A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Chapter 148 Apologize
After chatting with them for a long time, the students of Hongwen College "let go" Li Yu.

In fact, Li Yu felt that it was quite interesting to chat with them, after all, they would be great people from now on.

But at this time Nagaoka Hantaro came to Hongbun College to find Li Yu: "Great, I finally found Mr.! I thought Mr. left Tokyo Imperial University in a fit of anger."

Li Yu said with a smile: "How can I be so narrow-minded."

Nagaoka Hantaro said: "This incident was originally the fault of our school. If you come back to school with me, the principal will make a special apology to you."

Li Yu said, "It's not necessary, and it's not a big deal."

Nagaoka Hantaro shook his head vigorously: "The school is a sacred place. If such a discrimination incident occurs, and it is aimed at an outstanding scientist like sir, if it gets out, our Tokyo Imperial University may be laughed to death by others."

Seeing his sincerity, Li Yu said, "Okay, let's go back to the University of Tokyo first."

Consciously or unconsciously, Li Yu didn't like to add the word "empire", after all, the University of Tokyo in the future would not have this word.

Li Yu bid farewell to Jigoro Kano first: "Mr. Kano, I'm really sorry, I have to return to the University of Tokyo for a while, and I will definitely learn judo skills from you when I have time in the future."

Kano Jigoro said: "No problem, I also want to learn radio gymnastics from you with humility!"

Li Yu smiled awkwardly: "Learn from each other."

Jigoro Kano said that he also practiced competitive sports, which reminded him of a joke he had heard before: a foreigner came to China to learn martial arts, and after a year of study, he returned home, playing well.Later, when a Chinese saw it, he felt something was wrong: Why did this foreigner come back after learning a set of radio gymnastics?
Li Yu also bid farewell to the students of Hongwen College temporarily: "In the future, you can contact me at any time if you have the opportunity. I also have a telegram, which is very convenient."

They also got along very happily with Li Yu in this short period of time. After all, they are students with advanced thinking, and a short thought collision can leave a deep impression.

When he returned to Tokyo Imperial University, the principal Kenjiro Yamakawa greeted him at the school gate in person.

Kenjiro Yamakawa stepped forward to shake hands with Li Yu and said, "I'm really sorry, it's a pity that the most outstanding oriental scientist came to our school today, so I can see him today!"

Nagaoka Hantaro said: "This is our president. Coincidentally, he also studies physics. President Yamakawa received a bachelor's degree in physics from Yale University in the United States more than 20 years ago."

Li Yu said: "It's a pleasure to meet you. The University of Tokyo really attaches great importance to science."

Kenjiro Yamakawa said: "Mr. is the best talent in mathematics and science. I am too old now, and I have already retreated to the direction of education. In the direction of emerging scientific research, the gap with you is not the same."

Li Yu said: "The headmaster is serious."

Kenjiro Yamakawa said solemnly: "That's the truth! I have the honor to read all the papers written by Mr., and they are really wonderful and admirable from the bottom of my heart. This time, the students in this school are ignorant of Mount Tai, offended Mr., and made me feel ashamed. It also brought shame to the school, and after discussion with our school committee, it was unanimously decided to give him a warning of expulsion."

Li Yu said: "That's not necessary, it's just a verbal offense. Besides, I didn't take it to heart."

He really didn't take it to heart, Li Yu was too lazy to be this kind of leisurely, and he wasn't an extraordinary person, so it wasn't worth getting angry with him.

On the contrary, Kenjiro Yamakawa felt that Li Yu had a lofty personality after hearing Li Yu's words: "Mr. is worthy of being from an ancient oriental country, and he can punt a boat in his belly! No wonder Professor Nagaoka has always said that he should be in awe of China."

Nagaoka Hantaro also said: "Sir, you must give another lecture or seminar at our school."

Kenjiro Yamakawa agreed: "That's right! I promise that the last time will not happen again. And this time I will invite all colleges, anyone who wants to listen can come, and enjoy the gentleman's demeanor together."

"Okay." Of course, Li Yu didn't need to refuse, which was a bit like a host.

Kenjiro Yamakawa said again: "Please move on, sir. We called the school's famous figures in advance to hold a tea party for him. It is also an act of our university to express our apology."

Unexpectedly, they prepared quite a lot of tricks.

At the tea party, there were already several professors from Tokyo University present. Nagaoka Hantaro introduced him: "This is Kokichi Gao, an excellent professor of chemistry. He just came back from the United States. This is Professor Shiga Jie, who is contagious. medical experts."

Gao Feng let Ji Liyu know that this person had completed the crystallization of adrenaline in 1900, and he was really good at chemistry.

As for Shiga Jie, although there is no obvious connection with the later Unit 731, but when it comes to Japanese experts in epidemiology and bacteriology, people will always associate it in a bad direction.

Li Yu shook hands with the two of them: "It's a pleasure to meet you!"

