What is the history of Liubiju?
Liubiju Sauce Garden began in the ninth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1530) and has a history of more than 470 years. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious time-honored brands in Beijing. Liubiju Sauce Garden is located at No. 3 Liangdian Street, Qianmen. The house on the front is an ancient Chinese wooden structure. It was renovated in 1994 and still maintains the antique architectural style. The large gold plaque with "Liubiju" hanging in the Liubiju store was written by Yan Song, the prime minister of the Ming Dynasty. Although this plaque suffered several disasters, it is still well preserved and has become a rare treasure.
The meaning of the Six Bijus is: the millet and rice must be in good condition, the tillers must be strong, the fire must be clean, the pottery must be good, the fire must be good, and the water spring must be fragrant. The "Six Musts" in terms of production and operation technology can be explained as follows: the materials must be of the highest quality, the cutting materials must be truthful, the production process must be clean, the heat must be controlled appropriately, the equipment must be excellent, and the spring water must be pure and fragrant.
1. Inheritance relationship
The physical evidence provided by Liubiju documents proves that Liubiju Company has gone through three stages of development and changed its owner three times without changing its name. The first stage is Liubiju with the surname Guo, which began in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. The documents and files owned by Liubiju were carefully preserved. In the Gengzi Year (1900), the Bingxian store was reduced to ashes and all the documents and files were burned. In the 11th year of the Republic of China (1922), Liubiju applied for a supplementary license. At that time, the Jingshi Oil, Wine, Vinegar, and Salt Merchant Association issued a supplementary deed. Both the application form and the supplementary deed for this incident have been preserved. The supplementary deed stated six The history of Biju states that "the business name was originally located in a business named Guo in Liubiju on the west side of Liangdian Street Road outside Qianmenwai in the ninth year of Jiajing in the former Ming Dynasty (1530)." It can be seen from this that the Liubiju business name existed as early as nine years before Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty. The owner's surname was Guo, and he dealt in grain and rice. This should be the earliest Liubiju. The second stage was Liubiju, a partnership of three surnames, which existed in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. A house sale deed from the second year of Daoguang (1832) was found in Yaomiao Township, Linfen, Shanxi Province, the hometown of the owner of Liubiju. The deed stated that the surname Guo was the sole proprietor of Liubiju and felt unable to do so, so he recruited Zhao Bi and Yuan Zhu as shareholders. , if the three families open together, they will surely live in six. At that time, the store was quite large, with "six and a half rooms on the top row in front of the door, six and a half rooms on Baoqiao, and six and a half rooms on the next door... There are three rooms in the south wing, five rooms in the gray platform in Beiping, five rooms in the south bottom with tiles, and a west hall. There are five rooms, a road on the north side, and a gray room on the north side facing the street. There are fifty-four rooms in a row, and there is a well in the courtyard.
The upper and lower floors are connected by wooden and earth stone walls. "The third stage is. Liubiju named Zhao began in the second year of Daoguang (1832). It can also be seen from the above-mentioned house deed that in the second year of Daoguang (1832), "because the Guo and Yuan families were unable to do this, now the Guo Guifang and Yuan Zhu families are willing to use this house, shop, furniture, and business as a basis for their own needs. All other matters were thoroughly clarified, and they were merged and sold under Zhao's name, and they will be the property forever." At that time, Zhao Bi invested four thousand taels of silver to buy out the shares of Guo and Yuan. From then on, Liubiju was basically solely owned by the Zhao family until it was a public-private partnership after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The oil lamps and divine tablets from the 23rd year of Daoguang, the account books from the Xianfeng and Tongzhi years, the purple altar key box and abacus from the 5th year of Guangxu, the merit tablets from the 19th year of Guangxu, and the general ledger from the late Qing and early Ming dynasties are all preserved by Zhao. A relic from the time when the family was running Liubiju.
When the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing, Liubiju was burned to the ground. It was renovated and opened the following year. In 1935, the store's pickles won an award at the Qingdao "Railway Produced Goods Exhibition" and were sold overseas. During the Cultural Revolution, Liubiju Sauce Garden was renamed Beijing Xuanwu Pickle Factory Sales Department, and a new factory was built in Nanyuan in 1985.
2. Management characteristics
The reason why Liubiju’s pickles are famous is inseparable from its meticulous selection of ingredients and strict production. The raw materials of Liubiju pickles have fixed origins. Liubiju makes its own yellow sauce and sweet white sauce, and its soybeans are selected from Majuqiao, Fengrun County, Hebei and Yongle, Tongzhou. The soybeans from these two places are plump, yellow in color and oily. For example, cucumbers not only need to have smooth strips, but also have thorny flowers on the top, with a size of four to six per kilogram; small pickled radish also requires four to six stalks per kilogram. The white flour is selected from Laishui County in the west of Beijing. It is first-class wheat. This kind of wheat is highly sticky. Liubiju processes it into fine white flour by itself. This kind of white flour is suitable for making sweet noodle sauce.
Liubiju has a set of strict operating procedures for making pickles, and one person is responsible for all the procedures. For example, to make sauce, first soak the beans and steam them, mix them with white flour, press them on a roller, put them in a mold, put them on a cloth and stamp them with your feet for 10 to 15 days, then pull them into three strips, chop them into pieces, and put them on a rack. After loading, seal tightly with mat and let it ferment. In the later stages of fermentation, keep using a brush to remove the white hairs on the sauce. After 21 days, the sauce will be ready. It is this strict operating procedure that ensures the quality of Liubiju pickles.
Liubiju’s self-produced and sold pickles were selected as imperial delicacies in the Qing Dynasty due to their exquisite processing skills, bright color, crisp and tender fragrance, rich sauce flavor, and moderate salty and sweet taste. To facilitate delivery, the Qing court also gave Liu Biju a red tassel hat and a yellow mantle. These two hats were kept until 1966. Liubiju also has a set of methods in business management. Liubiju has hundreds of years of business experience. One of the rules is that no one is allowed to overspend or extend the funds in the store, and no one is in debt for external operations. Liubiju also stipulates that there are no third masters (i.e. young master, aunt and uncle) in the store. Most of the people at the front store counter are from Linfen and Xiangfen counties in Shanxi.