Who are the famous people in Anhui history?

Hu Shi's oral autobiography-I am from Huizhou, Anhui. Author: Hu Shi Source: Network Click: 10 1

Let me first synthesize the geographical environment of Huizhou, the southernmost tip of Anhui Province:

Huizhou was a "mansion" in the old system era, and there were six "counties" under one * * *. Jixi county, where my home is located, is the northernmost county in Huizhou. From our county to the south are Shexian County and Xiuning County; To the west are Yixian and Qimen counties; To the south of Qimen is Wuyuan County. Wuyuan is Zhu Xi's hometown. Zhu was born in Fujian, but Wuyuan is his ancestral home.

Huizhou is a mountainous area and is famous for its beauty. Rivers in this area all flow from northwest to southeast and finally into Qiantang River. Because the mountainous area is barren, there is little cultivated land in Huizhou. Agricultural products in the whole year can only supply food for local residents for about three months. The shortage of food can only be supplemented by buying from other places. Therefore, in order to survive, we Huizhou mountain residents have to leave the countryside and go to the city to do business. Therefore, for thousands of years, we Huizhou people are destined to become businessmen.

Huizhou people go out to do business and go east to Zhejiang; Go to Jiangsu in the northeast; Go north to the towns along the river; Go west to Jiangxi; Go south to Fujian. Most of our six counties in Huizhou are close to Zhejiang; Only Qimen and Wuyuan are close to Jiangxi. In recent years [before and after the Anti-Japanese War], Wuyuan County, the westernmost county, was merged into Jiangxi by the central government. However, Wuyuan and Huizhou, Anhui Province have a long history, and residents are proud of it and unwilling to leave their mother province, so they opposed it and launched the "Wuyuan belongs to Anhui" movement. A few years before China took over the mainland, Wuyuan was finally transferred back to Anhui; But I heard that under the rule of China, Wuyuan was allocated to Jiangxi? ①。

Therefore, for more than a thousand years, we Huizhou people have been famous all over the country for being good at doing business. Huizhou merchants mostly started with small businesses; Work hard, accumulate some funds, and gradually strive to develop. Some became wealthy businessmen. There is a saying in China: "No town without emblem!" In other words, if there are no Huizhou people in a place, then this place is just a village. After Huizhou people moved in, they started to open stores, and then gradually expanded, turning a small village into a small town. There are many other stories about Huizhou Gang. ②。

We Huizhou people usually go to the city to study at the age of eleven or thirteen. At first, most of them were apprentices in the shops of their elders or relatives. During the three-year apprenticeship, they were not paid; After that, I will pay a little. Until the apprenticeship [and internship] expires, when 2 1 22 years old, you can enjoy three months paid marriage leave and get married in your hometown. After the marriage leave expired, they went back to their original shop alone and continued to operate. Since then, they have three months' paid vacation every three years to go home to visit relatives. Therefore, Huizhou people have a dialect called "husband and wife for three and a half years". That is to say, a couple's married life does not exceed 36 or 42 years, but the time they have lived together for a lifetime actually does not exceed 36 or 42 months-that is, three or three and a half years? ③。

Of course, Huizhou people also get rich by doing business. If you do big business and have money, you can also live with your family and children.

Huizhou people's business is national, not limited to neighboring provinces. The salt trade in recent hundreds of years was almost monopolized by Huizhou people. Salt is an indispensable necessity of solar eclipse for everyone, and the trade volume is very large. Since Huizhou merchants monopolized the salt trade, Huizhou salt merchants have always been annoying, even the object of general disgust. You must have heard many stories satirizing "Huizhou Salt Merchants"! Therefore, I specifically cite salt merchants to illustrate the role of Huizhou people in the business world.

Another big business of Huizhou people is pawnshop. Pawnshops were also a kind of banks in their early years. The popular word "Huizhou Chaofeng" originally refers to the Chaofeng in pawn shops, and later refers to all Huizhou gentry and businessmen. The original meaning of "Chao Feng" contains the meaning of respect, indicating that a person works hard; But sometimes it is also mean and critical, meaning that a businessman doesn't care about anything but making money. In a word, Huizhou people, like Scots in the British Isles, go out for business and travel all over the country. At first, they started from a small business and gradually became rich, so that they settled all over the country. So if you travel around, you can always find that many people are originally from Huizhou. For example, those surnamed Wang and Cheng are almost all from Huizhou. Other surnames, such as Ye, Pan, Hu, Yu, Yu and Yao, are mostly from Huizhou. You can know their native place by looking at the names in the China phone book. Just like in America, people can know who is Scottish, Irish, Swedish and Norwegian by reading the phone book. It is precisely because of the shortage of grain production in the mountainous areas of our hometown that we Huizhou people generally rely on our family members who are doing business in the city to help us on time. Aid projects are not limited to money, but sometimes include food. For example, salted lard (wax oil) is sometimes sent home from far away. Others, such as cloth and cotton yarn. It is much cheaper to buy them in the city than in the country, so they are often sent home.

