"Don't set up a flag for yourself", many young people in contemporary times, after vowing to set a goal, succumb to reality within a few days, and can only helplessly claim that their flag has fallen. However, the things that set up flags for themselves and release "big words" and cannot be returned are not exclusive to contemporary young people, and there was a literati who loved to "speak wildly" during the Republic of China period.
The years of the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic were said to be melancholy and dark for most people, but there were always some literati who insisted on ringing the alarm bell over and over again, hoping to wake up the sleeping people. Probably due to the different environments in which they grew up, some literati were committed to nostalgia, while others fought fiercely, especially Qian Xuantong.
Qian Xuantong was born in 1913, like Lu Xun, a native of Zhejiang, and also born into a family of old feudal bureaucrats. It was just that Lu Xun's family had collapsed when he was a child, and the pedantry of etiquette no longer existed, but Qian Xuantong always had to endure the torture of feudal ritualism such as the Three Principles and Five Constants when he was young, and in order to break free from the unshakable etiquette, Qian Xuantong chose the most radical way of resistance.
Qian Xuantong's attitude towards "Gu" can be described as "hateful" and harsh, and he himself changed his name to "Xuan Tong", also for the sake of "doubting Gu Xuan Tong". In 1904, at the age of 18, Qian Xuantong walked out of the house, cut off his hair in braids and began to start the Huzhou Vernacular Newspaper to show his intention to break away from the Qing Dynasty.
At the age of 20, Qian Xuantong lived a warm and passionate life, he also zhang Taiyan, Qiu Jin and other people went to waseda University to study, and after returning to China, he studied chinese studies and phonology with Lu Xun, Huang Kan and others, which laid the foundation for him to study modern Chinese later, but it also made Qian Xuantong firm in his mind to reform the literary language and develop Hanyu Pinyin.
In the eyes of modern people, Qian Xuantong is quite radical, not to mention that in that era when the vast majority of people were numb, Qian Xuan was surrounded by the crusade of "counting the classics and forgetting the ancestors" at the same time, and even the comrades of the New Culture Movement were dissatisfied and did not understand him.
But it is precisely because of such a "strong medicine" as Qian Xuantong that many people have woken up, and even Lu Xun, who is 6 years older than him, has also been affected by him. In 1917, Lu Xun's attitude was more pessimistic, he felt that even if he wrote an article, it was useless, even if he woke up a few people, those people would only feel pain and misfortune.
Qian Xuantong advised that as long as someone wakes up, there is hope. Lu Xun was suddenly enlightened when he listened, and after half a year of silence, he wrote a deafening text, China's first vernacular novel, "The Diary of a Madman". It is precisely for this reason that some people believe that if there is no Solution from Qian Xuantong, there may no longer be the name "Lu Xun" in the world.
Qian Xuantong also did a strange thing in order to promote the new cultural movement, he and Liu Bannong performed a "double reed play", while playing the old stubborn scolding the new culture, and at the same time playing the new culture supporters to scold the old stubborn, everyone was addicted to watching, the most important thing is that the opponents of the new cultural movement all jumped out of the wall like dogs to "seek justice" for the old stubborn, but they did not know Qian Xuantong's way.
But Qian Xuantong was always the vanguard of the new cultural movement and the opposition to the old feudal morality, "monogamy", "free love", "writing reform", he participated in everything, and even took the lead in saying "rude words". Similar to "fart style", "ghost stuff" and other foul language, he can use it vigorously, and he is always "not surprising and dead", and even "death" is not avoided.
Qian Xuantong once said: "A person lives for 40 years, and if he does not die, he will be shot." As a result, everyone was ready to see his jokes, and Qian Xuantong was really serious about preparing for his 40-year-old funeral, and even the "Mr. Qian Xuantong's Chengren Special Number" that was intended to be published in the press had already been prepared.
Interestingly, due to the influence of the current situation, the special issues in the north failed to issue this "obituary", but the catalog of the special issues was "one step ahead" in the south. People in the south were horrified when they saw the 9 big characters "Mr. Qian Xuantong's Special Number for Chengren"; the news immediately traveled all over the country; Qian Xuantong's friends and classmates all sent him letters of condolence, and Beijing also held a condolence meeting for him.
In fact, of course, Qian Xuantong did not die, nor did he shoot himself, he lived well. As one of the "victims", Hu Shi "gritted his teeth" and wrote a letter of condolence on Qian Xuantong's birthday the following year- "Anniversary of the Anniversary of the Death of Mr. Qian Xuantong", and scolded at the beginning: "Damn Qian Xuantong, how come he has not died so far!" ”
Of course, this is just a joke between friends, but people always die. In 1939, Qian Xuantong, who was only 52 years old, died of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, but he did not come to this world in vain, leaving many valuable wealth to future generations.