1
Among China's many warlords, Zhang Zuolin is probably the most uncultured.
Zhang Zuolin went to a private school when he was a child and hid a red gun behind the door of the school. When the teacher found out and asked him what he was doing, he replied, "If you hit me with a board, I'll give you two shots!" ”
Frightened, the teacher rushed to Find Zhang Zuolin's mother and said that he did not dare to teach this child.
Zhang Zuolin, who had hardly read any books, later dominated the three eastern provinces and became rich, but his heart was still that he did not have much education.
On the one hand, Zhang Zuolin let his son Zhang Xueliang and others receive the best education at that time (Zhang Xueliang had a fluent English (although with a bit of a northeastern accent), and later even flew a plane), on the other hand, he hoped that under his rule, more people could be educated.
In 1918, Zhang Zuolin ran the Fengtian Higher Normal School, which was the largest university in Northeast China at that time. Zhang Zuolin stipulated that the students who attend this school are free of tuition, and the food and accommodation are free, the standard is quite high, and the weekly guarantee of rice is not to say, and there are fish and meat.
However, Zhang Zuolin felt that it was not enough to run a normal school, and he also wanted to run the best university.
This was Northeastern University, which officially opened on October 24, 1923.
Zhang Zuolin
2
Zhang Zuolin really wanted to do a good job in this matter.
This can be seen in the selection of principals he arranged. Although Zhang Zuolin is not highly educated, he must have a reason to be able to become a generation of tyrants, such as he will employ people (although Guo Songling later had an accident, Guo's military talent was indeed not buried by Zhang Zuolin). Zhang Zuolin knew very well that the most important thing in running a university was to have a good president, so the first president he invited was Wang Yongjiang, the governor of Fengtian Province at that time.
Wang Yongjiang, a native of Dalian, Liaoning Province, is four years older than Zhang Zuolin and is actually an important behind-the-scenes driver of Zhang Zuolin's rapid rise in the northeast. During his tenure as director of the Finance Department of Fengtian Province, he turned the entire northeast finance into a profit, which won Zhang Zuolin's trust and obedience to him. And most importantly, Wang Yongjiang is a person with a healthy temperament, a clean wind in his sleeves, and a high academic accomplishment.
Wang Yongjiang. The motto of Northeast University, which he personally taught at that time, was "Unity of Knowledge and Action".
After selecting the person, Zhang Zuolin knew that the next important thing was money.
Zhang Zuolin really still has courage. In order to run Northeastern University, he approved 500 mu of land (and later approved 200 mu of land to build a school and run a factory for students to intern), and took out 6 million yuan of funds. Not only that, but his annual budget for Northeastern University is 1.6 million yuan. What is the concept of $1.6 million? At that time, Zhang Boling's annual funding for Nankai University was 400,000 yuan, Peking University's annual fund was 900,000 yuan, and Tsinghua University, which received Gengzi's compensation, had a budget of only 1.2 million yuan a year. Therefore, at that time, the monthly salary of a professor at Peking University was already staggeringly high, while the monthly salary of a professor at Northeastern University was 360 oceans, and a celebrity professor like Zhang Shizhao could get 800 oceans a month.
At that time, Zhang Zuolin said a rather famous sentence to Wang Yongjiang:
"Luo Yuan, I haven't read books, I know that there is no harm of ink in my stomach, so I can't let us northeasterners have no opportunity to go to college for further study, do northeastern university things, everything is entrusted to you, the sooner the school starts, the better, the lack of money tells me, no matter how much, I would rather raise fifty thousand less army, Northeastern University must do it!"
Some people had money and support, and Northeastern University rose rapidly. Under the auspices of Wang Yongjiang, all kinds of teaching equipment of Northeastern University were purchased from Germany, from physical and chemical experimental instruments to various animal and plant specimens and books. According to statistics in 1926, Northeastern University had 13,516 specimens of various instruments, a collection of 33,164 books, and another mechanical equipment worth 865,300 yuan. In addition, due to the high salary attraction, northeastern university's faculty was also first-class at that time. In 1928, 77 of Northeastern's 128 faculty members returned from studying abroad, 11 doctors, 37 masters, and 29 bachelor's degrees, and two years later, the number of professors reached 300. Among them are the famous Couple Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin, who were invited to Northeastern University to start the Department of Architecture.
