◆ Jiang Feng, chief writer of "Japan Overseas Chinese Daily"
On August 5, 2021, an "old news" came from the United States on the other side of the ocean - on August 1, Mr. Yu Yingshi, a famous overseas sinologist, died at the age of 91 in his american apartment.
Mr. Yu Yingshi has studied under Mr. Qian Mu and my maternal grandfather, Mr. Yang Liansheng, a professor at Harvard University in the United States, who is known as the "hero of overseas sinology". I have also always regarded Mr. Yu Yingshi as the "last descendant" of Mr. Yang Liansheng. I remember that in 1995 of the last century, Mr. Yu Yingshi was invited to Japan for an academic visit, during which he gave a lecture at the Tokyo International Culture Hall. After his speech, as a reporter for the Japanese Chinese-language media "International Student News", I came forward to contact and interview. At that time, Mr. Yu Yingshi said that he was very busy and did not have time to be interviewed. In this way, I had to report to my family and say, "I am the grandson of Mr. Yang Liansheng, and I would very much like to do an interview with you." This is, Mr. Yu Yingshi immediately changed his attitude, became enthusiastic, and asked me: "Are you from Chinese mainland Baoding?" "At the time, I was confused because I was born in Beijing. Afterwards, I learned that my grandfather Yang Liansheng and his family had studied in Baoding. Mr. Yu Yingshi did not continue to ask questions, but said: "I really don't have time in Tokyo this time." In a few days, I will return to Kansai University in Japan, and I am a visiting scholar invited by them. If you can, you come to the place and we can talk once. "Just like that, a few days later, we met in Kitita City, Osaka Prefecture, near the dormitory of the Campus of Kansai University in Japan, and had a long conversation. I remember that after the interview, Mr. Yu Yingshi insisted that I have lunch at a nearby ramen restaurant, and also told me some stories about Grandpa Yang Liansheng.
Since then, I have read several books by Mr. Yu Yingshi, and I like his "TheOry of the History of the Chinese Intellectual Class (Ancient Articles)" published by The Taiwan Lianjing Publishing House in August 1980, "Chinese Religious Ethics and Merchant Spirit in the Modern Era" published by the Taiwan Lianjing Publishing House in January 1987, "Yu Remembering the Wind Blowing on the Water Scales- Qian Mu and Modern Chinese Scholarship" published by the Taiwan Sanmin Book Company in 1991, and "Scholars and Chinese Culture" reprinted by the Shanghai People's Publishing House in January 2003.
This time, after the news of Mr. Yu Yingshi's death came out, there were various discussions on the Internet. For me, this became an opportunity to promote reading. Therefore, taking advantage of the small "three consecutive breaks" of the Oban Festival, I read Chen Zhi's "Interview with Yu Yingshi" (Zhonghua Bookstore, March 2012 first edition) at my villa in Chiba, Japan, Li Huaiyu's "Ten Thousand Miles of Home Country: Visiting Twelve Scholars in the United States" (Zhonghua Bookstore, June 2013, first edition), Peng Guoxiang's "Chinese Feelings: Yu Yingshi's Essay Collection" (Peking University Press, April 2012, first edition), and Yang Liansheng's "Harvard Ink" edited by his brother Jiang Li (revised version, The Commercial Press, First Edition, October 2013).
In the process of reading, I saw an autobiography "The Road I Walked" written by Mr. Yu Yingshi during his 1995 visiting scholar at Kansai University in Japan, in which he recalled the tortuous road he had taken to study. Interestingly, Mr. Yu Yingshi recalled that after the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, the 7-year-old himself returned to his hometown of Guanzhuang in Qianshan County, Anhui Province, for "eight or nine years" to receive "social education". In one passage, Mr. Yu Yingshi wrote, "In my hometown of Guanzhuang, there are two big surnames, Yu and Liu, but neither surname has a large landlord, and if the sharecroppers are not their own families, they are relatives, and they sometimes cannot pay the land rent, so they have to be counted." I have never seen a landlord viciously begging for rent or oppressing a sharecropper. Our rural order is largely autonomous and has little to do with the government. Each clan has a patriarch and elder who is responsible for maintaining its own clan rules. Occasionally, when a disciple violates the rules of the clan, such as gambling, theft, etc., the patriarch and elders will meet in the ancestral hall to discuss the punishment, and the most serious foul can be played. But such a situation is rare, I only remember that we held a gathering in the ancestral hall of the Yu surname, punishing a young child who repeatedly fouled. Mr. Yu Yingshi particularly emphasized, "Traditional Chinese society is generally maintained by Confucian norms, and the power of morality is far above the law." ”
Mr. Yu Yingshi's personal experience and this reminiscence and discourse show people a warm and harmonious scene of the countryside in the style of pastoral garden and field song. I was thinking that the year 1995 when mr. sir wrote this article should be the year he was 65 years old. Generally speaking. When people reach this age and recall the past of their youth, their hearts will be quiet, attached, and endlessly reminiscent, and "negative energy" is often ignored. This may also be the common sentiment of people; this may also be a kind of "side leakage" of the feelings of home and country.
Some people will ask: In the Chinese countryside, "gambling and stealing" could be considered a big deal? Of course, compared with "killing people and setting fires", it is certainly a "small matter", and compared with "rebellion and great rebellion", it is even more a "small matter" that is not enough to worry about. However, in rural China, it is even a "big thing" because it directly affects the social order at the grass-roots level in China. The so-called "foundation is not solid, the ground is shaking."
