In 2000 A.D., I was seventy-two years old, but I was still very energetic and in good health. In a casual conversation with the Zhang clan, it was said that the Zhang family in Beifang, Wenshan, since the Southern Song Dynasty, has been descended for many generations, because the genealogy was destroyed in the sixties, and the generation number is no longer known, everyone hopes to rebuild the Zhang family tree in Beifang, and I feel that I should take on this burden for the clansmen.

The country is prosperous, and the people are rich. Politics and harmony coincide with the prosperous times. Recording the humanistic development of the family and inspiring future generations to work hard, genealogy is also of great significance.

The genealogy of the Zhang clan in the north of Wenshan County was repaired before the liberation, and was later destroyed, and all the original materials were gone. Among the clansmen, only the Zhang clan at the north gate of Wenshan is known, after Zhang Buyu of the Southern Song Dynasty, the clansman is assigned the number: "Ben Li Daosheng, Wu Xue Dunheng", and other historical materials are not known.

For this reason, the Zhang clan of Wenshan believes that if they do not repair the score, the descendants will have no faction and no number to follow, and they do not know which generation they belong to, which will humiliate the ancestors. Nowadays, there are fewer and fewer people who are alive and well aware of the history of our predecessors, and it is necessary to reconstruct the genealogy while we are still alive and well. After several deliberations and discussions, everyone recommended that I take the lead in forming a compilation team for the revision of the score, so I devoted my main energy to the revision of the score.

The clansmen recommended seven people as members of the compilation team, and the editorial board held several meetings and agreed on several things: one is to investigate the information of each household, the second is to collect the information of each branch of the ancestors, the third is to raise funds, and the fourth is to divide responsibilities.

In order to repair the genealogy, first of all, we printed a statistical table of basic information, a form for soliciting opinions on rebuilding the genealogy, and a proposal for donations, etc., and sent them to the clansmen in various places, as well as to the clansmen in Fuzhou (Mengna) in Yuzhang Province and Chuncheng (Mengna) in Nanzhao Province and their two elder brothers overseas. Secondly, the historical evolution from Zhang Buyu in the Southern Song Dynasty to his great-grandfather in 960 years was searched and collected. This is the hardest job.

As mentioned earlier, this revision was carried out without any information, which is very difficult. The old spectrum and the old spectrum were all destroyed in one fell swoop, what year, what generation, and who opened the Zhang family in Chengbeifang based on Wenshan? What are the descendants of Grandpa Grandpa? What is the grandfather of each branch? How many generations have been passed down so far, etc., are all a mystery.

The only way to solve these problems is to investigate, interview, and check the information. However, my brother and I are the only ones on the editorial board who have retired, and the others are far away in Fucheng, Nanzhao Province and other places, and some are farmers, with no education, no time, and no salary for writing, so only my brother and I are responsible for this mission.

I am responsible for visiting and investigating, collecting, sorting and classifying the returned materials, and I am responsible for going to the county archives and libraries to find and collect the evolution of the Zhang clan in Wenshan Beifang in the 960 years since the Southern Song Dynasty (Southern Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty, and Republic of China).

According to our preliminary investigation, there are several branches with the surname Zhang in Wenshan County: one is the Zhang family of Huangping Village. This is the largest and most influential branch of the Zhang clan in Wenshan. The second is the Ding Zhen branch. The third is the Shuixi branch. The fourth is the one that moved from Zhangzhen to Wenshan. The fifth is the county seat of the north fang Zhang.

In order to find out the historical development of our family and its relationship with several other Zhang clans in Wenshan, Xiaoyun and I went to Huangping Village and checked the Huangping Zhang family tree. According to the family rules, the family tree is not shown to outsiders, but an uncle of Mr. Zhang from Huangping received us and watched him at his house all day.

The genealogy of the Zhang clan in Huangping is well preserved, with a total of nine major books, covering a wide range of contents, and has been rebuilt 19 times so far. After review: Huangping Zhang's Kaiji ancestor was the Song Dynasty when migrated to Wenshan Huangping Kaiji to start a business, in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty because of the refusal to rebel against the Ming, destroyed by the Yuan people, Zhang Kuifeng fled to Huangqiao Township Huantang Village, to be a son-in-law, to have children, multiply, moved back to Huangping at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, revitalized the family business, and multiplied so far.

We focused on checking their faction numbers, names, branches, distribution, etc., but we found no information related to our Beifang Zhang family, and there was no information about the "no" character or Zhang Buyu. We preliminarily judged that the Huangping Zhang clan and the Beifang Zhang clan belonged to a different branch. We also conducted interviews and investigations on several other Zhang clans, and did not find any related information.

Since June 2001, I have been looking for materials at the county archives.

