Chapter 16 13.Japanese invasion

Before the end of 1934, Sicheng received with satisfaction from the Commercial Press (Note 1.) his two-volume book on the engineering practices of the Ministry of Industry in the Qing Dynasty, with Hui Yin as the preface.One volume is Qing Dynasty documents, edited and rearranged by Sicheng (Note 2.).The other volume is his understanding of "Methods" and other documents through arduous investigation and oral interviews with craftsmen (Note 3.).The research work on these two volumes completed two years ago was the first basic step in his determination to grasp the law of evolution of Chinese architecture.He has finished educating himself, and now he can pass on his understanding to others.He sent us a beautiful boxed gift book set.We'll never forget how his normally calm and self-restrained countenance shone with pride and joy.

The publication of his book established him as a leading historian of architecture in China.Rumors began to spread about the Society's pioneering study tours and the ancient buildings they discovered during their field trips.First, personal friends come to the office to see what they are doing.Secondly, the "Hui Kan" of the Construction Society brought more Chinese visitors. "Hui Kan" also began to have European, British and American readers.Architects and other interested individuals came from afar to see the Society's work, ask questions, and express their admiration. Among the many people who wanted to find Liang Sicheng was Professor George Lawley, the dean of the Department of Art at Princeton University. His interest in art and architecture drove him to visit Beijing, and the Liangs were particularly impressive to him.

Sicheng and Huiyin valued not only the great buildings they found, but also the graceful carvings and other decorations that adorned them.At one time, Sicheng wanted to compile a reference guide for future architects and historians on the details of Chinese architecture.It will be illustrated with photographs of preserved objects, and in this way preserve traditional building techniques threatened by industrialization.During the period from 1935 to 1937, Sicheng and his talented student and colleague Liu Zhiping completed ten parts, including platform foundation, stone railing, storefront, bucket arch, glazed tile, column foundation, outer eaves decoration, sparrow and caisson.

In early 1935, the Nanjing government decided that the Confucian Temple in Qufu, Shandong needed to be repaired and maintained.Sicheng's knowledge and skills make him a prime candidate for this important engineering consultant. In July he submitted his investigation report to the government, proposing repair proposals and cost estimates.In the same year, he served as a consultant to the Beijing Cultural Relics Protection Committee.Many temples, halls, towers and gatehouses of the ancient capital were restored or strengthened.The restoration work kept him too busy to attend to his main goal of exploring the countryside to find the remains of ancient buildings.

While Sicheng was away busy with his consulting work, Huiyin suddenly found out that her tuberculosis had relapsed.Doctors at Xiehe Hospital ordered her to stay in bed for three years.She agreed with him to only take six months off, and had a trained nurse move in to take care of her and run the house so she could stay with her family.With a nurse to help her resist her own tendency to wrestle with everything, Huiyin was able to concentrate on writing.She is trying to capture those lost dreams, feelings and insights that make up many of her current emotions. "Hearing a tune I knew well when I was a very little girl, coming home across the Indian Ocean in a boat, the moonlight, dance performances, tropical stars and sea air flooding into my mind brain, and that little piece of what is called youth, like a fleeting levity in a song, possessed me like a dream, half melancholy, half joy, and my mind was just lost."

By summer, Lao Jin, Huiyin's leading literary critic and admirer, reported that "she had just finished a short story that rhythmically unfolded one beautiful plot after another until the climax came and sank into something remote and sublime But it also contains a hint that Huiyin's six-month hermit life is coming to an end." Of course she is worried about some things. If she is not worried about a specific thing, she must be worried about it in general. Worry about everything.She will soon go to Beidaihe (a summer resort by the sea in the north). " About a week later, Huiyin wrote from Beidaihe, "The weather here is impeccable. Peace, health and wealth are practically everywhere, and how nice the sea is! I met many Liang family relatives, This is not good for my body. I feel that my body has been dismembered into small pieces and can no longer be put together into a whole. I have written to Sicheng and asked him to persuade you to come here A weekend."

We were not invited to go.Later, Huiyin explained to us that we did not disappoint her, but she was relieved.The concubine, Liang Qichao's second wife, who manages the old house and to some extent the Liang family, insisted that we can't go.Her only objection to us was that we were a young couple.If we slept together in the Liang family, there was a possibility of a terrible accident—a child who was supposed to be from the Liang family might stray into our house. After months of bed rest and seaside vacations, Huiyin should have returned to Beijing healthier and more optimistic.But no, she met a disaster.Her younger half-brother, Lin Heng, a quiet and earnest young man, came to live in Liang's house from Fujian, preparing to apply for Tsinghua University to study mechanical engineering.She adores him, but her mom's relationship with the kid sours in her absence.

Mom's hatred runs deep.The philosopher she bore to her husband died young.But the second concubine gave birth to several sons and won the favor of her husband.Of course she couldn't bear that one of these sons who had now replaced her dead child came to live in her house as a healthy teenager.Huiyin was caught in the middle. "My own mother has driven me into hell for the last three days. I'm not exaggerating. On the first day I noticed my mother was a bit weak. There was an ominous atmosphere in the house, and I had to talk to my half-brother. The younger brother recounts the past, trying to maintain the existing intimacy.

