Text: Li Law lectures on the law
The statements in this article are based on reliable sources, and are repeated at the end of the article
It has been almost 80 years since the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and looking back on the past, we can never forget those martyrs who sacrificed their lives and sacrificed their lives for the country, still less can we forget the hundreds of millions of Chinese sons and daughters who fought bloodily, and we must not forget those who were willing to be the eagle dogs of Japanese imperialism with the blood of their compatriots on their hands.
Among these sinners through the ages is one person, he is a notorious traitor, but the four words he wrote down with his pen have been passed down to this day, and can even be seen on the streets and alleys, which can be said to be famous for centuries.
Who is this man? What exactly did he write?
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Brilliant
This person is Zheng Xiaoxu, who was promoted in 1882 as Xie Yuan, he was not only born in a bureaucratic family, but also his relatives and friends are mostly high-ranking officials and nobles, which also makes Zheng Xiaoxu have been educated in feudal culture since he was a child, but he is very literary, otherwise he would not have won the first place in the township examination.
His father-in-law was a world friend with Li Hongzhang, which also made him successfully become Li Hongzhang's staff, during which he had a close relationship with Yan Fu, and also taught Yan Fu's children to read, and was also appreciated by Li Hongzhang.
In the 20s of the last century, there was a saying that "the north is in the south of Zheng", which is the honorific title of Zheng Xiaoxu in the calligraphy world.
During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, many people asked him to engrave a tablet or make a plaque, and even sometimes the orders issued by Guangxu were written by Zheng Xiaoxu, such as the inscription on the ancestral hall of Lin Zexu built in 1905 was written by Zheng Xiaoxu, which is enough to show that his status in the calligraphy world is extraordinary.
Zheng Xiaoxu's calligraphy attainments are profound, his calligraphy style is strong, each word seems to be an independent life, full of strength and vitality, the glyph strokes are thin and hard and flexible, and give people a sense of beauty that is both rigid and soft. Xu Zhimo, Lin Yutang and many other Chinese and foreign celebrities have studied from him, and it can be said that Zheng Xiaoxu has had a profound influence on them.
In 1908, Liang Shiyi, the founder of the Bank of Communications, wanted to find someone to make a name for the bank, and someone recommended Zheng Xiaoxu to him. After hearing this, Zheng Xiaoxu did not immediately agree, but offered a high price, 4,000 taels of silver.
4,000 taels of silver was a huge amount of money in those days, and even now it is a lot of money, but I didn't expect Liang Shiyi to agree without thinking about it. So Zheng Xiaoxu raised his hand and wrote down the four big words "Bank of Communications", which can be seen everywhere on the street now.
Looking at it this way, Zheng Xiaoxu's one word is worth a thousand taels, is his word really so valuable?
In 1915, he only wrote two words under the first edition of "Etymology" and charged a pen fee of 500 taels of silver, and the Commercial Press even took out 10,000 taels of silver to ask Zheng Xiaoxu to inscribe the name of the museum, and five words of 10,000 taels are worth 2,000 taels of one word. But after writing it, I encountered something that didn't go well, and I immediately burned Mobao, and I didn't want 10,000 taels of silver.
In Chen Chenyi's "Remembering Zheng Xiaoxu", it was mentioned that the writer's spirit, qi, bones, flesh, and blood are all indispensable, and all of them are of the highest quality. Zheng Xiaoxu's words are full and explicit, and he is undoubtedly a model of "complete".
"Zheng Yimei's Selected Works" also commented that he studied Yan Zhenqing in his early years, and later studied many calligraphers in the Tang and Song dynasties, which is similar to Zhu Xi's calligraphy.
From the evaluation of everyone, it can be seen that Zheng Xiaoxu's calligraphy can have a place in history, and he himself can be called a generation of grandmasters, but why has this person rarely heard of it? This can be seen in his behavior in his later years.
A Thousand Old Sinners
In 1891, Li Jingfang, the son of Li Hongzhang, was ordered to go to Japan, and when he was leaving, Li Jingfang sent a letter to Zheng Xiaoxu to accompany him and let him serve as the secretary of the embassy in Japan. During this time, he served as consul in Kobe and Osaka, and talked to people from all walks of life in Japan, which also laid the foundation for the rest of his life.
After the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, Zheng Xiaoxu was ordered to return to China and was entrusted with important tasks by the Qing court, successively served as the Minister of Commerce and Mining, the commander of the Guangxi Wu Jianjun, and the political history of Hunan, until the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising.
Zheng Xiaoxu's mood was complicated and fluctuating due to the great changes in the history of the Xinhai Revolution, he was full of confusion about the future and personal origin of the Qing Dynasty, and he was afraid that China would be carved up again by imperialism and that a situation of "using China to contain China" would appear, but he did not know that he himself would fall at the feet of Japanese imperialism in the future and become the leader of the traitors.
During his stay in Shanghai, he was not satisfied with living a life of "a Qing Dynasty relic", and always wanted to achieve a dream, that is, the restoration of the Qing Dynasty, but he had to face a new reality.
It is worth mentioning that his relationship with Pu Yi is extraordinary, and when the two first met, Zheng Xiaoxu left a deep impression on Pu Yi. Later, Zheng Xiaoxu often gave advice to Pu Yi, and Pu Yi obeyed him and was inseparable, so it can be said that Zheng Xiaoxu became Pu Yi's think tank confidant, which also made him and Pu Yi's choice almost the same.
In 1931, when the 918 Incident broke out that shocked China and the rest of the world, Zheng Xiaoxu made an astonishing choice, regardless of the crisis of the Chinese nation, he actually thought that this was a good time for Pu Yi to "return to the throne". He also wrote a letter to Japan non-stop, which was full of flattery to Japan, which was historical evidence of his role as a traitor.
A year later, Zheng Xiaoxu became the prime minister of the puppet state of Manchukuo, and soon after signed the "Japan-Manchukuo Agreement" with Japan, which confirmed Japan's rule over the northeast of the mainland. It is not difficult to see from the agreement that Zheng Xiaoxu even did not hesitate to sacrifice the interests of mainland countries in order to obtain a high position.
Zheng Xiaoxu's behavior made him from a respectable cultural celebrity to a spurned traitor, and he was even notorious to be pinned to the pillar of shame in history.
It is precisely because of Zheng Xiaoxu's bad reputation that people feel disdainful, and the popularity of his works has greatly decreased, but his calligraphy achievements are positive in the world of calligraphy.
Now, the four words "Bank of Communications" are not used because of his inscription, and they can basically be seen in every city, mainly because his personal influence is relatively small compared to the Bank of Communications, and the Bank of Communications has a hundred years of development, and it has also become a part of the bank.
From Zheng Xiaoxu's body, it can be seen that a person's artistic achievements cannot be linked to his morality, and he should look at them with a rational eye, to see the light on them, and also to see the shadow on his body.
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Resources:
Lieberthal, Anti-Japanese War Research, 1995-12-92, Zheng Xiaoxu and the Puppet Regime in the Early Puppet Regime of Manchukuo
Yang Zhaoyuan, Social Science Front, 1987-03-02, Zheng Xiaoxu and the Puppet Manchukuo
Pan Rudan, Cultural Relics World, No. 4, 2004, "Zheng Xiaoxu Calligraphy Research"