At the end of last year, Mr. Shi Jingqian, who enjoyed a high reputation in the Western sinology circles, passed away. His death was a great loss to the historians, and when Chang Dad saw the news, his heart was full of regret, in addition to his gratitude to Mr. Shi Jingqian.
Mr. Shi Jingqian is a professor at Yale University, the director of the Department of History and the Center for East Asian Studies, a well-known contemporary expert in Chinese history, a sinologist, and a Westerner who is best at telling Chinese stories.
Shi Jingqian
He single-handedly created a family of words, telling the intricate characters and events of modern China through rigorous historical examination and the historical method of "telling stories". It can be said that his works are a window for the West to understand Chinese history.
Shi Jingqian's English name is Jonathan D. Spence, "Shi" is the Chinese transliteration of Spence, and "Shi Jingqian" is the meaning of "Jing" Yang Tai "Shi" Company Ma "Qian". The implication is obvious, to study history, we must admire Sima Qian, and take Sima Qian as a model.
Sima Qian and the Chronicle of History
Shi Jingqian has focused on the study of Chinese history for many years, and since the publication of his first academic book " Kangxi and Cao Yin " in 1966 , he has successively completed 14 historical works on China. His works are important monographs on modern Chinese history in European and American academic circles, and some have become university textbooks.
(Shi Jingqian's book "In Search of Modern China" replaced the early Fairbank textbook of modern Chinese history and became a common textbook for Chinese history courses in Western universities.)
Seeing this, perhaps everyone will think that his books are as obscure as most of the history books on the market, after all, they can be used as textbooks, and they can be known when they think about it, and they are inseparable from the difficulty and difficulty. But that's the wrong thing to think about!
What is Shi Jingqian's writing style? For example, you know.
In the book "The Death of Wang", he wrote the story of a low-income woman in Shandong during the Qing Kangxi period.
In the book, he describes it like this:
Wang's body had been lying in a snowdrift all night, and when she was found, she looked like a living person: because of the sweltering cold, a trace of vivid color remained on her dead cheeks.
Is this language, this description, very literary?
As the title suggests, this book reveals the fate of the little people behind the big history by describing the tragic life of one of the protagonists, Wang Shi, and presents us with vivid images and text descriptions, so that readers can follow his brushstrokes and enter the rural world of that era, and have a real understanding and experience of the suffering of that era.
Seeing this, do you have a little understanding of the characteristics of Shi Jingqian's works? His works are not at all a board to record a thick historical material, but by shaping or capturing the lost time and space and the fate of the characters, cutting into the character story, laying out a long picture of the era in the narrative.
The reason why he chose "Wang Shi", a figure who usually does not pay attention to history, is because Shi Jingqian wants to know how the hearts of an emperor and a rural woman in the same era shape each other with their lives; he is also concerned about how the two parties in the opposite position "conspire" to create a piece of history.
There is a saying, "History is a little girl dressed up." Shi Jingqian's people-centered writing technique allows us to capture the ignored moments in the long river of time with the main body of historical activities, so as to establish a more comprehensive, vivid and three-dimensional understanding of history.
The historical monographs written by Shi Jingqian, once published, became the bestsellers of history in the market circulation. Not only is it popular, but it is also a long-selling book, which has lasted for a long time and has a far-reaching impact. "It's not because my writing style is fashionable, it's because I touch on the essence of these stories," he said. ”
This kind of storytelling method that Shi Jingqian said is to take people as the core.
This is also the coincidence between the design concept of our history class and Mr. Shi Jingqian.
Take the "Silk Road" as an example. Some time ago, Xiao Xiaochang was particularly obsessed with a board game called "Millennium Silk Road", and Chang Dad also took this opportunity to introduce the meaning and origin of the Silk Road.
Everyone knows that the Silk Road was opened in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, taking Chang'an as the starting point, passing through Gansu and Xinjiang, to Central Asia and West Asia, and connecting the land passages of Mediterranean countries, and now it is also an important channel for cultural, political, economic and exchanges between China and other countries.
And who opened the Silk Road, and who brought changes in their lives after opening it... Knowing these more specific and vivid contents, we can establish a clear understanding of the Silk Road.
In "The First Lesson in The History System for Children", we guide children to understand the Silk Road through the story of "people":
Zhang Qian
Bring a small expert
The first person to open up the Silk Road
During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the state was strong, but it was still threatened by the powerful nomadic people in the north, the Xiongnu. Therefore, Emperor Wu of han wanted to recruit capable people to contact the countries of the Western Regions, especially the Great Moon Clan, which had contradictions with the Xiongnu, and jointly attack the Xiongnu. At this time, Zhang Qianmao volunteered himself and took the mission of Emperor Wu of Han to the Western Regions.
Draw the point
He set out in Chang'an and experienced all kinds of dangers. The natural conditions in the western region are harsh, not only is the yellow sand full of sky, but also often encounters the problem of lack of food and drink, but he has spent it. The terrible thing was that he was still caught by the Huns. In order to recruit Zhang Qian, the Xiongnu king took him to eat and drink spicy, gold and silver treasures, and high-ranking officials Houlu all used to bribe Zhang Qian, but they did not succeed.
Why?
Because Zhang Qian said that he was an emissary of the Han Dynasty, he would never submit to the Xiongnu! It is with this belief of not abandoning and not giving up that after thirteen years, Zhang Qian finally returned to his motherland.
