▲Exterior view of the old site of the Library of the Historical Institute
▲The "Farewell Lizhuang Lifeng Inscription" erected before the departure of the Shiyu Institute
▲Today's Lizhuang Pier ◎ Lu Xiaoya
In recent years, the ancient town of Lizhuang in Yibin, Sichuan Province, has become increasingly lively, and people have gone there to see the former site of Tongji University and the National Central Museum during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, to see the former site of the China Construction Society, which was specially marked as "Liang Lin's Former Residence", and then eat a plate of transparent Lizhuang white meat and drink two cups of Lizhuang liquor.
We stayed in the homestay by the Yangtze River for two nights, naturally we also saw the old site and former residence of Lizhuang, and ate white meat, but before bidding farewell to Lizhuang, we also had to go to a place, that is, the Chestnut Pass about 5 kilometers away from Lizhuang, which was the foothold of the Historical Institute during the War of Resistance.
"Institute of History and Language", full name "Institute of History and Linguistics, National Academy of Sciences".
The historical phrase "mountains are high and waters are long"
To thank the villagers of Chestnut Pass for their acceptance and support
In 1928, the Academia Sinica was established, and Cai Yuanpei served as its president. At Fu Sinian's suggestion, the Academia Sinica decided to establish the Institute of Historical Linguistics (the Institute of Historical Linguistics). He invited a group of famous scholars to join the Institute of History and Language, such as Chen Yinke, Zhao Yuanren, Luo Changpei, Li Fanggui, Li Ji, Dong Zuobin, etc. At that time, they were all at the age of Thirty Lang Dang, most of them had overseas study experience, and looked forward to "using new materials, discovering new problems, and adopting new methods" (Fu Si Nian), opening up a new world of modern Academic Research in China, "wanting the orthodoxy of scientific Orientalism in China".
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance, scholars also did not have quiet desks for learning. During the japanese bombardment, the Shiyu Institute had to be relocated again and again, traveling to Changsha, Kunming and other places, and finally followed Tongji University to Lizhuang.
Li Zhuang's ancestral hall and temple were occupied by Tongji University for a time. This town, which used to have only three thousand people, is now crowded with more than 10,000 outsiders. Fortunately, in the Chestnut Pass, a few kilometers away from Lizhuang, there is a large mansion built by the Zhang family of the Lizhuang Wang clan, named "Lifeng Mountain Villa". This mansion, which was built during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, consists of 7 self-contained and interconnected courtyards, and the entire villa has a total of 108 doors, which is said to be the number of 36 heavenly stars and 72 earth stars. Liang Sicheng included it in the book "History of Chinese Architecture" and praised it as "a fine classic of southern Sichuan houses". Shi Yu settled here, but it was far away from the bombing and the red dust, because from Lizhuang to Chestnut Pass, you had to climb more than 500 steps through the fields and woods.
We have lost the hard work of scholars going back and forth on the stone steps, driving a car and sneaking up to the Chestnut Pass. But perhaps today's Chestnut Pass is even more "far away from red dust" than during the War of Resistance: there are no other cars in the parking lot, no other tourists are seen, and the stone road in the green bamboo shade is quiet.
The imaginary Lifeng Villa should have the majesty and elegance of the deep mansion compound, but most of what we see are broken houses scattered on the hillside and by the pond. In addition to the fact that the "arch head" still looks like a look, the degree of destruction in the rest of the place where Shi Yu stayed is beyond imagination.
Fortunately, we started with the archway. As soon as I entered this well-preserved courtyard, I saw a red-character stone stele standing under the green bamboo, named "Farewell to Li Zhuang Lifeng Inscription". On the forehead of the stele are the 4 characters written by Mr. Dong Zuobin in oracle bone, "Mountains are high and waters are long". Fan Zhongyan of the Song Dynasty wrote "Records of Mr. Yan's Ancestral Hall", and finally composed a song: "The clouds and mountains are cangcang, the rivers and rivers are yang, the wind of Mr. Yan, the mountains are high and the waters are long!" Nowadays, the historical language uses "mountains and rivers are long" to thank the villagers of Chestnut Pass for 6 years, which is heartfelt and affectionate.
