OBS Chapter 1254: Conflict with Confucians
Chapter 1254: Conflict with Confucians
Chapter 1254: Conflict with Confucians
In the next two days, Cai Yuanpei personally took Qin Hao on a tour of Beijing.
In the early morning, the sour aroma of soybean juice floated through the alleys. The sound of rickshaws rolling over bluestone slabs and the shouts of vendors intertwined into a unique morning song in old Beijing. When they passed through Zhengyang Gate, Mr. Cai pointed at the towering city wall and sighed: "The bullet marks on this building were left by the Eight-Nation Alliance in the Boxer Rebellion."
Qin Hao looked up and saw that there were indeed several deep pits between the mottled bricks and stones, like scars that had been cut out.
The next day, they arrived outside the Forbidden City. The red palace walls glowed dimly in the winter sun, the moat was covered with thin ice, and several old men dressed in Manchu costumes squatted in the corner to bask in the sun.
Mr. Cai lowered his voice and said, "Puyi is still living in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. We can only go around to Jingshan to see the panoramic view."
When I climbed up to the Wanchun Pavilion, a west wind blew snowflakes towards the golden roof of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and the copper bells on the eaves jingled, as if the jade pendants were colliding at the court a hundred years ago.
On the morning of the third day, there was a long queue of cars and horses in front of the National Government Conference Hall. When Qin Hao followed Cai Yuanpei into the door, he ran into a group of scholars in suits and leather shoes talking around a chandelier. Qian Xuantong, with a mustache, waved the latest issue of New Youth and shouted over the noise in the hall: "Gentlemen! Latinization is the only way out for Chinese characters!"
The entire venue was filled with responders.
Mr. Cai brushed the snow foam off Qin Hao's shoulders, his eyes glittering with cunning: "If Zihan can refute them this time, it will be comparable to Kong Ming's debate with the scholars."
Qin Hao smiled and said, "Fortunately, I am not fighting alone."
As he was speaking, a thin man in a Zhongshan suit strode over, the hem of his woolen coat brushing against his shiny leather shoes.
"Zhong Shen, long time no see. Hey, this person looks a little unfamiliar?"
Cai Yuanpei greeted them with surprise, then took the hands of the two men, one on the left and one on the right, and introduced them to each other.
Zhang Taiyan looked at Qin Hao with some surprise: "Mr. Bai is so young, which is beyond my expectation. I have read the science textbooks you compiled. They are well-organized and complete, and are not inferior to the textbooks of many Western powers."
"Mr. Zhang's praise really makes me feel ashamed. I am just standing on the shoulders of giants and doing some sorting work."
Mr. Cai, who was standing by, couldn't stand it any longer: "You two should stop flattering each other. My feet are numb from standing there."
"You..."
After a burst of laughter, the three of them sat down one after another.
About half an hour later, Minister of Education Chiang Menglin arrived and after a brief greeting, he announced the agenda immediately.
As soon as he finished speaking, Qian Xuantong slammed the table and stood up: "If we want to save China, we must abolish Confucianism. If we want to abolish Confucianism, we must first abolish Chinese characters. If we want to drive out the general childish, barbaric and stubborn ideas, we must first abolish Chinese characters."
As soon as these words were spoken, they immediately caused a wave of enthusiasm in the meeting hall. Lu Xun and Hu Shi took the lead in applauding and clearly supported his remarks.
Hu Shi adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and stood up: "Let me add a statistic - the literacy rate of Americans is 89%, while the illiteracy rate in China is 90%! Shouldn't we use Latin letters to replace these doodles?"
Zhang Taiyan, who was sitting next to Qin Hao, stood up and grabbed the Kangxi Dictionary on the table and flipped open it. "Please look! The character 'ren' is composed of the characters ren and er, which means how people get along with each other. The character 'wu' means to stop war and use force, which implies the Chinese nation's wisdom of peace! Hidden in these words is our philosophy of life and wisdom of survival!"
He slammed the dictionary on the table, shaking his pen so much that it jumped up high: "Can Latin letters express the artistic conception of 'The setting sun and the solitary wild goose fly together, and the autumn water and the sky are the same color'? Can they express the spirit of 'Heaven moves vigorously, and the gentleman strives to improve himself'?"
Fu Sinian suddenly sneered: "Don't talk about these romantic things! What we need to consider now is how to save the country through education. Do you know that there are 400 million illiterate people in the country? How can we popularize education if we can learn a word '齉' in three days?"
His question caused a buzz in the room.
Seeing that Zhang Taiyan was unable to withstand the firepower, Mr. Cai turned and looked at Qin Hao with interest.
But he saw Qin Hao writing quickly on a piece of white paper, and Mr. Cai was confused.