The two of them also respected Li Yu very much: "I heard Mr. Jiu's name for a long time. When I saw you today, I really am extraordinary."

Nagaoka Hantaro went on to introduce: "This is Natsume Soseki, a lecturer at the Faculty of Letters. He heard about Mr.'s situation and felt deeply unfair."

Natsume Soseki has not yet become famous, but his talent has begun to show.

Natsume Soseki ranked first in the selection of Japan's most popular writers, and his portrait was once printed on Japan's 1000-yen currency.

Li Yu said: "I have admired you for a long time!"

Natsume Soseki said: "It is Mr. I have admired for a long time! Although I have also studied in the UK, I have deeply felt that mere proficiency in English is not enough to strengthen the national power. I really regret that I did not study mathematics and science."

At about this time, Natsume Soseki felt that he had learned English for so long and was "useless" to the country. His ideals suddenly collapsed and he suffered from a neurasthenia.

Li Yu said with a smile: "There is an old saying in China, good fortune lies in misfortune, and misfortune rests on blessing. There is no real good or bad."

In fact, it was indeed this neurasthenia that stimulated Natsume Soseki to start creating, and then he became himself.

But neurasthenia really tortured him a lot. In this era, there is no advanced psychology and neuroscience at all, and there is almost nothing to do in the face of neurasthenia.

After the introduction, Kenjiro Yamakawa presided over the tea party: "Today, I suddenly heard that the students of our school were disrespectful to Mr. Li Yu. I am deeply worried. It may cause a sudden decline in the reputation of our school. You must already know that Mr. Li Yu is a very Excellent scientists, it should be our honor to come to Tokyo Imperial University, but unfortunately I didn't know about it immediately, so I couldn't make arrangements in advance. Here, I want to solemnly apologize to Mr. Li Yu!"

Kenjiro Yamakawa took a step back and bowed directly at ninety degrees, which made Li Yu feel a little embarrassed, as if he owed the other party a lot of favor.

After the speech, the tea party officially began.

This was Li Yu's first experience of the Japanese "tea ceremony".

In fact, it is a pity to say that when it comes to matcha tea ceremony, it seems that the whole world thinks of Japanese tea ceremony, but in fact, Japanese tea ceremony is completely learned from the Song Dynasty.

Matcha has always been drunk in ancient China, which is to crush the tea leaves and press them into tea cakes.Then when drinking tea, break the tea cake into a tea bowl, beat it with a tea brush until it becomes a bowl of green soup, and drink it together.

Of course, this is just a simple talk, in fact the tea ceremony is very complicated.The Japanese tea ceremony now has more than [-] procedures, which are still simplified on the basis of the Song Dynasty.

Japan has been very fond of tea ceremony since their Warring States period. People such as Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi are very obsessed with collecting tea sets, and even treat them as treasures.Among the tea sets, "Tang things" are the best, that is, imported goods from China.

After all, even pottery was fired in all kinds of strange things in Japan at that time, and exquisite porcelain was naturally extremely precious in their eyes.

Now people may have heard that the ancients had four elegant things: tasting tea, listening to the piano, burning incense, and hanging pictures (flower arrangement).

Tea tasting is one of them.

It's just that these things are said to be the favorites of literati and bureaucrats, and they cost money and time, which are not affordable for ordinary people.

When Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, took over the world, Lao Zhu came from a poor family and hated the aristocratic culture. He ordered that tea cakes should not be paid as tribute, and that tea should be changed to loose tea.

Since then, China has slowly changed from the matcha culture to the current loose tea culture.

Seeing that Li Yu didn't seem to know how to drink matcha, Natsume Soseki deliberately sat next to him.

Li Yu followed suit, so he didn't make a fool of himself.

Natsume Soseki's family used to be very powerful in the Edo area, but it declined when he was young.

But the skinny camel is bigger than the horse, and he still knows all kinds of upper-class life since he was a child.

It feels like Natsume Soseki's experience is a bit like Cao Xueqin, both of them are declining nobles.

Natsume Soseki said: "I have loved Chinese culture since I was a child. I started learning ancient Chinese books at the age of 14. When I was young, I determined to be born in Chinese."

There are definitely not a few Japanese who have his kind of thinking, and Li Yu certainly knows it.

Natsume Soseki always has a relatively positive mentality. There are still many people who take Japan as their mission to replace Chinese Han culture, which is terrible.

Li Yu said, "I'm afraid your master's level of Chinese poetry is higher than mine."

Natsume Soseki smiled and said: "I dare not play tricks, I am only a Japanese after all, even if my husband does not specialize in studying Chinese poetry, he will not be inferior to me. I first used 'Soseki' as my pen name when I was 22 years old. Han book "Book of Jin."

Li Yu really doesn't know about this, but Natsume Soseki's understanding of oriental culture is indeed quite deep.

