In the process of identifying the historical figures on the plate of "The Complete Works of Hu Xianhua", there is a photo that tests our wisdom the most: the people next to us recognize it, but they can't recognize the most prominent C bit!
Photography of the 14th Annual Meeting of the Chinese Science Society, 1929, Yenching University, Beijing (number added by the author)
Take the lead big brother
At 6 p.m. on August 21, 1929, the 14th annual meeting of the Chinese Science Society, the most important non-governmental academic group in China, left this large group photo of sixty-one people in front of the Bei Gong Building of Yenching University in the western suburbs of Beijing. With more than two years of experience in identifying photos of historical figures in the Republic of China, we have recognized more than forty of them in total. The first row is particularly recognizable: No. 1 Wu Leichuan, No. 2 Ren Hongjun, No. 3 Jiang Lifu, No. 5 Weng Wenhao, No. 6 Zhu Kezhen, No. 9 Yu Daqi, No. 10 Zeng Zhaoyi, No. 11 Huang Renwang, No. 12 He Lu, No. 13 Hu Jingfu, who is No. 7 in the middle of Kezheng?
This unknown Mr. No. 7 was tall, flat-headed, white-bearded, about sixty years old, wearing glasses, cloth shirts and shoes, a slightly shy belly, a thick smile on his face, and seemed to have a rough martial arts atmosphere, which was very abrupt among a large group of thin, thin, and polite young people. So we called him "Big Brother Leading.".
All kinds of efforts
Photograph from the November 1929 issue of Science magazine, vol. XIV, No. 3. The main text of the "Annual Meeting Chronicle" gives a list of more than seventy members of the Science Society who have attended the meeting. Comparing the list, we checked their image one by one, and did not see the "leading big brother"! Therefore, we judged that he was not a member of the Chinese Science Society, which was also in line with our initial impressions.
List of members of the 14th annual meeting of the Chinese Science Society
Since you are not a member, will you be the master? In 1929, Yenching University coincided with the ten years of its establishment, and officially established the three colleges of arts, science and law, becoming a comprehensive university. Yanda university to the current annual meeting of the Science Society to the end of the landlord's friendship, "President Wu Leichuan, Stuart Leiden Provost" came forward to "express a warm welcome to the members of the society." The "Professors Hu Jingfu, Wei Xun and Li Ruqi" in the school are also full members of the China Science Society. In addition to Stuart Redden, we found all the Yanda people mentioned in the "Memoirs" in the group photo, so we had to temporarily rule out the possibility that the "leading big brother" was Professor Yanda.
Since you are not the host, will you be a guest? The "Chronicle" said that "the guests attending the meeting included Li Yuying, president of the Beiping Research Institute, and Fu Sinian, director of the Institute of History of the Academia Sinica." Foss was short and fat, certainly not. Li Yuying (Zi Shi Zeng, 1881-1973) was one of the four elders of the Kuomintang, the first chairman of the Palace Museum, and the acting president of The University of China and France. Li Shi has attended the meeting and delivered a speech, and if he participates in the group photo, he should be honored in the C position. Therefore, several friends insisted that the eldest brother was Li Shizeng. But the temperament of these two people is very different, Li Shi was domineering, and the eldest brother was thick and generous. Li Shi was wanted by the Beiyang government in 1926 and fled, so some friends speculated that he changed his hairstyle because of this, and the escape led to a haggard appearance. But this speculation is far-fetched. Li Shi once mentioned in his speech that "I am sick recently, and I can't speak loudly... Therefore, I cannot say more. The opening ceremony lasted two hours, and Li Shi should have left without waiting for the group photo.
"Leading Big Brother" (left) compared to Li Shizeng (right) photo
The "leading big brother" stood in the C position but was not listed, which was quite abnormal, and Teacher Hu Xiaojiang speculated: "Perhaps the organizers of the annual meeting of the Science Society had to invite him to attend the meeting, but the scholars did not like him, so the record did not even mention the name." So, who do scholars generally dislike? Naturally a politician.
