Give examples of Peking University as a school with patriotic, progressive and other traditions

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This year marks the centennial of the founding of Beijing Normal University. On the occasion of this joyous festival, I would like to take a corner of the school magazine to introduce to you, teachers and alumni, the relationship between three generations of my family and our alma mater.

My grandfather, Xu Deheng, used to work with the students of Beijing Higher Normal School and Beiping Normal University to launch patriotic movements such as the May Fourth Movement and the 129th Movement, and taught at Beiping Normal University. I present to you what I have heard of his recollections of these events.

In July 1913, my grandfather took part in the Hukou Uprising in his hometown of Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, which was organized by Li Lijun, a general of the Xinhai Revolution, to crush Yuan Shikai, who was "stealing the power of the time and making the empire his own". After the failure of the Hukou Uprising, his grandfather went into exile in Shanghai, and in the winter of 1913, he was admitted to the Wusong Chinese Public School, and in the summer of 1915, he was admitted to the Peking University, where, in May 1918, the Beiyang Warlord Government colluded with Japan's militarism, and secretly concluded the "Sino-Japanese*** Military Agreement for the Defense of China against the Enemy", which was a betrayal of China's territorial and military sovereignty. Chinese students in Japan held a rally to protest against the signing of this agreement, which was suppressed by the Japanese authorities, and all the students in Japan went on strike and returned to their home country in anger. The action of the students in Japan inspired the patriotic fervor of the students of the higher educational institutions in Beijing, and on May 21st, more than 2,000 students from Peking University, Beijing Higher Normal School, Beijing Industrial College, Beijing Law and Politics College, etc. went to Xinhuamen to petition the president against the signing of the agreement. Grandfather and eight other student representatives held the petition in their hands and sought an audience with the President. After the secretary promised to forward the petition to the President, the students returned to their schools. The petition was inconclusive and made little impact, and onlookers wondered why the students were assembling. The failure of this petition made some radical patriotic students realize the need to organize. They could not just sit back and watch their country being invaded by the imperialist powers, they had to organize themselves and mobilize the people to save the country's fate. So the students of Beijing secondary schools and above formed the Beijing Student Patriotic Association. Some of the key members of the Student Patriotic Association founded the National Magazine, which published the monthly magazine "National" to publicize the ideas of democracy and science. The main members of the National Magazine were Deng Zhongxia, Zhang Guotao, Huang Riqui, Gao Junyu, Chen Bao'e, Xu Deheng, Zhou Binglin, and Duan Xipeng from Beijing University, and Xiong Mengfei and Kuang Husheng from the Beijing Higher Education Teacher's College. The students of the National Magazine took democracy and science as their banner and spared no effort in running against feudalism, imperialism and warlords.At the end of 1918, the First World War ended and the group of Allied Powers led by Britain, France and Russia won over the group of Allied Powers led by Germany and Austria. China participated in the war against Germany and was one of the victorious countries.

In January 1919, the imperialist bloc held a peace conference in Paris, where the Japanese delegates demanded to inherit all the powers seized by Germany in Shandong, China, in spite of China's status as a victorious nation. in April, the imperialist bloc agreed to Japan's demands, and the warlord government of Duan Qirui, in order to obtain military funds from the Japanese government to suppress the people, instructed the Chinese delegates to succumb to Japan's demands. The students in Beijing, who were reveling in their victory in the First World War, were shocked by this news. They saw more clearly the nature of the imperialist carving up of China, and more clearly the nature of the warlord government fighting the civil war, oppressing the people, and betraying the sovereignty of the country, and indignantly went out of school, mobilized the people, defended the country, and fought against the warlord government. As a result, a vigorous patriotic movement broke out. on the morning of May 4, more than 3,000 students from more than ten schools in Beijing gathered in front of Tiananmen Square to demand that the government refuse to sign the Paris Peace Treaty and punish Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang, and Lu Zongyi, the officials in charge of the Paris Peace Treaty. At the rally, the Manifesto commissioned by the National Magazine Society and drafted by my grandfather was read out: "If Shantung dies, it is the death of China! My compatriots are in their own land, with this mountain and river, how can they witness this tyranny bullying me, oppressing me, slavery me, oxen and horses me, and not make a cry for help for their lives?" The students marched from Tiananmen Square to the embassy area in Dongjiaominxiang Lane, ready to submit a letter of opinion on the Shandong issue to the British, American, French and Italian ministers. Because the Gengzi Treaty stipulates that Chinese people are not allowed to pass freely in the embassy district, the student procession was blocked outside the iron fence at the west entrance of Dongjiaominxiang Alley for more than two hours. Finally, Duan Xipeng, Xu Deheng, Luo Jialun, and Di Fuding, on behalf of all the students, delivered the "Statement" to the U.S. Embassy. Afterwards, the angry students marched to Cao Rulin's residence in Zhaojialou Hutong, Dongcheng District. The students destroyed the house, set it on fire, and beat up Zhang Zongxiang, the minister to Japan, who was at the house. The military and police who came to suppress the students arrested 32 students, including 20 students of Peking University, including Xu Deheng, and 8 students of Beijing Higher Normal School, including Chu Dazhou (初大告) and Chu Mingyin (初明音). The student movement in Beijing quickly expanded to the rest of the country, with students in nearly 100 cities rising up in response. Subsequently, workers, merchants and citizens also joined the movement, and the warlord government was so precarious that it was forced to remove Cao, Zhang and Lu from office on June 10th, and on June 28th notified the Chinese delegates of their refusal to sign the Paris Peace Treaty. This was the famous May Fourth Movement. The students of Peking University and Beijing Higher Normal School were the vanguard of the May Fourth Movement.

