Chapter 23 Wang Tao's mood

Wang Tao's "Traces of the Fragrant Sea" in "Roaming with Records" records his feelings when he came to Hong Kong in 1862. It's almost unbearable at first."Later, although I lived on the mountainside, I planted many banyan trees, and outside the window there were several plantains, green and lovely, I was still not used to it, and I was often homesick; when I wrote family letters at night, "there were always singers playing the huqin on the wall, and the sound could suppress the clouds.The joy of a foreign party is only sad"! He said "sad", homesickness is certainly the reason; another reason is that Wang Tao was accused by the Qing government as a "traitor" because he "applied to the Taiping Army" at that time, and wanted to arrest him. So he fled to Hong Kong in a hurry, and his mood was not much better. After he assisted the president of Yinghua College, James Legge, to translate a variety of Chinese classics, and got acquainted with Western cultural knowledge, his life and work gradually became more at ease, and his mood gradually improved. It took more than five years. Wang Taoou returned to Hong Kong after two years of traveling. He not only edited the 14 volumes of "Preaching the Law", but also raised funds to buy the printing equipment of Yinghua Academy, organized the China Printing Bureau, and finally founded "Circular Daily" , published editorials on the first column of the newspaper every day, and became very famous; the mood of "suddenly impatient" back then must have completely dissipated.

Whether you like a place or not depends on whether you have a stable life, increased knowledge, and job satisfaction during your stay in this place.Scholars pay special attention to these three things.With these three things, the mood must be better, and the trivial things around you are easier to bear, and you often don't want the environment to change from now on.Some people say that most of the people who worry about the change of Hong Kong's status quo are Hong Kong people living a stable life, which is not unreasonable.Wang Tao may not be willing to leave Hong Kong and return to China to taste the taste of "slandering the sky, slandering the world, harming the body with words, and slandering the writing, and there may be ghosts in it".However, Wang Tao's love for the motherland has never changed. He hopes that China will "make the best use of the strengths of Western and Western countries" and strive to become stronger without blindly adoring and flattering the West; In fact, it is still superficial, and there are those who do not need to learn and learn, and there are also those who must not learn and learn.”In the UK, what he envied was the spirit and system of "practical learning" of the British; for China, what he expected was economic construction;The London Art Gallery invited him to take a photo as a souvenir. There is a couplet in the poem he inscribed on the back of the portrait: "Shang Dai thinks of serving the country with his head, but he still has the guts to give in?" Although it is not a good sentence, it has integrity.

Zhong Shuhe wrote an article "Once Over the Sea, Looking at the World" for Wang Tao's "Roaming Suilu · Fusang Travel Notes", mentioning that Wang Tao wrote a letter to his wife and brother Yang Xingtong in the UK to describe the changes in his thoughts throughout his life.Over the past hundred years, Chinese scholars have been impacted by Western academic technology and deeply understand the benefits of making the people rich and the country strong, but because the political system has not been on track, and it is not easy for them to be useful to the world, they often slip away from the orthodox culture. Going unrestrained in the side room or in the back garden, I am always reluctant to give up the "crazy life" consciousness.These people say that they are cowardly, but they are extremely persistent; Zhong Shuhe said: "Wang Tao, who has returned from the sea, has changed from a romantic Tang Bohu to Wei Moshen who is worried about the country."

Among the Chinese scholars, there are other tricks for being an official, let alone; those who "hold up posts and forget things, abandon all life and not be dull", there will be no four or five turning points in the process of maturity in their life, which is very similar to Wang Tao: when young, " He doesn't know anything about thinking about a book and making a living in the court! "If you go out to make a living, then" but you can get five hundred gold, which can be used as a plan for returning to farming." ", "Just thinking about it as a woman with a good reputation in Xinling"; seeing people of the same generation jumping up, panicking, they will "change into fame and fortune again", "desire to move the world with false fame", and finally reach middle age , The mind is like wine, but I realized that "scholars are born in the world, they should not just see themselves with their articles", but instead emphasize the way of being worldly and practical, "what you hope is the harmony between China and foreign countries, and the academic skills of the Western countries flourish in China."

Scholars who do not engage in politics have no great benefits or harm to society and the country; it is not bad to be able to play the role of licorice in a bowl of bitter medicine; Say something.Wang Tao's wife, children, and children were all under the rule of the Taiping Army at the time. It may be true that Wang Tao wrote to the Taiping Army to ask for nothing more than peace.It is said that Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang once wanted to recruit him, but the Qing court still regarded him as a "disabled person" and "doesn't work".After the case was closed, Wang Tao actually returned to Shanghai to die, which also shows his "scholar's true qualities".As a scholar, it is difficult to say whether Wang Tao's political discussions throughout his life are enough to represent "public opinion": every word is a portrayal of his "mood", and it is true.Usually it is the government's will that leads to the public's will.Planting trees on both sides of the street to green the city is the government's will; if the people like it, it becomes the public's will; "Living on the mountainside", seeing "several plantains outside the window" and feeling "green and lovely", is neither public opinion nor official opinion, but a mood!