Author: Kui Jinyi
According to reports, the Wang Xiantang Museum in preparation will soon open in Qingdao. According to another reporter's investigation, Wang Xiantang's former residence in Qingdao has long been listed and protected, and his former residence in Rizhao has also been excellently repaired and restored a few years ago. According to him, Wang Xiantang's former residence in Jinan was as many as 3, which were located in front of the Daming Lake Tribute Courtyard (near the present Temple of Literature, when Wang Xiantang's residential hall was called "Panlou"), No. 14 Jingshi Road, and No. 17 Shangxin Street," but now they have long disappeared.
Mr. Chen Qitai, a famous scholar, commented in 2011: "Wang Xiantang emerged in the Shandong region in his twenties, he was a prodigy, knowledgeable, and had written in the fields of writing, phonology, exegesis, goldstone, archaeology, historiography, catalogs, editions, and collation, and was also deeply accomplished in poetry, calligraphy and painting, and seal carving. His possible treatises include "Yanhuang Clan Culture Examination", "Ancient Chinese Currency Examination", "National History Golden Stone Manuscript", etc. Up to 62 kinds, more than 1300 single papers and inscriptions, and more than 500 poems and songs. After 1929, Wang Xiantang served as the director of the Shandong Provincial Library for 20 years, in charge of the work of Shandong Literature and Museum for more than 30 years, and made indelible contributions to the modern library and cultural and cultural undertakings in Shandong and even the whole country. ”
As early as 1984, the famous scholars Zhang Zhengxuan and Xia Nai wrote to the Ministry of Culture at that time, requesting that timely and effective protective measures be taken against The Testament of Mr. Wang Xiantang and the suicide notes of the Shandong Sages he collected, which evaluated Wang Xiantang as "a rare scholar in Shandong Province in recent hundreds of years".
Next year (2020) will mark the 60th anniversary of Mr. Wang Xiantang's death, and it seems that something should be done for this scholar who has lived and worked in Jinan for nearly 40 years.
Almost half of Wang Xiantang's life was spent in the war, and the wars that occurred one after another profoundly affected his work and life, but they also left a number of precious historical materials for Jinan from the side.
On May 3, 1928, the Japanese army killed Cai Gongshi, a shandong negotiator dispatched by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nationalist Government, and 17 employees and thousands of innocent people in the department, known in history as the "May 3 massacre". When the Japanese army shelled the urban area of Jinan, the library buildings of Shandong Province adjacent to Daming Lake were also destroyed. Wang Xiantang recorded in his diary, and later in his work review: "The May 3rd Massacre, the target of the Japanese soldiers shooting, was the military and police organs in the city and the provincial party department. The party department secretly approached the main building, and was affected, shells flew across the house, through the walls, the museum pillars, and the holes were like bowls. The courtyard is full of shell casings, pits everywhere, window glass, damage is not counted. On the roof of the library, the huge bomb was pierced from the ceiling, and four fell to the floor, fortunately, none of them exploded, and the explosion was powdered all over the building. There were four bookcases, guns that penetrated the glass, and were inserted into the books, but they were not burned. For a moment, it was chaotic and miserable, indescribable. Afterwards, I used to mark the books with shells and frames, and the books said: 'Whoops! Our people think of it! Chen Zhu read the room, thinking that it was a memorial to eternal misery. ”
In April 1930, the warlord wars of Jiang, Gui, Feng and Yan broke out, known in history as the "Central Plains War". On June 26, the Central Army was defeated and retreated, and the Nationalist government of Shandong Province moved to Qingdao. Wang Xiantang recorded in his "Shoushu Diary": "The Jin army entered the economy and the political situation suddenly changed. The artillery fire was noisy, the bombardment was day and night, the doors and windows were shaken and shaken, and the personnel of various organs fled into hiding, saving their lives. He then suddenly realized that "the flames of the fire are the rest of his life, and the ashes of all thoughts" and thought to himself that he was trapped in the "Hell of A Nose, which can also be recorded in my life during one of the sad periods." Wang Xiantang could also move to Qingdao, but he was worried that after he went to Qingdao with the government, the collection of books and cultural relics would be neglected, and he would not be able to face the "Father and Elder Sangzi" in the future, so he "thought about it again, but decided to stay in the library, and as far as he could, he decided to protect this line of books for the whole province of Shandong." His "death to death" was supported and responded to by the colleagues of the whole museum. "At that time, the funds had been suspended for more than two months, and the public funds deposited by the whole museum were exhausted, and only seven yuan and five yuan were obtained."
When the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in 1937, the situation in Jinan was critical. Wang Xiantang collected 31 boxes of important books and cultural relics, including Song and Yuan rare books, Tang Dynasty scriptures, Shang and Zhou bronzes, Qin and Han wadang, and Ming Dynasty porcelain, which were first transported to Qufu in batches and stored in kong decheng, the official residence of the Worship. Later, 5 boxes were selected from them, and he personally escorted them south to Sichuan. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, all 31 boxes of books and cultural relics were "returned to their hometowns". This special period of resistance has also become a touching and profound story in the cultural history of the 20th century. Therefore, some scholars praised Wang Xiantang's merits in protecting the Tang Dynasty: "Although under a hundred lifetimes, it will be the same light as the sun and the moon, and the mountains and rivers will live together."
However, the books and cultural relics preserved in Jinan have suffered heavy losses, of which only 7600 books remain, which is less than 4% of the original collection before the war!
His time in Jinan has made Wang Xiantang's career unmatched by any other city.
It is difficult to count the friends Wang Xiantang made in Jinan. His friends are really too many, and his diaries often have records similar to "Lu Meet Liang Shuming Talk". According to rough statistics, the famous figures in his circle of friends in Jinan are at least He Siyuan, Cai Yuanpei, Kong Decheng, Fu Sinian, Yu Youren, Zhang Daqian, Shen Congwen, Liang Shuming, Chen Mengjia, Huang Yanpei, Luo Zhenyu, Zhang Yuanji, Ding Weifen, Rong Geng, Shang Chengzuo, Luan Tiaofu, Lu Dahuang, Li Ji, Hu Houxuan, Dong Zuobin, Lü Zhenyu, Gao Heng, Qu Wanli, and so on.
In the autumn of 1932, the Marxist historian Lü Zhenyu came to Jiji to visit Wang Xiantang and was warmly received by the latter. When accompanying the Shandong Provincial Library to visit the collection of cultural relics excavated from the past, Wang Xiantang specifically pointed out that he obtained a piece of earthen pottery at Yin Ruins, which contained a semi-dissolved piece of iron ore, which aroused Great Interest from Lü Zhenyu and later became an important evidence of his "Yin Shang Slavery Theory".
Mr. Wang Fulai also told reporters about the past of Wang Xiantang and Guo Moruo's interactions.
Wang Fu said that when Guo Moruo was at his hottest, "My grandfather once had 'three batches' of Guo Moruo on academic issues. What's the reason for that? Guo Moruo divided China's history into slave society, feudal society, semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, and new democratic society, but my grandfather believed that China did not form a slave society at all, and believed that China was a direct transition from primitive society to feudal society, so he wrote an article criticizing Guo Moruo. After Guo Moruo read the critical article, he went to Jinan to inspect, in fact, the main thing was to see my grandfather. My grandfather happened to be unwell at that time, so he was lying on the hospital bed, and Guo Moruo walked a few steps to my grandfather's side and said, 'Wang Xianlao, you lie down'—in fact, my grandfather was four years younger than him, but he honored my grandfather as "Wang Xianlao"—and then sat down and talked. When they talked, a lot of people didn't know the content, but my dad knew—it was a discussion about the social division in Chinese history.
