Thick smoke billowed from the chimney, the departure bell rang on the platform, and the train started slowly with the whistle blowing, heading slowly towards the other side of the border.
Oppenheimer stacked the luggage of two people on one side, while Chen Muwu sat on the bunk in the box, looking out the window at the station that was continuously retreating.
As he was leaving for the country, he continued to recall what he had experienced when he returned home.
After President Cao, who came to power through bribery, fell due to the Second Direct-Fengtian War, the position of the Beiyang Government's nominal head of state, the President, has been vacant.
In the later period, the prime minister basically exercised the powers of the president, or a provisional government was established, with Duan, who had held a aftermath meeting, in power on an interim basis. It lasted less than two years.
However, due to the "March 18th" tragedy this spring, Duan's interim administration also stepped down.
As a result, the country began to enter a state of leaderlessness again. From April to now, the cabinet has been changed three times. At this time, Navy Chief Du Xigui is acting as Prime Minister and assuming the powers of the President.
Although the nominal head of state is in chaos, this does not mean that the entire Beiyang government is leaderless.
When President Cao was in power, the real person in charge of the Beiyang government was Wu Yushuai, the man behind the direct line to which he belonged.
After the second Zhili-Fengtian war was over, the Zhili clique had basically withdrawn from the stage in Beiyang, and the man behind the entire northern government became Zhang Gongzi's father, Marshal Zhang.
On the surface, the prime ministers and temporary rulers who are replaced like a revolving door are nothing more than puppets.
It really depends on Marshal Zhang, who holds the military power, to control everything behind the scenes.
Perhaps to avoid suspicion, he never went to the capital Beijing. Instead, he traveled back and forth between Tianli inside the pass and Fengtian outside the pass, controlling the situation in the north.
Mr. Zhang, who was on the border as a special envoy to welcome distinguished guests, followed the Swedish Crown Prince's special train from Manchuria to Fengtian - where Marshal Zhang happens to be today.
Due to diplomatic etiquette, the Crown Prince of Sweden must accept the invitation in Fengtian.
But Chen Muwu didn't need to. He estimated that Marshal Zhang, who was busy with official duties, wouldn't be very willing to see him.
Marshal Zhang met with the Crown Prince of Sweden. Firstly, it was a diplomatic practice, and secondly, he also wanted to see if he could purchase any advanced weapons from this Western power to deal with those people in the south.
Although Sweden can only be regarded as a moderate country in Europe, it can be regarded as a great power if it has shares in the public concessions in Sihai and Xiamen.
He was not popular with Marshal Zhang, but he still insisted on inviting Chen Muwu to Master Zhang. He hoped that Chen Muwu could stay in Fengtian for a few more days and visit Northeastern University, which he was proud of, and the two buildings he had donated to build. Hanqing Tower.
Chen Muwu, eager to return home, rejected the invitation.
After having a meal of authentic Northeastern cuisine in Fengtian and resting for a night, Chen Muwu and the Crown Prince of Sweden took their leave for the time being, and took Oppenheimer away from the large army, boarding the train again from Fengtian Station and heading south.
His original plan to return home was to first follow the Jingfeng Line to Tianli, then switch to the Jinpu Line from here, and go all the way home.
As for taking a few extra steps and going around Beijing first, it was not within the scope of Chen Muwu's consideration.
The "March 18th" tragedy not only brought down the temporary power of Duan, but also caused a great turmoil in Beijing's academic circles.
An old friend of Chen Muwu was wanted by the authorities because he wrote an article "In Memory of Mr. Liu Hezhen" that was published in middle school textbooks, and "Dead Place" with the same theme to criticize the provisional government that Duan was in power.
He had a family and couldn't go back, so he could only take refuge temporarily in the Yamamoto Hospital he ran. In the summer, he received an invitation from Lin Yutang.
So now Lu Xun has left Beijing and gone to teach at Xiamen University on the coast of South China.
Thinking of Mr. Lu Xun, Chen Muwu remembered another thing.
It should be next year that Lu Xun will reject the kindness of Sven Hedin, the cultural relics dealer who is urging the Swedish Crown Prince to visit China, and will not agree to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In his reply to the intermediary Tai Jinnong, he gave the reason for rejection: "Liang Qichun is not worthy of the Nobel Prize, and neither am I. To get this money, you have to work hard... How many writers are better than me in the world?" , they don’t get it... If people with yellow cheeks are treated extra favorably and leniently, it will only increase the vanity of the Chinese people..."
But now the situation has changed compared with before. This time, Chen Muwu, the youngest Nobel Prize winner, can nominate Lu Xun for the Nobel Prize without going through Sven Hedin.
