Chapter 4 Three eras with Japan as a bridge

One day in the winter of 1905, in a classroom of Sendai Medical College in Japan.A thin, short Chinese student in a microbiology class with his Japanese classmates.After class was dismissed early, the teacher used the rest of the time to show slides about the Russo-Japanese War.At that time, Japan won its first war against the white people, defeating the mighty Russian Empire known as "the polar bear", and the whole country celebrated it. In the picture of the Japanese army's victorious march, a group of ragged Chinese appeared.Among them was a Chinese, who was said to be a Russian detective according to the commentary. He was tied up in the middle and was about to beheaded for public display. There were many Chinese people with strong physiques but numb expressions happily watching the tragic death of their compatriots.

When watching the slides, the Japanese students burst into laughter from time to time, and some people commented loudly: "Just look at the appearance of the Chinese, and you can conclude that China is bound to perish..." The only Chinese student was silent, those pictures and those arguments pierced his heart like a needle. That night, under the foreign sky, in the bone-chilling cold, the young man Zhou Shuren stayed up all night. The "slide event" completed the transformation from "Zhou Shuren" to "Lu Xun", and thus became a very symbolic event in the history of Chinese new culture.

In the upsurge of studying in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, Zhou Shuren was an unremarkable one among the many introverted and inferior Chinese students studying abroad.He chose to study medicine partly because of the times - his generation thought medicine would be useful, and partly because he remembered his father's painful death delayed by quackery.However, those numb spectators in the slide show changed the trajectory of his life 180 degrees. Later, Lu Xun recalled the situation at that time and said: "Since that time, I have felt that medicine is not an important matter. All weak citizens, no matter how healthy and strong they are, can only do meaningless demonstrations." Materials and spectators should not be regarded as unfortunate if they die of illness. Therefore, our first priority is to change their spirits, and what is good at changing their spirits is that I thought it was natural to promote literature and art, so I wanted to promote literature and art movements. "

Many people in that generation had similar experiences.It was only after they arrived in Japan that they found a cause worth dedicating to.After the Meiji Restoration in Japan succeeded, thousands of passionate Chinese youths and people of insight went to Japan for study and investigation. They took Japan as a bridge to learn from the West, and went to Japan to seek the truth of saving the country and the people. Whether it is political leaders such as Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, or pioneers of enlightenment such as Liang Qichao and Lu Xun; whether it is revolutionary trendsetters such as Qiu Jin and Chen Duxiu, or military generals such as Cai E and Yan Xishan, these Chinese who study in Japan sincerely Take the thriving Japan as a model for China, and dream that China of tomorrow will be as prosperous and strong as Japan today, and the Chinese who dream of tomorrow will be as hardworking, dedicated, brave and united as the Japanese of today.They realized that only by learning from Japan can the "Old Empire" be transformed into "Young China" quickly.

The flock of Chinese students to Japan was the most dramatic development in the history of Sino-Japanese relations after 1898. The American Sinologist Jensen believes that the movement of Chinese students to Japan "is the first real large-scale immigration wave of intellectuals oriented towards modernization in the history of the world. In the history of the world up to that time, it may be the largest Large-scale mass movement of overseas students." Regardless of whether these young people completed their professional courses in Japan, most of them actively participated in the rewriting of modern and contemporary Chinese history after returning to China.

Sun Yat-sen once said very vividly that there are three groups of people who made great contributions to the Revolution of 1911, one is overseas Chinese, the other is students studying in Japan, and the third is party members.Due to the rapid expansion of the number of overseas students, the exiled Reformists and the Revolutionary Party both took Japan as their base camp for overseas support.Liang Qichao presided over "Qing Yi Bao" and "Xin Min Cong Bao" in Tokyo, and Zhang Taiyan also edited "Min Bao", the official newspaper of the Tongmenghui in Tokyo.These newspapers and periodicals flowed into China through various channels, and a single spark eventually turned into a prairie fire.

