In the early autumn of 1960, Wang Zengqi, who had worked for two years at the Zhangjiakou Agricultural Science Institute, took off his rightist hat, and the unit made the following Appraisal: “(Wang) has the determination to give up his reactionary position, consciously bowed his head to the people and confessed his guilt, and basically solved the problem ideologically, showing his conviction.” The original unit in Beijing, the Folk Art and Literature Research Association, had no intention of recalling it. Wang Zengqi, after waiting for a year in a helpless situation, wrote a letter to his old classmate from the Southwest United University, Yang Yumin, director of the art room of the Beijing Peking Opera Troupe.
Yang Yumin, who is now eighty years old and has just undergone surgery for stomach cancer, still remembers the situation clearly.
At that Time, his letter told me that I had taken off my hat, I wanted to get him back. Once told the regiment, party secretary Xue Enhou, deputy head Xiao A agreed. The director, Sun Fangshan, is an opera fan and likes to write Beijing opera books in his spare time. He knew Wang Zengqi, so he agreed, and Zengqi thus became a full-time scriptwriter in the troupe. (Interviewed on June 19, 1998)
Lin Jinlan, a veteran Writer, said that some people in Beijing’s cultural circles, such as Lao She, were concerned about Wang Zengqi’s transfer.
In 1963, he began to participate in the adaptation of the Shanghai play “Lutang Fire”, which unveiled his feud and entanglement with the model opera and Jiang Qing for more than ten years, constituting the most bizarre, complicated and delicate special period in his Life of writing.
Xiao Jia, then deputy director of the Beijing Peking Opera Troupe, recounted
In order to catch the modern opera repertoire in 1964, the troupe quickly enriched its creative forces. When we were working on the first draft of The Fires of Lutang, Wang Zengqi, Yang Yumin and I were living in the Summer Palace, and I remember that it was frozen over and there were few visitors, so we had good Food. Many of the descriptions of the environment and life came from the Shanghai opera, and the changes were not small, but quite rough.
After Jiang Qing saw it, she had her security staff call to prevent further performance. Peng Zhen and other leaders thought it would be a good idea to perform a few shows and advertise in the newspaper, but in the end, they had to listen to Jiang Qing. The play is artistically unimpeachable, just because the task is rushed, to fine quality to require or gap.
We went back to the Cultural Bureau’s Guangqumen Guest House to change the script, Xue Enhou’s salary was high and he always invited us to eat shabu-shabu. This time, the script was changed to good effect, we came up with ideas, divided into writing, and finally Wang Zengqi unified the draft. The Shanghai script has two teahouse scenes, we added a scene, becoming three teahouse scenes, later denied by Jiang Qing.
Wang Zengqi is very talented and has a wide range of knowledge. He read a lot of things, the house stool is full of books. At that time he was more cautious and modest, and was said to be more arrogant at the beginning of the liberation. Jiang Qing admired him, and when she went to Shanghai, she asked, “What does the author do?” Once in Shanghai to revise a scene of “Shajiabang”, Wang wrote a new chorus, and Jiang Qing personally called after reading it, “The chorus is quite well written, but it’s not quite right, so don’t use it.”
Zhao Yanman whined, “After half a day of practice, what is the point of practicing?” And Wang Zengqi is still so conscientious, in the class struggle under high pressure, he lived a very proper. It’s not about reuse, it’s about being used. (Interviewed on June 22, 1998)
According to the material written by Wang Zengqi in 1978, during the revision of the script in Shanghai, Jiang Qing asked Wang what his Education level was and how old he was. When “Shajiabang” was being finalized, Jiang Qing sat down and asked, “Comrade Wang Zengqi, I heard you have a problem with me?” Wang said, “No.” Jiang Qing said, “Oh, no.” Jiang Qing was always haunted by this matter, and she once said to Xiao Jia, “Wang Zengqi knows some vocal rhymes, but he wrote some clichés, and he was not happy when I changed them.” Until the winter of 1968, when Ma Changli, who played Diao Deyi, conveyed Jiang Qing’s instructions, there was also this clause: “Wang Zengqi could control the use, and he had a problem with me when I changed his singing.”