And with someone like Chen Muwu in front of him who "genuinely" won the Nobel Prize for his own ability, maybe Lu Xun might change his mind and agree to his nomination invitation.
Chen Muwu decided to wait until he returned to Sihai and settled everything before writing a letter to Mr. Lu Xun in Xiamen to express his idea.
The only old friend he wanted to meet in Beijing was Mr. Lu Xun. Since the man had left long ago, Chen Muwu felt that there was no point in taking a detour.
Even if he arrives in Beijing, who can Chen Muwu see?
Is it possible that he wants to meet his "good friend" Dr. Hu?
However, if Dr. Hu is nominated to participate in the Nobel Prize for Literature, he will definitely not refuse.
…
Not long after leaving Manchuria Station, the train had crossed the border and entered Chita Prefecture in Sulian, and the scene outside the train window gradually became desolate.
Oppenheimer settled and counted the luggage carried by the two people, took out the apricots he had just bought at the station, washed them in the pool at the end of the carriage, and then returned to the box and sat on the bunk opposite Chen Muwu. down.
"Not sour, sweet."
He took a taste and then handed the other apricot in his hand to Chen Muwu, who was looking out the window in a daze across from him.
After doing this, Oppenheimer took out a notebook from the bag he carried with him, then took out and unscrewed the pen, and wrote and drew on it.
The book full of contents was his travel diary that he had recorded on a whim during his trip to China.
There was plenty of time during this transit in Sulian, and my memory of this trip to China was not yet blurry, so I could just revise and add to the content in my diary.
After Oppenheimer planned to organize it, he returned to England and sent it to publishers in the United Kingdom and the United States to see if they would be interested in publishing his travel diary.
Although his family is rich, he still feels uncomfortable being a rich second generation.
His teacher and idol Chen Muwu's family was also very wealthy, but Dr. Chen relied on his own skills to earn several times more than his family's wealth.
Whether in academics or in life, Oppenheimer wanted to be on par with Chen Muwu, so he decided to start by publishing this "Bob's Travel Diary".
Bob was a pseudonym given to him by Oppenheimer, which was a nickname for his first name, Robert.
But it makes no difference whether this pen name is used or not, because the name Chen Muwu appears in large numbers in the diary.
Therefore, with a little research, we can find out who the Bob who returned to China with Chen Muwu was in the summer of 1926.
Oppenheimer had always taken trains with the Crown Prince of Sweden and his entourage. It was not until he boarded the southbound train from Fengtian that he truly came into contact with Chinese society.
So the first article of Oppenheimer's diary begins with leaving Fengtian.
*
year month day.
Today is the first day we left Fengtian. I wrote the first sentence of this diary in the bumpy but comfortable first-class carriage.
Fengtian is a big city in Northeast China, and almost all of it was built by the Chinese alone. It is a bit larger than Harbin on the China Eastern Railway - this hub station and the nearby urban construction have a strong It has a strong Russian style. If the people walking on the street were not all black-haired and yellow-skinned Chinese, we might have mistaken this place for Moscow or St. Petersburg.
Fengtian was once the earliest capital of the Qing Dynasty and the headquarters of Chang Tso-lin, the great warlord who now rules all of northern China.
I was able to meet Marshal Zhang from a distance at the dinner party held to welcome the Crown Prince of Sweden.
Zhang Dashuai is not tall and has a very Western mustache. He is unsmiling and gives off a very serious look.
On the contrary, his son and future heir to his career, General Chang Hsüeh-liang, is easier to get close to.
He should be Dashuai Zhang's eldest son, but strangely, the elders around him always call him "sixth son."
Maybe this is a term of endearment, or maybe the Chinese have a special way of sorting family members.
Although Marshal Zhang looks talented, he is also contaminated with a bad habit of the Chinese people.
In the several conversations he had with Dr. Chen, he would always apologize and leave for a while.
When Marshal Zhang comes back again, he will always have a strong smell of cologne on his body.
But I can always smell a stench behind the perfume.
After asking other people, I realized that the reason for Shaoshuai Zhang's rude departure several times was to smoke Fushou ointment.
Decades ago, the British used strong ships and cannons to knock on the door of ancient Eastern China and began dumping opium here.
Even the princes of great warlords were not spared, but Dr. Chen was able to keep himself clean and untainted, which is very commendable.
I also suddenly understood why Dr. Chen showed a strong resistance to tobacco at Cambridge University.
Shaoshuai Zhang probably met Dr. Chen for the first time on the Manchurian platform when we entered China.
