Qian Xuantong is a big man in modern times, and he once said a very thunderous sentence, that is, "If a person lives for 40 years, he should die, and if he does not die, he will be shot." "I know that some people will say that this is a statement that I made up, but this sentence is really not made up by me, this is from the original words recorded by Lai Kam-hee." From our current point of view, this sentence is just very thunderous, of course, some people will think that this may be a person who wants to be famous. But at that time, this sentence contained endless anger and hatred of iron not steel, which was Qian Xuantong's fierce attack of the old times.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the country was very backward, and during this period, many international students went to foreign countries to study Western culture. After studying Western culture, he deeply felt the cultural backwardness, ideological ignorance, and decay of the three principles and five constants of the old society, so people with lofty ideals began to look for a way to save the country. Guangxu 30 years, this year Qian Xuantong was 18 years old, he cut off his braids. At that time, the braids had great significance, and Qian Xuantong's cutting of the braids meant that he did not recognize the rule of the Qing Dynasty, and at the same time he began to transition to a new era. He was a pioneer in the "May Fourth Literature" revolution, fiercely attacking Kong Xue, the Three Principles and Five Constants, three wives and four concubines, arranged marriages, and red tape.
However, in the confrontation between the radical faction and the conservative faction again and again, Qian Xuantong found that the poisoning of the old society on people and the pedantry of feudalism and old age were hopeless, and he refused to accept the advanced culture all day long with what "ancestral law" was held, and immersed himself in the eight strands of literature. Radical Qian Xuantong said angrily: "If a person lives forty years, he deserves to die, and if he does not die, he must be shot." This sentence does not mean that all people over the age of 40 are going to die, but that those conservative feudal remnants should die, and continuing to live has no contribution to society at all, but will affect the progress of society. It is precisely because of the obstruction of these people that many advanced cultures cannot be popularized, and a project of simplifying Chinese characters has been carried out for decades.
We cannot deny that Wen yan wen and traditional characters have a special cultural heritage, but wen Yan wen and traditional characters also have many drawbacks, and Hu Shi once criticized the irrationality of Wen Yan Wen. The sentence "Only shallow in learning, I am afraid that it is difficult to be competent, and I will not obey the fate" is three words in the vernacular - "can't do it", compared with the two, which is better at a glance. In this regard, Qian Xuantong also actively opposed the literary language and advocated the vernacular language. Since ancient times, our fonts have been simplified many times, from "Spring and Autumn" to "History", from oracle bones to simplified characters, from Wen yan to vernacular, the times are changing, and the cultural carrier is constantly changing. Literature does have its beauty, but for the public, vernacular is the easiest to accept and absorb, and can do its best to promote national education.
Qian Xuantong made a positive contribution to the promotion of vernacular literature, but he himself died three times. In 1927, when Qian Xuantong was forty years old, a southern publication published "Mr. Qian Xuantong's Special Number of Mr. Chengren", because it was the white terror period at that time, his students and friends thought that Mr. Qian Xuantong had died, so they engaged in a farce in Beijing to mourn the living. In 1938, a traitor in Beijing died, and the English version of the Chu Bao wrote the name of the traitor, Qian Tong, as Qian Xuantong, and the students who did not know the truth once again sent Qian Lao a link. In January 1939, Qian Xuantong suddenly suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and died of illness due to ineffective rescue at the age of 52.
After the death of Qian Xuantong, his son Qian Sanqiang threw himself into the construction of new China, Qian Sanqiang was the founder of China's atomic energy science cause, the founder of China's two bombs and one star, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who made outstanding contributions to China's development of the "two bombs", and also trained a large number of young scientists, making great contributions to China's development.