In the Chinese political arena in the early 1930s, there was a saying that Wu Cai Zhang Li was the "four elders". Wu is Wu Zhihui, Cai is Cai Yuanpei, Zhang is Zhang Jingjiang, and Li is Li Shizeng.
Cai Yuanpei, Zi Heqing, a native of Shanyin, Zhejiang. Born in January 1868, he entered the priesthood in 1890 and later entered the Hanlin Academy to teach editing. After the failure of the Penghu Reform Law, he abandoned his official position and returned to his hometown to engage in new education, and in 1916 he became the president of Peking University and became an advocate of the new cultural movement.
Cai Yuanpei was elected as an alternate member of the Kuomintang Central Supervision Commission in January 1924, and was re-elected to the Kuomintang Central Supervision Commission, serving as president of the Control Yuan and acting minister of justice.
The Kuomintang has always listed Cai Yuanpei as a participant in the emergency meeting of the Kuomintang Central Supervision Commission on April 2, 1927, and called Cai Yuanpei one of the four elders who jointly called for Chiang Kai-shek to "clean up the party."
But the fact is that Cai Yuanpei and Zhang Jingjiang did not attend the meeting. On the contrary, when the April 12 counter-revolutionary coup d'état occurred, Cai Yuanpei immediately became a member of the Kuomintang elders who stopped the massacre and struggled to rescue them, and he bailed Lu Hanzhang, Shi Liang, Zheng Guansong, Xu Changqi and others out of prison, and within the scope of his own power, absolutely prohibited indiscriminate hunting and killing, thus winning the respect of communists and progressive forces.
In August 1928, Cai Yuanpei resolutely resigned from the posts of President of Supervision and Acting Minister of Justice, and became the president of the Academia Sinica, leaving Nanjing and settling in Shanghai. During his work at the academy, Cai Yuanpei accepted a large number of pure and progressive experts and scholars, including many Communist Party members.
In order to take advantage of Cai Yuanpei's lofty prestige, Chiang Kai-shek, when the contradiction between Chiang Kai-shek and Jiang Gui intensified, invited him and Wu Zhihui, Zhang Jingjiang, and Li Shizeng to act as guarantors for Li Jishen's mediation in Nanjing, but he also treacherously detained Li in Tangshan.
Li Jishen recalled: "At that time, the four guarantors and Chiang Kai-shek fought very hard. Some people say that the four of them colluded with Chiang Kai-shek, and I don't think so, Cai Yuanpei is a good person, he will not be like this. According to Huang Shaohu's recollection: Cai greatly regretted it after Jiang detained Li Jishen, and I speculate that he was pulled alive by three other old men before he reluctantly followed.
In fact, Cai Yuanpei has had no common language with three others since the early 1930s. In the atmosphere of white terror, he resolutely fought for the cause of justice and progress. He released Luo Longji and others from prison on bail from the Songhu Police Headquarters; he joined forces with well-known people to call He Jian in an effort to rescue Yang Kaihui; and at the behest of Lu Xun, Xu Qinwen, who was imprisoned on the charge of "organizing the Communist Party," was rescued from the army prison.
In the summer of 1932, Cai Yuanpei, Song Qingling, Yang Xingfo, and others began to prepare for the Chinese Civil Rights Protection League, and organized rescues for the arrested Niu Lan and his wife and Chen Duxiu. On December 17, the League was formally established, with Song Qingling elected as the chairman of the federation, Cai Yuanpei as the vice chairman, and Yang Xingfo as the director general.
In addition to continuing to rescue Niu Lan and his wife and Chen Duxiu, the league also rescued progressive professors and students such as Hou Wailu and Ma Zhemin who were arrested in Beiping, and rescued Liao Chengzhi, Luo Dengxian, Chen Geng, Chen Zaoying, Yu Wenhua, Ding Ling, Pan Zinian and others who were arrested in Shanghai.
The just cause of the Chinese Civil Rights Protection League provoked panic among the Nanjing authorities. On June 18, 1933, agents were ordered to assassinate Yang Xingfo, the director general of the League, with the intention of warning Song Qingling, Cai Yuanpei and others.
Cai Yuanpei wept when he heard the news and did not fear, personally hosted all funerals for Yang Xingfo, and successively contributed to the rescue of Li Shaoshi, Qu Qiubai and other communists.
For Mr. Lu Xun, who was surrounded and suppressed by reactionary culture, Cai Yuanpei was even more concerned. After April 12, Lu Xun went into exile from Guangzhou to Shanghai, and Cai Yuanpei hired him as a special writer at the graduate school, so that he had a fixed living income, and then invited him to join the league.
