The Life of the Characters in Zhang Yuanji's Works

Zhang Yuanji is a publisher in China. The word Xiao Yu Zhai,No. Ju Sheng. Originally from Haiyan, Zhejiang. /kloc-0 was born in Guangdong on October 25th, 1867, and died in Shanghai on August 4th, 1959. Guangxu Renchen (1892) is a scholar. Zhang Jing was once the prime minister and was in charge of state affairs. Emperor Guangxu was summoned as an exception during the Reform Movement of 1898, and was dismissed after the coup. 1896, Chen and others founded an ordinary art school to teach western learning. /kloc-during the winter of 0/898, I worked as the general school of management translation at Nanyang Public College (Jiaotong University), paying attention to the significance of the translated books, and changed the original retranslation of Sun Tzu's Art of War into the translation of social science books. Later, he served as the prime minister of the public school and resigned after 7 1902. 190/kloc-0 invested in the commercial press in, and presided over the compilation of the library with "assisting education as its own responsibility". 1903 as the director of establishment, 19 16 as the manager, 1920 ~ 1926 as the supervisor. 1926 served as chairman until his death. 1949 was specially invited to attend the China People's Political Consultative Conference and was elected as a member of the National Committee. Later, he was elected as the representative of the first National People's Congress.

When he was in charge of the Commercial Press, he organized a large-scale compilation institute and Hanfen Building (later expanded into Oriental Library) to collect books, and established a private publishing house with full-time professional editors and books to ensure the quality of publications. The latest textbook he participated in planning was a great success, and his peers followed suit. Preparations were made from 19 15, and from 19 19 to 1937, three series, Four Series, Continuing Ancient Stories and Twenty-four History, were photocopied and published with more than 50 kinds of public and private books at home and abroad. His selection of books is practical, and his mother pays attention to the organization of rare books and fax lithography, which has created a new stage of reprinting and photocopying of ancient books.

1932 65438+1On October 29th, the Japanese bombed the Commercial Press. As a result, the publishing giant, which almost monopolized the national education publishing, lost16.3 million yuan, accounting for 52% of the national publishing volume, and more than 80% of its assets were destroyed. At the same time, 450,000 books collected by Oriental Library, which belongs to the Commercial Press, were also destroyed, most of which were rare books of ancient books. Zhang Yuanji, who was 65 years old at that time, was deeply hit: "It can be said that the factory has been inspected for a few days and there is no paper in the Oriental Library. This is the most painful."

He made great contributions to China's culture, publishing and book collection all his life. Vigorously search for ancient and modern books, and successively acquire books from bibliophiles such as Chiang's family in Changzhou, Wyeth's family and Yi's family in Taicang, and set up "Hanfen Building" as a library in the Commercial Press; Soon, most volumes, such as Sheng's Yiyuan Garden, Zhi Jing Zhai and Miao's Yi Feng Tang, were collected, with a total volume of more than 6,543,800+million. 1924 was named "Oriental Library" and 1926 was opened to the public. 1929 Add children's library. There are more than 518,000 books, more than 5,000 kinds of maps and inscriptions. There were many good books in Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, and foreign magazines, newspapers and books were also extremely complete, and the quality and scale of collection ranked first in the national libraries at that time. Unfortunately, 1932 "1.28" was bombed by the Japanese. Only 500 masterpieces were removed and preserved. He recorded these books so as not to lose them. After liberation, Gu asked for help to sort out the printing, and named it "Hanfen Louember Book Record". These books are dedicated to the government and are now in Beijing Library. The school printed 100 copies of Twenty-four History, photocopied four sequels, compiled dozens of books such as the sequel of ancient books, and printed thousands of ancient books. Private books are quite rich, and there were books in previous generations. He is diligent in collecting books, and he is especially interested in the Song dynasty engraving. There is a "garden-related" in the library, which uses the name of Zhang Qiling, the tenth ancestor of the late Ming Dynasty, and Zhang Weichi, the ninth ancestor, turned it into a library, which lasted for several generations. There are more than 3,700 books on 1000 kinds of "garden-related", which were later stored in the library of United Press for public reading. Pan of Shanghai Library is the author of Bibliography of Gardens. Zhang Yuanji Library was established in Haiyan on 1987 to commemorate its contribution to culture and book collection.

