The Washington Monument, located in Washington, D.C., was built in honor of George Washington, the founding father of the United States.
The obelisk was built in 1848 and shut down for 22 years due to financial problems, before finally being officially completed in 1884. On this stele, there is an inscription from the Qing Dynasty, on which is a text written in Chinese characters.
The late Qing dynasty figure who can write Chinese characters on the Washington Monument in the United States is Xu Jihu (pronounced "Yu") from Shanxi.
First, Xu Jiqi and his people
Xu Jihu (徐吉畬), also spelled Jiannan, was born in the 60th year of Qianlong (1795 AD). Because his father Xu Rundi was a high school student, Xu Jihu received a good education from an early age, and also studied under the great talent of the time, Gao Hu, who continued to write "Dream of the Red Chamber".
In 1826, Xu Jihu entered the high school and was selected as a Shu Jishi (senior reserve cadre) with the first place, and then successively became the editor of the Hanlin Academy and the inspector of Shaanxi Province.
In 1836, Xu Jihu wrote a letter proposing to eliminate the maladministration of the officialdom, which was appreciated by the Daoguang Emperor and was summoned to the palace to face the saint. Xu Jihu told the emperor on the spot about the suffering of the people, causing Daoguang to shed tears. As a result, Xu Jihu, who was highly appreciated by Daoguang, began to make steady progress.
After the outbreak of the Opium War in 1840, Xu Jihu was transferred to Fujian and entered the front line of the anti-British resistance. He organized the military and the people to die in Zhangzhou, and was recognized by the imperial court, so he was promoted to fujian envoy, responsible for handling trade affairs, and from then on began to contact and understand the West.
A few years later, Xu Jihu was promoted to governor of Fujian and governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and also managed trade matters, and had more access to the outside world.
After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, in the understanding of Chinese, Westerners are like ghosts.
This situation did not change irreversibly until after the Opium War. Enlightened officials, represented by Xu Jihu, began to take advantage of the opportunity of acting trade affairs to contact missionaries, officials, and businessmen from Britain, France, and other countries.
Through these mediums, they began to re-understand and think about the world. During this period, there was Wei Yuan's "Chart of the Sea Country" and Xu Ji's "Yinghuan Zhiluo".
Like Wei Yuan, Xu Jihu also became one of the first intellectuals in the Qing Dynasty to "open his eyes and see the world".
A map of the world in Yinghuan Zhiluo
Second, what is written in "Yinghuan Zhiluo"
Yinghuan Zhiluo is a book about Western countries, with a total of 10 volumes, about 145,000 words, and 42 illustrations.
In the book, Xu Jihu introduced the customs and customs of various countries in the world and the history of the founding of the country in the order of Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas, and added his own insights to the introduction of various countries.
In the book, Xu Jihu specifically expressed his high concern for the United States. At that time, the United States was in the process of rising, and had not yet reached the strength to dominate the world. But Xu concludes that it must have hope based on its history of founding and its system, which is different from that of other countries.
When it comes to Washington, the founding father of the United States, Xu Jihu is even more praised, he wrote:
Washington, infidels also. He was brave enough to win the battle and divided into Cao Liu. Having mentioned the three-foot sword and opened up thousands of miles, it is not to usurp the title, not to pass on the descendants, but to create the law of election, to be a few in the world for the public, and to be the will of three generations. Its governance reveres good customs, not martial arts, and is also very different from other countries. Yu tasted his portrait and looked majestic. alack! It's not a masterpiece. "The United States of Millikan thought that the kingdom was a country, with a territory of thousands of miles, without the title of a prince, without following the rules of the world, with public instruments being put into justice, creating a situation that had never existed in ancient times. Taixi ancient and modern figures, can not be called Washington as the first!"
In this passage, Xu Jihu first affirmed Washington's ability and merits, saying that he was brave enough to chen sheng and Wu Guang, and better than Cao Cao and Liu Bei.
Then, what made him even more lamented was that after washington's achievements, he did not claim the title of emperor and king, let alone pass it on to his descendants, but adhered to the concept of "the world is just" and created a democratic "law of election".
This kind of mind and temperament made Xu Jihu sigh: Ancient and modern figures, can not be led by Washington!
On July 4, 1848, Washington, D.C., laid the foundation stone for the Washington Monument and collected monuments from various states and countries. With the help of American missionaries to China, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, presented a granite stone stele to the United States, with two passages of praise for President Washington in the Chinese engraved in "Yinghuan Zhiluo", embedded in the tenth floor of the Washington Memorial Tower, becoming part of the Washington Monument, and later, Xu Jishe's name was included in the "Who's Who in the World" by the United States.
A stone stele with mysterious Chinese characters in the Washington Monument
Third, the cost of Xu Jihu
One of the main purposes of Xu Jihu's writing of "Yinghuan Zhiluo" was to find a way to defeat Britain from the world powers. Finally, Xu Jihu visited the countries of the world and set his sights on the United States, which had defeated Britain.
