Guest's note: When I was a child, I walked through the Meijiang Bridge many times, so I recently wrote a special book to analyze the Meijiang Bridge. This article mainly talks about the fundraising process of Meijiang Bridge that year. Meijiang Bridge has just experienced the 616 flood peak, and it will experience a flood every year, and since it was built in 1934, she has experienced 90 years of ups and downs. See how the Hakka people from all over Nanyang and Meizhou worked together for a bridge in their hometown 90 years ago.
It's a fun and moving process. In addition to the Hakka people's values of loving the country and helping Sangzi, there were also the organizational and management capabilities of the people at that time, with clear responsibilities and division of labor, which successfully organized French missionary engineers, local gentlemen, elders of the League, officials, literati, young engineers who returned from their studies, overseas Chinese and consortia in Nanyang and Japan, and local people from all walks of life.
Even today, such a process is extremely rare to see, let alone the fact that they built a Jiaqiao with excellent aesthetics and quality.
Interestingly, what the Hakka knows, the descendants of these Hakka sages who are the main staff and have built bridges and have immeasurable merits have developed very well and lived happily.
Global Hakka Hall of Fame
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Tough fundraising
Zeng Hannan raised funds for the bridge, and 8,000 compatriots lost money to support him
After the organizational structure and responsible personnel of the bridge building committee are clear, they will begin to organize the budget and plan the source of funds for the construction of the bridge.
The budget was made by Fr. Gong Shanchuan, the chief designer and director of the construction project, who estimated that the cost of building the bridge would be about 120,000 silver dollars.
Peng Jingyi, the magistrate of Meixian County, recalled that according to the budget at that time, there were 13 holes in the whole bridge, and 14 bridges were full, and the average cost of each bridge was about 1,000 yuan.
Under Peng Jingyi's initiative, the construction of the bridge will show effective organizational power. The plan is: through fundraising, one person donates a single donation, or two people donate a building, and the inscription is on it to keep a memory. After the bridge is built, the bridge body will be built. "Building section by section, it is easy to succeed."
Mr. Lu Gengfu, a gentleman of the city, strongly agreed with this move, and immediately persuaded one or several wealthy gentry present to build a bridge together, thinking that he would advocate it.
Lu Gengfu (1870-1941), an elder of the League, was a famous gentry in Jiaying Prefecture at that time
Liao Yuansheng's brokerage pledged the first bridge pier fee, Chen Fuyuan pledged the second, the third was an anonymous pledge, and the fourth pile of Xiong Dexing on the north bank was built.
Here is a mention of Liao Yuansheng's business name, which is a hundred-year-old business name "Yuanshengjing", the owner Liao Biliang, and the "Yuanshengjing" cloth shop in Meicheng is mainly operated by his second son Liao Jianchen. Because the scale is fair, the real price is clear, the child is not deceived, honest and trustworthy and the business is prosperous. In 1927, during the "May 12" armed rebellion in Meixian County, "Yuan Shengjing" was seized along with the eight major businesses in Meicheng because it donated a large amount of money to support the revolution. In 1929, when the Red Fourth Army, under the leadership of Zhu De and Chen Yi, entered Meixian from Jiaoling, it raised military salaries from various famous merchants, and "Yuan Shengjing" donated 5,000 Guangyang and 150 pieces of sheep felt.
In 1931, when Meixian County was preparing to build the Meijiang Bridge, Liao Jianchen was the first to enthusiastically donate a bridge pier in the name of his father Liao Biliang. Later, he also donated funds to build the Mei (County) (Shi) Zheng Highway and the West District Market of Mei County. The fire brigade was formed, the electric light industry was created, and overseas Chinese were contacted to fund sports, and the Meixian Qiangmin Sports Association was established in 1939, with Liao Jianchen as the honorary president. In 1940, the "Jianchen Cup" football match was held.
