Chapter 13 Chapter 6 Book Protection in Ancient China

Since the essence of book protection is to protect the materials used to make books, or to protect the carrier of books, the Chinese have been working tirelessly on this issue for a long time.When bamboo slips were widely used in book production, people refurbished bamboo slips to prevent them from decaying; When it is damaged, people adopt different maintenance methods according to different situations to make it look like new.It can be seen that book protection can only adopt different protection methods for different production materials. "Mozi Ming Gui Pian" said: "The ancient sage kings must be ghosts and gods, and the ghosts and gods are very generous. I am afraid that future generations will not know it, so the bamboo and silk of the old book will be passed on to future generations. I am afraid that it will rot. If it is destroyed, future generations will not remember it, so the dish bowl carved and the gold and stone carved are important." This means that the ancient sages and kings believed in ghosts and gods very much, and they were also very devout in offering sacrifices to ghosts and gods.I am afraid that future generations will not understand these principles, so this kind of thing should be written on bamboo slips and silk to pass on to future generations.However, he was worried that the bamboo slips and silks would be easily decayed or destroyed by moths, and that future generations would not know about them, so he carved the sacrifices to ghosts and gods on plates, utensils, metals and stones to express respect for such things. The seriousness of things.Mozi lived at the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, more than 2,300 years ago.That is to say, Mozi more than 2,300 years ago has discovered the weakness of bamboo and silk, which are easy to rot, so he changed the carrier of words and "carved the bowl, and carved the gold and stone".But no matter whether it is a plate or a bowl or a stone, the capacity for writing is very limited.For articles that are a little longer, I have to write them in bamboo silk.However, compared with gold and stone, bamboo and silk are indeed perishable, and it is difficult to pass them on for a long time.How to do it?After long-term practice, as early as the Western Han Dynasty, someone made a comprehensive and comprehensive answer to this question.When the Western Han Dynasty became emperor, Liu Xiang was ordered to manage the national collection of books, and he had elaborate discussions on the rectification of the bamboo slips of writing materials.He said: "Those who kill the green, until the bamboo is used as the ear of the bamboo slips. Hsinchu has juice, which is good at rotten beetles. All the bamboo slips are dried on the fire...Burning the slips with fire will make the sweat go away, and the book will be restored easily." If there is no beetle, it is called killing green, and it is also called sweat slip." It is also said: "Those who sweat, remove the bamboo juice; those who kill green, remove the green skin." (see Wu Shuping's "Universal Tongyi Xiaowen XI") This is It is said that using bamboo as a bamboo slip and as a material for making books can prevent and control rot, and there has been a systematic treatment method as late as the Western Han Dynasty.Compared with Mozi, he only knew that it was perishable, and he did not know how to rectify it, so he changed the gold and stone pan bowl, which is obviously a great improvement.Hsinchu contains moisture and has green skin.Broken bamboo is used directly after it is used. Not only is it difficult to write with ink, but also the green bamboo is damp. After writing and editing, it is rolled up and stored, which is very easy to be moth-eaten and eventually rot.Therefore, to make simple bamboo, you must first remove its green skin, and then dry its water on the fire.The strips of bamboo slips have no green skin and no moisture. The scraped surface is new and dry, and it is easy to absorb ink when writing.This is what Liu Xiang called "Book of Changes".Since Jane has removed the green skin and dried the water, that is, after killing greens and removing sweat, the conditions for worms and moths are gone, and rotten beetles will not happen.This is what Liu Xiang said about "recovering from beetles".It is not only easy to read, but also easy to read. It really kills two birds with one stone.This can be regarded as the book protection in the period when bamboo slips were used as book making materials in our country.Around the end of the Western Han Dynasty or the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, handwritten paper books appeared.After Cai Lun in the Eastern Han Dynasty broadened the raw materials for papermaking, improved the papermaking process, and improved the quality of papermaking, paper books became more and more popular.After the Three Kingdoms and the Western Jin Dynasty, until Emperor Huanxuan ordered the abolition of paper for bamboo slips, paper officially replaced bamboo slips and wooden slips that had been in use for a long time, and became the main material for making books.

