Lineage: Born into a family of extreme poverty
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was a small village in the northwest of Tangyi County called Wujiazhuang (now part of Liulin Town, GuanXian County), with about 100 households, most of whom were poor.
There is a man named Wu Zongyu in the village, who married a girl surnamed Cui many years ago and has two sons and a daughter.
Like the neighbors, their lives were very tight, and it was difficult to maintain daily life in a few acres of thin fields, so Wu Zongyu had to often do some odd jobs for the landlord's family and barely survive.
It was in this family situation that Wu Zongyu's third son was born on the 19th day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar in 1838. The eldest son is called Wu Qian, and the second son is called Wu Rang, so what should this third son be called? Life is too bad, even the family has no interest in naming the child, "he is the seventh oldest among the uncles and brothers, just call wuqi."
The perfunctory nature of the elders left the child without even a formal name, but no one expected that many years later, the unobtrusive child would make an earth-shattering career and have a resounding name: Martial Arts.
When he was a child, Wu Xun showed a strong desire to read, but his family was too poor to pay even a small amount of reading. When Wu Xun was eight years old, there was a great famine in various parts of Shandong, and his father also died, which undoubtedly made the family's already difficult life worse.
In the days that followed, he often went out with his mother to ask for food. When Wu Xun was fifteen years old, he worked as a long-term worker in a relative's house in a neighboring village, and he cherished this job very much, and was diligent every day, carrying water, cutting grass, feeding livestock, ploughing the ground, pushing mills... Do all the stupid work. However, his efforts were exchanged for scolding, and he did not have any wages. "I will take you in and give you a mouthful of food to eat, even if it is a great favor, and what wages will you pay?" This is the theory of this bastard relative.
In a fit of rage, Wu Xun left this employer at the age of seventeen and went to work for Li Liaosheng (nicknamed Li Laobao), a large landowner in Xuedian Village in the northeast of Guantao County. Wu Xun also worked diligently, but his fate did not change in the slightest, or even worse. He was also often beaten and punished. A new year ago, Chinese New Year's Eve, Li Laobao told him to paste the Spring League. Because he couldn't read, he pasted the spring league that should have been posted on the pigsty to the gate. When Li Laobao found out, he was furious and not only punched and kicked Wu Xun, but also punished him for not eating or sleeping. On this stormy night, Wu Xun stood in the courtyard all night.
Or because of illiteracy, a major event occurred that made the martial arts training unforgettable. This incident made the three years of martial arts training go to waste, but it also changed the fate of his life. Wu Xun worked in the Li family, the annual salary was seventeen hangings, and he never made advances for three years, nor did he calculate the account. One day, his mother was sick and wanted to borrow some money to go home. Old Pigtail Li deceived him into not being literate, took out a forged ledger and said, "On a certain day of a certain month, you took a few hundred yuan, and on a certain day you used dozens of yuan." In short, you have used up your salary this year, and I have no savings here. This confused account sounded undoubtedly a thunderbolt on a sunny day in the martial arts training, and he naturally argued on the basis of reason. Li Laobao was immediately embarrassed and angry, and falsely accused him of blackmailing, calling the house slaves to beat him to the head and bleed him, and pushed out the gate to ignore him.
The bullied Martial Arts slept in a ruined temple at the eastern end of Xuedian Village. Some thought he was missing, some thought he died in grief. Who knows, three days later, he walked out of the broken temple, and seemed to become crazy, muttering in his mouth: "Carrying work (that is, part-time work) is deceived, it is better to beg for food with yourself; don't look at me begging for food, sooner or later build a righteous college." ”
Raising money: He ran out of money
No one knows what Wu Xun had been thinking during his three days in the broken temple, but his legendary life began at that time.
He was twenty-one years old that year. Since then, there has been an extra beggar in the streets of Linqing, Guantao, Tangyi County and other places, who is ragged, carrying a rag, and holding a copper spoon, he is a martial arts training.
He not only begged for food, but also went around shouting and selling his labor: "Come out of the dung, the hay, the pulling of the stakes, and the black will not matter, no matter how much the money." "The strength of the martial arts is all for the purpose of making money and accumulating them as a fund for running righteous studies." In order to avoid being deceived again, he clearly marked the price of his labor, and always declared it in advance.
