Chapter 8 Section 3 Hu Shi: The green hills are the country
After Fu Sinian's death, many people in Taiwan's political and academic circles focused their attention on the thick-legged chair of the president of National Taiwan University. Various scholars and politicians regarded the position of president of National Taiwan University as a piece of fat, and performed their usual martial arts like mice and weasels. , Digging around, trying to swallow this piece of fat into his insatiable desire and already exuding a musty smell.Just as the rats were racking their brains to compete and fight each other, Chiang Kai-shek, who lived in the deep palace of the Taipei official residence, squinted his eyes and watched the ugly performance quietly. Finally, he turned his eyes away from the isolated island of Taiwan and looked for the real truth in a larger scope. Big names come to maintain the situation.After thinking about it again and again, he cast his eyes on Hu Shi who was far away in the United States.
On January 21, 1949, the third day after Fu Sinian left Nanjing Feitai, Hu Shi gave up the idea of sending his wife Jiang Dongxiu to his hometown in Anhui for temporary shelter, and personally sent her to Shanghai to board a ship bound for Taiwan with Yu Dacai. In order to take refuge in Taiwan Island.That night, Hu Shi returned to Nanjing, intending to meet Chiang Kai-shek, but unexpectedly, Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Song Meiling left Nanjing at 4 pm that day, flew directly to Hangzhou and went to Fenghua to live in seclusion in his hometown.
While Hu Shi was squatting in the room worrying about where he was going, he suddenly received a letter from Wu Zhongxin, Secretary-General of the Presidential Office, and a letter of appointment from the "Presidential Advisor". Do what you can for the government in the name of the president of Peking University or in your own name. On the morning of January 24, Hu sent a letter to Wu Zhongxin:
According to the "University Organization Act", the presidents of national universities are not allowed to concurrently serve as salaries.Now I am still the president of National Peking University. Due to the current situation, I cannot resign at this time.Therefore, please, sir, resign the name and salary of the Presidential Palace on my behalf.Please also ask my husband to take back the letter of appointment on my behalf, and beg him not to publish this matter, so as to avoid unnecessary speculation and rumors in the press.
Tomorrow night, I will go to Shanghai for a short stay with President Mei in the same car. I am here to say goodbye. I am afraid we will not be able to see each other. Therefore, I am sending this letter to Mr., begging him to remember my sincerity and to dismiss this matter for me. Thank you very much!
At this time, Hu Shi had made up his mind to go to the United States, so he was naturally unwilling to wear this empty hat that could not help him and might cause trouble during this sensitive period. On January 30, Hu Shi got a US passport and visa, and it was a foregone conclusion to go to the US. On February 13, Chen Xueping, the acting minister of the Ministry of Education of the Nationalist Government, called, saying that Wu Tiecheng, vice president of the Executive Yuan, hoped that Hu Shi would become the ambassador to the United States.Early the next morning, Hu Fu sent a telegram saying:
My younger brother firmly believes that individual speech is more free and may be more beneficial to the country, so I am absolutely unwilling to change.
On February 15, Hu Shi had a half-hour interview with Zhu Kezhen, an old classmate who lived here at the branch of the Bank of Shanghai and then the president of Zhejiang University, and expressed his views on the current situation.Zhu Kezhen said in his diary that day: "At eight o'clock to Joffre Road... I met Shizhi,... Shizhi was very pessimistic about the success of the peace talks between the CCP and the Central Committee, but he said that the liberation of Beijing has not yet begun. It is a blessing. He will go to the United States soon, Maybe I will go to Taiwan for a while.” It was Hu Shi who was soberly aware that peace was out of the question and Li Zongren’s negotiation plan was nonsense like a blind man, so he made up his mind to accept Chiang Kai-shek’s order and go to the United States to save the Kuomintang government from peril. A last-ditch effort at personal diplomacy.
On March 22, Hu Shi flew to Taiwan and had a brief reunion with his wife Jiang Dongxiu. On the second day, he visited Wang Shijie, Fu Sinian and others who had been to Taiwan before. On March 27, accompanied by Fu Sinian and others, he went to Zhongshan Hall to give a speech on "Free Tradition in Chinese Culture", and returned to Shanghai on the 29th.After several days of intense preparations, on April 6, Hu Shi, worried about the bleak future in his heart, took the ship "Cleveland President" from Shanghai to the United States for "seeing".This is the sixth time that Hu Shi has gone abroad in his life. Unexpectedly, this "seeing" will last nine years.
