Chapter 7 Section 7 My Little History of Self-study: Self-study

The first series of my autobiography Section 7 My Little History of Self-study: Self-study 5. Talking about one of my parents from extracurricular readings My self-study is most effective in magazines and newspapers.The reading of many specialized books or important classics often first attracts interest and attention from magazines and newspapers, and then finds them to read.This is also true of Chinese scriptures and even Buddhist scriptures.Other books such as various social sciences, not to mention.Because my school education started from the elementary school mentioned above and the middle school mentioned later, and these books are not included in the curriculum.At the same time, I never force myself to pursue learning and become a scholar; therefore, I will not read it unless it attracts interest and attention. ——My eagerness to learn is to "learn" only when I am really "good", and the interest and attention to a certain aspect of knowledge are always first aroused by magazines and newspapers.  My self-study work began in elementary school.The strange thing is that when such a new culture was first opened up, someone had already prepared good extracurricular reading materials for me.This is a kind of "Enlightenment Pictorial", and a kind of "Beijing Daily".The founder is one of my fathers, and a father who has a deep relationship with me.His business must be said. He is Mr. Peng Yizhong (Yisun), a Suzhou native who grew up in Beijing.The number one scholar and prime minister in his ancestors was a giant family in Suzhou.He is heroic and brave, and his generosity is especially lovely.In terms of physique and spirit, he is not like Suzhou people, but he can speak Suzhou dialect.He is my uncle Pu, because he and my father became brothers, so he is younger than my father.He is also my husband-in-law, because my eldest brother is his son-in-law, and his eldest daughter is my eldest sister-in-law.He is also my teacher, because he hosted the "Enlightenment School" mentioned earlier, and I learned from him there. His temperament (heroic and brave) and environment (he lives in the south of the Yangtze River and is close to Shanghai so he can communicate with the outside world) made him a patriot and reformer.Forty years ago (1902), he founded the first newspaper (strictly speaking, it was the second) in Beijing, the capital of the country at that time. In 1901, "Suncheon Times" was published first. But " Suncheon Times was completely run by the Japanese. But as far as the Chinese run it themselves, it is the first, and the "Beijing Daily" run by Cantonese Zhu Qi is the second.).At that time, when we started a printing factory, we still invited Japanese workers to be the foremen.Mengyang School and the newspaper printing factory are both in the same gate, and the interior is also connected.Our elementary school students often like to see their printing and layout.

There are three types of newspapers created by Peng Gong.What I benefited from was "Enlightenment Pictorial"; the one that had the greatest influence on northern society was "Jinghua Daily"; the one that made him suffer was "China Press".  "Enlightenment Pictorial" was first published.It's for children up to ten years old.The content is mainly scientific common sense, followed by historical anecdotes, celebrity anecdotes, and then there are things like "Aesop's fables"; but there are few so-called "fairy tales" today.For example, there are astronomy, geography, natural history, Gezhi (the provincial text of "getting knowledge from things", which was used as the general name of physical chemistry at that time), and mathematics.All in vernacular, all with pictures (wooden carvings without color).And science is often written as a short story to illustrate.When it comes to celestial phenomena, if a child doesn't understand, ask his parents, how will the parents answer.Speaking of ant societies, or what two brothers saw playing in the grass.Mathematical problems in terms of one person doing business.And so on, children are extremely fond of watching.For example, history talks about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the "pacification" of Xinjiang and so on.Even the Gengzi Rebellion in the first two years is also regarded as history, and it is explained in great detail.There are anecdotes about celebrities such as Sima Guang and Fan Zhongyan, as well as stories about ancient people, as well as foreign countries such as Napoleon, Washington, Peter the Great, Bismarck, Takamori Saigo and so on.That's a long story.The picture was drawn by Mr. Liu Bingtang (Yong Lang) of Yongqing.Mr. Liu is very talented in painting, not the school that the old Japanese literati paid attention to.He has never studied Western painting, but he is proud of the realism of Western painting.The Westerners in the paintings are particularly divine, and they do not require many strokes to make their images lifelike.It took two years to publish the beginning and end of the book.Not only did I gain a lot of common sense from it, but it also inspired many principles in my mind, which have influenced me until later.I feel that the children's pictorials that have been published in recent years are far inferior to it. The "Enlightenment Pictorial" was changed from a daily magazine to a ten-day magazine (about 30 pages per volume) shortly after its publication, and a small daily newspaper was published, which was "Beijing Daily", which mainly contained news and discussions.Local (Beijing) social news accounts for two-thirds of the news, and the other third is "urgent news", including major international and domestic events.Most of the theories refer to social illnesses, or advocate a kind of social movement, which has a strong driving force and can have a great impact, and there is absolutely no perfunctory work.It is aimed at ordinary people in society, not for "high society".Because it is vernacular, we children can also read it, but it is not as good as reading "Enlightenment Pictorial".

