Biography of a figure in the history of the Republic of China: Chen Yuan

Chen Yuanzi Ti'an (陈垣字提庵), courtesy name Li, was born on November 12, 1880 (the tenth day of october in the sixth year of the Qing Dynasty) to a family of medicinal material merchants in Xinhui, Guangdong Province. At the age of five, he followed his father to Guangzhou and entered a private school the following year. At the age of twelve, I read Zhang Zhidong's Bibliographic Answers and Questions, which opened my eyes. Over the years, he repeatedly read the "Compendium of the General Catalogue of the Four Libraries", mastered a relatively rich knowledge of bibliography, learned to buy the books he needed according to the catalog, and showed a strong interest in history. In 1897, he went to Beijing to participate in the Shuntianxiang Examination, but because he did not want to be bound by the Eight Strands Of Literature Program, he put his pen into writing and did not pass the examination. Back in Guangdong, he made a living teaching Mengguan while continuing to teach himself.

In 1904, Chen Yuan participated in the preparation of the Guangzhou "Current Affairs Pictorial". The pictorial has pictures and texts, the painter is Gao Jianfu and others, and Chen is responsible for the text part. He published a large number of articles under pen names with anti-Qing significance, such as "Humble Benefit" (as opposed to "Full Stroke Loss") and "Qian Poppy" (an alias for the piggy bank "Punch Full")," etc. Many articles use historical themes such as the history of the Yuan Dynasty and the edicts of the Qing Emperor to allude to reality. During this time, he participated in the League.

In 1907, Chen Yuan's father suffered from kidney stone disease, and after a long period of ineffective treatment of traditional Chinese medicine, he was cured by Western medicine surgery, Chen was deeply stimulated, determined to learn Western medicine, and was admitted to the Boji Medical Hall run by the American Church. Because the school authorities discriminated against Chinese students, he withdrew from school in anger and initiated the establishment of Guangdong Guanghua Medical College with Liang Shenyu and others. It was the first private Western medical school run by Chinese himself, and he was also the first graduate of the school. After graduating in 1910, he stayed on to teach and volunteered to practice medicine after school. In the "Medical and Health News" and "Guanghua Medical and Health Journal", he published a large number of articles publicizing medical and health knowledge and medical history such as "The Hygiene of Confucius" and "Historical Materials of Chinese Anatomy". In 1911, he edited the Aurora Daily and the main writer of the supplementary magazine "Chicken Song Record", and continued to advocate revolution.

After the Xinhai Revolution, Chen Yuan was elected to the House of Representatives, and in 1913 he went to Beijing to take up a post, participated in political activities, and became acquainted with Liang Shiyi, the leader of the old transportation department. The following year, he successively served in the National Taxation Department, the Domestic Public Debt Bureau, and the Mao Ge Reform Association, which Liang presided over. In December 1921, Liang Shiyi was appointed Prime Minister, and Chen Yuan served as Vice Minister of Education and Acting Minister (General Director Huang Yanpei did not arrive). He made literary friends in Beijing, read books, and studied historiography. After the Wenjinge "Four Libraries Complete Book" collected by Chengde Mountain Resort was transported to the Beijing Normal Library, he spent a considerable amount of time studying this large series of more than 800 million words in 10 years.

Chen Yuan began to study the history of Christianity in China in the spring of 1917. While collecting information, he became acquainted with two patriotic Catholics, Ma Liang (Xiang Bo) and Yinghua (敛之). In May of that year, he wrote "Yuan Ye Li Ke Wen Kao". This was his first historical paper and attracted the attention of the academic community. Thus began a career of more than half a century of historical research.

In 1922, after leaving politics, Chen Yuan served as a tutor of the Institute of Chinese Studies of Peking University and the director of the Beijing Normal Library, in 1924 as a member of the Qingmu Aftermath Committee, in 1925 as the director of the Library of the Palace Museum, in 1926 as vice president and president of Fu Jen University, in 1928 as the director of the Institute of Chinese Studies at Yenching University, in 1929 as the director of the Department of History of Peking Normal University, and in 1931 as an honorary professor of the Department of History of Peking University, focusing on education and history. During this period, his historical research and teaching mainly focused on three fields, namely, the history of religion, the history of yuan, and the study of historical philology. He is one of the pioneers in the study of chinese religious history, and has conducted in-depth research on the major religions circulating in Chinese history, including Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. His "Examination of the Huahua of the YuanXi regions" discusses the sinicization of the Semu people of the Yuan Dynasty, and Japanese scholars call him "a particularly valuable scholar among chinese historians today." He made a summative study of the bibliography, chronology, collation survey, and avoidance of secrecy in historical philology, and the "Twenty Shi Shuo Leap Tables", "The Calendar of Chinese and Western Hui History", "The Supplementary Interpretation of the Yuandian Zhang School" (later renamed "Proofreading Interpretation"), and the "Examples of Historical Secrecy" are important works in these fields.

