FEATURES

Further Lingering Traces: China's Traditional Libraries

Wei Li

Translated by Duncan Campbell

The Tower of the Iron Lute and the Bronze Sword (Tieqin tongjian Lou 鐵琴銅劍樓)

Of the four largest private libraries of the Qing dynasty only one was found in Jiangsu Province: the Tower of the Iron Lute and the Bronze Sword, located in Guli Township. If you consult a map, you will see that the library is situated about twenty li or so along the road that leads between Changshu and Shanghai. Having finished our visit to Bookworm Studio (Maiwang Guan 脈望館) [See Issue 19, New Scholarship for details of the visit to this library—Ed.], we said goodbye to Mrs Cao and set off by car towards the next library on our itinerary.

Guli Township is small and as the library is so famous in the area, we had no difficulty in finding it whatsoever. Indeed, the local repute of the library can be gauged from its street address: the corner of Bronze Sword Street and Literary Flourishing Road.

The book collection assembled in the Tower of the Iron Lute and Bronze Sword was started during the reign of the Qianlong emperor (1736-95) by Qu Shaoji 瞿紹基 (1772-1836). As a Tribute Student by Purchase (First Class), Qu sat the Provincial Examinations on six occasions, always unsuccessfully. Eventually, he inherited the post of Assistant Instructor of Yanghu County.

The noted Qing dynasty bibliophile Wang Jiaxiang 王家相 said of him:

Qu Shaoji was the most frugal of men, of the sort that it could well be said that, like Yanzi of old, he wore the same fur coat for more than thirty years. His only indulgence was the acquisition of books, in all four of the traditional categories (Classics, Histories, Masters, and Belles-lettres), all of which he proceeded to collate himself, in total more than 10,000 fascicles. From the Ming dynasty onwards, our district has produced quite a number of true book collectors: the descendents of Sun Daoming 孫道明 (b.1297), Master of the Studio of Reflections from the Snow (Yingxue Zhai 映雪齋), Mao Jin 毛晉 (1599-1659), Master of the Pavilion for Drawing from the Well of the Ancients (Jigu Ge 汲古閣),[1] and Qian Zeng 錢曾(1629-1701), Master of the Hall of Transmitting the Past (Shugu Tang 述古堂).[2] Of late, these men have been joined by the two Cultivated Talents, Chen Zizhun 陳子准 and Zhang Yuexiao 張月霄, both of whom have book collections of very considerable size. Master Qu, too, took his place within the ranks of these men, his book collection not the slightest bit smaller than the ones that they had assembled, if not in fact proving to be somewhat larger.

Having acquired the choice items from the other Changshu collections, Qu's collection contained numerous Song and Yuan dynasty imprints. It also included many manuscript copies of books that he had copied himself. The name he gave his library, the Studio of Peace and Grand Example (Tianyu Zhai 恬裕齋), derives from two phrases found in the Book of Documents (Shangshu 尚書): '…they should lead the people to the enjoyment of plenty and peace' (yin yang yin tian 引養引恬) and, '…so shall you transmit a grand example to posterity' (chui yu houkun 垂裕後昆).[3] As he explained: '"Peace" here intends the extent to which one can ensure one's own peacefulness by following the Way; by "Grand Example", I refer to the manner in which, by accumulating virtue, one may transmit an example to those that follow one.' He compiled both a Record of the Book Collection of the Studio of Peace and Grand Example (Tianyu Zhai cangshu zhi 恬裕齋藏書志) and a Catalogue of the Book Collection of the Studio of Peace and Grand Example (Tianyu Zhai shumu 恬裕齋書目), both in four fascicles.

Qu Shaoji's son, Qu Yong 瞿鏞 (1794-1875), a Tribute Student who, like his father, held the post of Assistant Instructor, in his case in Baoshan, became the second master of the Tower of the Iron Lute and the Bronze Sword. Over the course of his life and as an outcome of his ownership of this library, he compiled works such as: An Anthology of the Literature of Changshu: Second Collection (Xu Haiyu zhi yuan 續海宇之苑), An Anthology of Poetry (Shi yuan 詩苑), in manuscript, A Collection of the Best Metal and Stone Inscriptions: Continuation (Xu jinshi cui bian 續金石萃編), again, a work that remained in manuscript, A Collection of Lyrical Drafts from the Tower of the Iron Lute and the Bronze Sword (Tieqin tongjian lou cigao 鐵琴銅劍樓詞稿) and A Collection of the Legends of Ancient Seals (Jigu yinpu 集古印譜).