Historically speaking, the upsurge of Chinese studying in Japan in modern times was the reversal of the model in AD 607.In AD 607, the first batch of Japanese missions came to China to worship and study.Over the past 1,300 years, education, culture and technology have flowed from China to Japan through various channels including studying abroad.But now it's the other way around, becoming a Chinese and going to Japan. The exchanges between China and Japan have a long history. "Hanshu Geographical Records" records: "There are Japanese people in Lelanghai, divided into more than a hundred countries, and they come to see the clouds at the age of age." "Hanshu Dongyi Biography" also records: "An Emperor Yongchuyuan In 1787 (that is, AD 107), King Shuai of Japan was promoted to give birth (that is, slaves) and one hundred and sixty people would like to see him." In 1787, Shiga Island in Hakata Bay, northern Kyushu, Japan discovered a cast of "Han Wei". The golden seal of the "Slave King" proves the authenticity of Chinese documents.

In "Three Kingdoms" "Wei Zhi·Waren Biography", there are already relatively detailed records of Japan, which are about 400 years earlier than Japan's first official history "Nihon Shoki".Later, in China's official revision history, most of them listed Japanese biographies. Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Japanese imperial family has sent missions to China many times to learn from the ruling experience and advanced science and culture of the Tang Dynasty.From 630 AD to 894 AD, there were thirteen missions sent to the Tang Dynasty from Japan to Chang'an.There were 250 missionaries in the early days, 500 in the later period, and more than 600 people at most.Among the envoys sent to the Tang Dynasty, there appeared many figures who had made great contributions to the cultural exchanges between China and Japan.Abe Nakamaro served in the court of the Tang Dynasty for a long time, and the highest served as the Zhennan Jiedushi of Zhengsanpin.He is a good friend of Li Bai and Wang Wei, and he often sings with each other.Kibi Shinbi brought "Tang Ritual" back to Japan, and the etiquette of the Japanese court was imitated; Kukai brought the essence of Buddhism back to Japan, and created Japanese mountain Buddhism.

Represented by the laws and regulations of the Nara and Heian periods, many institutional cultures in Japan were imitated from China.From the Taika Reformation to the Tokugawa era, Chinese culture played a key role in the formation of Japanese culture, politics, and social systems. The moral norms of Confucian culture have become the behavior norms of most Japanese to some extent.From the earliest school in Japan, Terakoya, to the vassal school at the end of the Shogunate, almost all the textbooks used were Chinese classics. For the upper-class Japanese, Tang poetry has become Japan's own classical culture.

In the Edo period, Zhu Zi's theory became the orthodox thought at that time and was regarded as "national learning".With the popularization of basic education, Chinese thought has also influenced the general public, and the classical world of China has also become a treasure house of knowledge for the Japanese.Zhu Zi's theory not only It is not regarded as Chinese philosophy, but as a worldview. Japanese historian Ando Hikotaro pointed out in the book "Chinese Language and Modern Japan": "Since the Meiji, Japan has looked down on the real China on the one hand, and respected China in the classical world on the other hand. This split view of China It originated from the fact that Japan has been deeply influenced by Chinese culture since ancient times.”

