Before We Begin: Who Left a Name Behind in Zhabei
A question of "density"
Zhabei took up only a small patch of Shanghai, yet the density of people who left their names on it is astonishing.
The reason is not hard to see: between 1900 and 1937 Zhabei was at once Shanghai's industrial centre, its cultural centre, its transport hub and the front line of revolution. Each of those four identities drew its own kind of person:
| Identity | Who it drew | In this book |
|---|---|---|
| Transport hub | politicians, revolutionaries, travellers | Song Jiaoren (assassinated at the North Station) |
| Cultural centre | publishers, artists, writers | Wu Changshuo, Zhang Yuanji |
| Revolutionary front line | labour leaders, Communists | Wang Shouhua, Mao Zedong, Cai Hesen, Xiang Jingyu |
| Theatre of the war of resistance | soldiers, generals | Xie Jinyuan, Jiang Guangnai, Cai Tingkai |
The test for inclusion
This book applies three tests to the figures it chooses; meet any one and you are in:
- they left a physical trace in Zhabei (a grave, a former residence, a former site, a memorial hall);
- an event that decided the course of their life happened in Zhabei;
- their name is written into a Zhabei place name, or is directly bound up with one.
So what this book collects is not "the notable people of Zhabei down the ages" (that would make a long and tedious list), but "where Zhabei and a person meet" — the kind of relationship in which a place and a person define each other.
How the eight pieces are arranged
| # | Figure | In one line | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Song Jiaoren | The "father of constitutionalism" who sleeps in Zhabei | Read |
| 2 | Xie Jinyuan | The lone-garrison colonel of Sihang Warehouse | Read |
| 3 | Wu Changshuo | His last fourteen years, spent in Jiqing Lane | Read |
| 4 | Zhang Yuanji | The man who let the Commercial Press "make a mountain out of level ground" | Read |
| 5 | Wang Shouhua | The union chairman who fell at 26, on the eve of April 12 | Read |
| 6 | Mao Zedong, Cai Hesen and Xiang Jingyu | The "big family" of Sanzeng Lane | Read |
| 7 | Jiang Guangnai and Cai Tingkai | The men who fired the first shot of January 28 in Zhabei | Read |
| 8 | A group portrait | The people and stories behind the street names | Read |
A suggestion
The eight pieces can be read straight through or dipped into. But if time is short, read them in chronological order and you will see a clear line:
Song Jiaoren (1913) → Wu Changshuo (1913–1927) → Zhang Yuanji (1902–1932) → Mao and the others (1923) → Wang Shouhua (1927) → Jiang Guangnai and Cai Tingkai (1932) → Xie Jinyuan (1937)
Thirty years. From the hope of the early Republic to the blood and fire of the war of resistance.
Walk that line to the end and you will understand one thing: Zhabei did not "happen" to witness this; it was the one place where all of it took place.
Begin with the man who fell at the railway station.