In addition, he also played juggling - with his hands on the ground, his head down, his legs straight up, to learn to climb the scorpion on the ground with his hands and feet, and at the same time he sang in his mouth: "Vertical one, one money, ten dollars, vertical more, more money, who said that you can't cultivate righteousness." In order to attract the attention of others and earn a little more money, When Wu Xun was twenty-three years old, he shaved the head of a monk, leaving only a short hair on the corner of his forehead, which was also a sign of his xingxue. Someone asked him why he was like this, and he sang: "Shave on the left, stay on the right, and don't worry about practicing righteousness; stay on the left, shave on the right, and it doesn't take much effort to cultivate righteousness." "He also crawls on the ground for his children to ride and make money." He even ate scorpions, snakes, bricks, etc. in public, in this masochistic way to win everyone's curiosity and get a little reward.
At this time, he would say: "Broken bricks and tiles can be digested, and it is not possible to cultivate righteousness to make people laugh." Sometimes, when he gets better food, he sells it and eats the moldy and rotten chaff root and so on. Someone advised him why bother like this, and he replied with a singing voice: "Eating well is not good, it is not good, and it is good to cultivate a righteous study." In 1865, when Wu Xun was twenty-nine years old, he took out the money he had saved to buy forty acres of land to prepare for the yixue field, of which more than ten acres were alkali sand land. At the same time, he sang: "As long as I should learn to develop righteousness, I am not afraid of alkali and sand, alkali will also retreat, sand will also be scraped, and there will be no alkali sand after three years." Because Wuxun always "righteous learning" does not leave his mouth, the neighbors think that he has "righteous learning disease", so they take "righteous learning disease" as his nickname, but Wuxun does not think so: "Righteous learning disease, no fire, see people, pay respects, reward money, live, and cultivate a righteous study for ten thousand years can not move." ”
In 1868, when Wu xun was thirty-one years old, his mother Cui Shi died, so he and his two brothers separated the family, divided three acres of land, sold one hundred and twenty strings of money, plus the original more than a hundred hanging money, he wanted to find a reliable person to save a loan to earn interest, to accumulate more funds for yixue. Years of begging for food had led him to target a man, Lou Junling, a martial artist from Loujiatou Village in Guantao County, but how could people look up to him as a beggar? Not to mention saving money for him and lending money.
So Wu Xun took out his own killer skill, knelt at the door of Wu Jinshi for a day and a night, and finally touched Lou Junling. Money can make money, and it is one step closer to running a righteous school, which has further stimulated the enthusiasm of martial arts training to beg for food and earn money. At the same time, his channels for earning money have also been broadened. Wu Xun walked the streets and alleys, and there were many people he came into contact with, so he told people that he would get some happy money for each marriage. He also picked up rags discarded by women doing needlework, twisted them into threads, or wrapped them into threads and eggs to sell. In the eyes of others, martial arts is very picky, for money he can not be dignified, regardless of family affection, but sometimes he is very generous, generous surprisingly generous.
In 1875, there was a severe drought in the northwest plains of Lu, and the peasants could not plant crops, many people starved to death, and even some people sold their children and daughters. Wu Xun took out his savings and bought forty quintals of sorghum for relief to the victims. In the summer of 1885, Zhang Chunhe's mother, zhang bazhai, in the north of GuanXian County, was ill and wanted to eat meat. Zhang Chunhe went out for more than ten years without any news, the family was so poor that it was difficult to even eat, where was the money to buy meat? The daughter-in-law actually cut her own flesh for her mother-in-law to eat. When Wu Xun heard about this, he generously gave them ten acres of fertile land.
Xingxue: He founded three righteous schools
Wu Xun accumulated more and more money, but Lou Junling could not help him set up a righteous school, so Wu Xun set his sights on Jinshi Yangshufang in Liulin Town, Tangyi County.
