On January 16, 1963, Zhu Kezhen attended the enlarged meeting of the Party Group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and expressed his views on how scientific research work can support agricultural production. After the meeting, he took practical actions to support agriculture, and in August of that year, he wrote a paper entitled "On Several Characteristics of China's Climate and Its Relationship with Food Crop Production". This paper analyzes in detail the characteristics of the three meteorological elements of temperature, rainfall and solar radiation in China, points out the favorable conditions and possibilities for increasing grain production, and puts forward specific suggestions for the development of agricultural production. After reading this article in the internal publications of the State Science and Technology Commission, Mao Zedong was very happy and specially invited Zhu Kezhen to zhongnanhai for an interview.
Mao Zedong received Zhu Kezhen
In The long-term Huaxia, how many feudal dynasties have caused social unrest and people dying because they could not solve the problem of eating, and even in the ancient times, the problem of hunger has not been completely solved. When New China was founded in 1949, US Secretary of State Acheson predicted that there were many Chinese, and successive governments, including the Kuomintang government, had not solved the problem of eating Chinese, which was the reason for their failure. Similarly, the Communist regime will not be able to solve the problem of eating Chinese, and it will inevitably collapse as a result.
After the founding of New China, how to feed 24% of the world's population with 7% of the world's land? How to solve the problem of feeding more than half a billion people through the rapid development of socialist modern agriculture and how to smash the prophecy of Qing Acheson was Mao Zedong's inner worry and the top priority of Mao Zedong's special concern.
As early as September 1954, Zhou Enlai attached great importance to agricultural modernization in the "Government Work Report" delivered at the first session of the First National People's Congress, and for the first time put forward the concept of building "modern agriculture".
In 1958, Mao Zedong proposed the eight-character constitution of agriculture, namely soil, fertilizer, water, seed, secret, security, management, and labor. These seemingly simple eight words actually summarize the eight elements of agricultural harvest and are a complete national agricultural strategy. Under its guidance, the broad masses of the people have taken active actions, and China's agriculture and rural areas have a new atmosphere of earth-shaking. This not only solves the basic problem of eating, but also retains a good agricultural natural ecological environment, creating sufficient conditions for sustainable development of China's agriculture.
When Mao Zedong saw Zhu Kezhen's article, he found that there were still problems in the eight-character constitution and that it was not yet comprehensively managed; Zhu Kezhen talked about the necessity of increasing agricultural production from another angle, and felt that it was very good, so he specially invited him to talk about it in person.
At 1 p.m. on February 6, 1964, Mao Zedong called and invited Zhu Kezhen to Zhongnanhai to talk, along with Qian Xuesen and Li Siguang. The place of conversation was in Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai, in Chairman Mao's bedroom. Chairman Mao's bedroom consisted of two rooms, the outer room was filled with books, the inner room was a large bed, and the table, chair, and bed were also filled with books. Chairman Mao shook hands with Zhu Kezhen as he lay on the bed. Before Zhu Kezhen could say hello to the chairman, Mao Zedong said to him, "Your article is well written!" We have an agricultural eight-character constitution that only cares about the land. Your article manages the day and makes up for the shortcomings of the eight-character constitution. Zhu Kezhen replied, "There are unpredictable storms in the sky, so it's not easy to manage it!" Mao Zedong said humorously: "The two of us divided our work and cooperated, and we managed the heavens and the earth!" ”
Chairman Mao talked with great interest, indulged, and expressed his opinions on many major scientific issues; Chairman Mao talked with great interest about the shortcomings of the eight-character constitution of agriculture, and should add "light and gas" and talked about "how sunlight combines water and carbon dioxide (carbon dioxide) into carbohydrates." He enthusiastically hoped that scientists would contribute their talents to conquering the cutting edge of science and technology and catching up with the world's advanced level, and also asked Zhu Kezhen what works he had, and the conversation did not end until 3 p.m.
Mao Zedong asked Zhu Kezhen to manage the heavens and contribute his talents to agricultural modernization, so how powerful is Zhu Kezhen, and can he complete the tasks entrusted to him by Mao Zedong?
In 1918, Zhu Kezhen successfully completed his studies with honors and received a doctorate in meteorology from Harvard University. Returning to his heart, he refused the invitation of many american universities and embarked on the ship returning to China with hope. He looked forward to using what he had learned to serve the motherland and looking forward to the early realization of the ideal of "saving the country through science."
