Lin Zixuan couldn't figure out why the literati in Peking supported him, which was actually related to the current dilemma of vernacular Chinese.

As the birthplace of new ideas, Peking has always vigorously advocated vernacular writing.

It is a very complicated process to reform a style of culture and break the old order. During this period, you must face the continuous counterattack of old forces.

After a series of struggles, in April 1920, the Ministry of Education finally issued an order to make the school's textbooks use Chinese style, that is, vernacular.

This is a phased victory achieved in vernacular Chinese.

However, in the field of literary writing, literati who advocate writing in vernacular also have different opinions.

What is vernacular writing? Is vernacular writing literary? How to write literary classics in vernacular? How to develop vernacular writing?

This series of questions plagues scholars who advocate vernacular writing.

Reclamation is the most difficult, and requires constant exploration and testing.

Ru Hu Shi, who was very passionate in his mind, believed that if vernacular Chinese wants to develop, it must be completely separated from classical Chinese and abandon traditional literature.

Zhou Zuoren believed that there were no strict boundaries in the process of transformation and innovation from classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese and cannot be completely abandoned.

Some scholars believe that vernacular and classical Chinese have their own strengths.

Most scholars of this era have been educated in old-style private schools and learned traditional classics. Later, they went abroad and came into contact with Western culture. When the two cultures collided, there was inevitably conflict in their thoughts.

They are also struggling to completely abandon Chinese studies or to slowly change.

There are two difficulties in vernacular Chinese at the moment.

One is to prove that vernacular Chinese is also literary and can also write literary classics in vernacular Chinese.

Classical Chinese scholars satirize vernacular Chinese as "the words of those who lead the car to sell the pulp", which means that novels written in vernacular Chinese have no literary and ideological nature and cannot be called literature at all.

In this regard, Lu Xun's "Diary of a Madman" kicked off the vernacular novel, and other scholars began to create vernacular literature one after another, hoping to lay a literary foundation for vernacular literature.

Only by having enough literary classics can we prove that vernacular Chinese is not a flash in the pan, but can be passed on.

Of course, they themselves are not familiar with this way of creation, so they can only explore and move forward.

This is also the reason why there are very few vernacular novels in this era. It is already very good to be able to write novellas.

In terms of poetry, the development of vernacular Chinese is not smooth.

Without the formal constraints of ancient poetry, poets can freely create. At this stage, most of them imitate foreign poetry and create various schools.

But no one can tell whether this kind of poetry has literary value, ideological nature, and aesthetic standards.

Generally speaking, the literary creation of vernacular Chinese in this era is in a chaotic stage, and no one can come up with an inherent standard to tell everyone how to write it.

This involves another dilemma in vernacular, that is, the development direction.

Even Hu Shi, who advocated the most intense attitude of vernacular Chinese, could not give a direction and could only grop forward.

At this time, literati, mainly Hu Xianqi, began to attack vernacular Chinese again, advocating "the national qualities of the Ming Dynasty and melting new knowledge", believing that vernacular Chinese is "imitating Westerners, only getting the dross."

A new round of debate between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese is about to begin.

At this time, the tide of bombardment of "The Legend of Qin" in Shanghai spread to Peking, and there were arguments that criticized vernacular Chinese.

It can only be said that it was just the right time. A long vernacular novel like "The Legend of Qin" immediately attracted the attention of the cultural community in Peking. The original entertainment novel has become a reading material for scholars because of its thorough vernacularity.

What they are concerned about is not the literary value of "The Legend of Qin", but the development direction of vernacular Chinese.

Some scholars believe that if vernacular Chinese eventually falls into novels like "The Legend of Qin", it will be a tragedy of literature.

Some people also believe that this is a key step for vernacular language toward popular language.

Isn’t we advocate vernacular language just to create a language that “can be spoken, understood, written, and read” that is suitable for the public’s needs?

"The Legend of Qin" is such a novel that anyone who knows a little bit can understand.

Of course, it would be even better if there were no erotic descriptions, but this provided a new direction for our vernacular writing.

As a result, heated discussions about the development direction of vernacular Chinese were triggered in the literary world in Peking.

Against this background, Lu Xun posted a short comment in the Morning Post, believing that vernacular Chinese is the future of the development of Chinese characters based on "The Legend of Qin".

This argument has been supported by many scholars in Peking.

When the news reached Shanghai, the Shanghai scholars were stunned.

Why did you start to focus on vernacular Chinese? We are talking about whether it is good to tamper with history. Vernacular Chinese is just a sidetrack. Have you figured out the key points?

But no matter what, since scholars in Peking praise on "The Legend of Qin", they are singing opposites and opposing us, so we have to belittle "The Legend of Qin".

Scholars in Shanghai were even more resistant to vernacular Chinese, and a large-scale debate that affected the whole country began.

In the end, it became a battle between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese, and no one paid attention to "The Legend of Qin".

This made Lin Zixuan a little puzzled, and he also took advantage of the chaos to publish several articles under his pseudonym.

"Old but Not Dead is a Thief" is a satirizing Shanghai writers for not being enterprising and suppressing new writers.

"History is a little girl who can be dressed up" is a satirical mockery of historical scholars who believe that history is serious, and that history has been tampered with once or twice, so why should we do it seriously?

"Classic Chinese should be swept into the garbage dump of history" is for the purpose of vernacular Chinese, discussing the various disadvantages of classical Chinese that are not conducive to social development.

Unfortunately, although these essays were written passionately, Lin Zixuan's articles did not attract much attention in this chaos, after all, he was not a celebrity.

If he used the pseudonym "Huang Yi", he would definitely be scolded to death.

Originally, he thought he could fight the entire Shanghai literary world alone, but he didn't expect that he would eventually become a supporting role that no one paid attention to. Lin Zixuan was a little discouraged.

So he stopped writing essays and began to save manuscripts for "The Legend of Qin".

What he didn't know was that as the debate became increasingly important, "The Legend of Qin" was facing the danger of being cut in half.

Over the past month, Zhou Shoujuan, editor of the supplement "Free Talk" of "Shenbao" has been under great pressure.

He is a writer of the Mandarin Duck Butterfly School and has also edited the "Saturday" magazine. This circle is not big or small, but he knows all famous people, and everyone has a good relationship.

The original publication of "The Legend of Qin" was to bring a new trend to "Free Talk" and a new path to popular literature.

But with the beginning of the debate, first of all, the pressure from internal writers of the Yuanyang Butterfly School, they felt that Zhou Shoujuan should not publish such novels, and that this was cutting off their way out.

Once readers accept this novel, they will have no way out.
Chapter completed!