The relationship between China and Japan before modern times was a model of the tributary system in the Chinese cultural circle. Although there were episodes of Japanese pirates harassing China's southeast coast, Japan has always regarded China as its best teacher.Since modern times, the status of "teacher" and "student" between China and Japan has undergone an unexpected reversal.China has been slow to react to the reversal. Huang Zunxian was the first intellectual in modern times to consciously regard post-Meiji Restoration Japan as a teacher.In 1877, Huang Zunxian accompanied He Ruzhang, the first minister of the Qing Dynasty to Japan, to Japan as a counselor.In his spare time, he collected Japanese historical materials, especially political, economic, military, cultural and other materials about the "Meiji Restoration", and spent nine years painstakingly completing "Japanese Miscellaneous Poems" and "National Chronicles of Japan". Huang Zunxian said in the poem ""National Chronicles of Japan": "A Thousand Years Learn from My Wife Mirror", obviously he hoped that the Manchu Qing Dynasty could take Japan's Meiji Restoration as a reference to promote political reform and save the country from crisis. "Japanese National History" is a comprehensive work on the study of Japan in modern times, and it is also an important work advocating the imitation of Japan's reform and reform. It directly affected the reform of the Reform Movement of 1898. In the autumn of 1888, Huang Zunxian went north to Beijing with the manuscript of "National Chronicles of Japan".At that time, after reading it, Zhang Jing and Yuan Chang of the Prime Minister's Office thought the book was "detailed and detailed" and praised it very much.However, Huang Zunxian was soon appointed as a counselor in the UK, and later transferred to Singapore, and had no chance to stay in China to pursue his political reform plan. Regrettably, the Chinese really realized the significance and value of the Meiji Restoration only after the disastrous defeat in the Sino-Japanese War. At that time, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Liangjiang, summoned Huang Zunxian to return to China to assist in the reform. Huang Zunxian showed the published "National History of Japan" in Nanjing. After reading it, Zhang Zhidong sighed and said: "This book was published early, saving 20 million years old coins." For the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the Sino-Japanese War was an unprepared war.Before the war, the pedantic scholar-bureaucrats did not take the little Japanese pirates seriously.However, thrilling news came one after another: in the Yellow Sea, North Korea, and Manchuria, the Chinese army suffered terrible defeats on both land and sea.This war was destined to end in a most indecent way. When the situation of the war was irretrievable, Li Hongzhang, an important minister of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties, led his son Li Jingfang and hundreds of entourages to Shimonoseki, Japan to negotiate with the Japanese side.The powerful leader of the Westernization Movement and the founder of China's modern navy fell into the lowest point of his life at this time.In the quiet seaside town of Xiaguan in Japan, a small "Li Hongzhang Road" has been left behind. "It used to be a sad scene, but once I arrived in Weizhou, I felt a lot. So many things have happened in the past hundred years, and the evening waves downstairs in Chunfan are anxious." Liang Qichao's poem "Maguan Night Mooring" describes the negotiations between Chunfan Tower and the two sides. Significance in modern Chinese history. In the Sino-Japanese War, China was on the verge of collapse, while Japan became the most powerful country in Asia. The cession of the country in the "Treaty of Shimonoseki" caused the loss of Taiwan for half a century; the huge amount of compensation made the Qing government's finances on the verge of bankruptcy.On the contrary, Japan obtained Taiwan and made it a springboard for invading the mainland of China; it obtained huge indemnities to establish education and revitalize the military, just like injecting another shot of stimulant.The modern history of the two countries was thus rewritten. Japanese Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito and Li Hongzhang, who participated in the negotiations, are old friends.Before the formal negotiations started, Ito asked: "As early as ten years ago, when I visited Tianjin, I talked with you about the reform. Why hasn't your country changed a bit until now?" Li Hongzhang replied: "At that time, I was deeply impressed by your views, and I was deeply envious of the reforms you introduced in Japan. However, our country's traditional burden is too heavy, and it is difficult to implement reforms. Ten years have passed, everything It is still the same. I am ashamed that my heart is more than enough and my strength is not enough. The soldiers and officers of your country are trained according to Western methods, and their combat effectiveness is very strong; the politics