Recently, I met an interesting person while reading, and the cause of the incident is like this.
In 1850, at the regular football match between new and old students held by Yale University, a Chinese student with long pigtails scored at a critical moment, thus achieving the first victory of the freshman team in the history of Yale University.
What era was 1850? This year was the last year of the reign of Emperor Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty, and it was also the year of Emperor Xianfeng's ascension to the throne, and Tsarist Russia had rushed into the Heilongjiang River valley and occupied Sakhalin Island, and in December of this year Hong Xiuquan was about to launch the Jintian Uprising in Guangxi, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the largest, most extensive and most tragic in modern Chinese history, began. At the same time, Lin Zexu, who smoked tobacco in Humen and planted trees in Xinjiang, and who had advocated shiyi's long skills all his life to control Yi, closed his eyes on the way to suppress the rebellion of the Worship of God Society.
At that time, Chinese, in the eyes of Westerners, was still associated with the sick man of East Asia with pigtails, small feet, smoke, yellow face and thin muscles, and in the sport of rugby, which was full of physical confrontation and fierce competition, there was actually a Chinese to complete the kill, which of course surprised everyone.
This person was Rong Hong, who was later known as "the first person to study abroad in China", and his life was full of legends.
He was the first Chinese graduate at Yale University and all american universities, and his portrait still hangs on Yale's campus today. Liel Leibovitz, an Israeli scholar who has long studied the historical relationship between China and the United States, once lamented: "China's modernization today actually began the moment When Rong Hong bottomed out in Yale Football. This evaluation is closely related to one of the two major achievements of Rong Hong's life, that is, the proposal, organization and operation of the first batch of young children in Chinese history to study in the United States.
The greatness of this group of international students can be seen below. There are 30 people engaged in industry and mining, railways, and telegraphs, including 9 responsible persons of industry and mines, 6 engineers, and 3 railway directors; 5 people are engaged in education, including 1 president of Tsinghua University and 1 president of Beiyang University; 24 are engaged in foreign administration, including 12 consuls and chargé d'affaires, 1 foreign minister, 1 vice minister, 1 ambassador stationed abroad, 1 premier of the State Council; 7 people engaged in business; 20 people who enter the navy, of which 14 are admirals. Our well-known names include railway engineer Zhan Tianyou, Kailuan coal mining and metallurgical engineer Wu Yangzeng, Beiyang University President Cai Shaoji, Tsinghua University President Tang Guoan, Early Minchu Premier Tang Shaoyi, and Late Qing Dynasty Communications Chief Liang Dunyan, becoming well-known figures in China's modern history.
The first step towards success of these heroes has a great relationship with Rong Hong himself. In today's view, studying abroad is not magical, but more than a hundred years ago, rong Hong can almost single-handedly complete the lobbying of the Qing court, organize funds, recruit young children, handle all relevant procedures, and assume the responsibility of care, supervision, and indoctrination in his future academic career.
Rong Hong's legend doesn't stop there. There are records: "He once visited Tianjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, visited the shogunate of Zeng Guofan, gave advice to Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong, and made unforgettable friends with Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, and Sun Yat-sen... Most of the key figures who appear in modern history textbooks have met with him. He was born into a poor family in Xiangshan County, Guangdong Province (present-day Zhuhai, Guangdong Province).
Fortunately, Guangdong at that time was the first to open up the Chinese atmosphere, Rong Hong entered Macao with his father at an early age to receive a Western-style school education, and later studied in Hong Kong, and successively graduated from the Morrison Church School in Hong Kong and the Mengsong Middle School in the United States, so that Rong Hong received a complete and systematic Western higher education, plus he was originally born in a civilian family, and he did not have the spiritual baggage of traditional scholars, so he had the courage to change himself that the elite of the same era lacked. The collision of Chinese and Western cultures on him has had a non-negligible impact on the historical changes in modern China, in addition to the study abroad plan for young children in the United States, another major event is to prepare for the establishment of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau.
