Zeng Pu

Zeng Pu

Zeng Pu (1872-1935) was a novelist and publisher in late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China. According to the genealogy, the name of the family is Pu Hua. At the beginning, it was changed to Meng Pu (Zeng Meng PU). It was also named Xiao Mu and Zhen Zhai. It was named Mingshan, and its pen name was East Asia sick man. Changshu, Jiangsu, was born in a bureaucratic landlord family. He is a modern writer and publisher.

Study experience

Zengpu was born in a scholarly family. Zengpu's family is one of the famous families in Changshu. Zeng Pu's father, Zeng Zhizhuan, resigned in his middle age and returned to his hometown. On the site of "xiaowangchuan" in Qiandai, the imperial censor of Ming Dynasty, he painstakingly built it for 20 years. The spring flowers and Autumn Moon and the dream building naturally emerged in the garden with virtual meaning. Zeng Zhizhuan placed great expectations on Zeng Pu, hoping that he would study hard in exchange for his success. Zeng Pu was intelligent and eager to learn since he was a child. He was superficially educated by the imperial examination. In fact, he was often immersed in literature and art books behind others' back. The cornerstone of his literature was virtually established.

Guangxu seventeen years (1891) Zhongju. The next year, he went to Beijing to take part in the examination and appeared in the examination paper of ink pollution.

After the incident, Zeng Zhizhuan donated a cabinet letter to Zeng Pu in order not to embarrass him. Zeng Pu, who works in Beijing, is confident, elegant, talented, broad-minded and uninhibited.

Although Zeng Pu was an old-fashioned scholar in his early years, he hated the feudal imperial examination system very much. In his book song to the imperial examination college, he bitterly exposed the phenomenon that the imperial court of the Qing Dynasty regarded scholars as thieves, and despised those literati who assiduously studied eight part essay to gain fame and fortune. He proudly chanted: "husband can't wear the six seals on his waist. He will travel thousands of miles when he dies. Hu Weilu will remember his name and devote himself to Literature and history day and night!" If a man is happy for thousands of years, how can he exchange a hair cone for a mink? You can't see the pines and cypresses in the sky, and you can't compare them with Jingzhi! " Later, though forced by his father's strict orders and sent by the governor to board the ship, he reluctantly went north to take the exam, but after entering the exam, he deliberately soiled the test paper, wrote a poem on his sleeve, and angrily said that "fame is not what I want"! Although his father donated the cabinet letters to him and stayed in Beijing to serve him, the proud Zeng Pu was not used to floating and sinking in the official world, and invited him to travel with his friends in poetry and wine every day. When he stayed in Beijing for several years, he finally felt that his career as an official in Beijing was not enough to fulfill his ambition, so he angrily left the capital and left the official world.

Set up industry

On the eve of the reform movement of 1898, Zeng Pu lived in Shanghai. He intended to set up an industry according to his father's orders. However, he often communicated with reformists Tan Sitong, Lin Xu, Tang Caichang, Yang Shenxiu and so on in Shanghai, talked about the reform, raised money for reform activities, and ignored the establishment of an industry. The following year, the reform failed, and six reformers were killed. Zeng Pu Shi returned to Changshu to attend his father's funeral, but fortunately he did not die. At this time, Zeng Pu's poems include Li Hua Pian, which implicitly satirizes Empress Dowager Cixi's partiality for eunuch Li Lianying, and pen he, which implicitly narrates Guangxu's imprisonment in Yingtai, criticizes the government, and expresses the hope that Guangxu will get rid of the shackles and revive the national movement. Shen Beishan, a famous scholar in Changshu, risked his life to ask the Empress Dowager to hand over his power and kill Ronglu, Gangyi and Li Lianying. Zeng Pu also secretly participated in this big case that stirred up the whole country. After returning to Changshu, Shen Beishan hid in Zeng's house. He was defeated and arrested. Zeng Pu took care of him in every way. In 1900, Jing Yuanshan, the alternate magistrate of Jiangnan, sent a letter to advise him to abolish Guangxu (Guangxu). Zeng Pu also participated in this action. Zeng Pu in this period was deeply influenced by reformism.

Zeng Pu's cultural business stopped because of poor capital turnover. Later, he entered the duanfang tent of Liangjiang governor. He was only responsible for financial affairs, but did not do anything. Less than a year later, duanfang was transferred to Beiyang minister, so Zeng Puqian sent an alternate magistrate to Beijing to introduce him to Zhejiang Province. However, due to the lack of Olympic aid, he only served as a local development and examination committee member in Hangzhou and a small official in charge of the local bureau of Ningbo lvying palace.

On the eve of the revolution of 1911, Zeng Pu participated in the Jiangsu Provincial Education Association and returned with Huang Yanpei and Shen Xinqing. After the restoration, he was elected as a member of Jiangsu Province, and then successively held the posts of "director of official industry, director of Shatian Bureau, director of finance department, and director of government affairs department". During his more than ten years of official life, Zeng Puyan refused to levy taxes and education funds, and objected to the failure of sun Chuanfang, the ruling warlord of Jiangsu Province, to levy taxes on mu.

During this period, Zeng Pu was still quite concerned about national affairs. When Yuan Shikai became emperor, he made friends with Cai E and supported Chen Qimei and others to fight against yuan. In December 1915, Zeng Pu, Leng Yuqiu, Niu Yongjian, etc. planned the anti yuan movement in Shanghai. Due to the lack of military expenditure, he was responsible for raising money and lost his private savings to replenish his army.

