On August 28, 2018, No. 30 Weidian Hutong in Xicheng District, Beijing completed the vacation, and all 30 families in the courtyard moved out.
The hustle and bustle of the courtyard is not the original memory of this small two-story building. For nearly a hundred years, cement has peeled off, walls are mottled, cracks appear at the base of doorposts, wooden stairs bend downwards, influx of tenants divide the space, and debris crowds the courtyard and buildings... However, the three words "Beijing News Pavilion" on the lintel plaque can still be recognized, and the person with the inscription is still remembered.
A museum is planned here to commemorate Shao Piaoping, the director of the Beijing News, who once wielded a knife here.
The old Beijing News Building after the retreat is awaiting renovation
Shao Piaoping
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At 7:00 p.m. on May 3, 1919, the Great Hall of Law and Science of Peking University was crowded, and Shao Piaoping, in the face of more than a thousand young students, lamented the diplomatic failure at the Paris Peace Conference and the reasons for it, and generously exclaimed: "Now that the national crisis is in one fell swoop, if we wait in silence, the nation will have no way to save it and only perish." Peking University is the highest institution of learning, and it should stand up and mobilize the students of all schools to save the lives and fight. ”
As soon as the words fell, the emotions of the crowd intensified, and Xie Shaomin, a law student, bit his middle finger on the spot and wrote a blood book "Return Me to Qingdao"; Liu Renjing, a preparatory student in the Department of Physics, took out a kitchen knife and threatened to commit suicide on the spot to encourage the Chinese people, but was blocked by his classmates; and the student representatives took the stage one after another to speak, sometimes bursting into tears. As a result, the resolution of the "May Fourth" demonstration took shape in the boiling blood of young students, and Shao Piaoping herself was deeply touched, and after returning to the newspaper hall, she could not sleep at night, and wrote a message and a commentary to express her expectations and encouragement for the "May Fourth" movement.
Why did the president of The Beijing News appear at the patriotic rally of Peking University students and give a speech first? Shao Piaoping's identity in the rally is actually "lecturer of the Peking University Journalism Research Association".
Before the rally, Shao Piaoping came to Classroom 34 of the Red House on the Beach or Classroom 16 of Science every Sunday to teach interview classes for half a year. Although he is not a Peking University person, he is very compatible with the spirit of Peking University.
In the spring of 1918, Shao Piaoping heard that Cai Yuanpei planned to set up a "press lecture" and thought that it would help cultivate talents for the domestic press, so she wrote to Cai Yuanpei to promote this matter. On October 14, the Peking University Journalism Research Association was established, filling the gap in China's journalism education and research.
Group photo of Peking University Journalism Research Association (Shao Piaoping is the third place in the left of the middle row)
Since November 3, Shao Has been employed to teach at the Seminar, initially one hour per week, and in February of the following year, it was increased to two hours per week. Xu Baohuang, another mentor of the research association, taught journalism theory, and the work of teaching interviewing skills and tutoring members in internships was all undertaken by Shao Piaoping.
Shao Piaoping began writing a newsletter for Shanghai Declaration at the age of 22, and when she served as a tutor of the research association, she had more than ten years of practical experience in journalism, and she was naturally at ease in talking about the practice of the newspaper industry. At that time, the labor movement was in the ascendant, and in an interview explaining the "League Strike", he listed twenty-nine interviews in one go, such as "the name of the general representative who contacted the factory", the broad-minded one such as "the impact of business and the public", and the "the living expenses of the strikers' strike" entries, which implied the warm sympathy and care of a reporter.
Under his influence, many members of the Journalism Research Association entered factories across the country to investigate, and some of the survey reports were included in the May 1920 "New Youth" special number "Labor Day Commemoration", which Was an example of "Shanxi Labor Situation" co-organized by Gao Junyu and a Taiyuan friend.
At that time, Mao Zedong, who was working as an assistant in the Peking University Library, was also a member of the Journalism Research Society. He listened to Shao Piaoping's lectures for half a year, and was impressed by Shao Piaoping's character of "reporters should uphold justice and not be afraid of sacrifice", "chivalrous, brave, honest, and diligent", often interacting with him after class, and receiving help from him when the economy was in difficulty.