Of him, it was said:

His age was that of the reigns of the Jiaqing [1796-1820] and Daoguang [1821-50] emperors, when the empire was at peace and no disasters afflicted the lands of the south. As a result, book merchants from both north and south of the Yangtze River, east and west of the River Zhe, gathered together at his door, offering for sale books from the various major collections of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

Qu Yong, this account continues:

…would pay huge sums of money for such books, and whenever he found that he was short of funds, he would strike a deal with a local pawnshop in order to be able to meet the cost. His love of books was insatiable and he sought all his life to surpass the earlier and major book collections of the Hermitage for the Cherishing of One's Days (Airi Jinglu 愛日精廬) and Tower of the Assembled Auspicious Jades (Jirui Lou 稽瑞樓)'.

Qu Yong greatly expanded the holdings of the library, for, with the destruction wrought by the Taiping Uprising in the tenth year of the reign of the Xianfeng emperor [1860], he acquired half the books that had once formed part of Wang Shizhong's 汪士鐘 Lodge of Assembled Books (Yiyun Jingshe 藝芸精舍). As this collection had benefited from the combined efforts of major bibliophiles such as Huang Pilie 黃丕烈 (1763-1825) and his Hundred Song Imprints Under a Single Roof (Bai Song Yichan 百宋一廛), Zhou Xizan 周錫瓚 (1736-1819) and his Kiosk of the Watery Moon (Shuiyue Ting 水月亭), Yuan Tingtao 袁廷檮 (1764-1810) and his Tower of the Five Inkslabs (Wuyan Lou 五硯樓), and Gu Guangqi 顧廣圻(1776-1835)[4] and his Small Pile of Books to Read (Xiaodushudui 小讀書堆), Qu Yong's library had tapped a rich vein of supply and soon became quite unrivalled in the richness of its holdings, containing, for instance, more than two hundred titles in Song or Yuan dynasty imprint. Almost overnight, the library had become one of the four finest of the early modern era.

Upon the death of the Tongzhi emperor during the course of the thirteenth year of his reign [1874] and following the ascension of the Guangxu emperor, in order to avoid the taboo of the characters of the new emperor's personal name [which was Zaitian 載恬], the studio had to be renamed and was now called the Studio of Honesty and Grand Example (Dunyu Zhai 敦裕齋). And, because the family owned both an iron lute and a bronze sword, the tower which housed the collection was called the Tower of the Iron Lute and the Bronze Sword. The family invited the two scholars Ji Xichou 季錫疇 and Wang Zhensheng 王振聲 to undertake the task of sorting the collection out into categories and compiling a catalogue, entitled Catalogue of the Tower of the Iron Lute and the Bronze Sword Collection (Tieqin tongjian lou shumu 鐵琴銅劍樓書目), in twenty-four fascicles, 'recording at the end of each book the details of its format, and its various differences with other editions, in order that the excellence of the Song and Yuan dynasty imprints could be clearly seen'.

After Liberation [in 1949], the Qu family repeatedly donated books to the Beijing Library, as can be seen from the note 'Donated by the Qu family' now to be found on 242 times in the Catalogue of the Rare Books of Beijing Library (Beijing tushuguan shanben shumu 北京圖書館善本書目), representing altogether a total of over 2,500 fascicles.

When we arrived at the main gate of the library, above which hung a wooden plaque stating that it was a designated Changshu Municipal Cultural Station, we found it tightly locked. Making inquiries in the grocery shop next door, we were told that the place was closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Once we had explained to the young owner of the shop that we had come all the way from Beijing and that perhaps he could assist us in tracking down those in charge of the Cultural Station so that we might be able to take some photographs of it from within its gates, he proved to be most enthusiastic. Asking us to wait a while, he promptly went off to fetch the responsible person, whom he happened to know. As we awaited his return, grateful for his kindness, we took a good look at the outside of the library. According to the historical record, the tower that had once housed the library had comprised four interlocking courtyards; now it seemed that all that remained was a small corner of the former complex – apparently the rest had been dismantled during the Cultural Revolution. Of the two buildings that had replaced the tower, one, constructed with a mock ancient façade, was rented out, whilst the second served to house the Cultural Station. In recent years, this habit of tearing down an ancient structures in order to erect new 'ancient' buildings has become quite the rage and it would appear that even little Guli had not been able to avoid such barbarities.