So I searched through the ten mayors of Beiping from 1928 to 1937: He Qigong, He Chengjun, Zhang Yinwu, Wang Tao, Hu Ruoyu, Zhou Dawen, Yuan Liang, Song Zheyuan, Qin Dechun, and Zhang Zizhong. He also went through the video materials of the warlords of the Beiyang Zhi, Feng, and Anhui lineages, as well as all the education officials of the Beiyang government and the Republic of China government. It turns out that a lot of "kind of like" people were found. For example, in 1928, the mayor of Beiping, He Qigong, the warlord Wu Peifu and Xu Shichang, in 1925, Wang Jiuling, the chief of education of the Duan Qirui Provisional Government, and Chen Zhenxian, the chief of education in lu Zhengxiang's cabinet, and so on. Just looking at a certain photo of someone, you can find some similarities with the big brother, but find more photos of this person to compare, it is not like it. Combined with the whereabouts of these people in August 1929, they were all rejected.
From left: He Qigong, Wu Peifu, Xu Shichang, Wang Jiuling, Chen Zhenxian
So we once again offered brainstorming, and Teacher Hu Xiaojiang thought, "Should it be the former Qing Dynasty?" "However, how could there be eight flags in the annual meeting of the Science Society?" Then we immediately think that Hu Xianhua recalled many teachers in 1950's "Memories of Teachers and Friends of Beijing Normal University". So I spent another day looking up the old gentlemen mentioned in this article, such as Sun Jianai, Zhang Baixi, Ke Shaochen, Lin Qinnan, etc. But they either die early, or their faces are not similar, or they do not experience discrepancies, and there is still no solution.
After that, we asked the team of the documentary "Beiyang Great Times" to help, but to no avail. I had to pin my hopes on the celebrity album. First check the "Illustrated Catalogue of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Celebrities" (edited by Xiong Zhiqi), which includes nearly 600 "political figures mainly, next to military, cultural, economic, scientific and other aspects of the representative figures" before the Opium War to the founding of New China, and there were no gains. Look at the "Portrait biography of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Figures" (edited by Nanjing Library), which contains more than 4,000 photos or portraits of modern and contemporary historical figures, and the number of collections is the highest number of similar books. It turned out that the photos of Jin Yuelin, Zhang Shusen/Zhang Shutong were wrong, and the text introduction of Fan Yuanlian and Xia Ruifang was wrong, but they still couldn't recognize the leading big brother.
Seeing this, it can really be said that "the poor and the blue fall into the yellow spring, and the two vast places are not seen."
The sky is not worth it
Months tossed down, almost exhausted. We retreated several times and comforted each other: "Forget it, I have recognized more than forty people, and there is some work to be done." "If the name of the C person is empty, it is empty!" But in the end, it is difficult to reconcile. We can even recognize Li Shizeng's son-in-law in the back row of the group photo, can't we really recognize the "leading big brother"? What's more, if we don't do it, who will do it?
Gazing at the "leading big brother" again, he had a thick face, but a strong aura, and he was also familiar. Since he appeared in this group photo, why can't he appear in another group photo of his contemporaries? So, I turned over dozens of books by scientists and literary historians at home and made a final attempt.
The sky pays off! After reading a dozen scholar biographies, I saw this unclear group photo on page 41 of the "Chen YuanTu Biography" (Edited by Liu Naihe et al., Beijing Normal University Edition). Between the lightning stones and fires, I was sure to find that the white-haired man in the front row fifth right was the "leading big brother"!
Group photo of teachers and graduating students of the Department of History of Fu Jen University, 1931
The book only specifies that Chen Yuan is in the front row from the third from the right, but at the same time gives the names of Jiang Menglin, Ma Heng, and Zhang Xingxiu. The images of Jiang Menglin and Ma Heng are familiar to me, and when I saw the name of "Zhang Xingxiu", I immediately remembered that I had seen his standard portrait in the "Records of modern scholars" (written by Hu Wenhui). A couple of places, a hit, ha, the original big brother is Zhang Xingxiu!
