Chapter 9 The first meeting of the Big Four

At this time, Wang Guowei, one of the five mentors of the Tsinghua Research Institute, had committed suicide by jumping into the lake. Difficult to support, the research institute has become precarious and the building is about to collapse.Taking advantage of this opportunity, Fu Sinian quickly extended an olive branch to Chen Yinke and Zhao Yuanren, the "two majors" with his extraordinary connections. Director of the history group and language group. After the completion of the "Second University", just like when Hu Shi did not dare to ignore the existence of Wang Guowei and Liang Qichao when the Tsinghua Research Institute was established, Fu Sinian, who was secretly delighted, also did not dare to ignore another mentor with the title of lecturer Li Ji's existence.Even though Fu and Li were the same Geng, they were both very popular "sea turtles", but after all, Li Ji was a doctor of Harvard University, and after returning to China, he created a precedent for field archaeological excavations, and his reputation is growing day by day, attracting the attention of academic circles all over the country .In view of this reality, after Chen Yinke and Zhao Yuanren, Fu Sinian prepared to invite Li Ji to join this new camp with great enthusiasm and sincerity.At this time, the two academic giants met unexpectedly at Sun Yat-sen University in the early winter of 1928.

Fu Sinian told Li Ji that before that, he had set up an Institute of Language and History at CUHK, and now he was going to set up an Institute of History and Language at Academia Sinica, with the name reversed.In the past, most of the local scholars were hired, but now all or most of them will be changed to "sea turtles", mainly from European and American schools. At present, Chen Yinke and Zhao Yuanren have been hired. I hope that Li Jin can join the group and serve as the third group of the Institute of History and Philology—— Director of Archeology. After hearing this, Li Ji was very happy, because it has always been his dream and pursuit to engage in new-style full-time field archaeology, and it is of course a pleasant thing to have such a place to realize his dream.There is another important reason for this kind of happiness, as Li Ji said: "I feel that Mr. Chen Yinke and Mr. Zhao Yuanren have both promised him to participate in the work of the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica, respectively presiding over the history group and the language group. The archaeological team has equal status with them, and I am relatively young, which makes me feel very honored. In terms of academics, Mr. Fu can be said to have given me a very good treatment." From these short words, According to the information released, does Li Ji feel the embarrassment that he was not included in the "Big Four" in Tsinghua University before, and he is glad that he was listed in the "Big Three" at the same time as Chen and Zhao?But no matter what he considered, Li Ji's heart was persuaded. He decided to resign from Tsinghua University and the Freer Museum of Art, join the Institute of History and Philology and concentrate on presiding over the work of the archaeological group.Since then, the remaining three mentors of Tsinghua Research Institute have all been included under the banner raised by Fu Sinian, and the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica has also successfully completed the successful transformation from local scholars to European and American "sea turtles".

——This year, Fu Sinian was 33 years old, Li Ji was 33 years old, Zhao Yuanren was 37 years old, and Chen Yinke was 38 years old. For this epoch-making achievement that determined the future development direction and destiny of the Institute of History and Philology, Fu Sinian was very happy and somewhat complacent. He tried his best to keep Li Ji to stay in CUHK for a few days, and chat with him about his future career.Out of excitement, Fu Sinian found out the poems and essays written by Chen Yinke, and let Li Ji read them with a slightly ostentatious intention, which also implied the mystery of strengthening the other party's belief.Chen's ink marks were written on July 6, 1927, and the poem reads:

It doesn't hurt spring to go, no paper, Beihai and Nanming face each other. Zhengshi's leftover sound is really loud, and Yuan and Xinjiao have not yet formed an army. In this life, I have more careers than Tianshe, and the heroes of the world are the only envoys. Understand the meaning of Yudang's silence, and hang Chaoyun by the Plum Blossom Pavilion. Chen's poems were sent from Beijing to Fu Sinian in Guangzhou. The so-called "Beihai Nanming" in the text refers to Chen Yinke's confidant who can sing and echo with Fu. "Zhengshi Lingyin" refers to Wang Guowei who committed suicide by throwing himself into Kunming Lake. "Yuanhe Xinjiao" can be interpreted as young scholars including Chen himself.The most controversial part of the whole poem for later scholars is the line "Heroes of the World".According to Yu Yingshi, a Chinese-American scholar, this sentence should be regarded as Chen's "different position from Fu".Taiwanese scholar Du Zhengsheng believes that Yu's statement is wrong, and his reasoning is exactly the opposite. Chen and Fu's positions are not only "different", but also appreciate each other, which means "only the king and the ear".According to Du's interpretation, the "unformed army" in the poem does not necessarily refer to the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica that Fu Sinian is preparing, but should cover a broader and deeper meaning.At that time, no matter whether it was the Institute of Language and History of Sun Yat-sen University transformed into the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica, or the native scholars of Sun Yat-sen University being replaced by European and American "sea turtles", or even the Tsinghua Research Institute, which was very prosperous for a while, only Chen, Zhao, Li and others were insufficient. Several 40-year-old "yuan and new feet" are at the helm, and the "grand structure" supporting the entire Chinese new academic camp has not yet formed an army and needs to be organized and trained. ——This may be the original intention of Chen Yinke's poem.

When Li Ji arrived at Sun Yat-Sen University, nearly a year and a half had passed since Chen Yinke wrote this poem. It was also Fu Sinian who took the initiative to actively recruit and expand the team, in order to make "Yuanhe Xinjiao" a powerful new force. crucial moment.Therefore, Li Ji's attitude made Fu Sinian excited, and it was inevitable for his obese body's blood pressure to rise. After Li Ji left, Fu Sinian felt more confident, and the Institute of History and Philology could fight bravely, challenge or even start a fight with Tsinghua University or any university or academic institution other than Tsinghua University.Therefore, in his letters to Feng Youlan, Luo Jialun, Yang Zhensheng and other Tsinghua celebrities, he revealed in a ostentatious and ostentatious gesture: "Now Yin Ke, Yuan Ren, and Li Jizhi, our research institute will inevitably cooperate with them. Have a relationship. This is not that we want to compete with Tsinghua for wealth, nor is it that we want to compete with Tsinghua in the finals. Although we are not able to do it, it is not here! Nor is it to tear down (tear down) Tsinghua’s Taiwan. ! It’s about thinking and wanting to do good things together (the division of labor and cooperation is the ultimate good), and everyone gets what he wants.”

Immediately afterwards, Fu Sinian analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the Institute of History and Philology and Tsinghua University to the three with complacency and a bit of conceit: Tsinghua University is a school after all, but this is a purely research institution. After all, Tsinghua is in one place (Peking), but here it is everywhere. Tsinghua University has too many connections, and this is after all a small garden of its own. Therefore, when it is inconvenient for Tsinghua University to send people away for a long time, we can let them go. ... Tsinghua University has people who feel inconvenient, we will do it, that's all!

As early as the establishment of the Institute of History and Philology, Fu Sinian wrote the article "The Purpose of the Work of the Institute of History and Linguistics" in the name of the Preparatory Office of the Institute of Historical Linguistics of the Academia Sinica, clearly stating: "History is not about writing history; It has more or less the meaning of the ancient and middle ages, and it always adopts the methods of ethicists and the skills of writers. Modern history is only the study of historical materials, using all the tools provided by natural science to sort out all available historical materials, so modern historiography The scope reached is from geology to the current newsprint, and Darwinism outside of history is the culmination of historical methods." In the article, Fu Sinian, with his profound knowledge and genius conception, puts forward the research of history and linguistics in a general way. The three standards:

(1) Those who can directly study the materials will progress; those who indirectly study the systems studied or created by the predecessors without extensive and detailed reference to the facts contained in them will regress. (2) Whenever a science can expand the material it studies, it advances, and if it cannot, it regresses. (3) If a kind of knowledge can expand the tools used in his research, it will progress, and if it cannot, it will regress.The competition among experimentalists is like fighting for treasures. If you can't get the right tools, you can't accomplish anything. The same is true for linguistics and history.

Among the three standards, Fu emphasized: "You get what you pay for the material, you get what you pay for every tenth of the material, and you don't ship if you don't have the material." Find something with your feet!" Finally, Fu Sinian raised his arms and shouted with his usual "cannon" character: 1. People who mix traditional or self-created "benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom" with other subjectivities, history and linguistics are definitely not our comrades! 2. It is our comrades to make historical linguistics the same as biological geology, etc.!

