Zhang Weihua

Zhang Weihua

Zhang Weihua (December 17, 1902-1987) was named Xishan and Shouguang. He was the dean and head of the History Department of the school of Arts of Qilu University, and taught in Shandong University after 1952. He is a famous historian of the old generation in China. He has made outstanding contributions to the history of communication between China and the west, the history of Qin and Han Dynasties and the history of Ming and Qing Dynasties. His works include collection of Han history, research on the construction of the Great Wall in ancient China, and a brief introduction to overseas trade in Ming Dynasty.

Graduated from Jinan Qilu University in 1928. Later, he taught in Jinan Dongguan Jimei Middle School. In 1931, he entered the Graduate School of Yanjing University, during which he joined the Yugong society. He graduated in 1933 with a master's degree and returned to Qilu University as a lecturer in the Department of history. In 1936, he went to work for the Yugong society in Beijing to assist the semimonthly publication of Yugong. In 1937, he went to Henan to participate in the Jingshi society and edited the journal Jingshi. In 1938, he worked with Gu Jiegang and Xu Xusheng in the Institute of history and Archaeology of Kunming Beiping Research Institute to study the history of communication between China and the West. In 1939, he co sponsored the Institute of Chinese Studies of Qilu University in Chengdu with Gu Jiegang, and published the semimonthly Journal of responsibility for good and the Quarterly Journal of Chinese Studies of Qilu University. After the founding of new China, he returned to Jinan Qilu University as Dean of the school of Arts and director of the Institute of Sinology. After 1952, he became a professor of History Department of Shandong University. He has been engaged in the teaching and research of the history of the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties, the history of Chinese land system, and the history of communication between China and the West for a long time. He has some innovative ideas in the research of the history of communication between China and the west, and has been valued by the historians.

Famous historian

Grow up and study

On December 17, 1902, he was born into a poor peasant family. His great grandfather was originally surnamed Dong and was adopted by his Aunt Zhang, so he took the surname Zhang. In the patriarchal society, the adopted child is called adopted son or adopted son, whose social status is very low, just like the "redundant son-in-law" in the Qin and Han Dynasties. Finally, they were given some farmhouses, but they were few and bad. Although his great grandfather was illiterate, he had great ambition and was determined to bring out a good family. In addition to frugal, hard-working operation, but also to provide their own children and grandchildren to read. My grandfather failed in his studies, and he has been farming in his hometown since he grew up. My uncle was still successful in his studies, and he became a teacher in the village. But he took the exam for countless times, and he did not even take the title of "Scholar". My uncle had a lot of perseverance and was admitted to Bagong in 1909.

When he was five or six years old, he began to study in private schools. In the Qing Dynasty, he began to run schools, and then went to school. At that time, there were more than a dozen people in Zhang Weihua's family, with an average of less than one mu of land, so he had no ability to study for him. Because of his great mind, he was ashamed of his scholarly home and had to read. In order to save the cost of reading, Zhang Weihua was sent to a church primary school on Bali road from home. Two years later, after graduation, Zhang Weihua applied to Guangwen middle school, which is run by foreign churches outside Dongguan of Weixian county. Zhang Weihua won the second place in the test of two or three hundred students, and his grandfather thought it a great honor. At that time, my grandfather planted a vegetable garden, and my father peddled food and scraped together everything for me to go to school. When he came home during the holidays, Zhang Weihua did the work of ordinary farmers' children: mowing grass, herding cattle, collecting dung, collecting firewood, hoeing, cutting crops, plowing land and other heavy and heavy agricultural work, sometimes living a very hard life. These things affected Zhang Weihua's spirit of hard work. Later, during the cultural revolution, I was put into the so-called "cowshed" and worked on the farm. I was able to do all kinds of farm work. Others were quite surprised.

After graduating from high school, he was admitted to Qilu University in Jinan. The cost of going to college is higher, and Zhang Weihua's family can't afford it. In the first year, they sold all their wheat as tuition fees. Zhang Weihua had a primary school teacher surnamed Li. He later studied medicine and became a doctor. He pitied me and helped me 20 or 30 yuan a year. Although the school gives a little subsidy, life is still very difficult. After class, I help foreigners learn Chinese, copy manuscripts and translate books. I can earn more than ten yuan a month. I usually as far as possible to live frugally, so year after year to mix. Once I got sick, I couldn't even pay for the medicine, so I had to ask for friends and relatives.

Teaching after graduation

Zhang Weihua persisted in studying for five years, graduated from the Department of history and politics of Qilu University in the summer of 1928, and then taught in Jinan Jimei Middle School. At that time, it was not easy to find a job. Zhang Weihua worked very hard. His teaching effect was very good, and he was very popular with students. A year later, Qilu University hired me back as a teaching assistant. Two years later, in 1931, I went to Yanjing University to study in graduate school. At that time, there were many celebrities in the Research Institute of Yanjing University. For example, Chen Yuan was the president of Furen University and concurrently the director of the Institute of Chinese Studies of Yanjing University. Both Mr. Gu Jiegang and Mr. Hong Ye taught here. I took their courses and benefited a lot from their method of learning. This prompted Zhang Weihua to make up his mind to study history. Beijing Library and Yanda library have a large collection of books, which is a very favorable condition. At that time, I was over 30 years old. I could not help sighing that it was too late, but I still grasped the opportunity to study hard. Two years later, Zhang Weihua published his first academic paper, entitled "a study of Portuguese envoys to China during the Ming and Zhengde Dynasties", which attracted the attention of the famous French Sinologist Percy Ho, and wrote an article to introduce it. This strengthened my determination to do historical research.