In 1936, Mao Zedong talked with the American journalist Snow about his days at Peking University, and fondly recalled Shao Piaoping: "He was a lecturer at the Journalism Society, a liberal, a person with warm ideals and good qualities. ”
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In Shao Piaoping's time, the press generally valued commentary and despised interviews, but he did not think so. Whether he was lecturing or running a newspaper, he regarded "exploring the facts and not deceiving readers" as the first creed of the news, and the "Beijing Daily", which mainly published news news rather than political theories, was his experimental place. As for the "recorded" practice that was popular in the press at that time, he even lashed out, believing that it was purely irresponsible.
Shao Piaoping's Beijing News
Exploring the facts is not an easy task, but Shao Piaoping seems to be born with a good grasp of this. Zhang Jiluan, a newspaperman, commented that he "had to work in interviews," and even if he was a high-ranking official who hated meeting reporters, he had a way to "make him have to see, see, and talk." He knocked on the side to get the news.
When Duan Qirui's cabinet met to discuss the "JinFarang case", Shao Piaoping wanted to know the details of the meeting as soon as possible. However, since it was spontaneously published, the "Beijing Daily" has attacked various newspapers and periodicals for pretending to be deaf and dumb about various crimes of the government after collecting the "allowance fee" of the Beiyang government, and has long been regarded as a thorn in the side of the cabinet. Shao Piaoping rented a small car, waited in an inconspicuous place outside the government gate, and when the French minister's car entered the door, she immediately followed the car to enter, and the doorman thought that they were walking together and did not stop them.
The next day, the details of the meeting were revealed by the Beijing News and the disk, and Duan Qirui colluded with the great powers to secretly sign and agree to France's plan to calculate the indemnity of Gengzi with devalued francs, and the secret negotiations were made public. Cabinet politicians were stunned and wondered how the conspiracy leaked out.
The basis of loyalty to the truth is to maintain the independent newspaper personality of the Beijing Daily, so as not to become the mouthpiece of politicians, parties and even great powers. To this end, the Beijing News set a precedent for newspapers to publish advertisements. Economically independent, and with the aim of "making the government obey the orders of the people before the will of the people" in the publication, one hot article after another was printed in black and white, and the sound was thrown loudly.
The Beijing Daily strives to break through the shackles of speech, and Shao Piaoping herself is not limited to collecting news. He did not record the interview, only chatted as usual, but put valuable information into the "stomach", returned home, often overjoyed: "Quick, take a pen and paper, my stomach is about to burst!" ”
On March 18, 1926, the Duan Qirui government shot the people on the patriotic march, and the "March 18" massacre broke out. On the same day, after hearing the news, Shao Piaoping immediately sent news reporters and photojournalists to the scene to interview the people and shops near the scene of the incident, looking for witnesses and survivors; she herself visited and inquired about the military, police, state council, and other authoritative personnel from various quarters.
The military and civilians of the "March 18" massacre
On the 23rd, at the "Memorial Conference for the Martyrs of the March 18th", Chen Yi, chairman of the conference, made a generous statement and denounced the authorities, but after the speech, the venue fell silent, and no one continued to speak. The harsh situation has forced people to be careful and cautious in their words and deeds.
At this time, Shao Piaoping strode up to the podium with her head held high, took over Chen Yi's topic, analyzed the cause and effect of the tragedy, and spoke out in righteousness. And this speech, in the frenzy of public opinion set off by Shao Piaoping for the "March 18" massacre, was nothing more than a wave.
When the Beijing News was opened, there were only two people in the entire newspaper, Shao Piaoping and Pan Gongbi, and later added a little assistant, and the scale did not exceed ten people. Due to the limited manpower, after the tragedy occurred, Shao Piaoping did not sleep for two consecutive days and two nights, went out to interview during the day, and worked hard at night to write a book, and in two consecutive issues of the "Beijing News", she used two full-page pages to report on the tragedy in depth.
The follow-up report lasted for more than a month, during which Time Shao Piaoping wrote 112 news and comments, and published 18 articles in a single day on March 22 alone. Shao Piaoping also asked Lu Xun to publish three articles in the Beijing News Supplement to help this public opinion battle.
In the face of the "March 18" massacre, the "Beijing Daily" either recorded, or denounced, or satirized, or meditated, and in the beijing newspapers and periodicals, it seemed to be Mu XiuYulin.
