Shen Yuan is like the King of Jiangnan Orchid.

Shen Yuanru (1905-1979), born in a famous family, ancestors Anhui, rich family. In the early years of the Republic of China, there were thirteen joint-stock factories in Shanghai and Nanjing, mainly for weaving and general merchandise. It was rumored that the Shen family had 5,700 taels of silver and six urns of gold, which was really rich. Shen Yuanru is modest, honest, virtuous and deeply polite. In principle, he never concedes, showing his soft on the outside and hard on the inside. Shen's family began to cultivate orchid since the 14th year of the Republic of China, which can be verified from historical materials. Young love orchid into addiction, almost up to obsession, and wuxi city art orchid master contact is very close. He often went to Yang Ganqing's house to admire orchids and consult with Rong Wenqing, a famous artist of art. Shen was intelligent and diligent, and his orchid art advanced greatly. He was famous for his thirties and won the elegant title of "King Lan". There are thousands of pots of Shen Youlan Hui. In fact, this is a general statement. In fact, there were more than 500 pots of various orchids during the Republic of China. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were more than 2,000 pots in the 1950s, and the theory of thousands of pots should be in the early 1960s. In addition to orchids, Shen loves rhododendrons and camellias. There are more than 600 pots of rhododendrons. Some famous species are grafted and bred by himself.

Recently, Shen Yinchun, son of Shen Yuanru,"King of Jiangnan Lan," took the opportunity to visit relatives in Wuxi. The author talked with Shen Lao for a whole afternoon in the afternoon sunshine and listened to Shen Lao telling the little-known past of Shen Mansion in Wuxi. Shen family, Wuxi, one of the prominent families, Wuxi is now the location of the Great Oriental Department Store is the original location of Shen family mansion. Shen Yinchun's memory of the Shen family mansion, full of flowers, fragrant and pleasant, Lanyou often in the old-fashioned three-bay hall elegant gathering. Chairman Zhu De also came here twice to meet Shen Yuanru. The two gave orchids to each other and exchanged orchid arts.

Wuxi Wangzu Shen Family

Shen Yinchun's great-grandfather was originally an Anhui salt merchant. During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he moved from Anhui to Wuxi. After establishing a firm foothold in Wuxi, Shen's family mainly operated necessities for people's livelihood, including the largest sock factory in Wuxi at that time, the largest cloth store in Wuxi,"Jiusheng", Zhenjiang's new middle stem piece factory (foreign match), weaving factory, all of which were Shen's. Shen Yuanru, also known as Shen Yinchun's father, is the eldest son of the family. According to our traditional concept, it is only when the son inherits the father's work. Actually, it's not.

In the old days, rich families adhered to the rule of "the eldest son does not go out of the house", and the eldest son shouldered the family responsibility of "keeping the family property". In order to keep the eldest son at home and not run away, it is generally controlled in two ways-one is to let the eldest son play antique planting flowers, the other is to let the eldest son smoke opium. One of the ways of "smoking opium" still sounds a little strange today. But Shaykh confirmed that this was indeed the case. Therefore, Shen Yuanru began to work with flowers and plants at the age of 14. Since then, he has become attached to orchids and loves orchids until he becomes famous at home and abroad as "King of Jiangnan Orchid". Wuxi Rong Wenqing, Cao Hanmei, Rong Desheng and so on are guests, blind A Bing is often led by his wife to the door to sing.

There are many mahogany shelves specially used to place orchids in Shen family, and the selection of flower pots is also very particular. A considerable number of flower pots are famous works collected by Shen Yuanru, such as Shi Dabin Gao Tu Li Zhongfang's natural root basin, Ou Qiwei's purple sand bowl basin, Xu Youquan's purple sand basin, Chen Wenju's purple sand square flower pot, etc. At that time, the ordinary flower pots used by Shen family were designed and drawn by Shen Yuanru himself, customized from Yang Xichun of Dingshan in Yixing, with three seals of "Yuanlu,""Dinghai" and "Yang Xichun System" on the bottom or foot of the pot. Lan friends in the circle are proud to get Shen Yuanru's flowerpot.

In fact, Shen Yuanru in rhododendron, rose and other gardening attainments are quite deep. Because "Lan Wang" fame is too big, so that he obscured in other aspects of talent. Shen Yuanru's life was full of ups and downs due to orchid, and even ended with regret.

Several orchid wars between "Jiangnan Orchid King" and Japanese

In the early days of the fall of Northeast China, refugees were displaced and poured into the interior in large numbers. In 1933, Shen Yuanru held an "Orchid Fair" in Tonggeng Hall of Wuxi Public Garden and donated the ticket proceeds to the Refugee Relief Association.

In 1937, Japan's Ohara Rongjiro published a book introducing orchid varieties and cultivation,"Lanhua Spectrum," which caused a sensation in Japan after publication. This book is divided into three books, most of which are provided by Shen Yuanru. "Before this, Eijiro Ohara had sent someone to negotiate with my father to bring the precious orchid varieties collected by my father to Japan. My father said,'I can give you pictures, but I won't sell any orchids.'" See Shen Yuanru do not surrender, the Japanese instigated local ruffians persecuted Shen Yuanru, Shen Yuanru clank iron bone: "I would rather die with orchid, jade and stone are destroyed."

