Most people who have read China's classical masterpiece "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" will be deeply impressed by the twenty-third time "You Zhengping Naked And Cursed Thief". You Heng, who was proud of his talents, went to the hall naked, beat drums and insulted Cao Cao, and his pride in treating the magnates as dung soil made countless posterity admire. However, seventeen hundred years later, at the time of the republic of China, there was another "You Heng", who was not afraid to be in charge, attacked the evil forces, and did not lose the slightest defeat to his predecessors, he was Mr. Zhang Taiyan, who had studied in the history of the Republic of China and the West and had learned from the past.
As a well-known figure in modern China, Zhang Taiyan was notoriously eccentric and unsympathetic, and in addition to his profound knowledge of traditional Chinese studies, he was also extremely famous in the altar of curse at that time. He not only fought with the royalists such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, but he was not even interested in the southern revolutionary party. It can be said that Zhang Taiyan would rather break off his righteousness than duplicity! Yuan Shikai, who had later become a generation of adulterous males, even Yan Xishan and Zhang Zuolin had to kowtow when they saw it, but they did not dare to offend this person!
Zhang Taiyan was born into a landlord family, and in his early years he studied with his maternal grandfather Zhu Youqian, often claiming to himself: "When Yu was eleven years old, his maternal grandfather Zhu Zuoqing taught Yu to read the scriptures. "After the youth, Zhang Taiyan worshiped the famous puxue master Yu Fan of the late Qing Dynasty as a teacher, immersed himself in the study of learning, and for a total of eight years before and after, he learned a true learning. After the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, Zhang Taiyan, stimulated by the deep national crisis, resolutely walked out of the study and came to Shanghai to serve as the editor of the "Current Affairs Daily". At that time, Zhang Taiyan's newspaper advocated "galloping through a hundred schools and leading from the past to learn from the present", and he believed that the long skills of all Western capitalist countries could be used by China.
In the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu (1898), Zhang Taiyan wrote to Li Hongzhang, a powerful minister of the late Qing Dynasty, advising him to grasp the trend of the world and carry out reforms. He also made a special trip to Wuchang to help The Western Affairs Representative Zhang Zhidong run the "Zhengzheng Journal", fantasizing about using his strength to promote the restoration and change of the law. However, with the failure of the restoration, Zhang Taiyan was forced to flee and wander. After the tragic killing of the six gentlemen of Wu Shu, he expressed deep indignation and hatred for the arrogance of the diehards led by Empress Dowager Cixi. After the collapse of the New Deal, his thinking developed further than before, and then he joined Cai Yuanpei's GuangfuHui and Mr. Sun's Alliance, and began to argue with the reformists.
It can be said that Zhang Taiyan was a revolutionary elder and ideological giant during the Republic of China, and the two titles of "pioneer of the Republic of China" and "titan of the academic circles" are well deserved and unbroken. His disciple Lu Xun praised him as "the soul of the sages and the role models of the future generations." Such praise is the only example among the masters of his contemporaries. However, the master of Traditional Chinese Studies should be gentle and elegant in the minds of many people, but Zhang Taiyan completely subverted everyone's imagination, he was wild and uninhibited, and his greatest hobby in life was probably to scold people. He scolded people, involved in the light of scope, and used words skillfully, which can be called a model of ancient and modern times.
People with such a high status curse people, and the object is naturally not low. At the beginning, Tsinghua University's Guoshu College wanted to invite Zhang Taiyan as his college mentor, but when he heard that in addition to him, there were also Liang Qichao and Wang Guowei, he resolutely refused to go, because he looked down on these two people! Zhang Taiyan once commented on Liang Qichao: "If Liang Qichao is a superman, is there a word that can enter Shiye? As for Wang Guowei, he even contemptuously called him "corrupt Confucianism." Later, he used the embedded name "The country will die, and the old will not die for" to scold the royalist leader Kang Youwei as a "demon and a thief." (The upper link is from "The Mean": "When the kingdom will perish, there will be demons", and the lower link is from the "Analects": "The old and not dying is a thief.") ）
In addition to the above three, Zhang Taiyan also looked down on Hu Shi, a new school figure who advocated vernacular literature. Once, Hu Shi wrote a "Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy", which was specially sent to Zhang Taiyan when it was published, and respectfully wrote "Mr. Taiyan's Accusations of Fallacy" on the title page of the book, and signed "Hu Shi Jing Gift". According to the new punctuation that was popular at the time, a black line was added under the name of the person. However, Zhang Taiyan saw that he had a black bar next to his name, and he couldn't help but scold: "What Hu Shi! I even scribbled in my name! When he saw that there was also a black line under Hu Shi's name, he was relieved and said: "There is also a bar next to his name, even if they cancel each other out!" ”
Through these strange things, everyone should have a sense of Zhang Taiyan's unconcealed hobbies, but compared to these interesting things, Zhang Taiyan's most talked about is his fighting method with Yuan Shikai. At the beginning, a generation of adulterous male Yuan Shikai saw Zhang Taiyan's talent and fame, wanted to win him over for his use, and also awarded Zhang Taiyan a second-class medal. Unfortunately, Zhang Taiyan did not sell his face, and publicly scolded Yuan Shikai in the newspaper for "being sincere with his heart and being in harmony with empress dowager Xi", and at the same time hung this large medal as a pendant on a fan, swinging the fan to swagger through the market.
