When Peng Yizhong was exiled to Xinjiang after the establishment of the Republic of China, and returned to Beijing to re-run the "Beijing Dialect Daily" with his comrades after the establishment of the Republic of China, they found that social ethics were overturning, in Liang Ji's words, the Republic of China society only talked about the law, ignored family morality and ethics, and the people were called the masters of the country, but instead "the national nature fell."
Before moving on, look back at history. The emergence of public opinion in modern China was not marked by the advent of newspapers. If newspapers and magazines are still in the hands of foreigners and the new type of intellectuals who have evolved from "scholars" and have a constant standard of value, then they are still so-called "high-level newspapers", and the appearance of the pre-modern Shilin, that is, the public opinion circles, has not fundamentally changed. In the framework of modern society, the tripartite game between the government, citizens and intellectuals is the normal pattern of mutual checks and balances.
In 1904, Peng Yizhong, the son of a fallen eunuch, founded the Beijing Dialect Daily. We can see the fate of Peng Yizhong and this newspaper as some kind of allegory that modern intellectuals are trying to communicate with the emerging civil society.
Beijing Dialect Daily
Peng Yizhong has read books, donated to officials, and made a living in business. Before the change of law, he refused to join the Qiang Society, but the death of the Six Gentlemen made him feel that state affairs could not be done. In 1900, Peng Yizhong lived in beijing, which fell into the hands of the eight armies, by selling flour, porcelain and other small businesses, and the door that was much higher than his family also suffered the same fate. Beijing was forced into a flattened civil society, with no government and no intellectuals, and the only popular people were translators like Qi Rushan.
Peng Yizhong and his colleagues did not have any originality in the content of the Enlightenment, and their enlightenment resources came entirely from the newspapers of the first twenty years of restoration: the keywords of science, civilization, patriotism, and self-improvement filled the newspapers. The difference between the Beijing Dialect Daily and the various vernacular newspapers of the same period is that this daily newspaper not only uses the vernacular to preach the truth and disseminate knowledge to the people. It has successfully mobilized citizens from all walks of life to participate in the interaction of public opinion. Its editorials are full of intra-citizens exchanges such as "Flag People Persuade Flag People", "Scribes Persuade Scribes", "Soldiers Persuade Soldiers", and "Hui People Persuade Hui People". Since the newspaper uses the "Beijing dialect", that is, the spoken language of The Beijing dialect, the voice of the citizens can be preserved to the greatest extent possible, rather than just a translation of the literary language like the "vernacular", which is the unique place of the "Beijing Dialect Daily".
Peng Yizhong
The citizens believed in Peng Yizhong and were willing to buy his newspaper and make remarks on it, based more or less on Peng Yizhong's low-level experience, and there was no such platform for public opinion except for the Beijing Dialect Daily. This newspaper dared to challenge the powerful, directly expose the truth of the indiscriminate killing of innocents in the royal palace, dared to report on the tragic situation of the piglet Chinese workers, so that it was protested by the British embassy, and dared to demand on behalf of the people that the embassies of various countries in Dongjiaomin Lane restrain soldiers during the New Year and not harass the citizens... This is the reason why the "Beijing Dialect Daily" can gain great credibility. Even empress dowager Xi in the palace heard of the name of this newspaper and sent eunuchs to the newspaper to ask for it to be delivered daily. There is no doubt that this matter can be borrowed as some kind of protection, and the masthead of the Beijing Dialect Daily also prints "Gong Presents the Imperial Records of the Two Palaces".
Due to the extreme scarcity of such platforms, jingyu Daily took on the responsibility of going beyond the news media and became a birthplace of the civic movement. In just two years, it launched the Newspaper Reading Campaign, the Speech Campaign, the Opera Reform Campaign, the founding of the Ji Liang Institute (to save the abused prostitutes) and the most powerful national donation campaign. Peng Yizhong also became a well-known spokesperson for women and children in Beijing.
"Guangdong National Donation"
However, this overloaded mission also brings great trouble. The incidents exposed by the letter need to be verified one by one by the newspapers; and it is almost impossible for the newspapers with a small number of people to complete; doctor Bu Guanghai donated his house as a newspaper station, and there were rumors that the owner of the house wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to sell anti-fetal medicine; a certain gospel hall posted a note to preach, and some readers reported that they were actually taking advantage of the opportunity to preach; even the hooligans outside Fucheng Gate gathered and gambled under the banner of "handing over donations to the people"; because of the great fame of the "Beijing Dialect Daily", some people thought that all the newspaper reading offices were opened by the newspaper, and all the entanglements were found at the door... As for the newspaper speakers cultivated by the "Beijing Dialect Daily", when they preach the newspaper, the audience often raises their levers, and the speakers often can't hold back their anger, and Peng Yizhong had no choice but to persuade them in the editorial: "The idea of telling the newspaper was originally to confuse many people, so they used this bitter mouth, iron to grind embroidery needles on the roof beams, all to nature, when you meet a dead button, don't raise the bar with him." ”
The various problems encountered by Peng Yizhong are actually the dilemmas that the Enlighteners will inevitably encounter when they try to shift the focus of public opinion down to the public class. The reason why the "Jingyu Daily" group can still persist is because the legitimacy of the Enlightenment has not been lost, the standards within the Enlightenment are relatively clear, and the Enlightenment is still a condescending posture.
When Peng Yizhong was exiled to Xinjiang after the establishment of the Republic of China, and returned to Beijing to re-run the "Beijing Dialect Daily" with his comrades after the establishment of the Republic of China, they found that social ethics were overturning, in Liang Ji's words, the Republic of China society only talked about the law, ignored family morality and ethics, and the people were called the masters of the country, but instead "the national nature fell." To this end, the three chief writers of the Beijing Dialect Daily, Peng Yizhong, Liang Ji and Wu Zizhen, committed suicide within a year (Peng attempted), and the Beijing Dialect Daily also closed down after the dismal operation, ending this allegory of enlightenment.