The county archives have preserved valuable materials on the human history, social changes, major events and so on since the establishment of the county system in Wenshan County. I focused on checking the "Character Chronicles" from the vast historical materials, starting from the Southern Song Dynasty, looking carefully, the hard work paid off, and first found the relevant information about Zhang Buyu, the ancestor of Wenshan Kaiji, and the historical information of his brother Zhang Buyi. The most rare thing is to find an epitaph written by Zhou Bida, the prime minister of the Southern Song Dynasty and a writer, for Zhang Buyu.

This epitaph details Zhang Buyu's life history, official titles, and the evolution of his father and ancestors. This is an extremely precious historical biography, which solves the mystery of the historical origin of the Zhang family in Wenshan Beifang. I transcribed it word for word. Later, I found a lot of information about Zhang's ancestors, and copied them one by one and indicated the source of the information (i.e., He Dynasty, He Book, He Volume, Pages, etc.) for review.

I have gone through all the thousands of years of historical books in the archives and transcribed all the relevant materials as first-hand information. Later, I went to the county library to look up information. From the "Yongle Canon", "History of the Song Dynasty", "History of the Yuan Dynasty", and "History of the Ming Dynasty", we have carefully checked and found the direct ancestor Zhang Daguan (Taoist Temple) and many Zhang characters, and we finally figured out the origin of Zhang Buyu, the ancestor of Wenshan Kaiji. Zhang Buyu, whose name is Qianchong, settled in Wenshan in 1131 during the Southern Song Dynasty, died in 1140 at the age of 62, and was posthumously awarded the title of Zhongdafu.

For more than two months, I squatted there every day to find information, it was summer, and the scorching heat of the room made me sweat like rain, but I only had one belief, that is, to find more information as soon as possible and complete the task of revising the score. I was touched by the leadership and staff of the county archives and library, who gave me great support and gave me a lot of "freedom" to search for any material or book at will.

They didn't ask for any payment, but enthusiastically offered convenience. So I wrote in the genealogy "Postscript" to thank the county archives and the county library for their support.

Later, we went to the Taigong Temple in Liqiao Township, and inspected the cemetery of my ancestor Zhang Daguan on the spot, but unfortunately the grave has been dug up, and we went to the Liqiao Shuibei Nunnery to find the tombstone of Zhang's grandfather, and the result was a lot of harvest, and we found the number and name of several generations from the remnants of the stele, which greatly enriched the genealogical content.

We collect materials, organize them, investigate them, and review them. My brother and I are also responsible for writing a biography of every adult over the age of 20, and then taking it to them to read and revise after it is written. After the basic information, photos and other materials of each household are gathered, we organize and classify, write the first draft, and then ask the clan to read and revise it, and contact the printer after copying it.

I stayed by the printer every day to guide the typist to type the first draft, it was the end of the year, the weather was cold, the typing room was not fired, so I had to stand up, but I was so cold that I caught a cold, I worked while taking medicine, proofread twice after typing out the proof, and then typed out the script, and then handed over to the people around the country to read and revise, and sent the eldest brother and third brother of the island province to review and revise, and finally typed out an original, proofreading is correct and then paid for printing.

From the winter of 1999, when it was put on the agenda in 2000, to the completion of the genealogy reconstruction in November 2001, it took nearly two years, which was time-consuming and laborious.

In December 2001, we held a grand ceremony in Wenshan Beifang, the clansmen of Wenshan County and the clansmen from Dongxiang have arrived, everyone has a meeting, photographs, dinner, the first time to get together, it is really a historic gathering of more than half a century! After the meeting, we sent genealogies to the eldest brother and third brother in Dao Province and Zhang Qiu and Zhang Pingsheng in Nanzhao Province.

This revision of the score was strongly supported by the third brother Zhang Xuexi, and the eldest brother Zhang Xueyou continued to write the eight-generation number of "Deyi Thousand Generations, Fuyan Ten Thousand Years". The third brother Zhang Xuexi not only took the lead in donating one thousand US dollars, but also reviewed and corrected the chapter structure, historical material arrangement, and written language of the genealogy.

Uncle Zhang Wulong of Dongxiang also donated 1,000 yuan, and made great changes to the content and arrangement of the genealogy, thanks to which he wrote the "Preface", and took the name of the new eight generations of descendants: "Inherit the training of the ancestors, cultivate Hu Suiji", adding new connotations to the genealogy.

This revision of the genealogy has the important significance of inheriting the past and opening up the future, and has played an important role in uniting the clansmen, inspiring future generations, and enriching the genealogical culture. In the process of writing, the editorial board members worked hard and went through hardships, and only I know the bitterness best. There were also some problems after the genealogy was printed, such as improper placement of individual photographs and mistakes in cutting, which were mainly errors in the printer's typesetting, but I was also responsible for the lax final review.

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