It is said that a few months before the evacuation of the Shiyu Institute after the victory of the War of Resistance, colleagues began to discuss the erection of the monument. The last inscription, written by Chen Pan and written by Lao gan, records that the Institute of History and Languages "spread across the country due to the difficulties of the country, from the capital to Changsha, and Guilin, and Kunming, to Sichuan", where "the land of suitable times" and "do not waste research and study". When the "land is re-illuminated", the scholars are about to leave this place, "I know that I will return to the east, and I am late." Ying's words were not prepared, but he was sorry to think about this", so he erected this monument, "If it is not engraved to proclaim The Friendship of Zhao Zhao, then what will hou xian say?" ”
Now, 75 years later, most of these scholars have become ancient, and the "yayi" of "mountains and rivers" is almost completely unknown or unaware if it were not for those of us who were "not virtuous" who came here. But standing in front of the monument, I felt the breeze, coming through the bamboo forest, bathing in my body and mind, and admiring Wanduan. Human character and human emotions were fortunately left between heaven and earth by this stone stele.
The room was full of Oracles
and Mr. Dong Zuobin's oracle bone calligraphy
The school for the children of the Shiyu Institute was once located in the archway, and now there is no sound of reading here, but there is a very good exhibition, which allows us to get a glimpse of the work and life of scholars here. What impressed me particularly was Dong Zuobin and the Oracle Research Lab he led. In 2014, I went to Taiwan for a free trip, and I found the tomb of Dong Zuobin not too far from Hu Shi's tomb, and they were all buried in the high mountain sun of today's Academia Sinica. The joint tomb of Dong Zuobin and his wife is very large, with a traditional circular tomb, two small stone stele in front, one with a bronze statue of Mr. Dong on it, and the other with the oracle bone calligraphy written by him before his death, "According to the etiquette and righteousness, abandoning fame and fortune like a tho". But at that time, I had only a vague impression of Dong Zuobin and his Oracle research. This visit to the old site of the Institute of Historical Languages made this vague impression suddenly clear and plump, as if it was a psychological Gestalt.
Can't help but be impressed, because the exhibition room is full of oracle bone and Mr. Dong's oracle bone calligraphy. From 1928 to 1934, Dong Zuobin presided over or participated in the excavation of Yin Ruins eight times, and many important oracle bone research results had been published before the Anti-Japanese War. In 1940, Dong Zuobin "fled" to Chestnut Pass with more than 18,000 pieces of oracle bones. Here, he and his assistants completed the Yin Almanac, which "chiseled through the Hongmeng"—using the skarig calculation schedule based on the papal calendar, and using the astronomical calendar records in the oracle bone to solve the age problem of Yin Shang. Hu Shi, who advocated that academic research should be "boldly hypothesized and carefully verified," believed that the "Yin Almanac" had reached such a realm, indicating "admiration and admiration"; Chen Yinke believed that "in the eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, academic works should take the "Yin Almanac" as the first part, and there is no doubt about the righteousness."
In order to support Dong Zuobin's work, Fu Sinian, director of the Institute of History and Languages, specially bought back a kerosene lamp and a leather bucket of "foreign oil" from Chongqing for Dong Zuobin and his assistants to drive a night car, and other researchers could only light tung oil lamps. On a sweltering summer night, young people who can't stand the smoke and gloom of the tung oil lamp will run to Dong Zuobin's window to chat. While chatting, they also reminded each other not to alarm the "Lord God" who was working hard - Dong Zuobin was a native of Nanyang, Henan, with a very heavy accent in Nanyang, and many people in Nanyang took the three words "God" as a mantra, dong Zuobin also had this habit, often opening his mouth is "God", so the young people of the Institute of History and Language gave him a nickname "God".
As a person who hopes to become a paleographer in the next life, I can appreciate the happiness of Mr. Dong's "puzzle solving": "I calculated that Ding Hai, June 25, 13th year of Wending, was a summer solstice, which was closely related to the memories of this piece of divination"; "When Di Xin conquered Dongyi, on the day of his 10th year of November 16, the day of the decency, from '亳' to 'Hong', that night arrived"... The history in the fog more than 3,000 years ago, just a little bit from the oracle bone, ah, it is so cool!