Yang Yumin said, “Jiang Qing had transferred Wang’s file to see, and the next day there was an instruction that this person control the use.”
Wang Zengqi knew in his heart that he had a political “record”, coming from a landlord’s Family, and had a history of problems, and in 1958 he was branded a rightist. Xiao A also said: “Jiang Qing said the phrase ‘control the use of’, said within the leadership, the activists know, the Cultural Revolution all shaken out.” Liang Qinglian, an old colleague from the creation room of the Beijing Opera Company, recalled.
Jiang Qing approved the “controlled use”, I told Wang afterwards, his buddy was sweating like rain at the dinner table, not talking, his face was white. It was not summer, and he was sweating so much that he later explained, “I got sick from the whole thing when I was against the right, and when I was nervous, I was sweating, and I had a physiological reaction.”
He felt that Jiang Qing, a woman, was unusual, and might have run into trouble somewhere. In those years he was trembling, could not make mistakes, like a big animal suffering, tired, long numbed ……. (Interviewed on July 6, 1998)
According to Yang Yumin, “Wang really couldn’t make any more mistakes at that time because no one knew the extent of Jiang Qing’s control.”
“Jiang Qing was guarded against Wang Zengqi.” Yan Su, who was in the same creative team as Wang at the time, also talks about this issue.
“To adapt Red Rock, Jiang Qing sued me, ‘Find someone from the Peking Opera to work with you ……’ I said, ‘I will definitely work well with this comrade. ‘ Jiang Qing corrected, ‘He’s not a comrade, he’s a rightist.’ Jiang Qing used him, appreciated him, but was uneasy.” (Interview, July 7, 1998)
On one occasion, Wang Zengqi said sadly to the secretary of the troupe, Xue Enhou, “I can’t say much more about my current position; I am controlled use.” I can’t imagine Xue replying, “I’m just like you, she doesn’t trust me.” Wang later described that when Jiang Qing lost her temper, Xue Enhou would sweat like a puddle and toss and turn. In May 1965, Jiang Qing said of Xue in Shanghai, “Old Xue, don’t be afraid! Going Home to farm is also a revolution.”
Jiang Qing was quite impressed with Wang Zengqi’s writing talent: he was satisfied with the final draft of Shajiabang. During the discussion of the second scene, Yao Wenyuan proposed, “Comrade Jiang Qing has put a lot of effort into this Chaoxia, and it needs to be described in a few better sentences.” Jiang Qing asked me to think of two sentences, and I did so on the spot, which she appreciated at the time. (From Wang Zengqi’s “My Inspection”, April 1978)
After several years of the Cultural Revolution, when the Beijing Peking Opera Company decided to rehearse The Grassland Beacon in April 1972, it was Jiang Qing who made the final decision: “There is someone to write the lyrics, ask Wang Zengqi to write them.” It is evident that Jiang Qing valued the pen in Wang Zengqi’s hand, and because of this, Wang Zengqi was soon liberated from the “cowshed” during the Cultural Revolution and rejoined the sample play creation team.
In the morning of April 17, 1968, Li Yingru, a military representative, asked Xue Enhou and me to go to the conference room in the backyard to talk and said to me, “I am ready to liberate you, but your “Xiao Cui” is still an anti-Party and anti-socialist poisonous grass.” I said, “Then what are you liberating me for?” Li said, “We know that you are a very untamed person …… you go and get ready to do an examination.”
It was almost noon when Li Yingru approached me again and said, “Don’t make an inspection, you go up and make a statement.”
When the crowd arrived at the auditorium, he said again, “Just three minutes.” I was so excited, I didn’t know what to say. I probably said something like, “I was in the wrong, and if Comrade Jiang Qing still allows me to contribute a little to the revolutionary modern drama, I am willing to bow and die.”
