Neishan Bookstore, Hongkou District, Shanghai Public Concession.

Due to the problems of Dalian and Lushun, the diplomatic relations between China and Japan deteriorated. Under the initiative of "economic rupture" with Japan initiated by the people, the gathering places of Japanese people in Hongkou District were very depressed.

Even the business of Uchiyama Bookstore was in trouble, with almost no income from March to July.

Uchiyama Bookstore sells Japanese books, and the main customers are international students who have returned to China from Japan, followed by Japanese.

In the public concession, there are less than 40,000 foreigners, while there are more than 800,000 Chinese. Ueyama Bookstore has to rely on Chinese to hold on.

But the current situation is that almost no Chinese come to bookstores to buy books.

Even if there is, it is still sneaky, for fear of being seen by others, as if it is unlucky to get stuck with the Japanese.

Uchiyama Maruzao knew that there were still Chinese businessmen secretly doing business with the Japanese. If the Chinese were really so united, the Japanese would not be able to live in Shanghai at all.

Most of the Japanese who came to Shanghai were businessmen. They came to China to make money. Although the conditions are difficult at present, I believe that it will not take long before the Chinese will return to their original appearance.

Just when he was feeling the difficulty of the world, two guests walked in, a Japanese woman with a child.

Both sides bowed and greeted, talked about their current situation, and sighed.

The Japanese have no problems in the public concession. They have their own patrols, which can ensure the safety of Hongkou District.

As of July 2019, there were 3,056 police officers in the public concession, including 9 police officers, 252 Westerners, 41 Japaneseers, and 1,652 Chinese.

The two chatted for a while before the woman remembered the child. She turned around and found that her child was watching with relish with a book.

She walked over and looked closer and found that this was a picture book, drawing a little monk.

"Children like to read this book very much. It tells the story of Master Ikkyu when he was young." Uchiyama Maruzuo introduced.

Seeing this book, he couldn't help but remember what happened half a month ago.

Just when he was worried about the bad business of the bookstore, a Chinese man found him and asked him to sell books on behalf of him.

Uchiyama Maruzuo was quite curious. He looked at the books he brought to him, a novel and a comic, all of which were Japanese books.

But what is strange is that the publisher of books is not a Japanese publisher, but a publisher founded by a Chinese in the French Concession in Shanghai.

Uchiyama Maruzuo did not suspect that there was any problem with these two books. As long as the books published by regular publishers have been reviewed by the concession authorities, they will not be allowed to be published.

This was not when the Concession was first established. Under the influence of the Western principle of "freedom of the press", the Public Concession Bureau and the French Concession Bureau had relatively lax in the management of publications.

However, after the incidents such as the "Su Bao case", the authorities in both concessions strengthened the management of publishing institutions and publications within the territory.

The "Su Bao case" mentioned here refers to something that happened in 1903.

At that time, because the Su Daily published many articles that vigorously promoted the revolution, including Zou Rong's "Revolutionary Army" and Zhang Taiyan's "Refute Kang Youwei on Revolutionary Book", it aroused great dissatisfaction from the Qing government, so it joined forces with the concession authorities to carry out a secret arrest.

On July 7, 1903, the Su Bao was blocked and Zhang Taiyan was arrested. Zou Rong was infuriated and surrendered voluntarily.

In May 1904, Zhang Taiyan and Zou Rong were sentenced to three years and two years in prison by the Concession Court, and were prohibited from running newspapers in the concession to promote revolution and publish revolutionary books.

However, compared with the Beiyang government's censorship system for newspapers and books, the concession authorities are still relatively relaxed.

This is also the reason why Shanghai's newspapers and publishing houses are concentrated in the concession. As long as the interests of the concession authorities are not violated, the principle of "freedom of the press" can be reflected to the greatest extent.

Therefore, newspapers in the concession can curse the Beiyang government and criticize current affairs.

In comparison, it is no big deal for Lin Zixuan to publish two Japanese books. He did not directly contact Uchiyama Maruzao, but instead sent people from the Vientiane Bookstore to come forward.

Uchiyama Maruzao flipped the content of the book, one of which was a comic book about an ancient Japanese monk.

Zen Master Ikki is quite famous in Japan. He was born in Kyoto on January 1, 1394.

What he talks about most is not his talent, but his life experience, he is the illegitimate son of the Japanese emperor.

Ikkyu's father is Emperor Komatsu, and his mother comes from the aristocratic family Fujiwara clan. It is said that his mother is Nobuko Fujiwara.

Terako became the emperor and was favored by the emperor, but she planned to assassinate the emperor with a small sword every day. After being discovered, Terako escaped from the palace and sneaked into Sagano, and gave birth to Ikki Sojun on New Year's Day.

Uchiyama Maruzusa was very familiar with this unofficial Japanese history, but he found that this book "The Smart Ikkyu" completely subverted his view on Zen Master Ikkyu.

This comic tells the principles of life through the stories of Ikki's childhood, which is both entertaining and interesting.

He felt that this kind of picture books would definitely be popular with children.

As for another novel called "Snow Country", he is not optimistic about it.

Uchiyama Maruzuo had no university education and started working when he was a teenager. He was not very interested in such literary books, but he was just selling them on behalf of others, and he would not lose anything if he couldn't sell them.

In this way, these two books were placed in Uchiyama Bookstore.

When a Japanese woman saw that her child liked this book "The Smart Ikki", she bought it.

"There is another novel here, which is very well written." Uchiyama Maruzuo took the opportunity to promote "Snow Country" and promised, "Buy two books together and you can buy them at half price."

Sure enough, the woman could not refuse the discounted items, and the Japanese woman bought "Snow Country".

When the child returned home, he continued to read comics, and the woman did nothing, so she picked up the novel and started reading it.

I can't stop seeing this. This beautiful and sad literary novel is a weapon of killing for women.

The story of "Snow Country" is very simple. It describes a dance art researcher named Shimamura in Tokyo who went to the hot spring hotel in Snow Country three times and had an emotional entanglement with a local geisha named Komako and a girl named Ye Zi who met by chance.

However, it is in this simple story that the author describes the psychology of these three protagonists in detail and describes the environment of the Snow Country in a tireless way.

In these descriptions of scenery, the protagonist's subjective emotions are soaked in, and a faint sorrow is revealed.

It is this sorrow throughout the article that makes the whole story unique, infects the readers, and deeply immerses them in it.

The "Snow Country" is not long, and Japanese women read it very slowly. After watching it, they felt that they were in a bad mood. They were so upset that they wanted to cry, but they couldn't shed.

It’s just that kind of sadness, not the heart-wrenching cry, not the pain of the heart being like a knife, but the feeling that the heart is empty and has no place at all.

She even felt that life was meaningless and the past disappeared in vain.

It took about half an hour before she recovered from this emotion. She wanted to put down the novel, but she couldn't.
Chapter completed!