Jiayetang () is a library and book publisher in Nanxun District, Huzhou, China. It was established by a local gentry Liu Chenggan (1881-1963) in the 1920s. It was built next to the

Lesser Lotus Manor The Little Lotus Manor or Xiaolianzhuang () was built by the Qing dynasty merchant Liu Yong (1826-1899) in 1885 as his private garden. The center piece here is an immense lotus pond anchoring the southeastern end of the pond is a Western-style two ...

. Previously, the library was also a bookstore.

History

Jiayetang's founder Liu Chenggan was a bibliophile from a wealthy banker family of Huzhou. Chenggan invested a tremendous amount of money collecting rare publications from different dynasties of China. Jiayetang, at its peak, included parts of the

Yongle Encyclopedia The ''Yongle Encyclopedia'' () or ''Yongle Dadian'' () is a largely-lost Chinese ''leishu'' encyclopedia commissioned by the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty in 1403 and completed by 1408. It comprised 22,937 manuscript rolls or chapters, in 1 ...

and drafts of Siku Quanshu. Among its collections were the Song dynasty version of the Early Four Historiographies (

Shiji ''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese hist ...

Han Shu The ''Book of Han'' or ''History of the Former Han'' (Qián Hàn Shū,《前汉书》) is a history of China finished in 111AD, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. I ...

, Hou Hanshu and

Sanguo Zhi The ''Records or History of the Three Kingdoms'', also known by its Chinese name as the Sanguo Zhi, is a Chinese historical text which covers the history of the late Eastern Han dynasty (c. 184–220 AD) and the Three Kingdoms period (220– ...

). In 1950, after the

communist revolution A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution often, but not necessarily, inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism. Depending on the type of government, socialism can be used as an intermediate stage ...

, the library was specifically protected due to its value. Jiayetang's unique documents concerning Sino-Indian borders were later used as strategic resources during the

Sino-Indian War The Sino-Indian War took place between China and India from October to November 1962, as a major flare-up of the Sino-Indian border dispute. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tib ...

of 1962. Currently, Jiayetang possesses over 150 thousand woodcut plates originally used for book publication. It receives the financial support from the government of

Zhejiang province Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiangs ...

and is continuing its function.

Photo gallery

References

External links

Digitalised collection
of Jiayetang in

Classical Chinese Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...

. {{Authority control Libraries in Zhejiang Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Zhejiang Buildings and structures in Huzhou Book and manuscript collectors Chinese classic texts