The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

When Zhou Hexuan returned to Tianjin by train, Fei Zhengqing and Fei Weimei also went to Tianjin. The two foreign devils are going to travel in China, Fei Zhengqing is to get familiar with Chinese customs and customs, while Fei Weimei is to inspect Chinese folk architecture.

Their first stop is Tianjin, and then they are going south to Shanghai, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Shantou, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

These cities were all treaty ports in the late Qing Dynasty. Fairbank worked hard enough to write his doctoral dissertation. He had to go to all the treaty ports, search for and review the customs historical materials of the year, and by the way, check the local annals of each city.

We have to admit that Fairbank's research on modern Chinese history has left a valuable wealth to the Chinese historians. He worked tirelessly throughout China and collected many precious historical materials. Many of these materials were destroyed during the war of resistance against Japan. Thanks to Fairbank's efforts, future Chinese historians can get a glimpse of them.

This has created a very helpless phenomenon. When Chinese scholars study modern Chinese history, they often have to read the works of the American Fairbank.

When Zhou Hexuan took Fei Zhengqing and his wife back to San Le Hall, except for Meng Xiaodong who went to Shandong to sing an opera, the other women were at home.

Although "Mrs. Huarui" was banned in Nanjing, it was extremely popular in the north. These days, "Mrs. Huarui" has almost become Meng Xiaodong's masterpiece, and it has been widely circulated in North China, and even adapted into a drama performance by patriotic youths.

There is no way, this Peking opera is too innuendo, and any audience with a little brain knows that it is satirizing the policy of non-resistance. As a result, Meng Xiaodong became more and more famous, almost as famous as Mei Lanfang.

No, even Han Fuju from Shandong sent a telegram to invite Meng Xiaodong to perform, saying that he wanted to sing a birthday party for his wife.

Ji Hongchang seemed to want to win over Han Fuju to fight against Chiang Kai-shek and Japan, and he also disguised himself in the troupe, and followed Meng Xiaodong to Shandong, but Zhou Hexuan was not optimistic about Ji Hongchang's action this time.

Han Fuju was the first strong general of the Northwest Army to betray Feng Yuxiang, and he hanged Yan Xishan to beat him during the Central Plains War. This person is a selfish old-fashioned warlord. If he wants to oppose Chiang Kai-shek and resist Japan, unless he can show huge benefits that can be seen and touched, it will be useless to persuade him.

Now Han Fuju has become the local emperor of Shandong. Except for Qingdao, the whole of Shandong is under Han Fuju's control. Even Chang Kaishen has no way to seize power. Two years ago, Zhang Zongchang wanted to make a comeback, and with the support of the Japanese, he quietly made troubles, but was directly killed by Han Fuju.

But to be honest, Han Fuju's ability to occupy Shandong is actually a good thing for the people of Shandong.

Shandong has experienced years of wars and famines, bandits are rampant, and warlords are everywhere. It is precisely the local forces like Han Fuju who are sent to suppress it.

According to statistics, from the Revolution of 1911 to the early 1930s, out of 107 counties in Shandong Province, 84 counties had bandits. many.

After Han Fuju occupied Shandong, the first thing he did was to recruit a small group of warlords, and those who disagreed with the inclusion were directly punished as bandits. The second thing he did was to suppress bandits. He integrated the army, police and militia forces to jointly eliminate bandits in various counties.

Chang Kaishen ordered warlords from all over the country to "Qingxiang", but in fact he was using the name of "Qingxiang" to arrest the Communist Party. And after Han Fuju received the order from the Nanjing government, he was really "clearing the countryside", specifically eliminating bandits and bullies, and linked the suppression of bandits with the achievements of civil servants. He successively promoted more than a dozen local officials who were effective in suppressing bandits, so that the grassroots officials in Shandong were as if they had been beaten with chicken blood. When they saw bandits, they copied them. Every bandit was a living political achievement.

The banditry in Shandong has become a disaster. In some places, entire villages are full of bandits, and they can fight the army recklessly with the help of earthen buildings and fortresses. However, Han Fuju’s methods of suppressing bandits were extremely bloody. Facing such a bandit village, his order was: Except for women and children in the bandit area, all men between the ages of 15 and 50 who did not have “environmental protection” should be shot. burnt.

