一

　　宝剑与青瓷渐次发展，使龙泉成为远近闻名的城市。

　　最早的龙泉城，应是由于欧冶子在龙泉铸剑而形成的。铸剑要选矿挖矿炼矿，伐木烧炭，铸剑磨剑，它是一个系统工程，每个环节必然都要由一大批人来完成。无论这些人是从外地或是从龙泉乡下而来，他们长年累月聚集在一起，便有了当时的城市雏形。

　　龙泉城的形成是在隋唐时期，南北统一、京杭大运河开通、休养生息的政策，促进了江南经济的快速繁荣。唐代龙泉置县，直接带动龙泉城的发展。尽管秦始皇统一之后，朝廷禁止民间生产武器，而从李白《送羽林陶将军》“万里横戈探虎穴，三杯拔剑舞龙泉”的诗句中，我们可以断定，当时龙泉宝剑的生产早已如火如荼。

　　龙泉城的第三次发展应是在宋元时期。南宋时政治中心南移，迁入龙泉的人口大增。越窑的没落，大批技工的转移，远离兵乱的龙泉成为了出口瓷的重要生产基地，青瓷技术发生革命性进步，并成为了中国瓷业中心。这一时期，龙泉城市经济空前发达。据史料记载，在宋元时代，“瓯江两岸，瓷窑林立，烟火相望，江中运瓷船只来往如织”。

　　龙泉城市发展的第四个黄金时期是在明代。到了明代前期，龙泉青瓷迎来了第二个高峰期，不少龙泉窑还为宫庭烧制御用品。尽管到了明中后期，龙泉青瓷业开始没落，然而龙泉的治矿、造纸、纺织业仍空前发达。据史料记载，明代，岁“上贡历日黄白纸五万三千七百九十六张”。明代龙泉有铜矿、银矿、铁矿等，成化《处州府志》记载：“岁赋铅治课钞五百九十锭二贯一百文，铜钱五千九百四十文。”加之这一时间，香菇生产的兴起，使龙泉在许多方面的技术都处于全国领先方面，不仅使龙泉成为当时名副其实的工业城市，积累了多种技术，在各个生产领域也均领先于人。

　　清代中期，龙泉宝剑生产又迎来了新发展，如今一批生产龙泉宝剑的百年老字号，都是源于那一时期。

　　新中国成立后，宝剑、青瓷生产相继得到了恢复，还涌现出了一大批大师级的人物，他们传承技艺，弘扬文化，再创剑瓷的辉煌，也再次吸引世人对龙泉的注目，推动了龙泉城走向繁荣。

　　二

　　龙泉人，有才情。

　　剑养神气，瓷润生活，龙泉剑瓷滋润着历代的龙泉人。

　　南宋中期，有“括苍（古县名，治所在今浙江丽水东南一带）达官最盛”的说法。而其中，龙泉与青田是最为显著的。龙泉有三大家庭，在南宋朝都有一定的影响，分别为何氏家族、叶氏家族和管氏家族。

　　何氏是龙泉的旺族，宋史专门记载了曾任知政事的何澹是个大帅哥，“美姿容，善谈论”。而他的先人何执中受到曾巩的欣赏，担任过宋徽宗的老师，在北宋时两度为相。而何家最早出名的是何琬，何琬职不高，但是影响非常大，与苏轼、陈师道、秦观、释道潜等人都有所交集。宋神宗曾书有屏风称：政事何琬，文章叶涛。可谓对龙泉人的重视。

　　叶氏家族的叶涛，是王安石变法的追随者，宋神宗曾对其文章大加赞赏。而龙泉叶氏，还有大家熟悉的叶绍翁，他的“满园春色关不住，一枝红杏出墙来”，真可谓是千古名句，而其所著的《四朝闻见录》也具有非常高的史料价值。叶氏的子孙叶适则是永嘉学派的代表人物，其主张“经世致用，义利并举”的功利思想，作为儒家学派中的一种重要思想，引领中国社会发展。

　　龙泉的管氏，也名不虚传，管师仁是北宋的知名副相，宋徽宗曾点赞说：“有臣如此，朕复何忧!”管师仁的弟弟管师复也是饱学之士，但他隐居故里，称为卧云先生，有诗文传世。

　　莫言就是管氏后人，前些年他曾回龙泉认祖归宗，因为山东高密管氏是从浙江龙泉迁过去的，莫言表示，“这在高密的管氏族谱上有详尽记载，当年管氏先祖生活在龙泉石马岗”，“我应该是高密管氏的第二十四代子孙、龙泉管氏的第三十六代子孙”。

　　（图片来自“视觉中国”）

　　Longquan:City of History and Culture

In history, swords and celadon made Longquan, a city in the south of Zhejiang Province in eastern China. Today, Longquan is a city of legends, history and culture.

