In 1975, the weekend after the spring equinox, I returned Home from Shaanxi Normal University, the front yard was quiet, and I was walking towards the upper room. She hid the door lightly and whispered, “Your great-uncle is here.” Seeing my bewilderment, she added, “My great uncle from Inner Mongolia is here to see your grandma from Hoh. Go and meet with him, and be careful what you say.”
“Before the Cultural Revolution, when we filled out the political examination form, our Parents were the gatekeepers, and in the “Main Social Relations” column, only relatives who were “Communist Party members” were filled in, not Before the “Black Five” revolution, our parents were the gatekeepers. But from the adults’ slip of the tongue, I vaguely knew that an uncle was serving a prison sentence in Inner Mongolia. “At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, my mother was the head teacher of the thirteenth middle school, and a teacher with whom she had the best relationship posted a large-character poster, criticizing her for “mailing a set of Mao’s Selected Works to her brother, a ‘counter-revolutionary’, in 1964, as soon as it was released. On that day, it was my great uncle I wanted to see.
I followed my mother through the center hall and into the west bedroom suite, where a middle-aged man sat by the bed, wearing a gray lapel cotton jacket, glasses, and a thin face, and got up and looked at me in confusion. My mother said, “This is my great-uncle.” I called out, “Great-Uncle!” Great-Uncle asked in a low voice, “Is this Xiao Qin?” Grandma looked nervously through the window into the backyard. After the old house was handed over to the public, two outsiders lived in the east building and the front yard of the backseat house: one owner was the director of the revolutionary committee of a factory; the other head of the Family was a fallen employee who lived by pulling a cart. They had to pass through the east aisle of the upper house to go to the backyard to use the toilet.
My brother-in-law and I were both a bit restrained, so we gave each other cigarettes. I lit a cigarette for my brother-in-law and saw that his index and middle fingers were charred yellow. In the smoke, we talked with each other, and we spent the night in the west bedroom, smoking against the bed and talking about it, so I gradually learned about my uncle’s Life and that I had a sixth grandfather who was a pilot in the national army.
To talk about the Song family, we must start with the elders. In the early years, great-grandfather Song Yunqing (known as “Song Bajie”) was in charge of Jishengxing foreign company (located from Binhai Road to Dongshan Road) in Qinhuangdao, and started his business with foreign affairs, so he was broad-minded and sent his children to the new school to receive Western Education. His grandfather, Song Enqi, was educated at the Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, located on Rue de Takou in the French Concession, which was founded in 1902 by Dr. Herlid, an Englishman, and was modeled after the Oxford University system, with English teaching and emphasis on moral, intellectual and physical education. After graduating, most of the students joined foreign companies such as Jardine Matheson, Kailuan Coal Mine or Yaohua Glass. After graduating, my grandfather joined the Kailuan Coal Mine as a senior officer.
After the September 18 Incident, he joined the military and enrolled in the Central Aviation School, graduating in June 1935. On August 21, 1937, he cooperated with his comrade Dong Mingde to shoot down two Japanese bombers over Yangzhou Airport.
On January 4, 1938, The Japanese sent more than 30 warplanes to raid Hankow, and Sixth Grand Master and his comrades flew up to meet the enemy. During the fierce battle, he was surrounded by three Japanese warplanes and was shot in several places and his wings were broken. In the end, he tried to crash his plane into the Japanese aircraft, but he was shot again and crashed, and died a heroic death at the age of twenty-four.
After the death of the sixth grandfather, Song Bajie ordered my grandmother to represent the Song family and go to Hankow to deal with the aftermath. At that Time, my grandmother was pregnant, so she took a boat with her pregnant grandmother Zou from Tianjin to Hankow via Hong Kong for the coffin. According to my sister-in-law, when her grandmother was dying, she did not know that her sixth child had died in the war. When she was dying, her family asked her if she wanted to die, the old man shook his head and breathed his last, and the family put pearls in his mouth and closed his eyes. The family put the pearls in her mouth and closed her eyes. When the funeral took place, the wind suddenly blew over the streamers and scraped off the roof tiles. My second aunt said, “The spirit of Old Six has come to send mourning to my mother.”
In April 2007, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the “War of Resistance”, General Guangming Zhang of the Air Force of the Republic of China wrote an article entitled “Kakeqiao Souls in Memoriam”, remembering his fallen friends and attaching the biographies and posthumous portraits of twenty of his comrades, among whom was my sixth grandfather, so that his family could learn of his feats The first time I saw him, I was able to catch a glimpse of him.
Song Enru martyr of Tianjin, born on October 1, 1913. He was born on October 1, 1913. He studied hard at a young age and had a deep understanding of the history of the martyrs, and whenever he read the history of the martyrs, he would sigh and sigh with admiration. He does not speak and laugh much, but whenever he discusses current affairs, he is very passionate and impassioned, and cannot bring himself to do so. After the “September 18” Northeast Incident in the 20th year of the Republic of China, Jun abandoned his studies and enrolled in the Central Aviation School, graduating in the fourth class. In the battles against the bandits, he was awarded with merits and promoted to lieutenant, and became the sub-captain of the 25th Squadron of the 3rd Air Force Brigade. From the Song-Shanghai War onward, he fought in various battles on the Yangtze River, shooting down three enemy planes and sinking one enemy ship. On January 4, 2007, he was killed in the air battle at Hankow and was posthumously awarded the rank of Captain. He was twenty-four years old and is survived by his parents, his wife Shao and a daughter. (Note: wife Zou Lianlan, surviving daughter Song Xirong, nicknamed RongRong)
According to her mother, before the Japanese invaded North China, her sixth uncle visited his family every summer and brought Hangzhou silk to the women to cut a blue floral cheongsam for her. The first time I saw him, I was buried in Hankow, and after the war, I was buried in Nanjing Aviation Martyrs’ Cemetery, located in the eastern slope of the hill, the 24th cave from west to east. After Uncle Six died in the war, