Wu Fangji, known as Bi Liu, self-signed White House Wu Sheng. A native of Jiangjin County, he was born in Chongqing in 1896 (the twenty-second year of Qing Guangxu) and his father was a businessman. Wu Fangji has been bright since childhood, and at the age of 7, he entered chongqing DaLiangzi Zuoying Yamen Primary School. His father went bankrupt in business and was arrested and imprisoned for a lawsuit, and his mother had to take him back to Gangjin. In 1906, he entered the Jiangjin Baisha Jukui Academy, and at the age of 10, he wrote his own complaint and walked to Chongqing to defend his father. Seeing his young age and affectionate words, the county magistrate released his father and reunited his family.
Wu Fangji was diligent and studious, with excellent grades, and at the age of 13, he wrote an article entitled "After Reading the History of Diplomatic Failures" that caused a sensation in the township. In 1910, Wu Fangji was admitted to the Beijing Tsinghua Preparatory School for Studying in the United States. Later, due to the political turmoil at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the school was delayed until the establishment of the Republic of China, and he did not go to Beijing to enroll.
After the opening of Tsinghua School, the students in the school were extremely disgusted by the contempt Chinese foreigners. Once, an American teacher unreasonably insulted He Lu and Huang Bingli, arousing public indignation, and the students of various provinces elected representatives to negotiate with them according to their nationality, and Wu Fangji represented the Sichuan students. However, the school defended the interests of foreign teachers and expelled all student representatives from their student status. After the situation expanded, The Education Director Fan Yuanlian came forward and ordered the deputies to write a letter of repentance and return to school, and Wu Fangji believed that "there is no remorse for the people." "Angry and left school to return home. On the way back, he was poor and sick, and even lived by begging, tossing and turning for 5 months, suffering hardships, and when he arrived home, he became seriously ill. After recovering from his illness, he wrote 70 poems and sent them to his friend Wu Mi, who wrote back to praise his poetry and give encouragement. Since then, Wu Fangji has been immersed in poetry creation.
In 1915, Wu Fangji went to Shanghai Youwen Society to proofread the "Zhang's Series of Books", and on his way back to Sichuan, he was captured by the Beiyang Army suspected of being a spy of the National Guard Army, and was nearly killed. After escaping from danger, he wrote 19 poems of "Weak Years", which described the invasions and violence of the great powers, the darkness of politics, the rampant practice of soldiers and bandits, the suffering of the people and his own hardships over the years. He wrote in "Painful Thoughts and Painful Actions": "There has never been a general plug in the fortune of the world, and there has never been a complicated and urgent need today." In this life, he knows that if he comes by chance, he will brush the feathers and vibrate the six wings", he is closely linked to the fate of the country and the nation with his own destiny, and he encourages himself with a big festival. Two years later, he wrote in the "Pen on the New Year's Day of the Fifth Dynasty": "Three days do not write the people's suffering, and the articles fail to live up to the people. "He was determined to use poetry as a trumpet, to shoot, to awaken the people, to shoot at the enemy.
After returning to his hometown, Wu Fangji worked as an editor in Chongqing's Qiangguo Bao and taught at Yongning Middle School. The family has been flooded twice, and in poverty, more than 10 people, including his friends Wu Mi, Gu Xinghua, and Tang Yongtong, have donated money to pay off his debts.
In the autumn of 1919, Wu Fangji served as the poetry editor of The New Group magazine in Shanghai, and at the climax of the New Culture Movement, he published new songs such as "Little Car Words", "Gentle Words", and "Two Fathers and Daughters", which were widely circulated for a while. His poems and sentences strive to use slang dialects, and the style and rhyme are borrowed from the Western reformed poetry style, but the characteristics of Lefu poetry's song style, depression, freshness and elegance are retained. He believes that the spirit of the times, people's thinking, and life have changed, and the poetic style should also be reformed. He said: "To read the poetry of the ancients is not to return to the ancients, but to learn from the poetry of the ancients to enlighten my poetry; to read the poetry of outsiders, it is not to deceive outsiders, but to use the poetry of outsiders to improve my poetry." Because he did not intervene in the factional struggle in the Literary Circle of Shanghai at that time, he was attacked, calling him a "crazy poet demon" and saying that his poems were "not donkeys and not horses." Because he was unsupported from a foreigner, he was forced to leave Shanghai in August 1920 to teach at The Mingde Middle School in Changsha.
During his time in Hunan, Wu Fangji and his friends founded the literary quarterly magazine "Xiangjun" and established the Red Leaf Society. His good friend Wu Mi, who was already the director of the research institute at Tsinghua University, called from Beijing to invite Wu Fangji to teach at Tsinghua, but Wu Fangji refused on the grounds that he had been unjustifiably expelled from Tsinghua university and applied for a job at Northwest University. From 1927 onwards, he taught at Chengdu University, Sichuan University, and Chongqing University. Later, he was invited by his friend Changtani Xinghua of Jiangjin County to return to his hometown to teach at Jiangjin Middle School.
In April 1932, Wu Fangji went to Chongqing to give a speech for the YMCA at the invitation of the Canadian Friends of Humanities, and he recited to the audience his newly written poem "The Song of the Ba People" based on the theme of the 19th Route Army's anti-Japanese resistance. He was already suffering from lung disease at the time, and he fainted on the podium because of his agitation.
On May 9, 1932, Wu Fangji died of illness. Before his death, he compiled the "White House Wusheng Poetry Manuscript", and after his death, his close friend Wu Mi and others compiled and printed the "Wu Baiwu Mr. Wu Baiwu Family Letter", "White House Jiayan", and "White House Family Book". But since then, White House poetry has been snubbed for nearly half a century. In recent years, the national culture has been restored, and the poetry journal "Stars" has re-published "Wanrong Words".
In October 1982, the Sichuan People's Publishing House published "Selected Poems of the White House". The Journal of Chengdu University, chengdu evening newspaper, social science research, and Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao have successively published articles introducing and studying Wu Fangji, and Taiwan has also published his poetry collection. The Collection of Wu Fangji, which was included in the Sichuan Provincial Ancient Book Collation Planning Project, was published by the Bashu Book Society in 1994.
(Originally published in: Chronicle of Sichuan Province)