If Zhang Qian had been seduced by gold and silver treasures and became a high-ranking official of the Xiongnu, wouldn't the Chinese at that time have never known that there were many countries outside the Han Dynasty? Nor is there a chance for foreigners to see the east of the world, and there is a rich China?
In the exchanges between the Western Regions and the Central Plains, the Silk Road has begun to take shape, and it has become the trend of the times to further enhance the exchanges between the Central Plains and the countries in the Western Regions.
In the establishment of the Silk Road, there is also an important figure who is indispensable. It was his efforts that gradually cleared the barriers of the Silk Road and allowed economic exchanges and cultural exchanges to take place.
Hodge disease
The youngest god of war in history
The layer of the Silk Road
Parents and friends must have known that huo huo, a famous general of the Han Dynasty, was ill. His famous saying: "The Xiongnu have not perished, why should they be home!" "To this day, it still shakes our hearts.
At a very young age, Huo Wasai was a die-hard fan of his uncle, General Wei Qing. Although Huo Wentai had been Emperor Wu of Han's bodyguard for a long time, he also had a great dream, that is, to go out to attack the Xiongnu like his uncle. In order to realize his dream, he practiced archery on horseback every day.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, because the national strength was greatly enhanced, he began to counterattack the Xiongnu. When Emperor Wu of Han once again ordered an attack on the Xiongnu, Huo Qiyi finally got his wish and could go into battle to kill the enemy.
If Huo went ill without his own dreams and did not insist on practicing archery every day, then Emperor Wu of Han would not let Huo go ill no matter how many times he attacked the Xiongnu. Because opportunity is always for those who are prepared, all luck is no accident.
In one battle, the squad led by Huo Zhiyi walked on the grassland for a long time without finding the Xiongnu, and his teammates had to give up, but he was determined not to give up. Just looking for it, looking for it, kung fu pays off, Huo not only found the Xiongnu, but also defeated them, and captured several high-ranking Xiongnu commanders!
After many such battles, the Xiongnu could no longer launch a large-scale war to threaten the Western Han. The biggest obstacle to the "Silk Road", the Xiongnu, was 'temporarily' beaten away, and it was possible to go from the Central Plains to the Western Regions.
Huo's conquest of the Xiongnu contributed greatly to the opening up of the Silk Road.
This also prepares the way for the next character to appear.
Ban Chao
Hardcore opened up the Silk Road
Deserved "King of the Western Regions"
Ban Chao was born in Shuxiang mendi, his father was a great scholar, and his brother and sister were also famous historians. Ban Chao, who was born in a family of xueba, is naturally also a xueba. After his father's death, he began copying documents for the government to earn money to support the family.
It is reasonable to say that in such a long time, Ban Chao can also live well. But Ban Chao has great ambitions and feels that a manly husband should defend his family and defend the country. So he threw his pen from Rong and accompanied the general Dou Gu to attack the Northern Xiongnu.
(Knowledge point: The idiom of throwing pen from Rong is from Ban Chao)
Don't look at Ban Chao Yijie Shusheng, for the sake of the great ambition in his heart, the fight is also very fierce. Soon after, he was ordered to send an envoy to the Western Regions to contact all countries to fight against the Huns.
In Khotan, their attitude towards the Ban Chao mission was extremely rude, and the wizards of Khotan actually had to sacrifice Ban Chao's horses. Ban Chao asked the wizard to lead the horse himself, and then stabbed him to death with a sword. The king of Khotan saw that he had quickly ordered the killing of the Xiongnu envoys and reconciled with the Han Dynasty.
In the more than thirty years that he was stationed in the Western Regions, Ban Chao subdued more than fifty countries in the Western Regions, conquered the Western Regions with "domineering spirit", and opened up the Silk Road with hard core.
If Ban Chao is content with the status quo, has no ambitions, and refuses to put his dreams into action, will there still be Ban Chao, the "King of the Western Regions"? Do children also have to set up their own dreams from an early age and work hard for them?
This is a short demonstration of the Silk Road in "The First Lesson in The History System for Children."
Chang Dad knows that parents hope that their children can learn history well, but in the vast river of history, there are too many stories happening, but we must not forget, why can stories happen?
It's because there are people.
"The masses of the people have always been the main body of social practice," and people's subjective initiative has played a very important role in promoting historical development. Grasping this point well, the understanding of history will become clearer and clearer.
The biggest problem that children face when learning history is not memory, but the establishment of overall cognition: how to connect the countless fragments of events in the long river of history, how to see the internal relationship from the events before and after, how to see the big in the small, and cultivate the overall awareness and the overall situation...
And let the children start to understand the stories of historical figures from childhood to adulthood, so that children can think in a different position, see the results from the causes, infer the reasons from the results, and be able to see the internal connection between the characters and the historical development, so as to establish a macro cognition of history.
We put history into the bearer of a certain person, so that children can better enter the learning mode, because it is rich, interesting, full of human feelings, just like the feelings we have now a thousand years later.
In the vivid, interesting and informative animation form, children not only learn quickly and remember it, but also understand the history and produce their own understanding and cognition.
More importantly, in such a learning process, children have formed a dialectical way of thinking and analyzed the overall situation of events, which is of great benefit to their future learning and life.