Among the researchers of modern naval history in China, there is a prominent phenomenon, that is, several heavyweight scholars are amateur "fans". They do not engage in historical research in professional institutions, but push the research of naval history deeper and deeper. The young representative is Chen Yue, and the old representative is Mr. Ma Youyuan.
I first met Ma Youyuan at an academic conference on Beiyang naval history in Weihai in 2000. At that time, he had just retired from the University of Hawaii and was teaching at Lingnan University, but I didn't know that his major was studying China classical literature, let alone the Water Margin. We chatted cheerfully and listened to him introduce all kinds of naval historical materials he collected in western languages. At that time, I had read his paper "The Three Refined Ships of Japan" at the Centennial International Symposium of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-0/994, and felt that he was quite proficient in the evolution and anecdotes of the world's naval ships. In 2004, I went to Hong Kong to participate in the promotion activities of the Shanghai World Expo, and had dinner with him at Lulu Restaurant of Nanyang Hotel.
I keep in touch with Ma Youyuan on and off, and often receive papers sent by him from overseas. In 2009, he received a hardcover book "Jinghai Chengjiang: A New Interpretation of Modern Naval History in China" from Taiwan Province Province (Taibei Lianjing Publishing Co., Ltd.), which is a compilation of his research papers on naval history in recent years. I enthusiastically picked it up and read it, which was more than 600 pages thick, but I read it all at once. Recently, Zhonghua Book Company published a simplified version of this book. The whole page is exactly the same as the Taiwan Province version, but it is divided into two volumes. The folio is cut a few millimeters up and down, which is not as atmospheric as the original. However, it is still worth celebrating that an academic work can be published simultaneously on both sides of the strait. For mainland scholars and readers, reading Ma Youyuan's magnum opus can strengthen the understanding of China's modern naval history, especially the position of China's modern navy in the world's modern naval development history.
Ma Youyuan's paper is voluminous and free and easy. He himself said, "I write academic articles as much as the Lord knows and refuse to be limited by space." Even if I wrote 60,000 or 70,000 words, I still insisted on writing the words and then collecting the pen. " He is meticulous in textual research and can widely quote historical materials, especially foreign historical materials, which is what mainland scholars lack at present.
For example, when studying the foreign crew on the "Zhenyuan" ship during the Sino-Japanese War, Ma Jifen (Philo Norton
McGiffin), in the past, domestic scholars' understanding of this person was first seen in Lin Le's Quotations of Memmai and You Rong compiled in his Selected Translation of Middle East History (Shanghai Book Collection, 1896). Later, Mr. Zhang Yinlin 193 1 translated Notes on the Sino-Japanese War in Tailai (included in the sixth volume of China Modern History Data Series) described him by Taylor, a British foreigner (Zhang Yi called Tailai), and then published by 1936 in Nautical Magazine No.65438+. Unemployed after graduating from school, 1885 went to China to work as a policeman under Li Hongzhang. Ma Youyuan studied Ma Jifen's niece Mafenni (Li
According to the biography compiled by Ma Jifen, Mcgiffin pointed out that the stories and activities of Beiyang Navy in Ma Jifen's letters were mixed with truth and falsehood, and he was a liar. This man returned to the United States after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and published an article in the Chronicle of Naval Wars, which was immediately quoted by western military critics. Ma Jifen's reputation also started from this article, and even the History of Naval Battle in 278 (Chunyang Hall, Tokyo, 1905) compiled by the Japanese Navy Department was included in it. However, China did not pay much attention to it, and it was not until1930s that a brief summary was made (published in Maritime magazine). Later, retired Japanese naval generals Zheng Tianjie and Zhao translated the book "Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and Li Hongzhang" (Taipei, Huaxin Cultural Center, 1979) according to the original text, which did not get more attention. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 was published in 1996 (Volume 7 of China's Modern History Data Series). The report on the naval battle outside the Yalu River was actually translated from the Japanese History of Naval Battle in 278. In this regard, Ma Youyuan wrote with emotion that a hundred years ago, the Japanese had no difficulty in finding the original text of the Ma Jifen report, but it is still a rare thing for mainland scholars until today.