In 1914, the democratic republic was like a flash in the pan, and soon Yuan Shikai broke his promise and stepped into the abyss of autocracy. Yuan Shikai harbored such evil intentions that as a revolutionary elder Zhang Taiyan naturally couldn't bear it, he rushed from Shanghai to Beijing to meet Yuan Shikai and confront him face to face. Before leaving, he also left a poem reflecting the state of mind at that time: When the sword entered Chang'an, the blood was shed five steps to see. Whoever goes to Jiangnan Xuqi Province will not allow the bed to snore. According to the "Declaration" at that time: "Zhang Taiyan held a tuan fan, tied a medal under it, stepped on the official boots, shouted to see the president, and the official (conveyed) blocked the driving, then 'crazy talk, big trouble'. ”
Yuan Shikai also knew how powerful Zhang Taiyan was, and even if he dared to meet him, he would stay in the back room and not come out. Zhang Taiyan couldn't bear it anymore and smashed everything in the lobby of the presidential palace. Regarding this matter, Zhang Taiyan's student Lu Xun wrote in "Two or Three Things About Mr. Taiyan", "With the great medal as a fan, at the door of the presidential palace, the person who greatly criticized Yuan Shikai's harboring evil intentions..." Yuan Shikai saw the situation and was extremely dissatisfied with Zhang Taiyan's behavior, but did not dare to kill him, so he used the excuse that Zhang Taiyan was mentally ill and needed treatment, and then ordered his subordinates to take Zhang Taiyan to a courtyard and put him under house arrest.
Although Yuan Shikai put Zhang Taiyan under house arrest, he was still bent on wooing him, and he ate and drank well every day. Yuan Shikai also provided Zhang Taiyan with 500 yuan a month for living expenses, hired a cook and two poor people to take care of his diet and living, and the monthly salary of professors in the university at that time was only 50 yuan. However, in the face of Yuan Shikai's preferential treatment, Zhang Taiyan can be said to be unsympathetic. After being placed under house arrest by Yuan Shikai, he wrote Yuan Shikai's name on the table and chair, then chopped it with a kitchen knife, named "Frustrated Bones", wrote Yuan Shikai's name on the tree, and then lit it, called "Raising Ash", so frustrated that Yuan Shikai cried and laughed after knowing it.
In 1915, Yuan Shikai prepared for the enthronement ceremony, and at the behest of Yuan Shikai's faction, many "celebrities" wrote to Yuan Shikai to "persuade him to advance". At this time, some people proposed that if Zhang Taiyan could be persuaded to write an article supporting the imperial system, then he would certainly be able to gain the support of public opinion. However, Zhang Taiyan wrote: "Gong Jin's ambitions and arrogance are not only the rebellion of the Republic of China, but also the sinners of the cleansing the room." Yuan Shikai was so angry that he smoked after seeing it, and then laughed at himself: "He is a madman, why should I be serious with him!" At this point, the master of Sinology has one more title, that is, "You Heng of the Republic of China".
Although under house arrest, Zhang Taiyan's reception was not hindered. Mr. Lu Xun used to visit often and advised the teacher in the hunger strike to eat. In Lu Xun's diary, there are records of 7 visits. It can be seen that although Yuan Shikai hated Zhang Taiyan, he did not deliberately embarrass him during his house arrest, but still let him maintain the dignity and dignity of an intellectual.
In this way, Zhang Taiyan lived a life of imprisonment like an emperor of the earth, and it was not until two years later that Yuan Shikai's restoration failed and his life was revived. It can be said that a generation of adulterous male Yuan Shikai, even Yan Xishan and Zhang Zuolin had to kowtow when they saw it, but they did not dare to offend Zhang Taiyan! So later, after Yuan Shikai's death, Zhang Taiyan also praised Yuan Shikai's good temper, and he scolded him like that, but did not kill him. It was not until June 14, 1936, that the master of traditional Chinese studies, Zhang Taiyan, died of illness at the age of 67.