Chen Fan, a former magistrate in Jiangxi's Leadshan County, was dismissed from office for "mishandling" local teaching plans. www.biquge.info He witnessed the darkness of the Qing Dynasty officialdom and the failure of the Wuxu Reform, so he very much hoped to call on the people to save the country and become strong through the newspaper. At that time, the Patriotic Society had just been established and the funds were insufficient, so they made an appointment with the "Su Bao", and seven people, including Cai Yuanpei, Wu Zhihui, and Zhang Taiyan, the teachers of the Society, took turns to write a commentary for the newspaper every day, and the newspaper gave the society a monthly reward of 100 silver yuan.

As soon as the new edition of "Su Bao" was launched, it won the favor of intellectuals with its style of running a journal that "tackles the evils of the times and vigorously advocates reform." Liang Qichao once praised: "Standing in the stormy waves and vicious fog." It's difficult, but it's precious! ”

In February 1903, Su Bao, which had become a place for teachers and students of the Patriotic Society to express their opinions, set up a special column entitled "Trends in the Academic Circles" to expose the dark phenomena of corruption in schools in various places and praise the struggle of progressive teachers and students. In this way, "Su Bao" has attracted the attention of the world, and not only is the source of manuscripts not a problem, but the sales volume is also rising.

If we only report on the academic trend and criticize the powerful, it is at most just an extreme attitude, but with the development of the situation, the revolutionary color of "Su Bao" has become stronger and stronger, the wording has become sharper and sharper, and the spearhead has become more clear.

At the end of May 1903, Chen Fan officially hired Zhang Shizhao, a student of the Patriotic Society, as the chief writer of the "Su Bao", which made the "Su Bao" quickly climb to the peak of glory."

At the beginning of June, the young and vigorous Zhang Shizhao carried out a bold reform of the "Su Bao" in terms of form and content with the vigor of a newborn calf, announcing the "great improvement of this newspaper" and moving the column reporting the "academic trend" to the front page and headlines, and his remarks became more radical. Subsequently, after the publication of "Revolutionary Army", the Soviet newspaper published a commentary article by Zhang Taiyan, praising it as "the first textbook of national education"; On June 20, Zhang Taiyan published "Refutation of Kang Youwei's Book on Revolution", in which Zhang Taiyan called the name of Emperor Guangxu and called for "the axiom is not clear, that is, the revolution is clear"; On 22 June, he published an article entitled "Murderism," in which he sang such shocking phrases as "Kill all Hu Er before you stop," "Borrow the blood of the king's neck, buy my civilization, don't kill Loulan, and kill people strongly."

If it is said that the Su Bao brought the revolutionary voice to the extreme was the book "Revolutionary Army" that vigorously admired Zou Rong, then it was Zhang Taiyan's political paper that refuted Kang Youwei's political thesis that pushed the counterrevolutionary revolutionary wave to the top. The flamboyance and recklessness of the "Su Bao" had already aroused the shock and hatred of the Qing rulers, and the final case could be said to be "three feet of ice, not a day's cold".

In just one month, the circulation of "Su Bao" soared rapidly, and the number of circulation points alone increased by dozens of places, which overshadowed the "Declaration", an old newspaper in Shanghai. And the culmination of glory is precisely its end.

After Zou Ronggang returned from Japan, he lived in the Patriotic Society, and was more familiar with Zhang Shizhao, Zhang Taiyan and others. And Chen Wenqiang is worried precisely because of this. Because "Revolutionary Army" was published under a false name, outsiders did not know that the author was Zou Rong, but Zhang Taiyan and others knew very well.

Moreover, Zhang Taiyan's madness is famous, madness is famous, madness is also famous, his knowledge is inundated, his attainments are profound, he is a master of Chinese studies, those works are by no means ordinary madmen can write. But he prefers to be called a revolutionary, and as soon as he steps out of his study and speaks and acts, he indulges in indulgence, often doing things that are extremely headaches and difficult for the "high carnivores". He has great courage, he is not afraid of killing his head, he is not afraid of going to prison, he can scream when he wants, roar when he wants, and scold when he wants to.

Because of this, Chen Wenqiang was worried about the "chapter nerve" with a big mouth and told Zou Rong. Well, the possibility is very high. After all, the mode of thinking is different, Chen Wenqiang will not throw himself into the net or sit idly by, while many people are willing to sacrifice their lives for righteousness, hoping to get the opportunity to witness their lives and take moral responsibility.

Therefore, Chen Wenqiang did not expect to change Zou Rong's long-standing thinking in a short period of time, he wanted to make arrangements in advance so that Zou Rong could temporarily avoid this upcoming stormy wave. The letter from Japan, on the other hand, gave him a relatively reasonable excuse.

"Brother Zou, you don't have to worry too much." In order to make Zou Rong feel at ease to follow him to Japan, Chen Wenqiang began to persuade him half-truthfully, "The newspaper "Su Bao" is in the concession, and the Manchus want to retaliate, how can it be so easy. The Ministry of Industry and Bureaus wanted to maintain their authority as a state within a state, and would not be completely subordinate to the Qing court. A compromise with the Manchu government would undermine the extraterritoriality enjoyed by the concession in China and lead to the restoration of China's own jurisdiction, which would also be very controversial within the West. ”

Zou Rong showed an angry expression, bit his lip, and remained silent. This is indeed a very contradictory matter, and it also gives rise to mixed feelings, not only indignant at the gross trampling of China's judicial sovereignty by the foreign powers, but also hoping that the concession can become a safe haven for revolutionaries, and even more so that the absolute authority of the Manchu dynasty will be useless, so that it can no longer act in a big way.

"I'm going to Japan, and I don't need a translator." Chen Wenqiang looked at Zou Rong with an inquiring gaze, "I hope you can accompany me, this will be a very meaningful journey, and a new medicine that can save tens of millions of people may be born." ”

Zou Rong hesitated for a moment and said, "If it's just a translation, I can recommend one or two." At this time, I still want to stay in Shanghai. ”

"You can't help much in Shanghai, but it's different in Japan." Chen Wenqiang continued to persuade that, in addition to greatly reducing the severity of the possible blow to Su Bao, he also gave another reason: "I heard that in Tokyo, the royalists headed by Liang Qichao are very arrogant and try their best to exaggerate the harm of the revolution. With Zou Xiaodi's knowledge and passion, I think I should go to Tokyo to increase the strength of the counterattack. ”

After the Meiji Restoration, Japan immersed itself in hard work, exerted great efforts to govern the country, defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War, obtained a large amount of reparations, and injected a lot of blood into the development of the country, and it can be said that Japan developed by sucking the blood of the Chinese people. By 1902, Japan was already a developed country, and Japan had entered into an alliance treaty with the old power, Great Britain, the main content of which was to protect the existing interests of both sides in China and Korea, and the spearhead was directed at Russia.

Due to Japan's rapid development, Japan has replaced the West as a model for Chinese to learn, which is also the thinking of the Chinese people who are eager for quick success, and it is obvious that the West should really learn. This opened the peak year of the Chinese crossing east to Japan, and Huang Xing, Zou Rong, Tao Chengzhang, Liao Zhongkai, Lu Xun and others all came to Tokyo in this year.

This was a crucial year for both the reformers and revolutionaries, whose centers of activity were in Tokyo, their political leaders were in Tokyo, and the focus of their contention was undoubtedly Tokyo.