"By the time I went to bed at night I was exhausted and almost wished I had died or hadn't been born into such a family at all... I know I was actually a happy and happy person, but that early fight was so damaging to me , any part of it reappears, and I can only wallow in my past misfortunes." A national tragedy is approaching China, which will overwhelm past misfortunes.The Japanese militarists who had conquered Manchuria were now advancing south of the Great Wall.They deftly avoided naked invasions, but their large army vehicles and planes terrified the country folks. In 1934 they forced the Nanking government to agree to designate the area south of the Great Wall from Beijing to Tianjin as a demilitarized zone.They established a Chinese puppet government there.This limited "peaceful" operation prompted the Japanese to extend their bloodless conquest in 1935 to a neutral zone covering the five northern Chinese provinces from Shantung to Suiyuan.An agreement signed with the Japanese by Song Zheyuan, the commander of the Beijing garrison at the behest of Chiang Kai-shek, made the neutral zone official.The jubilant Japanese soon moved on, advocating the establishment of an autonomous puppet regime in North China.

The atmosphere in Beijing is tense.The Japanese occupied Fengtai, an important railway junction between Beijing and Tianjin, first for "drills just in case of war", and later drove two army vehicles full of soldiers to Baodingfu as a "test truck" ". For the Liangs, it was a painful memory of the days in Shenyang, when the Japanese carried out provocative "seize the city" maneuvers every year.Facing yet another humiliation of ceding Chinese territory to the Japanese was too much to bear.Hui Yin's response was, "I know that the friends I love have moral courage, but we all lack the naive enthusiasm and the reckless power to change things. You know my oldest and best friend Zhimo, But he died in a small plane crash. He did and fought more than he said--and he talked a lot about it! He was a deafening factor among the moderates." Same Hui Contrary to Yin’s contemplation, Sicheng is ready to face the reality: “In China, there is no room for architectural research in this generation. The times call for more fundamental actions. Facing this bigger problem, how to train a The education of man to do other things should be discarded without hesitation."

In the end, it was not the generation of Xu Zhimo or Liang Sicheng, but the young students in Beijing who took action in the face of Japanese pressure.The leaders were students of Yenching and Tsinghua, many from Manchuria.They secretly organized their college classmates and middle school students in the city to hold a grand parade.American journalist Edgar Snow and his wife assisted the organizers of the march and organized a group of other foreign journalists to cover it. On December 9 Snow wrote: "Thousands of teenagers in blue clothes, despite the resistance of the police and their own conservative parents, Young people sang and paraded to the Forbidden City.Apparently no foreigners were expected, and the local police only There was a half-hearted and intermittent intervention... Suddenly a detachment of political gendarmes in black jackets came, Led by a nephew of Chiang Kai-shek, they rushed into the procession and beat the boys indiscriminately and girls. (Note 4.)” Huiyin's half-brother Lin Heng was severely beaten and disappeared for twelve hours.Sicheng spent most of the night looking for him among the injured students in the Beijing hospital.Huiyin called at home to find out about her brother.She had no news of him, but there was plenty of information about the last group of students who were driven out of the city, all of whom were brutally beaten, some half dead or wounded, and chased with whips or other weapons , until they scattered and fled out of the city to a nearby elementary school.Finally, in the middle of the night, Lin Heng finally messaged her.She drove to a secluded corner of the west city.After he recovered, the child didn't say a word about his relationship with the family, so he gave up his studies in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Tsinghua University and applied for the Air Force Academy. Among the tens of thousands of students who participated in the first parade, there was also a member of the Liang family, Sicheng's half-sister Siyi, and one of the student leaders of Yenching University.It was not until the next day that the family learned that she had also been beaten with a bayonet in its sheath.For her, the shock of that experience was lasting.She later became an ardent and active member of the Communist Party. This first demonstration had a huge stimulating effect on the entire young generation.Demonstrations were held across the country. On December 16, thousands of students in Beijing and Tianjin held another demonstration.Many were injured and nearly two hundred were arrested, but another demonstration took place a week later.This is the first time that the slogan of stopping the civil war and the anti-Japanese united front was put forward.At the same time as the student demonstrations and their calls for support from all walks of life, the national boycott of Japanese goods has also intensified.Tokyo was shocked.At that time, they were still unprepared for the war, so they recalled General Sakagaki who planned the Shenyang Incident and the North China Separation Movement. Both the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Military Affairs issued statements denying the intention of occupying China by force.The Japanese had to face the fact that a massive invasion was the only way to achieve their goals in China.When this invasion came, in the end Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to throw the country into a full-scale war of resistance.

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Note 1. This is the original text, other sources say it is the Beijing Press. ——Translator's Note Note 2. Liang Sicheng's "Building Calculations" (Calculation Rules for Buildings in the Qing Dynasty), Architecture Society, Beijing edition in 1934. Note 3 "Regulations on Construction in Qing Dynasty", 1934 Beijing Edition of Construction Society. Note 4. Edgar Snow: "Journey to the Beginning", Random House 1958 New York Edition, pp. 143-144.