The Solvay Conference was able to be held, and it has been held every three years to maintain the original intention of the present, it is the Belgian alkali king Solvay, after making a lot of money, also wants to leave a name in history.

He initially wanted to create an award under his surname to be awarded to the best scientists in the world.

Even if Solvay also created a Solvay Prize, its popularity around the world may not exceed that of the Nobel Prize, and it will be infamous for plagiarizing Nobel Prizes.

So Solvay took the advice of others and set up this special Solvay Foundation, which provides money and space for the world's top physicists to gather regularly to discuss the most cutting-edge and high-end physics problems in the world today.

The Solvay Foundation allocated money to buy land and build buildings, and what was obtained was the magnificent Solvay Palace in Brussels' Leopold Park.

The Solvay Palace was the main venue of the Solvay Conference, which was divided into two after the First World War, with a physics conference in 1921 and a chemistry conference in 1922.

- Generally speaking, the omitting of disciplines and collectively referring to the Solvay Conference refers specifically to the Physics Conference, and only the Chemistry Conference is additionally emphasized in the name.

Although meetings are held in two of the three years, each meeting lasts only about a week to 10 days, so the Solvay Palace spends much more time than it uses each year.

In order to make the foundation run well, the management of the Solvay Foundation will let the Solvay Palace rent out in their spare time, undertake some meetings and banquets to earn venue fees, and maintain the daily operation of the entire building.

With the exception of the Third Solvay Conference in 1921 and the Fourth Solvay Conference in 1922, which were held in the spring of April, all other meetings were held in October or November at the end of each year.

This time coincides with the annual announcement of the Nobel Prize winners by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Therefore, the staff of Solvay Palace already have a lot of experience in preparing banquets, and they have also prepared several Nobel Prize celebration dinners, which are familiar to them.

The nouveau riche, when they have money, will always like to be subservient and elegant, emphasizing a tradition that has little use other than trouble and torment.

Therefore, the form of the dinner that night was similar to the daily dinner of Trinity College, except that they did not wear the traditional robe that had been passed down for hundreds of years, and all the staff sat around a long dining table that could not be seen at a glance, and did not choose the form that allowed the people to walk around the banquet hall more freely.

After taking their seats and before the dinner officially began, Zhao Zhongyao and Chen Muwu met with several uninvited guests.

A few days ago, he went to the legation of the People's Republic of China in Belgium to reapply for a certificate, informed the other party that he was coming to Belgium to attend the meeting, and also pointed out that Chen Muwu would also attend the meeting.

Because he mentioned Chen Muwu's name, he got his new passport quite smoothly, and was entrusted by the staff of the legation to invite Chen Muwu to have time to be a guest at the legation.

Chen Muwu did not get angry with the people in the legation because he ignored it last time he came to Belgium and asked for warmth this time, he just didn't have much time, so he didn't reply to the legation.

Today, the news that Zhao Zhongyao won the Nobel Prize in Physics appeared in the newspapers, and after it spread throughout Brussels, the Legation of course also received the news.

Now they had a legitimate reason to come to Solvay Palace to meet Chen Muwu, and in the name of celebrating Dr. Zhao Zhongyao's Nobel Prize, they came to visit.

So Zhao Zhongyao and Chen Muwu appeared in the living room of Solvay Palace before the dinner began, and met with several staff members of the Chinese Legation in Belgium, who had been waiting here for a long time.

Just saw the first time and saw the clothes they were wearing, which made Chen Muwu feel a little dramatic.

The memory in his brain made him think that the tunic was a popular dress in China before the seventies and eighties, and it was a bit of a drama when it first appeared in the Chinese period.

But when he thought that the tunic was the national uniform formulated by the first interim president of the People's Republic of China at a meeting in Beijing, Chen Muwu smiled, he was almost deceived by the stereotype in his heart just now.

It's no wonder that Chen Muwu was stunned after seeing the tunics, because when he was dealing with these foreign envoys and consuls of these people's countries, basically the clothes worn by the other party on formal occasions were suits and ties.