By the end of the 1920s, Northeastern University had quickly become a leading university in China, with 3,000 students, while Peking University had only 2,000 students at that time.
Unfortunately, first Zhang Zuolin was killed in Huanggutun in 1928, followed by the "918 Incident" in 1931, and Northeastern University began to enter a period of turmoil. Although the successor president, Zhang Xueliang, was once also very supportive of the school, as the Northeast Army withdrew into Guannei without firing a shot, Northeastern University became the first university in China to be forced into exile at that time.
After that, Northeastern University was displaced, resuming classes, suspending classes, merging, relocating, and was renamed "Northeast Institute of Technology" after liberation, and finally restored the name of "Northeastern University" in 1993.
In 1993, Zhang Xueliang wrote an inscription for Northeastern University
At present, Northeastern University is still in Shenyang, listed in the "211 Project" and "985 Project", and is a science and engineering research university directly under the Ministry of Education.
3
In China's modern history, Cao Kun has a well-known name: "bribery of the president."
However, in addition to being a mind to become president, Cao Kun still strives to do some other things well, such as running a university.
Cao Kun
Cao Kun was born as a small cloth dealer and did not have many opportunities to be educated, so after he became famous, like Zhang Zuolin, he also had a transcendent pursuit of education, and he was also more respectful of intellectuals - on the premise of not infringing on his interests.
It was in this context that "Hebei University" was established after the merger of a series of agricultural, commercial and law schools by Cao Kun, the governor of hebei at the time. It was founded in June 1921, in fact, before Northeastern University.
Realistically speaking, Cao Kun still very much wants to run this university well, especially for the professors invited by the school, and every time he pays the professors' salaries, he asks the school's administrative staff to wrap the ocean in red paper, put it in a tray, and respectfully send it to the professors. Once, Cao Kun inspected the school and saw that a professor was doing experiments with a microscope, looking very high-tech, Cao Kun said emotionally: "Mr. uses his brain like this, I only give Mr. So much silver every month, and my heart is too unbearable!" ”
In fact, the monthly salary that Cao Kun set for professors at Hebei University at that time was not low, and there were as many as 2,300 oceans. But Cao Kun was still afraid of snubbing the teacher, so he would give the students a lesson: "These professors are all hard-working invitations from Cao Kun, and whoever is rude to the professor is rude to Cao Kun!" Whose head I want! ”
The gate of Hebei University at that time
However, although Cao Kun has the intention to run a university, his means are not as good as Zhang Zuolin's, and one of the specific manifestations is the choice of president.
The first president of Hebei University was Cao Kun's fourth brother, Cao Rui. Cao Rui learned to do business in Mizhuang from an early age, and later when his brother became a pioneer, he abandoned the business and became the governor of the province directly under him. How much attention can the governor and principal put on running a school? Moreover, Cao Kun also sent a group of cronies to Hebei University to serve as school administrators, and it is conceivable that the learning atmosphere at that time would not be much better.
Moreover, compared with the stability of the northeast, the Gyeonggi area, which is located in the key chong, has been changing the banner of the king in the era of warlord melee, and the successive years of warlord scuffles have made the position of the president of Hebei University change frequently, and it is almost a year later, and there is no stable learning environment. In 1924, Cao Kun was ousted by Feng Yuxiang in the "Beijing Coup", and Hebei University lost its patron.
In 1931, Hebei University, which had experienced several storms, finally announced its dissolution. Ten years later, Hebei University has trained a number of talents for China, especially in agricultural sciences. At that time, the "Meteorological Observation Institute" of the Agricultural Science Department of Hebei University was the first institution in Hebei Province to observe and record meteorology with modern scientific methods.
The "Hebei University" that we are familiar with now, in fact, was formerly known as Tianjin Technology and Business University, and has always been located in Tianjin, renamed "Hebei University" in 1960, and only moved to Baoding in Hebei in 1970.
The current school and the "Hebei University" run by Cao Kun are actually two universities.
4
Zhang Zongchang may be the least reputable of so many warlords, known as the "Dog Meat General" and the "Three Unknown Generals".
