Chapter 382 Ma Xiangbo Dies
The campus of Southwest Associated University was designed by Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin. When they decided to build the school here, they traveled thousands of miles to Kunming, carefully studied the local geology and topography, and designed it according to the requirements put forward by Zhang Xingjiu.
The campus displayed in front of them today is relatively loosely distributed, and each building is small in scale. This is done to prevent bombing and prevent the Japanese bombers from causing huge losses to the school.
At the same time, it can also reduce construction costs. Such houses are easy to build and the cost is not high. They can be built in a shorter time with less money. Now most dormitories and school buildings have been built, and students can start classes and study directly without wasting too much time.
But even so, because there were so many teachers and students arriving in Kunming this time, these school buildings were still not enough, and some people had to go to other places for temporary accommodation and come back after the remaining school buildings were built.
Peking University President Jiang Menglin showed his noble character and said, "Students from our College of Arts and Law should go to Mengzi. There are extra houses there, and it is quiet, which is suitable for the cultivation of cultural heritage."
In 1885, after the Qing government signed the Sino-French New Treaty, Mengzi was opened as a commercial port, and it was transformed from a remote village into a bustling border town. Today, Mengzi has gradually declined due to transportation reasons, but this has resulted in many vacant houses, so these people no longer have to worry about having no place to live.
After resting for a few days in Kunming, these students went to Mengzi under the leadership of Zhu Ziqing and stayed there for three months. In just three months, they brought considerable changes to the local area.
First, in terms of living habits, through their words and deeds, local people changed the habit of women wearing masks and also changed some bad eating habits.
Secondly, it also made the specialty of this small place Mengzi famous throughout the country. In the future, when people talk about the special food of Yunnan, they will definitely mention Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles, which originated in Mengzi.
There is a lake in the south of the small town of Mengzi. Zhu Ziqing once compared it to Daming Lake in Jinan and West Lake in Hangzhou.
There is a small island on the lake, and on the island there is a pavilion. It is said that a local scholar locked himself in the pavilion to study hard for the imperial examination. His wife crossed a bridge every day to bring food to her husband.
Rice noodles are a traditional local food. Every time the wife brought them to him, she found that her husband often missed meals because he studied hard, which was bad for his stomach in the long run.
In order to let her husband eat hot meals, the wife invented a kind of rice noodles stewed in chicken soup. Even if her husband forgot the time to eat because of reading, the chicken soup has a good heat-preserving effect, so her husband can eat the hot rice noodles.
Because the wife had to cross a long bridge every time to deliver food to him, this kind of rice noodles was called "Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles".
Due to word of mouth among teachers and students of Peking University’s School of Literature, “Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles” gradually became famous and was brought to all parts of the country, becoming the most representative delicacy of Yunnan.
Three months later, these teachers and students returned to Kunming. The new school building had been built and they could study with students from other departments, but the changes they brought to Mengzi continued.
In the new campus, in addition to being responsible for the daily management of the school, Zhang Xingjiu has not given up research and teaching. He still maintains the good habit of teaching students in person.
Among the students who arrived in Kunming, there were a few whom he valued the most. The first of them were naturally the two future Nobel Prize winners, Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee.
Yang Zhenning's father, Yang Wuzhi, was born in Hefei, Anhui. In his early years, he was admitted as a government-funded student to study in the United States and obtained a master's and doctoral degree from the University of Chicago. After returning to China, he taught at Xiamen University and Tsinghua University with Zhang Xingjiu. Now he has also come to Southwest United University to continue teaching mathematics.
Yang Zhenning is fifteen years old this year. He originally studied at Chongde Middle School in Peking and had excellent academic performance. On the way to Kunming, Zhang Xingjiu talked to him and suggested that he go directly to Southwest Associated University. With his talent and learning progress, continuing to study in middle school would be a waste of time.
Yang Wuzhi followed his advice, so Yang Zhenning first entered the Department of Physics as an auditor. When the school officially started to admit new students, he would take the exam and become a formal student.
This is also the rule that Zhang Xingjiu has always insisted on. Even his son has to pass the exam to enter the university, and backdoors are never allowed. Even if there are occasional geniuses in certain subjects, they have to first prove their abilities in certain subjects and finally be allowed to enter the school after discussion by the school committee.
Li Zhengdao is even younger, he is not even twelve years old now. He attended primary school in Shanghai earlier. Last year, he participated in the screening for the junior class held by Aurora University and scored high in the exam. Together with other talented teenagers, he entered the junior class of the Affiliated Middle School of Aurora University. Now he has also come to Kunming with his parents.
According to his learning progress, he is expected to be able to enter the Department of Physics when he is Yang Zhenning's age, and then they will be formal fellow students.
Several universities have joined together to run a school, and the daily affairs are very complicated. The conflicts between teachers and students of each school, the various materials needed to maintain the operation of the school, plus some other trivial matters, leave Zhang Xingjiu with almost no free time.
Even Ma Xiangbo, the honorary principal who is nearly 100 years old, cannot stay at home and enjoy his old age like other centenarians. As long as he has the energy, he will try his best to come out and help the school with some things.
In addition to school affairs, he did not forget to support the War of Resistance. He made dozens of consecutive radio speeches to promote the anti-Japanese war. Although he was already penniless, he took to the streets and sold calligraphy to raise funds, 30 yuan for a character and 50 yuan for a pair of couplets. In this way, he raised 100,000 oceans and donated it to the anti-Japanese army fighting the Japanese invaders on the front line.
He organized and established many civil groups and various patriotic salvation organizations, such as the Jiangsu National Disaster Association, the China National Disaster Relief Association and the National Salvation Association, etc. He also raised funds to set up rear hospitals. When the country was in danger, under his call, the whole nation's enthusiasm for anti-Japanese resistance was high, and an octogenarian became the "national salvation leader" of the whole nation.
Two years passed like this, and soon it was Ma Xiangbo's 100th birthday. He did not hold a grand celebration, so Zhang Xingjiu and several relatives and friends simply had a meal together in private.
A few days after his birthday, Ma Xiangbo's health gradually failed. He knew that he didn't have much time left, but now he still couldn't see the future of China, and he couldn't help but feel sad.
Holding Zhang Xingjiu's hand tightly, he said with deep emotion, "I am a dog! An old dog that has been barking for a hundred years but has not yet awakened the Chinese people!"
With great reluctance and regret, Ma Xiangbo left the world.
(End of this chapter)
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