After the statement, I was issued a ticket to see “The Rising Sun in the Mountain City” that night, and shortly afterwards the original ticket was withdrawn and replaced with an invitation. Some more time later, Li Yingru approached me and said that Yan Su and I should sit next to Jiang Qing and accompany her to watch the play. Half an hour before the performance, Li said again, “Accompany Jiang Qing x x to see the play, this is a great honor, this honor is given to you. However, you should be careful not to say anything that you should not say.” (From Wang Zengqi’s “About My “Liberation” and Going to Tiananmen Square”, May 13, 1978)
Wang Zengqi described himself as being in a dream and in a very excited mood. When Jiang Qing came to see the play, she did not ask about the “liberation”, and during the interval, she said to Wang Zengqi: “It’s not good, is it? But it’s better than The Emperor‘s play!”
Later, Wang Zengqi truly talked about his inner thoughts: “She ‘liberated’ me, I was very grateful at the time, and my thoughts of gratitude continued for a long time. The first thing I felt about Jiang Qing was that she spoke with the air of a hooligan, opening her mouth to say ‘Laozi’, and that she was broken, illogical and sometimes incoherent, and that she liked to brag about herself. This person is unpredictable and can turn the other cheek at any time, which I deeply feel. So for quite a long time I was both grateful and frightened of her.” (From Wang Zengqi’s “My Relationship with Jiang Qing and Yu Huiyong”, May 6, 1977)
As was the practice at that time, the Red Flag magazine was to publish the final draft of each model play. On May 15, 1970, Jiang Qing approached Wang Zengqi and the others to discuss Shajiabang, so that the final draft could be published. When Jiang Qing said which lines should be changed, Wang immediately revised them according to her comments until Jiang Qing approved. When the whole play was finished, Jiang Qing was satisfied and Wang Zengqi thought he had “responded more quickly”. The first thing that happened was that Jiang Qing’s secretary suddenly called the Peking Opera Company at 10:30 p.m. on May 19 to inform Wang Zengqi to go to Tiananmen the next day, as only three main actors, Tan Yuanshou, Ma Changli and Hong Xuefei, were scheduled to attend the May 20 mass meeting. That day, Wang was writing an article on “Shajiabang” for “Red Flag”, and he told military representative Tian Guangwen, “What about the article? Can you ask Yang Yumin to go.” Tian Guangwen said, “Put down everything beforehand, how can others replace this matter.”
The next day at dawn, Wang Zengqi and his group gathered at a guest house and then ascended to the west side of the Tiananmen Tower. This day, Jiang Qing did not attend the conference. The People’s Daily published the news that Wang Zengqi’s name appeared in the list of several hundred people who attended. Lin Jinlan, an old writer, was locked up in a cowshed at the time and was surprised to see the newspaper. A decade later he told Wang Zengqi with a smile, “I see you on Tiananmen, and I’m waiting for you to save me.”
Wang Zengqi had a flattering sense of knowing at that time. His son, Wang Lang, mentioned one incident: “At that time, when we were shooting “Shajiabang” in Changping, most of the people in the troupe were in Changchun. Once Jiang Qing wanted to have a meeting and specifically said that if Wang Zengqi was in Changchun, he would send a special plane to pick him up and bring him back to Beijing. In fact, he was still in Beijing at that time.” Wang Lang said that his father was a decapitated rightist who was not sent to the 18th level of hell during the Cultural Revolution, which had a lot to do with Jiang Qing’s regard for him. And my father felt that Jiang Qing knew some Beijing opera and had a discerning eye for good and bad singing.
Jiang Qing “cared” for the sample opera troupe, asking questions about the office, repertoire, performances, living conditions and many other aspects. Once, Ma Changli told Jiang Qing that it was inconvenient for the troupe to work backstage, and the room was small. Jiang Qing asked, “Where do you think is a good one?” Ma Changli said that there was a small building next to the Workers’ Club. Afterwards, Jiang Qing said, the small building was allocated to the Beijing Peking Opera Company. Jiang Qing thought that the actors who played the 18 wounded and sick members of the New Fourth Army were too old and called them “bearded soldiers”, so she replaced them with young students from the theater school, saying that the play of the wounded and sick members should be neat. When discussing a scene at the Reed Dang, Jiang Qing suddenly came up with the line, “The enemy’s motorboat is coming.” This was to set the mood. Wang Zengqi was very impressed by all this, and he thought that Jiang Qing knew more about theater among the top leaders at that time, was more expert in Beijing opera, and provided superior working conditions at that time.
