What Chen Muwu held in his hand was a Chinese-style vertical envelope that is very common today. The five characters "Mr. Chen Hanchen" were written in a red frame with a calligraphy pen.
How do you describe the writing skills of this writer? It has nothing to do with "Yan Jin, Liu Gu, Ou Jin, Zhao Rou". If you try hard to understand it, you can barely see a little bit of the layman Dongpo.
I can only say that the writing is very neat, stroke by stroke, so that people can clearly understand what words are written.
On the left side of his name is the address of the two-way railway administration, and on the right side is the address of the sender: Beijing Songgong Mansion Han Garden First Hospital of Beijing University.
Beida?
Why did Beida write to me?
Chen Muwu was shocked.
Could it be that someone from Beida University saw the report in "Shenbao" and had the same reaction as my elder brother, and also wanted to invite me to be a teacher there?
He couldn't wait to take out the compass he used for drawing in the pen holder, used a pin to make a slit at the front end of the envelope, took out the letter paper inside and read silently.
The content of the letter was indeed similar to what Chen Muwu had guessed, except that it did not promise him a teaching position at Bei University, but instead invited him to go north to lecture on the theory of relativity for two weeks, and the reward was 500 yuan.
The price offered was very generous. The Ministry of Transport, which controlled the two pillar industries of railways and postal and telecommunications, and was extremely rich, offered Chen Muwu, an engineer, only 220 yuan per month.
Five hundred for two weeks of lectures, which equals one thousand yuan a month, which is more than four times his salary.
When did Beida become so generous?
Didn't the newspapers say from time to time that Beida University could not pay wages, and that teachers and professors were not attending classes for three days, running from the red building to the door of the Ministry of Education asking for money?
The Zhili clique and the Fengcian clique fought a war in the spring and summer of last year, which turned the entire North China region into chaos.
"When a cannon is fired, there is ten thousand taels of gold." Military expenditures are like running water and cannot be stopped. This makes the Beiyang government's finances, which are already not wealthy, even worse.
The Ministry of Education was originally the Qingshui Yamen, but the Ministry of Finance suspended funding, cutting off the Ministry of Education's source of income. It could only increase revenue and reduce expenditure, and make a fuss about staff salaries.
For example, Mr. Lu Xun wrote in his diary on January 19 this year: "The late harvest in the second half of September last year was divided into 150 yuan."
In other words, he only received his salary for September last year in January this year, and it was not all at once.
Even this dignified minister of the Ministry of Education cannot escape the fate of three or four months delay in payment of salary.
As a university directly under the Ministry of Education, how could Beida have such a large amount of funds to invite Chen Muwu to give lectures?
How can he be so virtuous?
In addition, there is another thing in this letter that makes Chen Muwu very strange: at the end of the letter paper, there are three characters "Hu Shishang" written in large characters.
It turned out to be Dr. Hu who drank too much foreign ink, so the calligraphy skills of this letter were quite acceptable.
Why was it that the person who invited him to give lectures at Peking University was not Cai Yuanpei, the president of Bei University, nor Yan Renguang, the dean of the physics department, but Hu Shi, the professor of philosophy who ranks twelfth on the list of Chinese big names?
Chen Muwu's fame has become so great that the now-famous Dr. Hu felt so embarrassed that he wrote a personal letter to invite him to go north?
…
When something goes wrong, there must be a monster. Let us turn the clock hands back a few days in "Chen Yuyu".
As mentioned earlier, Einstein originally planned to come to Bei University to give lectures. Bei University made adequate preparations. Not only did it spend a large space in the school newspaper to warmly welcome Einstein's arrival, it also listed relevant books on the theory of relativity. Lectures on seven themes were held in succession, and there were six public lectures for people from all walks of life.
Cai Yuanpei also personally traveled around to collect signatures from all walks of life in Beijing. On December 8, he sent them together with a welcome letter to Einstein, who was lecturing in Eben, to show his sincerity for his lecture in China. .
President Cai, together with his colleagues and classmates from Beida University, were still eagerly looking forward to Einstein's arrival. However, for various reasons, Einstein felt that Beida University did not want to invite him to give lectures anymore, and he also had other things to do. He finally canceled this trip.
On the 22nd, Einstein received a letter from Beida University and realized that there had been a misunderstanding with the other party. However, it was difficult to recover. All subsequent ferry tickets had been purchased, and there was absolutely no possibility of changing the itinerary.
He could only write a letter of apology, informing Cai Yuanpei of the regrettable news that he could no longer give lectures.
While Einstein's apology letter was still drifting at sea, the "Declaration" on the 28th had already published a news article titled "Dr. Einstein's Coming to Shanghai", which stated that Einstein would Arrived in Shanghai on the 31st, stayed for three days for repairs, and then set off again for Jerusalem.
A few days later, Cai Yuanpei was shocked when he read the news in Shenbao. When he received a letter from Einstein during the New Year's Day holiday, confirming that the cancellation of the lecture was a certainty, he was disappointed.
So he angrily wrote in the "Journal of Beijing University" on January 4 this year: "We have organized lectures and research groups on the theory of relativity. I hope that within one or two years, Chinese scholars will pay more attention to this important theory. How many contributions can attract the attention of world-famous scholars? Some of us know that the presence of such scholars is hundreds of times more important than any famous politician or military strategist, and yet we are willing to spend two dollars a month to do so. We paid more than a thousand pounds to welcome him; I think Dr. Anstein is not unwilling to come to our country for once. We don’t have to be depressed, we should encourage each other!”
Two thousand pounds a month was the remuneration paid by Japan for giving lectures to Einstein.
The price Bei offered in his freshman year was 1,000 yuan for two weeks. After being rejected by Einstein because he thought it was too little, Cai Yuanpei had to go to Liang Qichao in Tianyi Drinking Room to borrow money, so he changed it to For a price of one thousand US dollars for two weeks, Einstein reluctantly agreed to come to Beida University to give lectures after going to Japan.
Today, the afterglow of the British Empire is still there, and the pound is still the strongest currency in the world, with an exchange rate of about one to four to ten against the dollar and the ocean.
Therefore, the starting price of Beida University was two hundred per month converted into pounds, which was one-tenth of the price offered by Japan. It is no wonder that Einstein refused.
When Cai Yuanpei found a big water pipe, he raised the price several times, but it was still only a quarter of the original price.
You know, Beida University has not paid salaries to teachers and professors for several months, but being able to save such a sum of money from scratch is already Cai Yuanpei's greatest sincerity.
He specifically mentioned money in the school newspaper article, presumably because he was deeply dissatisfied with Einstein's behavior of leaving without saying goodbye.
However, the weak national power was looked down upon by others, and it was normal to think that Beida did not have the ability or credibility to pay full remuneration. Cai Yuanpei had nowhere to vent his dissatisfaction and had no choice but to do anything.