It is hard to imagine that this "cool" was pulled out of the abacus: there was no computer at that time, and Dong Zuobin was not accustomed to using a hand-cranked computer, all based on pen calculations or abacus to calculate. It is said that the amount of calculations related to the calendar is extremely large, and in order to reduce errors, each question is often calculated three to five times. In addition to his own calculations, he often grabbed young colleagues from the Institute of History and Language to help him calculate. The abacus crackled in the Lifeng Mountain Villa, and Shi Zhangru recalled: "Mr. Dong himself often told jokes: Our Institute of History and Language has become a mathematical research institute."
Fu Si Nian was forced to issue for his subordinates
"Marriage Guarantee"
There are also many pictures and texts in the exhibition that reflect the life situation of the people of Shiyu, such as the marriage of young people, and the gifts of calligraphy and paintings by scholars in the cold and "celebrating with zhi". When the Shiyu Institute had just moved to Lizhuang, Fu Sinian stipulated that all bachelors should go up the mountain and eat "food groups". Because the war was not over, he did not approve of the young people of the Shiyu Institute making love with local girls, just as the "village cadres" at that time also advised us not to rush to get married.
However, the War of Resistance lasted, and the young people really could not wait, and by the time the Shiyu Institute moved to Nanjing 6 years later, 5 young talents had already married Li Zhuang girls. In fact, the Lizhuang people were not happy at first, they were afraid that these "Xiajiang people" would not know the bottom and could not be trusted. When Lu Qin was going to marry Luo Xiaoruo, the daughter of Li Zhuang's big household and a teacher at the Shiyu Institute's school, Luo Xiaoruo's father, the squire who wrote "With the great migration of the river, Li Zhuang welcomes, everything needed, the local supply", asked Fu Sinian to prove Lu's knowledge and whether he was married in his hometown.
Fu Sinian not only introduced Lu's academic level and achievements in detail, but also listed various materials that could prove that Lu was unmarried, including the forms he filled out when he enrolled in Peking University, the family letter urging him to complete his marriage outside, etc., followed by the "guarantee letters" of 6 researchers of the Institute of Historical Languages, and the signers were mostly Lu's Shandong compatriots or friends.
It's funny and touching to think about. The student leader of the May Fourth Movement and the "Fu Cannon", who is regarded as a "common-eyed and empty-minded corporal", also needs to prove this, which shows that in the 6 years of the Chestnut Pass, the people of the Institute of History and Language seem to have become a big family.
What the exhibition cannot fully restore is the hard life of the scholars at that time and the intense work of "not abandoning research and study". In the meantime, some scholars have gone to teach at foreign universities or domestic universities and left Chestnut Pass, but there are still some scholars who insist here. The Institute of History and Language has also recruited a group of young students to cultivate "seeds of academic research".
Lift Liang Siyong up the 500-step stone steps
Liang Sicheng's younger brother, Liang Siyong, was an archaeologist who returned from Harvard University and was the first Chinese to receive formal training in modern archaeology. Years of field work and the fatigue of migration caused him to suffer from tuberculosis, which was already in poor health. After arriving in Lizhuang, he worried about the poor conditions on the mountain, settled his family in Lizhuang, worked in Chestnut Pass from Monday to Saturday, lived in the dormitory, and returned to Lizhuang's home on weekends. "When I was in the mountains, I was busy with work, day and night. Although it is a research room work, the degree of desperation does not diminish the enthusiasm for field work. But by the second year, he was finally bedridden. In order to allow the seriously ill Liang Siyong to bask in the sun every day, Fu Sinian vacated the house in a courtyard rented by The Chestnut Pass Shiyu, asked someone to install the floor, installed glass, and hung a drying table, and then personally organized a stretcher team with Liang Sicheng and carried Liang Siyong up the 500-level stone steps.
We don't know which yard this house specially prepared for Liang Siyong is in, and it is estimated that it has not collapsed and it is no longer what it used to be.
