Toynbee came to Tianjin with his female secretary Veronica, and was immediately warmly received by the consuls from various countries. He also learned some things about North China from the consuls.
Immediately afterwards, Toynbee went straight to the "Ta Kung Pao" newspaper office, but was informed that Zhou Hexuan was giving a lecture at Tsinghua University.
Toynbee did not stay in Tianjin and wait, but took a train directly to Peiping, because that was his destination. He wanted to visit the Forbidden City and consult various Chinese historical documents that were not accessible in the UK.
This guy is really powerful. When he was in the Northeast, he even got some copies of secret documents from the Zhang Zuolin period. When he arrived in Tianjin, he went through the diplomatic correspondence of various countries during the Beiyang period through the consuls of various countries.
Although these are all outdated information, in an era when information exchange was underdeveloped, Toynbee's knowledge of these things was enough to make him a very skilled expert on international issues.
When he arrived at Tsinghua University, Toynbee took his beautiful secretary directly to the president Luo Jialun.
When Luo Jialun heard that Toynbee was visiting, he was so surprised that he went out to greet him personally and had his room in Tsinghua University cleaned up quickly to entertain this world-renowned scholar.
"Mr. Toynbee, I am extremely honored that you can come to visit Tsinghua University!" Luo Jialun shook hands with Toynbee excitedly.
"Thank you, President Luo, for your warm reception," Toynbee said with a smile, "I would also like to congratulate your school on the great archaeological discovery."
Luo Jialun said in surprise: "You know all about this?"
"I learned about it from reading the newspaper," Toynbee chatted with Luo Jialun for a few words, and suddenly asked, "Professor Zhou Hexuan is at the school?"
Luo Jialun said: "Do you know Mr. Zhou?"
Toynbee said: "I admire his academic views very much and want to talk to him face to face."
Luo Jialun smiled and said: "I will arrange for you to meet after Mr. Zhou finishes class."
"I want to go to his class, is that okay?" Toynbee asked.
"Of course, I will take you there right away." Luo Jialun said immediately.
Toynbee visited the campus scenery along the way. He was particularly fond of the antique oriental buildings, so his first impression of Tsinghua University was very good.
When they came outside the classroom, everyone did not disturb the class inside, but stood outside the window and listened.
I saw Zhou Hexuan standing on the podium and writing three phrases: Chinese civilization, Jewish civilization and Indian civilization with chalk. He said:
"Significantly, in addition to the Chinese civilization, there are two great and unique civilizations that have an important influence on world civilization, namely the Indian civilization and the Jewish civilization. The Indian civilization contributed to the world Hinduism and the world religion Buddhism, while the Jewish civilization
Judaism, a civilized faith, is the predecessor of Western religion and has had a profound impact on Christian civilization.
Indian civilization and Jewish civilization also have super historical continuity and continuity. Their civilizations have been preserved by the same cultural subject nation for thousands of years, writing a miracle in the history of world civilization. But there are some differences...
First of all, Indian civilization was born from the conquest of the Indian subcontinent by the Aryans, an invading foreign nation. From its origin, it was the foreign nation that conquered the indigenous Dravidians and then established Brahmanism on the basis of local indigenous beliefs.
Civilization. So strictly speaking, Indian civilization is an exogenous civilization, and the local aborigines actually constitute the source of the lowest caste people in India. The Jews have lost their land for more than two thousand years and have been scattered all over the world. As a nation, the Jews have
It has been reproducing for generations, but it is a nation that has been without a national carrier for a long time.
Therefore, Chinese civilization is unique and a miracle in world history. The birth of this miracle is no accident and has profound social, political, historical and cultural roots: First, historically, the rapid expansion of the Chinese population has had a great impact on other neighboring countries.
The ethnic composition is extremely tense, and population growth is definitely an important factor in ancient civilization. The ancestors of the Huaxia people came from the Henan and Shaanxi areas..."
Toynbee could not understand Chinese, so he had to have Luo Jialun translate for him. As he listened, Toynbee introduced Zhou Hexuan as a confidant, because the content of the lecture was very close to his thoughts.
Nonsense, how can it not be close? That is Toynbee’s original work.
Of course, there are differences. When Toynbee analyzed Chinese civilization, his views were relatively narrow and tended to be conservative. He believed that the Xia Dynasty was a legend. Although the Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty had oracle bones as proof, it did not mean that political unity and political unity had been formed.
A solid country. So Toynbee concluded that China's real national history originated from the Qin and Han Dynasties.
As a Chinese, Zhou Hexuan naturally did not agree with these views, so he made many modifications when copying the book.
However, Toynbee's point of view is very interesting. He believed that the hundreds of schools of thought in the pre-Qin period were the most splendid era of Chinese civilization. The unification of Qin and Han blocked the spiritual ascent of Chinese civilization while ensuring the continuation of Chinese civilization.
sex.
He believes that after the Qin and Han dynasties, "unification" has become the thinking habit of the Chinese people, as if this is the only way to be safe, and division is like the end of the world. China, with its ideological rigidity and political unity, is constantly interrupted by division and turmoil, but it is interrupted
It will still be repaired in the future. The repair phenomenon of "Great Unification" occurs again and again. Even after the intermediary period is so long and chaotic that it is traditionally considered irreparable, China will still be restored to unity.
This statement is very reasonable, but it must be supplemented.
In Zhou Hexuan's view, the idea of a great unification of Chinese civilization sprouted in the pre-Qin era. The oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin and Shang Dynasties already reflected the meaning of unifying the world. Confucius also advocated a great unification in his work "Spring and Autumn", emphasizing unification in Zhou Rites.
"Gongyang Chunqiu" further elaborated Confucius's thought of great unity, which was finally inherited by Dong Zhongshu, who only respected Confucianism, and became an irreversible view for later generations.
Toynbee believed that Confucius was a conservative and had no intention of unifying China. Zhou Hexuan did not agree with this statement.
At the end of the class, Zhou Hexuan was about to leave the classroom, but Toynbee had already come in early.
"Hello Mr. Zhou, I am Arnold Toynbee." Toynbee introduced himself with a smile.
Zhou Hexuan was obviously stunned for a moment, then smiled and said: "Hello, nice to meet you, Mr. Toynbee."
Toynbee said: "I just listened to Mr. Zhou's lecture, and many of his views coincide with mine. When did you start studying world civilization?"
Zhou Hexuan sweated furiously and said: "When writing "Guns, Steel and Bacteria"."
"Is that your latest book?" Toynbee asked in surprise.
Zhou Hexuan nodded and said: "I started writing it last year. A French publishing house is already translating it, and it may be published in Europe in the near future."
"That's really good. I will definitely read it." Toynbee said.
As the president of Tsinghua University, Luo Jialun did not miss this good opportunity. He suggested: "Both of them are world-renowned scholars. Why not have a high-end dialogue in the field of history in this classroom, so that students can have the honor to
Listen to the collision of ideas from the master."
Toynbee smiled and asked, "Is that okay?"
"Of course." Zhou Hexuan said.
The students in the classroom suddenly became agitated. Fortunately, there were no mobile phones in the Republic of China, otherwise they would all be calling their friends.