At that time, the atmosphere was not open, and most people in the society did not have the habit of reading newspapers.Although the price is low, ordinary people are always reluctant to increase this kind of expenditure.Therefore, the sales of the two newspapers are not many.But the total expenses of the newspaper are not small.From the spring of that year (1902) to the end of the year, from the establishment of equipment to the overhead expenses, Mr. Peng's family property had been paid off and he had incurred many debts.When the new year came, the creditors pressed him, and the women in the family complained about being relegated. Peng Gong was so worried that he almost hanged himself.Originally, at the beginning of its establishment, my father actually sponsored it, and my family's property had already been included in the compensation; at this time, only my father rescued him.Later, from the annotations on my father's diary and bank notes, we can see the difficult situation at that time and the purity and greatness of their motives for doing things. ——They are bent on developing people's wisdom and improving society.This was motivated by years of dissatisfaction with social corruption, coupled with the fact that Gengzi (1900) witnessed the ignorance and superstition of the whole country and the ignorance of the general trend of the world, which almost caused the catastrophe of national subjugation.  This business was about to go bankrupt many times, but after they persevered, it finally prospered. In the third year, the newspaper prospered.However, it is mainly due to the advocacy of several movements, and the newspapers prospered along with the expansion of the movements.One time, a foreign soldier in Dongjiaomin Lane (the border of embassies of various countries) bullied the poor Chinese. "Beijing Daily" recorded the incident in detail in the news column, and on the other hand wrote for days on how a certain country's military camp should be punished and compensated, and called on all rickshaw pullers to unite.The matter was heard by a military officer of a certain country, who sent someone to the newspaper to inquire, and asked the coachman to cross-examine.The coachman was too timid to go, so Peng Gong sent him there himself.The military officer of a certain country actually punished the soldiers and compensated the coachman.Although the matter was small, it caused a sensation in the whole city, and the sales of newspapers increased sharply.The other time was that the United States banned Chinese workers from entering the country and treated them harshly. The "Beijing Daily" advocated the boycott of American goods.I still remember that our elementary school students also scattered leaflets in the busy streets, investigated American goods, and so on.This matter was quite new at the time, and people's hearts were greatly excited, and the movement was extended for several months.There was another campaign against the abuse of Chinese laborers in British Africa. It seemed that the movement was not as enthusiastic as this one before.The biggest movement is the National Donation Movement.This was initiated after a long period of deliberation and discussion by the newspapers, which aroused letters from readers to discuss.The general idea is to pay 40,000,000 taels of compensation for Gengzi, payable in annual installments, the longer the period is extended, the greater the accumulation of principal and interest;Based on the population of 400 million in the whole country, if each person pays just one tael of silver, he can succeed.This is roughly similar to the "patriotic donation" advocated by Mr. Huang Keqiang (Xing), who stayed behind in Nanjing when the Republic of China was founded.At this time, the newspaper had already sold well, and its opinions had won the support of the society.Then mark this big topic, and it will affect everyone, and its influence will be unprecedented.From coachmen and peddlers, women and children, all kinds of businesses, to civil and military ministers, and royal princes, everyone responded.Later, because Peng Gong was convicted, the matter went downhill.However, at the time of the 1911 Revolution, there were still more than 900,000 silver taels donated by the people in the Bank of Great Qing (the predecessor of the Bank of China).Counting the number of people donating money, it must be more than a few million.

The development of newspapers is indeed astonishing.Beijingers who don't read newspapers have almost become reading newspapers in every household, and this has spread to the four townships.All provinces and counties in the north, as far away as Fengtian, Heilongjiang (east), Shaanxi and Gansu (west), have spread to.At the same time, it also alarmed the Qing court.Both the Empress Dowager West and Emperor Guangxu sent servants to deliver orders to read this newspaper.There is a reason why it is so developed.Because the doctrines of this newspaper are nothing more than reformation and patriotism on the one hand; simple and clear are just in line with the needs of the time.Some enthusiastic people in the society volunteered to help, or bought more newspapers and posted them along the street, or invested in the establishment of "newspaper reading stations" and "newspaper lecture offices".There is also an old man called "Zui Guo", who used to make a living by telling stories and selling divination.He changed his career, specialized in lecturing, and worked as a voluntary propagandist.There are many other such things.  "China News" was finally published.This is because the "Enlightenment Pictorial" was suspended.In terms of format, it is not a single sheet but a book.The content is mainly about politics, and the style of writing is classical Chinese.This is of course different from the "Beijing Daily" which targets the "mass".It seems that Peng Gong had no revolutionary consciousness back then, but this newspaper was written by his sister-in-law Mr. Hang Xinzhai (Shenxiu, from Haining), but he was considered a revolutionary.I was not educated enough to read this newspaper at the time, and I was not interested in it, so now I can't remember what it said.By the 32nd year of Guangxu (1907), the "China News" had been published for more than one and a half years, and the "Jinghua Daily" was in its fifth year. The Qing government arrested Peng Hang and closed the newspaper.In fact, this is the second time Peng Gong has been arrested, but there is no need to mention him too much in my self-study history.This charge, according to the Patrol Department (now the Ministry of Internal Affairs) reported to the Qing court, is "false talk about the government and sympathy with the bandit party."Hang Gong was convicted and deported back to his hometown, and handed over to local officials for strict control; Peng Gong was sent to Xinjiang and imprisoned for ten years.The truth behind this is that Yuan Shikai secretly killed party members in his Beiyang Camp Affairs Office (now the Military Law Office), and the "China News" exposed it. After the revolution, the founding of the Republic of China, and an amnesty, Peng Gong was able to return from Xinjiang. The "Beijing Daily" resumed publication.Unexpectedly, Yuan Shikai's monarchy, Peng Gong refused to go along with it, and was blocked again.Yuan will publish it later.In the tenth year of the Republic of China, Peng Gong died of illness, and I took over for a period of time because I valued its history.