Liaocheng Haiyuan Pavilion

Liaocheng Haiyuan Pavilion

Liaocheng Haiyuan Pavilion is a cultural relic protection unit of Shandong Province.

Haiyuan Pavilion is situated in the Yang family residence on the north side of Wanshouguan Street, south of Guangyue Tower in Liaocheng, Shandong. It is one of the most famous private libraries in Chinese history. Built in 1840 during the Qing Dynasty by Yang Yizeng, a successful candidate in the imperial examination that year, the library was carefully preserved by four generations of the Yang family. It amassed a collection of over 4,000 types and more than 220,000 volumes, among which over 10,000 were rare editions from the Song and Yuan dynasties. It embodies the crystallization of wisdom from ancient Han Chinese laborers. With sections such as the "Hall of Four Classics and Four Histories" and being hailed as the "Palace of Langhuan and the Mountain of Jewels"... it has received high praise from numerous academic authorities as one of the most prestigious libraries in China’s bibliographic history.

Haiyuan Pavilion, together with the "Iron Qin and Copper Sword Tower" of Qu Shaoji in Changshu, Jiangsu, the "Bisong Tower" of Lu Xinyuan in Wuxing, Zhejiang, and the "Eight Thousand Volume Tower" of Ding Shen and Ding Bing in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, are collectively known as the Four Great Libraries of the Qing Dynasty. Among them, the Yang and Qu families possessed the largest collections of Song and Yuan printed books and handwritten manuscripts, earning them the esteemed title of "Qu in the South, Yang in the North," highly revered by scholars both at home and abroad.

The Haiyuan Pavilion library building is a single-eave, gable-and-hip roof structure facing south, with three bays in width and two stories in height. The lower level served as the Yang family ancestral hall, housing memorial tablets of the Yang ancestors, while the upper level was used to store precious Song and Yuan editions as well as hand-copied books. In front of the library lies a long, narrow courtyard, with two covered elevated reading pavilions on the eastern side. The east side of the ground floor leads to a passageway to the backyard, and the fourth courtyard of the Yang residence houses the Ming and Qing edition collections of Haiyuan Pavilion. The central plaque above the upper-level door bears the gilded characters “Haiyuan Pavilion,” personally inscribed by Yang Yizeng, with an inscription by Yang himself on the back of the plaque. The Haiyuan Pavilion's vast collection is the result of dedicated efforts by four generations of the Yang family. Yang Baoyi, the fourth-generation descendant, compiled the *Catalog of Song and Yuan Rare Books of Haiyuan Pavilion* and the *Catalog of Haiyuan Pavilion*, totaling over 208,300 volumes. There are many additional works not listed in the catalogs. Later, due to wars and successive destructions, most of the books were lost, with only a small portion eventually transferred to the National Library of China and the Shandong Provincial Library.

The Party and government have placed great importance on Haiyuan Pavilion. As early as January 1947, during the liberation of Liaocheng, a certain Eighth Route Army unit issued three entry orders for the city, the second of which was “to protect the Haiyuan Pavilion Library, one of China’s four great book collections.” In December 1956, the People's Government of Shandong Province listed Haiyuan Pavilion as one of the first batch of provincial-level key cultural relic protection units. To promote national culture and advance opening-up, the Liaocheng municipal government raised substantial funds to restore Haiyuan Pavilion in October 1992. The rebuilt pavilion stands on its original site, retaining its traditional structure—a single-eave, hip-and-gable roof, two stories, grey brick walls, black tiles, and red-painted beams and pillars. The main building and auxiliary rooms are all of brick-and-wood construction, featuring front eaves, steps, and wooden lattice windows, embodying the strong architectural style of a traditional northern Chinese courtyard house from the Qing Dynasty.

Further Reading:

· Third Batch of Shandong Provincial Cultural Relic Protection Units