As everyone knows, Chiang Kai-shek was once the leader of the Kuomintang and an important figure in the development of the Kuomintang and modern history. However, many people do not know that these four people have a higher status than Chiang Kai-shek and can be called the four elders within the Kuomintang, they are Cai Yuanpei, Zhang Jingjiang, Wu Zhihui, and Li Shizeng.
President of Peking University - Cai Yuanpei
Cai Yuanpei was a Qing Guangxu person, who took the exam at the age of 22, won the lift, and became a gongshi the following year. In 1984, the Sino-Japanese War broke out, during which Time Cai Yuanpei came into contact with Western ideas, he was concerned about the country, began to realize the evil of feudal and conservative ideas, and sympathized with the Restoration.
Four years later, Cai Yuanpei returned to his hometown of Shaoxing to open a school. He was very successful in the field of education, reforming feudal education, carrying out innovations in many fields such as philosophy, literature, and aesthetics, and promoting democratic ideas.
In 1902, Cai Yuanpei founded the Chinese Education Association and served as its president, and the following year, he founded the Guangfu Association, which openly began to oppose the Qing Dynasty and resist Russian aggression. In 1905, Cai Yuanpei joined the League and served as the head of the Shanghai area, with Sun Yat-sen as the president.
However, Cai Yuanpei did not exert too much ambition in the revolution, and after the failure of the second revolution, he began to focus on education, hoping to promote the revolutionary process from the ideological field.
In December 1916, Cai Yuanpei became the president of Peking University, and he used the advanced ideas he learned in his teaching, proposing "freedom of thought and inclusiveness". This idea greatly advanced the new cultural movement and advanced the pace of the democratic revolution a lot.
In more than ten years at Peking University, Cai Yuanpei has not only improved the teaching mechanism, but also found famous lecturers such as Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, Xu Beihong and so on for the school, and through efforts to turn the former ordinary college into a world-class institution. He produced many excellent students for the revolution, promoted the new cultural movement, and developed new democracy. After the founding of the Republic of China, Cai Yuanpei promoted educational reform.
He was very supportive of Chiang Kai-shek's "anti-communism," but he was not in favor of killing the Communists. Later, he rescued the communists who were arrested many times, and the one who had been rescued by him was Comrade Yang Kaihui, the wife of Mao Zedong.
Cai made indelible contributions to modern education, the War of Resistance Against Japan, and the Democratic Revolution, and in 1940, Cai Yuanpei died in Hong Kong at the age of 72.
Rich man Zhang Jingjiang
Zhang Jingjiang, one of the four elders of the Kuomintang, can be called Sun Yat-sen's "money bag". In 1877, Zhang Jingjiang was born in Jiangnan, his father was a famous businessman, the family was a big business, after his death, Zhang Jingjiang inherited the family's business and became a local rich man.
But he did not covet pleasure, but was concerned about the revolution, acted heroically, often helped the poor people, and was deeply praised by the people. Due to the wealth of his family, he had the opportunity to be exposed to advanced Western ideas from an early age.
In 1902, Zhang Jingjiang met Sun Yat-sen on his way to France. During the conversation between the two men, Zhang Jingjiang was shocked by Sun Yat-sen's anti-Qing thoughts and was also infected by his thoughts. Immediately, he gave 30,000 taels of silver to Sun Yat-sen to support his revolutionary work.
In 1905, Zhang Jingjiang met Sun Yat-sen again on a steamship, and this time, they became close friends. From then on, Zhang Jingjiang fully supported Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary work, raised funds for him, and did not hesitate to pull out his own pocket whenever he needed money.
Later, Zhang Jingjiang joined the League, and after the establishment of the Republic of China, Zhang Jingjiang donated a huge amount of money to the indigent Provisional Government, which solved Sun Yat-sen's urgent needs. Sun Yat-sen greatly appreciated this "rich and powerful" friend, and it can be said that without the support of Zhang Jingjiang, it would be difficult to have the later Sun Yat-sen.
In 1914, Zhang Jingjiang became minister of finance of the Republic of China and later founded the Shanghai Stock Exchange. He had a great friendship with Sun Yat-sen, and when Sun Yat-sen was seriously ill, Zhang Jingjiang stayed by his side every day to take care of him. Soon after, Sun Yat-sen died, and Zhang Jingjiang was devastated.
At the Third Plenary Session of the Second Central Committee of the Kuomintang, Zhang Jingjiang served as chairman of the Standing Committee of the Central Executive Committee, but he could not identify with Chiang Kai-shek's ideas and often became entangled with him. In his later years, Zhang Jingjiang chose to convert to Buddhism and quit politics, and Zhang Jingjiang died in 1950 at the age of 73.
Wu Zhihui and Li Shizeng
There are not many records of Wu Zhihui and Li Shizeng in history, and their influence in politics is average, but they are excellent educators.
After the Sino-Japanese War, Wu Zhihui realized the corruption of the Qing government and began to devote himself to the revolution. Wu Zhihui once organized the Patriotic Society with Cai Yuanpei and others, and in 1905, he met Sun Yat-sen and subsequently joined the League. In the years that followed, Wu Zhihui threw himself into the anti-Qing and anti-Yuan Shikai movements.
In 1911, Wu Zhihui began to devote himself to education, advocating work-study. Later, he founded the "bean sprout alphabet", which promoted the development of Chinese character pinyin.
He was also known as the "Elder of false names", and Chiang Kai-shek assigned him many positions in the National Government during his tenure, but all of them were false names. Wu Zhihui hung up his official name, did not work, and only received a salary.
Li Shizeng was born in the late Qing Dynasty, the son of a Qing dynasty official eunuch. He was a well-known educator who participated in the creation of the Palace Museum. In 1917, at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei, Li Shizeng taught at Peking University. In 1924, Li Shizeng and Wu Zhihui jointly became members of the Kuomintang Central Control Commission.
Both of them were very supportive of Chiang Kai-shek and the "anti-communist Qing Communists", and after the defeat of the Kuomintang, both of them were taken to Taiwan, where they eventually spent their lives.
epilogue
Although the four of them stood against our Party, they did a lot of things to hurt our Party. However, it is undeniable that their existence has greatly promoted the development of China's educational undertakings.