In 1995, Bai Yansong interviewed Qi Gong on "Children of the Orient" and talked about his royal origin, and Qi Gong responded like this - "clan but not emperor".
Qi Gong had always been reluctant to be a humane person and his family lineage, although his ancestor was the fifth son of Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty and the younger brother of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, he was a descendant of the imperial family.
If someone wrote to Qi Gong and called him "Ai Xin Jue Luo Qi Gong" or "Jin Qi Gong" (when the great warlord Yuan Shikai came to power, he ordered all Ai Xin Jue Luo clans to be changed to the transliteration of the Jin surname, and those who did not follow them were severely punished), he would all turn back and not look at them. He said angrily that his surname was Qi Minggong, the character Yuan Bai or Yuan Bo, and he had never used the names written in the letter.
If you call him "Steadfast," he rejoices. Qi Gong has an ancient stone, which reads: "A fist of stone takes its strength, and a spoonful of water takes its purity." He even named his small bedroom and study "Jianjingju" to show his firm and pure heart.
On July 26, 1912, the year after the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, a particularly crisp baby cry was heard in the assorted garden alley in Beijing, and the Fengguo general Pu Liang added a great-grandson.
At that time, Pu Liang's Feng Lu was pitifully small, and he did not even have enough to support his family, so he had to rely on others as a tutor to make a living, and his family was in a weak state, and he was a nominal "general".
And Pu Liang's son, Qi Gong's grandfather Yu Long, was relatively angry, took the road of imperial examination and entered the career path, and the official to Sichuan Xuezheng, the main examination, and the ceremonial academy bachelor, more powerful than today's provincial education director. Born in Hanlin and good at calligraphy, he had a great influence on Xiao Qigong.
Unfortunately, when Qi Gong was 10 years old and 11 years old, his great-grandfather and grandfather died one after another, and he lost his father since he was a child, and he could only watch this family that had lost its support even more defeated. In order to pay off debts and settle funeral expenses, not only did the family's calligraphy and paintings have to be sold, but the whole family also moved out of the assorted garden alley to survive. Later, Qi Gong, who had not yet graduated from high school, dropped out of school in 1931.
Originally, Qi Gong was intelligent since childhood, starting from the age of five or six to read the Analects, Erya, and Mencius, and was admitted to Beijing Huiwen Primary School at the age of 12, and promoted to Huiwen Middle School at the age of 16, which is still a well-known key middle school in Beijing. If he can continue to study, maybe he can study abroad and study, and he will not have a bumpy experience in the future.
After dropping out of school, Qi Gong concentrated on doing two things, one was to inherit his grandfather's profession and become a tutor to earn money to subsidize the family; the other was to look around for people to find jobs that could be developed for a long time. Compared with today's almost thirty-year-old young people who are still nibbling on the old people, he can be described as self-improvement.
In 1933, the famous bibliophile Fu Zengxiang recommended Qi Gong to The President of Fu Jen University, Chen Yuan, who liked his work very much, thought that "writing is excellent", and affectionately called him a "child".
Qi Gong thus began the three-in-three-out road at Fu Jen University.
The first time was in 1933, when Chen Yuan arranged for Qi Gong to teach Chinese language at the Affiliated Middle School of Fu Jen University. Although his lectures were extremely vivid and well-liked by the students, he was dismissed by the principal of Furen Middle School at the time, on the grounds that Qi Gong's academic qualifications were too low.
The second time was in 1935, when Chen Yuan arranged for qi gong, who had recently been dismissed, to serve as a teaching assistant in the fine arts department of Fu Jen University. For Chen Yuan's help, Qi Gong is very grateful, and he is more diligent and attentive than anyone else in his work. Unfortunately, at this time, the dean of the Faculty of Education, who was in charge of the power of the Art Department, was the former principal of Furen Middle School, and Qi Gong was once again tricked by fate and lost his job.
Deeply hit, Qi Gong did not sink, but returned to his old business and became a tutor. In addition, he also sold calligraphy and paintings to subsidize his family, because of his outstanding talent, which made him already quite famous in society.
In fact, Qi Gong's initial academic achievements were not in calligraphy, he first learned to paint. When he was a teenager, a distant relative asked him to paint, and the painting was excellent, and Qi Gong was full of joy and was about to pay the money, and unexpectedly stopped his relatives, saying that he would let her husband come, which meant that his words were too ugly. Qi Gong was deeply stimulated, and from then on he strengthened his practice until he was called "the first stroke in China".
Chen Yuan loved Cai and did not want to bury Qi Gong because of academic problems, so he reached out to him for the third time - in 1938, when Fu Jen University opened in the fall, Qi Gong was hired as a first-year Chinese language teacher. This course was mastered by Chen Yuan himself, so Qi Gong would not encounter "unreasonable" dismissals again.
In order to repay the expectations and cultivation of his mentor Chen Yuan, Qi Gong spurred himself even more and developed the habit of pragmatism, truth-seeking and rigor in his scholarship. Gradually, his real talent and practical learning won praise from all sides, and every class he taught would attract many students from other majors to listen.
