Chen Fan, a former magistrate in Jiangxi's Leadshan County, was dismissed from office for "mishandling" local teaching plans. He witnessed the failure of the dark Wuxu reform of the Qing Dynasty officialdom, 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 its funds were insufficient, so it made an appointment with the "Su Bao", and seven people, including Cai Yuanpei, Wu Zhihui, and Zhang Yan, took turns to write a commentary for the newspaper every day, and the newspaper gave the newspaper a silver dollar a month.

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 "focuses on reform by tackling the shortcomings of the times." Liang Qichao once praised: "Standing in the vicious fog of stormy waves." 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, opened a special column entitled "Boundary Trends", which publicized the dark phenomena in various halls and praised 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.

However, with the development of the situation, the revolutionary color of the "Su Bao" became stronger and stronger, the wording became sharper and sharper, and the spearhead was more clearly targeted.

At the end of May 1903, Chen Fan officially hired Zhang Shizhao, a patriotic student, 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 reform of this newspaper" and moving the column reporting the "trend of the world" to the front page, and making more radical remarks; Subsequently, after the publication of the "Revolutionary Army", the Su Bao published Zhang Yan's commentary, praising it as "the first textbook of national education"; On June 20, Zhang Yan published "Refutation of Kang Youwei's Book on Revolution", in which Zhang Yan called the name of Emperor Guangxu and called for "the axiom is not clear, that is, the revolution is clear"; On June 22, the first "Murderism" was published, in which the wild song "Kill all Hu Er before stopping", "Borrow the blood of the king's neck, buy my Ming, don't kill Loulan endlessly, and kill people strongly".

If the Soviet newspaper brought into full play the revolutionary voice to the point of vigorously admiring Zou Rong's book "Revolutionary Army", then what pushed the counterrevolutionary revolutionary wave to the climax was Zhang Yan's refuting of Kang Youwei's political arguments. The flamboyance and unscrupulous scruples of the "Su Bao" had already aroused the shock and hatred of the Qing rulers, and the final case could be said to be "a frozen ruler, 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 and famous 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 Yan and others. And Chen Qiang is worried about this. Because "Revolutionary Army" was published under a false name, outsiders do not know that the author is Zou Rong, but Zhang Yan and others know very well.

Moreover, Zhang Yan's madness is famous, madness is famous, madness is also famous, his questions are well-read, his attainments are profound, he is a brilliant national master, those works are by no means ordinary madness can be written. 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 a headache and difficult for the "high-class carnivore". 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 Qiang 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 Qiang 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 Qiang 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 Qiang began to persuade him half-truthfully, "The "Su Bao" newspaper is in the concession, and the Manchu Qing 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 Qiang 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 Qiang 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 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 the Chinese, which is also the thinking of the Chinese people who are eager for quick success, and it is obvious that the West should really be. 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.