Sibao’s China Printing Base Sibao

The compass, papermaking, printing, and gunpowder are the four great inventions of ancient China and are the outstanding contributions made by the Chinese nation to human society. Among them, printing was far ahead of the world from the Tang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. It was spread to various countries in Asia and Africa and was the first printing technology in the world. The Four Forts of the ancient town are the only living witnesses of ancient engraving and printing, and a record of ancient Chinese civilization leading the world. The founding of Sibao printing industry can be traced back to the 30th year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty to the eighth year of Wanli (1551-1580 AD). Zou Xuesheng (also known as Qingquan, born in 1523 AD and died in 1598) served as ambassador to Cangzhou in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. ).

It is said that when Zou Xuesheng resigned and returned home, his wife Shao Miaozheng (from Hangzhou) was unwilling to leave Hangzhou and come to Fujian. At that time, Shao Miaozheng was only 29 years old, and his three children were all still young. He was worried about returning to a remote mountainous area and it would be difficult to train his children to become talents; but Zou Xuesheng felt that he was over fifty, especially when his father was in his dying years and his mother had passed away. He is also the only son of his parents, so he has to go home no matter what, to comfort his father who misses his son in his old age. So he discussed with his wife and decided to bring Suzhou and Hangzhou's Lantern Festival lantern art and printing (including some engravings) back to his hometown, in order to relieve his worries and win her willingness to go. From then on, the printing industry of "engraving classics and history for the benefit of future generations" sowed its first seeds in Sibao Wuge.

After Zou Xuesheng opened a bookstore and started the printing industry, his son Zou Zhenmeng (1568-1634), Zou Ximeng (1578-1643), his nephew Zou Baochu (1619-1673) and others, in "Traveling to Xiangxu" "After passing the examination, he inherited the business of his ancestors and further expanded his printing business by "building a large library". They "traveled to the east of Guangdong and traveled to Wulin" and sold books, and "Yin Fu crowned the capital". Following in its footsteps, more and more people were engraving classics and periodicals and selling books in various places. By the Qian and Jiaqing periods, it had developed into its heyday. The ancient town of Sibao is located at the junction of Liancheng, Changting, Qingliu and Ninghua counties in western Fujian. It is a remote mountainous town. However, the ancient town of Sibao was once famous for its prosperous woodblock printing industry. It became the best-preserved one among the four major woodblock printing bases in the country during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It was listed as a "famous historical and cultural town in Fujian Province". In 2001, it survived The ancient bookshop group has also been listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit. Walking through the ancient town of Wuge Village, you can see the wind-and-fire houses that have been eroded by wind and rain for a long time. The gate towers stand tall, the eaves are raised, and the smell of books is flowing. That is the ancient bookstore. Now only Wuge Village still has more than 100 ruins called "Yinfangli". Sibao Printing Shop in the ancient town is basically a family workshop, mostly run by families for generations, and shows the distinctive characteristics of family and private ownership. The Zou family of Wuge Village and the Ma family of Mayu Village are the two major families that run the Sibao woodblock printing industry. According to the Zou clan's saying: "My hometown is at the elbow of Qianlong, the book industry is very prosperous, and those who have become rich are looking for each other." Each book shop "extensively engraves ancient and modern relics and distributes them all over the sea. The accumulation of baht is as good as a plain seal." Ziren House is a typical building that combines a residence and a bookstore in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It consists of Tianbao Hall, Wuben Hall and Hanbao Building. It was built in 1809 by the three brothers surnamed Zou. It covers an area of ??ten acres and has nine halls. There are more than 140 rooms in Shibajing. The upper, middle and lower halls are the public activity places, the side hall and the first wing are the residence and living area, the second wing and the room in front of the gate are the printing shop, and the backyard is the warehouse and utility room. The printed books are sold to Jiangxi, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Suzhou and Hangzhou and other places.

According to historical records, the woodblock printing industry in the ancient town of Sibao has three origin theories: the late Southern Song Dynasty, the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty (1465 to 1487), and the eighth year of Wanli of the Ming Dynasty (1580). How to say it accurately remains to be verified, but it is sufficient to illustrate its long history. After hundreds of years of development, it entered its heyday during the Qianlong, Jiaqing, and Daoguang dynasties, with numerous bookstores and at least 100 large bookstores and small and medium-sized bookstores dotted all over the place. There are hundreds of local booksellers, with fixed sales and mobile sales. Booksellers from other places also come to sell books in an endless stream, making the ancient town of Sibao "monopolize the south of the Yangtze River, market them all over the country, and spread far overseas". Later, with the technological innovation and development of the printing industry, it gradually declined. By the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, it had been marginalized and had no place to stand.

