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preface
In the twenties of the last century, Mr. Lu Xun published a "History of Chinese Novels", which covers many novels from the pre-Qin to the late Qing Dynasty.
In the book, he made a very unpolite comment on the late Qing dynasty novelist Lu Shichen's "New China".
But a few years later, Mr. Lu Xun overturned his previous remarks and re-affirmed "New China" and Lu Shichen.
This makes many readers curious, what kind of book can make Mr. Lu Xun "beat his mouth"? What kind of person?
Abandon the text to follow the doctor or abandon the medicine to follow the text?
Born in a family of officials and eunuchs in the late Qing Dynasty, Lu Shichen was intelligent since childhood, loved to read poetry and writing, and would have taken the path of honor like his father and became a literati.
It's a pity that the family fell in the middle, coupled with the Qing government's weakening of the Western Mountain, made him have no hope in the imperial examination.
In order to make a living, seventeen-year-old Lu Shichen could only abandon Wen to practice medicine and worshiped Tang Chunzhai, a famous doctor in Qingpu, as a teacher.
At that time, Lu Shichen's idea was very simple, open his own medical hall, treat and save people, and support a family.
So he studied medicine assiduously, and stayed in Qingpu to practice medicine after leaving the school, but the life was not as good as he expected.
Although they are all open for business, the medical hall is always special, and if it is not for a famous doctor, it is difficult for the people to believe.
A young novice doctor like Lu Shichen who has little "record" is rarely a patient who dares to come to his door for diagnosis and treatment, for fear of "quack doctors misleading people".
Seeing that the business was really cold and even eating became a problem, Lu Shichen had to write novels part-time, which could not only pass the time, but also make money to survive.
At that time, there were many people who wanted to make a living from words, but most of the manuscripts they submitted were stones in the sea, and it was difficult to have a chance to get ahead.
Lu Shichen was fortunate once, his short works were affirmed by the newspaper, and he was well paid, and later had the opportunity to publish them.
After tasting the "sweetness", Lu Shichen thought that he was still more suitable for taking the literary road, and decided to abandon medicine and literature again and write novels full-time, so he closed the medical center in his hometown and went to Shanghai to seek a future.
Here he met the Bole in his life - Shen Zhifang.
Shen Zhifang is a well-known newspaper and novelist in Shanghai, who has achieved some results by climbing all the way, he knows how difficult it is to write, and he is afraid that Lu Shichen will come full of confidence and finally return disappointed.
"You don't have to abandon medicine and literature, the two are not in conflict, I will open a clinic for you under the Shanghai library, and write without delaying your life."
Lu Shichen shook his head repeatedly, he had all failed experiences in practicing medicine, and he didn't dare to have hope at all.
Shen Zhifang persuaded him that he had not chosen the right method to open a medical center in his hometown before, but now the most important prerequisite for doing business in Shanghai is to be able to publicize, and if you put it on the advertising board for a few days, guests will naturally come to admire.
Yes, as early as the last century, there was a saying of spending money to buy advertising, which shows that no matter what era, mastering public opinion propaganda can unlock the "traffic password".
The day after the advertisement was published, Lu Shichen waited for a big business, and a man paid a lot of money to ask him to see a doctor for his wife.
Lu Shichen's medical skills are good, but he does not have much practical experience, and it is the first time that he has been invited to visit his home, so he is extremely uneasy.
Fortunately, the process was very smooth, and after many diagnoses and treatments, the patient was completely cured.
Under the multiple publicity of advertisements and patients' families, his name spread ten, ten and hundred, and he became a new "famous doctor" in Shanghai!
In the following years, he continued to study medical skills and write medical books, becoming one of the top ten famous doctors in Shanghai.
With a proud career, Lu Shichen no longer has to worry about his livelihood, and no longer has to think about abandoning literature to practice medicine or abandoning medicine and following literature.
Practice medicine and write with both hands, treat and save people during the day, and lie down at night... The legendary story that belongs to him quietly develops and reaches a climax step by step.
Lu Shichen's century-old "Expo dream"
Lu Shichen has loved reading since he was a child, is very interested in all kinds of anecdotes, and because he has been exposed to new things, he is very open-minded.