Paper served as the main material for making books, providing a prerequisite for the widespread popularization of book production.But paper is more difficult to protect than bamboo slips.It is not only easy to break, but also easy to mold and rot, and it is easy to be moth-eaten.How to prevent damage, repair damage, how to prevent moisture and mildew, and prevent insects and beetles is another problem that must be solved. The Chinese have always had the style of inheriting and carrying forward fine traditions.The tradition of using bamboo slips to make books and focusing on the preservation of materials was still transplanted and carried forward after paper books became popular, and people turned to remediate the paper for writing and printing books to prevent insects and mildew, prevent books from aging, and prolong the life of books.To sum up, the ancients' treatment of paper mainly included dyeing, coating, and calendering.The mutual cooperation of these several major crafts can make books prolong their lifespan and be passed on to the world for a long time.

Paper dyeing is not just about meeting color requirements.In ancient China, yin and yang and five elements were talked about, and the five elements corresponded to the five digits, the five digits corresponded to the five directions, and the five directions corresponded to the five colors. Finally, it was deduced that yellow should be admired.So in ancient China, the emperors, royal families, and imperial palaces wore yellow clothes, used yellow utensils, lived in yellow palaces, and used yellow paper.It is not difficult to dye yellow paper, but can it prevent insects and beetles while dyeing yellow, and make the paper fragrant?Facts have proved that the Chinese have already solved this problem skillfully.

As early as the Han and Wei Dynasties, people knew that using Phellodendron (bo) to dye paper could kill three birds with one stone.Cortex Phellodendron, also known as Cortex Phellodendron, is also called Huangmu by Beijingers, mainly produced in Sichuan.Rutaceae, deciduous tree, can grow to eleven or twelve meters high.The inner skin of the stem is yellow and can be used as a dye; it is also a traditional Chinese medicine, which can treat dysentery, bloody dysentery, aphtha, red eye pain, etc.; it contains alkaloids, mainly berberine in the nature of berberine, and has the effect of killing insect eggs. utility.The juice of this kind of thing is fragrant to the smell, bitter to the taste, and yellow to the eyes.The fragrance is refreshing; the taste is bitter and prevents moths and rats from biting; the yellow color is pleasing to the eye and conforms to the Chinese custom of adoring yellow.Using this kind of thing to treat paper and make books can kill three birds with one stone.Therefore, Liu Xi in the second century A.D. explained the word "Huang" in his "Shiming", saying that it means dyed paper.It can be seen that people knew how to dye paper with amberberry juice before Liu Xi.Wei Boyang, an alchemist in the Eastern Han Dynasty, also recorded in "Zhou Yi Can Tong Qi" that "if it is dyed yellow, it looks like blue and becomes green".Ge Hong (A.D. 281-341) in the Eastern Jin Dynasty also talked about dyeing paper with amurberry juice in his "Baopuzi", and personally tried this juice to dye hemp paper with success, and it was widely used soon.In the eighth volume of "Lu Shilong Collection" by Lu Yun (262-303 AD) in the Western Jin Dynasty, there is a "Book of Yuxiong Pingyuan".In this letter, Lu Yun said to his brother: "The previous collection of brother's essays is twelve volumes, and it is suitable for eleven volumes." The meaning is that Lu Yun advised his brother to use paper for writing articles to be dyed to prevent moths from eating.Xun Xu (died in 289 A.D.), a contemporary of the Lu family, also said in his "Shangmu Tianzi Book Preface": "I would like to write on two-foot yellow paper." It is also dyed paper.The writing of Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi was recorded in "Book History" by Song Mifu [fu Fu], and most of them were made of hemp paper that had passed through Huang.

