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

Chapter 589: Independence from the World

Li Yu went to Qingbei as usual and would give lectures here when he had time.

Completely different from what he taught in Japan, Li Yu focused entirely on physics and mechanics, which he was best at, and they were all the most cutting-edge and accurate cutting-edge theories.

Especially in physics, Li Yu is very confident that China will win three or four Nobel Prizes in Physics in the future.

Most of the teachers invited by Qingbei still taught more traditional thermodynamics, while Li Yu completely followed the route of atomic physics and quantum mechanics.

It's a pity that only he can tell it now, and he doesn't have much time. He can only give a general direction so that they can lay a good foundation and then study abroad.

When it comes to the Nobel Prize, we have to mention our old friend Gu Hongming.

Li Yu happened to meet him on the Peking University campus. It couldn't be said to be a coincidence. The current campus is not big at all.

In the 21st century, a statement about "Gu Hongming and Rabindranath Tagore were both nominated for the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature" was widely circulated on the Internet. Even mainstream websites such as China Social Science Network have adopted it, and it is occasionally mentioned in some formal academic works.

The serious discussion undoubtedly added a touch of legend to Gu Hongming's life anecdotes, and Gu Hongming was wrongly praised as "the first person in Chinese history to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature".

But after checking the information, you will find that in the competition for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, a total of 32 nominees were produced from a total of 28 nominations. Among them, there are 5 French and Danish writers nominated, 4 British writers, 3 Spanish writers, 2 writers each from Switzerland, Sweden and Italy, and 1 writer each from Belgium, India, Ireland, Austria and Finland. people.

There are no Chinese writers among all the nominees.

After all, the book "The Spirit of the Chinese" that Gu Hongming is most proud of has not yet come out, and it will take several years to be nominated.

1913年的提名中，除了获奖的泰戈尔，此后又有多人分别获得了1916年、1919年、1921年、1926年、1927年诺贝尔文学奖，整体提名水平还是比较在线的。

At this time, Gu Hongming was leaning on the civilized staff, looking uninformed.

He had just received the appointment letter and came to Peking University to teach again, and that little braid became a beautiful scenery in Peking University.

Peking University management has always had certain expectations for Gu Hongming. During the Nanjing Provisional Government, Cai Yuanpei had just become the Minister of Education. He said in a public speech: "Yuhang Zhang Binglin is extremely perverse, but his primary school and ancient Chinese poetry are advisable; Xiamen Gu Tang is particularly eccentric by nature, but his English proficiency is not shallow. .”

Mr. Sun also once said that he is one of the three and a half people who speak English best in China (the other two are Chen Youren, editor-in-chief of the English-language "Beijing Daily", and Wu Chaoshu, the son of Wu Tingfang.)

It is normal operation to ask him to come back to give lectures.

Gu Hongming became a first-level professor at Peking University this time, and his salary was quite high.

He raised the stick of civilization and cupped his hand to Li Yu and said: "Congratulations to your Excellency for winning another Nobel Prize. It is truly a blessing to the world."

Li Yu replied: "Thank you very much, Mr. Gu, for your praise."

Gu Hongming suddenly said: "I heard that Mr. Li Yu has a lot of money. Can I borrow some money from you?"

Li Yu really didn't expect that a few hundred oceans a month wouldn't be enough for him to spend.

I don’t know what happened to this old man, but he often fell into poverty and had to rely on help from others to survive. This was rare among literati in the Republic of China, and he became famous so early.

Li Yu said: "Easy to say, how much does Mr. Gu want?"

When Gu Hongming borrowed money, he didn't make any detours at all and said confidently: "1326 Ocean."

Li Yu said with a smile: "There are still some parts to be made."

"Of course, there's no need for an extra penny!" Gu Hongming said.

To Li Yu, this was just a small sum of money, and he readily agreed: "I will ask Zhao Qian to deliver it to Mr. today."

Gu Hongming took out a piece of paper: "I have already written the IOU."

Seeing that Li Yu had no intention of accepting it, he continued: "It is only natural to borrow money and repay it. Don't worry, sir. When my book is published in Europe next year, I will definitely receive a large amount of royalties. It will be easy to pay you back."

The book Gu Hongming mentioned was "The Spirit of the Chinese", so Li Yu picked up the IOU and said, "Mr. Gu's calligraphy has become more and more sophisticated."

