Chapter 857 856 [Literati]

Since the May 4th Movement, Hu Shih has behaved like a humble gentleman. Even when he was being ridiculed and scolded in public, he could respond with a smile, but this time he finally lost his composure and cursed.

Zhou Hexuan ended the conversation with Chen Guangfu and turned back to ask Hu Shi: "Brother Shi, do you still want peace?"

Hu Shi stared at the photos of the massacre, shook his head and said: "There is still a glimmer of hope in the war of resistance, but peace will be doomed. If the 400 million citizens raise their hands and surrender, they will all become lambs to be slaughtered."

"Very good, you finally figured it out." Zhou Hexuan said happily.

Many people in later generations scolded Hu Shi, and the reason was Zhuhe. However, Hu Shi was not the only one who advocated peace. Academic luminaries Chen Yinke and Mr. Wu Mi also advocated peace in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War.

In academia, the list can be long. For example, Peking University President Jiang Menglin, Peking University Law School Professor Zhou Binglin, Jiang Tingfu, Chen Zhimai, etc. are countless.

Among the senior officials of the Kuomintang, Wang Zhaoming, Kong Xiangxi, Zhang Qun, Ju Zheng, Yu Youren, Chen Lifu, Yan Xishan, Xu Yongchang, Wang Chonghui, Chen Bui, and Wei Daoming were either advocating for peace or tending to compromise.

Can you believe it? The famous Mr. Chen Yinke once said this himself: "Resistance will lead to the destruction of the country, and surrender is the best policy."

These two sentences come from Mr. Wu Mi's diary. They were said when the two of them were walking and chatting after dinner on the seventh day after the July 7th Incident broke out. Chen Yinke believed that surrendering North China and suing for peace could preserve peace in South China, and the country might be able to gradually restore its territory in the future. If there is a war, the whole situation will be destroyed and China will be destroyed forever.

So much so that after the fall of Nanjing, Chang Kaishen lamented in his diary: "The literati are all advocating for peace because of the military defeat. Most of the senior generals are desperate and hope for peace, and the opportunists are even worse... Recently, people from all sides and important comrades all think that Almost everyone agrees that military defeat requires a quick peace."

In the view of Xu Yongchang, the Minister of Military Command, there are actually only a limited number of people who openly advocate peace, and there are more covert peace seekers. Because openly calling for peace would lead to being called a traitor, people with higher official positions and more power tend to be duplicitous, shouting for resistance and tending to compromise.

Even in Xu Yongchang's eyes, among the local leaders with military strength, after Liu Xiang's death, only the Communist Party and the Guangxi clique were the real militant faction, and the rest had ulterior motives.

Therefore, at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, Chang Kaishen was very isolated and relied on Gan Gang's dictatorship to pull China onto the anti-Japanese chariot.

Because of this, Wang Zhaoming dared to risk the disapproval of the world and embarked on the road of openly seeking peace from the winter of 1938. He felt that he could respond to a hundred calls, but the real powerful people did not follow him. He was surrounded by politically frustrated people.

The trend of public opinion at that time was: defeat is forgivable, while peace is guilty.

Although countless people have criticized Wang Zhaoming's "erotica", there are still many people who sympathize and resonate with him. Because they thought the same way, but Wang Zhaoming became a traitor, and they didn't dare to be a traitor.

Even in the summer of 1939, this situation of military and political bureaucracy tending to compromise as a whole has not changed. Wang Zizhuang, secretary of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang, wrote in his diary: "... In my opinion, at present, we can support the overall situation and be resolute. It seems that he (Old Chiang Kai-shek) is the only one. There are many self-retained civil and military officials who long for peace but dare not speak out. In the end, because of Mr. Chiang's prestige, they have to obey absolutely and endure pain. Persevere to the end. Mr. Wang's departure is a representative of ordinary knowledgeable people."

We have exposed many negative facts about Chang Kaishen before, but to be honest, Lao Jiang made a huge contribution to the war, even if he used various micro-operations to harm his teammates. The military and political officials around him most likely wanted to negotiate a peace as soon as possible, but Chiang Kai-shek suppressed them through dictatorial means.