After a short while, the shop owner returned, only to say that although he had tracked down the people in charge of the Cultural Station, they were busy playing Mahjong and had refused to come and open up the library just for us. Upon hearing this, we had little option but to sigh and to take a photograph standing up against the tightly locked gate, as a record of our trip.

Having taken the photograph, I discussed our circumstances with my companion—neither of us was yet ready to give up completely on our quest; we remained intent on somehow managing to take some photographs inside the courtyard. We made a circuit of the wall surrounding the complex in search of a back gate, but to no avail. We did, however, discover that there was a plastic-bag factory immediately behind the library. The two of us walked up and down, attracting the suspicious attention of a number of workers in the factory who, in all likelihood, thought that we were casing the joint. Once we had explained ourselves to them, they relaxed, probably judging from our appearances that we were above suspicion. Taking the initiative, one of the workers fetched the factory's bamboo ladder so that we could climb over the library's back wall. Somewhat unexpectedly, we had discovered another way to visit an old library—up and over the wall!

My companion, being somewhat younger than myself, took his courage in his own hands and climbed the wall, only to find that there was no way that he could get down the other side. There was nothing for it but for him to straddle the wall and take some photographs from that vantage point. Although the helpful workers laughed at our persistence, for our part we continued to feel somewhat aggrieved that we had come so far but failed in our objective. I imagine that most people would guess that visiting old libraries would be a bit like sightseeing—who would have thought that we would encounter such difficulties?

On 15 May 2002, I paid a second visit to Changshu. On this occasion I had taken the precaution of contacting Cao Peigen of the Changshu Normal College beforehand, only to find that my visit would coincide with his being away in Shanghai attending a meeting. Two years earlier I had been prevented from meeting him by a family emergency but he had arranged for his wife to accompany me on my visit to Bookworm Studio and, on this occasion, I had hoped to thank him personally for his efforts on my behalf. Nonetheless, he was again kind enough to have arrangements made to accommodate my wishes, sending his secretary and his car to pick me up and to take me to the sites of three libraries that I had been unable to find on my previous trip.

Hermitage for the Cherishing of One's Days (Airi Jinglu 愛日精廬)

The site of this library, assembled by Zhang Jinwu 張金吾 (1787-1829), is today to be found within the compound of the Changshu Municipal Middle School.

Having become a licentiate at the age of twenty-two but having then failed the provincial examinations, Zhang had cast aside all further thought of official success and devoted the rest of his short life to enormous efforts of editing, compiling, and collecting of books. Of himself, Zhang once wrote:

When young, I learnt to compose poems. A little later on, I studied in the Pavilion of Expansive Reflections (Zhaokuang Ge 照曠閣) and edited books such as the Imperially Authorised Anthology of the Era of Great Peace (Taiping yulan 太平御覽), and thus have had some years' experience of editing and collating texts. Later on I read widely in the Canon and so can also be said to have acquired some knowledge of evidential studies. From then I went on to study intensively the interpretation of the Confucian Classics, in keeping with the methods of Han Learning and extending the moral import of old, and thus, again, can claim some considerable knowledge of traditional phonetics and exegesis. From this point, I went on to concentrate upon the examination of old editions and to investigate the filiation of texts, along with the rudiments of bibliography. At the same time I was compiling texts on the classics, making selections of the inscriptions found on bronze vessels, and, occasionally, making digests of scholarship.

