The steps are covered with moss, and a small linden tree greets you sideways. So, I sat on the steps, under the shade of the trees, listening to the occasional sound of wooden fish in the temple, and immersed myself in the reverie about the lake brush. It was an unforgettable feeling.

Shanlian people have been passed down by word of mouth for generations, and it was when Meng Tian, a general under the command of Qin Shi Huang, stopped at Shanlian, he incorporated the fur of the mountain rabbit into the bamboo tube, thus inventing the brush.

In this legend, the only historical landmark that can be confirmed is Yongxin Temple, which is designated as the place where Meng Tian stayed.

However, its real protagonist is Wang Xizhi's seventh grandson, the Sui Dynasty calligrapher Zhiyong Zen Master, whose "permanent residence in Yongxin Temple Pavilion Linshu...... For thirty years, he received "True Grass Thousand Texts" in the pavilion. Qing Tongzhi's "Huzhou Mansion Chronicles" said, "Cover from the Zhiyong monk to the nunnery and the river to and from Yongxin Temple, the pen work is extracted here." ”

The prosperity of Shanlian Lake pen is not the work of Zhiyong alone. From the Jin Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, Huzhou successively ushered in Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi, Yan Zhenqing, Su Shi and other calligraphy masters to govern the county, and at the end of the Song Dynasty, there were Anhui Xuancheng pen workers to avoid the war, and a large number of people poured into Huzhou, Jiangnan, which was not affected by the military disaster, bringing exquisite Xuanbi skills. Previously, everyone in the world knew that there was a Xuanzhou pen, but I didn't know that Huzhou also had a pen.

Feng Yingke's wonderful pen made Zhao Mengfu able to hold the pen all day long, and write thousands of words in a day without defeat. As a result, the pen is also famous all over the world along with the master's fame. Zhao Mengfu, Feng Yingke and behind them, Huzhou pen making skills came out one after another, Shen Rixin, Wen Sheng, Yang Xianjun, Lu Ying......

The lake pen they made is famous for the sheep's hair pen and is known as the "crown of the pen". Wang Feng, director of the Huzhou Pen Dao Museum, said that "the more you use it, the better it is." It is also soft and soft, which is very suitable for the folk customs of Huzhou, which is "sensitive and soft, thick to taste".

Since then, with Shanlian as the source, a branch of the lake pen from the humble family workshop has been flowing out of a steady stream, from the wharf in the west of the town to Nanxun, Suzhou and Hangzhou, Shanghai, so as to spread the world, and Shanlian has gradually developed from a village to a market town.

The same is true of Shanlian Lake pen skills, which have been inherited from a strict and closed master-apprentice system for hundreds of years. The role of the guarantor is to prevent the apprentice from running away after learning the craft.

In addition, until the Republic of China era, the craft of the lake pen was only passed on to the locals. If you pass on your skills to outsiders, you need to apologize in front of the statue of Meng Tian in the Menggong Ancestral Hall in the town, and punish a play.

The closed secret transmission system has indeed ensured that the lake pen has been unique in the world for hundreds of years, and the pen workers have been content with monotony and loneliness for generations in such an atmosphere, while focusing on high-level craftsmanship.

The penmanship is not only monotonous, but also hard. As a result of staying immobile for many years, they generally have back injuries and stomach problems. Basin penmen like Yang Ying and Nena, who have been immersed in water for a long time, mostly suffer from chilblains and rheumatism. In the summer, the ulceration at the base of the finger will spread all the way to the palm.

Since then, the increase in the price of the lake pen is far less than the increase in the price of raw materials and labor, and the past 20 years is almost the process of the gradual compression of the profit of the lake pen. As the only controllable cost, the relative income of front-line pen workers continued to decline. Today, the monthly salary of workers in Shanlian Lake Pen Factory is about 1,000 yuan.

At present, Shanlian produces about 10 million lake pens every year, accounting for about 20% of the market share. Zhaogen, who has left the lake pen factory to find his own way out and became the owner of the town Shanghai Huabi Village, said that only in terms of market share, just like replacing the Xuanbi back then, the lake pen has been replaced by the Jiangxi Wengang brush. There are cheaper wages and a more pragmatic sense of the market.

Jiangxi pen is to add pig bristles, horse hair, nylon to the sheep's hair, the tip of the elasticity is better. However, in Zhaogen's view, the practice of increasing the elasticity of the pen with the help of external forces mainly caters to the needs of some quick calligraphers. "Beginners can't rely on the slightest strength, they should learn to use the strength of their fingers, wrists, and elbows."

However, in the face of the good momentum of Jiangxi pen production and sales, Shanlian's response is not to establish a professional marketing team to develop the market like Jiangxi people, but to passively follow Jiangxi pen, such as someone also began to add hard hair in the sheep's hair.

Indeed, many of the ancient techniques of the lake pen have now been slowly lost, such as the very characteristic "Su Yang Mao", "Su" is to let the wool sleep in the sun, natural degreasing, such a pen hair flow smoothly evenly, ink with the pen, pen to ink.

Otherwise, you have to wait for the ink to run down when you move the pen, otherwise the ink will suddenly dry out. This process would have taken three years, but now it can be completed in just 10 days and a half months by soaking in chemicals.

The restlessness has not changed the industry's predicament. The reality is that Shanlian pen workers have a meager income, can hardly maintain food and clothing, and the way of working is hard and monotonous, which can not attract the new generation of Shanlian people, and now there are less than 10 pen workers under the age of 40 in Shanlian town.

Shanlian Lake Pen Factory once had more than 500 employees, and then retired or left the factory to find their own way, and now there are only more than 70 people left. The last batch of workers entered the factory more than ten years ago.

In the current workshop, almost all of them are retirees with gray hair and reading glasses. The topic they talk about the most is "How many years do you have?" ”。

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