In November 1942, Fairbank visited Lizhuang and visited the Institute of History and Language. "I stayed for a week, and a lot of that time was spent lying in bed due to the cold," he said. I was deeply moved by the perseverance of my friends in continuing their academic research work. ”
In early June 1943, Joseph Needham, who had been sent by the British government to visit China, arrived at Lizhuang. After an exchange and lecture with the Preparatory Office of the Central Museum and Tongji University, he "left the city (town) along a small road by the river, and the path passed between the cornfields that shined in the heat wave." After a short time, begin to climb a spectacular stone path into the mountain", reaching the Historical Observatory in the Chestnut Pass. Here he found a group of scholars "the most outstanding of the people he has met so far" (a letter to his wife, Li Dafei). Needham says this because his concern about ancient Chinese science and technology has received a warm response here, "researchers from all disciplines have searched for interesting materials that they can think of." In the evening, he and Fu Sinian talked about the history of gunpowder in China, and Fu immediately found the Northern Song Dynasty official Xiu's military work "The General Outline of the Martial Classics", copied some passages about the composition of gunpowder, and gave Needham a rare copy of "Heavenly Works and Opening Things" before leaving. After 43 years of "Gunpowder Night", Needham completed the fifth volume of the History of Science and Technology in China, Volume VII, "The Epic of Gunpowder in Military Technology", dedicated it to the "late Fu Si Nian", calling him "an outstanding historian and philosopher, the friendliest welcomer in Lizhuang, Sichuan, China during the wartime". Fu Si Nian is as knowledgeable as the underground, when "happy to smile" it.
Needham's trip to Chestnut Pass rewarded more than that. Wang Ling, 26, who was then an assistant researcher at the Institute of History and Languages, was ignited after listening to and communicating with Joseph Needham's speech. After Needham left, he went into the library of the Institute of History and Languages, collected a large amount of artillery materials, wrote a paper in English, and asked Needham to introduce it to Western scientific journals for publication. It is said that Needham read Wang Ling's paper and admired it very much. In 1946, Wang Ling was awarded a scholarship by the British Council to study in England and began working with Needham, who had returned to Cambridge for nine years. When the first volume of the History of Science and Technology in China was published, Needham wrote of Wang Ling in his foreword: "Without the friendship of such a collaborator, this book, even if it could be published, would have been delayed for a long time, and there could have been even more errors than we fear are actually having now." ”
To provoke a debate is to make everyone feel silent in the mountain pass
We walked along the path to find The Osmanthus Pass, where Fu Sinian, the director of the Institute of History and Language, lived for 6 years. The people in the village told us that the host's family has a funeral in the past few days, and we don't know whether it is convenient or inconvenient to visit. We know that when the countryside does a red and white celebration, the people in the village and relatives and friends will come, and the host family will be very busy, and perhaps there will be some taboos, so they are prepared to be rejected.
Osmanthus was on a small hillside, and as I approached, I saw a plastic shed in the yard. We stopped outside the door and saw that there were not many people in the courtyard, probably because things had been done. After talking to the host, the host was very cheerful and agreed to let us into the yard to see.
There is also a brown sign hanging on the outer wall of the old house, which reads "Fu Si Nian Old Residence". What we saw when we walked into the house was tattered furniture, the roof above was already transparent, and there were plastic basins on the ground, which we could imagine being used to catch rain when it rained. The owner said that the house was too dilapidated to live, but now that the government would not move, they did not know what to do.
Interestingly, I read in "The Return of the South to the North" that different people have different memories of this place: Fu Sinian's wife, Yu Dashao, wrote: "It was a paradise with beautiful mountains and rivers and pleasant scenery. We are in the middle of the mountain, overlooking the Yangtze River... In the years of Li Zhuang, Meng Zhen (Fu Si Nian zi Meng Zhen) was less at home, often going to Chongqing, anxious, only in the country's critical survival. But in the eyes of Liang Sicheng, Lin Huiyin and their children, it was "a veritable poor and remote area", except for the damp, cold, and simple farmhouses, or the rats and bed bugs that crawled around the house, "it is simply not a place where people live."