It was the first time for Chen Muwu to see a staff member wearing a tunic overseas.

Looking at the chest of the leader's tunic on the left side, Chen Muwu was shocked to find that there was a round badge pinned to it, and a white symmetrical pattern in the center of the blue chapter was embedded in it.

The comers are not good.

This was Chen Muwu's first thought after seeing the badge pattern.

The Chinese are much more skilled at identifying the Chinese than the foreigners who think that all the people with black hair, black eyes, and yellow skin look the same.

Mr. Chen's photographs often appear in newspapers around the world, and Mr. Zhao had gone to the legation a few days earlier to reapply for a new permit.

So after seeing the two of them come to the reception room, the person at the head of the legation quickly got up to greet them.

"Dr. Chen, I have long admired my name. Dr. Zhao, meet again. Below is Wang Jingqi of Min County, who is now serving as the minister in Belgium. ”

I don't know.

The first time he crossed the ocean to England, in order to prevent his third brother from being bullied by others in an unfamiliar place, Chen Muqiao had found a bunch of information for Chen Muwu before leaving, so after Chen Muwu arrived in London, he knew that the temporary representative in London was called Zhu Zhaoxin, and the word was Dingqing.

Later, Chen Muqiao went to Sweden to attend the award ceremony for Chen Muwu to win the Nobel Prize, and he also established a good relationship with the minister in Sweden in Stockholm early, and also introduced him to another Jiang man who wore Chen Lin and was called Yunong at the banquet.

But before coming to Belgium this time, Chen Muqiao felt that his little brother had grown up, and he didn't have to worry about this little thing.

And Chen Muwu felt that he shouldn't have anything to do with the legation, so he didn't check the names of the relevant people on the Belgian side at all.

So much so that after the Minister in Belgium took the initiative to reveal his name, there was a cold scene in the reception room of Solvay Palace for a few minutes.

Chen Muwu, who noticed that he was a little embarrassed, finally reacted: "Minister Wang, Minister Chen of France once mentioned you to me. ”

Chen Muwu's reaction is also clever, although he doesn't know this Wang Jingqi, he has heard the name of Min County.

Coincidentally, the minister in France, Chen Zheng, is also from this place in Min County.

Among the early diplomats and those who studied and worked abroad, a large part of them were from the province.

Among the people of these provinces, a large part of them are people from Min County and Houguan County, and these two counties all belong to the province.

On the one hand, it is because this is the residence of the family of poetry and book heirlooms, and rigorous learning is naturally the basic skill of the family style.

One of the most famous in Minhou Erxian in the late Qing Dynasty was Lin Zexu, the Duke of Wenzhong, who sold cigarettes in Humen, and Yan Fu, who translated "The Theory of Heavenly Evolution", and Lin Shu, who translated Sherlock Holmes into "Sherlock Holmes" in the Weizhou dialect.

On the other hand, because of the coastal area of the province, it has been a famous hometown of overseas Chinese since ancient times.

Of course, there is a third thing, which is related to those bourgeois Westernists who exalted the "mastery of the master to control the razor" in the late Qing Dynasty.

In 1866, one of the representatives of the Westernization Movement, Zuo Wenxianggong, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, founded the Weizhou Shipbuilding Bureau in Mawei, as well as the Weijian Shipbuilding School under the jurisdiction of the Shipbuilding Bureau.

This is the first Western-style school in the province in modern times, and it has cultivated a lot of talents for the province and the neighboring state capitals.

Although Chen Zheng did not mention this Wang Jingqi to Chen Muwu, the two of them are not only fellow villagers, but also ministers of the People's Republic of China to European countries, and are members of the diplomatic department of the Beiyang government, and France and Belgium are still land neighbors.

Because there are so many connections between these two people, Chen Muwu guessed that their relationship should be not bad.

Unexpectedly, not only did he not shoot his sycophants, but he also touched the tiger's tail.

After shaking hands with Chen Muwu, Wang Jingqi took his hand back with the smile on his face.

