Without silk, there would be no Zhoucun.

Silk is a mysterious red silk thread, which led China out of the Oriental Pavilion ... Westerners' initial understanding of China began with silk. As early as the 3rd century BC, the historical and geographical documents of Greece, Rome and India recorded the "Ju Lushi State" in the East, which means "Silk" in Greek, and "Ju Lushi State" is the "Silk State"-China. Silk is the symbol of China and Zhoucun. Zhoucun is famous for its silk at home and abroad. ...

After Qin Shihuang unified China, he led a mighty entourage to inspect various places. He stood on Zhifu Mountain, looked at the magnificent sea, followed the advice of Taoist Xu Fu, formed a huge fleet, and went out to sea to seek immortality and medicine. In addition to 3000 boys and girls, the ship was also loaded with porcelain and silk produced in the same place. For this batch of silk, tens of thousands of people in Yuling worked day and night on silk and textiles, and dedicated the best Wan Qi and Lu Mao to the Almighty Emperor. In Binzhou, 100 miles away from Zhoucun, there is a landscape called "Qintai"-which means that Qin Shihuang looks at the sea from it.

When the wheel of time turned to the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang ascended the throne after the Chu-Han War. The peasant emperor, who likes to wear silk in Qi, ordered the establishment of three service officials in Qi. There are two or three officers engaged in silk processing throughout the country, who specialize in weaving silk products for royal and foreign gifts. Qi, represented by Yuling and Linzi, was one of them, accounting for the vast majority of domestic silk production at that time. In Hanshu, Changshan County, where Zhoucun belonged at that time, was described as "vulgar and versatile" and "Qi County customs, and men were mostly ploughing mulberry".

In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the silk weaving industry in Zhoucun was mostly hand-made. In the mid-Qing Dynasty, silk workshops were constantly emerging. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, silk merchants from all over the country had invested and set up factories in Zhoucun, which developed into the center of Shandong silk industry. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong of Qing Dynasty, the local chronicles of Zichuan recorded: "The local products are rich in silk, and every spring they compare with households ... Although they can reel silk, they are sold to merchants in Zhoucun to weave cloth." At that time, sericulture had become the main industry of local people. Every summer, the silk market is extremely prosperous. Most of the cocoons produced in nearby areas are transported to Zhoucun market for sale. The folk song "Mulberry plants are all over the field, every family raises silkworms, and every family weaves silks and satins" vividly reproduces the prosperity of Zhoucun silk industry at that time.

1894, a new type of pedal loom invented in Japan entered Zhoucun, and the labor efficiency was improved by two or three times. At the beginning of the 20th century, Suu silk expanding technology was introduced from the south, which made the silk reeling industry in Zhoucun transition from manual operation to semi-mechanized operation, and the quality of silk reeling was obviously improved. At the same time, machine-made silk appeared. 19 1 1 year, Yuhoutang Silk Factory took the lead in installing a steam engine. 19 19, the power station of Tongfeng electric power reeling company was established, and electricity was applied to the reeling process. 1920, Hutchison Machine Repair Workshop introduced the ironwood jacquard from Tianjin, which replaced the original wooden jacquard, and the work efficiency was improved by more than 35%, and the product quality was greatly improved. 1930 shunxing chengjifang purchased four electric silk looms from Tianjin, and the electricity was applied to the silk weaving process.