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On April 15, 1926, the Nationalist Army was defeated, the Fengzhi warlords pounced on Beijing, the public opinion situation took a sharp turn for the worse, and Shao Piaoping was also on Zhang Zuolin's arrest warrant.
The coercion of power, Shao Piaoping is no stranger.
As early as the age of twenty-seven or eight, when he was the chief writer of the "Hanmin Daily" in Jiangnan, he was imprisoned three times for the persecution of local officials, and finally had to flee to Japan. But he seemed to be getting more frustrated, dissecting himself in a letter to his wife: "I want to die as a journalist." Soon after, in 1915, when he saw the detailed disclosure of the "Twenty-One Articles" by foreign telecommunications, he immediately took a telegram to inform the domestic press circles, setting off a climax of "defending the country and overthrowing Yuan".
After the May Fourth Movement in 1919, Shao Piaoping was also wanted by warlords because the Beijing Daily ridiculed the authorities for leaving no room. At that time, the newspaper house was surrounded, Shao Piaoping escaped over the wall, took shelter for a while in the Six Nations Hotel in Minxiang, the eastern suburbs, then put on a wide-brimmed hat, changed into a short suit, dressed as an ordinary worker, fled all the way to Fengtai, took a car to Tianjin, transferred to Shanghai, and finally fled to Japan again for refuge. During his second six months in Japan, he stayed at a temple in Osaka and read advanced works such as "On Socialism" and "Socialist Studies".
The Six Nations Hotel in Minxiang, an eastern suburb
This time, in the face of the menacing Warlord of the Feng clan, he rented a room in the Six Kingdoms Hotel to hide, trying to avoid the front for a while. A few days later, on April 24, he heard that the limelight had passed, so he rushed back to the museum in the evening, and as a precaution, quickly finished handling the affairs and left to return to the eastern suburbs of Minxiang.
As soon as she left Wei Dye Hutong, Shao Piaoping was stopped by a detective and escorted to the police station, and the Beijing News Museum was immediately surrounded and searched.
From the early morning to the middle of the night the next day, the press rushed to intercede for him, but Zhang Zuolin's murderous heart had moved, and the matter was irreparable.
In the early morning of April 26, Shao Piaoping was escorted to the overpass for secret shooting, wearing a robe and satin shoes, laughing wildly and being generous.
Shao Piaoping's wife, Tang Xiuhui, was grounded in the newspaper hall, heard the bad news, and fainted in grief. A few days ago, she had advised Shao Piaoping to "say a few words and write a few less articles", but Shao Piaoping replied to her: "I want to write, I want to say, and I want to talk when I die!" It's just that after I left, I embarrassed you. The two men faced each other in the candlelight of the newspaper hall, helpless, and in tears.
His wife was grounded, her peers did not dare to come forward, and in the end, only a few friends in the opera industry collected Shao Piaoping's body. Han Shichang, who sang Kunqu opera, took out two hundred silver dollars and entrusted him to collect and bury Shao Piaoping, known as "Yiling", and the famous Peking Opera horned horse Lianliang also came forward to help and personally took pictures of his martyrdom.
On Shao Piaoping's fortieth birthday, these pear garden friends were still talking and laughing with him in Wei Dye Hutong, singing for him to celebrate his birthday, but less than a year later, they were separated by yin and yang. Xun Huisheng, a famous actor in Peking Opera, sighed: "I didn't expect to become a yong trick for this." Life is like a dew, and the thoughts are gloomy. ”
Ma Lianliang's body of Shao Piaoping (bullet hole under the right eye)
In 1928, Tang Xiuhui reunited a group of journalists and restarted the "Beijing News", although the influence was no longer as good as before, but the purpose and boldness of "News to Save the Country" were in line with the original "Beijing News", and they were published daily. On July 28, 1937, the last issue of The Beijing News was published, the day before the fall of Peiping.
Many years ago, Shao Zhenqing, a young man in Zhejiang, took "Piaoping" as his pen name, and his old friend Bao Tianxiao advised him: "These two words are not good, and they have a frivolous meaning." ”
Shao Zhenqing replied: "Life is like a broken stem, why not?" ”
A lifetime of wandering, not a party, although easy to wither, but before the wind and rain, there is nothing more free than the broken duckweed, and nothing more moving than the sound of freedom.