I admire Ma Youyuan's efforts in collecting original historical materials. In the early years, Ling Hongxun, a famous railway engineer in Taiwan Province Province, mentioned in the Chronicle of Mr. Zhan Tianyou (Taipei, China Institution of Engineers, 196 1) that Zhan Tianyou had participated in the Sino-French Ma Jiang War in Shen Jia, and the historical source was "1Xizi Newspaper of Shanghai Jinyuan on July 5, 884". In order to find this "Shanghai Jinyuan Xizi Newspaper", he spent more than ten years and finally got what he wanted.
Messenger and China
Gazette, commonly called Jinyuan West Newspaper or Shanghai Tea Newspaper, asked me to look for this newspaper in Shanghai Library. I asked Chen Jiang, a teacher from the history department of Fudan University, to check it for me. After Mr. Chen found the original text, he copied the full text on his behalf because the pictures above were not allowed to be copied. I sent the record to Ma Youyuan, who got a report by himself through his brother Mattei. In 2004, Ma Youyuan wrote "Discussion on whether Zhan Tianyou participated in the Sino-French War of Ma Jiang in Shen Jia", in which he said: "Although historiography is not a study of historical materials, you can't say anything beyond the allowable range of materials, so how to equip materials is always the key to success. This article has been prepared for more than 40 years, which is why. " The joys and sorrows of a serious scholar are actually in it.
Ma Youyuan's specialty in managing naval history is more reflected in his broad vision of the world navy and his understanding of the development of warships. His article "Textual Research on the" Plain "Ship of Beiyang Navy" first discusses what kind of warship the "Plain" ship was copied from. Pei Yinsen, the shipping minister, put forward the construction plan last week. Historians, including myself, usually use the punctuation marks on page 3 1 1 of the Westernization Movement, Volume 5 of China Modern History Data Series, namely the German warship No.,No.Li andNo. Zedang. I believe in punctuation marks in the Westernization Movement. I used these names to search Conway's.
The whole world is fighting.
Naval reference books such as ships are not worthy, but they are not delved into, just copied as they are. In fact, there are some mistakes in writing and punctuation. Mr. Lin Qingyuan of Fujian Normal University made textual research as early as 1984, but it has never attracted the attention of academic circles. Ma Youyuan not only pointed out Lin Qingyuan's research results, that is, the imitation warships should be French warships "Cocyt", "Styx" and "Flying to the Tang Dynasty", but also further verified the three French Akron-class armored coastal defense gunboats and their design characteristics, thus inferring the shipbuilding engineer of Fujian Shipping Administration. It is also the professional standard of the first batch of international students sent by the Qing government to France to study shipbuilding, and draws the technical height of the design and construction of the "Pingyuan" ship, making the research clues of the whole warship clear and complete. This paper was first published in the second issue of Lingnan Journal edited by Ma Youyuan himself. This is a 16-page magazine with 56 pages. I admire Ma Youyuan after reading his masterpiece. I am also disappointed that I have neglected the research results of Lin Qingyuan, who has long studied the history of Fujian's ship administration. Mr. Lin died a few years ago, which was very helpful for me to learn naval history. I first met him in the autumn of 1985. Shen Weibin and I were in Fuzhou on business and made a special trip to visit Fu Lin. Mr. Lin is very sincere and sincere. Mrs. Lin specially cooked for us and made fried rice noodles. This situation seems to be just around the corner.
Similar warship research includes British warships invading China during the Opium War, foreign ships planned by Li Hongzhang during the Sino-Japanese War, and ships purchased by the Qing government after the Sino-Japanese War. In these studies, Ma Youyuan listed the line drawings of warships, and studied the origin and characteristics of these warships, which reflected his extensive professional knowledge on the evolution of naval vessels in the world.