Since 1929, he has been repeatedly elected president of the Chinese Meteorological Society. Before 1930, the harsh reality of the merciless blow to Zhu Kezhen, at that time China only Hong Kong and Shanghai Xujiahui had two weather observatories for observing climate change, but they were controlled by foreigners, Zhu Kezhen was very sad, in his view, the weather map should be the Chinese government's management, let foreign churches manage China's weather is simply shameful. On New Year's Day in 1930, the Central Meteorological Research Institute officially drew up a weather map of East Asia and issued weather forecasts and typhoon forecasts, which was the beginning of Chinese's independent forecast of weather in its own territory and sea areas. The nationalization of the "sovereignty" of weather forecasting has ended the history of China's weather forecasting monopoly by foreigners, and it is Zhu Kezhen who has done this. In 1934, Zhu Kezhen participated in the founding of the Geographical Society of China, and in April 1936, he became the president of Zhejiang University, which lasted for 13 years. From 1938 to 1939, Zhu Kezhen repeatedly refused to join the Kuomintang. Around 1940, he became the only president of a national university that was not a member of the Kuomintang.
Zhu Kezhen was elected academician of the Academia Sinica in 1948, and in 1949 he served as the chairman of the Chinese Geographical Society; after the establishment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in November of the same year, Zhu Kezhen was appointed vice president and director of the Department of Biological geology; in April 1949, he politely refused the Kuomintang's request to let him go to Taiwan, and in July, he gladly answered the invitation of the Communist Party to go to Beiping to participate in the preparatory meeting of the National Conference of Representatives of Natural Science Workers and the Preparatory Meeting of the National Conference of Representatives of Educators. In August, he successively participated in the preparatory meeting of the CPPCC and the first plenary session of the Chinese Political Consultative Conference. In the course of discussing the formulation of the Common Programme, a proposal for the development of the natural sciences was put forward and adopted. On October 1, he participated in the founding ceremony of the People's Republic of China. He was appointed Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, mainly in charge of the organization and leadership of natural science research. In 1950, he was elected as a member of the National Committee of the All-China Federation of Specialized Societies for Natural Sciences and vice chairman of the All-China Association for the Popularization of Science and Technology.
Zhu Kezhen really did not live up to Mao Zedong's expectations, and he paid great attention to China's agricultural production with great energy, and tried to use meteorological knowledge to increase grain production. Since 1953, Zhu Kezhen has begun to observe the phenology of winter wheat, followed by the phenology of cotton and rice. Since 1957, the observation of crop phenology has been promoted to the whole country. In 1961, under his guidance, the Institute of Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences presided over the establishment of the National Phenological Observation Network, formulated the phenological observation method (draft), and determined the common phenological observation types in China.
In 1962, Zhu Kezhen joined the Communist Party of China at the age of 72. Guo Moruo enthusiastically presented a poem:
"Charcoal fire was sent from the snow, and the charcoal was red like molten steel." Old and strong, high mountains, independent and reborn as an example. The east wind of the four seas is galloping, and the red flag is brilliant on three sides. After coming from ancient times to come to the top, can you not strive to be strong? In an ideological report, Zhu Kezhen likened himself to "a screw that does not rust", determined to "do it honestly and diligently, the so-called one breath still exists and this ambition cannot be slackened."
In 1963, Zhu Kezhen published the book "Phenology", which made important contributions to the development of Chinese agriculture. In his later years, he published "Preliminary Research on Climate Change in China in the Past Five Thousand Years", which collected his life's research results, which caused a sensation in the world.
From 1936 to February 6, 1974, for 38 consecutive years, the weather diary was uninterrupted, totaling more than 8 million words. Until the day before his death on February 7, 1974, he used trembling notes to record the temperature and wind of the day.
As a famous scientist, educator, geographer, and meteorologist, Zhu Kezhen was the founder of modern Chinese geography and meteorology, and with his strong sense of patriotism and responsibility, he served the motherland with what he had learned, brilliantly fulfilled the tasks entrusted to him by Mao Zedong, and left an extremely glorious page in the annals of China's meteorological cause for the study and application of china's own meteorology, for China's agricultural harvest, and for the annals of China's meteorological undertakings.