Gu Hongming said: "In Beijing, I dare not say that calligraphy is good."

Li Yu asked: "By the way, I remember that President Yuan asked you to be a translator when he borrowed money from a group of banks from five countries. You asked for 6000 silver dollars as a reward, didn't you give it?"

"6000? I just said it casually, but in the end I didn't even get 600!" Gu Hongming said helplessly, "I now understand that the so-called banker means that he will try his best to lend you an umbrella on sunny days, and he will lend you an umbrella fiercely on rainy days. The kind of person who takes it back.”

It is said that this sentence of his has been included in a British dictionary.

Li Yu smiled and said: "It should be called capitalist."

Gu Hongming said: "It seems that several German books particularly like to use the word 'capitalist'."

As the two were walking on campus, a group of students holding the flag of the Confucian Church passed by them.

The current Peking University has not yet ushered in Cai Yuanpei's reforms. It still has a lot of atmosphere of the old era, and there are many old intellectuals from the past. These people are quite supportive of Kang Youwei's Confucian Church.

A few days ago, Kang Youwei published another article titled "Taking Confucianism as the State Religion to Match Heaven", which caused a whirlwind.

As a typical person who upholds traditional culture, Gu Hongming couldn't stand it: "Kang Nanhai's idea is so beautiful. He didn't understand Confucianism, but he created a 'Confucian religion', which is just like the nondescript 'worshiping God' fifty years ago. teach'!"

Li Yu had always been disgusted with this matter, but there was nothing he could do about it in a short period of time. He replied: "In the early years of the Republic of China, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a statement clearly saying, 'China has no state religion, and in today's era of scientific prosperity, it cannot be reversed and degenerated. , instead of adopting the system of integrating politics and religion, and using the rituals of the church as the rituals of the state. Now Kang Nanhai suddenly encouraged a large number of people to join Confucianism, without paying any attention to the law."

"I know more or less," Gu Hongming snorted coldly, "They also wanted me to join, and they laughed it off! I could see at a glance that Kang Nanhai didn't have many political methods, and he wanted to use spiritual methods. Confucianism is transcendent in form. Ordinary political parties, if a large number of members join, will really do what he wants. Unfortunately, he just doesn't understand how there are so many smarter people in the world than him, so how can they not know what he wants to do."

Li Yu said: "The key point now is that President Yuan does not support Confucianism as the state religion. The two people originally had differences in philosophy."

"Brother Shucai was right," Gu Hongming said. "Kang Nanhai wanted to establish a virtual emperor, so the best candidates were naturally Emperor Xuantong and Duke Yan Sheng of Qufu. He didn't trust the president at all."

In fact, later on, many relatives, old and young, did not like Kang Youwei very much and felt that he was disloyal to the Qing court. This old man's life is really quite "unpopular".

After arriving at the teaching building, Gu Hongming clasped his fists and said, "Let's say goodbye first. I'm going to take an English class. The debt will be paid back as soon as possible."

Li Yu said nonchalantly: "Don't be in a hurry."

-

During this period, Europe developed very rapidly. After the general mobilization orders of various countries were issued, large numbers of troops were equipped.

Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, and Russia all have compulsory military service, and their armies are assembled extremely quickly.

Although Britain does not have a compulsory military service system, it is better because it has money and provides very high salary subsidies to frontline soldiers, far exceeding those of the French and German armies. By throwing money at it, Britain also assembled nearly 200 million troops, but it took some time to send them to the other side of the strait. Germany was the first to launch an attack and "borrowed" Belgium, but Belgium did not. It took eleven days to conquer it.

This was an obvious disadvantage for Germany. A small Belgium had to fight for so long, which greatly delayed the German General Staff's quick victory strategy.

After crossing Belgium, France was completely flat and undefeable. The German army was unstoppable. In early September, they advanced to a position only 15 miles away from Paris, and the Eiffel Tower could even be seen.

But at the end of the strong crossbow, the force could not penetrate Lu Guan.

Like the German troops under Moscow many years later, they could not move any further.

Then the French commander Gallieni saw the opportunity and launched the bloody Battle of the Marne.

There is not much to say about the Battle of the Marne, because there is no superb military strategy, it is almost just a fueling tactic.

The only bright spot may be that the French army organized 600 taxis to pull people to the front line. I wonder if this is not the earliest troop transport by car?