On April 21, the ship that Hu Shi was on arrived in San Francisco. Before entering the port for inspection, the customs officers brought a group of journalists with newspapers to visit and asked for a talk.Facing the swarm of journalists, Hu Shi didn't know what to say for a while.For this special and embarrassing scene, several years later, Hu still has a deep memory: "I haven't read the newspaper for more than ten days. When I quickly picked up the newspaper, the first thing I read was the domestic peace break. The communist army has already crossed the river. Under such circumstances, it is so difficult to talk to foreign journalists.” Facing the situation where the CCP’s millions of troops crossed the Yangtze River and the Kuomintang regime was about to collapse completely, Hu Shi said: “No matter how difficult the situation is, , I am willing to use my moral strength to support the government of Mr. Chiang Kai-shek." He also said: "My moral support may not be worth anything, but what I say is sincere. Because if we do not support this government, there is still a government that can support it." Support? If this government collapses, where are we going!"
On April 27, Hu Shi arrived in New York and still lived at 104 East Eighty-first Street.In the previous three years from 1942 to 1945, he lived here after resigning from his post as ambassador to the United States.
After settling down for a while, Hu Shi appeared on the stage and began a private diplomatic activity of asking questions with stones. The first American official he met with was Hornbaek, an old friend of the State Department.Hong has always been an enthusiastic supporter of the Kuomintang government. Hu Shi had talks with him and had lunch with him for two days in a row, trying to ask for directions from this old friend and test Washington's attitude.To Hu's disappointment, the Yankees, seeing the wind and the rudder, saw that the Kuomintang was gone, not only stood by, but even prepared to help the CCP step on the Kuomintang, or simply fell into trouble, smashing the Kuomintang into muddy water and turning them into shrimps The shrimp paste mixed with crab, fish and turtle is going to be. On May 28, Hu Shi received a secret letter from Chiang Kai-shek, clearly instructing:
What is lacking at this time and urgently needs beauty is not material, but spiritual and moral support.Therefore, the focus of current diplomacy with the United States should be to pay special attention to its top priority of not recognizing the CCP regime.As for practical assistance, it is still in the second place.As for the method of implementation, the two approaches of administration and legislation may go hand in hand, but administration is still the right path and should be the main task.Mr. Wang assisted Ambassador Shaochuan, hoping to work harder.
From the tone and content of this secret letter, it can be seen that Hu Shi's trip to the United States was by no means as simple as "go out and have a look" as Chiang Kai-shek said at the beginning. For the national government or Chiang Kai-shek himself, he must do his best to make the last fight.Ambassador Shaochuan in the letter refers to Gu Weijun, who is currently in the United States trying to find ways to aid Chiang.And the day after Chiang Kai-shek wrote this secret letter to Hu, Shanghai was liberated.The rapid collapse of the Kuomintang regime surprised Hu and Gu and their American friends who were thousands of miles away.
With the rapid changes in the domestic situation, the Kuomintang was defeated like a mountain, and there is no possibility of a comeback.Hu Shi deeply felt that the general situation was over, he could no longer hold his head up among international friends, and he was extremely depressed, so he didn't want to show his face and embarrass him again. On June 12, Yan Xishan, the newly appointed president of the Executive Yuan in Guangzhou, hastily announced Hu Shi as foreign minister.Upon hearing the news, Mrs. Hu insisted on resigning, and still said that she could act freely in her own name. On July 26, Hu Shi clearly realized that all his so-called non-governmental diplomacy efforts in the United States were ineffective. Gritting his teeth, he notified the National Government's embassy in the United States to cancel all his appointments with American politicians to express his protest against the "abandonment" of the National Government by the United States.
On August 16, in a letter to Zhao Yuanren, Hu Shi described the reasons for his "spiritual depression", and expressed that he "doesn't want to live in a foreign country for a long time" and "doesn't want to stay abroad as a teacher".At this time, the Kuomintang was retreating in a big way, and the objective environment and political relationship forced Hu Shi to stay on, and continue to wait in the United States for a possible comeback as a minister of the defeated government.