And such indeed were the bibliographical concerns of this man's life. During the years between the fifteenth year of the reign of the Jiaqing emperor and the second year of the reign of the succeeding Daoguang emperor [1810-22], for instance, he compiled a work entitled The Best of Bronze Inscriptions (Jinwen zui 金文最), in 120 fascicles. Or again, the two years between the fourth and the sixth years of the reign of the Daoguang emperor [1824-1826], where spent compiling his Further Classical Exegesis from the Hall for the Bequeathed Classics (Yijing Tang xu jing jie 詒經堂續經解), in a full 1,436 fascicles. For Zhang Jinwu, books collected were books to be read:

To collect books but not to know how to read them is akin to not collecting them at all; to read books but not to do so with the utmost care, whilst also thinking broadly and devoting oneself to this ultimate quest as if it were second nature, is akin to not reading them at all.

When I visited Changshu last year, I was already aware that, four months previously and in the face of strenuous protests on the part of numerous scholars and intellectuals, the library had been destroyed. I much regretted not having made the trip to Changshu earlier, in time to see the library before it was pulled down—then at least I would have some photographs to provide later researchers some impression of what the library had been like. On the occasion of this trip, Cao Peigen told me that, again at the urging of a number of scholars, the Ministry of Culture had finally agreed to erect a plaque at the original site of the library and he wondered if I would like to visit it. Indeed, I told him, I would much like to do so. In fact, even if all that remained of the library was a pile of broken bricks, I still wished to see them with my own eyes.

At the gate to the school, my companion showed his identity card and without much further ado we found ourselves inside the compound—in truth, as the old adage has it, when out and about one is reliant on one's friends. Were I to have come alone, who knows how long I would have had to argue my case at the gatehouse, with many an accompanying ingratiating smile, before being admitted?

At the western corner of the main block of the school's newly constructed teaching building, there had also been build a garden-like courtyard structure, approximately three mu square in size. A single Chinese yew tree grew in the western-most corner of the courtyard—quite thick of trunk, the tree seemed luxuriant enough for, although there were a dead branch or two here and there, clumps of new branches had begun to sprout from the main trunk. On a black marble slab of stone erected beneath the tree were engraved the words: 'Relic of the Hermitage for the Cherishing of One's Days; this inscription written by Dai Yi'.[5] On the reverse side of the stone was the legend:

Both the Taihu rock here and the Chinese yew tree are relics of the original site of the private library called Hermitage for the Cherishing of One's Days once owned by Zhang Jinwu (1787-1829). Having collected books for a decade, Zhang's library, when consolidated with the collections assembled by both his grandfather and his uncle, the Pavilion of Expansive Reflections and the Mountain Cottage for Borrowing the Light of the Moon (Jieyue Shanfang 借月山房) respectively, totalled over 80,000 fascicles and included many rare Song and Yuan dynasty imprints. The library's reputation spread far and wide. April 2001.

This is no idle praise. Why then was the library pulled down, one might well ask, given that it seems to have been well understood how very famous this library had been?

In actual fact, the library's collection exceeded the total given above, and the figure should more correctly read 10,400 fascicles. Sadly, however, the catalogue of his library that Zhang Jinwu compiled, entitled Catalogue of the Hermitage for Cherishing One's Days (Airi Jinglu shumu 愛日精廬書目), in twenty fascicles, is no longer extant. I have a particular interest in book catalogues compiled by bibliophiles and have now managed to collect over 200 of them, with the intension of trying to discover: 1. The actual scale of the book collections of that time; and, 2. The processes whereby certain famous books were passed from one collection to another. Although Zhang's Record of the Hermitage for the Cherishing of One's Days (Airi jinglu cangshu zhi 愛日精廬藏書志) is still available to us, as a collection of his colophons on various individual titles in his collection, treating only his Song and Yuan dynasty imprints and a number of his manuscript copies, this work gives no real indication of the true scale of his collection. It does nonetheless impart some impression of its richness.

Tragically, Zhang Jinwu fell on hard times in his old age and, in order to discharge some of his accumulated debts, he was forced to make over his entire collection into the hands of his great-nephew, Zhang Chenghuan 張承煥. This was not something that Zhang Jinwu accepted with any degree of equanimity:

From time immemorial, there have been book collectors who have been plagued by fire and flood, who have lost everything as a result of warfare or because their sons or grandsons have proven unable to maintain the collections and the books have found their way into the nests of rats or the bellies of bookworms. I have never before heard of a collector whose books where stolen from his book trunks forcibly and in front of his very eyes by members of his own clan!