"Dog meat general" is said not to mean that Zhang Zongchang likes to eat dog meat, but that he is good at gambling on card nine, and Cantonese people call "pushing card nine" "eating dog meat". As for the "Three Unknown Generals", it is more famous, it is he himself who said: "I don't know how much money I have, I don't know how many guns I have, I don't know how many aunts and wives I have." The money was all expropriated and embezzled, and there were more than 50 aunts and wives, and it was said that he really did not understand them, and then he simply numbered them.
Zhang Zongchang.
However, such a warlord particularly worshipped the "Way of Confucius and Mencius", so when he was in charge of Shandong in 1926, he merged six specialized schools in Shandong at that time and founded "Shandong University".
Like other warlords running universities, money was never a problem, and Zhang Zongchang's budget for Shandong University at that time was more than one million yuan a year, and the monthly salary for professors was also about 300 yuan. But the problem is still in the appointment of talents — the first president of Shandong University appointed by Zhang Zongchang was Wang Shoupeng, the head of the late Qing Dynasty.
Wang Shoupeng's calligraphy is excellent, he has entered Hanlin, and he has also inspected Japan, so his learning is good according to reason. However, Principal Wang's learning was mainly concentrated on "Zhi Hu Ye", and most of the teachers invited for the school were those who were old scholars and old talents, which was far from quenching their thirst for the students who hoped to learn advanced Knowledge of the West at that time to revitalize the country.
The key is that Wang Shoupeng's concept is also the same as Zhang Zongchang's: everything must follow the etiquette of the old ancestors. For example, at the opening ceremony and confucius's birthday, all teachers and students must wear robes and horse coats and worship Confucius tablets. Wang Shoupeng also stipulated that it was not okay to see the teacher bending down and bowing, but also prostrating his head and bowing, which made the students unacceptable.
Wang Shoupeng
As a result, Wang Shoupeng only served as the principal for more than a year, and because of the opposition of many students, he finally "brushed his sleeves and left". So who will succeed him as headmaster? The result was Zhang Zongchang himself.
Zhang Zongchang's cultural level, especially his poems, has long become a collection of paragraphs on the Internet, to cite three examples:
"Laughing at Liu Bang": "I heard that Xiang Yuli pulled up the mountain, and Liu Bang was scared to go." Not The little Zhang Liang of the family, Grandma has long returned to Pei County. ”
"You Baotu Spring": "Baotu Spring, Spring Baotu, three eyes as thick as a coarse, three strands of water, light grunt, grunt grunt light grunt." ”
"Praying for Rain": "Grandpa Jade Emperor is also surnamed Zhang, why is it difficult for Zongchang?" If it doesn't rain for three days, first pick up the Dragon Emperor Temple, and then bombard your mother with cannons. ”
Although Zhang Zongchang's daughter later denied that these poems were written by her father, Zhang Zongchang's cultural level was not high, and it can be confirmed.
Due to the average level of education, many Shandong students who had ideas at that time preferred to go to universities in other provinces, which was also jokingly called "Alexander" - "Shandong University in Licheng County, Asia". But this is not the biggest problem encountered by Shandong University, the biggest problem is what many warlords will encounter when they start universities: founded by warlords and followed by warlords.
In 1928, the "Northern Expeditionary Army" of the National Revolutionary Army advanced into Shandong, Zhang Zongchang was defeated and fled, and Shandong University was soon suspended due to financial problems.
Zhang Zongchang also has the nickname "Five Poison Generals" (eating, drinking, gambling and smoking), and his most famous poem should be "The Song of the Great Wind": "The cannon opens and bombards his mother, and Wei Jia Hai Nei returns to his hometown." Count the heroes Xi Zhang Zongchang, and the Ande giant whale swallows Fusang. ”
During Zhang Zongchang's reign in Shandong, in addition to founding Shandong University, he still left some things at the cultural level, such as presiding over the reprinting of the "Thirteen Classics" that was the best version at that time, and personally writing the preface. Of course, the preface to that brilliant article was written by Yang Du in advance and copied by Zhang Zongchang.
Shandong University later became the "National Shandong University" under the preparation of the National Government, and was once renamed "Qingdao National University", and after various mergers and renaming, it finally merged with East China University in 1951 to re-establish "Shandong University". After being renamed "Lu Xun University" and "Shandong University of Science and Technology" during the Cultural Revolution, it was changed back to "Shandong University" again in 1974 and continues to this day.
5
In fact, in the era of warlord chaos, for various reasons and purposes, the enthusiasm of warlords to run universities was still very high.
