The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

The Republic of China was a deformed era, and countless scholars and celebrities emerged, including many masters. The Shili foreign market is very lively, the upper class is extravagant, and the younger generation is actively catching up with international fashion. Correspondingly, the life of the people at the bottom of society is very difficult, and countless poor people die of illness and starvation.

Take wage income as an example, the coachman Zhou Hexuan met that day had to work hard all day to barely support his family. If you contract any disease, you basically have no money to treat it, and you have to suffer from your body. If you can't survive it, you can only wait for death.

However, Zhou Hexuan’s fee for writing novels is one yuan per thousand words. He writes a few thousand words casually, which is enough for the rickshaw driver to work for half a month.

How much is 1 yuan worth?

Today, the price of rice in Shanghai is only 6 cents per catty, and prices in Beijing and Tianjin are 20% lower, and you can buy a catty of rice for 4-5 cents.

At this time, the monthly salary of university lecturers starts at 100 yuan, and the monthly salary of professor level is several hundred yuan. Knowledge is wealth, this sentence was vividly reflected in the Republic of China.

Of course, there are also many professors and lecturers who cry poorly because the Beiyang government always defaults on their salaries. Sometimes it is delayed for months or even years, and sometimes only half salary can be received. Later, many northern professors and lecturers went south, not only for political reasons, but also because they could not get their salaries.

Take the great writer Lu Xun as an example. He was owed three months’ salary in 1920, half a year’s salary in 1921, and three months’ salary in 1922. Lu Xun could only earn extra money by writing articles and going out to give lectures, otherwise he would not be able to afford a house in Beiping.

Even big trolls like Lu Xun dared to default on their salaries, and it was even worse for small lecturers. Some Peking University teachers even relied on borrowing money to survive.

Li Shoumin used to work as a small civil servant in Beiping. He once complained to Zhou Hexuan when he was chatting, saying that being a civil servant in the Beiyang government is not very interesting, and he is lucky if he can get half a year's salary after working for a year.

Just based on the failure to pay wages, it can be judged that the Beiyang government will collapse sooner or later, which is too unreliable!

Many people in later generations envied the life of the Republic of China and worshiped and advocated the so-called model of the Republic of China. If these people really went back to the Republic of China to stay for the first half of the year, they would probably have to roll up their sleeves and scold their mothers.

...

For Zhou Hexuan's manuscript of more than 70,000 words, he received a manuscript fee of more than 70 yuan at once, which finally bulged his pockets, and he didn't have to worry about the living expenses for the next month. He gave Mrs. Zhou 10 yuan, which was regarded as the meal money for this month, and he would eat at Li Shoumin's house from now on.

However, "Legend of the Condor Heroes" has not yet started serialization, and we have to wait for other people's works to be completed.

That night, Li Shoumin came home very late, sighing and looking extremely ugly.

Zhou Hexuan asked: "What happened?"

"A tragedy happened in Beiping. Feng Yuxiang's army shot at the petitioning students, killing 47 people on the spot and wounding more than 100." Li Shoumin slapped the table angrily. Why don’t you dare to shoot at the Japanese?”

Zhou Hexuan was silent, and the famous "March 18 Massacre" finally happened.

The cause of the incident was a melee between the Beiyang warlords. Feng Yuxiang deployed mines at Dagukou in order to defend against Zhang Zuolin's attack from the sea. This move caused dissatisfaction among the eight countries including Britain, the United States, France, Japan and Italy, and they jointly protested to the Beiyang government, and issued a 44-hour ultimatum, demanding that the defense of Dagukou be dismantled, otherwise it would be resolved by force.

These eight countries not only simply protested, but also sailed warships to Dagukou.

The eight-nation ultimatum was not only to remove the mines, but also required the Beiyang government to level down all the forts from Dagukou to Beiping. This has gone far beyond the content of the "Xin Chou Treaty".

After the news came out, patriotic students and the masses were filled with righteous indignation. The KMT and the Communist Party jointly held a meeting and organized students and masses to gather and petition, hoping that the Beiyang government would reject the shameless demands of the eight powers.

When the tragedy happened, General Feng Yuxiang was not actually in Beiping. He had been electrified and left the field long ago, and was going to the Soviet Union for inspection (to avoid the limelight). It was his generals who ordered the shooting without authorization, killing and wounding nearly 200 students.

...

The next morning, Zhou Hexuan went out to buy a few newspapers. Sure enough, the headlines were all about the March 18 tragedy, and all major newspapers were criticizing the Beiyang government.

Public opinion across the country was in an uproar, because the Beiyang government was too outrageous and too much. The student masses were carrying out patriotic petitions, targeting the powers of the eight countries, and the soldiers did not go to war with the powers, but turned their guns on their own people.

What does this sound like?

Mr. Lu Xun's famous article "Remembering Mr. Liu Hezhen" was also released soon, and was published in the weekly "Yusi": "A real warrior dares to face the bleak life and face the dripping blood..."

Zhou Hexuan has always looked at this era from the perspective of an outsider. He has long known that a tragedy will happen on March 18. But when I read the denunciation articles in the newspapers and Lu Xun's essay, I still felt extremely aggrieved.

This is a bastard society that reverses black and white!

Zhou Hexuan finally deeply understood why there were so many people with lofty ideals in the Republic of China who went forward and threw their heads and blood. They just wanted to create a bright world again.

Maybe I should do something?

Zhou Hexuan couldn't help thinking this way, but after all, he has a small reputation and doesn't want to go south to apply for the Whampoa Military Academy. It would be worthless to be cannon fodder someday. Even if the Beiyang government is overthrown, it is just a change of soup but not medicine.

The more Zhou Hexuan thought about it, the more at a loss he felt. He couldn't find the value of his existence in this era.

Today's passionate young people in China either join a patriotic group impassionedly, or join the army with their ideals to serve the country. But Zhou Hexuan couldn't do it, because he knew the future direction of history, and he didn't want to get involved, as it would be life-threatening to join any side.

Alas, let's take a step and see one step at a time.

Zhou Hexuan has an ostrich mentality in his mind, and he doesn't dare to devote himself to the tide of the times for the time being. As a commoner who lives in Tianjin, his more intuitive feeling is that prices have risen!

Because Zhang Zuolin was attacking Tianjin, the Japanese pulled sideways to help, and Feng Yuxiang's national army obviously couldn't hold on, and the city was destroyed only overnight.

The military disaster is about to come, and the prices of everything in the city are rising. Many citizens have been stockpiling food and water at home early in case of various emergencies.

However, the irony is that the teahouse business in Tianjin City continues, and there are no fewer people drinking tea and playing cards than in the past. The theater garden is still noisy and lively, singing babbling on the stage, and applauding from the audience like thunder.

It seems that everyone has long been accustomed to such things as fighting.

No matter how the Great King Banner changes at the top of the city, ordinary people are most concerned about their own lives. They just want to eat and clothe themselves warmly, drink tea and listen to operas if they have spare money, and who the hell is the president.

Zhou Hexuan's "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" started serialization under such circumstances.