"Hundreds of years old curtilage, is nothing more than doing good. The first good thing is reading. " This is a couplet written by Zhang Yuanji in his later years. During the century in China, many people were looking for ways to make China rich and strong, while Zhang Yuanji chose publishing to promote education and "prolong life" for the civilization of the Chinese nation. He is addicted to books, searching for books, collecting books, compiling books, publishing books and writing about life. The Hundred-Day Reform Movement of the Reform Movement of 1898 (1898) was the last effort to save oneself in the late Qing Dynasty, and it was also the last opportunity to innovate. However, it failed. Those who participated in, supported and sympathized with the Reform Movement of 1898 were killed and dismissed. At that time, in imperial academy, Zhang Jian went to run an industry, and Cai Yuanpei returned to his hometown to teach. With the help of Li Hongzhang, Zhang Yuanji, who had been waiting for imprisonment and beheading, survived. Li Hongzhang recommended him to Sheng Xuanhuai, so he came to Nanyang Public School founded by Sheng Xuanhuai and served as the dean of the Translation College, and later served as the president of Nanyang Public School.

Perhaps Li Hongzhang appreciated Zhang Yuanji's talent, but Li Hongzhang recommended him to Sheng Xuanhuai as the dean of the Translation College of Nanyang Public College, or because Zhang Yuanji founded the General Art School to train western talents when he was in the Hanlin Academy.

Zhang Yuanji and Cai Yuanpei are both Bachelor of Hanlin. At that time, he thought that China was surrounded by imperialism, and it was necessary to reform and popularize education. Therefore, he wants to run Kone School, that is, to be an official in Beijing and expand his new knowledge. He thinks that China is so poor and weak that it is impossible to stick to the rules all the time. If this continues, the country will fail. It should introduce and learn some advanced western things. Emperor Guangxu summoned Zhang Yuanji on the fifth day of the Reform Movement of 1898. What he suggested was to set up a new school, cultivate all kinds of talents and attach importance to translation.

Under the auspices of Zhang Yuanji, the Institute of Translation published Fu Yuan translated by Yan Fu. This is the work of English scholar Adam Smith. 100 years later, this book is still a classic work of economics.

At that time, Zhang Yuanji attached great importance to the cultivation of talents. Like many sages such as Cai Yuanpei, he put the cultivation of talents in the first place. They felt that the failure of political reform and reform was based on the lack of talents. Therefore, during his stay in Nanyang Public School, Zhang Yuanji founded a special class for Nanyang Public School. According to Sheng Xuanhuai, this "special class" is to train "great talents" for the future of China. There was only one student in the special class, but Shao Lizi, Li Shutong, Xie Wuliang and others all went out. However, three years later, Zhang Yuanji made a surprising decision: he resigned from all his posts in Nanyang Public School and joined the Commercial Press.

At that time, the Commercial Press was just a manual workshop, founded by Xia Ruifang, a compositor. Zhang Yuanji gave up his prominent position in Nanyang College and went to a small factory in an alley to cooperate with a small owner. There is a lot of speculation and confusion about this turning point.

It was not until half a century later that Zhang Yuanji, who had been bedridden for several years because of a stroke, wrote a poem with trembling hands to bid farewell to colleagues in business: "It has always been my wish to be educated, so I tried to come to Linshu. This is a fertile land, and this is the harvest of autumn. " From this poem, people read his life ideal and the fact that he consciously linked the Commercial Press with the modern education reform in China.

Like many people in that era, Zhang Yuanji pinned China's hopes on "enlightening the people", which is the only way for China's modernization. He thinks that the scale of Nanyang Public School is still very small, and those talents are far from enough. His thoughts began to shift from cultivating a group of talents to popularizing people's education.