The predecessor of today's Yunnan University is Donglu University, which was established on December 8, 1922. The most powerful supporter behind it was Tang Jiyao, a Dian warlord known as the "King of Yunnan" at the time. It is worth mentioning that Tang Jiyao, as a warlord, really put a lot of effort into running this university, and still ran back and forth during his period in the wilderness, personally pledging nearly one million yuan before and after. It was named "Donglu" because the ambition at that time was not only to cultivate talents for Yunnan Province and China, but also to become a holy place for East Asian students to study.
Toraku University
The predecessor of today's Henan University is "Henan Zhongzhou University", which was founded in March 1923. In the process of organizing this school, Feng Yuxiang, the warlord who was in charge of Henan at the time, exerted great efforts, and he even used hundreds of thousands of yuan of assets confiscated by Zhao Qian, the former governor of Henan at that time, as education funds, of which 120,000 yuan was directly used as a fund for the preparation of the opening of Henan University.
In 1942, Henan University was changed to the State
The predecessor of today's Chongqing University is the "Chongqing University" founded on October 12, 1929, and the first president was liu Xiang, the sichuan warlord at that time. Because Liu Xiang played a great role in the process of organizing this university. In addition to personal donations, Liu Xiang also mobilized local squires and landlords to donate money together, and even came up with a way of "pork donation" - each pig increased the tax by one dime, all of which was used for school funds. Therefore, the current motto of Chongqing University is still "hard-working, frugal, diligent in study, and love the country".
It is worth mentioning that at that time, Chongqing, as the rear area of the War of Resistance Against Japan, gathered many outstanding teachers and students from all over the country. In 1944, after the slogan of "one inch of mountains and rivers and one inch of blood, 100,000 young people and 100,000 troops" was put forward, one-third of chongqing university students signed up for the expeditionary force and embarked on the forefront of the anti-Japanese resistance.
The campus of Chongqing University, which was bombed during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression
【Editor said】
There will certainly be people asking: Why do warlords want to run universities?
There are actually quite a few reasons. For example, many warlords have not received a good education themselves since childhood, and they have a kind of respect for learned people mixed with inferiority. There are also warlords who do recognize the importance of education and hope to improve the quality of the people through education. Of course, there are some warlords who have a higher realm, and even spend all their family property to do a good job in education, such as Feng Yong, the son of the northeast warlord Feng Delin, who did invest all his efforts in the "Feng Yong University" he founded.
However, it must also be admitted that many warlords run education for fame, but in fact they do not understand education at all. For example, Zhang Zongchang. Zhang Zongchang once lectured the students after he became the principal, and the most important sentence was: "Study hard, don't make a revolution, pay attention to your heads!" ”
It must also be noted that the warlords are actually running universities, because this is the fastest way to produce "results". Only a few warlords, such as Yan Xishan, realized the importance of basic education and spent some energy on popularizing it. This situation is also consistent with the education of the entire Republic of China: attaching importance to elite education and ignoring basic education. So that although it is said that the Republic of China attaches great importance to education, even in 1949, the literacy rate of ordinary people in China was still extremely low, with an illiteracy rate of more than 80%.
Of course, from the warlords running universities, it can still be seen that a stable environment is important for running education. Whether it is basic education or elite education, in the era of war, it is still difficult to put down a desk.
Therefore, considering the personal attributes of the warlord and the environment at that time, in any case, it is not easy to think of spending money to open a university.
This should also add some flesh and blood and sides to the warlords who have the faces in their memories.
The main reference sources for this article are:
1. Why can a warlord establish a first-class university in the Republic of China? ("Big Talk republic", Oriental Network Humanities Channel, April 27, 2016)
2. "Zhang Zongchang's Past of Governor Lu" (Zhu Wenlong, Qilu Evening News, August 16, 2017)
3. "Feng Yuxiang and the Development of Henan University in the Republic of China Period" (Yang Tao, Journal of Henan University (Social Sciences Edition), Vol. 52, No. 6, November 2012)
4. "Cao Kun and Xixiaguan Street "Hebei University" (Li Xin, Baoding Daily, January 19, 2016)
5. Baidu Encyclopedia "Northeastern University", "Hebei University", "Henan University", "Chongqing University", "Yunnan University", "Feng Yong University" entries