Big Brother revealed
Zhang Xingxiu (1888-1951), a native of Taoyuan (Siyang), Jiangsu Province, was a famous expert in the history of transportation between China and the West. His life is quite legendary, at the age of eighteen he entered Harvard University to study chemistry, and later went to the University of Berlin to study chemistry, but in his spare time he "took pleasure in doing historical research". After returning to China, he worked in Hanyang Arsenal and Jiangsu Office, and was re-employed as a chemistry instructor in the preparatory department of Peking University and a special editor of the National History Compilation Department. In 1917, when he went to Japan for medical treatment, he was commissioned by Cai Yuanpei to collect national history materials. Zhang Xingxiu saw foreign scholars publish many monographs on the history of Sino-foreign exchanges at the Imperial Library in Tokyo, Japan, in stark contrast to the vast sea of ancient Chinese books, but they were not fully utilized. After the Republic of China, the rapid development of Western sinology and Orientalism promoted the study of The history of Transportation between China and the West, but there were very few experts in this field in China, so that the problems within the territory of China could only be "solved by others". This situation stung Zhang Xingxiu, and he threw himself into it. From 1922 to 1926, when he was the director of the laboratory of Qingdao Sifang Locomotive Factory, he completed the Introduction to Marco Polo's Travels (Geological Society of China, 1924) and the six-volume 1.2 million-word historical masterpiece "Compilation of Historical Materials of Chinese and Western Transportation" (Fu Jen University Library, 1930).
The Compilation of Historical Materials on Chinese and Western Transportation is an excerpt from the historical materials of China's exchanges with other countries before the end of the Ming Dynasty, covering ancient Chinese exchanges with Europe, Africa, Arabia, Armenia, Judea, Elan, Central Asia, and India. Zhang Xingxiu used both Chinese and foreign documents at the same time, and from the massive historical books, he "found many historical facts of Sino-foreign relations that were previously unknown or only speculated." (O'Toole: Preface to the Compilation of Chinese and Western Transportation Historical Materials, reproduced from Gu Jun: "Preface" of the Compilation of Chinese and Western Transportation Historical Materials). For example, Zhang Xingxiu found reliable evidence from the Sui Shu Beidi Biography to confirm that the Hungarians were descendants of the Xiongnu; in the "Examination of the Names of Indochina", he compared the foreign language documents in nine languages with ancient books such as the "Biography of the Three Tibetan Masters of the Great Ci'en Temple", "Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang Dynasty", "New Book of Tang", and "History of Song", and verified that "Indochina" was actually a transliteration of the word "Qin".
"The history of Chinese and Western transportation is of considerable innovative significance in China, which has attracted the attention of historians, and the history departments of various universities in Beiping have invited each other to teach such courses." (Li Le: "Zhang Xingxiu and the Department of History of Fu Jen University") In 1927, Chen Yuan, president of Fu Jen University, hired Zhang Xingxiu to teach in the History Department of Fu Jen University and served as the head of the department. Together with Chen Yuan, Xiang Da, Feng Chengjun, Fang Hao and others, Zhang Xingxiu created a system of Communication History between China and the West. From 1929 to 1940, Zhang Xingxiu lectured at Yanda on the history of Chinese and Western transportation, the history of the Song and Liao Dynasties, and so on (Draft History of Yenching University). In addition, Zhang Xingxiu also teaches history courses at Peking Normal University, Tsinghua University, Peking University and other universities.
According to Zhang Xingxian's son Zhang Zhishan, in 1928, Zhang Xingxian also held a higher organic chemistry course at Beijing Normal University, and historian Mou Runsun praised: "One person was once a professor of arts and sciences, probably mr. Zhang Liangchen was the first person." "Zhang Xingxiu" also often integrates literature and science when giving history lessons. Once, when he compared the gunpowder invented in ancient China with modern gunpowder, he wrote many chemical reaction formulas on the blackboard and explained them in detail, so that the liberal arts students who listened to the lecture could not help but be stunned" (Lai Xinxia: "Crane Hair Child Face Bright Dust Master - Remember Teacher Zhang Xingxiu").