of your country is also changing with each passing day. Intellectuals discussed it, knowing that we can only survive if we reform.” The tragic ending of the Sino-Japanese War, the bankruptcy of the Westernization Movement, and the shame brought to the country by incompetent rulers made Chinese intellectuals begin to think about the causes of suffering and the ways to get rid of it.From 1896 to 1898, China began to use Japan as a model to initiate slow-moving political, cultural, and educational reforms at the local level. Scholars, officials, and gentry began to propose revisions to Confucian-based educational curricula in major cities across the provinces; societies organized by elite students from all over the country sprung up during this period, with a total of seventy-five across provincial boundaries; There are about 60 newspapers nationwide, especially in Hunan.The provincial self-improvement movement that began in 1895 entered a fundamental stage under the influence of the former counselor in Japan, the poet Huang Zunxian, and the young scholar Liang Qichao. A sample of reform. This reform was quickly promoted from the local to the central.The reformist intellectuals chose Emperor Guangxu, who had just been in power, as the "Emperor Meiji" in their minds. Through the study of the Meiji Restoration in Japan, Kang Youwei, the leader of the Restoration School, wrote "Research on the Political Change in Japan".Kang Youwei analyzed that: the modernization of the West took 500 years, but Japan completed it in only 20 years, a speed never before seen in the world.After the successful Meiji Restoration, Japan expanded and developed Ezo in the north, sent troops to the south to destroy Ryukyu, sent troops to the east to threaten Korea, and sent troops to the west to capture Taiwan.Japan has become a world-class power that can compete with Germany and France in Europe.If China wants to avoid extinction, it must follow the path of Japan's Meiji Restoration. In May and June 1898, Kang Youwei presented this book to Emperor Guangxu.Emperor Guangxu read this book carefully and decided to reform and save his life.On June 11, 1898, Emperor Guangxu promulgated the "Ming Ding State Affairs Edict", which started the Hundred Days Reform Movement of 1898. However, China does not have its own Peter the Great and Emperor Meiji, it only has a weak character and limited powers of Emperor Guangxu.A more important reason is that China's conservative forces are stronger than any other country.a big ship wants It must be much more difficult to turn around in a small creek than a small boat. In September 1898, former Japanese Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito came to China in an unofficial capacity to inspect the reform situation.Many reformers hoped to use his influence to promote reform in China.Timothy Lee, a British missionary and chief professor of Western at the Imperial University, even invited Emperor Guangxu to suggest that Ito Hirobumi be appointed Prime Minister of China. On September 20, Emperor Guangxu received Ito Hirobumi.This interview intensified the contradiction between the "Emperor Party" and the "Host Party", and also accelerated the abortion of the Reform Movement of 1898.On the second day after Ito Hirobumi met the emperor, the Empress Dowager Cixi launched a coup, imprisoned Guangxu, took back power, and hunted down and killed reformers. China still hasn't woken up, the lion just stretched and fell asleep again.Hurd, an Englishman who had been in charge of China's customs authority for many years, wrote in his diary: "Weng Tonghe asked me if I still had time to do the measures I had suggested to strengthen China's national power, such as reform, army, navy, finance, and bureaucracy. I told They, everything depends on what they can actually do in the future: if they are determined to start reforming tomorrow, today's loss is insignificant; but if they have no intention of promoting reform, today's loss is meaningless, just Throw pieces of meat at the pack of wolves to keep them from pursuing until the horse is exhausted." Two years later, China suffered an even heavier blow.This time, Japan is still involved in the attack on China.In the war of aggression against China by the Eight-Power Allied Forces triggered by the Boxer Rebellion, the most cold-blooded and brutal army was the Japanese army. When the Eight-Power Allied Forces occupied Beijing, which was abandoned by the Manchu Qing court, Li Hongzhang was once again chosen by history to become one of the signers of another even more humiliating and humiliating treaty - the "Xin Chou Peace Treaty". This time, Li Hongzhang could no longer support it.Only two months after the treaty was signed, he coughed up blood and died at Xianliang Temple in Beijing.In his later years, Li Hongzhang summed up his life's career, patted his chest and sighed: "I have done things all my life, including military training and navy. They are all paper tigers. When can I really let go of them? But it's just barely painted, and it's