Letter to Li Jinxi68 (November 9,1915)
Dear Elder Brother Shaoxi:
64 On li gong (establishing merit), see the previous note.
65 The notice in question was that about which Mao told Edgar Snow in 1936, signed with the
pseudonym Ershibahua sheng (Twenty-eight Stroke Student, twenty-eight being the number of strokes
required to write the three characters of Mao’s name). See below Mao’s poem of 1918 addressed to one
of the few who did reply. The reference to birds here is a paraphrase of two lines from the Book of Poetry
II, I, V (Legge, Vol. IV, p. 253), which are translated by Legge as follows: “ … ying goes its cry, seeking
with its voice its companion.” Interestingly, these two lines immediately follow the couplet about a bird
issuing from a dark valley cited in Mao’s letter of November 9,1915, to Li Jinxi.
66 Xianzhe.
67 Chen Zanzhou (1892–1921), also called Shaoxiu, from Liuyang, Hunan, was a fellow student of
Mao’s at First Normal School. After graduation he became physical education teacher at the attached
primary school. He was a founding member of the New People’s Study Society and went to France in
1920 on the work-study program. He died of illness in Paris in 1921. Mao’s letter to him is not available.
He was a teacher at Hunan First Normal School and had left for Beijing in September 1915. Thereafter,
he taught for a number of years at Beijing Normal University.

Month before last, Mr. Xiong69 passed on to me a letter of yours, which is indeed
instructive. Now, sir, I have something I wish to tell you. In these days, the voices of
evil grow louder and louder, and justice is obstructed. In the face of such difficulties,
and on the eve of the emergence of hidden dragons,70 scholars, though ready for action,
should not seek to advance hastily. Now, this business of yours, sir, is certainly a
magnificent undertaking. While those on the other side, however, always use their
craft to fool the people, is it right for you to submit your skills to help them? Their
maneuvers for recruiting eminent personages are growing more clever every day. Is it
possible that those whose ambition is to use the people of the whole country could
be used by others? The Chiefs and Conquerors, as ministers of Shun, served virtue;
Yang and Liu, as ministers of Mang, merely submitted to force.71 If one is able to
discriminate between Shun and Mang, one should be able to position oneself properly
at present. That is self-explanatory. Beijing is like a crucible in which one cannot but
be transformed. I am greatly frightened by what I have heard people say about it. The
letter I received from you said you would soon return to teach; you added that Beijing
stank with corruption and you could not bear it for long. But so far we have still not
seen you return. I also heard that you were planning something and
would therefore be staying there for some time. My great puzzlement remains unresolved, and I feel I must speak out. I hope you will consider what I say and hurry back
without lingering. At school, I have followed your counsels diligently without daring
to violate them, but my nature is difficult to restrain. In the end I realized that this
is no place to study: there is no freedom of will, the standards are too low, and the
companions too evil. It is truly distressing to see my serviceable body and precious
time dwindle away in pining and waiting. Master Zhu once said, “Those who do not
know how to pilot a boat consider the stream too narrow.”72 Since I honestly cannot do
what the ancients did, I ought to be held up to ridicule. But there is also the teaching
of the “dark valley and lofty tree.”73 Schools like this are certainly the darkest of dark
valleys. I must abandon it, make good plans, and establish far-reaching goals. I eagerly
await your return so we can discuss this and make plans together. Throughout my
life, I have never had good teachers or friends. Regrettably, I met you, elder brother,
only late. How much I desire to seek your guidance every day! In the past two years,
my desire to find friends has been most fervent. After I returned from the summer
69 Xiong Guangchu. (See note to letter of August 1915 to Xiao Zisheng.)
70 This four-character phrase, longqian bujian, appears to be a conflation of several sentences in the
opening passage of the Book, of Changes. The paragraph in question, which is also quoted extensively
in the Zuo zhuan, twenty-ninth year of Duke Zhao (par.
71 Legge, Vol. V, p. 731), after stating qianlong buyong, which Legge translates “The dragon lies
hid in the water; it is not the time for active employment,” goes on to discuss various circumstances in
which the dragon is or is not seen (jian).
72 See Zhu Xi.Zhuzi yulei, Vol. 8.
[bird] issues from the dark valley, and removes to the lofty tree.”