chatting with Gu Hongming, Zhou Hexuan was actually not happy. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 There were a lot of things he didn't say, and some of his opinions were as vague as possible, because saying them would irritate the old man.

Looking at Gu Hongming's old and decrepit appearance, Zhou Hexuan was afraid that the other party would be excited, so he covered his chest and swallowed on the ground.

Angry with Gu Hongming, this infamy Zhou Hexuan doesn't want to carry it.

What "seeking the country with profit and governing the country with virtue" is too general and untrue.

President Chang is also seeking profit for the country, and the new warlords and new bureaucrats of all sizes under him are pursuing profits, and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang consortiums that support him behind him are also pursuing profits. The final outcome is that everyone is for me, regardless of whether others live or die, the country is found, but it is a mess.

Our party's fight against local tyrants and the division of land is also to seek the country with profit, but in the front of morality, everyone has a noble pursuit in their hearts, and only "profit" can be returned to one place.

What Zhou Hexuan really wants to say is to rule the country by law, supplemented by a moral bottom line and driven by interests. But in order to refute Gu Hongming's "rule by virtue", he couldn't say that he would govern the country according to law, because the old man would definitely be confused and inexplicable when he heard it, and he would even criticize Zhou Hexuan's legalist thoughts.

As we all know, Gu Hongming is a believer in Confucianism, and Confucianism and Legalism are mortal enemies.

It was the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of the nation that reminded Zhou Hexuan of a book. The book, called Guns, Germs and Steel, won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize and the British Popular Science Book Award, and became a New York Times bestseller list.

Zhou Hexuan wrote the preface of this book in the reception dormitory of Peking University. Because of the chronology, many of the contents need to be revised, and Zhou Hexuan does not fully agree with some of the ideas, and he needs to interpret them according to his own ideas - for example, the part about China.

"Foreword

- Mr. Koo's question

For peoples in different parts of the world, in the 13,000 years after the end of the last ice age, some parts of the world developed into industrial and agricultural societies that used metal tools and had writing, and there are still areas where hunter-gatherer societies using stone tools still remained......

Recently, he talked with Mr. Gu Hongming about the merits of nations, and his view is that all nations in the world have their own characteristics, and China is the best nation in the history of mankind. I agree with him, but when it comes to some ethnic groups in Africa and the Americas and the South Pacific, there is a bias.

Why were whites able to make modern industrial goods, while blacks in Africa could only be enslaved, the indigenous or primitive societies of the South Pacific?

The peoples from Eurasia, as well as the peoples still living in Eurasia, control the wealth and power of the world. Other ethnic groups, including the majority of Asians, have not yet escaped European colonial rule and are far behind in terms of wealth and power. Still others, such as the indigenous peoples of Australia, the Americas and the southernmost tip of Africa, have ceased to be the owners of their lands and have been massively killed, conquered, and possibly exterminated by European colonizers.

Therefore, the question of differences in the modern world can be systematically elaborated as follows: Why is the distribution of wealth and power the way it is? Why weren't Indians, Africans, and Aborigines of Australia killing, conquering, or exterminating Europeans?

For this question, we can look back in history. From 1500 A.D. onwards......"

Zhou Hexuan does have the leisure to write all kinds of articles, he finds others to record and write martial arts novels, "Dog Official" only needs to submit tens of thousands of words a month, and the work of the newspaper can also be handed over to Shen Congwen and Li Shoumin to help take responsibility.

The original writing of "Guns, Bacteria and Steel" was too verbose, and Zhou Hexuan simplified it a lot. However, on the issue of China, he is ready to expand on it, and he is confident that he will write more deeply and thoroughly than the original author.

Zhou Hexuan does not need to be as taboo as the original author about the description of racism in it, and uses a lot of text to explain that he is not a racist. In today's international community, where racism is also prevalent, there is nothing to be disgraced about.

The content of the book can be summed up in one sentence: "The history of different peoples follows different paths, and the reason for this is the difference in the national environment, not the biological difference of the nation itself." ”

Zhou Hexuan also decided to add a chapter at the end of the book to explain China's future development path from the perspectives of China's history, culture, and geography, which is equivalent to "The Rise of Great Powers: China's Future".

The book should have been very powerful when it was presented in the twenties of the twentieth century, because many of the ideas were forward-looking and groundbreaking, and the various archaeological data were detailed. For example, various vertical and horizontal comparisons in the book -

Domestication of plants: Fertile Crescent (8500 BC), China (no later than 7500 BC), Great Britain (3500 BC), Andes (no later than 3000 BC), Amazon region (3000 BC), Mesoamerica (no later than 3000 BC), Eastern United States (2500 BC)

Later there is the domestication of animals, as well as the time of the appearance of pottery, villages, tribes, metal tools, countries, writing, and iron tools.

If nothing else, throwing these data out is enough to cause a sensation in the world archaeological community.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was no network, and the exchange of information was very difficult. A lot of the data has been studied, but no one has put it together. The situation in Europe and the United States is slightly better, and Asian archaeologists are doing their own thing, and the results will not attract much attention.

