This poem was written by Zhang Yuanji to bid farewell to colleagues who struggled together in the business publishing house. In just four sentences, he expressed his lifelong belief that books should be used to cultivate knowledge and education should enlighten people's wisdom. This is by no means grandiose empty talk. He fought for it almost all his life, devoted himself to it, and died.
Zhang Yuanji spent decades collecting thousands of ancient books, but in the second year of the September 18th Incident, a shell destroyed everything. In an instant, the fire raged in the Commercial Press, with thick smoke and dusty paper, and thousands of thousands of ancient books turned into knee-high ashes. Perhaps in turbulent times, wars should have been frequent, but what the Japanese invaders later said proved that all this was premeditated. What the hell is going on here? And what is the Japanese deliberate for?
1867, Zhang Yuanji was born in a scholarly family. He was influenced by knowledge since he was a child, showing extraordinary learning talent. He is bent on becoming famous and hopes to commemorate his ancestors. Cold window has studied hard for more than ten years. When I was eighteen, I was a scholar. Twenty-three years old, a high school juren. At the age of 26, he became a scholar again. Later, he entered the Imperial Academy and served as the director of punishments.
Taking the exam at such a young age was a genius at that time. For a time, Zhang Yuanji had great scenery and a bright career, and everyone thought that he would make great achievements. But perhaps because of his cleverness and transparency, Zhang Yuanji could easily see that the Qing Dynasty was actually a spent force at that time. If corruption continued to develop, it would eventually perish.
Therefore, when Emperor Guangxu summoned him alone, Zhang Yuanji expressed his views on reform without reservation. After that, he wrote 40 articles on reform to explain his views and requested the imperial edict, hoping to vigorously develop industry. Unexpectedly, the next day, Empress Dowager Cixi staged a coup, and the reform ended absurdly only after 100 days.
It may be wrong to pin our hopes on Emperor Guangxu, who has no real power, or on Yuan Shikai and western powers, but this movement is avant-garde after all and has promoted the development of thought to a certain extent. Although it was meaningful, the ministers related to it were affected at that time, and Zhang Yuanji was directly dismissed. Cixi also said? Never use it again. At this point, Zhang Yuanji withdrew from the political arena.
When Zhang Yuanji was at the end of his tether, Li Hongzhang could not bear to bury his talent and introduced him to the post of Dean of the Translation College of Nanyang Public College, mainly responsible for translating excellent foreign works. Under his management, the original version of Fortune translated by Yan Fu (Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations) was successfully published, and this classic work of economics came out.
There is no doubt that Zhang Yuanji has the ability to bear this time? Xiang Bo? As long as it is done steadily, it can not only ensure a family's food and clothing, but also fulfill his concept of educating people and strengthening the country. However, three years later, Zhang Yuanji made an amazing decision. He resigned from Nanyang Translation Institute and chose to join the Commercial Press.
At that time, the Commercial Press was only a manual printing workshop, which was far from Nanyang Translation Institute. His actions have also aroused people's speculation. Later, people learned from his farewell poems that he had already linked the Commercial Press with China's educational modernization. Zhang Yuanji is eager to train more Western-style talents, hoping to popularize education and strengthen the national strength. The almost stereotyped scale of Nanyang Public School is doomed to be difficult to achieve his goal.
For the prosperity of the motherland, some people fought bloody battles in the front line, some people embarked on official careers to serve the people, some people wrote books to carve soul of china into words, and Zhang Yuanji chose to publish. He worked hard to collect, collate and proofread a large number of ancient books scattered among the people, participated in all publishing plans of the Commercial Press, hired a large number of talented people with educational aspirations, organized the translation of a large number of foreign works, and also compiled a full set of textbooks from primary school to university.
Thanks to Zhang Yuanji's efforts, the Commercial Press changed from a small factory to the largest publishing house in the Far East in 1926, with branches all over the country, becoming a cultural center for popularizing and spreading new knowledge and learning since the late Qing Dynasty.
Besides compiling and publishing books, Zhang Yuanji's greatest effort is to collect ancient books. At that time, the political situation was turbulent, and many precious books were displaced and disappeared. He was worried that he would miss the library, so he hung it in front of his house? Buy used books? Signboard. He personally collected, edited, typeset and photocopied ancient books. In order to find a suitable edition for publication, he not only borrowed seals from public and private book collectors for perfection, but also advertised in newspapers to buy ancient books and bought rare books from the masses at high prices.
