[Zhangjiage · Bonus Chapter] A Beacon of National Renewal in a Watertown: Zhang Hongfang and the Educational Awakening of Zhangjiage

In the modern history of Zhangjiage, two figures stand out as particularly remarkable: Zhang Yufeng and Zhang Hongfang.

One protected the people around him during the years when the land fell under occupation, safeguarding his native community through compassion and courage. The other established a modern school deep in the watertown, seeking to awaken the minds of the people and contribute to the salvation of the nation through education.

Their paths were different, yet they shared something profound:

One saved people from danger through action; the other sought to awaken them from ignorance through education.

They were like two different lamps lit upon the land of Zhangjiage — one illuminating hearts in times of peril, the other awakening minds that had yet to see the wider world.

I have written about the former before. The latter was not a member of my family, and so I had never formally included him in these family stories.

Today, I would like to set aside a chapter for him, and record the memory of this remarkable son of the watertown.

The final years of the Qing dynasty and the early Republic were times of turmoil and uncertainty.

Across China, calls for a stronger nation and resistance to foreign humiliation echoed everywhere.

Beside the quietly flowing Zhangjing River in Zhangjiage, a local gentleman born in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Mr. Zhang Hongfang, looked upon the river and also saw the widening gulf between the old rural education and the demands of a changing age.

He must have understood something simple and profound:

A nation can become strong only when its people are enlightened; and the enlightenment of the people begins with education.

At that time, traditional private schools still dominated the countryside around Punan. Their education remained largely confined to the classics, while many children from farming families could not even afford the opportunity to attend school, let alone discover the world beyond their village.

Against this backdrop, Zhang Hongfang made a bold commitment:

to awaken the minds of the people and seek national renewal through education.

This was not merely an ideal written on paper.

Faced with misunderstanding from his fellow villagers and a severe shortage of funds, he chose to become the one who would break the deadlock. He sold part of his own property and traveled from place to place, raising money for the school.

In 1912, he boldly abandoned the old educational conventions and founded a modern school beside the eastern side of my maternal grandmother’s ancestral courtyard:

the Fourth National School of Jinxian County.

He also served personally as its principal.

Zhang Hongfang understood that opening the eyes of the children of the watertown required far more than a new school sign or a few new textbooks.

He recruited teachers with progressive ideas and introduced modern subjects including Chinese language, arithmetic, natural science, physical education, singing and dancing.

For children from poor families, he went even further.

He arranged tuition reductions and provided paper and writing materials.

He did not want poverty to become a reason for any child to lose the chance to study.

And so, amid the morning mist along the Zhangjing River, the sound of children’s voices gradually filled the air.

Children who had come from humble farmhouses, field paths, and riverbanks began, perhaps for the first time, to see through their books a world far larger than their village.

And eyes that had once been innocent and uncertain began to shine with light.

What Zhang Hongfang devoted half his life to building was more than a school.

What he truly planted was a belief:

Education could change a person’s destiny, and learning could transform an entire community.

Generation after generation of young people received their first awakening there. Some eventually left the watertown and entered a much wider world.

At the same time, the spirit of supporting education and helping young people study gradually took root throughout the Punan countryside.

More importantly, certain qualities came to be deeply embedded in the character of the people of Zhangjiage:

honesty and trustworthiness, openness and respect for education, and a sense of responsibility toward the nation.

A school never changes only the lives of its students.

Sometimes, it changes the way an entire community learns to see the world.

A flame passed from one generation to the next never truly dies.

What Zhang Hongfang built, brick by brick, may have appeared to be nothing more than a rural school.

In truth, it was like a lamp lit beside the Zhangjing River.

Its light was not dazzling, but it was bright enough for one child after another to see the road beneath their feet — and to glimpse the distant horizon.

Time passed. The world changed.

In later generations, many people from Zhangjiage, gentle yet resilient like pieces of ancient Jiangnan jade, followed the cultural path laid down by those before them. They left the watertown to study and live in Japan, the United States, and elsewhere, carrying their roots into distant lands.

They carried with them not only memories of the Zhangjing River, but also a quiet spirit of perseverance, learning, and intellectual curiosity.

Perhaps this was something Zhang Hongfang, bent over his desk beneath the lamplight more than a century ago, could never have imagined.

But this is the wonder of education:

One lamp lights another. And the farther the light travels, the more precious that first small flame becomes.

More than a century later, the Zhangjing River still flows quietly past Zhangjiage.

The river has carried away countless years, but it has not extinguished that lamp.

Its light has traveled through villages and generations, across mountains and borders, and finally toward a much wider world.

Perhaps this is the most precious legacy Zhang Hongfang left to Zhangjiage:

to awaken minds through education, and to discover the world through learning;

to give a small watertown community the ability to converse with its age, with China, and ultimately, with the world.

A Lesson by the River

A humble village classroom, where a teacher opens a window to the wider world. In the quiet faces of these children, we can almost see the first light of education taking root in the Jiangnan countryside.