He and his wife are in free love, and when they got married, they also took a Western-style wedding photo, and their behavior on weekdays is not like a literati raised by a feudal family, but more like an enlightened overseas study school.
When he was able to write novels, his words were mostly imaginative and imaginative, and the most representative works were "New Shanghai" and "New China".
First of all, "New Shanghai", since the Opium War, Shanghai has become a colony of Western powers.
Shanghai has evolved and blended between local and foreign, forming a unique urban culture.
Under the combination of old and new cultures, it is easy to breed wrong ideas and concepts, and it can be said that Shanghai at that time was full of places that tested human nature.
After settling in Shanghai, Lu Shichen "insighted" the society and people's hearts up close, and wrote "New Shanghai" after various insights.
By portraying the image of people "prostitution, gambling, and cheating", the extravagance and confusion of the Ten Mile Ocean Field are vividly written, and the ugliness and evil of that era are accurately criticized, and it was later hailed as one of the top ten classical social condemnation novels in Shanghai.
For Lu Shichen, he was dissatisfied with the governance of the government and social environment at that time, but he had no other way to save the country, and could only pin his helplessness and expectations on reality in words.
Although he has been pending, he always feels that something is missing.
Until 1910, after a drunkenness, he had a bizarre and wonderful dream.
After waking up, Lu Shichen could not calm down for a long time, and worked hard overnight, combining dreams with reality, and wrote a 20,000-word novel - "New China".
The book is completely based on Lu Shichen himself, and in his dreams, he travels back forty years later.
At that time, Shanghai was no longer a colony of Westerners, China was no longer a semi-colonial country, everything was a new world.
China has changed its old appearance of poverty and weakness, the country has no foreign debt, industry, education, medical care, science and technology... The development of all walks of life is far ahead of Western countries.
Even better, the "Universal Exposition" was to be held in Shanghai that year, and countless countries rushed to Shanghai to witness China's strength and prosperity.
In preparation for the expo, new bridges and tunnels have been built in Pudong, and trams have even been built throughout the city.
Experts and the masses at that time engaged in a fierce debate over whether the subway was built above ground or underground.
After the underground tram tunnel was completed, Lu Shichen happily rushed to visit, but was stumbled and woke up, and this fantastic and gorgeous dream was over.
The novel uses dreams as a carrier and incorporates factors of travel and the future, which is bold and novel, and once published, it has aroused enthusiastic responses in society.
Lu Shichen became a "strange man", and "New China" became a "strange book".
Although the novel sold well in the market, it was questioned and criticized by colleagues in the literary world.
Mr. Lu Xun even gave the novel an evaluation of "all are not commensurate", which is generally nonsense and nonsense.
In fact, if you put yourself in that era, you can understand why Mr. Lu Xun criticized this novel so much.
It was 1910, the Qing government was in danger, and the land of China was in ruins.
The society is dark and rotten, the people are insensitive, and the whole country and nation cannot see the excess hope and light.
Mr. Lu Xun and other literati used the pen as a knife to alert the world, recognize reality, and not continue to sink into the darkness.
So their words and opinions are critical, radical, and resolutely reject any unrealistic illusions.
Too beautiful things will make people lose their fighting spirit, Mr. Lu Xun is a "warrior", rather than fantasize about the beauty of the unknown future, he is more willing to dig into the darkness of the society at that time.
Therefore, in contrast, Lu Shichen's "New China" seems too "utopian", incompatible with the social background and literary pursuit at that time, and it is reasonable to be criticized.
After all, we can't ask a person who doesn't have enough to eat to fantasize about a better life decades from now.
Because people may have starved to death before that day comes, ideals are based on food and clothing.
Therefore, Lu Shichen's "New China" can only be a beautiful dream, the dream that people most longed for but was the most difficult to realize at that time, because it was temporarily "shelved" because it was out of time.
It is not until the Chinese people really have the ability to dream and realize their dreams that it is more easily accepted and recognized.
In 2010, a hundred years after Lu Shichen wrote "New China", Shanghai really became what he imagined in his dreams.