Before the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing had presented Mao’s Selected Works to the troupe’s creators. When he gave it to Wang Zengqi, Jiang Qing wrote on the title page, “For Comrade Wang Zengqi, Jiang Qing”. After the crushing of the Gang of Four, Wang Zengqi’s wife tore the title page inscribed by Jiang Qing. It is said that this set of “Mao’s Selected Works” is very rare, only two thousand copies were printed, which were kept by Mao Zedong and Jiang Qing or given to others. When Wang Zengqi got a set, he felt cherished and moved.
As the head of the troupe and director of “Shajiabang”, Xiao Jia believes that after more than 30 years, he should be objective about the past.
Everyone had to live according to the atmosphere of the time, Jiang Qing was in that position and we all had to respect her. Jiang Qing was watching the play while I was taking notes, so I can’t say she didn’t understand everything. If she talked alone afterwards, it showed that she had thought about it. Sometimes she spoke more casually, she said, “The willow tree is dull and too big.” We change it, and she says, “I told you guys, why did you make it like that?” If you don’t do it right, she’ll still think you’re messing with her.
Once, the actors didn’t quite agree with Jiang Qing, and I said, “Don’t argue, this is Jiang Qing’s book of life and death.”
Another time, Jiang Qing said, “Watching ‘The Red Lantern’ brings tears to my eyes.” I said behind my back, “This is not good, it will damage your life.” When someone reported it, Jiang Qing said, “Curse me to die early.” The municipal committee was very nervous and made me review the party. I said, “No offense, I was just being witty.
It was Jiang Qing’s call to go to Tiananmen. At that time, Jiang Qing did want to pull Wang Zengqi a hand, she was polite every time she saw Wang. Wang Zengqi found it surprising, but instead of patting himself on the back, he wrote honestly. He was quite popular in the troupe, the main actors looked up to him, and he contributed a lot to the play. (Interviewed on June 22, 1998)
Wang Zengqi, a strict and serious person of nature, made cards of Jiang Qing’s successive instructions for Shajiabang for the director and actors to refer to. In the first National Model Theatre Exchange Conference, he was ordered to make a report on Shajiabang at the conference for the second time. On one occasion, he could not help but suggest three shouts of “Woola” at the end of the presentation of Jiang Qing’s reception in the troupe as a celebration. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers.
When Wang Zengqi reflected later, he also felt that he had fallen into fanaticism and superstition at that time: I was impressed by Jiang Qing’s concern for the Peking Opera revolution, she said she was not well and came out for a walk with a matzah, to take a few steps and rest. She said she had been thinking about the Beijing Peking Opera Company’s repertoire, and said she had no one around her, so she had to tell the nurse, “The Beijing Peking Opera Company won’t have a play this year, and the whole group of comrades will be very sad.” I was bewildered by her posturing and was touched in my heart. (From Wang Zengqi’s “My Examination”, April 1978)
He wrote three articles for Shajiabang, one of which, “Pushing through the thorns, pushing the envelope,” was published in the People’s Daily on February 8, 1970. Before writing the article, the leaders instructed that Jiang Qing’s merits in the model play should be highlighted and all credit should be given to Jiang Qing. One leader also admonished, “Don’t make any mistakes in your accounts.”
In his article, Wang Zengqi paid attention to small details to disclose some of Jiang Qing’s ideas, such as “We recently, according to Comrade Jiang Qing’s instructions, let Guo Jianguang and Hei Tian start a fight in the opening fight, and finally trampled Hei Tian underfoot”, “Comrade Jiang Qing once pointed out that there should be a heroic group with a leading role “, “Comrade Jiang Qing demanded that in the key places, small knots, not to let go”, etc..
