At present, at the end of the national college entrance examination, when the admission scores of various provinces are announced, there will be college entrance examination "champions" in various regions, which will become the object of competition by major media.
The word "Zhuangyuan" originates from the imperial examination system in China's history. As a way of selecting talents in the ancient imperial court, the imperial examination system began in the Sui Dynasty and ended in the Guangxu period, producing hundreds of champions, and Liu Chunlin was the last of these people, known as "the last of the first people".
(Liu Chunlin's old photo)
So, what kind of life experience does this last Yuanlang Liu Chunlin have?
Born in 1872, Liu Chunlin is a native of Suning County, Hebei Province, whose ancestors were farmers for generations and came from a poor family. Later, his father successively set up an errand in Jinan and Baoding Province, and his mother also worked as a maid in the prefect's house, and his life improved slightly. As the saying goes, the family is poor and talented, when he was a child, Liu Chunlin was extremely sensible, smart and kind, never greedy, exceptionally cherished hard-won learning opportunities, and almost spent all his energy on hard reading poetry.
In 1885, the 13-year-old Liu Chunlin was a gongsheng student, and then entered the Baoding Lotus Pond Academy to study, which was appreciated by the dean Wu Rulun. In 1901, the 28-year-old Liu Chunlin was raised.
In 1904, coinciding with the 70th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi, the KaunKe was set up and merged with the main department, so the number of admissions was relatively large, with a total of more than 270 admitted, and Liu Chunlin was one of them. In the subsequent temple examination, Liu Chunlin came out on top in one fell swoop, and won the first place in the first division of the entrance examination, becoming the last champion.
It is said that the reason why Liu Chunlin was able to become a high school student was also thanks to the sudden appearance of Lafayette Cixi. After the end of the temple examination, the chief examiner arranged the candidates' examination papers according to the rank and sent them to Cixi for "hand-picking". The test paper at the top of the list is actually not Liu Chunlin, but a Guangdong talent named Zhu Ruzhen. This person is not only tall and eight buckets, but also has gorgeous words, especially a good handwriting, which adds a little bit of the examiner's good feelings for him.
However, at that time, the Qing court was in a period of internal and external difficulties, and as soon as Cixi saw the Cantonese, she thought that most of the revolutionaries seemed to be from Guangdong, and she was immediately disgusted. Looking at the name again, with a "Zhen" word, and associated with "Zhenfei", displeasure suddenly arose, and with a big wave of his hand, zhu Ruzhen's test paper was thrown aside, and the aggrieved Zhu Ruzhen could only be relegated to the top in the end.
When it was the turn of the second test paper, Cixi's mood was suddenly radiant, because the candidate's name was "Liu Chunlin", which is not the meaning of spring wind and rain, and the meaning of Ganlin? It seems that this is the lucky one that God has given me. As a result, with a big stroke of the pen, Liu Chunlin was lucky to jump from the second place to the first name.
(Cixi old photo)
In the year of Liu Chunlin's reign and the first year, when the Qing court was in turmoil, in order to maintain its rule, the Qing court had to play the guise of reform and send people out to study. A year after Liu Chunlin was commissioned to the Hanlin Academy, he was sent to Japan to study foreign politics, along with Wang Yitang and others.
After returning from Japan, Liu Chunlin successively served as a member of the Senior Council, a nominal Fujian envoy, a directly affiliated higher school and a supervisor of the Baoding Beiyang Girls' Normal School. During Yuan Shikai's tenure as president of the National Congress of the Republic of China, He specially hired Liu Chunlin as the internal history of the presidential palace, which was equivalent to the position of secretary general. However, this is a nominal idle post, mainly to decorate the façade for Yuan Shikai.
Since then, in the rotation of the president of the Republic of China, Liu Chunlin has always been firmly in the position of internal history of the presidential palace, and at the same time concurrently served as the director of the agricultural test site. In 1920 and 1921, Liu Chunlin also represented the then president and went to Qufu, Shandong Province, to preside over the "Dacheng Festival" confucius ceremony. This is an extremely glorious and honorable thing for Liu Chunlin, and it is also worthy of his lifelong show off.
In 1928, liu Chunlin, deeply disappointed by the warlord chaos and political corruption, compared his position in the presidential palace to a "lang official", resigned in anger, lived in seclusion at home in Beijing, and lived a hermit life.
(Puyi old photo)
In 1932, after the Japanese invaded and occupied the three eastern provinces, they established the puppet state of Manchukuo and supported the last emperor Puyi to ascend to the throne again. In order to whitewash their acts of aggression, the Japanese invited Liu Chunlin to serve as the minister of education of puppet Manchukuo in the name of Puyi, but he rejected them one by one. Afterwards, Liu Chunlin said bitterly: "Because of my momentary confusion, I participated in the farce of Zhang Xun's restoration, and I have always felt deeply guilty, how can I still sell the lord for glory?" ”
After the "July 7 Incident", the Japanese invaders occupied Peiping. Wang Yitang, a fellow scholar who studied in Japan with Liu Chunlin, became a traitor and became the chairman of the pseudo-North China Political Affairs Committee. At this time, Wang Yitang remembered Liu Chunlin's signboard and wanted to invite him to an important position in pseudo-education, but he also sternly refused.
After repeated refusals, the enraged Japanese sent gendarmerie teams to raid Liu Chunlin's home and herd his family into the streets, robbing him of the few treasures of calligraphy and paintings he had collected over the years. The homeless Liu Chunlin had to intercede with people everywhere, and after spending a lot of money, the Japanese allowed him to move back to his home and return some of his belongings to him.
Since then, the disheartened Liu Chunlin has closed the door to thank guests, delving into poetry, studying exhortations and rhymes, and friends have become extremely rare.
As the last of his titles, Liu Chunlin can be described as erudite and talented, and he is well-versed in ancient literature, history, and epigraphy. Especially in calligraphy, Liu Chunlin is more self-contained, and his small characters belong to the pavilion body, which is beautiful and straight, soft and rigid, square, round, rigid, and soft.
Liu Chunlin's calligraphy has the reputation of "Kai Fa Crown in the world, later xue zongzhi", and in the calligraphy circle, there is a saying that "da Kai Xue Yan, Xiao Kai Xue Liu".
In his later years, Liu Chunlin was frail and sickly, and in January 1942, his old disease recurred, and although he asked for multi-treatment, he still had little effect. On January 17, Liu Chunlin passed away in his hometown in Beijing.
(References: "Liu Chunlin of the Late Qing Dynasty", "Anecdote of Liu Chunlin of the Late Qing Dynasty")