In 1886, Wu Xun handed over all his property of more than 230 acres of land and more than 2,800 hanging money to Yangshufang to take care of, and with the help of Yangshufang, he stepped towards the ideal step by step. Now that I have money, the following task is to choose the school site. Yang Shufang persuaded Wu Xun to build Yixue in Wujiazhuang, but Wu Xun categorically refused. Wu Xun said worriedly: "Leaving aside the narrow houses of the Wu family, the school may also be occupied by the descendants of the wu family, or it will be built in Liulin Town, where the transportation is convenient." ”
In 1887, Guo Fen and Mu Yun, the enlightened landlords of Liulin Town, donated 1.87 mu and 2 mu of land respectively. In the winter of that year, the first righteous school established by wuxun was finally completed. For this day, he fought for 29 years, of which the bitterness was known only to himself.
Yixue was named Chongxian Yishu, with a total of 20 tile houses, one for each of the two gates, plus the surrounding wall, sharing 4787 hanging money, except for the 2800 hanging money accumulated by Wu Xun himself, the rest were donated by Poplar Fang and local gentry.
In addition, the annual rent income of more than 230 mu of martial arts training is 368 hangings, and in addition to 70 hangings of grain, there are also surpluses of more than 290 hangings, which are used as funds for righteous learning. With schools, there must be teachers! So Wu Xun personally went to Shouzhang County to invite Cui Falcon, a famous scholar at that time, to teach, and then went to Liaocheng to hire Gu Zhong'an. And the students? I also had to persuade and persuade them to enter the school one by one. There are more than 50 students, divided into two classes: Jingjing and Mongolian.
On the day of the opening of the school, the martial arts training banquet invited the teacher and invited several gentry to accompany him, but he stood alone at the door, and when the wine was served, he prostrated his head and thanked the visitors. Yang Shufang, Cui Falcon and others invited him to the table, but he said: "I am a beggar, illiterate, and dare not sit with my husband." Wu Xun and the students were given a bowl of large pots and a few steamed buns, but he quietly went out in exchange for a few new bricks, and he still ate some scraps of cold burning.
What is even more touching is that despite having enough school buildings, Wu Xun refuses to occupy a room and still sleeps in the corridor. One morning, Wu Xun found that the sun had come out very high, the students had arrived, and the teacher Cui Falcon did not come to class. He quietly walked into Cui Falcon's bedroom, silently kneeling in front of the bed and crying. Cui Falcon woke up feeling ashamed and never dared to slack off again.
Sometimes, when he saw students playing and playing in the classroom, or some students were absent from class, he knelt in front of the students and persuaded with tears: "Reading does not require work, go home without face to see father and brother, read without heart, go home without face to see mother." The school spirit of Chongxian Yoshijuku was very good under the inspiration of martial arts training, and soon attracted the attention of the authorities. Guo Chunxu of Tangyi Zhi County inspected Yixue and found that Wuxun's clothes were in tatters, so he gave him ten pieces of silver and asked him to buy some clothes. At first, he resolutely did not want it, but later he had to accept it at the repeated requests of Zhixian County, but he put the money into the study of righteousness.
The successful establishment of the first righteous school was only the beginning of martial arts training, and he still did not stop begging. In 1890, Wuxun founded the second Yixue school with monks in Yang Erzhuang, Guantao County. This year, Wu Xun was already fifty-three years old, and someone advised him to marry and have children and prepare for retirement, but he did not care, singing: "Life is seventy years old, fifty-three years old does not marry a wife, relatives and friends are broken, and dying of a righteous study." In 1891, Wu Xun begged in the Linqing area, and found that there were many children out of school in poor families, so he decided to establish a third righteous college in Linqing.
After several years of hard work, at the end of 1895, the Linqing Yushi Lane Yixue was completed. Wu Xun bought two more shops, six acres of school land, and earned more than 300 hanging money every year, which was enough to maintain the normal expenses of the school.
In the spring of 1896, the Linqing Yushi Lane Yixue School was officially opened. But the martial arts had exhausted his last effort, and he fell ill in early April. He lay quietly under the eaves of the Linqing Yushi Lane Yixue, not eating, not taking medicine, and only drinking a few mouthfuls of water every day, but as soon as he heard the students' reading, a smile would appear on his face. On April 23, 1896, Wu Xun walked into another world with a smile, when he was fifty-nine years old.