Not only does the paper have good quality, the decoration is elegant, and the fonts are beautiful and clear, but the pages are tall and easy for readers to annotate, so it is very popular all over the world. Although the price is high, the market is still very wide, so there is a saying of "monopolizing Jiangnan and selling it nationwide". At that time, a bookseller from Xuwan, Jiangxi Province sent a special person to Sibao to purchase and transship. He also gave a piece of land to Wuge printing merchants and built a residence for the purchasing and transshipment personnel. They stayed there for a long time and purchased a large number of books for transshipment and sale in various parts of Jiangxi. . His house was built at the entrance of Wuge Village, where the ancient post road branched off from Changting to Qingliu and Ninghua. The place name was Yangkengwei (that is, the southwest side of Sibao Middle School and west of the road in front of the grain station). Later, Xuwan Bookseller I deeply felt that being a promoter of Sibao Bookstore for a long time was not cost-effective. The profits were always limited. It was better to go back and open a bookstore by myself. So Xuwan Booksellers bought some of the old engravings from Sibao and took them back as a gift. Based on this, he gradually started his own printing business, and from then on he no longer came to Sibao to purchase books. As time went by, its house gradually collapsed and became a flat ruin.

Sibao’s books, in addition to overseas merchants coming directly to purchase them, are shipped out continuously year after year. There are three distribution routes: northern route, western route and southern route. Because it is located at the junction of Ting, Lian, Qing and Ning counties, it reaches Qingliu and Ninghua in the north, Changting in the west and Liancheng in the south. Therefore, the shipping route of books also follows these three routes. In the era of relying on manpower for transportation on shoulders or pack transport by mules and horses, the daily travel range could only be 70 to 80 to 100 miles. However, there are Sibao people's bookstores in the towns along the line where you can take a rest and adjust the supply of goods. The bookstores along these routes were originally mobile businessmen who traveled from village to village to sell books in libraries, academies and the homes of scholars. After a period of familiarity, they established shops and started business. In this way, it gradually extended forward, farther and farther, and spread to all provinces south of the Yangtze River. At that time, the northern line flowed into Shaxi and down the Minjiang River through Qing Dynasty, or from Ninghua to Jianning and Taining to Fengcheng, Linchuan, Nanchang, Zhangshu, Jiujiang and other places in Jiangxi, and then moved upstream along the Yangtze River to Wuhan, Changsha and Chongqing and Chengdu, Sichuan; downstream reaches Anqing, Wuhu, Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Wuxi, Suzhou and Hangzhou. After the western route reaches Changting, it is also divided into two routes: water and land. They took a boat all the way south along the Tingjiang River and entered Shanghang, Meizhou, Chaozhou, and Shantou. They were transported by sea to the Pearl River, entered Guangzhou, and dispersed to various places in southwestern Guangdong. Or it can be traced along the Pearl River to Wuzhou, Guixian, Lingshan, Hengxian, Nanning, Guilin, Liuzhou, Baise, Guangxi, and directly to various places in Guizhou and Yunnan, and into counties in northern Vietnam. Or transfer to various places in eastern Guangdong by land in Chaozhou. All the way westward from Changting land route to the towns in southern Jiangxi and southern Hunan. After the southern route reaches Liancheng, it is divided into east and south routes. The east road enters Yong'an and passes through Shaxi to Nanping, Chong'an, Pucheng, Jianyang, and Jianou, or along the Minjiang River to Fuzhou, then turns to the sea to Wenzhou and counties in southeastern Zhejiang, and then extends into Hangzhou, Jiazhou, and Hu , scattered throughout Zhejiang. The south road passes through the Pengkou River and enters the Han River to Guangdong, or extends overland to Longyan, Zhangzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou and other places. In short, after starting from Sibao to the north, west and south, the branch lines of water and land spread to all directions and extended step by step, like a network of "leaf veins", dispersed to the provinces south of the Yangtze River. Because there are Sibao booksellers scattered in various places, they often communicate with each other in order to communicate with each other or adjust the supply of goods. Therefore, it is common for these three main lines to intersect with each other, or to merge after entering the waterway. Due to the long lines and the small volume of human and animal transportation, a large number of manpower rushes on these three lines all year round, just like blood flowing around the human body, never stopping.

According to preliminary investigation, Sibao’s printers and book sellers have their footprints and bookstores in the provinces along the Yangtze River and Jiangnan.