With high-rise buildings, heavy traffic, strong country and prosperous people, prosperity and stability, the once impossible "World Expo" has also come true.
On May 1, 2010, the Shanghai World Expo was held in Pudong.
The underground tram tunnel that runs through the entire city in the novel is no longer a dream, it has become the "dragon head" of China's rapid economic development, and the whole city is shining like the pearl of the East.
Director Jia Zhangke couldn't help but sigh when filming "Legend of the Sea":
"The new China that Lu Shichen wrote a hundred years ago is a science fiction novel, but I think it is a dream come true."
In the eyes of today's people, Lu Shichen's achievements in both literature and medicine are very remarkable, and "New China" can be called "a dream in a hundred years".
The "Chinese Dream" that transcends the times
In fact, before Lu Shichen, Liang Qichao also had beautiful fantasies about China's future development, and as early as 1902, he published the political novel "The Future of New China".
The novel is 90,000 words and imagines the changes in China between 1902 and 1962, ten years before Lu Shichen.
The China in the novel has achieved a democratic republic through exploration and change, also known as the "Great China Democracy".
Under various changes and restorations, China has changed its poverty and weakness, become an economic and cultural power, and returned to the forefront of the world.
In 1962, officials and representatives from all over the world gathered in China to participate in the grand ceremony, which was similar to Lu Shichen's "Universal World Expo".
Liang Qichao was not only a literati who had read the history of the scriptures, but also a revolutionary who saved his life.
His historical vision is unique, and the story he describes in the book is largely an analysis of China's future political situation.
Therefore, even if "The Future of New China" came out earlier than "New China", it was rarely criticized by the industry, let alone labeled as a "utopia".
Not only literati, but even Dr. Sun Yat-sen had a "century-old dream".
After resigning as interim president, he has been in charge of the country's railway supervision, formulating various railway planning plans, and putting forward the five major railway system ideas to build 200,000 kilometers of railways within ten years.
At that time, some people also said that he was utopian, and the railway dream could not be realized, but today, a hundred years later, the land of China has long been prosperous and the road is passing.
Therefore, whether it is Lu Shichen, Sun Yat-sen, or Liang Qichao, whether it is prediction or dreaming, their essence is the same, and they have the highest degree of vision for the future of New China.
In today's words, everyone has the same "Chinese dream", and they dare to think and do it even more than us.
Unlike our current "God perspective," the intellectuals of the last century groped in the unknown.
In the shadow of a closed society, you can transcend your environment and situation and predict the future ahead of time.
This is not magicism, let alone utopianism, but the deepest understanding of the entire nation, pinning hopes on the future, believing that the country and the people will one day turn over.
Therefore, from this point of view, Lu Shichen's status and achievements in the history of modern Chinese novels are underestimated, and it is not too much to say that it is not timely.
When "New China" was published, he was attacked and condemned in various ways, and had no choice but to burn the manuscript, leaving only the fragments of the manuscript, which was a big loss for the entire literary world.
Fortunately, a few years later, Mr. Lu Xun read "New China" again.
With the deepening of his understanding of society and the changes in his own experience, he gained a new understanding of the novel, and found that his criticism was too absolute, so he publicly apologized to Lu Shichen and affirmed the value of "New China".
If Mr. Lu Xun's words are knives, he split the "chaos" of society for the people at that time and woke up from numbness;
Na Lu Shichen's words are light, allowing the people who have woken up from the darkness to see hope for progress.
epilogue
Now a hundred years have passed since the publication of Lu Shichen's novel, and New China has changed the world, and the expectations in the novel have become reality one by one, even better than he expected.
The world therefore called him a "prophet" and was impressed by his wisdom and vision.
In fact, today, Chinese is still dreaming of the future, hoping to achieve prosperity in the true sense.
If Lu Shichen is looking forward to the future, then today's people have more memories of the past.
Just like in recent years, there will always be people on the Internet who lament the "prosperity of the Great Tang Dynasty" in the past, and look forward to the grandeur of "all nations coming to the dynasty", which is actually a truth.
Everyone is a "dreamer", and the name of the dream is collectively called the "Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Dream".
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