From this newborn country, Xu Jihu also seems to see the future prospects of daqing. Therefore, between the lines, he could not help but exude excitement, so much so that he evaluated Washington as "the first man in ancient and modern times."
However, this evaluation is too extreme, and it will not be recognized by the public today, let alone at that time.
As a result, Xu Jihu was strongly criticized. Washington does not claim the title of emperor and does not pass on the throne to his descendants, so is the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, who claims the title of emperor and passes the throne to his son, much inferior to Washington? Xu Jihu made a fundamental error of principle.
In addition, there are still many people who criticize Xu Jihu for increasing people's morale and destroying his own prestige, because he has read too many "foreign books" and has a brain problem.
At the same time that the book was controversial, the subsequent Shenguang Temple incident gave Xu Jishe a fatal blow to his career
On August 29, 1842, Chinese and British representatives signed the Treaty of Nanking aboard the British ship Kang Huali.
In June 1850, two British rented a house to the monks of the Shenguang Temple in Fuzhou City, and after the local Zhixian stamp agreed, the two moved in. The move set a precedent for the British to enter the city at treaty ports. However, The Temple of The Divine Light was a place where the local children would be taught, and the news came out, and the gentlemen made a big uproar.
At the time of the incident, Lin Zexu had just returned to his hometown from the post of Governor of Yungui. When he learned that foreigners were staying in Fuzhou City, he wrote a letter to Xu Jihu as a representative of the squire, advocating the mobilization of the people to expel the British. Xu Jihu explained to him the ins and outs of the matter, arguing that the British entered the city "according to the text of the contract, not for no reason", and if forcibly expelled, "it is bound to use excuses to enter the port as a pretext to harass them."
In fact, there is not much intersection between Lin Zexu and Xu Jihu. After Lin returned to Fuzhou from Yunnan, the Xianfeng Emperor tried to use the famous anti-British courtier again, and sent Xu Jihu to visit the Lin family to visit his physical condition, but the two did not have any selfish friendship. According to official practice, officials who are idle at home are not allowed to interfere in local affairs, and it is clear that this time Lin Zexu broke the rules. Whether to expel or compromise, the different claims they gave, determined in the next hundred years the diametrically opposed historical evaluations of their respective gains.
Seeing that Xu Jihuan was indifferent, Lin Zexu turned to the British: "My soldiers and people treat each other kindly, and look at the future, and refuse to obstruct as the people of Guangdong." That is to say, if the British did not take the initiative to withdraw from Fuzhou City, they would call on the people to rise up and expel them. Not long after, a slogan appeared in Fuzhou City that read, "One day, the first rank of yiren will be determined." Lin Zexu even recruited township braves to conduct exercises.
Xu Jihu called back and forth between the angry populace and the British. In a letter to his brother at that time, Xu Jihu mentioned without complaint: "The matter of the Yi people renting a temple house in the city is a small matter, and it can be concluded with calm advice. NaiJu Shen Lin Shao Mu Ze Xu, intending to sell his name, eager to expel. ”
The controversy between Lin and Xu intensified, and Lin Zexu simply joined forces with Sun Ming'en, an attendant of the Hanlin Academy, and others to play Xu Jihuan, and stabbed the matter above the imperial court. The Xianfeng Emperor sided with Lin Zexu and demanded that foreigners should not enter the city under any circumstances. Xu Jihu still managed to reconcile and did not immediately take expulsion actions, until the end of the year, under the repeated urging of the emperor, he finally forced the two foreigners to move out of the Shenguang Temple. In this controversy, Lin Zexu won the victory with a patriotic posture, and Xu Jihu became a capitulation faction in the population.
In 1850, Xu Jihu was recalled to Beijing, demoted to Sichuan as the chief examiner, and then dismissed on the way. The following year, at the age of 55, he returned to his hometown in Shanxi. When he first parachuted in from the Hanlin Academy, he was promoted to six levels in a row, from five pins to two pins, sometimes even every few days or months, and often received new promotions on the way to his post. However, after the Shenguang Temple incident, Xu Jihu's career came to an abrupt end.
It was not until the second Opium War defeated again more than a decade later that Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang and other ministers deeply realized China's backwardness and finally began the foreign affairs movement of "mastering yi and mastering the art to control yi", so "Yinghuan Zhiluo" returned to the public's vision, and people finally abandoned their previous prejudices at this time and began to try to look at this work from an objective point of view. At the same time, Xu Jihu was also reappointed for reprinting the Yinghuan Zhiluo, and was appointed as the secretary of the Taibu Temple, until he returned to his hometown in 1869.
It is also worth mentioning that although yinghuan zhiluo was not popular at the time, the book was very popular in the United States and Japan: it was copied by Japan from 1859 onwards, believing that it was "the compass to inform the world".