In 1952, Fu Jen University was merged into Beijing Normal University together with the Education Research Office of Chinese Min University, the Department of Education of Yenching University, and the Department of Education of Peking University.
During his teaching at Normal University, according to the new education system, Qi Gong, who was divided into the discipline of classical literature, could not create calligraphy and painting. But how could Qi Gong, who was so intoxicated by this, put down the pen in his hand! So he secretly used his spare time to create, talent coupled with love and diligence, so that he reached the point of "establishing a family of calligraphy and painting" in art.
Because of his rising fame, when the Chinese Academy of Painting was established in Beijing in 1956, Ye Gongqiu, who presided over the academy, graciously invited Qi Gong to "jump ship", and after being resigned by Qi Gong, he also took care of Maolu. Chen Yuan sent a message to let Qi Gong take half a day every day to go to the painting academy to help, and Qi Gong obeyed the intention of the teacher, but later he was beaten into a rightist.
After putting on the hat of a "rightist", Qi Gong comforted the sad boss Zhang Baochen: "Forget it, we can't talk about wrongs." We are the remnants of feudalism, and you think that the bourgeoisie wants to revolutionize our lives, let alone the proletariat that wants to revolutionize the lives of the bourgeoisie. Now the revolution needs to arrest some of the rightists, but who should we arrest? Can we become 'leftists'? Since it is not 'left', is it not the right? His words made people can't help but laugh.
It was not easy to "take off the hat", but the Cultural Revolution came, and he became the object of censorship and criticism in this movement - which is indeed too much for this good old and harmless old man who has been kind and harmless all his life. Qi Gong was extremely disappointed, and he returned home to Zhang Baochen and said, "It is better to die!" ”
Zhang Baochen panicked when he heard this, thinking that he could not open his mind to find short-sightedness, and hurriedly looked for relatives and friends to persuade him. Qi Gong smiled when he saw that the boss was so serious, and turned back to persuade his wife to rest assured.
When this frenzy really swept in, Qi Gong's heart seemed particularly calm. The Red Guards saw that his writing was particularly well written, so they asked him to copy the big character newspaper. He usually used a bald pen, a few pieces of colored paper or newspapers to copy them calmly in the North Normal University, and chatted with people while copying, and he was very free to let go.
Qi Gong joked that his calligraphy level grew the fastest during that period. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, when someone asked Qi Gong what kind of calligraphy he wrote, he casually replied "big character newspaper style."
In 1979, the Beijing Normal University justified Qi Gong, and after restoring his original salary, he realized his importance and proposed to increase his salary by another level, but he refused. Qi Gong said that his wife has passed away, and now he is alone, and the living wage is enough, so let's increase these wages to those in need!
In the past, a person who spared no effort to criticize Qi Gong came to his door to apologize to him, and Qi Gong laughed after listening to it, and said a rather philosophical sentence: "In that era, we were all involuntarily, as if we were singing on stage, you sang Zhuge Kongming, and I sang the horse rumor that lost the street kiosk, and now, after the play is over, it will be over!" ”
In 1982, he was hired as a master's supervisor of classical literature at Beijing Normal University, and two years later he was hired as a doctoral supervisor, and was the first batch of doctoral supervisors in Chinese universities. He has trained 8 doctoral students and 7 master's students, and these students have later made great contributions to China's education.
For these honors, Qi Gong joked: "I don't know what a 'doctoral guide' is, only 'fruit guide' (a medicine for constipation). The old decay is dying of old age, and it will fall when it is dialed, it will fall when it is refuted, and it will fall if it is not dialed or refuted. He was full of self-deprecating spirit, afraid of putting a worldly aura on his head.
Usually, his life is extremely simple, a bowl of noodles, a few cucumber sauce is a meal. However, in November 1991, on the 110th anniversary of the birth of his mentor Chen Yuan, Qi Gong sold his works in Hong Kong, and the proceeds of 1.63 million yuan were donated to Beijing Normal University as a scholarship for poor students.
This scholarship, Qi Gong did not name it after himself, but took the word Li Yun in Chen Yuan's "Li Yun Library" and established it. Its high wind and bright festival are touching.
Liulichang and Panjiayuan have people selling Qi Gong's fake calligraphy and paintings, and usually he will smile, because he knows that the other party is to support his family, just a means of making a living. Someone asked Qi Gong how to distinguish the authenticity of his words, and he said: "What is well written is false, and what is not written well is true!" ”
Lost at an early age, lost his mother in middle age, lost his companion in old age, and had no children in his life, such a "Jianjing Weng" who had endured hardships but always maintained a pure heart and a humorous and funny heart, died at the age of 93 at Beijing Peking University Hospital at 2:25 on June 30, 2005.
"I can be on the same page as the sages, and I don't care about the world." This is the couplet written by Qi Gong, and it is also a portrayal of his life as a person.