Producer: Popular Science China
Production: Far away science
Producer: Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
"Since ancient times, we have had people who have buried their heads in hard work, people who have worked hard, people who have asked for the people's lives, and people who have sacrificed their lives to seek the law,...... This is the backbone of China. ”
--Lu Xun
In the autumn of 1918, a steamship from the United States docked in Shanghai, and a small international student stepped off the sampan, with the dream of reporting to the country and rejuvenating the country, and officially set foot on this land of China that had been separated for 8 years.
He is Zhu Kezhen.
(Image from the Internet)
Zhu Kezhen was born into a small merchant family in Dongguan Town, Shaoxing, Zhejiang (now part of Shangyu District, Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province). In 1910, under the financial support of the "Gengzi Indemnity", the second batch of Chinese students who had been selected layer by layer crossed the ocean, and Zhu Kezhen was one of them.
When he first arrived in the United States, Zhu Kezhen did not hesitate to enter the University of Illinois to study agronomy, when "China built a country based on agriculture", which he believed was the only choice to repay the motherland. However, due to different natural farming conditions and agricultural systems, agricultural technology in the United States is not well developed. As a result, Zhu Kezhen transferred to the Geography Department of Harvard University and began to study meteorology, the discipline most closely related to agriculture.
As one of the second batch of international students who crossed the ocean for further study, Zhu Kezhen opened his brilliant life as a "pioneer of modern Chinese geography and meteorology" and "the founder of a famous school in Zhejiang University" after returning to China.
From being subject to people to being controlled by people - the founder of China's meteorological cause
"For the sake of the general, not understanding the astronomy, not knowing the geographical advantage ... It's mediocre also. "For countries, having independent meteorological observations and geographic information data is a top priority involving the military, the economy, and even national development.
In 1918, the United States had built more than 200 climate monitoring stations on its own soil. China, on the other side of the ocean, remains in a semi-feudal state of chaos, with only two climate monitoring stations in Hong Kong and Xujiahui in Shanghai, both under the control of foreigners. The only central observatory, which was managed by Chinese, was in a state of ruin and turned away Zhu Kezhen. Until 1930, the sovereignty of China's weather forecast was firmly in the hands of foreigners.
At the same time, the Japanese are studying China's meteorological, geographical, and hydrological information in depth and meticulously, providing thorough and detailed war intelligence support and key points of the invasion for the follow-up war of aggression. All this made Zhu Kezhen creepy and bitter. He realized that Chinese must have its own meteorological forecasts, which are not only beneficial to the country's agricultural production, but also closely related to war readiness.
Subsequently, Zhu Kezhen served at the Nanjing Higher Normal School and presided over the establishment of China's first geography department. In 1928, Zhu Kezhen, with the support of Cai Yuanpei, established the Institute of Meteorology of the Academia Sinica in the Arctic Pavilion of Nanjing, and served as its director. On New Year's Day 1930, the Meteorological Research Institute completed the east Asian weather map, began to issue weather forecasts and typhoon forecasts, and set the degree Celsius as the standard unit of weather temperature in China. Since then, Chinese has finally opened the curtain to dominate China's meteorological undertakings.
Nanjing Arctic Pavilion and zhu Kezhen bronze statue (Source: author)
In the following 8 years, Zhu Kezhen traveled all over China and presided over the establishment of more than 40 weather stations and more than 100 rainfall measurement stations, laying a solid foundation for the start of China's meteorological cause. As the founder of modern meteorological science in China, Mr. Zhu Kezhen's series of pioneering thoughts and researches on climate change have provided an important reference and basis for people to understand the global warming process, a major scientific issue of the world.
From the president of Zhejiang University to the "Nanny of Zhejiang University", a century-old famous school has started here
The university is the future of a nation; the president is the soul of a university.
In 1936, with a love for Chinese education, Zhu Kezhen became the president of Zhejiang University when Zhejiang University was in ruins. He put forward three demands to Chiang Kai-shek: first, the university's financial resources could not be interrupted, second, the president should have the full power of useful people, and third, the president should only do it for half a year.
However, as the president of Zhejiang University, Zhu Kezhen's choice was exactly 13 years.
Zhu Kezhen devoted all his efforts to the construction of Zhejiang University. During his tenure as principal, he put forward the word "Qiushi" as the school motto, and hired and tolerated a large number of outstanding teachers in China, such as Ma Yifu, Shu Xingbei, Ye Liangfu, Su Buqing and others. At the same time, Zhu Kezhen clearly put forward strict requirements for the students of Zhejiang University, even if the daughter of the president of Zhejiang Province and the son of the chairman of the Senate, the score is not up to standard and will not be admitted. Even Zhu Kezhen's eldest son was no exception, and his score failed to meet the standard, and Zhejiang University was not admitted.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in order to avoid the invasion of the iron hooves of the Japanese Kou, in 1937, Zhu Kezhen led a thousand teachers and students of Zhejiang University to embark on the road of westward migration and exile. After the "four relocations of Zhejiang University", it finally arrived in Zunyi, Guizhou. During the exile period, Zhejiang University always adhered to high-quality teaching and experimentation, and took the lead in implementing the world-popular "mentor system". After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhu Kejian continued to support The zhejiang masters and students in opposing dictatorship and fighting for democracy and patriotic movements, and the ideas of science, democracy and progress in the school always prevailed, so that Kuomintang agents called Zhejiang University a "concession of the Communist Party". It was not until April 1949 that Zhu Kezhen refused to withdraw to Taiwan with the Kuomintang and patiently waited for the arrival of the People's Liberation Army.