In his letter to Sheng Xuanhuai, he said that only 400,000 of China's 40 million people have been educated, and those who have been educated have learned a few eight-part essays, but they have hardly learned what they should know. In today's developed world, if this continues, our country will perish.

Zhang Yuanji also realized that it was his responsibility to "support education" in order to publish a good book, so he accepted Xia Ruifang's invitation. Zhang Yuanji, an academician, is proficient in Chinese and Western culture. Undoubtedly, his position and prestige have built a bridge between business and intellectual, political and educational circles.

After becoming the director of the Compilation Institute of the Commercial Press, he also hired a group of people of insight such as Cai Yuanpei, Gao, Du Yaquan and Xia Cengyou to help with education and cultural construction.

Zhang Yuanji has made a book publishing plan for all enterprises and photocopied ancient books. He wants to choose the best version. To promote western learning, he wants to find the best translator; To publish a new book, he should use the best equipment and the best paper. Even the typesetting style of the book should be repeatedly urged: the blank around the book border should be widened, "otherwise frowning will be annoying." There are many things, including reading manuscripts by myself, compiling some books by myself, contacting the outside personally, and even buying paper, printing machines and collecting ancient books. In the year of doing business in Zhang Yuanji, the Qing government promulgated the school charter and advocated learning. Later, the imperial examination was cancelled, which was an unprecedented change in China for thousands of years. Hundreds of new schools have been established all over the country, which are different from traditional private schools and colleges. Zhang Yuanji believes that the influence of textbooks is related to the changes of knowledge structure and thinking mode of China people from generation to generation, so he decided to write a set of Chinese textbooks himself.

Zhang Yuanji's method of compiling textbooks is unique. Everyone sits around instead of working alone. Just like today's planning meeting, everyone can express their ideas and opinions. If they are considered valuable, they will be discussed in detail. The discussant starts with the characteristics of children's enlightenment, from simple to complex, step by step. Often because of one sentence, everyone will be flushed. Every point should be discussed until all participants have no objection. After writing a text, everyone will take turns to read it, or polish it, or modify it, and do it for each other without prejudice.

1904 The latest Chinese textbook for primary schools has been published in business edition, which has been widely adopted by schools all over the country. The distribution office of the Commercial Press is crowded with people vying for the purchase. The total amount of textbooks issued in the late Qing Dynasty accounted for 5/4 of the whole country. For example, the latest Chinese textbooks were reprinted more than 30 times, with a total print run of 1 100 million copies, which became a model of textbooks of that era. Other publishing houses are scrambling to follow suit, and they can no longer make a profit by shoddy work. The atmosphere in the bookstore has changed.

At the initiative of Zhang Yuanji, Shang Yang compiled a complete set of teaching materials from primary school to middle school to university, and organized the translation and publication of a large number of foreign academic and literary masterpieces, among which Yan Fu's translation of western masterpieces and Lin Shu's translation of European and American novels were particularly influential. Editing and publishing China's first new dictionary, Ci Yuan, created a precedent for modern reference books in China. At the same time, Oriental Magazine, Novel Monthly and Education Magazine were published. At that time, many intellectuals embarked on the road of "saving the country through culture". Only Zhang Yuanji chose to publish. He stood behind the scenes and wrote his own cultural ideals in modern commercial enterprises. In the cultural revolution at the beginning of last century, the Commercial Press completed the transformation from a printing house to a publishing giant, and became a cultural center for popularizing and disseminating new knowledge and knowledge since the late Qing Dynasty. By 19 10, commerce was one of the only 15 enterprises with assets exceeding one million yuan in the late Qing Dynasty. Zhang Yuanji's business really promoted the progress of China's civilization.