My grandfather went to France in January 1920 to work and study. He studied sociology at the University of Paris and translated the book "Methodology of Sociology" by Turgon, which was recommended by Mr. Cai Yuanpei and published by the Commercial Press.

My grandfather came back to China in February 1927, and taught sociology and the history of socialism at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and at the Whampoa Military Academy. Beginning in April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei defected to the revolution, massacring members of the ****production party and persecuting progressives. in December, Grandfather and his grandmother, Laogun Zhan, fled to Shanghai, where they hid in a rented room and translated books. Grandfather translated Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy, Bukharin's Sociology of Materialistic History and The Road to ****productivism and the Union of Workers and Peasants, and Lafargue's The Evolution of the Family, etc. At the end of 1929, Grandfather was invited to teach at the Jinan University, where he lectured on Materialistic Dialectic and Historical Materialism, etc. In April and May 1931, the authorities ordered Jinan University to terminate his employment for propaganda of ****productivism, etc. In July, Grandfather was invited to the Jinan University, where he was invited to lecture on Materialistic Dialectics and Historical Materialism. At the invitation of President Xu Bing-Chang of Peking Normal University, Grandfather went to teach in the Department of History and Sociology at Normal University, and later transferred to the Law School of Peking University. Although he left Normal University, Grandfather continued to fight for democracy and science with the students and faculty of Normal University. on December 9, 1935, more than 10,000 students from 15 universities in Beiping held a demonstration to demand that the authorities stop the civil war and unite in the fight against the Japanese. Grandfather and grandmother took to the streets together with students from Peking University and Beiping Normal University, fighting against the big knives, wooden sticks and taps of the military and police, and calling on compatriots all over the country to **** together to save the country. Grandfather, together with professors Ma Shulun and Shang Zhongyi of Peking University, and Yang Xufeng of Shifu University, contributed to the launching of the January 29th Movement, which was the prelude to the national salvation movement. Subsequently, more than 300 professors from various schools formed the Beiping Cultural Sector Salvation Association. At the May 4th commemoration meeting in 1937, at the instigation of the reactionary professors Tao Xisheng, Yang Likui, and Xiong Mengfei from Peking University and Shih Ta University, students of the pseudo-faculty union supported by the authorities beat up the progressive students attending the meeting.

Yang Xufeng, Huang Songling, and my grandfather and other professors of Peking University and Shih Ta University openly sent a letter to Tao Xisheng, expressing their indignation at their behavior.

In 1944, the Japanese invaders, who had already occupied a large part of China's territory, launched an attack on southwestern China.

In the face of the vicious Japanese invaders and the air of surrender within the Chiang Kai-shek clique, my grandfather and grandmother, together with scholars of literature, education, science and technology, such as Liang Xi, Chu Fucheng, Lai Jinxi, Pan Beans, and Taxi Xieheng, initiated the organization of a symposium on democracy and science in the accompanying capital, Chongqing, to unite people of literature, education, science and technology to fight against the Japanese, to carry forward the spirit of the May Fourth Movement, which is anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism, and to fight for democracy and science. This organization is the Jiu San Society. May Fourth Movement with my grandfather was arrested together with the Beijing Higher Education Teacher student Mr. Chudazhou later recalled: "Xu Lao 1945 about me to launch the Jiu San Society, originally scheduled for the Democratic Science Society, September 3, 1945, Japan signed the surrender, only to be designated as the Jiu San Society."

Mr. Zheng Huachui, a renowned professor in the Physics Department, was transferred from Peking University to Normal University to teach in 1952 during the national faculty restructuring. Mr. Zheng graduated from Nankai University in 1928. He then went to Austria to study at the Graz University of Technology, where he received his doctorate in engineering in 1934. During his study in Austria, Mr. Zheng's thesis on Raman spectroscopy and infrared absorption spectroscopy was highly regarded by the physics community in Germany and France, and after his return to China in 1935, Mr. Zheng taught successively at the Central University of China, Peking University, Southwest United University, and Beijing Normal University, where he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and in 1936 he collaborated with Prof. Da-You Wu in a research on the Raman effect of the isotopes of benzene, and he took photographs for 100 hours, achieving the result of the research. Mr. Zheng worked with Prof. Wu Dayou and other professors to study the Raman effect of the isotopes of benzene, taking pictures for as long as 100 hours and achieving important results. This result was published in the American Journal of Chemical Physics and received much attention from the physics community. 1978, I joined the Physics Department of Normal University, and I often saw Mr. Zheng, at the age of 75, instructing graduate students and advanced teachers for one or two hours at a time. I asked him to take care of his health, and he said, "This 'Gang of Four' is so abominable that it has delayed us for ten years." Your teachers and elders have more to say than I do about Mr. Zheng's spirit of governance and teaching. What I would like to tell you about is another achievement he made.

