Zou Rong was a young revolutionary, his articles were straight and enthusiastic, and they used a shallow and popular language, "Revolutionary Army" was very easy to read, but unfortunately he died young.
——Mao Zedong commented on Zou Rong
Zou Ronghe's posthumous book "Revolutionary Army"
In 1903, the government of the late Qing Dynasty was corrupt in its internal affairs and invaded by powerful enemies from the outside, and it was in a state of turmoil. At this time, a book entitled "Zou Rong, a former pawn in the revolutionary army", came out, which was like a stone stirring up thousands of waves, which quickly caused great repercussions throughout the country.
Throughout this book, this work praises the revolution as a "public example of heavenly performance" and "the axiom of the world", fiercely attacks feudal absolutism, calls for the overthrow of the traitorous Qing Dynasty, follows the example of the American revolution and independence, and establishes the Republic of China.
This work has aroused thousands of people of insight, and its far-reaching influence and significance are no less than the role of thousands of troops and horses. For this reason, the revolutionary Zhang Taiyan gladly wrote the preface to this book. This book was also praised by the "Su Bao" article as "one of the textbooks of today's national education".
The author of this book is None other than Zou Rong, who was hailed as "an important propagandist of the bourgeois revolutionaries in the late Qing Dynasty", who was only 18 years old at the time! At this age, I am just a senior in high school! However, 18-year-old Zou Rong already had a deep patriotic enthusiasm, a profound and sharp revolutionary thought, and a fiery passion for dedicating himself to the country!
Zou Rong, a native of Ba County, Sichuan (today's Chongqing), came from a wealthy merchant family. At the age of 6, he entered a private school to study, was talented, diligent and studious, and completed the Four Books and Five Classics and the "History of History", "Book of Han" and other historical masterpieces before the age of 10.
As a wealthy businessman, his father had high hopes for Zou Rong, who was smart and studious from an early age, hoping that he would be able to enter the army and honor his ancestors. In 1898, zou Rong, who was only 13 years old, went to the county town with his eldest brother to take the tongsheng examination, and when he saw that the examination questions were strange, he was angry and quit the exam.
My father beat Zou Rong severely in anger, and Zou Rong argued, "I don't want to learn the stinky eight shares, nor do I want to enter the Manchu examination hall, and what is the use of the meritorious name of the imperial examination in the decaying world?"
His father forced him to study at the Chongqing Jingshu Academy, and Zou Rong was dissatisfied with the country's near decline, and also learned the old schools that could not save the world, and was expelled from the academy in the name of "contempt for the old schools".
Zhang Taiyan is like
Soon, Zou Rong chose to follow the Japanese Narita Yasuki and Inogawa Tatsu to learn English and Japanese, and read a lot of new books and times that introduced modern Western civilization, and his thoughts quickly turned to the reform of the law.
In 1898, when the Penghu Reform Law failed, Zou Rong was deeply shaken, and took Tan Sitong as his example, and even put Tan Sitong's portrait on his seat, and since then he has regarded himself as Tan Sitong's "latecomer" and is determined to save the country and the people.
Zou Rong's father saw that he could not force him to obtain a meritorious name by virtue of the imperial examination, so he had to agree to study abroad, hoping that he would have the opportunity to obtain the meritorious name given by the imperial court when he returned from studying abroad.
On July 1, 1901, the 16-year-old Zou Rong left his hometown to rush to Chengdu to take the examination for officials and students studying in Japan, and although his results were excellent, he was disqualified from the official fee students because of his ideological tendencies toward the reform faction, and he simply went to Japan to study at his own expense.
In the autumn of 1902, Zou Rong arrived in Tokyo and entered the Tongwen Academy, during which time Zou Rong devoted all his energy to reading Western Enlightenment masterpieces and progressive publications, and then admired the French Revolution and American independence. It was also at this time that Zou Rong began to write the book "Revolutionary Army".
In addition to reading a large number of progressive publications, Zou Rong also actively participated in the patriotic democratic movement of Chinese students studying in Japan, and boldly and openly declared that he would carry out an anti-Qing revolution in order to save China. As long as he attended the rally of students studying in Japan, he was bound to rush to give a speech and advocate the anti-Qing revolution to the students studying in Japan.
On March 31, 1903, Zou Rong was deeply angry at the Qing government's army students in Japan to supervise Yao Wenfu's long-term oppression of students, and in anger, together with his classmates, forcibly cut Yao Wenfu's braids and publicly exposed his ugly behavior of oppressing students.
Zou Rong's indignant actions led to persecution by the Qing government, and in order to escape, he had to return to Shanghai and join the Patriotic Society, so he was able to meet Zhang Taiyan, a 16-year-old hero, and the two became friends.
Chairman Mao
Although Zou Rong was only 18 years old at this time, he was full of patriotic enthusiasm, profound thinking, sharp speech, full of energy, frank and sincere, and his speech was extremely encouraging, and he was an active member and elite of anti-Qing revolutionary propaganda at that time.
It was also during this period that Zou Rong completed the writing of the book "Revolutionary Army", which Zhang Taiyan greatly admired and gladly wrote a preface to this book, which was officially published by the Shanghai Datong Book Company, and once it came out, it aroused strong repercussions from the world.
More than half a century later, Mao Zedong, who was already the president of the People's Republic of China, had a copy of Zou Rong's "Revolutionary Army" in his collection, and on the title page of the book he personally copied a small poem that Zhang Taiyan gave to Zou Rong at that time.
If you take a few sentences from the contents of "Revolutionary Army", you can see Zou Rong's profound and sharp thoughts and fiery revolutionary enthusiasm.
For example, in his argument for why China should be revolutionary, he wrote: "Revolutionaries, who conform to heaven and deserve man; revolutionaries, those who go to corruption and save goodness; revolutionaries, those who move from barbarism to civilization; and revolutionaries, who are masters of slavery." To this end, Zou Rong shouted loudly in the book: "If China wants independence, we must not be revolutionary!" If China wants to be on a par with the world powers, we must not be revolutionary! ”
The "Revolutionary Army", which is still passionate to read today, was nothing more than a deafening roar at that time, and naturally caused strong repercussions. It is said that as soon as this book was published, people rushed to buy it and circulate it, and the book was printed more than 20 times and distributed millions of copies, which was the first of all revolutionary books and periodicals at that time.
In 1903, Zhang Taiyan was arrested by the Qing government for the "Su Bao" case, and Zou Rong heard the news and could not bear to let his division commander Zhang Taiyan bear the responsibility alone, so on July 1, he resolutely surrendered to the patrol house. Zou Rong was devastated in prison, usually eating mamai rice that could not be digested at all, and he was still beaten by the jailers.
Zou Rong was imprisoned for less than 2 years, and died on April 3, 1905, when he vomited blood in prison, at the age of 20. Seven years later, with the approval of Sun Yat-sen, the Nanjing Provisional Government posthumously awarded Zou Rong the title of "Great General".