Therefore, it is an economic necessity for Huizhou people to leave their homes and go out to do business. It is not uncommon for a family, father and son not to see each other for several years. At the same time, the necessities of life at home, even building a house and buying land, are also funded by remittances from fathers, brothers and children who are far away from home.

However, apart from economic factors, the tradition of leaving home, going through hardships and taking risks in business has its cultural significance. Living in a big city for a long time, we Huizhou people can walk ahead of the times in culture and education. Children of Huizhou people can receive education in big cities, and schools in cities are always much better than those in mountainous areas. In education and culture, their horizons are much broader. Therefore, after the Middle Ages, it is no accident that some Huizhou scholars, such as Zhu in the12nd century and those after him, especially Jiang Yong, Dai Zhen, Yu and Ling Tingkan in the18th and19th centuries. , to occupy a higher position in China academic circles? ⑤。

Now let's talk about Jixi County. Jixi is the northernmost county among the six counties in Huizhou, and it may also be the county with the least population. In business, we Jixi people are also relatively backward. Jixi people mostly do business locally, and rarely leave home to go to far-away big cities. They started with grocery retailers, and then gradually moved from near to far. So on the whole, we Huizhou people are really backward.

My family/kloc-was a small tea merchant 0/50 years ago. One of the ancestors once lived in a small town called Chuansha near Shanghai? ⑥ Run a small tea shop. According to family records, the fund of this small shop is only 100 yuan (about100000 yuan). This kind of capital is really too little. But the ancestor and his eldest brother developed our store together, and at the same time, in order to prevent others from competing in this port, they actually opened another branch in Chuansha Town.

Later, they set aside funds from Chuansha's shop and opened another branch in Shanghai Huajie (downtown). During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Shanghai was burned and looted by bandits, and Chuansha Town was partially looted? 7. My father recorded the disaster in detail, and how my ancestors and their families struggled in and after suffering, and revived the shops in Shanghai and Chuansha with the most limited funds. This is really a very hard struggle.

According to the estimate of 1880 (the sixth year of Guangxu reign in Qing dynasty), the total value of the two tea shops was roughly equivalent to the money earned at that time, which was 2.98 million yuan (about 3,000 yuan). The income of these two stores is the source of food and clothing for our family.

I also want to correct a wrong record in the past. Mr. Cai Yuanpei, the former president of Peking University, mistakenly called my family the Hu clan in Jixi City in the preface to the first volume of the Outline of the History of China Philosophy? Mr. Cai pointed out that "Jixi Hu family" has family origin, especially scholars such as 18 and 19 century, Hu Pei? (1782 ——1849) and his predecessors are well-known scholars? Attending this scholarly family, which was famous for sinology in 18 and 19 centuries, can be traced back to Hu Zai B1,the author of Tiaoxi Fishing in Conghua in the 20th century. . Hu Zongxian, a famous anti-enemy soldier, is also a member of their family. But this Hu family who lives in Jixi city is not a family with mine. B 12？ .

My family has lived in the countryside for generations. My hometown is about 50 miles north of Jixi city. All previous dynasties lived on small-scale operation. The first person in my family who is interested in learning is one of my uncles (Hu). He is a squire and a teacher. He is famous in the village, but he is not very proud of the examination room. B 13？ .

Our village [Shangzhuang], like other villages in South China, is used to living in groups. Before the Hongyang Uprising, the total population of the Hu family we lived in was about 6,000 people-of course, including people who were scattered in various places to do business-and most of them made a living by farming. But most families also have children who do business in other places-especially in Nanjing and Shanghai. Because they have never seen a paper version, the authenticity needs to be verified. But the tone should be written by Mr. Hu Shi after he went to the United States and written for foreigners.