Hongkou District, Shanghai Public Concession, Neishan Bookstore.

Because of the problems in Dalian and Lushun, diplomatic relations between China and Japan deteriorated, and under the initiative of the private sector to "break off diplomatic relations" with Japan, the Japanese settlement in Hongkou District was very depressed.

Even the Uchiyama Bookstore's business was in trouble, and from March to July, there was almost no income.

Uchiyama Shoten sells Japanese books, and the main customers are international students who have returned to China from studying in Japan, followed by Japanese people.

In the Public Concession, there are less than 40,000 foreigners, while there are more than 800,000 Chinese.

But now the situation is that almost no Chinese come to bookstores to buy books.

Even if there is, it is sneaky, for fear of being seen by others, and it seems that if you stick to the Japanese, you will be unlucky.

Uchiyama Maruzo knew that there were still Chinese businessmen secretly doing business with the Japanese, and if the Chinese were really so united, the Japanese would not be able to live in Shanghai at all.

Most of the Japanese who came to Shanghai were businessmen, and they came to China to make money, and although the conditions are difficult at the moment, I believe that it will not be long before the Chinese will return to their original state.

Just as he was lamenting the difficulties of the world, two guests walked in, a Japanese woman with a small child.

The two sides bowed and greeted, talked about the current situation, and sighed.

The Japanese have no problem in the public concession, they have their own patrols and are able to guarantee the safety of the Hongkou district.

By July 1923, there were 3,056 police officers in the Public Concession, including 9 police officers, 252 Westerners, 41 Japanese, and 1,652 Chinese.

The two chatted for a while, and then the woman remembered the child, and turned back to look for it, only to find that the child was holding a book and looking at it with relish.

She walked over and looked closer, and saw that it was a picture book with a picture of a young monk.

"This book is very popular with children, and it tells the story of Master Ikkyu's childhood." Uchiyama Maruzo introduced on the side.

Seeing this book, he couldn't help but think of what happened half a month ago.

Just when he was worried about the bad business of the bookstore, a Chinese approached him and asked him to sell books on his behalf.

Uchiyama Maruzo was quite curious, and he looked at the books that the other party brought, a novel, a manga, all of which were Japanese books.

Strangely, the publishing house of the book is not a Japanese publishing house, but a publishing house founded by Chinese in the French Concession in Shanghai.

Uchiyama Maruzo did not suspect that there was a problem with these two books, as long as the books published by regular publishing houses had been reviewed by the concession authorities, they would not be allowed to be published.

This was not the time when the Concession was first established, at that time, under the influence of the Western principle of "freedom of the press", the Public Concession Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and the French Concession Board of Directors were relatively lax in the management of publications.

However, after the "Su Report" and other incidents, the authorities of the two concessions strengthened the management of publishing institutions and publications in the territory.

The "Su report" here refers to what happened in 1903.

At that time, because the "Su Bao" published many articles that fiercely propagated the revolution, including Zou Rong's "Revolutionary Army" and Zhang Taiyan's "Refutation of Kang Youwei's Book on Revolution", the Qing government was extremely dissatisfied, so it joined forces with the concession authorities to carry out secret arrests.

On July 7, 1903, Su Bao was closed and Zhang Taiyan was arrested.

In May 1904, Zhang Taiyan and Zou Rong were sentenced to three and two years' imprisonment respectively by the Concession Court, and Chinese were forbidden to run newspapers in the Concession to propagate the revolution and publish revolutionary books.

However, compared to the Beiyang government's censorship of newspapers and books, the concession authorities were relatively lenient.

This is also the reason why Shanghai's newspapers and publishing houses are concentrated in the concession area, and as long as the interests of the concession authorities are not violated, the principle of "freedom of the press" can be embodied to the greatest extent.

Therefore, the newspapers in the concession can scold the Beiyang government and criticize current affairs.

Comparatively speaking, Lin Zixuan's publication of two Japanese books was not a big deal, he did not directly contact Uchiyama Maruzo, but sent people from Vientiane Bookstore to come forward.

Uchiyama Maruzo flipped through the contents of the book, a comic book about a high monk in ancient Japan.

Zen Master Ikyu is quite famous in Japan, he was born in Kyoto on January 1, 1394.

He is best known not for his talent, but for his background, as the illegitimate son of the Emperor of Japan.

Ikyu's father was Emperor Go-Komatsu, and his mother was from the Fujiwara clan, and his mother was said to be Teruko Fujiwara.

Teruko was born as the emperor and was favored by the emperor, but she was carrying a small sword every day, plotting to assassinate the emperor, and after being discovered, Teruko escaped from the court, sneaked to Sagano, and gave birth to a Kyu Sojun on New Year's Day.

Uchiyama Maruzo was familiar with this period of Japanese wild history, but he found that this "Wise Ikyu" completely turned his view of Ikyu Zen Master upside down.

This manga tells the truth of life through the story of Ichikyu's childhood, which is entertaining and interesting.

He thinks this kind of picture book will definitely be popular with children.

As for another novel called "Snow Country", he is not optimistic.

Uchiyama Maruzo didn't have a university education, and he started working when he was a teenager, and he didn't have much interest in this kind of literary and artistic books, but anyway, he was just selling on behalf of him, and he didn't lose anything if he couldn't sell them.

In this way, these two books were placed in the Uchiyama bookstore.

The Japanese woman saw that the child liked this "Smart Ikyu" and bought it.

"There's also a novel here, and it's very well written." Uchiyama Maruzo took the opportunity to promote "Snow Country" and promised, "If you buy two copies together, you can buy them at half price." ”

Sure enough, the woman couldn't refuse the discount, and the Japanese woman bought Snowpiercer.

When she got home, the child continued to read the comics, and the woman had nothing to do, so she picked up the novel and read it.

I can't stop watching this, this kind of beautiful and sad literary novel is a big killer for women.

The story of "Snow Country" is very simple, it is about the emotional entanglement between a dance art researcher named Shimamura in Tokyo who goes to a hot spring inn in Snow Country three times and has an emotional entanglement with a local geisha named Komako and a girl who meets in Pingshui.

However, it is in this simple story that the author gives a nuanced portrayal of the psychology of these three protagonists, tirelessly describing the environment of the Snow Country.

In the description of these scenes, the subjective emotions of the protagonist are soaked and reveal a faint sorrow.

It is this sorrow throughout that sets the whole story apart, makes the reader feel infected, and deeply immersed.

The length of "Snow Country" is not long, and the Japanese woman reads it very slowly, and when she finishes reading it, she feels that the whole person is not good, and she is panicked, and she wants to cry, but she can't.

It's that kind of sadness, not a heart-rending cry, not a heart-wrenching pain, but a feeling that my heart is empty and completely unsettled.

She even felt that life was meaningless, and that the past was gone in vain.

It took about half an hour for her to recover from this emotion, and she wanted to put down the novel, but she couldn't.