Luo Zhenyu or Lo Chen-yü (August 8, 1866 – May 14, 1940),

courtesy name A courtesy name (), also known as a style name, is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to one's given name. This practice is a tradition in the East Asian cultural sphere, including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.Ulrich Theob ...

Shuyun (叔蘊), was a Chinese classical scholar,

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

epigrapher Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

, antiquarian and Qing loyalist.

Biography

A native of

Huai'an Huai'an (), formerly called Huaiyin () until 2001, is a prefecture-level city in the central part of Jiangsu province in East China, Eastern China. Huai'an is situated almost directly south of Lianyungang, southeast of Suqian, northwest of Yan ...

, Luo began to publish works of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

after the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the ...

. With his friends, he set up ''Dongwen Xueshe'' (), a

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...

teaching school in 1896. One of the students was

Wang Guowei Wang Guowei (; 2 December 18772 June 1927) or Wang Kuo-wei, courtesy name Jing'an () or Boyu (), was a Chinese historian and poet. A versatile and original scholar, he made important contributions to the studies of ancient history, epigraphy, ph ...

. Luo first visited Japan in 1901 to study the Japanese educational system. From 1906 onwards, he held several different government posts, mostly related to agriculture. From April 1909 to February 1912 he was president of the Imperial Agricultural College. Being a loyalist to the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...

, he fled to Japan after the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China. The revolution was the culmination of a ...

, residing in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

and doing some research on Chinese archaeology. He returned to

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

in China in 1919, taking part in political activities aimed at restoration of deposed Qing Emperor

Puyi Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...

. Luo eventually rose to become one of the three main advisors and a trusted confidant of the emperor. After the creation of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in March 1932, Luo accepted a post in the new government from 1933 to 1938, insisting on maintaining Manchukuo as a

monarchy A monarchy is a government#Forms, form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The legitimacy (political)#monarchy, political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restric ...

against various proposals to make it a republic. He also served as chairman of the Japan-Manchukuo Cultural Cooperation Society. However, Luo gradually became disillusioned with the heavy-handed administration of the Japanese

Kwantung Army ''Kantō-gun'' , image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG , image_size = 300px , caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo , dates = April ...

and the lack of all real authority or political power by the nominal emperor Puyi, and resigned his positions in 1938, retiring to Dalian. Luo's political activities during the wartime period and association with the collaborationist Manchukuo government have tended to overshadow his accomplishments as a scholar. He worked throughout his life to preserve Chinese antiques, especially

oracle bone Oracle bones () are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. '' Scapulimancy'' is the correct term if ox scapulae were used for ...

s, bamboo and wooden slips, and

Dunhuang manuscripts Dunhuang manuscripts refer to a wide variety of religious and secular documents (mostly manuscripts, but also including some woodblock-printed texts) in Chinese and other languages that were discovered at the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, duri ...

, all of which are invaluable materials for understanding ancient China. He was one of the first scholars to decipher the

oracle bone script Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or Turtle shell#Plastron, turtle plastrons used in pyromancy, pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millen ...

, and produced many important scholarly works researching the

bronzeware script Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd mi ...

. He helped publish Liu E's ''Tieyun Canggui'' (), the first collection of oracle bones, and

Sun Yirang Sun Yirang (; 1848–1908) was a Qing dynasty Chinese philologist. A native of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, he retired from official employment early in his life to devote himself to scholarship. His most important works are ''Mozi Jiangu'' (墨� ...

's ''Qiwen Juli'' (), the first work of decipherment of the oracle bone script. Luo's own work ''Yinxu Shuqi Kaoshi'' () still occupies an important place in the study of oracle bone script. He was also the first modern scholar to become interested in the

Tangut script The Tangut script ( Tangut: ; ) was a logographic writing system, used for writing the extinct Tangut language of the Western Xia dynasty. According to the latest count, 5863 Tangut characters are known, excluding variants. The Tangut characte ...

, and published a number of dissertations on the subject in 1912 and 1927. Andrew West
Tangut Coins

References

* He Jiuying 何九盈 (1995). ''Zhongguo xiandai yuyanxue shi'' (中囯现代语言学史 "A history of modern Chinese linguistics"). Guangzhou: Guangdong jiaoyu chubanshe. *''

Zhongguo da baike quanshu The ''Encyclopedia of China'' () is the first large-entry modern encyclopedia in the Chinese language. The compilation began in 1978. Published by the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, the encyclopedia was issued one volume at a time, begin ...

'' (1980–1993). 1st Edition. Beijing; Shanghai: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe. *

External links

Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Luo, Zhenyu 1866 births 1940 deaths Chinese expatriates in Japan Linguists from China Qing dynasty historians People of Manchukuo Republic of China historians Tangutologists Writers from Huai'an Chinese archaeologists Historians from Jiangsu 19th-century Chinese historians 20th-century Chinese historians Chinese collaborators with Imperial Japan Chinese numismatists