Wang Xiantang was fond of books, and left us many anecdotes in his voluminous diary, allowing us to see his celebrity style and the literary light and book shadow of that era from one side to another. Mr. Wang Fulai told reporters the story of his grandfather Wang Xiantang and a Japanese scholar, which is quite unforgettable-
"In the 1930s, there was a famous scholar in Japan, Takada Tadashi, who in 1936 wrote a book called "Ancient Texts". After he wrote it, all the experts in the Chinese academic community who studied ancient scripts were silent, and everyone felt very humiliated. Why? Chinese did not write a "Kojiki", but the Japanese wrote it, and it was very well written. My grandfather wrote in three days the tens of thousands of words of "Commenting on Takada Tadashi's "Ancient Texts". The great thing about this article is that it pushes down many of the arguments of the Koji, and as a result, Takada Tadao is very admired, and writes to my grandfather, saying thank you and so on. Takada Tadashi was also a scholar, and he was convinced of the readers, so he came forward to openly say that he was wrong and that his academic cultivation was not enough, which meant that he obeyed. This gives China a breath of relief. ”
There is a follow-up to this matter. Not long after, in the small courtyard where Wang Xiantang's family lived on the shore of the Ming Lake, the concierge suddenly came to report that there were visitors, who did not look like Chinese, and there were several people. Wang Xiantang came out, and he saw that the leader was an old man with a white beard, about 70 years old.
The person who came was Takada Tadashi, who took his wife, son, and grandson into the hospital and knelt down to worship the king and offer Tang as his teacher. Wang Xiantang said, "I am Wang Xiantang." You get up, get up. Wang Xiantang was young at the time, just 40 years old in 1936. Takata was blindfolded at once, "Huh? So young! China really has talents! ”
Wang Xiantang lived in Jinan for a long time and wrote many poems about Jinan, and this point sounds very fresh to many people. Because most of his literary works are recorded in his diaries, and his diaries are mostly not published in public. In fact, the delicacy of his poetic works has long reached the point of being breathtaking.
For example, in his 1918 "Diary of the False Room", on August 5, he wrote the poem "Minghu Jiyou", on August 21 he wrote three poems of "You Jinan Tiegong Ancestral Hall", on August 25 he wrote a poem of "You Tie Gong Ancestral Hall", on September 2, he wrote two poems of "Remembering Xiao Canglang Pavilion", etc., all of which showed his profound skills and the intention to chant extraordinary.
On July 28, 1930, in his "Diary of Keeping Books", he wrote about the beautiful scenery of Jinan at that time with a very beautiful and cheerful brushstroke, and also reflected the 35-year-old's brilliant state of mind of reading, studying and working:
Review the Yiyuan Prints before dinner. After the meal, a lotus was picked and peeled between the vermilion columns on the bridge. Fu Deng Chao Shuang Tai, looking at the waist of a thousand Buddha Mountains, in the sunset, such as a tower, like a sandbar, and like a mountain peak, instantaneous. Beneath it is a green lotus with endless water. White gull pieces, on the waves, the painting ship is far away, that is, the phase rate team flies away, and the sound of the song also swirls with the painting ship. That is, the servant moved to the peach sheng platform and lay down to read the "Seal of the Supplemental Luojia Room", and his spirit was very fast. The four volumes of the book, after the first reading, the cannon suddenly rose to the east, one after another, because the natural scenery is all wonderful, and its only thief who kills nature is also known as the 'spirit of all things'.
In summer, Jinan is beautiful and colorful, and it is also a victory of lakes and mountains, which makes people linger. Wang Xiantang is in such a beautiful natural environment to taste, read, and rationalize books. However, at this time, it was the end of the "Central Plains War", and the occasional artillery exchange of troops could be heard in this ancient city, which was quite frustrating.
In April 1932, Wang Xiantang also rode a donkey with Ding Weifen and others for 18 miles to the Changqing Lingyan Temple in Jinan, and the author also wrote a wonderful travelogue in his "Diary of Gu Huang Shuliao", commenting that his clay sculpture was "a real feat of craftsmanship".