Around the opening of Zhoucun Port, there appeared four mechanical reeling factories, Hengxingde, Yuhoutang, Tongfeng and Yuanfeng, which were the earliest and largest modern enterprises in northern China. These factories have imported more than 600 Italian silk reeling machines, powered by steam engines, and the production efficiency has doubled. Therefore, as a businessman, Li Jingyi, the pioneer of Yuhoutang, was awarded the title of Wen by the emperor, and even his wife made an exception as a Confucian scholar, which is an unprecedented honor. In the early years of the Republic of China, the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce of the Republic of China gave Yu Houtang the evaluation of "caring about the pilot and persevering in management". In recognition of his contribution to the modernization of China's national industry, the President of the Republic of China awarded the Seventh Golden Harvest Medal. At the same time, Tongli Company specialized in developing silk production technology appeared in Zhoucun. In the north of China, it took the lead in establishing a specialized institution to cultivate high-quality mulberry trees, cultivate excellent silkworm cocoon varieties and improve silk reeling processing technology, and opened the first specialized school for silk technology, thus forming a complete silk production, scientific research and trade system in Zhoucun.

After the TV series "Big Dyeing Workshop", which tells the arduous pioneering course of Chen Shouting in troubled times, was broadcast in the prime time of CCTV, Zhoucun Big Dyeing Workshop became famous from then on. This TV series is directly based on Zhoucun. In the middle of Qing Dynasty, silk printing and dyeing rose, and Zhoucun gradually became a famous silk processing base in China. By the eve of the opening of Zhoucun in the 26th year of Guangxu (1900), there were more than 40 pulp mills and 70 dyehouses in Zhoucun. There is a well-preserved dyehouse at No.37 Yinzishi Street, which is the former site of Donglaisheng Silk Cloth Village and was built in Qing Dynasty. The business model of dyehouse is similar to the TV series Big Dyehouse. First complete the original capital accumulation in Zhoucun, and then set up semicolons in Jinan, Qingdao, Tianjin, Beijing and other places. The main business is dyeing and finishing the acquired silk grey cloth, and then wholesale it. During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, the capital of Donglai Shengsibu Village reached 32,000 silver, and merchants came in an endless stream. ......

19 16 or so, there are 3,000 silk weavers in Zhoucun, more than 5,000 acres of mulberry fields, 6,000 spinning machines and tens of thousands of employees. The annual output value of silk, hemp and other products reached more than 4 million yuan, accounting for 63.2% of the province's 656.5438+0 billion yuan. 193 1 year, the silk output reached a record 3 million pieces. The silk industry is unprecedentedly prosperous. The Map of Modern China published by 1939 records: "Zhoucun silk weaving industry is developed, and its silk, crepe, silk and silk are the first in Shandong." Bai Juyi, a great poet in the Tang Dynasty, once described the exquisiteness of silk as "weaving from heaven to earth", and Zhoucun's silk deserves such praise.

Walking on the "street", you can feel the silk culture everywhere. In those days, Yonghe Silk Shop, Tonghe Silk Shop, Fuyuan Silk Shop, Henghe Silk Shop, Tongtai Silk Shop, Tongsheng Silk Shop, Tailai Silk Shop, Renhe Silk Shop, Ruifuxiang Silk Shop, Yumao Palace Silk Shop and Qinghe Yongsi Shop on the old street ... I think there are a lot of traffic in front of the door every day, and merchants from Northeast China, Northwest China, South China and abroad are in an endless stream ... It is they that constitute China's veritable name.

Silk Market Street and Silk Market Street in Zhoucun are ancient streets that have been developing continuously since the Tang and Song Dynasties. The Silk Market Street, which has a history of thousands of years, is full of vicissitudes of buildings, with antique streets and Wangyunmen overlooking the ancient Silk Road. The long stone road, the ancient silk shop in Linshu, the air is filled with the unique smell of fresh cocoons, and there are still strands of raw silk in the barn. Camel Cliff, although there is no lake and willow shadow in the past, it seems that you can still hear camel bells coming from the wind, as if you can still see the travel-stained figure of businessmen in the western regions of Datang. In Huamei Store, mountain-like summer sleeping bags are made of high-quality wool and camel hair. Outside Ruifuxiang store, the bus ready for a long trip is gold, silk and brocade …

In a sense, the civilization of Zhoucun depends on the production and circulation of silk. Without silk, there would be no Zhoucun. In a sense, there would be no silk circulation without the ancient road.