December 10, 1926, Stockholm, Sweden.

In Stockholm's Blue Concert Hall, the Swedish Academy of Letters awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to Italian writer Grazia Deleda for her work entitled The Road to Evil.

At the same time, a Swede named Sven Hedin came to China.

Born in 1865, he was fluent in many Chinese, often adventuring around the world, and was an explorer.

His main achievements were three brave expeditions in the mountains and deserts of Central Asia.

He completed a map of the Taklamakan Desert as well as a map of the Pamirs, and successfully crossed all of Tibet.

Sven Hedin is a household name in Sweden, and he is a member of two Swedish scientific academies, so he has a say in both science and literature for the Nobel Prize.

At the end of 1926, he was commissioned by Lufthansa to travel to China.

The trip was a meteorological expedition to open up a route from Central Asia to China, and brought a large-scale expedition of scientists from different disciplines to explore places such as the Gobi Desert and Mongolia.

In this day and age, it takes a great deal of courage to fly.

In 1920, the Aviation Business Department of the Ministry of Communications of the Beiyang Government prepared the "Beijing-Shanghai Route".

The section from Peking to Tianjin was officially launched on May 8, 1920, and the aircraft was named "Jinghan".

On July 1, 1921, a new section from Beiping to Jinan was added, but it was soon stopped due to the war.

This is the earliest air route in China.

On February 8, 1919, the plane crossed the English Channel from Paris, France, to London, England.

This was the world's first international route, and by 1926, international routes between European countries were common, but routes to Asia had not yet been opened.

Lufthansa has undoubtedly gone to the front.

Let's be honest. Even if China has opened international routes, Lin Zixuan does not dare to take a plane to a foreign country, think about Xu Zhimo's example, you know that the plane is risky, and you need to be cautious when taking it.

This is Sven Heding's fourth visit to China for this expedition. He needs to get official Chinese approval.

In the eyes of the Chinese, Sweden is different from the Western powers, it is a relatively neutral country, not strong, and does not seem to threaten, so the Beiyang government has a good relationship with Sweden and will hire Swedish scientists for scientific investigations.

For example, Ding Wenjiang has collaborated with the Swedish geologist Andersen.

Sven Hedin was one of the first foreigners to want to push Chinese literature for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He came to China in 1923 and met the German sinologist Wei Lixian in Beiping.

Wilhelm was serving in the German Legation at the time. He is proficient in Chinese and has deep connections in Chinese political and cultural circles.

After saying goodbye to Beiping, the two have always maintained a correspondence.

In mid-November 1924, in his first letter to Wei Lixian after his return to Germany, Sven Heding talked about the idea of nominating Chinese writers for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

This is also the time when the Swedish Academy determines the Nobel laureate for that year.

"I suddenly remembered that we had given Rabindranath Tagore the Nobel Prize, and that he had come to Stockholm himself. What is the current state of Chinese literature? Is there anything to think about, the real great writers who are still alive, or is the literature there in the same period of decline as in Europe? We can only judge Tagore by his translations. We can only do that with China. ”

This was just one of his assumptions, asking Wei Lixian if there were any literary scholars in China worthy of being shortlisted.

Wei Lixian was very excited when he received the letter. The first person he thought of was Liang Qichao.

"I think the idea of awarding the Nobel Prize to a Chinese writer is brilliant. This will inevitably have the most far-reaching implications in terms of cultural policy. It is not clear to me which direction the candidate will be considered. As a scholarly writer with a dabbling in Chinese philosophy, history, and literature, Liang Qichao, a leading figure in the modern humanities, should be considered. ”

Subsequently, he mentioned Hu Shi and Lin Zixuan, and gave his own evaluation.

Hu Shi was a philosopher and reformer. Very radical, despite his youth, he has amazing knowledge and is full of passion.

Lin Zixuan is a poet, novelist, and dramatist. Very young, but talented, influential in the West.

"But I tend to lean towards Liang Qichao because he is more representative." He said this in the letter.

This was 1924, and Lin Zixuan was still in the emerging stage of Western literature.

Sven Hedin read the letter aloud at the Swedish Academy of Letters, and all the members of the Nobel Prize Committee were present.

The academicians of the Swedish Academy were shocked by his suggestion, but they were not intrigued, and felt that it was not unacceptable to nominate a Chinese writer for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In his reply, Sven Heding gave an explanation of the candidates.

"Literary authors, i.e., imaginative creators, can be considered first, and secondly, authors or philosophers who process existing materials."

At the same time, Sven Hedin also wrote a letter to seek the opinion of the Swedish sinologist Gobenheim.

However, Gao Benhan not only did not support Liang Qichao and other candidates, but even did not look forward to the Chinese candidate at all.

"As far as I can see, China has not yet produced any important writers, either in terms of narrative writing or poetry. If the best works of Liang Qichao, Zhang Taiyan, and Hu Shi were translated into Western languages, they would not be appreciated at all, despite their importance to the Chinese. I therefore believe that it is impossible to find a single Nobel Prize candidate for literature at the moment. ”

These two sinologists are actually not very reliable.

The Swede Gobenheim, who studied Chinese phonetics while in China, was a linguist with little exposure to new Chinese literature.

The German Willi-hsien's main interest and energy was focused on translating classical Chinese texts, such as the I Ching, and he had no time to delve into the new Chinese literature.

Because Wei Lixian and Liang Qichao had more contacts, Liang Qichao was strongly recommended.

However, Sven Heding was influenced by Gobenheim, and his interest in nominating Chinese writers for the Nobel Prize was much weaker.

He was an explorer himself, neither proficient in Chinese nor highly literate, and easily influenced by sinologists.

This time, Sven Heding came to Beiping, and the German sinologist Wei Lixian had returned to China.

His expedition plan was approved by the Beiyang government, but unexpectedly it was fiercely opposed by the Beiping academic community.

This has something to do with Lin Zixuan.

Lin Zixuan established the Chinese Cultural Relics Rescue Association to advocate the protection of Chinese cultural relics and strictly prevent foreign scholars from robbing tombs in the name of investigation.

After continuous propaganda, the Chinese academic community is now very sensitive to foreign scholars.

Moreover, Sven Heding visited the northwest of China, that is, Gansu and Xinjiang.

The Dunhuang documents in Gansu were stolen by foreign scholars in the name of investigation, and it is inevitable that people will be suspicious if they have learned from the past.

Lin Zixuan saw a newspaper report that he supported the protests of the Beiping academic community, and even if the Beiyang government agreed, the expedition would need to be supervised by the Chinese academic community. (To be continued.) )