But for some reason, he showed an unusual enthusiasm.
I was amazed that Dr. Chen not only had a high reputation in Europe and America, but also had such high influence in his homeland that he could bring a warlord heir who would control half of China's territory in the future to the national border. Welcome each other.
When I was in the UK, I read in a book called "The Analects of Confucius" that China is a country that respects teachers and education.
Unexpectedly, as soon as I entered China, I witnessed that this statement was not groundless.
Later I learned one thing. In addition to being a world-famous physicist, Dr. Chen also has another identity: a family.
He once serialized a million-word article in a Chinese newspaper. During the serialization period, the newspaper's sales reached the first place nationwide - this is Sir Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. In the series, none of the achievements were achieved.
Shaoshuai Zhang is also one of Dr. Chen's readers, and he is one of the most fanatical readers, which is why he shows such kindness to us.
My Chinese proficiency is only at the level where I can barely communicate with Chinese people who speak northern Mandarin, and it is not enough to translate Dr. Chen's full text into English.
We can only hope that others can complete this work as soon as possible so that Dr. Chen’s masterpiece can be seen by readers in the English world as soon as possible.
Fengtian is Marshal Zhang's base camp, so Marshal Zhang has the right to dominate others here.
As a long-time friend of Shaoshuai Zhang, there was no need for us to buy the train tickets for this trip south.
The night before leaving, Marshal Zhang sent someone to deliver the tickets.
Apart from the Swedish Crown Prince’s special train, this was my first time taking a train in China.
We took a first-class carriage on this trip. The interior and exterior configurations of these imported carriages looked similar to those in Britain and the United States.
When I first entered the carriage, I felt that China is a country with a very serious divide between rich and poor.
From Fengtian to Tianqi, the value of our ticket was about twelve US dollars and fifty cents, which when converted into Chinese local currency, was a full thirty silver dollars.
As far as I know, in China, workers can already be regarded as middle-to-high-income people. Their monthly salary is about five silver yuan, which is about two US dollars.
In other words, a first-class ticket is equivalent to half a year's salary of a Chinese worker.
But even so, the first-class carriage was still overcrowded.
I was the only foreigner in the entire first-class carriage.
The rest of the passengers were all well-groomed in suits and top hats. Apart from their hair color, skin color and height, they were almost the same as Europeans and Americans.
At first I thought they were all wealthy Chinese people, but when I calmed down, I couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
Only then did I realize that they might not be Chinese, but the people who were domineering in Northeast China and the backers behind Marshal Zhang.
On the surface, they have fake and flattering smiles on their faces, but when others can't see it, I can see the evil looks in their eyes.
This country and nation gave me a very unpleasant feeling. Suddenly, an inexplicable thought came to my mind:
Maybe I will never become friends with any of them, but there is a great possibility that I will become life-and-death enemies with them.
Other:
A few hours after the train left Fengtian, it stopped at a station called Goubangzi in the evening.
Dr. Chen opened the window and bought a delicious food called smoked chicken from the food vendor on the platform.
*
year month day.
After spending a rough night in the sleeping car berth attached to the first-class carriage, our journey in China has entered the second day.
Before the train arrived in Tianyi, it also passed a station called Lushan.
According to Dr. Chen, this is the largest industrial city near Beijing, the capital of China. It is the birthplace of China’s railways and the place where his alma mater, the Ministry of Communications’ Lushan University, is located.
Ozhan is also the place where our beloved and respected Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Hoover, made his fortune.
But according to Dr. Chen's introduction, Secretary Hoover's method of making a fortune was not very glamorous.
Although the scale of Lushan University is small, the academic level of its students is very high.
According to Dr. Chen, his senior, Dr. Mao I-sheng, had excellent scores in the entrance examination of Cornell University in the United States, so that students from the school were eligible to attend Cornell University without taking the exam after graduation. The school also earned the nickname "Cornell of the East."
But I think that since the school produced Dr. Chen, it is more appropriate to upgrade this nickname from "Cornell of the East" to "Cambridge of the East".
Because we carried a lot of luggage, Dr. Chen had no choice but to give up the idea of getting off the bus here and revisiting his alma mater.
But within ten minutes of the train stopping, he got off the train and went to the mailbox on the platform to deliver a long-written letter to the teachers at his alma mater.
After leaving Luoshan and spending several hours on the train, we finally arrived at Tianqi, a larger transfer station on this trip.
I wanted to stay here for one night and rest for a while, so I bought the second stage train ticket and continued south.
But after we took our luggage and walked onto the platform of Tianli Station, the development of things once again deviated from the original plan.
(End of chapter)