ostentatious. , perfunctory. It’s like a dilapidated house that has been patched up by a paper craftsman and turned into a clean room. Even if there are a few holes made by a small wind and rain, and they can be repaired at any time, you can still deal with it. If you want It was completely overthrown and rebuilt, and the necessary building materials were not prepared, and I did not know what transformation method to adopt. But how can the paper maker alone be responsible for such an ending?" Liang Qichao commented in the book: "Li Hongzhang does not understand the principles of the people, the general trend of the world, and the origin of politics." As the most outstanding figure of the Westernization School in the late Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang was like this. No wonder Liang Qichao sighed: "Think of the future of China. , I can't help but stand on end, but I don't know where it will end." The failure of the Reform Movement of 1898 did not shatter the enthusiasm of Chinese intellectuals for the Meiji Restoration in Japan, and Japan is still a shining example. Zhang Zhidong, an important minister in the late Qing Dynasty, discussed in "Encouraging Learning Part Two" that Japan is just a small country. Why did it become so powerful so quickly?Ito Hirobumi, Yamagata Aritomo, Mutsu Munemitsu and others are all students who went abroad to study twenty years ago.Angry that their country was threatened by the West, they led more than a hundred like-minded young people to study in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.Some studied politics and business, and some studied the navy and army. After returning to China, they all became pillars of the country.As a result, Japan's politics has undergone tremendous changes, and Japan has begun to look at the East. Japan is a ready-made teacher, and Japan is also a bridge for Chinese people to understand Western culture.Going to Japan to study abroad, as Zhang Zhidong said, can get twice the result with half the effort.Between 1900 and 1912, Japan was the destination of choice for young aspiring Chinese seeking a modern education abroad.Studying in Japan is easier, the cost is not high, and life is more comfortable than in Europe and North America.Japan has specially set up short-term training schools for Chinese students, the most popular of which are Xingwen Academy and Tongwen Academy. The Japanese entered the twentieth century with a full understanding of the intellectual resources of the nineteenth century, and with a strong and yet impassioned awareness of being a special image of Asia. After the turn of the century, the Japanese provided Chinese and other Asian students with more than just book knowledge.Japan is also a big school of lifestyle. In Japan, Chinese people can learn the social habits that civilized citizens of the modern world should have.As Liang Qichao said: "For those who come from the mainland, when they come to Hong Kong and Shanghai, their horizons change; the mainland is ugly and insignificant. When they come to Japan, their horizons change again; Hong Kong and Shanghai are ugly and insignificant." As soon as Chinese students landed in Yokohama, Kobe or Nagasaki, they hastily cut off their braids, a sign of political and cultural vulgarity.For Chinese international students, they are very sensitive to their ambiguous situation.On the one hand, Japan's astonishing success in emerging from its unequal status compared with the Western powers was an example for the Chinese to emulate.On the other hand, by the time the Chinese students arrived in Tokyo, Japan was already a full-fledged member of the imperialist club, and the Japanese propaganda apparatus was relentlessly mocking pigtailed, goofy Chinamen. Chinese youths who first arrive in Japan generally experience a psychological process of "culture shock".How to adapt to a more civilized and hygienic way of life, and how to defend one's own personal dignity and national dignity are difficult problems that every Chinese student studying abroad must face. At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the ups and downs of the number of students studying in Japan became a barometer of the ups and downs of Sino-Japanese relations, but the general trend is upward. In 1897, there were no more than a few dozen students studying in Japan, but in the winter of 1902-1903, the number of foreign students according to official statistics had reached 763.From 1904 to 1906, the boom in studying abroad reached its apex, and the growth was mainly due to Japan's victory over Russia and China's abolition of the imperial examinations.It is estimated that the number of students studying in Japan each year has reached 8,000 in recent years, exceeding the sum of the number of students studying in Western countries.They are all very young, with an average age of only about twenty-five.More than one-third of the foreign students were former cadets at the NCO Academy, where applicants were preparing to enter the Japanese Military Academy. Yuan Shikai, who was the governor of