Wang Zengqi has been unforgettable about a scene at that time: in Kangpingqiao Zhang Chunqiao that office, Jiang Qing skipped back and forth, saying in a stern voice, “Tell Laozi to test here, Laozi will test here. If you don’t want me to test it here, I’ll test it elsewhere!” At that time, Yan Su and I looked at each other, Xue En Hou was sweating, Li Qi did not say a word. When we returned to the guest house, Xue was still flushed and sweating, and Li Qi said, “You love to sweat. (From Wang Zengqi’s “About Red Rock”, May 1978)
Jiang Qing once instructed that to experience life in Sichuan, to sit in jail. So, everyone was locked up collectively in the Jagged Cave for a week. Yan Su described: “A dozen people slept on straw and were not allowed to talk. I was handcuffed backwards and immediately felt what it was like to lose my freedom. Commanded by Luo Guangbin and Yang Yiyin, things like the torture and the memorial service were made very realistic.” Yang Yumin said, “We put on shackles and ate two nests and a bowl of plain water every day. Xue Enhou and I were dragged out and shot, and when the gun was really released, the people inside shouted ‘Long live the Communist Party’ and cried bitterly, while we had gone back to the guest house to sleep. Later, the night march on Mount Huashan, hands could not see the five fingers, a person grabbed the clothes of the previous person forward, the next day at dawn to see the frightened, next to the abyss of ten thousand feet.”
Then, Jiang Qing instructed to adapt the “Grassland Beacon”, Wang Zengqi, Yang Yumin, Yan Su, they ran around the grassland for two months, a jeep glass all shattered. Back to report that The Japanese did not enter the grasslands, just Daqing Mountain guerrillas into the grasslands to escape the sweep, the launch of the herdsmen struggle the king does not match the reality. Yu Huiyong but said, “That’s better, the sea is wide, you guys go think ah!”
“Very early on, I heard Zengqi tell this story, and several times I heard him speak at the meeting. It was seen both as a joke and as a tragedy.” Lin Jinlan, who was Wang’s friend for many years, talked about it and couldn’t help but let out a long sigh.
Yang Yumin said that the second, sixth and eighth scenes of “Cuckoo Mountain” were written by Wang Zengqi, and a story came out after the whole play was written: Jiang Qing said at the beginning that he could set aside the play and could make it up. Jiang Qing saw “Cuckoo Mountain” rhyming white is very good, happy and asked us to change the “Shajiabang” lines into rhyming white. We took great pains to write it, but Jiang Qing called and said, “Forget it, don’t do it. (Interviewed on June 19, 1998) When writing the lines of “Cuckoo Mountain” in which Lei Gang was trusted even after he had made a mistake, Wang Zengqi thought of his own situation and became emotionally moved. He said to others, “It is difficult for you to experience such feelings if you have not made mistakes.”
Liu Qingtang, who was the vice minister of the Ministry of Culture in the early 1970s, recalled that there was a group of talented people in the Beijing Peking Opera Company, and Wang Zengqi was prominent, and he played an important role in the creation of Dujuan Mountain. Yu Huiyong told me that Wang was very talented and that he should make good use of this talent. (Interviewed on July 15, 1998) After 1973, Jiang Qing became more connected with writers such as Zhang Yongmei and Haoran, and Yu Huiyong cultivated his own direct team, so Wang Zengqi’s relationship with them was relatively distant. In July 1974, Yu Huiyong informed Wang to participate in the revision of the New Three Character Classic, which would be used as a reading material for the poor peasants in Xiaojinzhuang to criticize Lin and criticize Confucius, and Wang wrote only a few lines in it: “Confucius restored rites, Lin restored the restoration, two thousand years, one play.” In February 1976, Yu Huiyong again wanted to turn the movie “Duel” into a Peking opera, and he dared not to write the rank of the capitalists higher, and said that if the model play did not pay attention to quality, it might be attacked. Later Yu was not satisfied with the rehearsal of “Duel” and criticized that it was like a rope with many tea bowls hanging from it. Wang Zengqi and the others could not think of a way out, so they each had to read the material about the “three self and one package”. On October 11, the meeting was scheduled to report their ideas, but no one said anything, because secretly already knew that the “Gang of Four” had fallen.