This is an "anthropological" work, and it is a mixture of social anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology.

Anthropology was originally dedicated to human anatomy and physiology, but decades ago, the study of social anthropology began to emerge, and it has not yet developed a well-developed system. The book "Guns, Bacteria and Steel", thrown into the European and American anthropological circles, is estimated to make those scholars completely crazy.

Zhou Hexuan worked in the reception dormitory all afternoon, and finally finished writing the preface and the main text of the first and second chapters.

Just after dinner, Zhang Taiyan and his disciples Qian Xuantong, Ma Yuzao, Liu Wendian and others came to visit - Qian Xuantong and Ma Yuzao had a class that day, and they did not go to the station to greet them.

Zhang Taiyan asked with a smile: "I heard that Old Man Gu is here today, what did you talk to him about?" ”

"What else?" Zhou Hexuan said speechlessly, "He wants to engage in Confucius's style, be the Confucius of the Republic of China, and advocate the use of love and morality to influence society." I can only follow him and say that we must seek the country with profit and rule the country with virtue. ”

"Hahahaha......"

Zhang Taiyan couldn't stop laughing, laughing so much that he even squeezed out tears.

Qian Xuantong shook his head and sighed, and said: "Mr. Gu is a little pedantic, even I, a person who is stuck in the stacks of books, knows that it is useless to talk about morality with warlords. ”

Zhou Hexuan said: "Of course he knows it. I guess he saw that China was westernizing too fast and introduced many bad Western habits, so he insisted on the old ways to warn the world. It's a pity that there is a suspicion of being inadequate, and actually opposing women's liberation, what is so beautiful about that ugly woman's little feet? ”

"Celebrities, you have to be a maverick." Ma Yuzao said quite understandingly.

Liu Wendian joked: "If you want to talk about celebrities, our Mr. Qian has also become a celebrity recently." ”

"Don't pull it on me!" Qian Xuantong glanced at him.

"Hahahaha!"

The crowd laughed again.

Zhou Hexuan was laughed inexplicably, and hurriedly inquired what the situation was.

As soon as Liu Wendian explained, Zhou Hexuan finally understood.

It turned out that half a month ago was Qian Xuantong's 40th birthday, and when he was young, he said: "When a person reaches 40, he should die, and if he doesn't die, he should be shot." ”

These words were remembered by many people, so Hu Shi, Liu Bannong and others came to congratulate him on his birthday. Everyone wrote obituaries, elegiac couplets, elegiac poems and memorial articles for Qian Xuantong, and planned to publish an issue of "Mr. Qian Xuantong's Chengren Special Issue" in "Yuxi" magazine.

When Qian Xuantong learned the news, he was so angry that he couldn't cry or laugh, and called Hu Shi and others to scold him, and his special issue of mourning was finally canceled.

The special issue was canceled, but the contents of it were known to the newspapers in the south, so they published all kinds of elegiac couplets and memorial articles, making readers in the south think that Qian Xuantong was really dead.

As a result, Qian Xuantong's friends in the south sent telegrams of condolences to his family. There are also many celebrities and scholars who specially wrote articles to mourn Qian Xuantong and counted his academic contributions "during his lifetime".

Just yesterday, a friend from the south came to Peking University by boat and train to express condolences to Qian Xuantong's family. As a result, as soon as the friend came to the door, he saw Qian Xuantong sitting in the living room eating, and immediately exclaimed: "Brother Deqian, do you have any last wishes?" He was reluctant to be reincarnated. ”

Qian Xuantong smiled bitterly: "I'm about to be angry with you." ”

Everyone teased Qian Xuantong for a while, Liu Wendian glanced at the manuscript on the table and asked, "What is President Zhou writing again?" ”

Zhou Hexuan explained: "Chatting with Mr. Gu inspired me to write something about human sociology. ”

Zhang Taiyan was unceremoniously, opened the manuscript and read it, and said with a smile after reading it: "It's a little interesting, are you going to analyze and discuss all the nations in the world?" ”

"That's exactly what I mean." Zhou Hexuan nodded.

"Shhh

Zhang Taiyan gasped: "You are really powerful." ”

Everyone was amazed by Zhou Hexuan's erudition, and scholars with vision have some understanding of world history and world nations. But writing a book is different, you have to study and analyze it deeply, otherwise you can only laugh and be despised when you write it.

"The Rise of a Great Power" is amazing enough, and now Zhou Hexuan has to write about the nations of the world, and the knowledge reserves required here are too terrifying. In the Republic of China, where you can't use the Internet to search for information, you have to travel around the world, visit libraries and scholars everywhere before you can start writing.

Even a madman like Zhang Taiyan was in awe of Zhou Hexuan and said, "After you finish writing this book, you must send it to me by mail." ”

Zhou Hexuan smiled: "Why don't you write me a preface." ”

"That's just right, I can also rub a little fame in your book." Zhang Taiyan was overjoyed.