3. We want the orthodoxy of scientific Orientalism to be in China! Like Chen Yinke, Fu Sinian, as an academic "predator", although he traveled to Europe for seven years, did so for the sake of knowledge. Li Ji said in his later recollections: "With the Institute of History and Linguistics as the base camp to build a 'scientific orthodoxy of Orientalism' in China, this call is highly inspiring. The first person to lead the way forward was Fu Sinian, who was in the prime of his life. At that time, he was just over 30 years old, full of vigor, energy, and vitality; History, linguistics, psychology, philosophy, and science all have a thorough understanding. He is the ideal leader of this movement. He awakened the highest national consciousness of Chinese scholars and gathered a lot of applied Middle-aged and young scholars with modern academic tools."

Li Ji, who is full of rationality and scientific vision, was not intoxicated by Fu Sinian's yelling about this brilliant scientific development prospect. How to implement it? If this further problem cannot be satisfactorily resolved, slogans will cease to be slogans, and enthusiasm will eventually dissipate.” After all, Fu Sinian is not an idle person, nor is he worthy of being "the rarest genius in the world" praised by Hu Shi. He is also aware of this, so when dealing with various affairs, he is more cautious, pragmatic and far-sighted than when he was at Sun Yat-sen University.After a year of preparatory experience and repeated running-in in various aspects, in June 1929, at the office meeting chaired by Fu Sinian, it was formally decided to compress the scope of work of the entire office from the original nine preset groups to history, language, etc. , Archaeological three groups, commonly known as the first group, the second group, the third group.The "Three Directors" of Chen Yinke, Zhao Yuanren, and Li Ji presided over the work of each group.Later, a fourth group was added—the anthropology group, which was presided over by Dr. Wu Dingliang, a "sea turtle" who had studied in the United States.This system did not change until the Institute of History and Philology moved to Taiwan (Note from the South: For a period of time, the anthropology group was separated from the Institute of History and Philology to establish the Preparatory Office of the Institute of Human Physique, but it did not formally establish an independent institute) . Everything is ready, only the east wind is owed, and the Institute of History and Linguistics of the Academia Sinica is about to open.When the three groups took their positions, Fu Sinian, with his extraordinary handling ability and connections, quickly found the archives of the cabinet library for the first group, designated the research scope of Han bamboo slips and Dunhuang materials; Investigation of Anyang and Luoyang.The language survey work of the second group was also carried out accordingly. In order to eliminate the formalism that Li Ji worried that "slogans will stop at slogans", Fu Sinian, who is full of academic foresight, appointed the then associate professor of Sun Yat-sen University, Shiyu on August 12, 1928 during the preparatory stage of the Institute Dong Zuobin, the correspondent of the station, quietly rushed to Yin Ruins in Anyang to investigate and collect the oracle bones. The so-called oracle bone inscriptions are an ancient inscription written on tortoise shells and animal bones, which is a kind of "recorded text" just like the ancient ancestors' "knotting records".Before the characters on these tortoise shells and animal bones were read, they were just treated as worthless medicinal materials in pharmacies.And once the ancient characters on it were confirmed, the world was shocked, and the door of ancient Chinese civilization was opened with a bang. According to records, in the autumn of the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu (1899), Wang Yirong, a native of Fushan, Yantai, Shandong, who was then the Imperial Academy's Jijiu, was equivalent to the principal of the Royal University, and was ill with malaria. There is a traditional Chinese medicine called "Dragon Bone". The Wang family sent his family to Darentang, a time-honored traditional Chinese medicine store at Caishikou outside Xuanwumen, to buy the medicine according to the prescription.After buying the medicine back, Wang Yirong opened it to check it himself, and suddenly found that there was a kind of inscription similar to seal script on the "keel". The traces may be a kind of ancient writing, and the writing time is earlier than the writing on ancient bronze vessels that I have studied in the past.Surprised and delighted by this accidental discovery, Mrs. Wang sent the waiter at home to Da Ren Tang to buy all the "keel bones" with characters on them, and to conduct identification and research. The venues that emerged were acquired aggressively.Due to Wang Yirong's special status among scholars in the world, his move