Character name: Hu Shi
Scholar
Hu Shi
(1891～1962)
Scholar and poet. He is famous for advocating the "May 4th" literary revolution. His first name was Hong, whose scientific name was Hong, and his courtesy name was Shizhi. A native of Jixi, Anhui Province, he studied in a private school in his hometown when he was young. Ideologically deeply influenced by Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. In the spring of 1904, he went to Shanghai to enter a new school. In 1910, he passed the Gengzi Indemnity Examination and went to the United States, where he studied at Cornell University and Columbia University. In 1914, he studied under the philosopher J. Dewey and was deeply influenced by his pragmatism philosophy. In January 1917, his article "A Preliminary Discussion on Literary Reform" was published in the magazine "New Youth". He proposed eight things for literary reform, emphasized the use of vernacular instead of classical Chinese as the formal literary language, and opened a gap for the replacement of old literature with new literature. He was praised as As the "pioneer who first raised the flag of justice" in the literary revolution, he was famous throughout the country. He returned to China in the summer of 1917 and was employed as a professor at Peking University.
In 1918, he joined the editorial board of "New Youth" and vigorously advocated vernacular writing, promoting individual liberation and freedom of thought. He was regarded as a leader of the New Culture Movement along with Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. He published some articles one after another, explaining the difference between old and new literature from the perspective of creative theory, advocating new literary creation, translating some novels, poems and literary works by French A. Daudet, G. de Maupassant, and Norwegian H.J. Ibsen, and took the lead in engaging in vernacular literary creation. His vernacular poems published in 1917 were the first new poems in the history of modern literature. Hu Shi believed in pragmatism philosophy. After the May 4th Movement, he parted ways with Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu and other intellectuals who accepted Marxism. Starting from the "dispute between issues and doctrines", he advocated reform, which changed his original attitude of not talking about politics for 20 years. He founded "Effortless Weekly" in the 1920s, "Independent Review" in the 1930s, and "Independent Times" in the 1940s, all of which were political publications. From 1938 to 1942, he served as the National Government's ambassador to the United States. From 1946 to 1948, he served as president of Peking University. Went to the United States in 1949. In 1958, he returned to Taiwan and served as President of Academia Sinica. Hu Shi's academic activities throughout his life were mainly in the aspects of history, literature and philosophy. His main works include "Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy" (Part 1), "Collection of Attempts", "History of Vernacular Literature" (Part 1) and "Hu Shi's Wencun" (Part 4) set) etc. His greatest academic influence was his advocacy of the academic approach of “bold assumptions and careful verification.” In his later years, he devoted himself to the textual research of "Shui Jing Zhu", but did not have time to write the final draft. Died of illness in Taipei in 1962.
Hu Chuan
The father of cultural master Hu Shi, Hu Tiehua. Of course, this is not Hu Tiehua, the martial arts celebrity and Chu Liuxiang's good friend in Gu Long's works, but Hu Tiehua, who was a scholar and a state magistrate. Hu Shi's father's real name was Hu Chuan, and Tiehua was his given name. His last official position was Taitung magistrate, which is equivalent to the current prefectural level. In Taiwan during the Qing Dynasty, this official position was not a small one, but he was more famous for his poetic talent. Hu Shi once humbled himself that he could not write poetry, and vernacular poems such as "Anthology Collection" were indeed not good at literary talent. But Hu Shi's father, Hu Tiehua, was an out-and-out poet.
