Beijing Gongwangfu is now a popular tourist punching place. The East-West Street where the Palace is located is now called Qianhai West Street, and the sea refers to Shichahai. To the south of this street, there is an alley called Yang Jiaodeng Hutong. Yang Jiaodeng Hutong is not completely parallel to Qianhai West Street, but it extends from southwest to northeast. Perhaps it is driven by the tourist craze in Gongwangfu. Recently, Yang Jiaodeng has also become a tourist attraction. In fact, the length of this hutong is less than 200 meters, and the width is generally more than two meters. The courtyards on both sides of the hutong are ordinary small quadrangles at most, and there are no two or more spacious courtyards behind the screen. Some have long been mixed hospitals, which are really unsatisfactory. Then why are more and more people interested in it? I think, first of all, the name Hutong attracts people's attention.
Since it is called this name, is it related to a special kind of lamp-Yang Jiaodeng? The answer is yes. The name of Beijing Hutong should not be taken literally. For example, there are two hutongs near Shichahai: Daxiangfeng Hutong and Xiaoxiangfeng Hutong. When I first arrived there, I thought there must be a beautiful legend of Cai Fengfei, or at least a workshop that once produced phoenix headdresses. Later, I learned that it was actually a homophonic conversion between the big wall and the small wall, because the two small alleys were formed by sticking them on the gap between the high walls of the Grand Palace. It is the only way to name many hutongs in Beijing, such as Dage Lane, Zhang Fen Hutong and Gao Yibo Hutong (pronounced "Bayi" in Beijing dialect) ... But what is commendable is that Yang Jiaodeng Hutong is not extracted from slang and vulgar sounds, but is really related to Yang Jiaodeng, a unique ancient lamp.
People who are familiar with A Dream of Red Mansions will surely remember that Yang Jiaodeng appeared in the book. The thirteenth time I wrote that Wang Xifeng set out from Guo Rongfu, went out to the front of the hall, got on the bus, hit a pair of headlights in front, wrote the three characters "Guo Rongfu" in a big notebook, and slowly came to Ningguo House. The corner lamp is Yang Jiaodeng, which can be written in big letters, which is equivalent to the signboard of Guo Rong Mansion. It can be seen that the lamp is large, transparent, decent and dignified. Back to the fifty-third time, after writing the ancestral hall, I burned incense in front of the kitchen king of various Buddhist temples in Guo Rongfu that night. In the courtyard of Mrs. Wang's principal room, there are paper horses and incense of heaven and earth. There are big horn lights on the main entrance of the Grand View Garden, which are brightly lit and street lamps everywhere. According to the seventeenth record, there are five main entrances to the Grand View Garden. Although not as grand as Guo Rong Tower, it should be spacious. The big horn lamp chosen on the door, that is, the big Yang Jiaodeng, may be bigger than the corner lamp that cleared the way for Xi 'an in No.13 Middle School. The fifty-fourth story goes back to the banquet held in Guo Rong Building during the Lantern Festival. All kinds of Yang Jiaodeng, glass, embroidered yarn, silk, embroidery or painting, piled or dug, or silk or paper are hung on the verandah inside and outside and on both sides, and all the lights are hung up. Among all kinds of lamps, Yang Jiaodeng ranks first, which shows that Yang Jiaodeng has become a symbol of the luxury of noble houses.
Now you can find information about Yang Jiaodeng Hutong on the Internet, and one of them reads: "Located in Shichahai Historical and Cultural Reserve, between Sanqiao Hutong and Longtoujing Street ... the name Yang Jiaodeng Hutong has been around since the Qianlong period. It is said that there are many workshops to make Yang Jiaodeng here. There is also folklore that this is where the guards responsible for the safety of the small Shenyang Palace are stationed. Soldiers patrol with Yang Jiaodeng at night, hence the name Yang Jiaodeng Hutong. 2 1 Courtyard used to be the place where Mr. Liu lived. The name of the North House in No.23 Courtyard is Zhang. The owner's ancestor is a famous drum performance artist, commonly known as "drum Zhang", and Hou Zeng, a cross talk master, studied under him. Mr. Hou Linbao lived here when he was a child. " There are other regulations that are similar.