Zhang Jinwu died of a broken heart soon after he had lost his books.

Old Mountain Tower (Jiushan Lou 舊山樓)

The Old Mountain Tower library belonged to Zhao Zongjian 趙宗建 (1828-1900), a native of Changshu.

Orphaned whilst still young, Zongjian and his elder brother, Jiaren 價人, devoted themselves to their studies. Although Zongjian early revealed considerable literary talent, he was unsuccessful in all his attempts at the civil service examinations. Having sought to become an Erudite in the Court of Imperial Sacrifices at the capital, again unsuccessfully, he returned home. During the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64), he assisted the general Liu Mingchuan 劉銘傳 (1836-96)[6] suppress the uprising of the Jiangyin area, for which efforts he was decorated with the Award of the Peacock Feather and appointed to the staff of the Governor General of Jiangnan and Jiangxi, Zeng Guofan 曾國藩 (1811-72),[7] a post that he never took up. His prose and poetry was characterized by the clarity of its diction and its adherence to formal strictures. In old age he became a devout Chan [Zen] Buddhist. A number of his collected works circulate to this day.

The book collection assembled by Zhao Zongjian had been initiated by his great-grandfather, Zhao Tonghui 趙同匯, and grandfather, Zhao Yuankai 趙元愷, the latter of these men having produced critical editions of various works. During the Taiping Rebellion, when collections of one sort or another were being broken up, Zhao Zongjian acquired as many books from such collections as he could, eventually acquiring the bulk of what derived from the collections of the Qu 瞿 family and that of Wang Shizhong 汪士鐘, his shelves becoming ever more crammed with rare books. His copy of the Song dynasty imprint of the Dou Chang's Linked Pearls Collection (Doushi lianzhu ji 竇氏聯珠集), for instance, derived from the Qu family collection.

He named his library Old Mountain Tower. During the Qianlong period his father, Zhao Kuichang 趙奎昌, had obtained the Half-Acre Garden (Banmu Yuan 半畝園) that the Minister Wu Na 吳訥 (1372-1457)[8] had built early in the reign of the Tianshun emperor (1457-64), situated on the northern slopes of Mount Yu and in front of Broken Hill Temple. The original garden had contained structures such as The Hermitage of Thinking of Living in the Suburbs (Si'an Jiaoju 思庵郊居), Hall of Taking Delight in One's Guests (Lebin Lou 樂賓堂), Hall of the Longevity of the Virtuous (Zhenshou Tang 貞壽堂), East Small Tower (Dongxiao Lou 東小樓) and so on. Zhao Zongjian restored the garden to a semblance of what it had once been and planted there more than five hundred flowering apricot trees which, when in bloom, seemed to be a veritable ocean of fragrant snow, giving off the 'subtle scent and dappled shadows' of the poetic cliché and affording one some secluded spots. He renamed the East Small Tower the Old Mountain Tower. The catalogue of his collection, entitled Catalogue of the Old Mountain Tower Collection (Jiushanlou shumu 舊山樓書目) comprised two volumes, the first of which had been copied out by his second son, Zhao Zhongju 趙仲舉, and which listed more than 700 individual titles, without however seeking to categorize them. Zhao Zongjian also produced an account of the library, entitled Record of the Old Mountain Tower Book Collection (Jiushan Lou cangshu ji 舊山樓藏書記), made up of the colophons he had written to sixteen of the works in his collection.[9]

As master of Old Mountain Tower, Zhao Zongjian was without doubt a major late-Qing dynasty book collector, his collection, according to its catalogue, containing copies of thirty-four Song dynasty imprints and thirty imprints from the Yuan. A supplement to the catalogue adds another eighteen Song and seven Yuan imprints to this total, and includes—quite remarkably—works long hidden from sight, such as manuscript copies of both Sima Guang's 司馬光 (1019-86) Comprehensive Mirror for Aid of Government (Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑒) and Zhu Xi's 朱熹 (1130-1200) Detailed Commentary to the Great Learning (Daxue zhangju 大學章句), as well as Qian Qianyi's 錢謙益 (1582-1664) diaries for the Jiashen (1644) and Yiyou (1645) years, a volume for each year, all of which are now accounted as national treasures. When the copy of Plays Ancient and Modern (Gujin zaju 古今雜劇) that had been hidden away in the collection of Ding Zuyin 丁祖蔭 (1871-1930) came on to the market, Zhao Zongjian acquired these as well and a characteristic of his collection too, as much as it had been of Ding's, was that its holdings were secret.