Previously, Kemingjun mentioned in "Meizhou Football History" that Liao Aizhen, the president of the Meixian Chamber of Commerce, who donated to the Eastern Expeditionary Army during Zhou Enlai's Eastern Expedition to Meixian, is the cousin of Liao Biliang, the owner of Liao Yuansheng's firm, with his grandfather. (See the picture of Hakka |.) That year, Zhou Enlai led the Eastern Expeditionary Army to fight in Meizhou, and the two Eastern Crusades brought rain)
Liao Aizhen (1885-1949), who admired literature and martial arts since childhood, inherited the ancestral business of Kaiyuan Shengxia cloth shop when he was a little older. From 1922 to 1927, he was the president of the Meixian Chamber of Commerce. In 1925, Zhou Enlai led the Eastern Expeditionary Army to Meimei, and he organized a welcome meeting for the Chamber of Commerce as the president of the Chamber of Commerce. Liao Aizhen, on behalf of her business colleagues, donated 10,000 Guangyang to the Eastern Expeditionary Army led by Zhou Enlai to express the Meixian Chamber of Commerce's heart for the revolution. After the meeting, Zhou Enlai also took a group photo with all members of the General Chamber of Commerce at the Liao Clan Ancestral Hall.
On April 26, 1925, the 9th Welcome Conference of Meixian Chamber of Commerce took a group photo
The person wearing a red scarf in the middle of the front row is Zhou Enlai, and the person in dark clothes on the left behind him is Liao Aizhen, then president of the Meixian Chamber of Commerce
(This group photo is now in the collection of the Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History in Beijing)
After the Eastern Expeditionary Army returned to Guangzhou, the remnants of the warlord Chen Jiongming made a comeback and coerced the Meixian Chamber of Commerce to donate 10,000 Guangyang. The Kuomintang later sealed the "Yuan Shengfu" cloth shop and arrested Liao Aizhen. The hundred-year-old store was sealed, which caused a sensation in Meicheng at the time, and Liao Aizhen, under the cover of the underground trade union, took refuge in Hong Kong overnight via Jiangxi.
The Catholic Church of Fr. Gong Shancun, the chief designer of the Meijiang Bridge, and Fr. Lai Jialu, the design consultant, also donated funds for the construction of the bridge.
Born in Lyon, France, in 1866, the design consultant of the Meijiang district, the missionary Fr. Lai Jialu, was born in Lyon, France, and was originally a wealthy son who graduated from a seminary and had a special interest in linguistics and architectural engineering.
Fr. Lai Jialu
Father Lai came to China in 1889 and preached in Jiaying and Chaoshan Hakka areas in eastern Guangdong for more than 50 years, first to Huangtang in Meixian County, then to Jiaoling, then to Pingyuan, then to Shantou, Lufeng, Hong Kong, Wujingfu, and finally buried his bones in the West Wujingfu, and dedicated the rest of his life to the Hakka people.
He edited and published books such as "Hakka Law Dictionary" and "Hakka Dialect Conversation", and is also famous for bridge design in eastern Guangdong. It was he who wrote the astonishing situation of the development of education in Meizhou in the preface of the book, so that the world could understand the education situation in Meizhou at that time.
"Rao Liebo, Xie Xintai and several others pledged to donate as many as four or five bridges" (see Peng Jingyi's memoirs). Chen Jixuan, Chen Yinan, Hou Xiulan, Wu Zengshou, Xiong Youlin, Liao Biliang, Anonymous, Catholic Church, Xiong De Daxing and Xiong Zhiwu, Xiong Dexing, Liu Pinsan, Liu Shengji, Xiong Pengchu, Mrs. Hou Guang, Zi Huosheng, Huang Yinmei, Lai Yongxiang, Rao Linfang, Pan Zhime and others each bear the construction cost of at least one pier through donations or persuasion.
Later, after the bridge was built, each one was engraved with the name of the donor, and even anonymous people used circles instead of records to record their merits (see Li Jinrang's article "The Past and Present Life of Meijiang Bridge"), and the Hakka people are very particular about gratitude.
When there was a shortage of funds on the way, Huang Rongqiao also introduced Xiongde Daxing (the largest rice store in Meixian County at that time, the boss Xiong Jihong), Jinshengzhuang, Huang Changyuan and other firms borrowed money one after another.