Gong Wangmi in the north of Yang Jiaodeng Hutong was named after Daoguang died in 1850, and Emperor Xianfeng succeeded to the throne, giving up the original Qing Dynasty to his sixth brother, Prince Gong. Xianfeng on April 22nd, Prince Gong Yixin moved to this house and named it Gong. Now many people have a feeling after visiting Gong Wangfu, that is, the Rong Mansion described in A Dream of Red Mansions-several courtyards, hanging flower doors, hand-copied verandahs, east and west corridors, hall doors and back buildings-can be found in the novel, while the garden of Gong Wangfu, called Garden, has many landscapes, which is reminiscent of the Grand View Garden in the book. However, A Dream of Red Mansions was written in the middle of Qianlong, so it is impossible for the author to go to the late Qing Dynasty to extract the materials of Gongwangfu and its gardens. Therefore, there is a saying that the predecessor of Gong Wangfu used to be the residence of Xiao Shenyang, which was loved by Qianlong. Xiao Shenyang may have seen the transcript of A Dream of Red Mansions at that time. He was the Grand View Garden in the reference book to build his garden, and it was not until the late Qing Dynasty that he was fully accepted by Prince Gong, forming such a pattern. This statement is for reference only.
Mr. Zhou once published a book to inspect the garden prototype of the Grand View Garden of A Dream of Red Mansions. When it was first printed, the publishing house probably thought the title should be concise and lively, so it was called Gong Kao. Some people didn't read the contents of the book carefully, but only by this title, they seriously questioned that Gong did not exist until long after A Dream of Red Mansions was written. Even from the childhood of Shenyang family, its cause spread in the manuscript of A Dream of Red Mansions. As a matter of fact, Mr. Zhou gave the book a self-defined title, and he insisted on this title when he published the book again. The cover is the first sentence of Yuan Fei's propositional poem in A Dream of Red Mansions.
This sentence is necessary for textual research, which means that the location of the Grand View Garden is in the west of Beijing, and other descriptions in the reference books show that the specific location is in the northwest. Although the Grand View Garden in the book is the romantic imagination formed by the author's understanding of the classical gardens in China, it is still meaningful to trace back to the source and explore the main prototype basis of the author's imagination. In Mr. Zhou's book, the spatial evolution before the construction of the mansion can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty at the earliest. That place was a private garden built by Li Guang, the great eunuch who was in power during Chenghua and Hongzhi years of the Ming Dynasty. When I went to work and live in that space at 196 1, the name of that place was Xie Qiao Street in Li Guang. According to the old residents, until 10. About 1952, the river was transformed into an underground river and the bridge was demolished. The place name of Xie Qiao Street in Liguang has been kept until 1965, and then it was renamed as Liu Yin Street. In that area, there are not only large lakes in Qianhai and Houhai of Shichahai, but also many reticular water systems. When Li Guang built a villa there, it used the water resources there to form a beautiful garden.
The Qing Dynasty replaced the Ming Dynasty, and the Forbidden City in the Ming Dynasty became the Qing Palace. Some luxurious gardens left by the Ming Dynasty were also accepted by the rulers of the Qing Dynasty and gradually distributed to the nobles of the Qing Dynasty to build houses and gardens. Whose garden is Li Guang's? It should have been taken over by the internal affairs office of the Qing Dynasty. When Emperor Kangxi enfeoffed several elder brothers, he renovated it into the mansion of one elder brother. However, due to the farce of nine sons ascended the throne in the last years of Kangxi, Yin Zhen, the last fourth elder brother, won Yongzheng, while the second elder brother, the third elder brother, the third elder brother and the eighth elder brother were three yuan, and the eighth elder brother and the ninth elder brother were also expelled from the imperial clan and given the insulting titles of "Achina" and "Seth Black", all of which were hit to varying degrees. Did they have a house before it collapsed, just over the Li Guang Bridge? The territory that Little Shenyang later acquired should be a waste house in that place, and such a waste house should be handled by the Ministry of the Interior as usual. During the period of becoming an abandoned mansion, the government drew the whole map of Beijing, but of course it can only be painted as an inconspicuous place. The officials of the corresponding ministries and commissions should be responsible for transforming the abandoned mansion into a mansion of new dignitaries, and there should be camps for projects below.