Zhili at that time, was a local official who actively implemented the New Deal.Yuan Shikai formulated specific measures for sending officials to travel in Japan, which clearly stipulated: "Except for those who have been in office for a long time and have not been ordered to leave their posts for those who are really lacking, the rest of the newly elected and supplemented staff will be sent to Japan at their discretion before they take office. With an allowance, I first traveled to Japan for a month. I visited the administrative and judicial departments and the general situation of the school industry. After the expiration of the period, I returned to my country and then went to a new post. I was ordered to submit a diary to prove my experience. After a few years, the local officials who went abroad will see each other The number of people will increase, and the New Deal will not cause separation.” The implementation of this policy made Zhili the pioneer of reform among the provinces. At the beginning of the 20th century, Japan's influence on China was pervasive in all aspects: China's education, military, police and prison system, legal, judicial and constitutional reforms all followed Japan's example. In 1905, with Japan's complete victory in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan's influence on China also reached its peak.Small Japan successfully defeated the huge Tsarist Russia. For most Chinese, it marked the victory of constitutional politics over dictatorship.Some Chinese intellectuals realized that white people are not inherently better than yellow people, the key lies in the political system adopted.Zhang Jian, who had inspected Japan's industry, education, and government, turned from imperial champion to constitutionalist leader.On June 4th, 1905, on an unusual day, Yuan Shikai, Zhang Zhidong, Zhou Fu and other officials from Xinjiang jointly petitioned for a constitution. In subsequent discussions on constitutionalism, the Japanese model became the first choice.In 1906, Timothy Lee claimed: "Beijing may be watching Tokyo. Obviously, Japan's influence on China's 18 provinces is constantly expanding. Japanese tourists, businessmen, teachers, and military instructors have no place in the empire. From far and wide. Thousands of descendants of the Chinese nobles and ruling class were educated in Japan, and after returning home, they learned what they learned in Japan and followed the example.” In 1907, the Manchu Qing government established the Constitutional Government Compilation Office, which was mainly responsible for drafting the outline of the constitution based on the Meiji Constitution as an example.It has more than 160 employees, 50 of whom are experts who have studied abroad or have participated in investigation teams, and 40 of these 50 people have been to Japan.What's more meaningful is that there are 29 people in the important bureau of the museum, and among the 19 people who have been to foreign countries, 16 people have been to Japan. In the first decade of the 20th century, Japan became China's largest cultural exporter.From 1901 to 1912, among the 533 works translated into Chinese from various languages, more than 60% were translated into Japanese.Many great intellectuals in modern China began to understand modern subjects by translating Japanese works.Zhang Taiyan, Cai Yuanpei, Wang Guowei, Liang Qichao and Lu Xun successively translated the works of important Japanese intellectuals since modern times Fukuzawa Yukichi, Kato Hiroyuki, Nakamura Masaomin, Nakae Zhaomin, Kotoku Shusui and others. A final aspect of the Japanese impact on emerging Chinese culture in the early twentieth century was that Japanese contributed to the creation of modern Chinese vocabulary in almost every area of ​​Chinese concern at the time.The changes in the Chinese language in the first few decades of the twentieth century were more dramatic than the changes in the nearly two thousand years from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty.For this change, for the change of the Chinese people's world view reflected in the language change, Japanese has played a great role. There are roughly three types of modern Chinese originating from Japanese: the first type is modern Chinese loanwords that are purely Japanese, such as service, policy, solution, application, imagination, etc.; the second type is that Japanese use ancient Chinese to translate European and American languages ​​and give them brand new Words with different meanings, such as feudalism, law, republic, economy, society, ideology, literature, and politics; the third category is the modern Chinese loanwords that Japanese use Chinese characters to free-translate European and American languages, and then transformed by Chinese, such as Fine art, abstraction, reality, principles, science, ideas, government, socialism, capitalism, etc. It can be said that the Chinese have learned a great deal from the Japanese, certain social customs of the wider world, certain elements of the natural and social sciences, certain