Liáng Qǐchāo 梁啓超 (1873–1929), zì Zhuórú 卓如, hào Rèngōng 任公 and Yǐnbīng Shì Zhǔrén 飲冰室主人 (“Master of the Ice-Drinking Studio”), was a native of Xīnhuì 新會, Guǎngdōng. CBDB 691198 records his dates as 1873–1929, consistent with standard reference sources. He was one of the most influential intellectuals of the late Qīng and Republican era.
Liáng passed the jǔrén examination at the unusually young age of 17 in 1889, and came under the influence of Kāng Yǒuwéi 康有為 in Guangzhou, becoming the leading disciple and collaborator in Kāng’s program of constitutional reform. He participated in the Hundred Days’ Reform (Wùxū biànfǎ 戊戌變法, 1898) as a reform activist and, after its failure, fled with Kāng to Japan, where he would remain in exile until 1912. In Japan he became an extraordinarily prolific journalist and essayist, founding the Qīngyì Bào 清議報 (1898), the Xīnmín Cóngbào 新民叢報 (1902), and the fiction journal Xīn Xiǎoshuō 新小說 (New Fiction, 1902). His essays on “renewing the people” (xīnmín 新民), on historical methodology, on Buddhism, on Western philosophy, and on literature were read throughout the Chinese-speaking world and profoundly influenced a generation of young reformers including those who would lead the May Fourth Movement.
Wilkinson discusses Liáng’s importance in Chinese historiography under the periodization debates (§A.1.1), noting that his European three-ages model of historical periodization — “ancient” (pre-Qīn), “medieval” (Qīn to Qiánlóng), “modern” (Qiánlóng to present) — became widely influential. Liáng also produced substantial historical writings; his Zhōngguó Lìshǐ Yánjiū Fǎ 中國歷史研究法 (Methods of Research in Chinese History) and Qīngdài Xuéshù Gàilùn 清代學術概論 (Intellectual Trends in the Qīng Period) remain standard reference works.
After the 1912 revolution, Liáng returned to China and held several government posts, but remained primarily active as a cultural and educational figure. He opposed the Yuan Shikai monarchist movement and supported the 1917 declaration of war against Germany. In his later years he devoted himself to scholarship, particularly to studies of ancient Chinese philosophy, Buddhist thought, and the methodology of Chinese history. He died in 1929 in Beijing.
Within the Kanripo corpus. KR4k0176 Xīn Zhōngguó Wèilái Jì 新中國未來記 (撰).