I have read some of his poems, which are galloping, wild and full of vitality - "Looking up at the flying clouds rising from the sky, drinking heavily and listening to the songs of the strong wind". In the late Qing Dynasty when thousands of horses were silent, they should be vigorous and vigorous. . However, in Hu Shi’s splendid literary crown, we cannot find his father’s name. Hu Chuan was unwilling to be a scholar. He went to the capital to look for opportunities to serve his country. He also carried a letter of introduction and walked for forty-two days. He arrived in Jilin in the ice and snow. He met with the imperial envoy Wu Dazheng and asked to accompany the Qing envoys to resolve the Sino-Russian border. dispute. Wu Dazheng accepted the young man curiously. It is said that Wu Dazheng once praised Hu Chuan for his talent in governing the province. This may be Hu Shi's family opinion, but Hu Chuan was indeed a competent local official. At that time, Taiwan had just been established as a province, and in the eyes of the imperial ministers, it was a miserable place full of barbaric miasma. However, Hu Tiehua took the initiative to leave her pregnant wife and set foot on the vast sea without even having time to take a look at her newborn son.
When Hu Chuan arrived in Taiwan, the reform of the first governor Liu Mingchuan had already been eliminated. The crisis in the East China Sea is rolling in the sky like a dark cloud, and there are restless waves everywhere. Hu Chuan devoted all his efforts to writing the first "Taiwan Military Preparation Chronicle". He must have walked into the forests, mountain gorges, and seaports of Taiwan Island just like he surveyed the Sino-Russian border, and walked through the battlements of Zheng Chenggong's era and the Chikan City left by the Dutch. "In the Huayan world, let me travel across thousands of clouds and mountains..." However, at the end of the dynasty, this was just a dream of a scholar.
Three years later, the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894 started. Hu Chuan recruited brave soldiers to defend Taitung, but before his sword was unsheathed, it was frozen by Emperor Guangxu's edict to cede Taiwan. The emperor issued a decree: All officials in Taiwan would be transferred inland and Taiwan would be handed over to Japan. Hu Chuan refused to obey the order and made the greatest resistance of feudal literati. He ran around, recruiting troops to protect the platform, and walked to Tainan on foot. Dressed in rags, he met Liu Yongfu, a veteran of the Black Flag Army, and asked to join the war as a scholar. I think that the restless blood in Hu Shi's body that broke through the eight-legged writing of thousands of years is flowing in the thin veins of his father.
Hu Chuan fell ill and was escorted back to Xiamen by Liu Yongfu. He died of the epidemic a few days later. It was the second day after the Japanese army captured Bagua Mountain. As the author of "Taiwan Military Preparation Chronicle", he should be the person who knows the strategic significance of Bagua Mountain to Tainan best. Rather than saying that he died of the epidemic, it is better to say that he died of the terrible fate of the fall of Taiwan.
It is said that there is a legend in Hu Chuan's hometown that he died in battle. Perhaps death in battle is the most beautiful myth of Hu Chuan. His strong body rested on the red soil of the South, like a wordless book about history and the future. I noticed that Hu Shi was born in December 1891. He should have been only three years and a few months old when his father died in Xiamen in sorrow and anger. And his mother is a young woman of twenty-three years old. Thinking of his beloved wife and young son leaning against the door and looking at him, Hu Chuan's eyes must have been filled with tears as hard as ice. They are the tears of a frustrated poet, the tears of an official who has lost his country, and even more so the tears of a husband and father.
Hu Chuan’s vessel was the last fleet before the blockade of the Taiwan Strait. What kind of sorrow did the panicked seagulls, the mournful egrets, and the weeping and displaced people on the sea bring the poet? Surrounding the storm was the stillness of the night, and in the dark, moist night sky, the everlasting roar of the waves could be heard. However, the poet Hu Chuan could no longer write. In the dark midnight, he lay down in the sound of wind and waves in Xiamen.
When Hu Shi wrote "A Brief Proposal on Literary Reform", he must have thought of his father. When scholars serving the country becomes a dream, literature has to stand up and save the vitality of a nation. This is a kind of stubborn tenacity, and there is also a touch of sadness in the tenacity. More than sixty years after Hu Chuan's death, his son Hu Shi finally set foot in Taiwan for the first time. The spirit of his father was guarded here. The excited Hu Shi could not restrain his blood and died suddenly a few years later.
The lives of father and son have drawn a strange circle in Taiwan. This may just be a coincidence.