Ma Youyuan once talked to me about his collection of western languages, such as the Naval Yearbook edited by Brasi.
T.A.Brassey), from 1886 to 1920s, he basically collected all the volumes and fascinated me. He said that on the warship Cheng Jiang in Jinghai
International, I'm not surprised. He read everything. This internationally renowned English journal of naval history has published many overseas scholars' research papers on naval warships in the late Qing Dynasty, and there are countless papers, photos and materials about naval technical knowledge in the19th century, which have been widely used by western naval history research circles. However, in China, even some large professional libraries have never seen a complete collection of books.
I totally agree with Ma Youyuan that "the navy is a high-tech unit. If you don't explain the ship from the perspective of science and technology, you will become a creature with an unbalanced center of gravity. " Recalling that I began to study modern naval history, I was fortunate to see the volumes of 1890 and 1895. I also studied the map of foreign masters' ships compiled by Xu Jingcheng, ambassador to Germany, in Fudan Library. 1885, Xu Jingcheng went to Berlin to perform a task, and found that Liu, the late military attache of the embassy, and Jin Kaili, an American translator, had translated the list of armored ships from various countries, which was considered valuable, but not much. So he cooperated with Jin Kaili and compiled thirteen volumes of charts and three volumes of miscellaneous notes by using the rich information of European naval vessels. Including Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria, Italy, Japan and so on 19 countries, 1600 technical parameters of more than 600 warships and hull drawings, structural drawings and fleet formation drawings of more than 240 warships. At the end of this year, 100 copies were printed on foreign paper in Berlin, and most of them were distributed to the Prime Minister's yamen, which made China people fully understand the overall situation of western warships for the first time. The following year, Xu Jingcheng felt that "compiling the first part, I was anxious to write a book, and the essays were printed by a hundred officials", and the content and style were not perfect. He reorganized the structure of the book, revised the content, absorbed the latest information of navies of various countries (including some warships under construction), concentrated the illustrations originally attached to each table in one volume, and compiled the second edition of Table 8, Miscellaneous Note 3 and Figure 1. The precision and accuracy of its chart are far better than the previous version. 1986 I quoted the data from the naval yearbook, the ship map and the ship map of foreign teachers.
As well as Brief Introduction of Zhenyuan Armored Ship, in the study of domestic naval history, the route maps of Turkish armored ships "Barelare" and "Olin" that Li Hongzhang had planned to buy when he planned to buy armored ships, as well as the British ships "Ying Fu Lai Bai" and Germany that he had participated in when ordering Dingyuan and Zhenyuan armored ships in Germany were disclosed for the first time. To tell the truth, there were few works about the development of western warships in the19th century in China in the early years, and no one could ask for advice. We can only piece together our understanding of the development of western warships by reading and searching bit by bit, which is far from the convenience that foreign scholars can get when collecting the history of the world navy.
Comparatively speaking, the conditions of scholars in Taiwan Province Province are much better than ours. Professor Wang Jiajian of Taiwan Province Provincial Normal University has done a lot of pioneering research on modern naval history. 1970 went to London University as a visiting scholar to consult the documents and archives of the British Foreign Office, Admiralty and Parliament. From 65438 to 0979, he went to Harvard University for further study, and found a large number of Japanese naval materials in the Harvard Library, which was of great help to the study of China's modern navy. A series of his papers were first included in Collected Papers on Modern Naval History in China (Taipei, Wenshizhe Publishing House, 1984), and then further developed into a monograph "Li Hongzhang and beiyang fleet —— Failure and Lessons in the Establishment of Modern China Navy" (Taipei, National Compilation Hall, 2000), which was recommended by me to Mr. Pan Zhenping and published in Sanlian Bookstore in 2008. Wang Jia-jian's research focused on historical documents, especially British archives, which made up for this deficiency, and made the research on China's modern naval history, a modernization cause closely related to Britain, promoted by bilateral historical materials and played an irreplaceable role. Recently, I received Wang Jiajian's newly published autobiography "Dream Shadow-The Struggle of a Rural Child" (Taipei, Guotai Cultural Undertaking Co., Ltd., 20 13), which mentioned various details of accessing the archives in the British Archives Office: First, the original archives are old, the handwriting is vague, and most of them are manuscripts, which are difficult to identify and require a lot of speculation; Second, copying was very expensive at that time, and historical materials were extremely rich. I feel dizzy and sore every day, and the number of people recorded is extremely limited; Third, the British stipulate that only pencils can be used to copy documents, so it is inconvenient to copy a lot. I believe historians have the same experience in these situations. Wang Jiajian did not put much effort into the development and evolution of Chinese and western ships and the tradition of the British navy. His research and Ma Youyuan's research have their own emphases and can make up for each other. Of course, it is a basic skill to manage naval history and fully understand the development and evolution of warships. In the future, the academic level will be further improved if you learn from others and study both inside and outside.