Interestingly, in rural China, people have always closely linked "gambling" and "theft", believing that there is a causal relationship between the two. For example, the "Liao Wei Zetang Family Tree" of Guangdong Nanhai in the 28th year of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty pointed out that "gambling is the source of theft, the worst custom." The "Genealogy of the Sun Clan" in Jiangdu, Jiangsu Province, in the seventh year of tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, pointed out that "gambling is a sign of breaking a family and the cause of thieves." "In the ninth year of tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, the "Liu Clan Genealogy" of Tongcheng, Anhui Province, stated in the "prohibition of prostitution and gambling" regulations that "gamblers, the source of thieves." In the eleventh year of the Tongzhi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, Anhui Qianyang's "Li Clan Re-repair Genealogy" also pointed out in the "prohibition of gambling" regulations, "Gamblers, the source of thieves." In the eleventh year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, Jiangsu Runcheng's "Jingjiang Gift Hall Dai's Rebuilding family ride" also said, "All those who gamble and wander are uneasy about their physiology." Close to thieves. "In the "Genealogy of the Xi Clan" in the 20th year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, Jiangsu Jinling also has the saying "Proverb Cloud: 'Rape near killing, gambling near thieves'". In the first year of the Qing Dynasty's Xuantong Dynasty, Hunan Xiangtan's "Baisha Chen Clan Genealogy" also has the beginning of the volume "Gambling is the source of adultery, and it is right and wrong." ”
At that time, what was gambling? The "Genealogy of the Sun Clan" of Jiangdu, Jiangsu Province, in the seventh year of tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, pointed out that "dice throwing, dominoes, cards, Go, chess, throwing money, double land, all gamble also." In 1935 (the twenty-fourth year of the Republic of China), the "Genealogy of the Chen Clan" in Jiangsu Biling clearly stipulated: "Rolling dice, smearing cards, cloth chess, fighting paper, double land, and throwing money are all gambling." "Some of these have been lost today, and some of them have been deformed today.
Regarding these "gambling, theft and the like", Mr. Yu Yingshi said that the village "the patriarch and elders met in the ancestral hall to discuss the method of punishment, and the most serious fouls could be played." It is true that the "Hua Genealogy" of Yincheng, Zhejiang, in the twenty-fourth year of guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, clearly stipulates at the beginning of the volume, "Whoever prostitutes gamblers, the patriarch can scepter." In the "Genealogy of the Rebuilding of the Sheng Clan" in Jiangsu Jingjiang, the third year of the Qing Dynasty's xuanun, it is stipulated that "those who have gambling scoundrels and violate the law of etiquette should adhere to their parents, insist on it, tell them to the ancestral hall, and condemn them for their sins, in order to reform themselves." ”
However, how much is this kind of "playing board"? Mr. Yu Yingshi did not say that perhaps his age at that time did not make him concerned about the specific "number of plates". I saw that in the Qing Dynasty Jiaqing Three Years Jiang Danyang", volume 14 of the "Yin Clan Reconstruction Genealogy", there is such a provision: "Children and daughters are ruined, for the sake of non-death, every time they start from gambling." It is strictly forbidden to pass the clan. Whoever fights cards and rolls dice is heavily responsible for twenty. Those who bet on the head of the nest are doubly responsible. In the first volume of the "Genealogy of the Restoration of the Fei Clan" in the eighth year of tongzhi in Jiangsu Province, it is stipulated that "those who gamble and demote criminals will be punished for forty boards." Volume I of the "Genealogy of the Xing Clan" in Hefei, Anhui Province, in the first year of the Guangxu Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, stipulates: "Whoever is a thief, a kidnapper, a drunkard, a demotion, a gambler, an adulterer, a stolen goods, a bandit, and a criminal, and who has been ruled by the state, shall be exempted from family rules; those who have not received shall be punished for thirty years and shall repent." Volume 34 of the "Genealogy of the Continuation of the Shen Family" in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang, in the nineteenth year of the Guangxu Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, stipulates: "Gambling money, playing with fists, kicking and kicking, throwing bricks, and beating tiles, violators are heavily responsible for thirty plates." In this way, because gambling was caught in the ancestral hall, the standard of "playing the board" in various villages is different, and the starting point should be twenty boards, and the upper limit may be in forty boards. Isn't that a little too harsh? In fact, just look at the punishment rules for "gambling" in the "Great Qing Law and Criminal Law" - "All gambling financial personnel are eighty rods, and the stalls are in the officials", we can know that the "villagers", the patriarchs and elders, have already given a lot of face. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Li Baichuan wrote in the twenty-second time in Zhang Hui's novel "The Wizard of Oz" that "breaking the divorce and not changing the staff of torture, throwing himself into the canal to get foreign wealth", wrote that those who were hit by forty large plates in the county gate were miserable as if they had "cut off several pieces of skin and flesh, and groaned in pain day and night." I guess that the "board" of the patriarchs and elders should not be so cruel, after all, they are neighbors, and they can't look up and look down.
Mr. Yu Yingshi said that "the most serious foul can be played", and I can only say that it is the compassion of the Yu Family Ancestral Hall. From the provisions I saw in the ancestral halls of the Qing Dynasty on "punishing kneeling incense", "punishing those who violate the law with silver", "punishing the offender heavily to their master", "punishing the main family", "stopping the chicks", "sending officials to punish", "that is, removing the ancestral hall, punishing the officials", "submitting officials to investigate the rule, and not allowing them to enter the ancestral hall", etc., we can know that The "ancestral punishment" in China is various and very severe.
Thank you Mr. Yu Yingshi, because of this reminiscence article, I have combed through some historical materials of the ancestral hall and genealogy that I can see at hand. I would also like to use this article to remember Mr. Yu Yingshi. (Written on August 15, 2021 at Villa Chiba, Japan)