In 1912, after Tang Shaoyi broke with Yuan Shikai and resigned as prime minister, at the age of 42, he acted as prime minister of the cabinet and became the second premier of the Republic of China.
He was born in a civilian home in Shanghai. His father was one of the first Christian missionaries, unusual in his vision, and pragmatic in his understanding.
When he was a child, he entered the Shanghai Cantonese Dialect Museum "Xiyi Language". The Shanghai Cantonese Dialect Hall is another foreign school specializing in cultivating foreign language talents, sponsored by Yamen, the premier of the Qing Government, in addition to the TongwenGuan in Beijing.
At the age of 22, after completing his studies, he was assigned to serve as a minister of the Qing government in Russia. Xu Jingcheng, the minister in Russia, appreciated him very much, and he was promoted from the fourth secretary and translator of the embassy to the second counselor.
This young man of civilian origin, who was not contaminated with official vices and was active and enterprising, was proficient in Russian, English, and French when he was a diplomat in Russia, handsome and elegant, often wearing a straight suit, instead of the robes and coats of the old Qing court residents, wearing carved plumes and expressionless faces, plus he danced and communicated skillfully, and there was a beautiful Belgian Lady Peide. Boffy liked him and married him. Born as a shogun, the talented and knowledgeable, the two men broke through prejudices in their exotic ways and finally married him in Russia at the age of 28.
In 1901, during the "Representations and Representations between the Three Eastern Provinces", he served as an interpreter for Yang Ru, the minister in Russia, who was a minister plenipotentiary of the Qing government and died in office after enduring Russian coercion and humiliation.
When the Xinhai Revolution broke out, he returned to Beijing and served as the first foreign minister in Tang Shaoyi's cabinet.
In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China, he endured humiliation and burdens, and he carried out drastic reforms and trained many outstanding diplomats, including Gu Weijun, a "diplomatic prodigy" who had just returned from Columbia University.
He asked the great translator Lin Qinnan to write down the four big characters of "Don't Forget Ma Guan" and hang them in the office of the general manager, alerting himself.
Tang Shaoyi, the prime minister of the cabinet, did this for 3 months, resigned halfway, and under the manipulation of Yuan Shikai, he succeeded him as the prime minister of the cabinet.
He was good-natured and weak, a schoolboy, detached from the political wing, and he resigned less than 3 months after becoming prime minister.
In 1915, Japan proposed the "Twenty-One Articles" to destroy China, forcing Yuan Shikai's government to agree. Yuan Shikai used him as the head of foreign affairs again, representing China and Japan in negotiations on the "Twenty-One Articles" and ordering him to sign. After the "Twenty-One Articles" were revealed, the whole country was indignant, and the people took to the streets to denounce Vice Foreign Minister Cao Rulin, Minister in Japan Lu Zongyu, and him.
This was an important stain on his political career, bearing the infamy of "traitorous".
After the victory in World War I, the Beiyang Government, as one of the victorious countries, sent him, as the chief of foreign affairs, Gu Weijun, minister in the United States, Wang Zhengting, minister for foreign affairs of the Southern Government, Shi Zhaoji, minister to France, and Wei Zhen, minister to Belgium, to form a five-member delegation.
At this time, the "May Fourth" Movement broke out in China, and patriotic students burned down Zhao Jialou and beat up pro-Japanese traitors Cao Rulin, Lu Zongyu, and Zhang Zongxiang.
The signing ceremony of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919 was held at the Palace of Versailles in Paris. At the Paris Peace Conference, his protests and negotiations over the Shandong issue failed, and he refused to sign the peace treaty.
When the delegation's steamer returned to Wusongkou in Shanghai, it was welcomed by the Chinese people.
After the death of his foreign wife in 1926, the following year, childless, he resigned as a public envoy in Sweden, bid farewell to the officialdom, and became a monk at the Monastery of San Anderno in Bruges, Belgium.
On the eve of the founding of New China, the only "monk premier" in China's modern history died of illness at the age of 78.
His mentor Xu Jingcheng once commented on him: You have studied foreign countries thoroughly, and even your wife has married a foreign country. In the future, if you have no children and grandchildren, your wife will pass away before you, and she hopes that you will go into the monastery, which is a foreign custom.
Xu Jingcheng's words are "toxic", and his life trajectory is exactly like this.
He was Lu Zhengxiang, a diplomat from a weak country who came from a commoner background, but in his later years he was a foreign monk in Belgium.
In addition, Xu Jingcheng was the first generation of diplomats of the Qing government, and was the first person in modern history to see the Pamir Plateau in Xinjiang and write the "Pamir Diagram". During the Boxer Rebellion, he opposed attacks on foreign embassies and was executed by Empress Dowager Cixi.
Source: Archives of the Prime Minister of the Republic of China, People's Daily Publishing House
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