Zhang Xingxiu was born in chemistry but loved Shidi, and was undoubtedly influenced by his father Zhang Xiangwen. Zhang Xiangwen (1867-1933) was a representative figure at the beginning of modern Chinese geography. He wrote China's first local science, first physical geography and first geology textbook, where the term "textbook" commonly used today originated. In 1909, Zhang Xiangwen initiated China's first geographical academic society, the Geological Society of China, and served as its president for a long time, and also founded the first geographical academic journal in China, the Journal of Geoscience. Zhang Xingxiu's choice of "Chinese and Western Transportation Historiography" perfectly reflects his geoscientist inheritance and historiography.
Zhang Xingxiu, who was halfway out of the family, was able to climb the stage of history, in addition to his own efforts, but also benefited from Chen Yuan's insight. During his decades tenure as President furen, historian Chen Yuan "went beyond the concept of the school and vigorously praised the unknown scholarly scholars" (Mou Runsun: "Tribute to the Ancestor Mr. Chen Yuan'an"), and hired a class of people who "did not go through examination, did not have teaching qualifications, or degrees": Zhang Xingxiu, head of the Department of History, did not have a liberal arts degree; Yu Jiaxi, the head of the Department of Chinese Literature, was a former Qingju and did not have any degree, but was good at "studying the study of bibliographies and ancient and modern writing styles and academic sources" (see Yuan Yidan: "Chen Yuan and the Furen School"). "There are many people in the old capital who rely on meager salaries to maintain their livelihood, and who regard the study of governance as the sustenance of their lives, who do not listen to chaos, enjoy themselves, and once they are luozhi to the university, they can all contribute" (Tai Jingnong: "The Old Story of Peiping Furen"). The Furen School was born.
Crane hair childlike face
Zhang Xingxiu was only forty-one years old when he attended the 1929 annual meeting of the Chinese Science Society, which was not the age of the previous speculation. It can be seen from Zhang Xingxiu's photos of various periods that he had gray hair very early, and his old appearance was already quite famous at that time.
Portraits of Zhang Xingxiu in various periods (left to right: about 1928 forty years old, 1929 forty-one years old, 1931 years old, 1938 50 years old, time unknown)
Tai Jingnong, secretary to the president of Fu Jen University, mentioned in a reminiscence: "Mr. Liang Cheng is less than forty years old due to illness, his hair is white, and his face is different from the rosiness of ordinary people. Once he took a Jiaoji train and did not get a seat, Zhang Zongchang's soldiers looked at him so old that they actually gave up their seats to him. Mr. Yuanyuan (Chen Yuan) liked to joke with him about this, saying that he had a childlike appearance and that Zhang Zongchang's soldiers were all moved. In the summer of 1937, when Liu Yizheng met Zhang Xingxuan, who had been away for a long time, in Zhenjiang, he found that he had white hair and a zhu yan, resembling his father Zhang Xiangwen. In addition, the 1942 freshmen of the History Department of Fu Jen University came to Xinxia, and their first impression of Zhang Xingxiu was "Crane Hair Child Face, Kind Eyebrow Good Eye", "Always with a Smile on His Face" (Lai Xinxia: "Crane Hair Boy Face Bright Dust Master - Remember Teacher Zhang Xingxiu").
Commander Houde
Looking it up again, the thick smile of the "leading big brother" also has attachment. Wan Xinhui, who graduated in 1942, was the best student in Furen History Department. She was orphaned from an early age, from a poor family, relying on scholarships and financial support from relatives and friends to barely pay for her tuition. Zhang Xingxiu always cared about the development of Wan Xinhui, and after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, when he learned that Yenching University was about to return from Chengdu to the north, Zhang Xingxiu hurried from his home in Beijing's Gulou Fang Brick Factory Street to Dongdan step by step to find Professor Hong Ye of the Department of History of Yenching University to learn about the demobilization of the Graduate School of Yanjing University for Wan Xinhui. Years later, Hong Ye told Wan Xinhui: "Mr. Zhang really cares more about you than his own children, he walked to my house and broke his shoes." (Wan Xinhui: "Remembering Mr. Zhang Xingxiu") With the help of Zhang Xingxiu, who is "kind-faced and kind, and has the attitude of parents and apprentices", Wan Xinhui was admitted to the Institute of History of Yenching University and won the scholarship of the Harvard Yenching Society with the first place. Wan Xinhui later married Wang Pei, the son of historian Wang Tongling. Nearly half a century later, in 1989, Mr. and Mrs. Wan Xinhui set up the "Wang Tongling and Zhang Xingxiu Scholarships" in the History Department of Beijing Normal University to express "a tribute to those who dedicate themselves to education" and their gratitude to Zhang Xingxiu, the loyal teacher.