This is why even in the late stages of the Anti-Japanese War, there are still many passionate young people supporting Chang Kaishen. They believe that only a wise leader and dictatorship can resist to the end.

It is conceivable that now that Guangzhou has been lost, Wuhan will soon be abandoned, and nearly half of China's territory has been lost, the morale of those military and political officials must be very low. Some people even think that the reason why China was able to persist for a year without dying quickly is because Japan has not yet come to its true intentions.

Chen Yinke was even more pessimistic. He directly wrote a sentence in his poem: "When you go south, you should think about the past, and when you return north, you are afraid of waiting for the next life." He compared China to the Southern Song Dynasty and the Southern Ming Dynasty, believing that victory in the Anti-Japanese War was impossible and that recovering North China could only wait until the next life.

It's okay for you to be pessimistic, but why do you want to write poetry so that this negative emotion can affect more people?

There is a later book describing the migration of literati to the south called "South Crossing and Returning to the North". The title of the book is quoted from this, but it is a bit inappropriate. Not all literati are as pessimistic as Chen Yinke.

However, Chen Yinke's father was more of a scholar. After the fall of Pingjin, Mr. Chen Sanli was determined not to surrender to the Japanese. He went on a hunger strike for five days and died of grief and anger.

Of course, we cannot criticize Chen Yinke to death. He is just too pessimistic and negative, but he still has patriotism. At least when Chen Yinke was in Hong Kong, he twice refused the threats and inducements of the Japanese invaders and went to work as a teacher in the southwest rear area.

Chen Yinke's thoughts and behaviors are very contradictory, but he can represent a large part of the literati. He was pessimistic and disappointed with the current situation. He also wrote poems complaining that Chiang Kai-shek's war of resistance was a solitary act and that he regarded the country's future as a gamble. Faced with the temptation of 400,000 Japanese invaders, he refused twice and risked his life. He went to the backwoods in the southwest to live a hard life, teaching and doing research while hungry.

Hu Shi's choice was different. In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, he had exactly the same idea as Chen Yinke, and then quickly completed the change in his thinking.

In other words, it has never changed. Hu Shi has always been a "pragmatist" and a "pessimist."

Before the July 7th Incident, Hu Shi was constantly suing for peace and asked many times to serve as China's ambassador to Japan, hoping to contribute to the friendship between China and Japan. Seeing that war was inevitable, Hu Shi jumped up and down again and asked many times to serve as China's ambassador to the United States, hoping to persuade the United States to intervene in the Sino-Japanese war.

Perhaps Chiang Kai-shek was so annoyed that he appointed Hu Shi as his special envoy and sent him to the United States, where he could mess around as he pleased.

Even now, Hu Shi believes that China will lose the war of resistance unless the United States can step in and help. He did not write poems to lament the Spring and Autumn like Chen Yinke did, but spared no effort to promote it in the United States.

In the past, Hu Shi wrote articles in China, often praising Japanese politics and culture, criticizing China's political culture as useless, and calling on China to learn from Japan. Now, Hu Shi is doing his best to beautify China and vilify Japan, just to gain recognition and assistance from the American people.

Hu Shi is innocent and worthy of admiration.

Chen Yinke is real and also worthy of admiration.

The difference between the two lies in the different choices made by the literati when faced with national crisis.

…

PS: Many readers are dissatisfied with the previous plot and say that Lao Wang sells meat as a gimmick. By the way, can the matter between Zhou Hexuan and Yu Peichen be sold? Lao Wang has been studying the information on the Nanjing Massacre these days. He has watched "Rabe's Diary", "Vautrin's Diary" and Maggie's documentaries. Together with those photos, to be honest, his mental state is very bad.

When coding, Lao Wang unconsciously took on the role of protagonist. Zhou Hexuan compiled first-hand information, which was more comprehensive, direct and bloody. If he was not affected, he would be a superman. To vent, one way is to watch comedies to relax, and the other way is "sex", which the author thinks is reasonable.

Of course, taking in Yu Peichen can also be considered as completing a plot, because I really don’t know how to deal with it. You can search the Internet for Yu Peichen's ending in history, but please do not discuss it in the comment area or chapter descriptions. Everything is done to prevent harmony.