Cao Xueqin's father, Cao Fu, was raided in Jiangning weaving during Yongzheng period, but he was not completely killed. After being arrested in Beijing, he returned to his family and lived in a 17 and a half yard at the entrance of the garlic market in Beijing. In the early years of Qianlong, who died in Yongzheng, Qianlong adopted a policy of appeasement to ease the tension in the former dynasty, and employed officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who were punished during Yongzheng period, among whom Cao Fu and Cao Fu probably participated in the process of transforming abandoned houses into new ones, which was by no means a short-term act. When he was in charge of construction, he probably often went to the site, while his son Cao Xueqin (if his son was not the posthumous son of his cousin Cao Yong) was only a teenager. During the four years of Qianlong, a "rebellion against Hong" occurred, and Cao Fu was implicated. In the end, "I was as bold as a building, and as faint as a lamp", so that "Baidicheng is really clean", Cao Fu disappeared, and Cao Xueqin was down and out, living in Xishan and eating porridge to support his family. But this became the motive force for Cao Xueqin to write the great tragedy of A Dream of Red Mansions later. He concealed the truth and kept false words, and a prototype grand view garden was presented with his rich imagination and superb brushwork. 1962, Premier Zhou Enlai visited Gongwangfu accompanied by Wang Kunlun, then vice mayor of Beijing and a famous red scientist. Regarding the view that Gongwangfu Garden is the prototype of the Grand View Garden of A Dream of Red Mansions, he instructed: "Don't rashly affirm that it is, but don't rashly deny that it is not. It is necessary to protect Gongwangfu and open it to the society when conditions permit. "
As for Yang Jiaodeng Hutong, which is located in the south of Gongwangfu, Yang Jiaodeng is a luxury, which should be supplied to the imperial court first and enjoyed by the emperor. It's amazing that even the soldiers in Gongwangfu swaggered up a lamp, showing that there are countless decorations hanging in the room. Li Guang of the Ming Dynasty built a villa garden here. Later, after the fall of Li Guang, ministers impeached Li Guang with eight counts, the fourth of which was "stealing jade springs and bypassing private property". The water in Yuquan Mountain can only be quoted by the emperor, but Li Guang led the spring water into his garden through the Crescent River, which is trespassing. Small Shenyang was convicted by Jiaqing and listed as many as 20 counts, among which Article 13: "The Nanmu house was built beyond the regulations, and its multi-treasure pavilion and partition style were modeled after Ningshou Palace system, and its garden decoration was no different from Pengdao Yaotai in Yuanmingyuan. I don't know what it is. " In fact, it is a common problem of corrupt officials in past dynasties. The second mansion written in A Dream of Red Mansions is actually below the sovereign, and its food and clothing, such as Yutian rouge rice, Qiu, big glass mirror, big horn lamp and so on. , not only catch up with the palace, and even reach the level of the palace. Yang Jiaodeng Hutong is full of Yang Jiaodeng workshops, which produce Yang Jiaodeng, mainly for the use of the imperial palace, followed by other aristocratic houses, but the small Shenyang house is the leader, monopolizing almost half of Yang Jiaodeng's output, which is of course a serious violation of the system.
So, how is it produced in Yang Jiaodeng? There are three kinds of statements.
One method is to boil the horn into paste, then put it in a shallow dish and cool it, and finally form glass-like slices, and then embed these slices into the lamp frame made in advance. However, the lamp formed in this way cannot be in the shape of a seamless cylinder or a jujube pit, which is inconsistent with the preserved object.
In other words, there is a mold, which is similar to two circles with different sizes but similar. Pour the paste formed by the cooked goat horn into the gap between the two circles. After cooling and drying, the mold is taken out to form a long or round lamp body, and a candlestick handle made of iron wire is attached to the top and bottom to form a Yang Jiaodeng. Mr. Deng Yunxiang holds this view for reference.
But I believe in the third statement, which was told to me by an old man in Yang Jiaodeng Hutong during my working and living in Xie Qiao Street in Liguang. When I met him, he was not yet thirty years old, but he was already eighty years old. Everyone around him called him Bing Ye, and I followed suit.
At first I thought it was "ice leaf". I think he must be a soldier. Later, I learned that the so-called "Ice Master" was a person who took part in ice harvesting during the freezing period of Shichahai in winter. Until the 1970s, Shichahai still collected natural ice every winter and transported it to the freezer for storage and use in summer. But when I met Bing Ye, he was too old.
