Yan Chongnian: When I wanted to write a book about Nurhachi, I checked the catalogue before and found that there was no monograph about Nurhachi. It takes courage to do this, and several people have advised me not to do it. If you don't do it well, it's over, but I think you should do it or not. In addition, I wrote a paper "Zhang and Kangxi Shun Tian Fu Zhi", pointing out that this book is an orphan. I spent 20 years searching in China before and after, and then used the opportunity of cultural and academic exchanges to search in Japan and the United States, and came to this conclusion. It also takes courage. Once someone takes out another notebook, your argument will collapse and 20 years of hard work will be wasted.
Express: What did you learn in the village at that time? Yan Chongnian: That school is called "Weixin Primary School". This is a new school. It doesn't read four books and five classics. But before class, I still worship Confucius, kowtow to the memorial tablet, and then study geography, history and calligraphy. The teacher who teaches calligraphy used to be a private school. He often tells us some traditional things, and also chooses some sentences from The Analects for us to write, which has some influence.