In Sichuan and Hunan there are Zou Longquan, Zou Pihuang, and Zou Lingxuan; in Wuhan there is Zou Xianggu; in Nanchang and Zhangshu there are Zou Longchuan, Zou Longgang, Zou Zilin, Zou Songxuan, Zou Daheng, Zou Haocai, Zou Haiyan, and Zou Xinzheng; in Ganzhou there is Zou Kongchang; Jiujiang has Zou Zhaoting; Suzhou has Zou Dazhen, Zou Fanchen, Zou Longquan, and Zou Lingxuan; Hangzhou has Zou Daheng and Zou Fanchen; Wenzhou has Zou Yifu; Fuzhou has Zou Daheng; and Chongan has Zou Ruixuan and Zou Xianggu. , Zou Sixuan and Zou Mingsheng; in Nanping there are Zou Hengchang and Zou Ruixuan; in Yong'an there are Zou Rensheng and Zou Yangfeng; in Quanzhou there are Zou Kunzu; in Zhangzhou there are Zou Chaoyuan, Zou Zhuojiu and Zou Liangcheng; in Tingzhou there are brothers Zou Xincheng, Zou Xinqiao and Zou Hengshu, uncles and nephews, Ma Chuantu, Ma Deming, and Ma Chongde; in Shanghang, there were brothers Ma Chuantu; in Xingning, Meizhou, Guangdong, there were Zou Baochu and Ma Bingfang; in Chaozhou, there were father and son Zou Zhaoke, Zou Jiheng, and brothers Zou Xincheng and Zou Xinqiao; in Jiaying Prefecture (today's Meizhou), there were Zou Rui Zhen, Zou Minghui; Lingshan has the father and son brothers Zou Yuanchao, Zou Diangeng, and Zou Dianliang, and the brothers Zou Xincheng and Zou Xinqiao; Hengzhou (Hengxian County) has the father and son brothers Zou Xinyou, Zou Hengzhen, and Zou Hengbao; in Pingma, there are the father and son Zou Shangda and Zou Henghuan; in Guixian County, there are Zou Ningguang, Zou Ningguang, and Zou Hengbao. Xincheng, Zou Hengcong, Zou Sencheng, Zou Hongxi, Ma Shouwang, Ma Heshan, Ma Chuanfang; Baise, Zou Yuanchang, Zou Qingsheng and his son; Pingnan, Zou Bingru, Zou Yaoguang, Zou Binghan; Zhen'an, Zou Shangcai; Yunnan Kunming, Zou Kongchang, etc. Throughout their entire process from traveling as traders and selling books to settling down to sell books, they have made great contributions to spreading the culture of the motherland; they have played a catalyst role in improving the scientific and cultural level of the local people; they have played a media role in the exchange and development of national culture; in short , they have made certain contributions to the inheritance and development of Chinese culture. Just as Yu Guochen, the first special brief of the imperial examination of the Qing Dynasty, the seventh-ranking official of the Qing Dynasty, wrote the "Preface" for Wuge San's "Fanyang Zou Family Genealogy" in the twenty-fifth year of Jiaqing (1820). : "I heard that in his hometown... he stored ancient books and engravings, and put them on paper, so that the scholar-bureaucrats could buy them. This was really beneficial to literature and education, so it brewed the spirit of poetry and etiquette, and used it to enhance its splendor. ." The reputation of Zou's family will be great." Yu Guochen's last words of praise naturally came to nothing. After the appearance of stone seals in Shanghai between Xianfeng and Tongzhi, Sibao's woodblock printing industry gradually lost its competitiveness. As a result, it began to slide down the slope from its peak period into a period of decline. Based on the research on the remaining carved boards, rare ancient books and local genealogy materials, in order to meet the needs of readers of different levels, the ancient town Sibao published a wide variety of books with all-encompassing contents, with more than 900 kinds in 9 categories. Among them, there are kindergarten enlightenment books aimed at children, "Kindergarten Story Qionglin", "Three Character Classic", "Zengguang Xianwen", etc.; there are "Xingwen Zidian", "Examination Questions and Treasures", which serve to prepare students for examinations. "Updated Classical Essays" and other collections include the "Book of Changes", "The Book of Songs", "The Analects of Confucius", "Mencius" and other classical and historical collections that literati like. Among literary books, there are ancient poems and personal essays, as well as novels for people's daily entertainment. There are daily application books, medical books, stories, dramas, etc., as well as books on horoscopes, horoscopes, and astrology.

There are also rare treasures among the ancient books in the Four Forts of the ancient town.

The first is "Embroidered Portrait of Plum in the Golden Vase". The "Jin Ping Mei", which was published in the Ming Dynasty, was classified as a banned book and was difficult to publish in Beijing, Han, Hangzhou and other places. However, Sibao published "The Embroidered Portrait of the Jin Ping Mei", which is now in the library of Jilin University. It is a prominent event in the history of publishing.

The second is a joint edition of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin". The same page is divided into upper and lower halves with ink lines. The upper half contains "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and the second half contains "Water Margin". 》. This edition is relatively rare in printing history.

The third is "The Romance of the West Chamber", which is printed on pottery paper with a history of history. The characters are black and the circles are red. It is a rare masterpiece among ancient books.

Fourthly, "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" has a mixture of calligraphy and painting. There are pictures on the top of each page and text on the bottom. The pictures and texts are both rich and original.

The woodblock printing in Sibao was stuck in the old tradition, so naturally it could not compete with the new type of printed books and lost. Although until the eve of liberation, Zou Haicheng of Wuge, Ma Chuantu, and Ma Chongde of Mawu were still printing a few kinds of rural children's enlightenment books and agricultural almanacs in small quantities, but they were at the end of their efforts, and the dying embers could no longer be ignited. The fire was blazing. These engravings and ancient books that once served to spread the splendid culture of the motherland have finally become a pile of scrap antiques, placed on old bookshelves, and completely rested. However, it has written a glorious page for the development history of my country's printing industry.