The Japanese saw that Shen Yuanru could not do anything about it, so they gave birth to "the plan of buying orchids at a high price" and bought rare orchids from other Lan friends at the price of "one or two gold petals". Shen Yinchun remembered that Grandpa opened his mouth and said,"As long as the Japanese bid, we will buy it at twice the price." With his father's support, Shen Yuanru said to Lan You: "You sold the flowers to the Japanese today, and there will be no orchids later." I'll take the orchids in your hands. If you still want to plant them in the future, I can give them to you." Unfortunately, the Japanese took the West God, but the Japanese failed to take Donglai, Nanding and Beichen. In this way, by the 1940s, the Shen family had concentrated almost 99% of the rare "literati orchids" in the country. Every spring, there is always an endless stream of people coming to Shen's house to admire orchids.

In 1946, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Shen Yuanru gathered art orchids and held an orchid exhibition again in Tonggeng Hall of the Public Garden, renaming the most famous cymbidium in China at that time, Cao Rong Dahe, as "Victory Dahe". "Cao Rong Da He" was named after Cao Ziyu and Rong Wenqing, famous orchids in Wuxi in 1924. In 1938, Rong Wenqing gave Shen Yuanru the only two tubes of grass left. It took 22 years before it could see a stamen and bloom in spring.

Ten years of disaster in the orchid

During the ten years of turmoil, Shen Yuanru naturally did not escape. Many materials and photos about orchids and orchid exhibitions were torn up and burned, Shen's house was seized, Shen Yuanru traveled the streets to accompany him, mentally and physically tortured. Even so, in the dead of night, Shen Yinchun and his father took great risks to sneak back to the sealed Shen residence and "steal" the important information accumulated by his father for many years and some pictures with historical value. "The walls of the Shen residence are very high, more than six feet high. I climbed on my father's shoulders, climbed the fence, and went in along the vine at home." No one could understand Shen Yinchun and his father's feelings at that time, but such a scene always made people feel heavy.

In the first two pages of Lanhua Spectrum, Ohara Rongjiro used two pictures of Shen Jialan Exhibition, but when using them, he cut out all the words related to Lan Exhibition above, leaving only the picture content, and called it Lan Exhibition of Japanese. Shen Yinchun also kept two original photos that were salvaged from the Shen residence in those years. One of them was the "Hui Lan Society" organized by Jiang Dongfu, cousin of Kuomintang elder Wu Zhihui, in the "Rice Milling Association" held in Jiangjian, Wuxi in 1933. Most of the orchids and rhododendrons belonged to the Shen family. In the face of evidence, the Japanese "self-talk" will be self-defeating.

In order to avoid the bad luck of Lan Hui being copied by the Red Guards, he donated most of his orchid treasures to the government. Unexpectedly, three years later, these orchids were actually auctioned off at Nanzen Temple at a low price of $3 per pot of flowers and $2 per pot of spring orchids. Shen Yuanru, who loved orchids all his life, saw this scene and suffered a blow to his spirit. He often stood in the empty courtyard full of abandoned basins, depressed and depressed all day, and finally went to bed with dementia. The "Victory Lotus" also disappeared in this auction.

At that time, Shen Yinchun was working as a porter in Wuxi Aquatic Products Company and fruit warehouse. From morning shift to middle shift to evening shift, he kept working all the time, only to earn ten yuan more overtime pay and grab two more pots of orchids that were "auctioned" back.

At that time, the Shen family's life was quite tight. In the most difficult times, they relied on the grape tree in the Shen residence to make a living. The grape variety was named "Jiachuan Sanchi". The main stem was as thick as a bowl, and the fruit was a long string. It tasted like honey and had a rose fragrance. There was an old king in Wuxi Sanyang who bought "Jiachuan Three Feet" at a high price when he saw that Shen's family was sad. Shen Yinchun has always been grateful to Lao Wang, but things have changed. After Shen Yinchun went to the United States in 1984, he returned to Wuxi several times to visit relatives without any news of Lao Wang.

There was also a black plum plant planted in the Shen residence. The plum blossoms were dark purple. Unfortunately, Jiachuan Sanchi and Mo Mei had disappeared along with the Shen family in the long river of history.

family order

Love orchid life, art orchid life, to the end is desolate. This blow was fatal to Shen Yuanru, so much so that Shen Yuanru left her son with the last words,"Don't plant orchids." He said,"My father is jealous. The light of your father will cover you, just like Mei Lanfang, he is so successful, how can the younger generation surpass it, you go to do miniature bonsai bar. Father also cited Liu Adou as an example, telling me that Liu Adou looks stupid, but in fact, he has a philosophy of 'great wisdom and ignorance.'"

The facts proved Shen Yuanru's foresight. Today, with the success of Shen Yinchun's miniature bonsai, and with the appearance of such academic works as Azalea, Chinese Potted Plant and Bonsai Art, and World Rare Azalea Illustrations, Shen Yinchun has become a focal point in the international horticultural community. In fact, this is inevitable for Shen Yinchun. When Shen Yuanru was alive, his research on rhododendron, camellia and rose was not inferior to orchids, and it was also an orderly family tradition. Up to now, Shen Yinchun still retains the written records of his father's cultivation of "Huangshan Tea"(the color shows golden yellow).

Every spring when Shen Yinchun returned to Wuxi to visit relatives, he would stay in his brother's small garden of about ten square meters for a while, where dozens of pots of rhododendrons and orchids were kept, all planted in very common green tile flower pots. The rhododendrons always bloomed brilliantly, but a few pots of orchids were very inconspicuous. But Shen Yinchun said that it was all left by his father Shen Yuanru for some years. Now that he was 78 years old, he didn't know how many times he could return.