Among the first batch of young children who stayed in the United States in the late Qing Dynasty, the most famous was Zhan Tianyou, after all, he had attended primary school textbooks. In fact, among those young children, there were also many talents, and most of them achieved good results after returning home, such as lawyers, engineers, university presidents, naval captains, and so on.
However, in this group of young children, for various reasons, only two people successfully graduated, one is Zhan Tianyou, and the other is Ouyang Geng, who is going to talk about this article.
After Ouyang Geng returned to China after graduating from Yale University in 1881, not long after, he was transferred to San Francisco by his cousin Ouyang Ming, and succeeded his cousin as the qing court consul general in San Francisco, and worked for more than 20 years, which had a great influence on the overseas Chinese community in the United States and was respected as one of the leaders of overseas Chinese.
During this period, Ouyang Geng was most praised for opening a convenient road for Sun Yat-sen to go to the United States.
It was 1894, and Sun Yat-sen wrote to Li Hongzhang, advocating the reform of politics and the prosperity and strength of China. However, in order to cope with the upcoming Sino-Japanese war, Li Hongzhang did not adopt his opinion, but only said that he would talk after the battle. This made Sun Yat-sen not disappointed, decisively tore up the draft proposal, and threw himself into a vigorous revolutionary cause.
Nor has the revolutionary cause gone well. In the end, Sun Yat-sen was wanted by the Qing court and could not even find a place to hide. In desperation, he had to flee to the United States. However, at that time, he had to use his real name to land in the United States, and there was a guarantee, and his name had already been notified to the United States by the Qing court, and as long as he landed, he would be arrested.
Sun Yat-sen launched various relations to seek asylum, but everyone was afraid of killing his head and hid far away. Cornered, Sun Yat-sen thought of Ouyang Geng, because they grew up together when they were young, and they were close neighbors and had a good relationship. It's just that Ouyang Geng is now an official of the imperial court, will he protect himself? Sun Yat-sen tentatively sent a letter to Ouyang Geng, asking for a guarantee for him.
Soon, Sun Yat-sen received a reply, which said: "Mr. Sun Yat-sen, I heard that you are going to come to the United States to do business in the near future, as the consul general, I have the responsibility of recommending and protecting overseas Chinese, and I do not have to write to me, but can go to the consulate to handle entry normally." ”
It turned out that this was carefully arranged by Ouyang Geng, and he knew that Sun Yat-sen would certainly not be able to land if he used the name "Sun Wen", so he simply called him "Sun Yat-sen" in the letter and treated him as an ordinary overseas Chinese. Under the meticulous arrangement of Ouyang Geng, relying on the careful protection of his fellow villagers and overseas Chinese, Sun Yat-sen successfully arrived in the United States and turned the crisis into safety.
Later, the Qing government began to investigate the matter, but Ouyang Geng insisted that he did not know that Sun Yixian was Sun Wen. The case dragged on for a long time, and the Qing court could not produce relevant evidence, and finally, Ouyang Geng took many activities to claim that the matter of protecting Sun Yat-sen's entry into the United States was handled by "Big Brother Hongmen", and this matter was counted as over, and Sun Yat-sen was safe.
Ouyang Geng has another thing in San Francisco, which is very emotional.
In 1906, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck San Francisco, and the landslide broke apart. According to records, at this time, when the mountain climbed and looked down, the whole San Francisco fire was not extinguished for several days, and the San Francisco Zhonghua Town was particularly seriously affected, all the houses collapsed, and the town of Rock, where the overseas Chinese from Xiangshan gathered, collapsed.
After the disaster, aftershock after earthquake after earthquake, Ouyang Geng immediately organized personnel to rescue the disaster, and rescued many people from the ruins. Because the situation was too difficult at that time, when he rescued people, his ribs were broken by broken stones, one foot was smashed, and the left head was burned extensively, and he never grew hair.
This time, Ouyang Geng's status in the hearts of overseas Chinese was higher, but no one thought that Mrs. Jian Lilian, who had always been kind to him, would never pay attention to her again. Jian Lilian also rescued many people, and she herself was seriously burned, and three years later, because the old injuries have been repeatedly relapsing, and she has passed away. But she ignored Ouyang Geng's love until she died, but Ouyang Geng stayed by her side all the time and took care of her wholeheartedly until she was buried.
(Photo: Family portrait of Ouyang Geng and his second wife)
Later, people understood the situation, it turned out that after the earthquake, Ouyang Gengben came to the door of the house, and his eldest daughter Xi Shu was at home, he could have rushed in to rescue his daughter, but he ran directly to the neighbor's house and rescued the child who led the family.
In the process of rescue, many of Jian Lilian's relatives were also affected, and Ouyang Geng's strength that could be mobilized was not small, but he never saved his relatives, but ran to the front line to rescue many strangers.
After everyone learned of this incident, they were all touched by Ouyang Geng's righteousness and revered the consul general. When the Qing court learned of this, it made Ouyang Geng a senior doctor and gave him the title of Shangshang for three generations.
Of course, such a righteous act is very respectable, but when he arrives at the door and does not save his daughter, it is indeed a bit unreasonable, and it is no wonder that his wife resents him.
History Inn Author: Desert Sand
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