On May 14, 1950, Hu Shi, who had endured hardships and embarrassments for more than a year, was hired by Princeton University to serve as the director of the University’s Gestalt Oriental Library. job.At this time, the Kuomintang regime had started anew in Taiwan, and the attitude of the United States was still unclear. Hu Shi was depressed and aggrieved and had to consider finding a job to make a living, and at the same time take a breath of fresh air, so he was hired by Princeton University.According to the publicity of the school, the collection of Chinese literature in the Princeton Gestalt Oriental Library is quite impressive, as many as 100,000 volumes, and a considerable number of Chinese staff with sallow complexions work in it, but it is completely different from the Beijing Library in terms of scale and number of books.Even so, it is not easy to find a job as a curator.According to Zhou Zhiping, a doctor of Chinese descent who studied at the university decades later, from the archives kept in the library, Hu Shi, a master and scholar who has led the Chinese modern academic style for decades, should apply for a job like an ordinary employee. Even temporary workers fill out the job application form, have to accept the assessment of the foreign master, and also face the cruel fate of being dismissed from office and suspended.With such an encounter, it can also be seen from another aspect that this teacher Hu never degraded, humiliated, or depressed, and always maintained his independent personality and scholarly demeanor and ambition.Of course, Hu Shi chose this career not only because of economic considerations, but also because he wanted to use the documents collected by the library to continue to do some academic research.During his tenure as the Nationalist Government's ambassador to the United States, he established a profound friendship with the high-level personnel of the library, and used many precious books in the library to conduct textual research on "Shui Jing Zhu".To Hu Shi's relief, in addition to finding a job, his little-legged wife Jiang Dongxiu was transferred from Hong Kong to New York on June 9, and the war-torn old couple was reunited in a foreign country.It's just that Jiang Dongxiu doesn't know English, so he can't deal with outsiders. Hu Shi has to take care of daily life in his spare time.The Chinese friends who lived in New York at that time often saw Hu carrying a yellow paper bag to the market to buy vegetables and rice. He was miserable and panicked, like a bereaved dog with its tail cut off, and the depression and depression in his heart were clearly visible.For nine long years, Hu Shi lived in the old apartment at 104 East Eighty-first Street in New York, and his only decent job with a fixed income was the Gestal Oriental Library of Princeton University. long job.
At the beginning of 1951, Hu Shi suddenly received a telegram from Chiang Kai-shek asking him to be the president of National Taiwan University. After careful consideration, Hu Shi declined Jiang's offer. The reason was disclosed in Hu Shi's letter to Yu Dacai on January 6, 1951: " Regarding Taiwan University, the government intends to ask me to be Meng Zhen's successor. As a deceased friend and National Taiwan University, I have considered it, but I don't have Meng Zhen's talent. He is so careful, and he will inevitably die for the school. I am the most incapable of doing things, and I hate dealing with people and things the most, and I have heart disease, so I must not be able to handle such troublesome things, so I resolutely resign." After the resignation, Hu Shi recommended it according to the old saying that the fat does not flow to outsiders. His good friend Qian Siliang, who studied in the United States with a Ph.D. and former professor and director of the Department of Chemistry of Peking University, succeeded him. He still stayed in the Gestal Oriental Library while working and paying attention to the changes in the current situation.Unexpectedly, Hu Shi's job was smashed before long.
On December 13, 1951, the acting director of the General Library of Princeton University wrote a memorandum, which recorded a meeting to discuss the Gestal Library the day before yesterday afternoon. The fourth point mentioned the issue of whether Hu Shi would be the director of the library.In order to save money, the school authorities deliberately promoted Tong Shigang, Hu Shi's assistant, as the curator, and terminated the employment contract with Hu Shi in 1952 according to the contract. On February 1, 1952, the acting director of the General Library wrote another memorandum to the principal, formally proposing that Hu Shi’s annual salary of $5,200 would be terminated at the end of the year, and Tong Shigang, who had an annual salary of $3,480, would take over.After reading the memorandum, the principal agreed to the proposal of the acting chief curator on the spot, but at the same time he was quite hesitant about how to explain the dismissal to Hu Shi, and it took a lot of thinking.After all, Hu Shi is the most famous scholar in China, he has also been an ambassador to the United States, and he also has a bunch of dazzling doctoral hats (according to the archives researched by Zhou Shi, Hu Shi filled in the application form as "Bachelor, Cornell University, 1914; Ph.D., Columbia University, 1917. Thirty-two honorary degrees including those from Princeton University", as well as the president of Peking University and the wartime Chinese ambassador to the United States).His emotions and face must be taken into account, so that he feels reasonable and natural to be kicked out of the circle.The last method discussed by the Yankees is to "understand the subtleties of Eastern etiquette. Chinese etiquette must be implemented in the wording of this letter, and there must be no clues that can be interpreted as 'dismissal'."In April of this year, the principal and the bureaucrats of the General Library finally came up with a way to save face for both parties, that is, according to the characteristics of Chinese officialdom, while dismissing Hu Shi as the director of the library, he hired another Honorary curator for life.