After graduating from the Graduate School in 1933, Zhang Weihua completed his master's thesis notes on the biographies of the Ming Dynasty, which was highly appreciated by Mr. Hong Ye and published by Harvard Yanjing society the next year. In 1982, when Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House reprinted the book, the title of the book was changed to notes on the four European countries in Ming history. In the official history of the past, although there were foreign biographies, there were never European biographies. The biographies of several European countries in the history of the Ming Dynasty are obviously a reflection of China's direct contact with western countries, indicating that the economic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West have entered an important period. Therefore, Zhang Weihua began to annotate the biographies of the four European countries in the history of Ming Dynasty by referring to the relevant Chinese and foreign books and imitating Pei Songzhi's style of annotating the annals of the Three Kingdoms. In the process of annotation, I use three methods: tracing, compiling and comparing.

After graduating from the Institute in 1933, Zhang Weihua returned to Jinan Qilu university to teach. At that time, there were only five or six teachers in the whole department, and I taught many courses, including Chinese history and world history. In addition to teaching, do some research as much as possible. When I read rizhilu, I saw Gu Yanwu's record about the great wall of Qi, which was quite inspired. I read a lot of local chronicles, and refer to other branch of the book, and wrote the article "Qi Great Wall test", which was highly praised by Gu Jiegang. Then I successively wrote the great wall of Wei, the great wall of Zhao, the great wall of Yan, the great wall of King Zhao of Qin, the Great Wall after the unification of Qin, the city of Chu and the frontier fortress of Han. Later, it was published by Zhonghua Book Company. In this book, I not only use a lot of literature material, but also some information from field investigation. I have been to Wuyuan and Linhe counties of Hetao, inspected gaoque, the end of the great wall of Zhao, and inspected the side walls of the Ming Dynasty in Zhangjiakou. This kind of on-the-spot investigation played an important role in my writing of this book.

In 1936, at the invitation of Gu Jiegang, Zhang Weihua went to work for the Yugong society in Beijing. Mr. Gu also gave me the name of a director, asking me to be responsible for internal and external affairs. Taking advantage of my work, I have made many field trips. For example, I once went to Hetao, a vast area with few people, and felt that it was a good place to be developed. Since the Qing Dynasty, many people have paid attention to this, among which Wang Tongchun is the most noteworthy. He once gathered many people to build water conservancy here, which greatly changed the local appearance. I visited his family. After returning to Beijing, I wrote an article called Wang Tongchun's visit, published in Yugong, and published Hetao water conservancy investigation special number. This kind of investigation not only broadens our horizons, but also can discover major issues related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and can confirm some records in books. This makes me feel that the ancients advocated reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles, which is really the essence of learning.

The Lugouqiao incident happened in 1937, and there were riots in Beijing and Tianjin. Zhang Weihua left Beijing to teach at Henan University in Kaifeng. At that time, Xiao Yishan was the dean of the College of Arts of Henan University, and Zhang Weihua had more contacts with him. While teaching, Zhang Weihua was the editor in chief of Jingshi magazine, the Jingshi society he founded. Soon, the situation in Kaifeng became tense. Zhang Weihua moved with Henan University to Jigongshan, and then to Wuhan, which was soon dissolved. Zhang Weihua went to Chongqing with several colleagues. He couldn't find a suitable job for a while, so he lived a vagrant life.

In the autumn of 1938, Zhang Weihua and Xu bingxu went to Kunming together to do research at the Peking Research Institute, which had moved to Kunming at that time.

In the autumn of 1939, Zhang Weihua returned to Qilu University, where he had moved to Chengdu. At that time, many universities moved to Chengdu. In huaxiba alone, there were four missionary schools in Huaxi, Yanjing, Jinling and Qilu. In addition to the lectures, Zhang Weihua and Gu Jiegang also presided over the work of the Institute of traditional Chinese Studies of Qilu University. At one time, they gathered more than 20 famous scholars in China, including Yang Xiangkui and Hu houxuan. We also recruited more than one graduate student and worked out a plan for sorting out the Twenty-Four Histories. The work of the Institute has had a great influence at home and abroad, and has almost become an academic center in Southwest China. The Institute has published the semimonthly Journal of responsibility and kindness and the Chinese culture research journal, which has become an important place for everyone to publish their research results.

Zhang Weihua has worked in the Department of history and social sciences of Chengdu Qilu University for five consecutive years, first as an associate professor, then as a professor, and once served as the head of the Department. Zhang Weihua has successively offered the courses of history of Qin and Han Dynasties, general history of China and history of communication between China and the West. In terms of research, I mainly focus on the Qin and Han Dynasties and the Ming and Qing Dynasties

Chinese PinYin : Zhang Wei Hua