history and politics, and certain sentiments even as spectators progress, determination and self-confidence. In the era of Japan as a bridge, China is an enthusiastic student, while Japan is a teacher with ulterior motives.Although there are many people in Japan who love China and support China's progressive cause, as far as the Japanese government and most Japanese are concerned, they do not hope that China will quickly embark on a road to becoming a powerful country like themselves.Japan's budding militarists discovered China's weakness, and this weakness inspired their ambition to invade China. In 1898, the Japanese statesman Konoe Atsumaro founded the East Asia Dobunkai. Forty years later, the school was upgraded to a university. This is the predecessor of today's Aichi University in Japan.The school also once opened a school called "Dongya Tongwen Academy" in Shanghai.The school places emphasis on Chinese language learning, and graduates have the opportunity to visit China for a year and write investigative reports.Later, these survey reports were compiled into the "China Economic Encyclopedia", which was regarded as a model for Chinese social and economic surveys.However, behind these cultural exchanges, there is the shadow of Japan's official "mainland policy".Many projects are funded by the military, which bluntly stated that scholars are studying "how to occupy China." At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Wang Tongling, an official from Zhili Province who was sent to Japan for investigation, pointed out in "Japan Inspection Notes" that Japan regarded itself as the leader of East Asia, and tried its best from all over the country to study political, legal, religious, education, history, geography, and literature. , art, industry, military, transportation and other angles, classified into categories, conducted investigation and research on China's national conditions, and published many works in this area.Among them, there are dozens of volumes in each set of books such as "Great Collection of Chinese Language" and "Complete Chronicles of China Province", and each volume has hundreds of thousands of words.Wang Tongling believes that the rigorous style of study of Japanese scholars and the methods of collecting and distributing information are certainly worth learning, but China should also be vigilant against Japan's wild aggressiveness. From the end of the nineteenth century until the eve of the Anti-Japanese War, Japanese cadets came to China to conduct social surveys during their holidays.These investigations were actually preparations for Japan's invasion of China and were funded by the Manchuria Railway Company.Groups of young and strong Japanese went deep into the cities and villages of China, and recorded information on the politics, economy, culture, geography and other aspects of Chinese society.To this day, Chinese sociologists are still amazed by the huge scale and first-class standard of this document, which is called the "Manchurian Railway Survey". In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, Japan helped China train military officers, modern teachers, and government administrators; at the same time, Japan also provided China with many sources of highly trained and experienced personnel.Of course, Japan did not do all this out of naive altruism or to repay the favors that China has given Japan in history.On the contrary, Japan has extremely cunning considerations of national interests and long-term infiltration strategies. In 1897, Fumio Tanino, who served as the Japanese Minister to China, played a pivotal role in many cooperations between China and Japan.In his secret letter to Japanese Foreign Minister Nishitoku Jiro the following year, he calculated the benefits of these activities for Japan: "If the new Chinese talents who have been influenced in Japan are distributed in the ancient empire, it is for the future to establish Japanese power in the East Asian continent. The best strategy; those who practice military preparations will not only imitate the Japanese military system in the future, but also rely on Japan for military equipment. There will be a close relationship with Japan, which is the ladder to expand Japanese industry and commerce in China. As for the students who specialize in law and politics, they will use Japan as a model and the criterion for China's future reform. If this is the case, not only will Chinese officials trust Japan, but it will be more than in the past Increased by twenty times, and can expand its influence in the mainland infinitely." Apparently, the "friendliness" of the Japanese authorities towards China is out of ulterior motives.An ambitious "Great East Asia" chessboard that encloses the whole of China has already begun to be laid out.However, among good Chinese people, there are not many people who are soberly aware of this dangerous situation. Who would have thought that the neighbor's veil of tenderness hides a bloody mouth?Who would have thought that behind the sweet words of a friend are poison and swords?