In August 1937, the Japanese occupied Beiping. Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University moved south to Kunming to establish the Southwest United University. Beiping Normal University, Beiping University and other schools moved inward to Chenggu, Shaanxi, to establish the Northwest United University. Mr. Zheng went to teach at the Southwest United University in 1938. Behind enemy lines, Kunming was frequently bombed by Japanese airplanes, and the supply of daily necessities was very tight. The instruments and books brought by the schools were very limited, and one can imagine how difficult the study conditions were. Mr. Zheng and Professor Wu Dayou managed to transport the experimental equipment to Kunming to continue their research work. After the fall of Peking, Mr. Deng Yixing, a professor at Peking University who later became Mr. Zheng's father-in-law, suffered from lung disease and coughed up blood, and was unable to leave Peking. Seeing that his son Deng Jiaxian's resistance to the Japanese invaders was getting more and more intense, and that he even tore the Japanese flag to pieces after a school assembly, Mr. Deng Yixing was very worried about his son's life. In order for this stubborn child to study safely, he decided to let his daughter Deng Zhongxian, who had just graduated from university, to take her younger brother to school in the south behind enemy lines. Deng Yixing said to his son, "In the future, you must study science, not like me, don't study literature, study science is useful to the country." In 1940, Deng Zhongxian married Zheng Huaqi in Kunming. 1941, Deng was admitted to the Physics Department of Southwest United University. Under the guidance of his brother-in-law and Wang Zhuxi and other professors, and the influence of Wu Youxun and Zhou Peiyuan's spirit of scientific salvation and rigorous study, as well as the motivation of the school spirit of the Southwest Associated Universities, Deng studied diligently and vowed to use his own scientific knowledge to serve the motherland. During his study in the Southwest Associated University, he joined the peripheral organization of the **** Producers Party "Minqing". There is a verse in the school song of the Southwest Associated University that reads: "The shame of a thousand autumns will be finally wiped out, and the rise of the Middle Kingdom will require the talents of the people". More than twenty years later, he finally realized his dream and became one of the main developers of China's nuclear weapons, known as the "two bombs". Deng Jiaxian, the younger brother and senior colleague of Prof. Zheng Huaqi, who was y nurtured and loved by him, became my aunt in 1953 when he married my aunt Xu Luxi, who is now my uncle. My aunt once said to me, "They say I am a lucky man. I was born in the year of A Zi. A is the first of the Heavenly Stems and Zi is the first of the Earthly Branches, so I am a blessed general." Later, I learned from the newspapers that he had been on site 15 times to direct the work of the test teams during the 32 nuclear experiments conducted in China. None of the major decisions he made was wrong, and thus he was called a blessed general by his colleagues. In fact, behind this proud achievement, how much of his hard work and sweat, and how many times his body has been subjected to large doses of radiation ah! In May 1982, Shih Chien University in the main building of the seventh floor conference room to hold a commemorative meeting of the fiftieth anniversary of the teaching of Prof. Zheng Hua Chieh. At the meeting, my grandfather acknowledged the work done by Prof. Zheng Huaqi during his tenure as the provost of Peking University on the eve of liberation, and introduced the training and care given to Deng by Mr. Zheng during his time at the Southwest Association of Universities (SAAU). Since Deng's achievements and position had not yet been declassified, not many of the attendees understood the significance of my grandfather's remarks. This story of Zheng Huaqi and Deng Jiaxian is as little known as that of Deng during his lifetime.

In 1978, I graduated from high school and enrolled in the Physics Department of North Normal University. Learning this news, my grandfather was very happy, he said to me, "It's good to be a teacher, Gong Gong has taught all his life, and also taught at the Normal University." He then told me the story of how he taught at Normal University, and after graduation in 1982, I was assigned to work at the 22nd Middle School in Beijing. My grandfather said to me, "It's good to be a teacher." He instructed me, "It's good to be a teacher." He told me, "Teachers should not only teach, but also educate people. That's what Grandpa did. You should learn from Grandpa." In the fall of 1984, I was going to work for the Sino-US International Engineering Company, a joint venture between the Ministry of Coal Industry and the U.S. Packard Company. When my grandfather learned of this, he said to me, "Little brother, I think it's better to teach and keep your feet on the ground. Think again." Before I went to the headquarters of China-US International Engineering Corporation in Shenzhen, my grandfather wrote a banner for me: "Be quiet, be prudent, be sensitive, be thoughtful. My grandfather's parting words." In this way, he taught me to be calm, cautious, sensitive, and diligent in thinking.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of my alma mater, I would like to introduce the deeds of my predecessors to all teachers and alumni, which is also a little contribution to my alma mater. May the fire of democracy and science ignited by the May Fourth Movement live on in Normal University, may the patriotic spirit of the predecessors to save the country through science and dedicate themselves to the nation live on in Normal University, and may the motto of Normal University, "Learning to be a teacher, behaving as a model for the world," live on in Normal University. (December, 2001)