I felt very comfortable during the parade celebrating the crushing of the Gang of Four, and I said, “Any movement could have gotten me, but this one has nothing to do with me.” I was very excited, very active and impulsive.
I wrote slogans, wrote big-character posters, expressed my views on the movement, participated in various symposiums, and wrote some works, posted them in the group, submitted them to the newspaper, and sent them to the theater company hoping that people would recite and perform them.
I feel that I only have a working relationship with Jiang Qing, I have not done any harm to anyone. I also said that Jiang Qing had not yet formed the Gang of Four at the beginning of Shajiabang and did not yet have the ambition to usurp power against the Party, and that this issue should be handled with caution. (From Wang Zengqi’s “Comprehensive Inspection”, September 1978)
In April 1977, the first batch of large-character posters were posted to Wang Zengqi within the group. In May, Wang Zengqi made an examination in the creative group. In August, he was ordered to make another profound examination. Huang Zhen, the minister of culture at the time, believed that the literary and artistic community was not thoroughly investigated, and that the pressure cooker did not have enough fire to make sandwich rice, and that extraordinary measures should be taken. Soon, Wang Zengqi was publicly announced as a key censorship target, a hang is two years.
At that time, the top that Jiang Qing has a second set of strain team, the old man became the object of suspicion. The old man was naive, others thought he had a good time, he felt that he had suffered a lot, others’ Perception of him and his self-perception is a big contrast. Hang him up, he could not accept, jumped quite a lot, in the house tantrums, drinking, cursing, to chop off his fingers to prove his innocence. Day and night scribbling, drawing eagles and strange birds of Bada Shanren, inscribing the words, “Bada Shanren has no such bully.”
I felt that deep in his mind he was not in tune with the Cultural Revolution and did not agree with it. He was in pain in his creation, and he knew the Gang of Four from this perspective. He did not become a deformed person shaped by politics, as if he was in the general environment.
At that time, he wrote to his old classmate Zhu Dexi, never writing about the model opera, but at most writing, “I am waiting for the head to watch the opera, so I can’t go home,” and always maintaining the interest of daily life. (Dictated by his son Wang Lang on June 26, 1998)
At that time, he wrote a lot of rebuttal materials and disagreed with the conclusions written by others. He was asked to sign them, and he argued each one of them. He was censored alone for a while and was allowed to go home, but not allowed to link up. A group of old cadres came from the top, and the whole thing was very serious. He did not understand politics, but before the Gang of Four fell, but not less spread gossip, scared us to death. He told me about “The Red Queen”, saying, “Something has happened, Chairman Mao has approved ……” and was very happy, dancing around.
Then there was a period of lax censorship and no one managed it. It just so happened that Cao Yu’s “Wang Zhaojun” was published, and for leisure, Wang Zengqi changed it into a kun opera, and I changed it into a Beijing opera. By then he had started to collect information on Emperor Han Wu and made his own cards, trying to analyze the personality of Emperor Han Wu. Later, his physical strength failed and his housing was too small to write on.
When we urged him to work on the novel, he said, “I don’t have a life, I can’t write it.” In reality, he was already working on a novel, and showed us the novels he had written in 1947, and asked us to tell him what category to put them in.
He said, “The model play is a ten-year play, very delicate. But the theme first, under the influence of ultra-leftist thinking out of a group of tall and comprehensive characters, that is not called art. Some of the singing may be popular. Wang Meng and Deng Youmei said that they could not listen to the model opera, but the old man was sympathetic and felt that this was the case, and he could understand them. (Dictated by old colleague Liang Qinglian on July 6, 1998)
Yuan Yunyi, an old colleague in the creative writing room of the Beijing Opera Company, remembers seeing Wang Zengqi entering and leaving his office at that time, always with his head down and his head out, and saying to his acquaintances when he saw them, “I’ve been fixed again.” Zhang Binjiang, the director of “Cuckoo Mountain,” said, “He sometimes didn’t say a word, his eyes were sad, and he had something on his mind.” The final result of the censorship was that it did not end. Wang Zengqi was forced to write nearly 100,000 words of confessions, which became a by-product of his ten years of model play writing.
