Toynbee came to Tianjin with his female secretary Veronica, and was immediately warmly received by the consuls of various countries, and he also learned some about North China from the consuls. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Immediately afterwards, Toynbee went straight to the Ta Kung Pao newspaper, only to be told that Zhou Hexuan was lecturing at Tsinghua University.

Instead of staying in Tianjin and waiting, Toynbee took the train directly to Beiping, which was his destination in itself. He had to visit the Forbidden City and consult all kinds of Chinese historical documents that he could not access in the UK.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 I arrived in Tianjin, I read the diplomatic correspondence of various countries during the Beiyang period through the consuls of various countries.

Although they are all outdated materials, Toynbee has enough to make him a very savvy expert on international issues in the era when information exchange is not developed.

When he arrived at Tsinghua University, Toynbee directly took the beautiful secretary to find the president Luo Jialun.

When Luo Jialun heard that it was Toynbee's visit, he was so surprised that he went out to greet him personally, and asked people to quickly clean up the room in Tsinghua Garden to entertain this world-renowned scholar.

"Mr. Toynbee, it is a great honor for you to visit Tsinghua University!" Luo Jialun excitedly shook hands with Toynbee.

"Thank you, President Luo, for your warm reception," Toynbee said with a smile, "and I would like to congratulate your school on your archaeological discovery." ”

Luo Jialun said in surprise: "You know all about this? ”

"I learned about it by reading the newspaper," Toynbee chatted with Luo Jialun for a few words, and suddenly asked, "Professor Zhou Hexuan is at school?" ”

Luo Jialun said: "Do you know Mr. Zhou?" ”

Toynbee said: "I admired his academic views and wanted to talk to him in person. ”

Luo Jialun said with a smile: "After Mr. Zhou gets out of class, I will arrange for you to meet." ”

"I want to go to his class, can I?" Toynbee asked.

"Of course, I'll take you there." Luo Jialun said immediately.

Toynbee visited the campus all the way, and he was particularly fond of the antique architecture of the Orient, so much so that his first impression of Tsinghua University was very good.

Outside the classroom, the crowd did not disturb the lesson, but stood outside the window and listened.

I saw Zhou Hexuan standing on the podium, writing three phrases of Chinese civilization, Jewish civilization and Indian civilization in chalk, and he said:

"It is considerable to say that, in addition to the Chinese civilization, there are two great and unique civilizations that have an important influence on world civilization, that is, the Indian civilization and the Jewish civilization. The Indian Civilization Commission has contributed Hinduism and Buddhism, the world religion, while Judaism, which is the predecessor of Western religions, has had a profound impact on Christian civilization.

The Indian civilization and the Jewish civilization also have a super historical continuity and continuity, and 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 out of the conquest of the Indian subcontinent by the Aryans, an alien people, who conquered the indigenous peoples, the Dravidians, and then established the Brahmanical civilization on the basis of the indigenous beliefs of the native peoples. So strictly speaking, Indian civilization is exogenous, and the indigenous people actually form the source of the lowest caste population in India. The Jews have lost their land for more than 2,000 years and are living in exile all over the world, and although the Jews as a nation have multiplied from generation to generation, they are a people who have not had a national carrier for a long time.

Therefore, the Chinese civilization is unique and a miracle in the history of the world, and the birth of this miracle is by no means accidental, and has deep social, political, historical and cultural roots: first, in history, the rapid expansion of the Chinese population has constituted great tension on other surrounding ethnic groups, and population growth is definitely an important factor in ancient civilization. The ancestors of the Huaxia people came from Henan, Shaanxi......"

Toynbee could not understand Chinese and could only be translated by Luo Jialun. Listening to this, Toynbee introduced Zhou Hexuan as a confidant, and the content of the lecture was very close to his thoughts.

Nonsense, can it not be approached? That's Toynbee's original work.

Of course, there are differences, and when Toynbee analyzes Chinese civilization, his views are relatively narrow and tend to be conservative. He believes that the Xia Dynasty belongs to legends, and although the Shang and Zhou dynasties have oracle bone inscriptions as proof, it does not mean that they have formed a country of political unity and political entity. So Toynbee concluded that China's true national history originated in the Qin and Han dynasties.

As a Chinese, Zhou Hexuan naturally did not agree with these views, so he made many revisions when he copied the book.

However, Toynbee's point of view is very interesting, he thinks that the hundred schools of thought of the pre-Qin dynasty were the most brilliant era of Chinese civilization. The great unification of the Qin and Han dynasties blocked the spiritual upward channel of Chinese civilization, and at the same time ensured the continuity of Chinese civilization.

He believes that after the Qin and Han dynasties, "unification" has become a habit of thinking of the Chinese, as if only in this way can they be safe, and division is like the end of the world. China, which is ideologically rigid and politically unified, has been constantly interrupted by separatism and turmoil, but it will still be repaired after the interruption. The restoration of the "great reunification" has occurred again and again, and even after an extremely long period of chaos has passed, so much so that it is traditionally considered irreparable, China will still be restored to reunification.

This statement is very valid, but it must be added.

In Zhou Hexuan's view, the idea of the great unification of Chinese civilization germinated in the pre-Qin era. The divination of the oracle bone inscription of Yin Shang has already reflected the meaning of dominating the world. Confucius's "Spring and Autumn Period" also advocated great unification, emphasizing unity in the Zhou rites. "Ram Spring and Autumn" further expounded Confucius's idea of great unification, and was finally inherited by Dong Zhongshu, who respected Confucianism, and became an irreversible view for later generations.

Toynbee believed that Confucius was a conservative and did not want to unify China, a statement that Zhou Hexuan disagreed.

At the end of the class, Zhou Hexuan was about to walk out of the classroom, but Toynbee had already come in early.

"Hello Mr. Zhou, I'm Arnold Toynbee." Toynbee introduced himself with a smile.

Zhou Hexuan was obviously stunned for a moment, and then smiled: "Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Toynbee." ”

Toynbee said: "I just listened to Mr. Zhou's lecture, and many of my views coincide with mine. When did you start studying world civilizations? ”

Zhou Hexuan sweated wildly: "When I wrote "Guns, Steel and Bacteria". ”

"Is that your latest book?" Toynbee was surprised.

Zhou Hexuan nodded and said: "I started writing last year, a French publishing house, which is already translating, and may be published in Europe in the near future." ”

"That's great, I'll be sure to read it." Toynbee said.

As the president of Tsinghua University, Luo Jialun did not miss this good opportunity, and he suggested: "Both of them are world-renowned university scholars, so it is better to have a high-end dialogue in the field of history in this classroom, so that students can have the honor to listen to the master's ideological collision." ”

Toynbee smiled and asked, "Is that okay?" ”

"Of course." Zhou Hexuan said.

The students in the classroom suddenly became a sensation, fortunately, there were no mobile phones in the Republic of China era, otherwise it is estimated that they would all be calling for friends.