When Ye Changchi 葉昌熾 (1847-1917) paid a visit to Old Mountain Tower during the first month of the first year of the reign of the Guangxu emperor [1875], it so happened that Zhao Zongjian was elsewhere. Not understanding Ye Changchi's importance as a bibliophile, Zhao's family offered Ye no more than a pile of ordinary books to look through. Ye Changchi records his disappointment in his item on Zhao Zongjian in his Biographical Poems on Book Collectors (Cangshu jishi shi 藏書紀事詩): 'There were no good books whatsoever to be found on the shelves of his library; having myself just visited the Qu family collection in Guli to collate some books, I was struck by the extent to which a man accustomed to observing the oceans tends to thereafter hold the rivers in some contempt. I returned from this particular visit severely disillusioned'. His belief that this collection housed no books of any note led him to label Zhao Zongjian only a 'minor collector' (xiao cangjia 小藏家). Were he to have seen some of the works I list above, I suspect that his judgment would have been somewhat different.

The Old Mountain Tower book collection, initiated by Zhao Zongjian's father, reached its apogee in Zongjian's time. In old age he made over his entire collection to his second son, Zhao Zhongju, and once Zhongju in turn had passed away, the collection reverted to his eldest son Zhao Shiquan 趙士權, a man with some considerable bibliographical knowledge but who was killed by the Japanese. Book by book the collection began to be disbursed, the copy of Dou Chang's Linked Pearls Collection mentioned above, for instance, because of its fame, having been acquired by Miao Quansun 繆荃孫(1844-1919) who later sold it to the Hall of the Excellent Profession (Jiaye Tang 嘉業堂). Today it is held in Taiwan. My own collection includes only a few very ordinary items from his collection, two of which have been annotated by Zhao Shiquan, lending them a degree of rarity.

The tower itself has largely been destroyed and all that remains of it is the three-bay, one-story west-facing structure that once stood in front of the tower. The red bean tree that grows in the courtyard here, however, most splendidly, is really something to be treasured. According to records, this tree is already more than two hundred years old, Zhao Zongjian's father having propagated it from a shoot that he had brought back with him after a visit to his hometown of Jiangyin sometime during the reign of the Qianlong emperor. This was the first time I had seen a red bean tree and as I really wanted to see what the red beans it produced looked like, I spent a long time searching for one, but without success.

The Changshu Culture Bureau designated Old Mountain Tower a heritage site in November 1982, but, nonetheless, it was destroyed. I have found no reason for this. I had failed to find the tower on my first excursion to Changshu but on this occasion I had benefited from the directions given me by an old Suzhou local who had once come to collect books from the descendants of the owners of Old Mountain Tower; it was with his assistance too that I had managed to acquire the works annotated by Zhao Shiquan mentioned above.

Notes:

[1] For a short English-language biography of this noted book collector and publisher, see A. W. Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (1644-1912), Washington: Government Printing Office, 1944 (hereafter, ECCP), vol.1, pp.565-66.

[2] See, ECCP, vol.1, pp.157-58.

[3] For these two quotations from the Shangshu, see James Legge, The Chinese Classics: Volume III: The Shoo King, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960, vol.3, pp.182 & 416, respectively.

[4] For a short biography of this man, see ECCP, pp.417-19.

[5] Dai Yi 戴逸 (b.1926), a native of Changshu but a professor at the People's University of China in Beijing, is a famous contemporary historian of the Qing dynasty.

[6] For a short English-language biography of this man, see ECCP, vol.1, pp.526-28].

[7]For a biography of this man, see ECCP, vol.2, pp.751-56.

[8] For a biography of this man, see L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds, Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368-1644, New York & London: Columbia University Press, 1976, vol.2, pp.1491-92.

[9] Both these works were published by Shanghai Gudian wenxue chubanshe in 1957.