Many friends later advised Wang to leave this sad place in the Peking Opera Troupe, and once Hu Qiaomu even found a cigarette roll on the spot with the words “Wang Zengqi to the Writers’ Association” written on it. Wang still did not leave, he felt that the Peking Opera troupe is free and loose, but not as complicated as some units in the outside world.
In those miserable days, “The Precept” and “The Chronicles of Danao” had begun to take shape. Zhang Binjiang had heard him tell the story in “Precepted”, and Liang Qinglian read the first draft of “Precepted” and said with surprise that the novel could still be written like this. She showed it to Yang Yumin: “I don’t understand it, can you see if it can be published?” Yang Yumin introduced the content of “The Precepted” at a meeting, which caught the attention of Li Qingquan, the head of the editorial board of Beijing Literature, who was present at the meeting, and followed the lead to ask for the publication of “The Precepted”.
Lin Jinlan talked about the publication of his other work, “The Different Bing“: Wang Zengqi was separated from the literary world and was in a very lazy state. I said, “I’ll forward the book to me. After reading it, Ye Zhicheng and Gao Xiaosheng of “Rain Flower” thought it was very good, saying that there were still such good writers in Jiangsu. But two or three months did not send out, I wrote to ask, Ye Zhicheng said, “We also talk about democracy, ‘different Bing’ in the group can not pass. The group leader said, “We have to send such a novel, it’s like we have no novel to send.” Later, Gao and Ye made sure to send it, and Gao wrote an editor’s note. Wang appreciated the editor’s note and thought he understood it. (Interviewed on June 12, 1998)
Later, Wang Zengqi’s fiction writing became unstoppable and his reputation spread far and wide. When Yan Su read his new work and called to praise it, Wang laughed out loud: “It’s just a clever idea, just a clever idea.” Yan Su had a feeling: “Wang Zengqi is a person without a city, from the inside to the outside are relatively pure, even without much defense.” He recalled the scene when he was writing a script in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution and had a long chat with Wang Zengqi over yellow wine in a street store: “We did not dare to discuss Jiang Qing, nor did we mention the damn script, we just talked about our hometown, the good books we had read and the Hollywood movie stars we had seen in the early days, and had a kind of poor man’s fun.”
Wang Zengqi’s life was pervaded by what Yang Yumin and others call the bookish and scholarly spirit, and his success or failure lay in this.
The evidence of Wang’s rightist classification in 1958 is the small-character poster “Confusion” written by Wang, which ends with the following words: “I love my country and I love the Party, otherwise I would sit under a tree and smoke and look at the clouds in the sky.”
One of the lines was most abhorrent to the leaders: “I would be so mad that I could not feel my pain.” This statement cost him tangibly in pain. He later told people that when he was miserable in his heart while working in the countryside wearing a rightist hat, his only joy was writing letters to his six-year-old son, Wang Lang, in Pinyin, which I could not do, forcing me to learn to write back to my son in Pinyin.
My son grew up. Witnessing his father’s ten years of Cultural Revolution ups and downs, he time and again consoled his father, who had great emotional ups and downs. The son said, “There is nothing great about you, and there is no consistent ideological understanding with Jiang Qing, just a little knowledge of the kindness. When the son said a lot, the father thought about it and always said, “Yes! The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you’re doing. Wang Zengqi later loved to say: “Years of father and son became brothers.”
Everything came back to plain, plain as crystal.
P.S. Chen Tudian: “Wang Zengqi’s Decade of the Cultural Revolution” inscription
When I was working at the China Writers’ Association in the 1980s, I had the privilege of interacting with Mr. Wang Zengqi a few times and visited Pu Huangyu’s home. He was hospitable, but sometimes terribly quiet and had a distinct personality. After Mr. Wang’s death, I mostly learned interesting stories about him from Mr. Wang’s close friend and old writer, Mr. Lin Jinlan.