In October 1936, Lu Xun died of illness, and Cai Yuanpei and Song Qingling resisted the high pressure of the Nanjing authorities, organized a funeral committee, and presided over the funeral. At the grand funeral ceremony, this highly respected old man personally performed the ceremony for Lu Xun and delivered a eulogy in the cemetery. Subsequently, as the chairman of the Lu Xun Memorial Committee, he made important contributions to the publication of the Complete Works of Lu Xun.
Guo Moruo said: "People who have influenced Lu Xun's life deeply should be counted to Mr. Cai Yuanpei." This liberal with a broad spirit has made great contributions to the field of Chinese culture and education, and he has always been impressed by Mr. Lu Xun. Lu Xun's entry into the Ministry of Education and even into the Beijing education circle was due to Mr. Cai's citation, until Lu Xun's illness and death, Mr. Cai was full of his unswerving friendship. ”
Cai Yuanpei, who still nominally served as the Kuomintang Central Supervisory Commission, also worked on the spread of Marxist doctrine in China. On March 14, 1933, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Marx's death, he and Tao Xingzhi, Li Gongshi, Chen Wangdao, Ye Gongqiu and more than 100 other people launched a commemorative meeting and publicly published "Origins". On this day, the lecture on scientific socialism aimed at commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Marx's death opened at the Shanghai Youth Association, and Cai Yuanpei gave the first lecture entitled "Introduction to Scientific Socialism".
After the "August 13 Incident", Shanghai fell, Cai Yuanpei and his family ran away, wanted to transfer to Hong Kong to Chongqing to participate in the War of Resistance, due to aggravation of illness, had to stay in Hong Kong for medical treatment, and later transferred to Kowloon for recuperation. In the spring of the following year, the Grand Alliance for the Defense of China and the Hong Kong National Defense Medicine Charity Conference held an art exhibition at St. John's Cathedral next to the garden road under Victoria Peak, and Cai Yuanpei attended with illness and delivered an opening speech for the exhibition, calling on everyone to take on the task of the national war of resistance.
In 1939, after the establishment of the Chinese branch of the International Anti-Aggression Congress, he was elected honorary president. In May of that year, the death of the eldest daughter, William Cai, made him grief-stricken, and by the end of the year, Cai Yuanpei was bedridden, and he still specially wrote a song for the society with the word "Man Jiang Hong".
On March 5, 1940, Cai Yuanpei died of illness in Hong Kong at the age of 72.
In the last ten years of his life, Cai Yuanpei did a lot of things, in addition to focusing on academics, in order to dissuade the Nanjing Kuomintang authorities from killing indiscriminately, he wrote a special article to advise the Kuomintang authorities to inherit Sun Yat-sen's noble personality, to convince people with virtue, and to stop indiscriminate killing.
He rescued many patriotic democrats and Communist Party members, initiated the organization of the Chinese Civil Rights Protection League, and actively carried out the anti-Japanese patriotic movement. In addition, Cai Yuanpei, Together with Li Linxiang and other founding members of the Shanghai Cultural Circles Salvation Association, jointly issued a lengthy statement with the presidents and professors of major colleges and universities across the country to expose the criminal atrocities of the Japanese army in deliberately destroying China's educational institutions, and organized the International Propaganda Committee set up under the Salvation Association to expand foreign propaganda and win the support of people around the world.
On the day of Mr. Cai Yuanpei's funeral, many schools and shops in Hong Kong lowered their flags to half-mast, and more than 5,000 people spontaneously came to the public, which is extremely rare in Hong Kong, which has been ruled by the British colonial authorities for a hundred years.
The public worship of Mr. Cai Yuanpei by the people of all parts of the country and Hong Kong has become a demonstration of the Chinese nation's oath of resistance to stubbornness.
Mr. Choi Was eventually buried in the Peak Chinese Cemetery in Aberdeen, Hong Kong, where pilgrims flock to the shrine every year.
In the last decade of their lives, Cai Yuanpei and Chiang Kai-shek went farther and farther, firmly pursuing progressive ideas and just causes, so they were not tolerated by Chiang Kai-shek and were considered "sinners" by him. Chiang Kai-shek commented on Cai Yuanpei in his diary: "As far as his education is concerned with the crimes of his own party doctrine, those whom I have seen are only guilty.
But the people's eyes are shining, and the bad news of Mr. Cai Yuanpei's death has spread to the mainland, and the whole country mourns.
In his condolence telegram, Mao Zedong praised him as "a great fighter in the academic circles and a model for the world."
Zhou Enlai wrote a memorial service held in various circles in Yan'an: from the full line to the War of Resistance Against Japan, Mr. Zhou's ambition was in the national revolution; from May Fourth to the Human Rights League, Mr. Zhou's trip was in democracy and freedom.
On October 5, 1982, the inauguration ceremony of the bronze statue of Cai Yuanpei was held on the shore of The Unnamed Lake of Peking University.
On January 21, 1992, the Nanjing Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences erected a bronze statue of Mr. Cai Yuanpei.
#2021生机大会 #