Liu Heiqi, the leader of the big bandit, defended against danger and fought with Han Fuju's army for more than 40 days. In anger, Han Fuju actually applied for plane support from the Central Army and beat Liu Heiqi until he fled to Tianjin to work as an apartment. This is not over yet, Han Fuju hired assassins to go to Tianjin to play assassination, and shot Liu Hei seven or three times, but he didn't kill the bandit leader.

By clearing the countryside to suppress bandits, Han Fuju, a warlord from the Northwest Army, has completely controlled the entire Shandong Province, and his power has even penetrated into various counties and towns.

Although Shandong under Han Fuju's administration still imposed heavy taxes, due to his crazy bandit suppression actions, the law and order in Shandong quickly stabilized, and the common people did get a lot of benefits.

...

"This is my wife Zhang Leyi."

"This is my wife Wanrong."

"This is my wife..."

Following Zhou Hexuan's introductions one by one, Fei Zhengqing, Fei Weimei and his wife were dumbfounded. Especially the appearance of Vivien Leigh made them even more incredible. There is such a beautiful British woman who is willing to marry a Chinese man as a concubine.

Since Vivien Leigh became pregnant, she moved into Sanletang for the convenience of pregnancy. Facing the surprise of Fei Zhengqing and his wife, she seemed very natural and calm. She seemed to have been used to this situation for a long time. She took the initiative to shake hands and joked: "Mr. In other words, we are all in the same family.”

"It seems so." Fairbank couldn't help smiling.

Everyone greeted for a while, Fei Zhengqing came to the study with Zhou Hexuan.

It has been almost 10 years since Zhou Hexuan traveled to the Republic of China, and his study is very large. There are a few cabinets on the bottom floor, which contain paintings and calligraphy of famous people, antique relics, and rare ancient books. The middle shelf is filled with various important local historical materials, and the upper shelf is densely packed with Chinese and foreign masterpieces.

If you want to move in the future, you will need more than a dozen large boxes to pack the things in this study.

Fairbank's eyes were shining brightly, especially those local chronicles and customs chronicles in the middle of the bookshelf, which were the information he most wanted to get in touch with. Immediately, he couldn't help rubbing his hands together and said, "Mr. Zhou, I want to borrow some of your books."

"Of course," Zhou Hexuan said with a smile, "you and your wife can stay here first, and it won't be too late to go south after checking the information. It will be the Lantern Festival in a few days, and maybe you can experience traditional Chinese festivals."

"Thank you so much!" Fei Zhengqing said excitedly, shaking Zhou Hexuan's hand.

Fairbank is only a doctoral student in the United States. After he came to China, he received selfless help from a large number of top Chinese scholars, including Zhou Hexuan, Liang Sicheng, Lin Huiyin, Hu Shi, Jiang Tingfu, etc. This made Fairbank deeply moved, and at the same time made him fall in love with China, which he felt was a country full of humanity.

More than fifty years later, "Fairbank's Memoirs of China" was published. In the second part, Chapter 9 "Our Chinese Friends", there are more than 6,000 words about Zhou Hexuan. Fairbank wrote in his memoirs——

"Mr. Zhou Hexuan is an interesting person. He has an open mind, a broad vision and a keen eye, but he is very traditional in his bones. It can be seen from his family relationship. When I first visited, he asked I introduced five wives. One is the daughter of a wealthy businessman, one is a drama star, one is the last queen of the Qing Dynasty, one is a Japanese female spy (I didn't know the identity of Mrs. Liao until the 1970s), and one The first is the later Hollywood superstar Vivien Leigh.

It's hard for me to imagine how these beautiful women can live in peace. It's probably as difficult as managing a city. This situation was very common in China at that time. Powerful and wealthy men often had many wives at home. One is a legally recognized wife, and the other is called a concubine, which is equivalent to a concubine in the Qing Dynasty.

However, progressive scholars in China would not marry concubines so blatantly. For example, my friend Mr. Hu Shi, I know that he has several lovers, but he has only one wife from beginning to end. This seems to be related to reputation. Taking a concubine and marrying a concubine is a backward and reactionary performance, and it will be condemned by progressive intellectuals.

But Mr. Zhou Hexuan has no scruples about this. He never cares about other people's opinions, and he never deliberately conceals the fact that he married his concubine. On the day of the Chinese Lantern Festival, he took several wives to go shopping in public, and accompanied them to put lanterns by the Haihe River. I also made a lantern with my own hands, but it seems that the technology is not good enough, and it was only placed a few meters away before it overturned in the river..."