Unsolved mysteries
The identity of the big brother is solved, but our doubts are even greater. Chinese group photo pays attention to seniority ranking, which is a concrete embodiment of Chinese social structure and social culture. There are people who are older, more senior and more famous than Zhang Xingxiu in the group photo, so why does this forty-one-year-old history teacher stand in the C position of the Chinese Science Society group photo?
If Zhang Xingxiu had attended the meeting on behalf of his father, Zhang Xiangwen, president of the Geological Society of China, the Chronicle of the Annual Meeting would not have been mentioned. Did Zhang Xingxuan happen to go to Yanda that day to send him a translation of "Marco Polo's Travels" (in the same year, the Yanda Library funded the publication of the first volume, and the rest of the manuscripts were scattered), or did he go to Yanda for compiling the "Yanjing Journal" and was invited by his old friends Zhu Kezhen and Weng Wenhao in the Science Society to join the group photo? Maybe it was the old friends who followed Zhang Zongchang's soldiers to give up their seats, and they silenced him and asked him to stand in the C position?
This moment in the long river of history may be pivotal, or it may not be important, and I am afraid that there will never be an answer.
What is the experience?
Words and images are the two sides of the coin. Images will provide historical truths that cannot be given by written materials, and will also set up difficulties that text materials cannot encounter. Looking back at the process of finding big brother, it is full of all kinds of unexpected.
Is there truth in the picture? We later found out that Zhang Xingxiu's single photos were all glasses, but why can't they be seen in the group photo? With the analysis of hindsight, the light and angle at the group photo that day, and the noise on the photo, made his rimless pale glasses disappear without a trace.
Do you judge people by their appearance? The meaning of the title of zhitu is "to take people by appearance", but Zhang Xingxiu's appearance is like his own "unusual path". His "crane-haired childlike face" directly deviates the age of our focus on inquiries by twenty years. His simple and rough temperament has led us to the wrong path of "military and political celebrities".
Are people grouped? Historical photographs are fixed historical situations. If the characters fit the context, the answer is much simpler. And Zhang Xingxiu appeared at the annual meeting of the Science Society for a group photo, which is really "out of the circle". After recognizing Zhang Xingxiu, I showed this photo to a friend of a historian who easily recognized Zhang Xingxiu, but did not know the famous scientists around him. How to determine the "circle" of a person in the world is the real difficulty.
Is there any skill in dealing with the vastness of historical material? In fact, as a historian, Zhang Xingxiu has already given the answer. He translated Marco Polo's Travels, "What is not done in the world, let it be difficult, and for ten years, perseverance." In order to compile the Compilation of Historical Materials on Chinese and Western Transportation, Zhang Xingxiu searched for as many as 274 Chinese documents and forty-two foreign language documents, and submitted "foreign records to prove Chinese facts; or Chinese records, to prove foreign facts." Zhang Xingxiu sighed: "If you clean up the old Chinese books, it will be ten times more difficult (than translating Western books) He Jie... Engaged in searches, yuzhi swept to the bottom of the sea and probed for pearls. Often searching for a series of books takes months, and only one or two of the results can be applied, or even if there is no one available, there are also ... Sweating in the summer, freezing in the harsh winter, I have not tried to quit writing. Miserable wind and rain, lonely lights and cold moons, painstaking efforts, the beginning of graduation. Books may tolerate omissions, and more than ten years of mental strength are exhausted from this. (Zhang Xingxiu: Preface to the Compilation of Chinese and Western Transportation Historical Materials)
It turned out that this "leading big brother" had long been well versed in the hardships and pleasures of us looking for him by looking at five thousand photos. Then to paraphrase his words, knowing the map or allowing for omissions, and looking through more than five thousand maps to find the mental strength of one person, this is the end!