All of Mr. Wang Zengqi’s children were excellent, sincere and helpful, like Wang Lang and Wang Chao, who were always available and helped me a lot over the years. The writings of their father that they wrote, which I have always considered to be the best books written among the writer’s family, were never shy about their feelings and swirled with joy.
What I wanted to read most at the time was Wang Zengqi’s archive, knowing that in 1976 and 1977 Mr. Wang had been forced to write a confession of more than 100,000 words in exchange for political deliverance. I imagined that it would be very complicated and difficult to access the archives, but when I went to contact the Beijing Peking Opera Company, I was warmly received by the comrades of the Old Cadre Office as soon as I handed in my letter of introduction. After the leadership study, they agreed that I could access some of the archives. I remember when I went to the troupe for the second time, it happened that an old man of the Peking Opera troupe died that day, and most of the comrades of the Old Cadre Office went to Babaoshan to handle the funeral, leaving only one or two young girls to look after the house. The young girls opened the cupboard and brought out two bundles of things, tied with a plastic rope with a cross knot, with the three big words “Wang Zengqi” written on it with a brush.
When you open it, most of the material is written by Mr. Wang, about more than 100,000 words, almost every topic has a special article to explain and justify, sometimes a topic will be written several times. Mr. Wang wrote with a ballpoint pen, with copy paper underneath, in triplicate, with very powerful strokes. There are also some external investigations and expose materials, mostly involving some of Mr. Wang’s experiences in the sample theater. I spent about two or three days in the office to review and make transcripts of some key information. These handwritten materials are extremely important, and if this part of the book manuscript is missing, it will be difficult to complete “Wang Zengqi’s Ten Years of the Cultural Revolution”. Thank you, comrades of the Old Cadres Division of the Beijing Peking Opera Company, for your kindness and good intentions in fulfilling a dream of writing and the circulation of a kind of historical material.
During this interview, I tried to approach people from both sides of the Cultural Revolution in the Peking Opera Troupe, and tried my best to strike a balance in the test, but it was difficult to succeed, as many people did not want to dabble in the trivial and indistinct matters of the Cultural Revolution, and some of them did not allow to be quoted in the article. The most unforgettable ones are the old chief Xiao A, the old scriptwriter Liang Qinglian, the old director Zhang Binjiang and other old people, who have given me several tug-of-war interviews, tirelessly and minutely. They were all important leaders, collaborators, and observers during Mr. Wang’s creation, and their long and vivid oral accounts are the most outstanding corroborating materials.
In “Wang Zengqi’s Ten Years of the Cultural Revolution,” I quoted some oral materials from Liu Qingtang (who played the role of the party representative in the ballet “The Red Army of the Lady”) and Qian Hao Liang (who played Li Yuhe in the Peking Opera “The Red Lantern”), who were vice ministers of the Ministry of Culture at the time, to corroborate Mr. Wang’s creative state at that time from a high-level perspective. I have had many personal contacts with Mr. Liu and Mr. Qian over the past ten years or so, and they have had a great personal influence on me, teaching me how to look at the mysteries of complex history and to deal with the mediums and disappointments of life in a calm manner.
Wang Zengqi’s Ten Years of the Cultural Revolution” wrote earlier about Jiang Qing’s more insider approach to art, about the many miscellaneous things Jiang Qing did in pointing out rehearsals and caring about the affairs of the theater company, and through Xiao Jia’s account, it restored some of Jiang Qing’s personal characteristics to a considerable extent: “She did not care which level the author had reached, nor did she care what kind of molecule he was, she dared to use whoever had talent, and she was very She was very polite.” At that time, I was still a bit timid in writing this content, and I was afraid of getting into trouble. More than a decade later, our attitude toward historical figures seems to have become more relaxed and objective, without malicious caricatures or wanton scandal.
After Wang Zengqi’s death, the old writer Lin Jinlan repeatedly lamented, “The best conversation partner of my life is gone, and there is no one in the world to talk to.” The desolation and desolation of Lin’s mind is something that people of our generation can hardly feel, and their difficult situation of survival in the past sinister political environment is something that we can fully understand.
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