Qin Hao had already raised his hand, and after the Minister of Education introduced him, Jiang Menglin, he stood up amid everyone's surprised gazes.
"He is Bai Hao?"
"I've read the math, physics and chemistry textbooks he wrote. They're really good. I didn't expect he's so young."
Qin Hao straightened his back and unfolded the white paper in his hand: "Mr. Hu just said that Latin letters should be used instead of Chinese characters, so I would like to ask Mr. Hu to help me translate this article into Latin letters."
At first Hu Shi was full of confidence, but when he took the white paper and unfolded it, sweat broke out on his forehead.
Lu Xun, who was standing by, came over to take a look and his expression changed drastically.
Seeing this, the scholars around him stretched their necks curiously, wanting to see what kind of article had stumped Hu Shi.
Hu Shih was calm, smiled bitterly and passed the blank paper to the people around him: "I can't translate this article."
As the white paper was circulated among more and more people, the way people looked at Qin Hao also changed.
When the white paper was passed to Zhang Taiyan, he was stunned for a few seconds, then laughed out loud: "Zi Han, your article will surely be passed down through the ages!"
Qin Hao did not get complacent, but clasped his hands and bowed to everyone present: "I admit that Chinese characters are difficult to learn, but the solution is to improve them, not to destroy them!"
His voice echoed under the dome: "When Japan promoted kana, why didn't it abolish Chinese characters? After the creation of Korean Hangul, why did it still use Chinese characters to annotate history books? Because writing is the foundation of culture!"
"Abandoning Chinese characters is equivalent to abandoning the roots of our Chinese nation."
"I want to ask everyone here, if one day in the future our country stands up again, and our descendants ask us why we are so powerful but don't have our own writing system, how should we answer?"
Qin Hao could understand these aspiring young people. In this age where there was no hope, they could only cross the river by feeling the stones, constantly trial and error, and continuous reform.
The cost of some reforms is bearable, but the cost of some reforms is unbearable no matter what.
For example: where do we come from?
After a minute of silence in the meeting room, Lu Xun suddenly stood up, the hem of his black robe swept across the chair, his eyes full of suppressed anger: "If we don't abolish Chinese characters, we will have no chance to stand up again. The literate people are in the hands of the gentry and the warlords! Ordinary people can't even write their own names! As long as Chinese characters are not abolished, education will always be the privilege of a few people!"
“If the country ever stands up again, I would rather be nailed to the pillar of shame and endure the curses of future generations.”
His voice trembled with grief and indignation. The meeting place fell into dead silence and even the sound of his breathing could be heard clearly.
Lu Xun's words once again ignited the fighting spirit of Hu Shi and others, who shouted that they were willing to bear the infamy just for the prosperity of the country.
Qin Hao slowly walked to the window and looked at the rickshaws passing by downstairs. The sunlight cut a line of light and dark on his face. After a moment of silence, he turned and looked directly at Lu Xun: "Mr. Zhou, you used blood and tears to denounce feudal ethics in "Diary of a Madman", but weren't those deafening words in your pen written in Chinese characters? Chinese characters themselves are innocent. The guilty ones are those who put them aside and monopolize knowledge."
As he spoke, Qin Hao wrote a few words on a piece of white paper: "Since traditional Chinese characters are difficult to write and increase the cost of learning, we can completely simplify traditional Chinese characters. For example, this character "龍" can be simplified to '龍'. Wouldn't it be much easier to write?"
There were sparse discussions in the meeting hall. Some people thought it made sense, while others thought it was too troublesome.
Hu Shi pushed his glasses and said sarcastically, "It's just empty talk! There are more than 80,000 Chinese characters in total. How long will it take to simplify them one by one? What we lack most now is time. We can't wait any longer!"
"Yes, we can't wait any longer."
“Education is an urgent task to save the nation!”
Zhang Taiyan saw that all the criticism was directed at Qin Hao and was about to speak up for him, but he heard Qin Hao speak slowly.
"To be precise, there are more than 90,000 Chinese characters, but the commonly used characters add up to only about 3,000. We don't need to simplify all the characters, we only need to simplify the 3,000 commonly used characters to facilitate education and promotion."
Qu Qiubai frowned slightly and raised a question: "But the ideographic characteristics of Chinese characters do increase the difficulty of learning. This is an indisputable fact."
Qin Hao nodded, and wrote pictographic characters such as "sun", "moon", and "mountain" on the white paper again, and then unfolded: "Mr. Qu is right, but this is precisely the advantage of Chinese characters. A three-year-old child can understand these pictographic characters at a glance. We can start with pictographic and ideographic characters, and proceed step by step. The Egyptian hieroglyphics and the cuneiform scripts in the Mesopotamian region have all disappeared, but only Chinese characters can survive from oracle bone inscriptions to today. Isn't it because they are always adapting and evolving?"