The "excellent" idea was decided, and this group of yellow-haired, blue-eyed, flying-haired "barbarian" bureaucrats started a discussion on whether Hu Shi knew that the position of honorary curator was not paid, because according to the practice of Chinese officials, Although the curator is an "honor" with no real power, he is paid a lot of money, and if he has the opportunity, he will steal a few sums secretly, even in small things such as eating, drinking, and messing around, otherwise he will lose money. It is a disadvantage and disgraceful thing to feel that one has "honored" in vain.Americans can't see clearly the Chinese people's fancy intestines, so it is inevitable that there will be some ironic debates.During the discussion, someone said: "We estimate that Dr. Hu, a person who has a deep understanding of Western academic practices, understands that honorary positions are not paid. However, we still need President Dodds to consider whether to put 'unpaid' Add this point.” Some people said that it should be added, and some said that once it was added, Dr. Hu would feel ashamed; some people said that they could ask a Chinese to hint, so that Dr. Hu would feel ashamed; some people interjected, Simply explain directly that if a small curator is dismissed, the principal can just order it down, and there is no need to mobilize teachers and mobilize so many people, and so on.Many years later, when Dr. Zhou Zhiping, who went to do research, looked through the pages of old archives in the library, he couldn't help holding his breath: "The father of the Chinese vernacular movement, the leader of the New Culture Movement, thirty-two It is a great tragedy that a recipient of an honorary doctorate should, at the age of sixty-one, have a few university librarians and bureaucrats worry about whether he knows that honorary appointments are the customary practice of not being paid."
As far as Hu Shi was concerned at this time, sad things were common to him. Faced with this embarrassing situation, he had no choice but to accept the dismissal of the post of curator knowingly and pretending to be confused. Remunerated curator emeritus, a position he maintained until his death.Decades after Hu Shi left, Zhou Zhiping saw with his own eyes that in the rare book room of the Geside Library, his photo was still hung, and several books donated by Hu Shi were still placed on the bookshelf.Apart from these, there are no traces of Hu Shi working here for two years.History has erased the imprint left by this great scholar, and his figure has also disappeared from people's memory.
On November 19, 1952, at the invitation of National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Normal University and people from the local cultural circles, Hu arrived in Taiwan to visit and give lectures. On December 7, in his speech at National Taiwan University, Hu Shi emotionally poured out the bitterness that had been suppressed in his heart for four years:
In the thirty-eighth year of the Republic of China, I felt unable to lift my head and could not speak.I once said to my family: "Don't think that Hu Shizhi is eating his own food." There is a saying in our hometown: "If you keep green hills, you don't have to worry about running out of firewood!" Based on my decades of experience, I feel that the green hills are the country.When the country is unlucky, it means that the Qingshan is not there. When the Qingshan is not there, it is not easy to eat and speak for oneself.During the past few years when I was abroad, it was a time when the country was in bad luck. I was full of grief and realized that Qingshan is really our country.
