Features of Yangcheng Tissue

The paper is smooth and blemish-free, soft and silky, pure white and finely textured, thin as a cicada's wing, with neat edges and strong tensile strength. It comes in various sizes including 4K, 1.3 feet, and 8 inches, measured in tons, reams, or sheets—one ton equals 2,000 reams, with each ream containing 80 sheets. In the past, our ancestors utilized local resources, employing traditional methods to produce and sell their own paper, thereby providing essential supplies for daily life. During traditional festivals like Qingming, the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, and the first day of the tenth lunar month, people would purchase large quantities of this handmade paper for ancestral memorial rituals.

In daily life, substantial quantities of packaging paper and other paper products were also used, such as for pasting windows and dusting. Beyond this, many calligraphy and painting enthusiasts regarded it as an essential practice material, valuing the unique qualities of inexpensive Yangcheng cotton paper over traditional Xuan paper for their art. Its strong tensile strength made it highly suitable for mounting and pasting. Notably, during the later stages of the War of Resistance Against Japan, when the Taiyue Administrative Office was stationed in Yangcheng, the printing paper for its official newspaper, Xinhua Daily, was supplied by Xiakong Village. Villagers maintained a daily output of 0.15 tons of handmade paper, ensuring the newspaper's uninterrupted publication.

Before the agricultural collectivization movement in the 1950s, Xiacun villagers produced paper by hand in family workshops. After collectivization, the village established mutual aid groups and then a paper production cooperative to centralize production. Following the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, individual household papermaking revived. Records indicate that paper production alone accounted for over 40% of the village's total income. By the mid-1990s, rapid growth in collective and private enterprises led to labor migration from the village. Compounded by factors like rising raw material costs and market price fluctuations, traditional household papermaking gradually declined.