From the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, people accumulated three to four hundred years of experience in dyeing paper in Huanghuang, and Jia Sixie wrote "Qi Min Yao Shu" in the Northern Wei Dynasty. There is a very scientific description.He said: "Where paper is to be made alive, it will be strong and thick, and it is especially suitable for use in Huang. All Huang paper should be whitened, and it should not be too dark. If it is dark, it will darken with age. Immerse it and ripen it, that is, discard it, and use it directly. Pure juice is wasteful but useless. After the barberry is cooked, the dregs are pounded and boiled, and the cloth bag is pressed, and then pounded and boiled again. If three pounding and three cooking are added, and pure juice is added, the saving is four times, and it is clear and clean. Write a book , After summer, it will enter the room, and the seams will not be unraveled. New writers must sew and iron it with an iron and decorate it, if not, it will fall apart." This passage has several meanings: one is that raw paper should be used for paper printing (that is, calendering).The reason is that the raw paper foams and loosens, which is very easy to absorb water and smudges around, so it is especially suitable for decoration.The degree of embellishment is appropriate to eliminate the whiteness of the paper, and it is not suitable to dye it too deep. If it is too deep, the color of the paper will become dark after a long time.After writing the book, you have to go through the test of summer humidity before entering the house.In this way, the paper seam where the paper is bonded to the paper will not burst and fall off.If the newly written book is put into the room, you must iron the sticky paper seams with an iron first, otherwise the paper seams will fall off as soon as the book is wet.When steaming the inner bark of Phellodendron amurense, do not cook it once, only use the pure juice and throw away the dregs.Instead, during the first juice extraction process, the dregs are filtered out, mashed and boiled, then wrapped in gauze and squeezed to make the juice come out again.Then mash, cook and squeeze out the juice.Where three pounding and three boiling, adding and pure juice are used together, the savings can be quadrupled.And the paper looks cleaner.This kind of subtle description and scientific judgment cannot be made without drawing on the experience of the predecessors, nor can it be done without hands-on practice.It can be seen that by the time of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, my country's paper dyeing technology had been perfected, and book protection had entered a new stage.

After entering the Tang Dynasty, the technique of dyeing yellow became more common and improved. "Tang Liu Dian" records that in the thirteenth year of Emperor Taizong's Zhenguan (AD 649), "nine paper decorators" were placed in the Hongwen Hall;It is also stipulated that some official documents and religious classics must use yellow paper. The fourth volume of "Four Puzzles of the Study Room" says: "In Zhenguan, yellow paper was used to write the imperial system. In the second year of Shangyuan, Emperor Gaodi said: 'The imperial edict is implemented, since it is a permanent style, this is white paper, and there are many insects. It is suitable. It is ordered that in the future, the province of Shangshu will issue yellow paper to all states.'" "Dongtian Qinglu Collection" said: "Hard yellow paper was used by Tang people to write scriptures, dyed with yellow cork, and used to avoid beetles." All these records show that By the Tang Dynasty, it was not only very common to dye paper into the house, but it had become an imperial edict system, which shows how much attention was paid to the protection of books at that time.It is no wonder that a large number of scriptures written by Tang people came out of the Dunhuang scripture cave, many of which are intact.Black and white on yellow paper, solemn and solemn.The paper is thicker to the touch, shakes soundly, feels comfortable when embraced, and rolled when thrown away. After thousands of readings in cold and heat, the quality of the paper has not changed.Since then, through the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the dyeing of paper has been carried out without interruption.Gao Lian of the Ming Dynasty still described the specific method of dyeing Huangbo in Volume 15 of his "Eight Notes of Zunsheng": "Crush a jin of yellow cypress, soak it in four jin of water, and boil it until it reaches two liters. One liter, decoct the water as above. Use five qian of rouge, and the deep one is wonderful. Use four bowls of soup, soak and squeeze out the red. The three flavors each make thick juice, and use a large basin to hold the juice. Every time you use Guanyinlian thick paper, first It has been dragged once with cork juice, then once with oak juice, and then once with rouge juice. It is more important to see the addition and subtraction of shades, and it can be dried one by one.” It proves that the people of the Ming Dynasty were bold and innovative while inheriting the dyeing and decoration. Acorn horn water and rouge water have been added, so that book protection has taken a big step forward.