The publication of New Youth marks the beginning of the New Culture Movement. However, in this new culture movement era, the Commercial Press seems to have fallen behind. Chen Duxiu, Luo Jialun and other new cultural leaders criticized business conservatism in newspapers and periodicals, and their business performance declined day by day. 19 19 has a backlog of 600,000 unsalable books and periodicals. For Zhang Yuanji, he is more concerned about whether this once proud enterprise can undertake the responsibility of spreading new knowledge.

At that time, there were many old people in the business world, and all of them used classical Chinese, so Zhang Yuanji presided over the "Great Change of Blood" plan, and advocated using new people to do new things, starting with publications severely criticized by the new cultural circles. 1920, Mao Dun entered the monthly report of famous novels. He drafted the Declaration of Reform, proposing not only to translate famous western novels and introduce the world literary trend, but also to create new literature and art in China.

After the innovation, the Novel Monthly changed the previous style of publishing love and leisure life of men and women, and advocated "literature for life", which quickly became one of the most influential publications in the New Culture Movement. The famous Lao She, Ba Jin and Ding Ling all made their way to the literary world through Novel Monthly.

Zhang Yuanji accepts talents with an open, open and inclusive mind and academic interest. According to the memorabilia of the Commercial Press, from 1920 to 1922, Xie, Zheng Zhenduo, Li Shicen, Wang, Zhu Kezhen, Ren Hongjuan, Tao and Gu Jiegang. They entered museums one after another, and many of them later became masters in the fields of culture and science in China. As a result, the Commercial Press, like Peking University hosted by Cai Yuanpei during the May 4th Movement, became a "gathering place for intellectuals from all sides".

By 1926, the Ministry of Commerce is the largest publisher in the Far East. Branches are not only all over China, but also all over Nanyang. In Baoshan Road, Shanghai, a large commercial printing library was built, and Hanfen Building was also expanded into the Oriental Library, which was opened to the outside world. Among all kinds of ancient books series collated and photocopied by Zhang Yuanji, The Twenty-four History of Four Departments is the most diligent and laborious. These two masterpieces are also the most influential in culture, and they are still the basic documents preserved by ancient book workers at home and abroad.

The Four Series was brewed from 19 15 and compiled and published in early 1922, which lasted seven years. This is an unprecedented huge project in the history of modern publishing in China. The first edition, the second edition and the third edition printed nearly 500 volumes, collecting rare books of the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties and some excellent manuscripts at home and abroad. From book selection, manuscript selection, text arrangement, project estimation and paper printing, Zhang Yuanji did it himself. The biggest difficulty is the collection and selection of editions, so Zhang Yuanji visited almost all the famous bibliophiles in China at that time. This experience, Zhang Yuanji called it: "Seeking workshops, collecting beggars, traveling near Beijing, far away from the territory." (Extraterritorial refers to Japan. )

Before the publication of the four major series, the most famous ancient books series in China was Sikuquanshu. However, that masterpiece, which was born in the Qianlong dynasty and made by the whole country, was criticized by later scholars because of its title selection and the quality of copying. Zhang Yuanji's four major series, which have made great achievements in China's nearly one hundred years of suffering, are far superior to the former in terms of the accuracy of selection and the quality of collation and photocopying.

1928, Zhang Yuanji made a special trip to Japan to visit four series of books. For a month and a half, he enjoyed the collection of China's books in the libraries in Tokyo and Kyoto, and kept reading and selecting ancient books every day. Although he was over 60 years old at that time, he seemed to see what he cherished most, and took notes until late at night every day. Everywhere I go, I borrow photos and bring them back to Shanghai for copying and publishing. The direct result of this book visit is to bring back 46 photographic negatives of precious ancient books, including Song Li's House, which is collected by the Jingjiatang Library in Japan.

Until today, if a scholar wants to see so many rare books of Song, Yuan and Ming, it can only be Zhang Yuanji's four major series.

Ancient books have been circulated in the world for a long time. Under the erosion of years, it is the most common thing that the ink is broken and unclear. This requires the unclear handwriting to be modified and carefully described. Professionals call it description, but this is only the initial work of sorting out ancient books. It also needs to be compared with different versions to distinguish right from wrong.

