Chapter 276 275【Meeting】

Toynbee came to Tianjin with his female secretary Veronica, and was immediately warmly received by the consuls of various countries. He also learned some information about North China from the consuls.

Immediately afterwards, Toynbee went straight to the office of Ta Kung Pao, only to be told that Zhou Hexuan was giving a lecture at Tsinghua University.

Toynbee did not stay in Tianjin to wait, but took the train directly to Peiping, because that was his destination in itself. He wants to visit the Forbidden City on the spot and consult various Chinese historical documents that cannot be accessed in the UK.

This guy is really powerful. When he was in the Northeast, he even got some copies of secret documents from Zhang Zuolin's time. When I arrived in Tianjin, through the consulates of various countries, I read the diplomatic letters of various countries during the Beiyang period.

Although they are all outdated materials, in the era of underdeveloped information exchange, Toynbee mastered these things, enough to make him a very clever expert on international issues.

When he arrived at Tsinghua University, Toynbee took the beautiful secretary directly to the principal Luo Jialun.

When Luo Jialun heard that it was Toynbee's visit, he was so pleasantly surprised that he went out to greet him in person, and even asked people to quickly clean up the room in Tsinghua University to entertain this world-renowned scholar.

"Mr. Toynbee, it is a great honor for you to visit Tsinghua University!" Luo Jialun shook hands with Toynbee excitedly.

"Thank you Principal Luo for your warm reception," Toynbee said with a smile, "I would also like to congratulate your school on the great archaeological discovery."

Luo Jialun said in surprise, "You know all about this?"

"I learned about it from the newspaper," Toynbee chatted with Luo Jialun for a few words, and suddenly asked, "Professor Zhou Hexuan is at school?"

Luo Jialun said: "Do you know Mr. Zhou?"

Toynbee said: "I admire his academic views and want to chat with him face to face."

Luo Jialun smiled and said, "I will arrange for you to meet after Mr. Zhou finishes class."

"I want to go to his class, can I?" Toynbee asked.

"Of course, I'll take you there." Luo Jialun said immediately.

Toynbee visited the campus scenery all the way, and he liked the antique buildings in the east so much that he had a very good first impression of Tsinghua University.

When they came outside the classroom, everyone did not disturb the class inside, but stood outside the window and listened.

I saw Zhou Hexuan standing on the podium and writing down three phrases of Chinese civilization, Jewish civilization and Indian civilization with chalk. He said:

"Objectively speaking, in addition to Chinese civilization, there are two great and unique civilizations that have an important influence on world civilization, that is, Indian civilization and Jewish civilization. Indian civilization contributed to the world Hinduism and a world religion - Buddhism, Judaism, which is believed in by Jewish civilization, is the predecessor of Western religions and has had a profound impact on Christian civilization.

Indian civilization and Jewish civilization also have super-historical continuity and continuity. Their civilizations have been preserved for thousands of years in the same cultural subject nation, writing a miracle in the history of world civilization. But there are some differences...

First of all, Indian civilization was born in the conquest of the Indian subcontinent by the foreign invading nation - the Aryans. From its origin, it was the foreign nation that conquered the aborigines - the Dravidians, and then based on the local indigenous beliefs Established the Brahman civilization. So strictly speaking, Indian civilization is an exogenous civilization, and the native aborigines actually constitute the source of the lowest caste group in India. The Jews lost their land for more than 2,000 years and were exiled all over the world. Although the Jews as a nation have reproduced from generation to generation, they have been a nation without a national carrier for a long time.

Therefore, the Chinese civilization is unique and a miracle in the history of the world. The birth of this miracle is by no means accidental, and has deep socio-political and historical and cultural roots: First, in history, the rapid expansion of the population of the Huaxia nationality has had a negative impact on other surrounding areas. Ethnic groups constitute great tension, and population growth is definitely an important factor in ancient civilizations. The ancestors of the Huaxia nationality came from Henan and Shaanxi..."

Toynbee couldn't understand Chinese, so Luo Jialun could only translate for him. Listening to it, Toynbee introduced Zhou Hexuan as his confidant, because the content of the lecture was very close to his thinking.

Nonsense, can you not get close? That's Toynbee's original book.

Of course, there are differences. When Toynbee analyzed Chinese civilization, his point of view was relatively narrow and tended to be conservative. He believes that the Xia Dynasty is a legend. Although the Shang and Zhou dynasties have oracle bone inscriptions as evidence, they do not mean that they have formed a politically unified and political entity. So Toynbee concluded that the real national history of China originated from the Qin and Han Dynasties.

As a Chinese, Zhou Hexuan naturally did not agree with these views, so he made many revisions when copying the book.

However, Toynbee's point of view is very interesting. He thinks that the pre-Qin schools of thought were the most brilliant era of Chinese civilization. The unification of the Qin and Han Dynasties blocked the spiritual ascension channel of Chinese civilization, and at the same time ensured the continuity of Chinese civilization.

He believes that after the Qin and Han Dynasties, "unification" has become the thinking habit of the Chinese people, as if this is the only way to be safe, and division seems to be the end of the world. Although China, a country with rigid ideology and political unity, is constantly interrupted by separatist turmoil, it will still be repaired after the interruption. The restoration phenomenon of the "Great Unification" happened again and again, and even after the interim period that was so long and chaotic that it was traditionally considered irreparable, China would still restore reunification.

This statement makes a lot of sense, but it must be added.

In Zhou Hexuan's view, the idea of ​​the great unification of Chinese civilization sprouted in the pre-Qin period. The oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin and Shang Dynasties have already reflected the meaning of unifying the world. Confucius wrote "Spring and Autumn", also advocating great unification, emphasizing the unification of Zhou Li. "Gongyang Chunqiu" further elucidated Confucius' thought of great unification, which was finally inherited by Dong Zhongshu, who only respected Confucianism, and became an irreversible viewpoint for later generations.

Toynbee believed that Confucius was a conservative and never thought about unifying China, but Zhou Hexuan disagreed with this statement.

At the end of a class, Zhou Hexuan was about to leave the classroom, but Toynbee had already come in earlier.

"Hello Mr. Zhou, I'm Arnold Toynbee." Toynbee introduced himself with a smile.

Zhou Hexuan was obviously taken aback for a moment, then smiled and said, "Hi, nice to meet you, Mr. Toynbee."

Toynbee said: "I just listened to Mr. Zhou's lecture, and many views coincide with mine. When did you start studying world civilization?"

Zhou Hexuan sweated wildly: "When writing "Guns, Germs and Steel"."

"Is that your latest book?" Toynbee asked in surprise.

Zhou Hexuan nodded and said, "I started writing last year, and a French publishing house is already translating it, and it may be published in Europe in the near future."

"That's really great, I will definitely read it." Toynbee said.

As the president of Tsinghua University, Luo Jialun did not let go of this good opportunity. He suggested: "Both of you are world-renowned university scholars, why not have a high-end dialogue in the history field in this classroom, so that the students can be fortunate Listen to the thought collision of the master."

Toynbee smiled and asked, "Can you?"

"Of course." Zhou Hexuan said.

The students in the classroom suddenly became a sensation. Fortunately, there were no mobile phones in the Republic of China, otherwise they would probably have been calling to make friends.