Chen Yuan also made many innovations in the teaching of history, and the courses he offered, "Selected Readings of Famous Works of History" and "Commentary on Masterpieces of Historiography," which are the predecessors of the courses of "Selected Historical Writings" and "Introduction to Essential Books of Chinese Historiography" commonly offered by history departments of universities today. His "Historical Origins Internship" class, due to the use of internship methods, let students find out the mistakes from historical masterpieces, mobilize students' initiative in learning, and benefit them for life. Chen Yuan's research and teaching work during this period laid the foundation for his position in the academic community. In 1935 he was elected as a member of the Academia Sinica.

Shortly after the July 7 Incident in 1937, Peiping fell. Because Fu Jen University was funded by the German church, it became the only school in Peiping that was not registered with the Japanese and puppet authorities during the fall. Chen Yuan stayed in the school and did his best to guide the vast number of young students to maintain national integrity. He categorically refused to serve as president of the East Asian Cultural Association, the highest cultural group in the occupied areas. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in addition to teaching, Chen Yuan also wrote seven monographs with anti-Japanese patriotic enthusiasm, namely, "The Chronicle of the History of the Old Five Dynasties", "The Chronicle of the Doubts of Shi Shi", "The Examination of Dianqian Buddhism in the Ming Dynasty", "The Slander of the Monks in the Early Qing Dynasty", "The Examination of the New Taoism in Hebei in the Early Southern Song Dynasty", "An Introduction to the History of Chinese Buddhism", and "The Brief Notes on the Table of The General Jian Hu", which allude to national integrity in his works. These works of his have a great character in the use of materials. The Ming Dynasty Dianqian Buddhist Examination unearths Buddhist historical materials that are not cared about in many common books, and makes full use of many materials that have never been used before. In early 1939, he discovered the Jiaxing Collection in the Forbidden City. In order to open this treasure trove of historical materials that had been in the haze for 300 years, he led his assistants to take quinine pills in advance each time, read the whole Tibet for more than a year, and collected many quotations from monks in the early Qing Dynasty, which were fully used in the "Ming Ji Dian Qian Buddhist Examination". In the reprinted afterword of the book, he said: "Entering history with quotations is still the author's first attempt, which is unprecedented."

During the period when Chen Yuan was writing these historical works, there were major changes in academic thinking. He believed that not only should he surpass Japan academically, but he should also directly participate in his own historical teaching and research in the anti-Japanese struggle, so he used Gu Yanwu's "Rizhilu" as a teaching material to advocate the use of the world. He believes that the most important thing in the application of historiography is to stimulate the national integrity of intellectuals to love the motherland and oppose national oppression. All his writings of this period revolve around this subject.

Tongjian Hu ZhuBiaowei is Chen Yuan's last monograph and a summary of his research achievements in many disciplines, which he calls in the afterword "a monument to learning". The book was finally completed and published after the victory of the War of Resistance. He was greatly disappointed by what the Nationalist government had done, so he added some content to the "Tongjian Hu ZhuAnWei", pointing out that "the people's hearts and minds are also the opposite of the people's psychology." The people's psychology is more or less based on the good and evil of politics," "foreign wars are still guarded against by national consciousness, and civil wars are purely based on the people's hearts."

Chen Yuan pursues the truth and yearns for the light. On the eve of the liberation of Peiping, the Nationalist government in Nanjing sent planes to pick him up and some famous scholars to the south several times, but he refused. At the end of January 1949, peiping was peacefully liberated, Chen Yuan studied Marxism and Mao Zedong's works, and his thinking changed drastically.

In 1950, due to the suspension of the church's funding, Fu Jen University was taken over by the Ministry of Education, and Chen Yuan continued to serve as the president. In 1952, the institution of higher learning was adjusted, and he became the president of Beijing Normal University. In 1954, he became the director of the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and in 1955 he was elected as a member of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences. He was also a deputy and standing member of the First to Third National People's Congresses. In 1959, he joined the Communist Party of China. While taking on heavy academic leadership work, he continued to teach and write, and compiled and published old books one after another.

On June 21, 1971, Chen Yuan died of illness in Beijing.