The history of Kaifeng Bookstore Street

The history of Kaifeng Bookstore Street can be traced back to the Northern Song Dynasty thousands of years ago.

At that time, it was called "Gaotou Street", adjacent to Dasong Palace. According to the Tokyo Dream Record, Gaotou Street is the most prosperous market in Tokyo. "The house is magnificent, with a wide facade and a solemn look. Every transaction is moving and shocking."

The commodities traded mainly include clothes, books, calligraphy and painting, antiques and traditional Chinese medicine. It was renamed "Dadian Street" in the Ming Dynasty, and it is still the most prosperous business district in the city.

It was officially named "Bookstore Street" during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. Kaifeng was the cultural center of the Central Plains in Qing Dynasty, and its cultural industry was extremely prosperous.

Bookstore Street is famous for its books, calligraphy and painting and Four Treasures of the Study. At that time, there were more than a dozen famous shops such as Zhenxinglong, Dewuxiang, Fenglinge, Boyazhai, Huanwenge, Huichang Shanfang and Lufangshan Pavilion. The buildings on the street are simple and elegant, bookstores are row upon row, and inscriptions and calligraphy are flooding the market, so the name "Bookstore Street" comes out with the elegance of ink and wash.

"Bookstore", at first glance, sounds quite modern. People who could name streets after it hundreds of years ago thought it was really admirable.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this unique name that the cultural atmosphere of Bookstore Street has continued to this day. In modern times, real bookstores such as Lianghe Bookstore, Dadong Bookstore and Liuhege Bookstore appeared in the bookstore street, and famous publishing houses in China such as Zhonghua Bookstore, World Bookstore and Ming Kai Bookstore also competed to open branches here. In addition, the original famous old shops here, such as Bao Bimo Store and Qiu Wencheng Bizhuang, have become the most influential and representative "cultural street" in the whole Central Plains.

Throughout China and foreign countries, streets named after bookstores are rare. There is a famous "Kanda Book Street" in Tokyo, Japan, which is as famous as Kaifeng in the Northern Song Dynasty. 1890 gradually became a bookstore gathering area, but it was only a hundred years ago.

Even since the Qing Dynasty became a veritable "bookstore street", the history of Kaifeng bookstore street has lasted for at least 300 years.

The historical story of two plaques on Kaifeng Drum Tower: Kaifeng Drum Tower was built in the 12th year of Ming Hongwu (1379). The bell tower is located in the original location of Gulou Square, which is in front of the West Street Eye Hospital of the provincial government and leads to Yingbin Road. It is symmetrical from east to west, in a line, very majestic and neat, and it is one of the landmark buildings that reflect the wisdom of the ancient Han working people.

The eight Chinese characters, "The sound is high in the sky" and "There is no distant Buddha", each about 1 meter square, are all regular script, which is very obvious. Among them, the four Chinese characters "the sound is higher than the sky" are praised by calligraphers at home and abroad, just like the Drum Tower. For hundreds of years, all literati have feasted their eyes. However, there have been different opinions about who wrote the four characters "ringing in the sky", which is regarded as a masterpiece of calligraphy and a "unsolved case" in the ancient city of Kaifeng.

There is an inscription on the plaque "The sky is ringing". The first paragraph reads "Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty was lucky in Ji Chun at the age of twenty-eight", and the next paragraph reads "The governor of Henan and other places prefects military affairs and manages Yan Xingbang, the right deputy capital of Henan Douchayuan". In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen in Ming Dynasty (1642), Kaifeng was completely submerged by the Yellow River, and the Drum Tower was completely destroyed, leaving only the old site. In the 28th year of Qing Emperor Kangxi (1689), Yan Xingbang, the governor of Henan Province, organized reconstruction. The inscription on the plaque can only explain the reconstruction, but it can never explain that "Loud and Loud" is a strict book.

Because the plaque was not written by anyone, it naturally led to many legends. According to the logic of ordinary people, these legends are mostly around non-celebrities, because people guess that if they are written by celebrities, they will naturally fall on celebrities. In earlier years, it was said that these four amazing characters were written by a prison official, who died of exhaustion after reading them. In the 1930s, there was a new legend. It is said that during the reign of Herry Liu in Henan, his secretary wrote a good hand and was imprisoned for taking drugs. The secretary knew that the master was fishing for fame and asked to talk to him alone. The secretary said: I can write the word "ringing in the sky" better than the four words on the drum tower, so I will sign it in the name of the chairman. By default, Herry Liu sent someone to replace the original plaque behind the secretary's book late at night. Later, the secretary was ashamed of her poor handwriting and changed the original plaque. In the 1950s, when Mr. Li Cunren wrote Kaifeng Places of Interest, he said that these four words were written by Meng Ding, a scholar in Qixian County. In the early 1980s, according to the famous calligrapher Mr. Jin Xuan, these words were said to have been written by his ancestor Jin Biaobiao. According to Mr. Kong, these four words were written by Yuan Shunyi, a Yi nationality, during his trip to Kaifeng, Henan. He once saw this plaque and said it was recorded in the county annals.

There have been different opinions about the origin and destination of the giant plaque "Voice of Nature" above the original Drum Tower, which has become an "unsolved case". It was not until recent years that there was an answer. It is said that as early as the early 1930s, when the Drum Tower was renovated, the plaque "Sound in the sky" was removed. Its majestic words and beautiful structure always amazed scholars and made Kaifeng people proud. At that time, many people were watching and admiring. Someone invited the Central Plains Photo Studio in Beishudian Street to take a photo, and two days later, the plaque was put back on the Drum Tower. Later, the Drum Tower and the plaque were destroyed by the war, and the only remaining negatives were kept in Mr. Hao's home. Mr. mugwort has kept it carefully for many years. Whenever friends who like calligraphy come to play at home, they just show them the negatives and never develop them. Now, the only negative has been donated by Mr. Artemisia argyi to Hanyuan, China. Mr. Gong Tao personally designated it to be developed, enlarged and carved into a monument, which stood in Hanyuan, China, and made the "sound resound through the sky" reappear.