Shanlian Town

Shanlian Town

Shanlian Town is located in the central part of Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province. It borders Lianzhen Town and Shuanglin Town to the east, Xinshi Town of Deqing County to the south, Shicong and Qianjin Towns of Linghu to the west, and Morong Township to the north. The town has long been known as the "Hometown of Lake Brushes" and the "Sacred Land of Silkworm Flowers."

Shanlian Town has a long history. According to the Qing Dynasty’s *Huzhou Prefecture Records*, the town is located seventy li southeast of the prefectural city and was also called Shanhuan (Shanlian), named after the four bridges in the marketplace—Fushan, Qingshan, Yishan, and Baoshan—which connected the shops and markets and resembled a tied bundle of silk ribbons, hence the name Shanhuan. Furthermore, records from Jiaxing and Huzhou local chronicles indicate that by the early Qing Dynasty, Shanlian already had between one thousand to several thousand households, bustling with merchants and shops, making it highly prosperous. This shows that it was already one of the important towns in the water towns of southern Jiangnan.

Shanlian Town is the birthplace of the Lake Brush, the foremost of China’s Four Treasures of the Study, and is renowned as the "Capital of Lake Brushes." In this ancient town, almost every household has brush makers and produces Lake Brushes, with exquisite craftsmanship celebrated far and wide. The production of each Lake Brush involves twelve processes: selecting materials, initial shaping, washing and soaking, bundling, casing, horn inlaying, hair selection, and engraving. Each process consists of several sub-steps, totaling more than 120 steps in the entire manufacturing procedure, which is why it's said that "the art of brush-making surpasses all under heaven." The Lake Brushes produced in Shanlian come in five main types: sheep hair, weasel hair, purple rabbit hair, mixed hair (a blend of sheep and rabbit hair or sheep and weasel hair), and chicken feather hair. Each type embodies the unique characteristics of being sharp (fine pointed tip), even (neatly trimmed), round (plump and smooth), and strong (firm and resilient).