To a certain extent, the entire oriental culture has been influenced by China for a long time, and many places are connected.Perhaps the most typical difference between Eastern and Western cultures lies in unrestrained and reserved.

Among the several literary stalks that people like to play now, one comes from Natsume Soseki.

It is said that when Natsume Soseki was teaching English to his students, he once gave the students an English article and asked to translate into Japanese the sentence "I love you" that the hero and heroine couldn't help saying when the hero and heroine were walking under the moon.

Some students translated it as a more straightforward "I love you".

Unexpectedly, Natsume Soseki shook his head and said: "The Japanese don't say 'I love you', so the literal translation has no charm."

So the student asked: "How should I translate it?"

Natsume Soseki pondered for a moment and said: "The Japanese would say 'Tonight は月が仙丽ですね (Tonight's moonlight is so beautiful)'."

This is a typical subtlety, but it is indeed a bit too subtle.

Anyway, when Li Yu heard this story, he felt that if he really chased girls like this, he would definitely be dumped countless times.

Or the phrase "Stand here and don't move, I'll buy you some oranges" is more like a literary stalk.

The expression is also very subtle, but the meaning~~
Ha, everyone should have an impression of this sentence. It comes from Zhu Ziqing's prose "Back View" in the Chinese textbook. As for the meaning it expresses, it is: I am your father!

Natsume Soseki is also very interested in Li Yu's situation. After all, Natsume is not that kind of "Wen Aotian", and he himself knows the importance of science.

"Mr. can become an excellent scientist in such, uh, such an unbearable environment in the Qing Dynasty. I really admire it. I just came back from studying in the UK a year ago, and the two years in the UK let me know how powerful the British and Western sciences are. , It is very difficult to catch up. But I found out from the newspaper that Mr. has been highly recognized by the Royal Society, which is incredible! You may not know that this is something that our principal and the entire Faculty of Science cannot do."

The current Faculty of Science at Tokyo Imperial University is indeed nothing in the world, but Li Yu can see how much Japan attaches importance to the Faculty of Science from the fact that their principal is a Ph.D. in physics.

I have to say that there are many places in Little Japan that are really worth learning.

What they set their sights on, they really put their lives into it, and no matter what means they tried, they had to achieve their goals.

Li Yu said: "Nowadays, science in Western Europe is still flourishing, and it won't be long before there will be even more explosive development, and even the results in a few years will exceed the sum of the previous 100 years."

Hantaro Nagaoka on the side said in surprise: "Why did you say that, sir? According to my understanding of physics, the development of science should be gentle."

Li Yu said: "Development is of course gentle, but no matter how gentle the process is, there will inevitably be ups and downs, just like..."

Li Yu originally wanted to say it was like "quantum fluctuations", but they certainly couldn't understand it, so he changed his words and said, "Like the sea, even if there are no waves on the surface, there are undercurrents surging under the sea surface, and it is very likely that a tsunami-like storm will gather in the near future. .”

The Japanese are so familiar with tsunami, Nagaoka Hantaro said in surprise: "In this way, the gap between the Great Japanese Empire and Western Europe is still infinite, and we can't even catch up with their current achievements. Progress, what else do we have to catch up?"

Li Yu said: "I don't think this is a bad thing. Science is always progressing through accumulation, and it's time to erupt."

Even in the two dark clouds of physics, the theoretical foundation has already been laid almost. Even Maxwell has already touched the threshold of the theory of relativity, but he is only one step behind; Planck also discovered the pioneering formula of quantum mechanics three years ago. It's just that it didn't attract attention.

Anyway, it is the so-called mountain rain is about to come and the wind is full of buildings.

During the conversation, Kenjiro Yamakawa, the president of the University of Tokyo, handed a telegram to Li Yu: "This is from your country's embassy in our country."

Li Yu asked suspiciously, "Looking for me?"

Kenjiro Yamakawa nodded: "Yes, it seems that the telegram sent to Beijing by the University of Göttingen in Germany has not received a response, and they are looking for Mr. everywhere. The signature is the famous Professor Hilbert."

No wonder Kenjiro Yamakawa personally took the letter to find Li Yu, Hilbert, of course they knew what level they were.

And Hilbert was looking for Li Yu by name, which of course made him feel curious and surprised.

Li Yu read it.

All the people around turned their heads when they heard Hilbert's name, and Kenjiro Yamakawa asked, "Why is Professor Hilbert looking for Mr.?"

Li Yu said casually, "He wants me to write him a paper."

A few of them were not calm anymore: "Professor Hilbert! Ask you for a manuscript?!"

This kind of thing happened to Li Yu not once or twice. Seeing them startled, he said, "Yeah, it's not a big deal."

"It's no big deal?!" Kenjiro Yamakawa was shocked, "How did you say such an important thing so lightly!"

Li Yu was a little at a loss, so he had to say in a surprised tone: "It's really incredible!"

Natsume Soseki almost fainted: "Can you pretend to be a little bit!"

(End of this chapter)