——Most of the people who were pulled up were killed in the battle. It was not a taxi, but a funeral car.

The Battle of the Marne is far less famous than the subsequent Battles of the Somme and Verdun.

But the Battle of the Marne was actually the decisive battle of World War I, for good reason: it completely shattered the German army's plan for a quick victory.

We have analyzed that once the German army cannot achieve a quick victory, it will fall into a two-front battle, and failure will not be far away.

After the Battle of the Marne, both sides began digging trenches. Until the end of the war, this long trench remained unchanged for four years.

The First World War can be summed up so simply, boring and cruel.

Any soldier exposed to sight between the trenches would hardly survive more than five seconds.

There are countless sniper rifles aimed at both sides. On the German side is the famous G98, and on the British side is the famous Lee-Enfield.

A few elite snipers still had optical sights, but the two sides were just at a standstill.

Although the brutal fighting on the battlefield did not completely disrupt the lives of the dignitaries in the rear, the senior officials must have made various preparations, including putting pressure on the academic community.

Li Yu received a letter from Einstein again and chatted with him about the war in Europe:

“At this point everyone can see what kind of miserable beasts humans belong to.

War is full of irrationality, and we scientists must cultivate an internationalism. But unfortunately, many good scientists don't think so.

Three of my close colleagues, Mr. Planck, Mr. Haber and Mr. Nernst, all invariably became militants.

Haber wanted to be an officer, but because of his Jewish identity, he could only become a sergeant. And he still entered the German Chemical Research Institute to manufacture chlorine bombs.

I knew that chlorine gas was terrible, but I couldn't persuade him to turn back.

Mr. Nernst now practices military steps and salutes every day. He sometimes drives and volunteers as a driver. His main job is to study tear gas bombs.

I even hope he can succeed, it is better than the terrible chlorine bomb.

Unfortunately, this method of mercifully driving the enemy out of the trenches was not liked by the generals, who still preferred chlorine bombs.

As for the most respectable Mr. Planck, he also declared his support for Germany's "just war" and said in class, "Germany has drawn its sword and pointed it at the source of insidious betrayal." '

The relationship between the two of us did not break down because of our different positions. I still tutored Haber's son in mathematics from time to time.

But when they asked me to sign a petition called "A Letter to the Civilized World" organized by the scientific community, I had no choice but to refuse.

I had to dissociate myself from them politically, and for me, that was very painful.

That petition did reject the truth. It flatly denied that German troops had invaded Belgium and declared that war was necessary, regardless of the truth.

After all, I can't abandon the creed in my heart. "

The reason why Einstein has such a high reputation is not only his extremely high academic accomplishment, but also his concept of peace, which was rare in the first half of the twentieth century.

The petition issued by Germany in 1914 was called "A Letter to the Civilized World" and was later called the "Declaration of the 93" after being signed by many intellectuals.

Almost all of Germany's leading scientists have signed it.

In addition to Einstein, there is another person who is even more rare among the unsigned ones - Hilbert.

Einstein had finally become a Swiss citizen, so he could be forgiven for not signing it. And Hilbert was a true Prussian.

Hilbert's colleague Klein, like many physicists in Berlin, signed the document almost without reading it.

Hilbert was much more cautious, and looked a little panicked when he saw the text above:

"Were it not for German militarism, German culture would have been wiped from the face of the earth... As a cultured people, we will fight to the end. To this people, the legacy of Goethe, Beethoven and Kant is As sacred as family and land.”

Hilbert murmured, "That's not right!"

After reading it word for word, he decided not to sign.

This made him a target of public criticism, and many students even stopped attending his classes.

Fortunately, this situation did not last long. Soon, most scientists realized what a big mistake they had made, and all regretted signing the petition.

Planck regretted it very much. He found that the matter was getting worse. After creating a petition, Wien actually made a "statement" of his own. In the statement, he lashed out at the entire British physics community and asked the German academic community to draw a clear line between them.

In terms of physics, Planck firmly opposed the practice of "German Physics", and even if he did it, it should not be done during the war - this was obviously to cheer for the war!

So he refused to sign Wien's statement.

However, Wayne's statement was recognized by two heavyweights, Stark and Leonard.

Li Yu wanted to publicly support Einstein and Hilbert, but the Beiyang government would declare war on Germany soon, so he could only reply privately to express his approval for them.

(End of this chapter)