Since the Opium War in 1840 was opened by the ships and cannons of the European and American powers, the ancient feudal dynasty was forced to get involved in this era of changes that can be called a dimensionality reduction blow, and many imported products made the old masters stunned and overwhelmed, especially the dazzling industrial products, which opened the rhythm of buying and buying, buying all over the world, so that it reached an exaggerated level. For example, chen Bing's Jizi battalion led by Zeng Guoquan, commander of the Xiang Army under the city of Nanjing, was equipped with foreign guns and cannons, both in quantity and quality, far superior to the US Federal Army that was caught in the Civil War on the other side of the ocean at that time.
However, it is better to teach fish than to teach fish, only to buy and buy the army with no future, just like today's Ah San, if he does not have a mature industrial system, then wait to be strangled at any time. Fortunately, some outstanding people of that era had already understood all this, and they could still get together, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Ding Richang, and of course, the protagonist of this article--- Ronghong, who assumed the crucial position of "operation".
In the winter of the third year of Tongzhi, he was appointed by Zeng Guofan to go to the United States with huge funds to purchase machinery and returned to China the following year. The purchase of more than 100 kinds of machines became the main equipment of the first foreign enterprise- Jiangnan Machine Manufacturing General Bureau (also known as Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau, Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, Shanghai Machinery Bureau, Shanghai Manufacturing Bureau), and was formally established on September 20, the fourth year of Tongzhi (1865), which was called the mother of machines in Zeng Guofan's family book. This is the largest modern military enterprise opened by the Westerners of the Qing government. Later, Li Hongzhang bought the American Qiji Iron Factory in Hongkou for 40,000 taels of silver, and merged some of the machines of the Suzhou Foreign Artillery Bureau and the Shanghai Ocean Artillery Bureau, opening the prelude to China's modern industrial revolution. Its influence lasted for a hundred years, which is the predecessor of today's Jiangnan Shipyard.
Later, Zeng Guofan also guaranteed Rong Hong to be the equivalent of Wupin and served as an interpreter for Ding Richang, the inspector of Jiangsu. Rong Hong has translated books such as "Geological Literature" and "Contract Theory". In the fifth year of Tongzhi, Zeng Guofan adopted Rong Hong's suggestion and set up an ordnance school within the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau to train mechanical engineering and technical personnel. In the seventh year of Tongzhi, Rong Hong wrote to Ding Richang, the inspector of Jiangsu, and forwarded it to Wen Xiang, minister of military aircraft and minister of the General Administration, and put forward four suggestions to make suggestions for the industrialization of modern China.
The depth of love, the depth of responsibility.
Rong Hong worked for the Qing Dynasty at the same time, for the Qing Dynasty's decay, irredeemable understanding, this is not the ideal country in his mind, if you can not wake it up, save it, then overthrow it, eliminate it, which is why he later vigorously participated in the Hundred Days Restoration, the Guangzhou Uprising, for the revolutionaries overseas to raise funds, organize personnel, arrange training, and at that time exiled overseas Sun Yat-sen frequent correspondence, exchange opinions, until after the success of the Xinhai Revolution, Sun Yat-sen also invited Rong Hong, who was more than old at that time, to return to China. Participate in the construction of the Republic of China. Unfortunately, this old man who had the heart of modern China all his life could no longer walk, and on April 21, 1912, Rong Hong died in the Apartment of Sanding Street in Hartford City, Connecto, USA due to ineffective medical treatment, at the age of 84, ending his glorious and ever-changing life.
According to his will, Rong Hong donated most of his collection to Yale University, forming the basis of the Chinese collection of yale University's East Asian Library, which also became one of the major Chinese libraries in the United States.
The reason why I think of this person today is because today is the anniversary of his death, write a small article about him, because everything we have today, a lot of it starts from him, the spark of the stars, can burn the plains.
(Note: This article was written on April 21, 2021)
In his later years, Mr. Lao recited this work of Liu Yuxi repeatedly and placed it in the study, which is now excerpted below for remembrance.
What about the new year.
Remembering the same travelers in the past, there are now many.
Take idleness as a comfortable time, and make up for your life.
There is nothing new in the spring, and the seclusion has also been seen.