This is how Zhang Yuanji personally handles each volume of ancient books, making initial revision, intensive revision, recalibration and general school work. He sits at his desk all day, and his daily workload is 100 pages. Every page should be proofread until it is accurate. To this day, anyone who sees a copy of Zhang Yuanji's collation will be surprised.

Zhang Yuanji is in a turbulent era, compiling and sorting out ancient books, and then maintaining the lifeblood of China culture. On the other hand, due to the decline of the country, traditional culture has been abandoned and destroyed. Therefore, Zhang Yuanji's work needs more vision, mind and perseverance. However, business is an enterprise after all, and collecting and sorting out ancient books requires huge costs, so Zhang Yuanji's practice is inevitably opposed. Some shareholders wrote articles in the newspaper accusing Zhang Yuanji of "favoritism" in purchasing ancient books. Zhang Yuanji, who is weak and elegant, angered: "This matter will never damage the company's business!"

Zhang Yuanji, a bookish scholar, is also good at management. After the publication of four series, this set of books alone earned more than1million. The success in business provides a great guarantee for him to continue doing it in the future.

After completing the initial compilation of four series, Zhang Yuanji made another great cultural project, that is, photocopying Twenty-four History. Twenty-four histories tell the complete history of the Chinese nation since the Three Emperors and Five Emperors. However, due to the spread of history, various versions have been formed. Zhang Yuanji should not only pick out the best version as a copy, but also collect the differences of other versions.

The word "patchwork" comes from the tattered and patched clothes worn by ancient monks. Many books in the Song Dynasty have been handed down from generation to generation with missing volumes, which need to be matched with other Song editions and page numbers, so they are called "patchwork editions".

Mr. Gu once lamented: "Such a huge project is all handwritten, and the energy and painstaking efforts spent on collating and annotating are incalculable. In this whole decade, Zhang Yuanji has been doing this kind of work without interruption every day! " When the editing and proofreading of "Piece Together Twenty-four History" are all ready, even the proofs needed for photocopying are all ready, and the war is coming. In 1932 "1.28" Battle of Songhu, a catastrophe reduced most of his painstaking efforts to ashes, and Zhang Yuanji suffered a serious blow in his life.

An existing image in Shanghai Archives records the scene of the destruction of the Commercial Press General Factory and its affiliated Oriental Library in 1932. At 8 o'clock that morning, Japanese planes bombed the Commercial Press. The first bomb landed in the ink warehouse and burned instantly. Those dissolved fonts flow on the ground like water. The general management office, preparation office, four printing houses, warehouses and Shanggong primary school on Baoshan Road were all shot and burned. Subsequently, the Japanese ronin sneaked into the Oriental Library and set it on fire. The air in Shanghai is filled with smoke, and paper dust flies ten miles away. After the fire was put out, the paper was knee-high, the five-story building became an empty shell, and 80% of the assets of the Commercial Press were destroyed. The most deplorable thing is that the 460,000 books in the Oriental Library, including more than 3,700 kinds of precious ancient books and more than 35,000 books, were all destroyed, and priceless rare books disappeared from the world.

Looking at the flying confetti, Zhang Yuanji's tears kept flowing. He has only himself to blame because he loves books too much. He said to his wife, "This is my sin! If I don't collect these books, don't keep them centrally, and still let them be scattered all over the country, can't I escape this catastrophe! " But nothing can be undone. He sighed at the sky: "Twenty years of hard work turned into Thai baht, and in an instant, the forest of books was robbed." This is an irreparable and always painful tragedy in the history of the Chinese nation.

All kinds of signs before and after the commercial destruction showed that the commercial destruction was an atrocity that history could not erase from the aggressor, and it was a premeditated plan of the aggressor. The Japanese aggressors once said: I bombed your street and it will be repaired tomorrow, but I bombed the Commercial Press and you will never recover.