Despite this, the cost of building the bridge was still insufficient, and on several occasions it was almost abandoned due to financial problems. In order to raise funds for the construction of the bridge, Mr. Zeng Hannan took the lead in raising funds in Nanyang.
In 1934, the dragon boat race scene on the Meijiang River, in the background is the half-built Meijiang Bridge.
(Picture from "Meixian Grand View")
Zeng Hannan passed through Shantou by boat, and happened to meet the local Meixian fellow villagers who would have a banquet for Hu Wenhu, the king of Nanyang panacea. During the banquet, Hu Wenhu heard that he did not express his position at that time, and expressed his willingness to donate the latter money the next day, on the condition that he would establish the Yongan Wanjin Oil trademark at the Meijiang bridgehead, and create a tiger and a leopard with open teeth.
Ke Mingjun wrote "The History of Meizhou Football" to understand some historical details of the Meizhou Asian football king Li Huitang leading the team to the Olympic Games, and this kind of permeable commercialization is a characteristic of Hu's donation.
Hu Wenhu's son, Hu Hao, sponsored part of the funds for the Chinese football team led by Li Huitang to compete in the 1948 Olympics, and also asked to use the Tiger Plane as the background of the team's group photo, insert the players of his own Sing Tao team to participate, and use the name of the team to use the name of Sing Tao (in the end, this request was also rejected by the national football team).
The Hu Wenhu family is good at permeable marketing, and its commercial advertisements have a strong and concrete visual impact, but if this kind of fanged giant beast stands on the edge of the Meijiang River in Meicheng as an advertisement, the picture will inevitably contradict the traditional image of Meicheng.
As a result, Zeng Hannan, the director of Meijiang Bridge, declined Hu Wenhu's donation on the spot.
When the overseas Chinese businessmen in Meixian County heard about this, they all contributed money to the construction of the Meijiang Bridge.
Among them, there is a woman who is touching, she is Mrs. Hou Guang, and the people of Meixian County call her Hou Bomu. Peng Jingyi recalled: "I got a donation of 10,000 yuan from Guangde Bohm, the mother of Mr. Hou Huosheng, an overseas Chinese from Indonesia, and raised more than 10,000 yuan on behalf of him."
"Meixian Construction Meijiang Bridge Credit Record" records Hou Guangbom's merits. In the 11th year of the Republic of China, the Meixian edition of the "Hou Family Genealogy" recorded that Hou Guangbomu's surname was Gu, born in 1866, a native of Hangzhou, married to Hou Guang, a native of Meitang Village, Triangle Town, Meijiang District, and then followed his husband to make a living in Nanyang, and his eldest son Hou Huosheng engaged in the water guest business and achieved a little success.
The Meitang Hou family has a family style of benevolence, and during the Kangxi period, the Wanfu Bridge (commonly known as the Meitang Bridge) was donated on the side of the mountain pond in Meitang Village. "Meixian Construction Meijiang Bridge Credit Record" said that Hou Guangbom "knew etiquette and righteousness in his life, was diligent and thrifty, taught his husband and children, did his best, and was kind and good, and there was no shortage of people in the township."
Hou Guangbom and Hou Huosheng's mother and son generously donated thousands of silver dollars to participate in the construction of the second and third bridge piers on the north bank, and ran for the construction of the Meijiang Bridge in Nanyang through their connections, raising more than 12,000 silver dollars, and resolving the bridge construction fund crisis many times. There are portraits of Hou Guangbom in the old stele pavilion and the reconstructed monument pavilion of Meijiang Bridge.
After overseas Chinese in Meixian County, Jakarta, Indonesia learned of the need for funds for the construction of the Meijiang Bridge, the local Yanluo British Drama Club held a charity performance and raised 2,100 yuan from Dayang to donate all the money to build the bridge. Overseas Chinese in Meixian County issued three lottery tickets in Nanyang, and received 21,223 yuan from Dayang for the construction of the bridge.
