Tsinghua Xuetang, the predecessor of Tsinghua University, was founded in 1911 and is named after Mizuki Tsinghua. It was a preparatory school for studying in the United States established by the Qing government. The school was funded by a portion of the Gengzi reparations returned by the United States in 1908. At that time, the annual revenue of the Qing government was less than 90 million taels. Among them, the United States accounts for more than 32 million taels of indemnity, equivalent to more than 24 million US dollars. In early December 1904, Liang Cheng, the Chinese minister to the United States, argued with John Hay, the U.S. secretary of state, over whether China's reparations should be made in gold or silver. During the conversation, Hai John revealed a sentence: "The Gengzi compensation case is really too much. This information was immediately captured by Liang Cheng. This shows that the US Government has discovered that its relevant departments have "floated in reports and falsely reported" in the losses of the Gengzi rebellion. Liang Cheng very quickly abandoned the negotiation strategy, no longer to argue with John Hay whether to use gold or silver for indemnity, but to "take advantage of the light of the gap and return to the lost profits." He did not miss any opportunity to lobby among the U.S. Congress and members of the United States Congress.
On July 11, 1908, U.S. Minister to China Rou Keyi officially declared to the Chinese government that half of the "Gengzi Reparations" received by the United States would be returned to China for the purpose of subsidizing students studying in the United States. The part that remained was "actually indemnified," including compensation for the military expenses of the United States to invade China and compensation for the losses of American businessmen and missionaries in China. But the question is, where should this money be spent? At this time, the Qing government was in the stage of reform and opening up, the funding gap was very large, the United States refunded the reparations was simply a long drought, Yuan Shikai, who was directly subordinate to the governor at the time, suggested that part of the refund should be given priority for the establishment of roads and mines, the development of the economy, and then use the surplus profits obtained to run the school, that is, the specimen taking into account the two strategies, this view is also the mainstream opinion of the Qing central government, but the United States resolutely opposes it and insists that the refund be used exclusively for running the school. Since then, China and the United States have opened up a tide of Chinese students studying in the United States, although there are not many students sent, but after all, it has opened the door to Sino-US exchanges.
100 students were sent each year for the first four years, and at least 50 Chinese students were sent to study in the United States every year from the fifth year until the refund was used up. Hu Shi, Zhao Yuanren, Zhu Kezhen and others were once students in the United States for this program. But before sending international students, you must train a little, otherwise the language barrier alone is enough for international students to bear. Therefore, as a preparatory school for studying in the United States, the Yumei Industry Museum began to recruit students, and after half a year or a year of training, they could be sent to the United States to study. However, what I did not expect was that the scale of this school was getting bigger and bigger, and it began to set up two subjects, primary and higher, each with four grades, referring to the Curriculum of American Universities, using sub-discipline professors, and students could transfer to American universities for undergraduate studies when they graduated, or directly enter the university graduate schools as graduate students. In other words, what was supposed to be a preparatory school for Chinese students to send students turned around and began to run its own school. At this point, Tsinghua has entered a period of rapid development.
How to view the United States using Gengzi indemnity to establish tsinghua xuetang, the author believes that the modern scholar Mr. Zhang Taiyan saw it more thoroughly and clearly.