161209 to Xu Shoushang [1] Ji Shijun: After farewell, he arrived in Shanghai on the 4th and arrived in Central Vietnam on the morning of the 7th [2], and the journey was still safe. Although the time is not pleasant in what we see, the best thing to do is when it is not yet there. The scenery of his hometown is quite similar to that of four years ago, and Zang does not know what to do. There has been nothing to describe in the past few days. When he was in Shanghai, he heard that Mr. Cai [3] was in Vietnam, and the newspapers were also Yuner; When I inquired about his home today, I said that I had gone to Hangzhou. Here there was a speech, the listener was quite puzzled, or cloud: but knew that it wanted to fill the ears of the river harbor. Zhu Weixia [4] died about ten days ago, about the time he was weakened after typhoid fever and could not recover. He was not born in the Hangzhou car [5], and the Yanzhang master was also quite difficult outside. Zhejiang Library originally proposed to hire a craftsman to engrave the "Zhang's Series" [6] with 6,000 gold, and the words are all imitation of the Song Dynasty, which is of good quality and cheap. He was questioned by the council twice about why the book could not be carried out at the same time. Seeing this, the Chinese people sighed to each other. I heard that the Mid-Autumn Festival harvest was quite good this year, but when I asked the list [7] when I returned, the cloud was really evil, and I suspected that the servant was the rent collector of the south, so I insulted each other, and it was no longer the end. This is an ode to Manfo.

The servant tree man paused on December 9 and begged for greetings before Mr. Mingbo [8], which was not unique.

Exegesis:

[1] This letter was originally not punctuated.

[2] Lu Xun returned to Shaoxing on December 3, 1916 to visit relatives, arrived on the 7th, and returned to Beijing on January 7 of the following year.

(3) Mr. Cai refers to Cai Yuanpei. See note 170125 letter [1]. After returning from Europe in November 1916, he gave a speech to all walks of life in Shaoxing on the afternoon of 26 November, hoping to improve transportation, pay attention to hygiene, and organize various undertakings.

(4) Zhu Weixia's name is Zong Lu, the word is Weixia, and he is a native of Haining, Zhejiang. He studied in Japan and served as the principal of Zhejiang No. 5 Middle School in Shaoxing at that time.

(5) Gong Baoquan (1882-1922), a native of Jiaxing, Zhejiang. Zhang Taiyan's eldest son-in-law. In Tokyo, he studied philology with Lu Xun and Zhang Taiyan. After the Xinhai Revolution, he served as the director of the Zhejiang Library.

(6) "Zhang's Series" contains 15 kinds of Zhang Taiyan's works. In 1919, it was engraved and published in Zhejiang Library.

(7) The boatman.

[8] Mingbo Xu Shouchang (1866?) --1921), a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Xu Shoushang's eldest brother. After the founding of the Republic of China, he served as the director of the Ministry of Finance, and lived with Lu Xun in the Shaoxing County Pavilion in Beijing.