"In the end, Mr. Pan Zhi, the leader of the bridge in Japan, donated 10,000 yuan to make it happen", Mr. Pan Zhiwu finally covered the rest of the cost of the bridge, and also purchased all the steel and cement needed from Hong Kong and transported the materials back to Meixian.
(For Pan Zhi, a sage in Nankou Township, see the article What was Nankou Township in Meixian County in the childhood of world-famous quantum chemist Pan Yugang?) Travel back in time to see the feng shui and characters of that time).
Pan ZhiI (1885-1953) was a patriotic overseas Chinese, industrialist, and philanthropist from the south entrance of Meixian County. In 1907 (the third year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty), at the beckoning of Pan Xiangchu, a relative of the clan, Qiu Maorong and other six people went to the Yoshida factory in Higashi-gun, Osaka, Japan in April to learn textile bleaching and dyeing technology, and a few months later transferred to the Tokyo Weaving School to study.
In the winter of 1912, Pan ZhiI went to Hong Kong to obtain the support of his clan relatives Pan Junmian and Pan Yinting, raised 100,000 yuan, and opened the "Winning Peace" company in Kobe in April 1913. Its business expanded to Jakarta, Medan, Bangladesh, Shanghai, Hong Kong and other cities in Indonesia, becoming the largest business among overseas Chinese in Kobe.
Zeng Hannan rejected the wealthy Hu Wenhu boss and continued to run for the rest of the bridge deck funds. When Pan Zhi and I returned to my hometown, Zeng Hannan went to visit and described in detail the difficulties encountered in building the bridge, and immediately received his generous promise, and finally Pan Zhi and I donated 15,000 silver dollars for the construction of the bridge.
Pan Zhi's handwriting, mentioning that the people of Meixian County refused Hu Wenhu's donation (picture from Li Jinrang's "Years Like a Song: Dreaming Back to the Past and Present Life of Meijiang Bridge")
The cost of building the Meijiang Bridge was raised while it was being built. At one point, it almost stopped because of the lack of fees. According to statistics, by the completion of the bridge, a total of more than 8,100 people and overseas Chinese from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, South Africa and other countries and regions have donated generously, with a cumulative donation of more than 112,300 silver dollars.
These names are listed in detail in the "Meixian Construction Meijiang Bridge Credit Record" at that time, from the donation of up to 15,000 silver ocean to the donation of one yuan and a few dimes, a total of more than 8,100 people are listed.
The photos and names of the main donors were engraved on the merit monument pavilion built at the north end of the bridge at that time. When it was expanded in 1956, the stele pavilion was dismantled during the construction process, and the stele was lost and the inscription was obliterated because it was not rebuilt in time.
At the end of the 80s of the last century, the government, the village sages and the vast number of overseas Chinese all hope to rebuild the stele pavilion, after more than two years of searching, Liu Jinqing, Huang Bingliang and other enthusiastic people finally found the book "Meixian County Construction Meijiang Bridge Credit Record" in the Zhongshan Library in Guangzhou, so that all the information and the names of more than 8,100 donors who built the bridge were prepared in detail. In December 1991, the municipal government rebuilt the stele pavilion on the south and west side of Meijiang Bridge in accordance with the content of the original stele pavilion, and reinlaid the name to hang down for future generations.
In December 1991, the municipal government rebuilt the stele pavilion on the south and west side of Meijiang Bridge in accordance with the content of the original stele pavilion for future generations to admire.
Compatriots at home and abroad lost money, and the pedestrian bridge decks on both sides were finally completed. However, the materials of the middle bridge deck were not settled due to the leakage of the budget, and the original design of the bridge deck was passed by cars, and the board of directors negotiated with the two companies of Mei She and Mei Palace, hoping to invest in the continuation of the construction, but the funds of the two companies were not abundant, and finally they could only lay wooden planks as the bridge deck for temporary use. After liberation, it was changed from government funding to reinforced concrete. (Huang Shuiquan, Liang Dexin: Anecdote of Old Meicheng).