The birth of Longquan goes back to Ou Ye Zi, a sword-making master in Longquan who made the country’s best swords. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine that sword-making of that time was a system that needed the synergy of different craftspeople, engaged in raw metal mining, smelting, wood-cutting, charcoal-making, sword making, and polishing. This system would need qualified professionals who lived conveniently in close neighborhood if not in the same community. Some of them might have come from other parts of the country and some might have come from local rural communities. They worked together and gave birth to the city of Longquan.

Historians agree that Longquan transformed into a full-fledged city in the Sui Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Jiangnan (the south of the Yangtze River Delta) witnessed an economic boom during the Tang thanks to the unification of the country and the birth of the great canal system that stretched from present-day Hangzhou to the central China. In the Tang, Longquan became a county in the national government system. Though weapon making in the private sector was banned by the government as of the Qin Dynasty (221-207BC), sword-making masters somewhat survived in Longquan.

The third developmental boom of Longquan occurred during the Song (960-1279). The royal house of the Song dynasty came south and founded the Southern Song in Hangzhou. A large number of people followed the royal house and the population in the south boomed. As the Yue Kiln in the eastern part of Zhejiang declined, a large number of skilled potters came south to Longquan, making it into China’s powerhouse of celadon making. During this period, Longquan exported a large quantity of porcelains to the international market. According to historical literature, the Ou River was flanked by rows of kilns on the river banks and ships came and went busily during the Song and the subsequent Yuan (1279-1368).

The fourth boom of the city came in the Ming (1368-1644). In the early part of the dynasty, some kilns custom-made celadon wares for the royal house of the Ming. Though celadon making in Longquan began to deteriorate during the second half of the Ming, other industries such as mining and smelting, paper-making, and textile industries prospered in this small city, which was tucked conveniently away from war and chaos. In a sense, Longquan remained a leading industrial center of the country at that time.

It was not until the middle of the Qing (1644-1911) that sword-making staged a big comeback in Longquan. Some sword-making brands flourishing today in Longquan were born during that miraculous comeback.

The birth of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 brought on a renaissance of celadon and sword-making in Longquan. The restoration has given birth to a generation of masters and boosted the development of Longquan.

Longquan has more than industry. It has culture. While the Southern Song Dynasty sat in Hangzhou and ruled the country from there, three families in Longquan were made famous by the talented people they produced. The Ye family produced statesmen and poets. The glory of the three families in Longquan started long before the Southern Song. He Zhizhong (1044-1118) from Longquan served as a private tutor to a crown prince and later served as prime minister twice. He Wan, though never a high-ranking court official, was befriended by many contemporary poets such as Su Dongpo, Chen Shidao, Qin Guan. Ye Tao (1050-1110) from Longquan was an excellent essayist and his prose style was highly appreciated by an emperor. Ye Shaoweng (1200-1250), a poet of the Southern Song, wrote a short poem titled Visiting a Private Garden without Success. It has remained one of the best known poems in China.

The Guan Family in Longquan prospered during the Song. Guan Shiren (1045-1109) served as a vice prime minister during the Northern Song. His younger brother Guan Shifu was a prominent scholar, but chose not to work as a statesman.

Mo Yan, 2012’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Laureate, is a descendent of the Guan Family in Longquan. His family in Gaomi County, Shandong Province originally hailed from Longquan. This fact is written in the genealogy of the Mo clan in Gaomi. Mo Yan, born as Guan Moye, is a 24th-generation descendent of the Guan clan in Gaomi, which equals a 36th-generation descendent of the Guan clan in Longquan. In August 2010, the novelist visited his ancestral roots in Longquan.