Ma Youyuan's eyes are as big as a bucket and he is angry. Sharp words, laughing and cursing, just like the "old urchin" in academia. He called Beiyang Navy "a toad whose mud can't paste on the wall"; He said that Li Hongzhang and Ding were "big fools" and also big fools who burned their bridges. How can they not be wronged? Li Hongzhang, a big fool with a shiny appearance, recommended Super Fool Ding, who was not even shiny on the surface, to preside over the development of Beiyang Navy. How can we avoid the tragedy? "Be bright and clear, speak faster. I agree with many of his views, but according to the writing habits of mainland scholars, it is difficult for me to write like this.
Ma Youyuan once said, "Why is this episode named Jinghai Chengjiang?" This is an ironic choice. The Taiwan Province provincial edition of this book has Ding's photo as the cover and Chen Shaokuan's photo as the back cover. Ma Youyuan said that it is to "reflect the same characteristics of two different eras-the naval knowledge and management ability of leaders are equally serious."
As an in-depth naval historian, Ma Youyuan deeply regrets the failure of Beiyang Navy and strongly criticizes the leaders who led to this failure, which is in sharp contrast with the domestic historians who often use the terms "patriotic generals" to dominate historical research. In the study of Sino-Japanese War and Beiyang naval history, there has always been a tendency to replace academic evaluation with political evaluation, which has a lot to do with the rigid conceptual system developed in previous years. More than ten years ago, I objected that someone wrote an article for Fang Boqian, the conductor of Jiyuan, and participated in academic criticism. I noticed that Fang Boqian's granddaughter was beheaded by the Qing government for escaping from the Yellow Sea naval battle, but in the hands of domestic writers, their conviction text must be written as "carrying forward soul of china, inheriting the patriotic spirit" and "establishing the image of Fang Boqian's patriotic general". Their whole discourse system has long been. As a "fan" of naval history research, I usually write fewer historical papers and occasionally attend academic conferences. I always feel that I am full of junk articles in conceptual form, copying some primary historical materials and repeating some cliches, so I can make up a "ticket" for attending academic conferences. Seeing the wording and sentences of such papers, I often feel uncomfortable and don't understand, but I can't help it. Until today, this shallow style of writing continues to repeat, and it is half of high-quality academic research. In this case, Ma Youyuan's in-depth and meticulous research is commendable and full of academic spirit.
Some of Ma Youyuan's views can also be further discussed. For example, he said that Mrs. Liu and Mrs. Lin had never had the courage to take the entrance examination for the Naval Academy in Greenwich, England. "They only ask for an internship on the ship, and even if the whole study abroad process is successful, they can explain it to the Qing court." But he did not provide a basis. As far as I know, it is an official arrangement between China and Britain for Liu and others to go directly to the British ship for internship without entering the school gate. From the time point of view, Guo Songtao, China's ambassador to Britain, first carried out the internship, and then contacted others to take the entrance examination, which had nothing to do with the courage of the foreign students themselves. Therefore, I look forward to reading Ma Youyuan's further textual research.