of collections reaches more than 2,000 species.
Third, there are many Ming periodicals. There are about 2,000 units. Mainly for the history department and the collection department.
Fourth, there are many local history materials. There are 1192 kinds of collections, counting more than 4000 parts. Of these, 29 species are unique in the sea.
Fifth, there were many banned books in the Qing Dynasty. Jiayetang engraved and printed "An Long Yi History", Qu Dajun's "History of Weng Shan Wai", Cai Xian's "Idle Fishing idle record" and so on.
As a bibliophile, Liu Chenggan not only has a kind heart, but also has extraordinary knowledge and courage. He believes that a perfect library building should not only buy books and collect books, but also print books, compile books, proofread books, copy books and identify ancient books. In addition to the 120,000 yuan spent on the library business, he paid 300,000 yuan for the purchase of books, 200,000 yuan for engraving and printing books, and 100,000 yuan for editing, schooling, copying and appraising ancient books, totaling as much as 800,000 yuan. He also believes that although it is not easy to build a library building, it is also a difficult problem to manage the library building. First of all, there must be knowledgeable talents, so he hired Mr. Zhou Zimei, an expert in literature and history, as the first "cataloguing director" (curator) of Jiayetang. He also successively invited Shen Zengzhi, Wu Changshuo, Wang Guowei, Zheng Xiaoxu, Miao Tsuensun, Zhang Yuanji, Ye Changchi, and other famous scholars in modern China to write and appraise ancient book editions. After his painstaking planning and operation, soon Jiayetang and Ningbo Tianyi Pavilion were equally famous and became one of the famous library buildings in China.
Liu Chenggan was born in a rich family, but he was frugal in nature and not yet embellished. On weekdays, a gray cloth robe, a pair of flat-toed cloth shoes, the soil is rustic, resembling a cold Confucian, and there is no habit of the children of the rich family who are generally charming. His wife, Qian Dezhang, was a native of Jiashan, Zhejiang, and was the fourth daughter of Qian Shaozhen, a Qing Guangxu jinshi. Today, judging from Liu Chenggan's "Diary of Asking for Forgiveness", there are often records of "watching a play with Chen Ji" and "visiting the garden with Xu Ji". It seems that his family is more complicated and has more contradictions, but unexpectedly these factors have become a serious hidden danger to his book collection business.
In 1940, the Hangjiahu area in western Zhejiang had been occupied by the Japanese for a long time, when the society was chaotic, the economy was depressed, and the people were not happy. With the growth of their children, Liu Chenggan's family was full of contradictions, huge expenditures, and financial resources were not sustained; moreover, he was nearly old and lacked energy, and it was difficult to maintain his lifelong book collection business. Under the pressure of internal and external pressure, out of helplessness, he planned to sell some of the books in pain to solve the urgent need. At that time, there were three parties coveting the treasures of Jiayetang: on the one hand, Dalian Mantetsu Co., Ltd. in Japan and Dongya Tongwen Academy in Shanghai; on the other hand, some unscrupulous cultural traitors; and on the other hand, booksellers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang who were only interested in profit. So people in China's cultural circles stepped forward and launched a political and academic, moral and powerful struggle with these three forces. The conspiracy of their three parties was both exclusion and collusion, and today the National Library of China has a large volume of "Jiayetang Collection Book Sale Letters", which records their shameful deeds.
The problems that Liu Chenggan caused by his inability to preserve it that were detrimental to the interests of the country were a heavy and profound lesson for him. He realized that the power of the individual is, after all, weak and fragile, and that private treasures cannot last long. Soon after the founding of the Country, he considered donating his collection of books to the country free of charge. In November 1951, he made a request to the Zhejiang Provincial Library: "Because I am willing to donate the library and the surrounding vacant land and the collection of books, books and various equipment to your library, for permanent preservation, for the development of the social and cultural undertakings of New China." "The Zhejiang Provincial Library granted his request, welcomed and commended him. In that year, Jiayetang donated 113978 volumes, 2528 inscriptions, 27537 self-printed books and 39559 engravings. At the same time, Liu Chenggan was unable to maintain and repair it, and Xiaolianzhuang also applied to be managed by the state.
Nowadays, Jiayetang and Xiaolianzhuang have become national cultural relics protection units and have become beautiful tourist attractions in our province. The achievements of Mr. Liu Chenggan, a xiangxian, will be linked with Jiayetang and will always be respected and admired by future generations!
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