On one occasion, Zhang Yuanji learned about the extremely precious Song edition book? Song Song Lu? This collection of books is about to be acquired by the Japanese. Without hesitation, he immediately set off for Lu, the descendant of the bibliophile, and tried his best to preserve this precious national treasure. Even if he needed a fifth of the assets of the Commercial Press at that time, he gave generously, but it was still the same as Lu's asking price. A hundred thousand? We're 20 thousand short
Seeing that the books were about to fall into the hands of the Japanese, Zhang Yuanji was worried. He persuaded Rong Qing, the minister in charge of books, to allocate funds to buy them, but the latter ignored them. In desperation, Zhang Yuanji had to borrow money to raise money everywhere, but in the end, the book was bought by the Japanese. Every time he thinks about it, Zhang Yuanji feels very guilty. In a letter to a friend, he said: Regret is common today, and it hurts to think about it often. ?
Zhang Yuanji worked hard and devoted all his energy and efforts to books. Although he was very successful in business, he lived a frugal life and spent a lot of money collecting ancient books. From the very beginning, when he started to work in the Commercial Press, he didn't get a salary every year, only got a bonus, and asked his share of dividends to be lower than others. Not only that, he never gave a banquet, did not waste money, did not covet cheap money, and even paid off all the money that others helped him develop photos and write telegrams. Finally, all his salary was given to those in need as an education fund.
In this year, day after day, in the process of collecting books, collating and annotating, Hanfen Building (the main building of Oriental Library) even surpassed the then National Library, also known as the first library in Asia. Later, Zhang Yuanji built the famous Oriental Library on the basis of Hanfen Building and opened it to the public. He is not stingy, and never forgets his original intention. He hopes that more people can read ancient documents and appreciate the charm of learning.
But who expected that these ancient books, which cost him decades of hard work, were destroyed under the fire of the Japanese aggressors. In 1932, one? 28? In the Battle of Songhu, a bomb landed in the ink warehouse. In an instant, a raging fire swallowed up the Commercial Press like a maw. Screams, cries of pain, flustered footsteps are endless, and melted type spreads and flows on the ground. Then, the Japanese invaders lit a fire in the Oriental Library. The ancient books that Zhang Yuanji spent twenty years collecting were cremated into ashes, with smoke and dust everywhere and paper dust scattered all over the floor.
When the fire went out, the Commercial Press lost 80% of its assets, while the 460,000 books in the Oriental Library were all destroyed, and the burnt paper ash even reached the knees. Among these 460,000 books, there are more than 3,700 kinds of precious ancient books and more than 35,000 books. These treasures of Chinese civilization have disappeared from the world. Seeing this, Zhang Yuanji cried and sighed. Twenty years of hard work turned into Thai baht, and in an instant, the forest of books was robbed and emptied. ?
Later, Zhang Yuanji also said to his wife: This is my sin! If I don't collect these books, don't keep them centrally, and still leave them scattered all over the country, can't I escape this catastrophe! ?
In fact, Zhang Yuanji also fell into anger. If it is scattered all over the country, it may be bought by the powers! But the result is like this, which is really sad.
Later, the Japanese invaders said: I bombed your street, and it will be repaired tomorrow, but I bombed the Commercial Press, and you will never recover. ? This also proves that this irreparable national disaster was actually premeditated by the invaders. They not only want to invade the land of the Chinese nation, but also want to deprive the people of China of their thoughts and let them live in ignorance and deep sleep forever.
But they didn't expect that there is a hero like Zhang Yuanji who is willing to burn his life for universal education because of the great resilience of the Chinese nation. After the Commercial Press suffered a fire, Zhang Yuanji devoted himself to the cause of revival in the following decades.
Zhang Yuanji and his family.
Seeing that the Japanese invaders became more and more arrogant, the eight-year war of resistance began. Zhang Yuanji sticks to the bottom line and will never serve the Japanese. Even if life is hard, even to the point where he needs to make a living by selling words, he never hesitates. 194 1 year, Zhang Yuanji and Ye Jingkui went bankrupt and even set up a library. Until the founding of New China, the library had 220,000 books, which was unimaginable in that stormy day!
1959 On August 4th, Zhang Yuanji passed away at the age of 93. He left a poem:
What a smelly bag! I've been working for you for 90 years, and now I have to hand it in. In this new world, even if I don't live to be 100 years old, I will see peace. ?
Zhang Yuanji devoted his life to the motherland, people and books, and he worked hard for the rise of the country. Even if the Japanese invaders swallowed hundreds of thousands of books with shells and flames, they would never be able to erase the loyalty and enthusiasm of a patriot!