Chapter 88 world of mortals

Li Shutong was born in the family of officials and rich merchants in Tianjin. His father, Li Xiaolou, was a 53-year-old Jinshi.Li Xiaolou and Li Hongzhang were in the same year. After Li Xiaolou resigned, his successor was Li Hongzhang.Li Shutong's biological mother, Mrs. Wang Tai, was Li Xiaolou's third concubine.When Li Shutong was born, Li Xiaolou was sixty-eight years old, his eldest brother Li Wenjin (who had died many years before Li Shutong was born) was fifty years older than him, and his mother was only twenty years old.Mother Wang can write poetry.Li Shutong lost his father at the age of 5 and grew up under the support of his mother.

Li Duan, the third son of Li Shutong, described the wealth of the Li family: "According to what Zhang Shun, our old family keeper, told me, when my grandfather was alive, my family had visited 'darts' many times. This should be my dry salt. The income from the business was transported from Yindi to Tianjin through the bodyguard company. Zhang Shun said that when he came to the bodyguard, the front door was wide open, and boxes of belongings were unloaded in the front cabinet room. It was very lively. Zhang Shun also helped me When learning to 'dart', the dart pedestrians shouted 'come - dart -' sound."

After Li Xiaolou's death, the Li family passed away one after another. In the early summer of 1896, the weather in Tianjin was abnormal, and a solar eclipse, earthquake and flood occurred successively. The plague followed and several of Li Shutong's relatives and friends died one after another.This made Li Shutong deeply aware of the impermanence of human affairs. When Li Shutong was more than ten years old, he saw that his elder brother Li Wenxi treated people with different manners depending on the status of people. He was very upset, so he did the opposite of his brother's way. On the contrary, the attitude is contemptuous.

Li Shutong's growth environment gave him a melancholic temperament. In 1900, the day before Li Shutong's 20th birthday, his second son Li Zhun was born.Li Shutong, who was in his weak crown, did not have the slightest feeling of joy. Instead, he wrote "Old and Youth Song" full of melancholy and lamenting the perishability of youth: "The plane tree, the yellow leaves are floating in the west wind, and the forest is sparse in the evening. Flowers are in a hurry, and they fall by Who hangs? The red face is withered in the mirror, and the white hair is lingering around. A moment of time, the bottom is to make people old. There is a lot of gold, but it is difficult to buy youth."

In November 1902, there was a wave of dropouts from Nanyang Public School.A student mistakenly poured a bottle of ink on the seat of a feudal teacher, causing a dispute between teachers and students. In order to appease the teacher's anger, the school expelled several students from the school.Some students went to the school to explain, but they were expelled together by the school. The matter got out of hand. After many attempts to argue with no success, Cai Yuanpei and several other teachers left the school angrily. Autocratic, followed Cai Quanquan and quit Nanyang Public School, Li Shutong was also one of them, and his studies were interrupted.

In the autumn of that year, the Qing court specially opened Enke to celebrate the return of Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu to Beijing and the 30th birthday of Emperor Guangxu.Li Shutong went to Hangzhou to take the exam.There are as many as 9,000 Zhejiang scholars taking the exam this time, but only 250 are selected for the second list of principals and vices. The competition is extremely fierce.According to data records, several people were killed in the examination room at that time.There was also a "noisy" incident in the provincial examination in Zhejiang, and the rioters were 20 or 30 people from Nanyang Public School.It is said that Li Shutong did not take the third exam, which probably has something to do with it.In the autumn of the second year, he traveled thousands of miles from Shanghai to Kaifeng to take the exam, but failed again.

Li Shutong's eldest son died young.After his mother passed away, he carried the coffin to the north. On the way, his second son, Li Zhun, was weak and couldn't bear the long-distance sea trip. He contracted severe asthma, which never recovered for the rest of his life. Li Shutong is obsessed with art, which is firstly attributed to his rich family background.He has assets of 300,000 yuan in his name (at that time, 100 yuan could support the life of an international student in Japan for half a year). When he was studying abroad, he had no worries about food and clothing. I spend a lot of leisure time, studying music, painting, drama and so on.

In 1911, when the Revolution of 1911 broke out, some big bank banknotes declared bankruptcy. , Millions of family assets disappeared."Another theory is that all the properties of the Li family were invested in the salt fields. Because the government suddenly announced that the salt fields would be taken over by the state, all the investments of the Li family were wiped out.And Uncle Li's property of more than 300,000 yuan under the same name was also lost. Jiang Danshu wrote in "The Biography of Lawyer Hongyi": "The Venerable Master was young and elegant, wandering around Yanshi, admiring the talents of the Song Dynasty, when he gave birth to his uncle Ji, he was filled with complaints, worries and anger, and put them all in the elegant and unrestrained style. Grinding gold powder, and kunling Yang Cuixi, song Lang Jinwa, famous courtesan Xie Qiuyun, etc., come and go with art. Yilian is a gentleman's flower, chewing mud but not drenching, covering high mountains and flowing water, just aiming at appreciating music."

Li Shutong had two wives. The first wife, Yu, was married by his mother's order and had no feelings for him.During his study in Japan, Li Shutong took another Japanese woman as his wife.Li Shutong taught in Hangzhou, Nanjing and other places, and did not live with any wife. Li Shutong is a talented artist. He was once hailed as a master of "Twenty Articles Shocking the Sea". First of its kind.