The "Tresh Advanced Research Award" was established by the National Gang Crime Research Center in the United States in 1992. It is selected every two years and awarded to a foreign scholar each time. Leaders who have made outstanding contributions and experts and scholars who have made outstanding academic achievements.Professor Cai Shaoqing, a doctoral supervisor of the History Department of Nanjing University, became the first Chinese scholar to receive this honor over the years. Cai Shaoqing is a well-known social historian in my country, who has been committed to the research of modern Chinese secret societies.In recent years, Cai Shaoqing has gradually turned his attention to the real society. In September 2000, he published an article on "China News Weekly" entitled "Anti-crime must first fight corruption", which immediately aroused huge repercussions at home and abroad, and also attracted great attention from relevant departments of the Chinese government.This is also the direct reason why he won the "Tresh Advanced Research Award".

Cai Shaoqing was born in 1933 in an ordinary farm family in Hexing Township, Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province.He was accompanied by a sickle and books since he was a child, studying while working.The hard life gave him a deep understanding of the dark society and the corruption of the government at a young age. In 1956, Cai Shaoqing was admitted to the History Department of Peking University with honors.Relying on his tenacious perseverance and fiery enthusiasm, he studied hard while taking on a lot of student work.After spending a period full of passion and hardships, he just graduated and published his first social history paper - "On the Origin of the Tiandihui". In the paper, he mastered a wealth of first-hand On the basis of the materials, I tried my best to put forward the view that the Tiandihui was founded in the 26th year of Qianlong.This paper broke the framework of previous studies on Tiandihui, and its powerful argument has been recognized by many seniors in the academic circle. "Guangming Daily" once published a review article on the front page, giving a high evaluation to this paper .The young Cai Shaoqing came to the fore.

Time flies, and it has been nearly 40 years since the publication of this paper. Cai Shaoqing's new theory of the origin of the Tiandihui has more evidence and has been recognized and supported by more scholars. After graduating from university, Cai Shaoqing stayed at the school to teach, and under the tutelage of the famous historian Mr. Shao Xunzheng, he studied for a master's degree on the job, focusing on modern Chinese history.At that time, Novikov, a Soviet scholar, also came to the History Department of Peking University to study the history of Chinese secret societies under the tutelage of Mr. Shao.For a long time afterwards, Cai Shaoqing was assigned to tutor Novikov.In the course of his contacts with Novikov, he began to focus on the issue of secret societies.Once, he followed his mentor, Mr. Shao, and accompanied the late Qing emperor Pu Yi, former Kuomintang officials Du Yuming, Huang Wei and other patriots to visit the Central Archives.During the visit, Mr. Shao, the tutor, introduced him and contacted him to go to the archives to check the Ming and Qing archives.At that time, the management of the archives was very strict, and access to materials in the library had to be approved step by step by the Party Committee of Peking University and the Beijing Municipal Party Committee.After some hard work, they were finally allowed to consult relevant materials and became the first batch of researchers who entered the Ming and Qing Department of the Central Archives to collect and organize secret social history files.For nearly a year since then, Cai Shaoqing has been immersed in volumes of dusty files all day long.He made a lot of cards and accumulated a lot of little-known first-hand materials, which laid a solid foundation for his in-depth research on the issue of controlling secret societies.

In 1973, Cai Shaoqing was transferred to the History Department of Nanjing University to teach.Since then, he has devoted himself to the study of the history of secret societies, and has written such monographs as "Research on the History of the Chinese Modern Society" and "China's Secret Societies". At the end of the 1980s, he turned his attention to the problem of the contemporary underworld in China, and achieved outstanding results. In terms of secret society research, Cai Shaoqing's main works include "Research on the History of the Chinese Modern Society", "Chinese Secret Society", "Bandits in the Republic of China", "Secret Society and the Workers and Peasants Movement" (English version), "Overview of Chinese Secret Society ", "Reappearing the Past: A Theoretical Vision of Social History", etc., and published more than 100 papers at home and abroad.