Thinking that the British gentleman Joseph Needham also spent the night in Osmanthus Pass, I wonder if he and Fu Sinian were also harassed by insects and rats when they talked about gunpowder under the tung oil lamp?
It is said that from the beginning of Kunming Longtou Village to the Lizhuang Chestnut Pass, Fu Sinian liked to debate with his colleagues endlessly. Later, when writing the preface to Dong Zuobin's Yin Almanac, Fu revealed the secret: "I saw that Yantang (Dong Zuobin Ziyantang) had accumulated years of rule here, walked alone, and felt the pain of loneliness, so I often said it to my friends. Friends who know this often inadvertently argue with it in order to break the silence. ”
It turns out that the purpose of provoking the debate is to let everyone feel silent in the mountain pass and maintain the cheerfulness and vitality of the mind! It seems that the "cannon" is only one of The faces of Fu Si Nian, in fact, his mind is also quite delicate.
Chestnut Pass allows scholars to "not abandon research" during the war, in addition to their academic pursuits, but also because there is a "largest library in the wartime rear". It settled in a courtyard called "Tanakami". We looked over from the opposite side of the pond, this courtyard seems to be not small, there should be many rooms for books, but as soon as we walked in, we saw that it was full of desolation, the old house was piled with firewood and grass, and there were still remnants of the "Cultural Revolution" slogan in the house, and it was completely unaware of its former existence as a library.
Thinking about it carefully, if it were not for such a treasure-like library owned by Shi Yu, I don't know if Fu Sinian would have been able to find out the "General Outline of the Martial Classics" immediately, whether Wang Ling would have been able to write his English papers, and even Lin Huiyin on the hospital bed, in order to help Liang Sicheng write the "History of Chinese Architecture", also borrowed the "History of History" and "Book of Han" from the library of the Institute of History and Language. Because of the rich collection of books, there are also scholars who have traveled thousands of miles to defect to the Institute of History and Language.
How did hundreds of thousands of books get into this ravine?
How did hundreds of thousands of books get into this ravine in a state of war? In 1940, the Institute of History and Culture packed more than 600 boxes of precious books, Ming and Qing archives, oracle bones, bronzes and other excavated cultural relics, and hired more than 20 cars to transport them from Kunming to Luzhou in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, where they were handed over to the well-known Minsheng Company and entrusted them to transport the boxes to Lizhuang by waterway. But I don't know if lizhuang's dock is too small, after arriving in Yibin, these boxes were put on barges and transferred to Lizhuang. A barge capsized shortly after leaving Yibin, and dozens of boxes of precious books fell into the water. Fu Sinian and Dong Zuobin beat their chests and were impatient, so they had to gather the salvaged boxes into a primary school and organize colleagues in the Institute of History and Language to open the boxes and dry them and make books, which were not dried until January or February of the following year. This incident was called "March of the Sunshine" by Shi Zhangru, an archaeologist at the Institute of History and Language. Six years later, the steamship of the Minsheng Company stopped at Lizhuang Wharf, loaded with precious books and cultural relics from the Institute of History and Language, as well as colleagues and their families of the Institute of History and Language, sounded the whistle, went down the river, and rushed out of the Three Gorges. A history of mountain refuge and a history of academic research in the midst of war and chaos is over.
We walked slowly back to the village along the path, and the village was still silent. I wonder if after Shi Yu's departure, will the people here miss the children's song of the children's school "May flowers, blooming all over the wilderness..." And want to hear the "one-two-three-four" they exhale when they run around the chestnut pass? I wonder if the houses, mountains, ponds, oil lamps and folks of chestnut passes will also appear in the dreams of scholars? I just read in the book that three days before his death, 102-year-old Shi Zhangru signed his latest publication of "Mr. Shi Zhangru's Interview" with a trembling hand and entrusted someone to send it from Taiwan to the government of Lizhuang Town, Yibin City, Sichuan Province. His nostalgia and gratitude for those years, that landscape, and those people have become the absolute pen of this archaeologist who "has only thoughts in his life".
Some of the stories in this article are taken from Yue Nan's book "Southern Crossing and Northern Return". Photo taken by Lu Xiaoya and Li Lan.