Wenjin Pavilion: Preserving History and Promoting Chinese Culture
CCTV News: Today (July 8) we will visit one of the famous pavilions in the “Siku Quanshu”. Wenjin Pavilion, located in the Mountain Resort in Chengde City, Hebei Province, is a royal library built in the Qing Dynasty to store the “Siku Quanshu”. It is one of the “Northern Four Pavilions” we mentioned just now. In the year when “Siku Quanshu” was compiled, Wenjin Pavilion began to be built. As a library building with a very historical style, what stories are there in it? Next, let’s take a look with the lens of the reporter.
Headquarters reporter Yang Hailing: Walking into the Summer Resort in midsummer, you can feel a little coolness in summer. This is a veritable summer resort. It is welcoming the peak of summer tourism, and Wenjinge is located on a small island surrounded by water in the northwest of the Mountain Resort. This is Wenjin Pavilion, one of the four pavilions in the north. Wenjin is the ferry of cultural knowledge, which means that if you want knowledge, you must come here. It is a building facing south. From south to north, there are front hall, rockery, pool, library and back garden, covering an area of 3600 square meters. Walking in it, you can feel the solemnity and tranquility of the northern gardens, and the gentleness and elegance of the southern gardens.
Yu Yang, deputy director of the Engineering Center of the Mountain Resort and the surrounding temples and scenic spots: In the thirty-eighth year of Qianlong, in 1773, he opened the Siku Quanshu Academy, and convened more than 500 scholars to start compiling the “Siku Quanshu”. When compiling, Emperor Qianlong had already thought about the problem of storage, so he ordered his ministers to visit Tianyi Pavilion in Ningbo to learn the architectural style and bookshelf style of Tianyi Pavilion. In the autumn of the same year, people were ordered to start building Wenyuan Pavilion, Wenyuan Pavilion and Wenjin Pavilion according to the style of Tianyi Pavilion. Since then, the construction of the four northern pavilions has been opened.
Headquarters reporter Yang Hailing: As a library, fire protection and sun protection were taken into consideration during design and construction, so there are many careful designs in both site selection and layout.
Yu Yang, deputy director of the Engineering Center of the Mountain Resort and its surrounding temples and scenic spots: Wenjin Pavilion has two floors on the outside, but it is actually three floors. It protects the room from direct sunlight and acts as a sunscreen. When it comes to fire prevention, it uses black glazed tiles. Among the five elements, black belongs to water, which has the meaning of restraining fire. A large pool was built in front, which is similar to the current fire pool and plays a role in extinguishing fires. Therefore, it is not difficult to see that at the beginning of the construction of Wenjin Pavilion, various concepts were added to fire prevention and sun protection.
Headquarters reporter Yang Hailing: You can clearly feel that this is a collection of books when you come in. It can be said that this is the special library for the royal family. You can see that the library has a place for books. So was there an area for reading here?
Yu Yang, deputy director of the Engineering Center of the Mountain Resort and its surrounding temples and scenic spots: Yes, at that time, a throne or throne bed was set up for the emperor in the open room on the first floor, the small room on the second floor, and the open room on the third floor. The emperors of the Qing Dynasty would come here to study and study when they spent the summer in the villa.
Restoration of the original appearance of Wenjing Pavilion to touch history at close range
In this simple and elegant royal garden, the function of the Wenjinge Library has lasted for more than a hundred years and has undergone age changes. Wenjin Pavilion has been damaged many times, but fortunately, “Siku Quanshu” has been well preserved and is now in the National Library of China. The local area has also restored the original appearance of Wenjin Pavilion, making history a part of modern life, and tourists can experience traditional Chinese culture up close.
Headquarters reporter Yang Hailing: It is said that Emperor Qianlong lived in the summer resort for four or five months every year, and often went to Wenjin Pavilion to read. The samples were bound with “An Integration of Ancient and Modern Books” and put into the cabinet in rows for reading. A few years later, the “Siku Quanshu” arrived at Wenjinge, where it was stored for more than a hundred years.
There are 108 shelves and 6144 sets of “Siku Quanshu” in Wenjin Pavilion, which are divided into four parts: classics, history, Zi and Ji, which are distinguished by four colors of green, red, blue and gray. Each set is stored in such a wooden box, called Make a letter. There is a wooden board on the top and bottom of the letter, which is used to level the books.
Yu Yang, deputy director of the Engineering Center of the Mountain Resort and surrounding temples and scenic spots: Wenjing Pavilion started construction in the 39th year of Qianlong (1774) and continued until 1913. It has been a library for more than a hundred years. However, due to the relatively turbulent period at the beginning of 1913, the “Siku Quanshu” in Wenjin Pavilion, including books, letters, and bookshelves, was transported to Beijing at the same time and stored in the Jingshi Library at that time. After the books were transported away, the function of Wenjinge to collect books gradually disappeared, and in the turbulent era, Wenjinge was also damaged many times.
In the 1960s, Chengde Mountain Resort, including Wenjin Pavilion, was listed as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. In 2010, Chengde launched a cultural heritage protection project to comprehensively repair Wenjing Pavilion and carried out a one-to-one restoration based on the “Siku Quanshu” in Wenjing Pavilion collected by the National Library.
Headquarters reporter Yang Hailing: Walking into Zangshu Pavilion again after hundreds of years, you can smell the faint fragrance of camphor wood, and you can also vaguely feel a kind of old ink fragrance. The restored Wenjin Pavilion has made history a part of life, allowing more people to get a closer look at this history and feel the profoundness of traditional Chinese culture.