In Shifo Town, Yanggu County, Shandong Province, there is a unique village called Luzhuang Village. It is called its characteristic village because the ancient papermaking technique with two thousand years of history remains here. According to legend, the eunuch Cai Lun of the Eastern Han Dynasty stayed in Luzhuang Village of Yanggu after being demoted, and his ancient papermaking technique was passed down from generation to generation.
The Luzhuang people used old hemp fiber and waste paper as the main raw materials. After soaking, kneading, chopping, cramming, papermaking, squeezing, baking paper and other manual procedures, white, flexible and smooth paper can be made. At one time, almost every village in Luzhuang was proficient in papermaking, but as mechanized papermaking gradually replaced manual papermaking, the number of practitioners was decreasing.
This has to be suspicious. Is there a market for handmade paper? Can you persist? Lu Zhuangtian, a 61-year-old Luzhuang villager who responded with half his life, responded by hand. Luzhuang's hand-made paper has not come to an end. As long as you have enough tenacity and flexible business philosophy, this old craft will still shine again.
According to legend, Cai Lun brought papermaking to Yanggu County
The village of Luzhuang has a long history of papermaking. When did the villagers start? In many elderly people in Luzhuang Village, you will hear a variety of words used to describe the ancient method of papermaking, such as "early", "old generation", "ancestors will "Papermaking" etc.
However, if we really want to talk about the exact origin of the dynasty, most Luzhuang people agreed that Cai Lun had been making papers and passed on art as early as the Han Dynasty, that is, it originated in the Han Dynasty. According to this inference, Luzhuang Paper has a history of more than two thousand years. Close to Liaoyang Road, at the west end of Luzhuang Village, there are detailed inscriptions on the two links. One piece is the "Palm Master Cai Lun Monument" and the other is the Zhangzong Ancestral Tablet in Luzhuang.
The inventor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cai Lun, stayed in Yanggu and has historical data to check. According to the "Hanshu" records, the eunuch Cai Lun was relegated to Gucheng (now Yanggucheng) in the first year of the Eastern Han Dynasty (105 years), and the papermaking technology was taught here. Valley Paper ". Until now, most Luzhuang people still firmly believe that Luzhuang is the origin of this great invention of papermaking that has affected the world.
In Luzhuang Village, there is a Cai Lunjing, which has been preserved so far. According to legend, this is a well dug by Cai Lun to facilitate water and paper making. At that time, Cai Lun used mulberry, bark, rags, hemp, and fish nets as raw materials to produce paper through steaming, cooking, pulping, papermaking, drying, trimming and other processes, and also collected three apprentices. The apprentice copied wood pulp white rice paper, the second apprentice copied mulberry hemp pulp hair paper, and the third apprentice copied grass paper. In Luzhuang Village, it is the hair paper passed down by the second apprentice.
Luzhuang Village holds a temple fair every year on March 17 of the lunar calendar to commemorate Cai Lun, the ancestor of papermaking, because this day is the birth day of Cai Lun. On that day, all paper-making workshops must stop production, kill pigs and slaughter sheep, and worship ancestors. Before the paper-making workshop starts, firecrackers, incense and paper will be burned and worshipped to Cai Lun. In addition, the tenth day of the tenth lunar month is Cai Lun's sacrifice day. On these two days of the year, Luzhuang people will consciously hold some grand commemorative activities.
Luzhuang's handmade paper has been exported to the three northeastern provinces
The Luzhuang people said that the annual income of papermaking is equivalent to the income of two years of farming. On the one hand, it can be seen that papermaking is the economic pillar of Luzhuang Village. On the other hand, it shows the popularity of Luzhuang paper in the market. In the early years, most of the paper produced by Luzhuang Village Paper Mill was wool paper. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, they were exported to the Northeast and Jiangnan regions, especially in the Northeast region. The demand was particularly large, and they were used to paste windows, walls or kang mats.
Luzhuang's woolen paper has distinctive characteristics, good transparency, strong toughness, wind and rain protection, and is most suitable for window paper and cotton lining. Because the weather in the northeast region is cold, basically every household needs to use this kind of woolen paper as a kang mat. A layer of woolen paper, brushed with a layer of tung oil, about five or six layers can be used as a kang mat. The made kang mat is not less flexible than cotton mattresses. Therefore, Luzhuang paper can be exported to the three provinces in Northeast China.
In addition to these uses, woolen paper can of course also be used for writing, as well as printing books. In terms of paper quality, woolen paper is not worse than rice paper, and the price is relatively cheaper. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties where the publishing industry was highly developed, Luzhuang played an important role in the supply market in the face of huge market demand. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the water transport was developed, only ten kilometers away from Luzhuang Village, and it was the seventh-level wharf of the important commercial town. Along with the Grand Canal, Luzhuang Maotou floated to the capital and all parts of the country through the seven-level dock.
However, by the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, mechanized papermaking was widely used and popularized. The raw materials were mostly finer wood and non-wood, and the paper produced was more delicate, which caused the decline of the traditional handmade paper industry. Luzhuang Village is no exception. Practitioners show a decreasing trend every year, and some directly choose to abandon it. Even so, Luzhuang still supplies a lot of handmade paper to the whole country every year. According to the older generation, during the Anti-Japanese War, the newspapers and banknotes in the border areas of Hebei, Hebei and Shandong used Luzhuang's woolen paper.
Sixty Weng Cheng the last watchman of the old craft
When it comes to the ancient method of making paper in Luzhuang, one person has to mention it, that is 61-year-old Lu Qingtian. At present, only Lu Qingtian is the only one in Luzhuang Village who sticks to the final position of hand-made paper. In his impressions, the 1980s was a relatively prosperous era for Luzhuang Paper and hand-made paper. At that time, more than half of the more than 140 households in Luzhuang Village depended on papermaking. In addition to the busy farming seasons such as winter planting and summer and autumn harvesting, Luzhuang people are busy in papermaking workshops all day and night.
However, at that time, Luzhuang Paper had already begun to show signs of decline. Old artists withdrew from the historical stage. Young people were reluctant to regain their old skills. Lu Qingtian clearly remembered that in 2000, there were only three paper-making workshops in Luzhuang Village, and since 2013, only one of them was left. In just thirty years, the old craft passed down from generation to generation was forgotten, which made Lu Qingtian sad.
When everyone leaves, it takes great courage to stand alone. In fact, Lu Qingtian himself also had the guilty intention of giving up, but he still chose to insist. Like many old entertainers in Murakami, Lu Qingtian was influenced by his family since he was a child. As a young man, Lu Qingtian rode a bicycle to Jinan, Puyang, and Pingyin to inspect the market. Today, Lu Qingtian has customers all over the country.
"Although the impact of mechanized production is relatively large, there is still a market for hand-made paper. For example, although the hand-made hemp paper made by Luzhuang is not as delicate as the mechanically-made rice paper, it will never be negative paper, has good water permeability and preservation So, now many calligraphy and painting institutes and suppliers in and outside the province order directly from me. "Lu Qingtian said confidently.
Seeing his business getting better and better, Lu Qingtian's second son, Lu Fuzeng, who had been working outside, returned to his hometown in Yanggu three years ago, focusing on helping his father take care of the paper business. When asked about inheritance, Lu Qingtian showed the pride of the peasants. Lu Qingtian said that he will respect the children's choices, and if the children are unwilling to inherit their ancestry, they will not force it. "I am not worried about inheritance. If an outsider wants to learn, I am willing to teach him, provided that he must really like this business."
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