Among them, the book "Research on the History of the Chinese Modern Society" is his main masterpiece, and it is also the first monograph in my country to systematically and in-depth study the secret society.In this book, he first opened up the path of using a large number of archives to study party history, which opened a precedent for the establishment and prosperity of this discipline.For the first time, he systematically and completely discussed the development process of the history of the Chinese Communist Party, and systematically raised a series of theoretical issues in the study of the history of the Chinese Communist Party, such as the definition, classification, social roots, and social functions of Chinese secret societies. , The nature of the party, its historical role and historical stages.On these important questions, Mr. Cai also answered them based on his own research.

The book "Bandits in the Republic of China" is another groundbreaking work by Cai Shaoqing on the study of the lower classes.This is China's first comprehensive study of banditry during the Republic of China. In order to write this book well, Cai Shaoqing spent six or seven years, leading students to conduct in-depth and detailed research on the basis of extensive collection of relevant archives, newspapers, local chronicles, memoirs, social surveys and diplomatic materials during the Republic of China period. Cai Shaoqing was already in her sixties when she set foot in the research of contemporary underworld issues in China.At that time, my country's reform and opening up had already gone through more than a dozen springs and autumns. At the same time as the country opened up, many ugly phenomena that had long since disappeared in mainland China resurfaced.As an elderly historian, he has a deep understanding of the country's past, and has even more deep feelings for the country's current brilliant achievements.When those ugly things revived and corroded the already purified sky again, he resolutely picked up the pen in his hand and turned his attention from the long scroll of history to contemporary social issues.He wants to use his pen to arouse people's vigilance against the spread of evil forces, and tell people how to fight against evil forces to defend this pure land.

In October 1990, at the third symposium on Chinese social history, Cai Shaoqing made a serious report on "The Rise of Underworld Forces Threatening Social Security", pointing the finger at the underworld issues that had not attracted widespread attention at that time. attracted the attention of the participating scholars. In 1992, Mr. Cai's first masterpiece on contemporary underworld issues, "A Preliminary Study on Underworld Issues in Contemporary China", was published.This dissertation is the earliest dissertation on the issue of the underworld in the academic circles of our country. It not only laid the foundation for the in-depth understanding and research of this issue in the ideological circles of our country, but also produced a profound influence in the international arena.

Since then, Cai Shaoqing's research on the underworld has always been of great practical significance. In a study, Cai Shaoqing made an in-depth investigation and incisive analysis of the main underworld organizations in a certain province in northern my country, and obtained a large amount of detailed information, among which the very important information was not even known to the police in the province.This achievement immediately aroused the great attention of the provincial leaders, and instructed the Provincial Public Security Bureau to make a special consultation with Cai Shaoqing on the current situation of the underworld organizations existing in the province.

Once, a vicious murder occurred in Seattle, the United States, and the suspect was a Chinese.Although the evidence was sufficient, a conviction could not be brought because the suspect's lawyer claimed in his defense that he was mentally ill.When the American police were helpless, they got in touch with Cai Shaoqing in Nanjing through various channels, and asked Cai Shaoqing to help them solve the case.Cai Shaoqing only based on a few photos of the murder scene provided by the US police, and used his own knowledge of Chinese gangs to make lightning judgments from clues such as the murderer's location and method, and pointed out that this was a traditional blood sacrifice in the Chinese gang. He refuted the claim that the murderer was mentally ill, and successfully assisted the US police in bringing the murderer to justice.

In the article "Anti-crime must first fight corruption" published in September 2000, Cai Shaoqing made a bold, in-depth analysis and quantitative judgment on the current situation of China's underworld problems, and pointedly pointed out that the number of members of China's underworld organizations has reached as many as one million , and practical issues such as the need to use an umbrella to fight against crime, played a leading role in public opinion for the subsequent struggle to "sweep against crime and eliminate evil".The staged results of our government's anti-crime operations in the past year have basically confirmed the predictive conclusions made by Cai Shaoqing in the article.