The number of books published in the Song Dynasty has greatly exceeded that of its predecessors, and it is no longer enough to dye paper with Phellodendron bark juice.Then another kind of pepper paper appeared, which was dyed with the juice of pepper, prickly ash, and chili.Pepper contains citronellal, cressin [tie paste], etc., which have insecticidal effect.Pepper paper is mainly produced in Jianyang, Fujian, which is easy to understand.Fujian is one of the engraving centers of Song Dynasty.Especially in Jianyang, there are many bookshops and engraved hands, and the printed books are sold all over the country.Whether or not their book printing paper should be treated against insects will directly affect their business.Therefore, the local rich pepper, prickly ash, and hot pepper were boiled to extract the juice, which was used to dye paper and protect the books. The bibliography of "Tianlu Linlang" records the Song engraved "Chunqiu Jingzhuan Jijie", citing its wood record: "'On April 17th in the third year of Chunxi (AD 1176), Cao Zhangdian, Qin Yuzhen and others in the Zuosi corridor heard about it. , Bijing "Spring and Autumn Zuozhuan", "Guoyu", "Historical Records" and other books, most of them are silverfish wounds, and I dare not prepare them for reading. According to imperial orders, ten volumes were made of jujube wood and pepper paper. September of the fourth year Jinlan. Supervised the construction of Cao Dong’s Xiaozi, and Guo Qing, the minister of the bureau, inspected the calf. It is known that it was carved in the year of Emperor Xiaozong to prepare for the claim. Jujube wood carving is also known to be used. If it is printed on pepper paper, there will be no such fine workmanship later. "It can be seen that the people of the Song Dynasty had bold innovations in paper treatment, insect prevention and beetle prevention, and book protection.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, in order to solve the problem of the flooding of silverfish due to the humidity in the south, a kind of ten-thousand-year red paper was created in addition to book printing paper.Wannian red paper is painted red with red lead.The main component of red lead is lead trioxide, and the secondary components are basic lead sulfate and lead monoxide.The molecular weight of trilead tetroxide is 685.57, and its specific gravity is about 7.1. It is stable in air and poisonous.Song Yingxing in the Ming Dynasty specifically described the preparation of red pill in "Tiangong Kaiwu" as follows: "Stir-fry lead pill, use one catty of lead, ten taels of soil sulfur, and one tael of saltpeter. Melt lead to make juice, and add vinegar; When it boils, add a piece of sulfur; after a while, add a little nitrate; after boiling, add vinegar, add nitrate and sulphur gradually as before, and when it is at the end, it will become a pill." This kind of red elixir is actually red mercury. It brushes paper, and insects are not happy to eat.If worms eat this kind of red pill paper, it is equivalent to eating a certain amount of lead.Lead is not only poisonous, but also has a large specific weight. After ingestion, the weight falls to the stomach, causing the moth to fall to death, so it has an insecticidal effect.Bibliophiles in ancient times knew this method well, so they often used this paper as the front and rear inner covers of ancient books, or book lining paper.It looks like a red and white contrast, which is not only bright and beautiful, but also prevents insects and beetles.In the Qing Dynasty, there was a bibliophile named Fang Gonghui in Guangdong. His book collection was located in the rainy and humid Lingnan, so most of his books were filled with thousands of years of red title pages or linings.There are very few people who are eaten by moths.But over time, the Wannian red paper itself will change, and it is not uncommon for book leaves and the Wannian red backing paper to be eaten by insects.

