After the Revolution of 1911, the people of China overthrew the Manchu Dynasty and ended the feudal autocratic monarchy system that lasted for more than two thousand years. In 1912, the Republic of China was founded, and history took a huge step forward, but war and suffering have always been shrouded in this ancient and profound boundless land. During the period of the Republic of China, the situation was turbulent, and the warlords of all walks of life were in melee. However, China's elite intellectuals were bound by the changes of the country's destiny, and their personal future and destiny were closely tied together with the country.
Liang Qichao, Wang Guowei, Chen Yinque, Zhao Yuanren, Gu Hongming, Hu Shi, Zhang Taiyan, Fu Sinian, Liang Sicheng, Jin Yuelin, these names with their own light, like the shining stars in the night, have brought precious spiritual and cultural light to the dark Central Plains. After the success of Meiji Restoration in Japan, the country's prosperity was accompanied by a strong demand for military expansion. In order to establish the Greater East Asia glory circle and become a leading country in Asia, Japan launched the long-planned July 7 Incident on July 7, 1937, which marked the beginning of Japan's all-round war of aggression against China.
Although Chiang Kai-shek, the supreme commander of the National Government who had studied in Japan, had long foreseen Japan's full-scale invasion of China, and delivered a speech called "The Last Minute" on July 17th, warning the people and the army to prepare for a full-scale war, China, whose national strength was weak, suffered a crushing defeat when War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out, and the three northeastern provinces and Peiping soon fell.
At the critical moment of the country, students and professors from Peking University, Tsinghua University and Southern University in enemy-occupied areas had to move south to Changsha. In order to reduce the weight of luggage, some professors only brought a set of clothes that could be changed, and the daily necessities were also economical. However, they regarded the bundles of books, experimental equipment and teaching instruments in the school as treasures and were reluctant to throw them away.
from September 1937 to September 1942, Hu was ordered to lobby in Europe and America, hoping to get support from Britain and the United States in the war of resistance. After the July 7th Incident, Hu Shi was busy shouting to all parties and made 56 speeches in just 51 days. On December 3, 1937, Hu Shi wrote to his wife Jiang Dongxiu from the other side of the ocean: "I always think about the national crisis and the people's robbery, and I don't know when I will get it. Sometimes I am really anxious. I often read ten kinds of newspapers every day. I always sleep late at night and have to run during the day. "
Long before the Anti-Japanese War, Liang Sicheng, the founder of the Department of Architecture in Tsinghua, returned to China to set up the Architectural Society, and served as the director, making great efforts to cultivate architectural talents in China. In order to compile a professional book about the history of ancient architecture in China, Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin traveled all over the ancient villages in China, and personally inspected most of the existing ancient buildings. Liang carefully copied and studied the appearance of the found wooden structure buildings, and found the earliest existing Tang Dynasty ancient building in China-Nanchan Temple Hall in Wutai Mountain, Shanxi Province. This discovery pushed forward the record of the oldest existing building in China for hundreds of years, and completely overturned the Japanese scholar's statement that "China wants to see the buildings in the Tang Dynasty."
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the Architectural Society chaired by Liang Sicheng also moved to the south with large troops, and his research on ancient buildings had to come to an end temporarily. After a period of drift from place to place, China's elite intellectuals finally settled in Zhouzhuang, and The National SouthWest Associated University was established. However, in the war environment, the school can't operate normally, and the professors can only live on the meager subsidies allocated by the government. Because Liang Sicheng's construction society is not listed as an establishment by the government, it can't get operating funds, so the operation of the whole society is very difficult, and sometimes food and clothing become a problem. This can be seen from Lin Huiyin's letters to her foreign friends Fei Zhengqing and Wilma.
Despite the sinister environment, The National SouthWest Associated University has trained a number of outstanding talents for social construction and development: He Zehui, Yang Zhenning, Li Zhengdao, Zhu Guangya, Deng Jiaxian, Peng Peiyun, Wang Zengqi, and so on. It is no exaggeration to say that The National SouthWest Associated University is a monument in the educational history of China.
Gao Xiaosong, a famous musician, once said that the world's masters always appear in clusters. During the Western Renaissance, there were masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. During World War II, there were a group of once-in-a-century masters such as Einstein, Oppenheimer and Turing. According to historical laws, every few hundred years, there will be a group of masters in this world who have a profound impact on the development of world history.
The great masters of China, China and the Republic of China are gone forever. Today, although China's economy is developing at a high speed, there is a serious fault in cultural inheritance, which makes people panic and the social atmosphere is corrupt. This is also the reason why Yue Nan, the author of the epic "Crossing the South to the North", lamented that "the master is gone and there is no master".
alas, the master has passed away, and the cicada is lamenting ...