He snorted lightly in his nose, frowned and said, "That Chen Renxian, you must not have said anything good about me, Dr. Chen, you must not take it to heart." ”

Strange and strange, these two people are both fellow villagers and colleagues, and they both work thousands of miles away from home, so it stands to reason that they should be close to each other.

But why did Wang Jingqi suddenly become cold at the mention of Chen Zheng's name?

The reason behind it is simple and complex.

The current relationship between the Beiyang government and the south is incompatible, but in the early days, the relationship between the two was still a state of "you have me, I have you".

For example, after the abdication of the minor emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the provisional government moved from Shenjing to Shaojing in 1912, but still retained many positions in the previous team.

For example, Cai, who was also in the baked steamed bun party, served as the first chief of education of the People's Republic of China in the provisional government of Shengjing, and when the government went to Shaojing, he still stayed in this position.

Later, because Cai himself resisted President Yuan, he resigned from the post of Minister of Education in Shaojing.

Wang Jingqi's situation should be similar to Cai's.

Although he is a diplomat of the Beiyang government, it does not prevent him from participating in the baked bun party.

The relationship between Wang Jingqi and Chen Zheng is far from being as simple as the love of fellow villagers.

In 1915, China and Russia and Mongolia held a negotiation in Kyakhta to discuss the ownership of Mongolia.

At that time, Chen Zheng's position was as minister to Mexico, and he was sent to Kyakhta by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before he went to South America to take up his duties, and he was regarded as one of the plenipotentiaries of the Chinese People's Republic of China.

This meeting can be regarded as the highest-level meeting attended by the government of the People's Republic of China before the Paris Peace Conference, so the entire Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the entire Beiyang government behind it attach great importance to this.

Chen Zheng did not forget Wang Jingqi, a native of Min County, and arranged for the latter to attend the meeting with the title of counselor, which was also the first time that Wang Jingqi, who had just been transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to carry out the initial mission on behalf of the people.

Since then, Wang Jingqi has gradually stepped onto the diplomatic stage, eventually rising to the position of minister to Belgium.

Chen Zheng can be regarded as having the grace of knowing Wang Jingqi - although Chen Muwu does not know this, his guess should not be wrong.

And the time node of the hostility between Wang Jingqi and Chen Zheng occurred in the twenties when they both went to Europe to serve as ministers.

At that time, just after the end of the First World War, the number of young and middle-aged men in France was lost, and factories across the country needed a large number of workers to resume production.

China seized this opportunity and launched the largest semi-official study abroad activity, the work-study movement in France.

Because the organizers of this event, the Shao Jing Huafa Education Association and the work-study society in France, are basically related to the steamed bun party, so the young people who were sent to France in batches are basically on the side of progress - of course, the progress here is relative to the Beiyang government.

Wang Jingqi, as a person with a relatively high position in Europe for the baked steamed bun party, first served as the minister to Belgium as the minister of the general branch of the steamed bun in France, and later was ordered to upgrade it to the general branch in Europe on the basis of the general branch in France, and served as the head of the executive department.

Because it was the first cooperation period between baked steamed buns and Uh-huh, this small general branch in Europe had a dragon and a crouching tiger.

As the direct leader of those people, Wang Jingqi has always had a very good attitude towards them, and every time someone returns to China, he will hold a farewell banquet.

In contrast, Chen Zheng played a negative role in the work-study movement in France.

On behalf of the Beiyang authorities, he colluded with the French government and repeatedly persecuted these young people who went to study in France.

Every time a young person is detained by the French government, Wang Jingqi, an official figure, is basically responsible for the rescue work.

It seems absurd that a dignified minister to Belgium should make a trip to places like Paris and Lyon every once in a while.

But at that time, the truth was so ridiculous.

In the process of rescue, Wang Jingqi's side will inevitably have friction with the French government and Chen Zheng, who represents Beiyang.

Later, because organizations such as the Chinese French Education Association could not raise enough funds to support students to study abroad, the work-study movement in France came to an end.

However, the differences and friction between Wang Jingqi and Chen Zheng not only did not dissipate, but also grew larger and larger due to the accumulation of time.

(End of chapter)