"Our ancestors also suffered foreign invasions and lived in humiliation, with no hope in sight. Why is it that today, we are the only one of the four ancient civilizations that still exists? Whenever the nation is in danger, there is always a group of people who defend the backbone of the nation with their lives and blood?"
"It is precisely because of Chinese characters that the written language is the same as the written language, and culture is passed down from generation to generation along with blood. To rashly abolish Chinese characters is tantamount to cutting off one's own spine."
Zhang Taiyan stood up excitedly and applauded Qin Hao: "Well said!"
At first, there was sparse applause in the venue, and then the applause became more and more frequent and more and more uniform, spreading like a raging fire.
Hu Shi and his companions looked at each other in bewilderment. They had never expected that so many of them who were good at talking would be refuted by an "unknown person".
At this moment, Chen Qingtong suddenly raised his hand and said: "Chinese characters are not suitable for typesetting and printing, which leads to low publishing efficiency and hinders cultural dissemination. If this problem is not solved, saving the country through education will be empty talk."
Qin Hao said seriously: "Whether it is woodblock printing, movable type printing, or even the most advanced roller printing, as long as we solve the problem of simplified Chinese characters, we can use technology to solve the problem of printing efficiency."
The setting sun outside the window gradually sank, stretching the shadows of everyone. Qin Hao's voice gradually became low but more determined: "I understand everyone's anxiety. We have been bullied by the powers for too long, and we want to find a way to save the country. But writing is our root, and it is the code for us to communicate with our ancestors. When Wang Yirong recognized the oracle bone script on the tortoise shell, he did not see bones, but the spark of civilization. Today, are we going to extinguish this spark with our own hands?"
The conference room was so quiet that one could hear the ticking of pocket watches.
Zhang Taiyan suddenly slammed the table and said, "Well said, very well said. Our ancestors were the leading powers in the world most of the time. Now that we are lagging behind and being bullied by the great powers, it is also because of our descendants. How can we put the blame on our ancestors and on the Chinese characters they created?"
"Isn't this just covering one's ears and stealing the bell, deceiving oneself and others?"
The sunlight on Beijing after the snow was dazzling, and there was a thin layer of ice on the stone steps outside the National Government Conference Hall. When Qin Hao stepped out of the door with his sheepskin coat wrapped tightly around him, he heard hurried footsteps behind him. Hu Shi caught up with him and stopped him. His eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses were complicated and difficult to read: "Mr. Bai, please stay."
Qin Hao turned around, and the white air he exhaled condensed into frost between the two of them. In the distance, the pavilion on Jingshan Mountain was covered with snow, like a white hat.
"Mr. Shizhi, do you have any other advice?" Qin Hao rubbed his frozen fingers. The smoke of the tit-for-tat at the meeting yesterday seemed to still permeate the air.
Hu Shi pulled out a stack of manuscript paper from his briefcase, the papers rustling in the cold wind: "This is the shorthand manuscript of "On the Simplification of Chinese Characters and the Inheritance of Civilization" that you wrote yesterday. Mr. Qian asked me to pass it on to the editorial department of "New Youth."
He paused, then forced a wry smile: "He said he wanted to publish the full text."
Qin Hao raised his eyebrows. Yesterday, he was the pioneer who advocated the abolition of Chinese characters, but today he was publishing an article opposing it? He took the manuscript and found that the edges were densely covered with red comments, and some places were even crossed out with wavy lines, with "doubtful here" marked next to them.
"Mr. Qian means..." Qin Hao shook the manuscript paper. The accumulated snow fell from the eaves and hit the blue bricks and broke into powder.
"Open debate." Hu Shi adjusted his glasses, the lenses reflecting the snow. "Next month's issue will publish his "Reply to Bai Zihan's Letter" simultaneously."
"Although Mr. Bai's speech at the meeting yesterday was passionate and I could not refute it, I still stick to my point of view that Chinese characters must be abolished."
"Since no one can convince anyone else, let's get more people involved. If we don't make it clear, the truth will remain."
Qin Hao was slightly startled, then he smiled and said, "Okay, I accept this letter of challenge."
"Then I will be waiting for Mr. Bai's masterpiece at New Youth."
Hu Shi stretched out his hand towards Qin Hao.
The two held hands together and then quickly released them.
Qin Hao looked at Hu Shi's back disappearing in the wind and snow, and suddenly smiled.
In terms of living environment, this was definitely the darkest and most humiliating era, but in terms of culture, it was a dazzling era. Chinese and Western cultures created sparks in the fierce collision. Looking at the history of China, the last era with such fierce collision of ideas was the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period when a hundred schools of thought contended.