△ Bronze statue of Zhu Kezhen standing at Zhejiang University (Source: Zhejiang University official website, http://oc.zju.edu.cn/2019/0614/c29930a1242021/page.htm)
On Zhu Kezhen's 60th birthday, Zhejiang University students presented him with a pennant and wrote "Zhejiang University Nanny" in four big characters to express their respect for the old principal. During zhu Kezhen's 13 years as president of Zhejiang University, Zhejiang University developed from 16 departments of the original three colleges of arts, science, engineering and agriculture to 25 departments and 10 research institutes of seven colleges of arts, science, engineering, agriculture, teachers, law and medicine, the number of professors increased from more than 70 to more than 200, the number of students increased from more than 500 to more than 2,000, and more than 3,500 national senior talents (for example, Qian Renyuan, Cheng Kaijia, Hu Jimin, Ye Duzheng, Gu Chaohao, etc.). It has provided a large number of backbone forces for the scientific and educational undertakings of New China.
From "sustainable development" to "Zhu Kezhen curve" - the millennium plan of New China
On October 1, 1949, Zhu Kezhen witnessed the founding ceremony of the People's Republic of China on the tower of Tiananmen Square. Sixteen days later, Zhu Kezhen was appointed vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and undertook the heavy responsibility of leading the planning and development of the national scientific undertaking. Under the organization of Zhu Kezhen, the Institute of Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was announced. Subsequently, Zhu Kezhen has organized a number of large-scale comprehensive investigation activities, footprints throughout the country, and completed the division of China's natural zoning, the formulation of national land patterns and other work. In June 1962, at the age of 72, Zhu Kezhen joined the Communist Party of China.
In the process of conducting physical geographical investigations throughout the country, Zhu Kezhen painfully found that the soil erosion in the loess plateau area of the upper reaches of China was serious; at the same time, through the observation of dust in Beijing, Zhu Kezhen found that the air quality in northern China was also deteriorating rapidly. "Sustainable development is China's millennium plan", as a forerunner of this idea, Zhu Kezhen has always paid attention to China's population, resources and environmental issues from a scientific perspective. He put forward the idea of "returning agriculture to animal husbandry and returning agriculture to forestry" and pointed out that China should "scientifically and rationally" "march into the desert" to solve the problem of desertification and expansion in northern China. This is not only a forward-looking exploration of the concept of "sustainable development", but also points out the main research directions for the investigation of China's natural resources in the past fifty years.
Construction of shelterbelts in Haba Lake National Nature Reserve (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Since returning to China in 1921, Zhu Kezhen has observed and recorded phenology and weather in his diary every day, and published the book "Phenology" in 1963, making an important contribution to the development of Chinese agriculture. In his later years, he proposed the concept of "Zhu Kezhen Curve" in the article "Preliminary Research on Climate Change in China in the Past Five Thousand Years", which concentrated his life's research results, combining China's dynastic changes over the past thousand years with temperature changes, which caused a sensation in the world and was decades ahead of Western scholars' "Greenland Curve".
Zhu Kezhen curve and Greenland curve (Image source: CCTV10)
On February 6, 1974, Zhu Kezhen wrote in his diary his last observation of phenology in China: "The rain rises, the clouds turn cloudy, the east wind is 1 to 2 degrees, the highest is minus one degree, and the lowest is minus seven degrees." The next day, Zhu Kezhen died in Beijing at the age of 83.
epilogue
Mr. Zhu Kezhen is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a member of the Communist Party of China, a modern Chinese meteorologist, geographer and educator, and the founder of modern Chinese geography and meteorology. He has experienced changes in the times and grown up with new China.
Looking at Mr. Zhu Kezhen's wonderful scientific life, we sincerely admire his lofty scientific spirit, realistic scientific attitude and great contribution to China's scientific cause. It is Mr. Zhu Kezhen's lifelong pursuit of the spirit of scientific power that has laid the foundation for the prosperity of China's geography and meteorology research today.
Biography
Zhu Kezhen (1890.3.7 – 1974.2.7), courtesy name Lotus, was a native of Dongguan Town, Shaoxing County, Zhejiang Province (now part of Shangyu District, Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province). Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, member of the Communist Party of China, modern Chinese meteorologist, geographer, educator, and founder of modern Chinese geography and meteorology. In 1928, Zhu Kezhen founded the Institute of Meteorology of the Academia Sinica and served as the director of the Nanjing Meteorological Research Institute. In 1936, he became the president of Zhejiang University. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, vice chairman of the National Association for Science and Technology, chairman of the Chinese Geographical Society, chairman of the Chinese Meteorological Society, director of the Natural Science History Committee of China, and member of the Department of Biological Geology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has made outstanding contributions to climate change, phenology, agroclimate, natural regionalization and the history of science.