The road of literature

Zeng Pu has been good at literature since he was young, and has developed a strong interest in literature. He once studied French in the special class of tongwenguan in Beijing. In the 24th year of Guangxu's reign, Chen Jitong, who had lived in France for many years, met in Shanghai. Under Chen's guidance, he concentrated on reading a large number of French literary works and literary criticism works in the past three or four years, and read many French translated literary masterpieces of Western European countries. He said that he was "crazy about literature".

In the year of the May 4th movement, Zeng Puji abandoned his old school and ordered his second son, Zeng Yaozhong, who was studying medicine in Germany, to buy a large number of literary books in Europe. He planned to introduce French literature comprehensively and began to compile an outline of the history of French literature. He praised the May 4th New Literature movement. He advocated that Chinese literature should open up a "new path" and import foreign new literature and new blood to expand the field of Chinese literature. He also praised the view of "art for life" and advocated pure and popular vernacular and "civilian literature". Although Zeng Pu's literary view still belongs to bourgeois democratic nature, as an old Ju Ren who was born in the feudal camp, it is valuable to have such courage to accept new things.

Zeng Pu failed to run the silk industry in Shanghai from 1902 to 1903. In 1904, he, Ding Chui and Xu Nianci founded the novel Lin society and published a large number of translated and written novels to promote the new trend, including the works of advocating the national revolutionary thought edited by Jin Songcen and others. After the publication of novel forest magazine, when Qiu Jin, the bourgeois democratic revolutionist, died, the magazine published many poems and legends to show its mourning. During this period, Zeng Pu continued to write "Nie Hai Hua" after Jin Songcen's original work, and his ideas of advocating national revolution and democratic revolution began to germinate and grow. This is not only reflected in literary creation, but also put into practice in political activities. At that time, the Qing government borrowed British money to build the Shanghai Hangzhou south railway. In fact, it was selling China's sovereignty, causing public outcry. Zeng Pu and Ma Xiangbo encouraged the business circles in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to petition by cable, and encouraged the people to fight against the traitor to the death.

During the autumn and winter of this year, the Qing government transferred Zhang Zengyi, the governor of Zhejiang Province, who brutally killed Qiu Jin, to Jiangsu Province. Zeng Pu and di Pingzi, the owner of Shanghai times, led the movement to drive Zhang, who was ordered to be arrested by the Qing government by secret telegram. However, he stood still and encouraged the rising tide of driving Zhang, which finally forced the Qing government to take back its life. During this period, Zeng Pu had close contact with Jin Songcen, Huang Ren, Pang Bizi, Huang Zongyang and other bourgeois revolutionary figures. From the ideological tendency of his novel Nie Hai Hua, Zeng Pu's bourgeois revolutionary democratic position in this period is very obvious. The change from a reformist to a revolutionary Democrat means that Zeng Pu is following the wheel of history.

In 1927, Zeng Pu and his eldest son Xubai founded zhenmeishan bookstore in Shanghai and ran zhenmeishan magazine. During this period, Zeng Pu's main contribution was to introduce French literature. According to the available statistics, he has translated 31 pieces of French literary creation and literary criticism, especially Hugo, the progressive romantic master in France. Hugo's strong tendency against classicism is klinevel, the king of Hippie and Onani are against tyranny, the laughing man and Notre Dame are exposed in capitalist society He was the first to introduce them to China. The work of forgetting to eat and sleep caused Zeng Pu to have a heart attack and nearly died. He was bedridden for two years and could not write or read. He could only pass the time by listening to French music and talking with his family in French.

Among the talented literati who emerged in Shanghai after the May 4th movement, Zeng Pu was an alien. Compared with Xu Zhimo and others' study abroad experience, Zeng Pu has never gone abroad, never received the orthodox western style higher education, only relying on the Western European novels and the exotic customs of Xiafei road in Shanghai to build a completely westernized world in spirit. Zhang Ruogu devoted all his life to literary criticism and translation, trying to introduce the essence of French literature and culture to China. He lived in a western style house with many white people on masnan Road (now Sinan Road). The interior furnishings of the house were the same as those of the Paris family. The literary salon held in his home attracted many famous writers and artists in Shanghai at that time.

In 1931, Zhen Mei Shan magazine stopped publication. He returned to xukuo garden in Changshu, his hometown, and devoted himself to gardening, recreation and recuperation. He died in 1935.

Zeng Pu had five sons in his life, namely Zeng Xubai, Zeng Yaozhong, Zeng Guangshu, Zeng Shumao and Zeng Xi.

Nie Hai Hua

Zeng Pu's main work is the novel Nie Hai Hua. Nie Hai Hua is one of the modern novels with high ideological and artistic achievements. The novel reveals the imperialist aggressive ambition, the incompetence and corruption of the Qing government, and the fatuity and depravity of the feudal literati. The book contains more than 200 characters, reflecting a wide range of social life. It is unique in material selection, structure and language. l] Lu Xun's "a brief history of Chinese Novels" called it "ingenious in structure and brilliant in literary talent", and listed it as one of the four major condemnation novels in the late Qing Dynasty.

Jin Tianhe, the original author of Nie Hai Hua, first wrote six chapters in the 29th year of Guangxu

Chinese PinYin : Ceng Pu