But after he and I met, I asked Yang Jiaodeng, and he said that he had been in Guangxu for thirty years. At the age of twelve, he went to this workshop in Yang Jiaodeng Hutong as an apprentice and made Yang Jiaodeng. He said that at that time, more than half of the original Yang Jiaodeng workshop in this hutong had closed down, but there were still customers who continued to make a living and came to order, and there were more dignitaries than royal nobles. He told me in detail the production process of Yang Jiaodeng:
Cut off the tip of the horn, put it in a large pot, fill it with water, stew it with a lot of white radish, and control the heat. Be sure to stop the fire when the horns are soft instead of boiling. Then take out the cooked horn and hang it, and control the heat. When the horn is still warm, put it into the horn with a group of wooden last trees and swell it. The last one used at the beginning. Then gradually replace it with more trees with the last bulge in the middle. During this period, some corners will be broken, so we have to give up. If it's not broken, carefully put on a drum and finally open it. Finally, a cylindrical or roughly circular lamp film will be formed. After the lamp film is formed, it will be carefully polished to make the thickness of each position roughly the same. Finally, the upper and lower frame candlesticks are connected to form a horn lamp.
According to what he said, Yang Jiaodeng's loss rate in the production process is quite high. He said that he cooked a large pot of croissants, and only three or two were finally formed. Large-scale finished products often have only a few lamps in a season, and the service life of Yang Jiaodeng is short. Leng Xia is hot in winter, and it is easy to crack. Even if the shell is complete, it often becomes opaque and no longer beautiful. I am very grateful to him for providing me with such valuable information, so I told him that I should call you Deng Ye. He waved his hand and said it would be better to call you Bing Ye. It turned out that he retired from the state-owned ice mining team, and he was proud of his serious career. Bing Ye has been dead for more than forty years, and the lighting technology of Yang Jiaodeng Hutong Workshop has disappeared with his generation of craftsmen.
It is very rare for Yang Jiaodeng to survive today. In the whole Palace Museum, there are only 1889 Yang Jiaodeng (pictured above), two huge happy characters used in the bridal chamber of Kunning Palace. I learned from the Internet that there is another descendant of Yang Jiaodeng-Zhang Fangquan in Lu Jian Village, Datang, Zhuji, Zhejiang. His family has made four generations of lights. His production method is similar to what I heard from Teacher Bing. The difference is that he stretched the two cooked horns, then closed them and welded them. After welding, he polished it carefully with tools, so that people could not see the joint. If Yang Jiaodeng Hutong in Beijing wants to further develop tourism, perhaps Mr. Zhang Fangquan can be invited to open a Yang Jiaodeng shop in Hutong to show its special craftsmanship and sell lamps as tourist souvenirs. It may be more popular if the drum artist and Hou's former residence are turned into a museum of Quyi, and the existing small restaurant in Hutong is transformed into a teahouse where you can listen to drum books and cross talk.
But I do have a lot of fate with Yang Jiaodeng Hutong. I pursued a girl who lived in that alley when I was a teenager. During that time, I often walked from the leading well to the west entrance of the alley at night, but there was often a young man about the same age dancing sword in the alley at that time. His swordsmanship is vigorous and professional, and he doesn't seem to want to stop or threaten me. But when I saw the fighting, I always felt it was better to stay out of it, so I turned around from Haixi Street and went around to the other side of Yang Jiaodeng Hutong, which is called Sanqiao, trying to enter from the east entrance. We have never spoken, but we both understand each other: we are rivals in love. I know that his unit was far more advanced than the school where I taught, and his mother also expressed her desire to marry the girl's parents through a powerful intermediary. Later, he stopped dancing in the alley, because the girl finally chose my pen dancer and became my wife. We gave birth to a son who was raised by his wife's parents, that is, my father-in-law's mother-in-law. Although I often go to the yard where my father-in-law lives, I have never spent the night there. My wife and I live in Liu Yin Street, so that yard can't be said to be my former residence. What's more, it was a small miscellaneous courtyard where five or six families lived.
I can't do it. Those fleeting shadows are unforgettable memories in my life, and I can't write any more. It has been thirteen years since my beloved wife died. Although Yang Jiaodeng Hutong is not the place where I once lived, it is an unforgettable place in my life.
On February 8, 2022, Lvyeju
Author: Liu