In short, the ancient Chinese, in order to protect books, delay their aging, and prolong their lifespan, first of all paid attention to the rectification of book making materials.From the finishing of the bamboo slips, to the dyeing of the paper, soaking in pepper, oak juice, and rouge juice, to the lining of the ten-thousand-year red paper, a set of effective methods has been explored to provide human books. Conservation has made an outstanding contribution. Coating is a process and a process in the papermaking process.Modern practice has proved that in addition to being eaten by insects, the biggest natural enemy of books is the natural aging and embrittlement of paper.Especially after the Western Industrial Revolution, machine-made paper replaced handmade paper.Books written and printed on this paper are more likely to become brittle and aging.Especially after exposure to sunlight and ultraviolet radiation, the hair becomes brittle and ages faster.What is the reason?The reason lies in the fact that mechanical papermaking uses the powerful power of machinery to shred trees, including belt stems, branches and tips, to make pulp and make paper.We all know that plants and trees contain pectin acid.How much pectin acid can be removed during the papermaking process is directly related to the speed of paper aging and the length of life.Modern book protection focuses on deacidifying manuscripts and books that are about to age.As for the deacidification method, some use low-alkalinity baking soda to dissolve in water, and then spread the manuscript and book pages in water to soak, so that the alkali and the low acid contained in the paper are slowly neutralized, so as to achieve deacidification preservation. the goal of.The Library of Congress invested heavily in building a secret room to store books that are about to age or have already aged, and then fill it with low-alkaline gas to neutralize acid and alkali through gas penetration, so as to achieve the purpose of deacidification and preservation of books.The ancient Chinese did not understand so many principles of modern science, but some methods and processes they adopted in the papermaking process achieved deacidification as much as possible, so that the produced paper naturally "prolongs life".

Handmade paper in China, especially in ancient China, whether it is made of hemp paper, leather paper or bamboo paper, mostly needs to go through several steps such as retting, soaking, steaming and boiling, and then the pulp can be crushed and bleached.In the steps of retting, soaking, steaming, and boiling, the pectin acid has almost been removed.In addition, manual pulping will not crush the plant fibers very well.Unlike modern machine-made paper, where the fibers have been pounded into a granular state, the structure of the paper lacks the pulling force between the fibers.In ancient Chinese handmade paper, the retained fibers are longer, and the pulling force of itself and each other is stronger, so the life of the paper itself is relatively strong.In addition, the deacidification is better and the aging is slower, which will naturally prolong the life of the paper.In addition to these, after the paper is copied, it has a loose texture and cannot be inked.Once the ink is applied, it will smear and not form a pattern, so after the paper is copied out and dried on the wall, it must go through the calendering process.The so-called calendering is to roll over the surface of the paper with an aurora and a certain weight of stone, so that the structure of the paper is tight and the texture is fine.This calender strengthens the tension of the paper, making the paper surface smooth and easy to write on.In addition to calendering, there is another process, which is the coating process.The so-called coating is to use chalk (e evil) powder, gypsum powder, talc powder, flour, etc., to mix and form a thin paste with a suitable consistency, and then use a brush to dip the powder paste on the paper and brush until the cloth is smooth. until full.The coated paper has increased whiteness and is easier to spread.More importantly, these raw materials used for coating are mostly low-alkaline substances, which will continue to neutralize the low-level pectic acid remaining in the paper structure after being coated on the paper, which can further slow down the aging of the paper speed and prolong paper life.

As mentioned earlier, in ancient times, the paper used for writing and writing books had to be processed into a box.The amurberry used in Huangzhi also contains alkaloids, which also have the effect of neutralizing acid and alkali. Just imagine, after papermaking processes such as retting, soaking, steaming, and boiling, most of the pectinic acid has been removed, and then added to the process of calendering, coating, and embellishment, which can not only prevent insects and beetles, but also continue to use Low alkali removes residual acid in paper and delays paper aging.With such book protection, I dare not say that the ancient Chinese were sober, scientific, and conscious.But experience has matured them to do so, and book conservation has succeeded.A large number of Dunhuang posthumous writings in the Mogao Grottoes, some of which have been read for 1,500 to 600 years, look no different from new paper.In particular, there are a large number of scriptures written by Tang people. Some of the paper is smooth and hard, and after being waxed, it is really trembling and intact.It can be seen that the ancients strengthened the rectification of book production materials, which is a successful experience in book protection and is worth learning from.