Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News Reporter Song Hao Intern Reporter Yan Kexing
Every year around April 23 (World Book Day), on the day of spring breeze and warmer, a grand event about reading, the Spring Wind Reading List Awards Ceremony, is held in Hangzhou.
Writers, translators and critics from all over the country gathered in Hangzhou to take stock of the high-quality books of the past year and work with readers to unveil a comprehensive and high-quality "Spring Breeze Delight Reading List".
Since 2012, the Spring Breeze Reading List has been awarded for nine sessions. It achieved its original goal and became a unique reading event in the Yangtze River Delta.
Past judges, award-winning writers, and award guests have formed friendships with Chunfeng Yue Reading List and left a story in Hangzhou. The Spring Breeze Reading List connects them with readers and records milestones for the course of literature.
It's spring again, and on the occasion of the 10th Spring Wind Yue Reading List, we visited these old friends and listened to their stories with the Spring Wind Yue Reading List. What expectations do they have for the upcoming 10th Spring Breeze Yue Reading List?
Zhou Sicheng
【Character Business Card】
Zhou Sicheng: Winner of the second Chunfeng Yue Reading List "Silver Book Award"
Winner: "The Wrath of the Great Han"
In 2020, the 8th Chunfeng Yue Reading List was postponed to August 8 due to the epidemic situation.
"The late spring breeze is more swinging", this year's Newcomer of the Year Award was awarded to young historian Zhou Sicheng, whose "The Wrath of the Great Han: A Small History of the Yuan Dynasty's Conquest of Japan" was awarded.
Zhou Sicheng graduated from the Department of History of Peking University, and was working at the Central Institute of Party History and Documentation at that time, was fluent in English, French and German, could read Japanese, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Persian, Arabic, Tibetan, Uighur, Mongolian and other languages, and his professional interests were in Mongolian Yuan history, ethnic history and military history.
This historical work was completed by the time he took the time to write his doctoral dissertation. With the research attitude, international vision and way of telling of the new generation of scholars, coupled with his own proficiency in language, the use and processing of materials in the book give readers a unique feeling.
Zhou Sicheng's new book "The Three Capitals of Kui" won the Wenjing Historical Writing Award
At the National Library, we met with Mr. Zhou Sicheng. After two years of seeing each other, he is about to teach in the History Department of Tsinghua University. When they met, he brought with him a new book, "The Three Capitals of Sui: A History of the Mongol Siege of Jin"—a book that received better word-of-mouth and wider attention than its predecessors.
For this work, he won the first Wenjing Historical Writing Award.
【Spring Breeze Q&A】
Hourly News: Can you tell the story of your encounter with chunfeng yue reading list?
Zhou Sicheng: In fact, I won the Newcomer of the Year Award at that time, which was quite unexpected.
The book I wrote is a story of the Yuan Dynasty's conquest of Japan, and I thought that there would not be too many people paying attention to it, and it was a relatively niche reading. Later, in the spring breeze reading list selection, I was encouraged by the judges and guests, and I was quite surprised.
On August 9, 2020, Qianjiang Evening News interviewed Zhou Sicheng
At the same time, it was a surprise that in the previous year, Dr. Zheng Xiaoyou, who also graduated from the History Department of Peking University, also won the Newcomer Award.
For two consecutive years, the same publishing institution, the same category of popular history books, won the Chunfeng Yue Reading List Newcomer of the Year Award, which is quite wonderful.
I hope that Chunfengyue reading the list can discover more young writers of the younger generation who are engaged in social science or literary writing, give them more encouragement, and hope that more excellent works will appear on the list.
News: Can you tell us about your recent creative journey?
Zhou Sicheng: After winning the Chunfeng Yue Reading List Newcomer of the Year Award, I published my doctoral dissertation, "Discipline, Punishment and Conquest: Military Etiquette and Military Law of the Mongol Yuan Empire," on the military law and military etiquette of the Mongol Empire.
Around the same time— and because of the pandemic, I spent more time at home — I wrote another subject that I was more concerned about, and now I've published it: "The Three Capitals of The Three Capitals: A History of the Mongol Siege of Jin."
It tells the history of the 20-year war between Mongolia and the Jin Dynasty, and it is also an interesting theme for recreating the experiences of various small people and big people in that war era.
"The Wrath of the Great Han" and "The Three Capitals" are topics that have been of interest for a long time, and I use a more popular tone to express these two themes, which is also something I wanted to do for a long time.
What else to write after writing "The Three Capitals", I don't have a mature idea at present, but I will still try it.
As a professional researcher, writing such a popular historical genre for me is a process of jumping out of the circle of the academy and enjoying history; constantly trying and groping for the way of writing is also a very interesting process for me.
Hourly News: Can you talk about an interested newcomer or a new book?
Zhou Sicheng: There are two kinds of things that I am more impressed with, one is Dr. Zheng Xiaoyou's "Nine Kings Seize the Concubine", which continues her writing on the theme of Qing history.
Another more fascinating writer is Zhang Xiangrong's Xiangrui (Wenjing/Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2021), about the reforms of Wang Mang's era. I think many people have heard of this book, and the response is relatively good. I heard that he was still writing the second and third parts, and I was looking forward to him continuing to write.
This article is the original work of Qianjiang Evening News, without permission, it is forbidden to reprint, copy, excerpt, rewrite and carry out network dissemination of all works of copyright use, otherwise this newspaper will follow judicial channels to pursue the legal responsibility of the infringer.