People often ask Cai Shaoqing the same question: Is it dangerous or scary to study the underworld?Faced with this problem, Cai Shaoqing always tells those kind-hearted people with a smile that the danger of studying this kind of problem exists, but in any scientific research work, one must have the courage to explore. Out of academic conscience, no matter how difficult and difficult it is It's dangerous, so keep going.Cai Shaoqing is most concerned about whether her own research can contribute to social security and stability. Cai Shaoqing's ability to achieve such remarkable results during these years of research is closely related to his courageous and rigorous academic style.On the one hand, he dared to set foot in those unnoticed fields, dared to put forward his own views on some seemingly settled issues, and was able to closely link theoretical research with reality; on the other hand, his research was not without foundation Mu, it can be said that all his research is done on the basis of a large number of credible materials, from the earliest published "On the Origin of the Tiandihui" to the most recent "Sweeping Black and Corruption First".It is precisely because of this that he is able to express what others have not said, to speak what others have not said, and to put forward his own profound and unique insights. Over the years, Cai Shaoqing's achievements in the field of academic research are enough to make him proud.However, in his eyes, what is more important is that he has cultivated a garden full of peaches and plums. Cai Shaoqing attaches great importance to the ideological education of students. He deeply understands that the students' world outlook and outlook on life are not mature enough. Only by giving timely and correct guidance can they become adults and talents. Cai Shaoqing teaches students to pay attention to teaching students according to their aptitude. He always helps students design suitable research topics according to their own characteristics, and guides them to complete the projects in various ways.There was once an in-service public security officer admitted to Cai Shaoqing's school. Cai Shaoqing suggested that he study computer crimes that had not yet been involved in the country at that time, based on his rich practical experience, insufficient theoretical knowledge, and particularly weak historical foundation.At the same time, Cai Shaoqing also helped him find the latest information on computer crime research abroad through the many foreign students under his school.Later, the student wrote the first domestic doctoral dissertation monograph on computer crime by analyzing, researching and absorbing foreign research results, combined with many domestic cases, and it was published soon. Research on secret societies and underworld issues requires a large amount of archives and materials, and requires a lot of funds, some of which are still kept by the public security department and cannot be consulted casually.Cai Shaoqing is well aware of the difficulties of students. He never spares the materials in his hands, and always provides many very precious materials that he has not used before to his students for research without reservation. I remember that Cai Shaoqing visited the United States one year and accidentally found some extremely precious materials on modern Chinese teaching plans in a missionary's home.He immediately copied these materials at a considerable price and brought them back to China.Since then, due to various reasons, Cai Shaoqing has not used this batch of materials in his treatises.Later, one of his students decided to do this direction for his doctoral dissertation. Cai Shaoqing resolutely provided her with all the materials that he had spent a lot of effort to get from abroad, and helped her complete a high-level paper. Quality doctoral thesis. Due to the particularity of the research object, Cai Shaoqing is not only rigorous in his own scholarship, but also very strict with the students, requiring students to fully understand the object of their research.Almost all of his students posted code words used by gang organizations on the walls of the dormitory.Cai Shaoqing asked them to recite it backwards.He believes that these codewords are like a tool for eating when studying secret societies. If one cannot have a deeper understanding of the research object, then the research can only be ignorant, with more fiction than reality. Up to now, Cai Shaoqing has guided 75 foreign senior advanced students, 25 domestic masters and 60 doctors and postdoctoral fellows.He joked that this group of people is enough to form a company.Someone once advised him to bring fewer students and spend more energy on producing some works handed down from generation to generation.However, Cai Shaoqing's answer is that writing a book by himself is far less important than training a group of students to write a group of books.Today, when it is difficult to publish academic monographs, he is gratified that more than 20 students under his guidance have published doctoral dissertation monographs.In Cai Shaoqing's eyes, this is more meaningful than publishing a book by himself.Therefore, whenever someone talks about his achievements over the years, he will always be very proud to pull out many students' works from the bookshelf, and tell you about the learning and writing of each of these students. The history of the book. "The old man is standing still, and his ambition is thousands of miles away." Cai Shaoqing, who is about to enter his seventies, is still tirelessly undertaking many important research topics, such as "the evolution of social customs in the transition period", "contemporary Chinese underworld research", "overseas Chinese secret society research" and so on. It is an important topic that can fill the gap in the field of Chinese historiography research.