Rare Book Preservation Society


The Rare Book Preservation Society was founded in 1940 by Zheng Zhenduo, Zhang Shouyong, He Bingsong, Zhang Yuanji, and Zhang Fengju for the purpose of secretly acquiring and preserving rare books and manuscripts in the Shanghai Jiangnan region. These cultural assets have been accumulated by a number of famous private libraries some over 1,000 years.
They faced Japanese looting and forced sale under duress. In less than 2 years, the Society succeeded in saving over 130,000 volumes in the lands controlled by the Japanese. One hundred thirty crates were sent to Hong Kong for safekeeping. Despite their best efforts the entire collection was looted anyway when the Japanese later overran Hong Kong. Fortunately after WWII and the Japanese surrender, Zhang Fengju 张凤举 was sent to Japan April 1946 and recovered the collection after working closely with the U.S. Occupation forces in Tokyo. These were successively shipped back to Shanghai for the National Central Library 中央图书馆.

Background and Events

After Pearl Harbor in 1940, the full scale Japanese invasion of China began. They controlled the entire coast of China except technically for the French Concessions.
Altogether 130,000 books were acquired for the National Central Library by the Society.

Progress Reports

Of Zheng Zhenduo's 9 reports, one page from each report is displayed on the website about this activity. The following excerpts give a flavor.
The Rare Book Preservation Society was organized in January 1940. It began the secret activities immediately and continued until December 1941 when full scale Japanese invasion began and their military took over the administration of the Vichy French Concession in Shanghai. In this span of two years they acquired 4864 groups of books and texts consisting of 48,000 volumes, as recorded in Zhang Fengju's diaries. These included the choice from the Chang family Siyuan 张氏适园, Liu family Jiayetang 刘氏嘉业堂, Deng family Dengbilou 江宁邓氏群碧楼, Shen family Hairilou 嘉兴沈氏海日楼, Ju family Tieqingtonjian Pavilion 常熟瞿氏铁琴铜剑楼.
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Current research does not agree upon the total number of books acquired. Due to wartime conditions and the physical moves of the library, the records are incomplete and scattered. The lowest number is 40–50,000 individual books. The most widely accepted number is over 100,000. The National Central Library Rare Books Collection lists 130,000. It was a huge book acquisition undertaking under difficult time and physical constraints.
The books were successively shipped in crates to Hong Kong for safekeeping. The Japanese overran the colony after Pearl Harbor Incident and looted the entire crated collection shipping to Tokyo.

Sequel after WWII Victory

Key members of the Society assumed different roles in the Chinese government in 1945. Zhu Jiahua 朱家骅 became Minister of Education and sent Zhang Fengju 张凤举 to Japan April 1946 as part of the Occupation Mission to recover this collection among others. Since he took part in the original acquisition and was fluent in Japanese, English and French, it took less than a week to identify and locate this main collection in the Ueno Imperial Library. He knew the Japanese cataloger as well. And by December, it was on its way to Shanghai. These sequel events are in the handwritten diaries of Zhang now in the National Central Library.

Li Bai Tang Poem

This is an example of the rare manuscripts and books in the collection. An image above is a screen shot of a unique 17th century proof manuscript of the Tang Poems 唐诗 for use by the Kangxi era imperial editing committee of the Siku Quanshu 四庫全書 compendium. The image below shows a partial page from the printed Kangxi imperial edition of Tang anthology, a part of the printed Siku. The poem "Contemplation of Moonlight" 静夜思 is by Li Bai 李白, 701-762 a.d. He was in exile and pining for his homeland. Li Bai was a master in the use of vivid imagery. Here the cool moon beam and frost emphasize the coolness in his heart as he thinks of his homeland. Every school child used to learn this poem by heart.
Li Bai Poem 李白 静夜思 "Contemplating Moonlight"Image of Kangxi edition page


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Moonlight before my bed
Perhaps frost on the ground.
Lift my head and see the moon
Lower my head and pine for home.


Notes: This is an old Chinese printing format. Each vertical line of the poem text is in large characters. Beneath each line is an annotation about the line. These are in half size characters so that there are two lines of notes beneath each line of poem. For the first line of the poem there are two notes below. The notes refer to two earlier poems about the same subject by two ancient emperor poets. Chinese poets often compose verse which use the same subject matter as others, sometimes even with the same names. In this competition Li Bai's few words far outstrips his imperial competition.
Some additional background points:
  1. Annotation note quotes a Wei dynasty poem by Emperor WenDi about the moonlight on his bed.
  2. Annotation note quotes a Liang dynasty emperor YuanDi about moonlight.
  3. Different editions may have slight differences in words. This edition has one or two words which are different from most contemporary editions. The words here are thought to be the original; in the Ming dynasty it was common practice to alter poetry to contain the dynasty's name 明 míng.
  4. The book "SiKu" is a compendium of "all" Chinese printed matter compiled by order of the Kangxi Emperor. Over 300 scholars convened in Beijing for this effort of about 20 years.
  5. This is a partial page, the first 2 full lines of the poem are shown. Old Chinese text is read top to bottom in a vertical line and vertical lines from right to left ).