After discussing the relationship between eating, green hills and the country, Hu Shi couldn't suppress his emotions, and continued to reveal the helplessness and sadness of his overseas life: "I am very painful when I go out this time. I feel difficult because of the failure mentality of many old friends. Talk. So on July 16th, 38th year of the Republic of China, I informed the Chinese embassy in the United States to cancel all appointments and not meet any government or congress leaders. Because everyone’s stereotypes are too deep, I hit a wall everywhere, and because of the situation It's too big to be transferred by private conversation. At this time, I can only reserve some dignity and personality for the country, so I cancel all appointments. Even if I write articles and say a few words, I am also invited by others Please, please let me speak, and only when I speak. Therefore, in the past three years, I have only left some dignity for the country, and have not contributed anything else. Even if the situation has improved, it is Mao Zedong who went crazy and caused the situation to be pushed to the top. I have no credit for it. "
It was precisely because of the pain from the heart that Hu Shi had the idea of returning to Taiwan.Since then, Hu began to fly back and forth between the United States and Taiwan, but every time he returned to Taiwan, besides visiting friends, the main thing was to borrow books and study at the Institute of History and Philology, and continue to do his academic research. On the income from royalties to support life.During this period, a friend advised Hu, since the director of the Princeton University library could not do it, why not contact a university to teach as a career, and at the same time increase his salary to support his family?After Hu Shi heard this, he just nodded with his usual charming smile as a sign of approval, but he never took any action. From 1955 to 1956, Hu Shi wrote to Zhao Yuanren twice, mentioning the reasons for his delay in teaching at the university, to the effect that he did not want to "beg for food or grab food" from foreign students studying Sinology abroad. Scholars are often "progressive" elements in politics, and they don't agree with themselves; moreover, these foreign scholars are somewhat "afraid" of Chinese scholars like Hu Shi.In terms of the situation at the time, scholars with such academic background and influence as Hu had a feeling of "begging for food" or "grabbing food for food". Scholars big and small, what kind of desolate and frightening situation is it?Zhu Jingnong, who studied in the United States in his youth and once served as the deputy minister of the Ministry of Education of the Nationalist Government, died suddenly in the United States after the mainland regime changed hands, which is a true portrayal of this kind of life.Castle Peak is the country, and Hu Shi's metaphor hits the nail on the head, especially for overseas Chinese.
Just when Hu Shi was in trouble, his future was bleak, and it was difficult for him to eat his own food and speak his own words. The "Academia Sinica" that moved to Taiwan has moved from Yangmei Town to Nangang District, Taipei City. The office buildings of the Institute of History and Philology and the Institute of Mathematics and the dormitories of colleagues were built in the same courtyard one after another. People from all walks of life moved to Nangang in stages and began to work and live in a orderly manner.Under the influence of the international political climate, Taiwan's academic circles have shown vigorous vitality, and the academic prospects have gradually become clearer.The scholars living on isolated islands feel that great and good changes have taken place, and they are generally moving in the direction of progress.At this time, "the hospital also plans to establish a foothold in Taiwan and will not return to the mainland. The researchers are equipped with dormitories in Nangang, and their lives are gradually becoming more stable."
In view of this situation, Hu's consciousness of returning to Taiwan is even stronger.Previously, at the request of Zhu Jiahua, he used the resources under his control to obtain financial assistance from institutions such as the China Foundation for the "Academia Sinica".In addition, entrusted by Zhu, Hu presided over and convened the first "Academia Sinica" overseas academician meeting in New York from March 19 to 20, 1955.According to statistics at that time, among the 81 academicians of the first session of the Academia Sinica, 58 stayed in the mainland and 4 died; 6 relocated to Taiwan; 12 lived in the United States and 1 in Canada Over the Taiwan "Academia Sinica" president).As for Taiwan's "Academia Sinica" electing new academicians and other activities, Hu Shi, who was unwilling to be lonely, paid close attention to and made suggestions.Because of this continuous academic blood and network background, Hu Shi, who was getting old, wanted to return to his "homeland" in order to "be a minister for the country and a friend for the government".In a letter to his friend Chen Zhifan, Hu Shi explained: "I plan to go back because I am sixty-six years old. I should settle down and use the collections of the Nangang Institute of History and Philology to write a few unfinished works. I haven’t written words for many years, and my writing is very jerky.”
With all these thoughts and plans in mind, Hu Shi wrote to ask Li Ji to try to find him a small piece of land near the Fu Sinian Library in Nangang (Note from the South: A library named after Fu Sinian was specially built next to the office building of Shi Yu's office. ), I bought it with my own money, built a few small rooms to read and write with peace of mind, lived a quiet life for two or three years, and finished writing "History of Chinese Thought" and "History of Vernacular Literature".
After Li Ji received the letter, he felt that he could not make decisions on his own without keeping the person in charge of the "Academia Sinica" and the government arbitrarily informed, so he reported the matter to Zhu Jiahua.Unexpectedly, this inconspicuous incident touched Chiang Kai-shek's sensitive nerves at once, and Taiwan's political circle set off a treacherous and mysterious wave, and the doom of Zhu Jiahua, the acting president of the "Academia Sinica" began.