of acquiring and researching oracle bone inscriptions gradually spread in the circle.Soon, Fan Weiqing, a well-informed and business-minded antique dealer from Weixian County, Shandong Province, brought 12 oracle bones with inscriptions on them, and went to Beijing to meet Wang Yirong.When the Lord saw it, he regarded it as a treasure, and bought all the things.Afterwards, another antique dealer, Zhao Zhizhai, saw that it was profitable to engage in such things, so he got hundreds of pieces of oracle bones with inscriptions from some ditch and went to sell them in the palace of the capital. The more the better.Profit-seeking antique dealers heard the news and adopted the strategy and tactics of the Japanese invaders many years later, "Don't shoot, just enter the village quietly", searched everywhere, and within a short time, Wang bought about 1,500 pieces of oracle bones with characters. And made related research.Thanks to this once-in-a-lifetime historical opportunity, Wang Yirong not only confirmed the unparalleled academic value of oracle bone inscriptions as the first person to recognize the characters of the Shang Dynasty, but also created a precedent for the study of oracle bone inscriptions, unveiling the history of the Shang Dynasty in China. The prologue of the research. After Wang Yirong, in February 1912, Luo Zhenyu, a well-known expert on ancient artifacts and paleographers, entrusted his younger brother Luo Zhenchang to visit Anyang, Henan Province to seek oracle bones according to the clues of the world and his own investigation.Luo Zhenchang lived up to his expectations and stayed in Anyang Xiaotun for more than 50 days. He not only found out the exact location of the oracle bones, but also searched for as many as 12,000 pieces of oracle bones, which were packed in two boxes and transported to Beijing by train.When Luo Zhenyu saw such a rich harvest, he was overjoyed, so he started to conduct in-depth and meticulous research on this batch of oracle bones.After some hard work, Luo Shi got inspiration from the records of "Huanshui Nanyin Ruins" in "Historical Records Xiang Yu Benji", and believed that Anyang, where the oracle bone inscriptions were unearthed, was the "Capital of Wuyi" of the Shang Dynasty in historical records.Later, Luo Zhenyu identified Xiaotun as "Huanshui Guxu, formerly known as Qinjia, and the inscriptions of the present proof, which moved to Wuyi and went to Emperor Yi in his preface" "The capital of the three kings Wuyi, Wending, and Diyi in the late Shang Dynasty.This textual research, no matter at that time or later, was considered by the academic circles as a remarkable and groundbreaking major academic research achievement. If Luo Zhenyu’s interpretation and research on oracle bone inscriptions revealed a gap in the long-lost historical door of the Yin and Shang Dynasties, allowing academic colleagues to glimpse some images of ancient temples, then Wang Guowei closed this door for three years. The door of the Yin and Shang Dynasty, which was more than a thousand years old, was completely smashed open.Through the research and textual research of oracle bone inscriptions, Wang basically confirmed the names and lineages of the ancestors and kings of the Shang Dynasty, and established the history system of the Yin and Shang Dynasties as a whole.For this reason, Wang Guowei, as "the pioneer of new historiography", climbed to the first peak of oracle bone study. Made an epoch-making contribution, which directly triggered a revolutionary breakthrough in the study of ancient history, especially Yin and Shang history as a reliable history. It is in view of the brilliant research results that have been released that Fu Sinian decided to send Dong Zuobin, a 34-year-old Nanyang native of Henan Province, to Anyang to conduct investigations and prepare for scientific field archaeological excavations.Unexpectedly, this move was opposed by many old-school scholars.Wang Guowei, who died by diving at this time, the zombie cannot be resurrected, so naturally he has nothing to say.However, most epigraphers and antiquities experts headed by Luo Zhenyu believe that since the time of Wang Yirong, after nearly 30 years of excavation and collection of oracle bone inscriptions in the world, all the treasures buried in the ground have been discovered, and it can be said that "the treasure is empty." , and now "it is futile to collect further, and such an attempt is foolish".Fu Sinian, who has the spiritual gene of Liangshan heroes flowing in his blood, not only does not accept this, but thinks that Luo Zhenyu and others are stupid. What he said is purely a fallacy that has no academic vision and does not understand the emerging scientific concept of "probability".With Fu Sinian's strong insistence, Dong Zuobin, who was visiting relatives in Nanyang on vacation, started his trip to Anyang, which was of historical and decisive significance for the scientific excavation of the Yin Ruins.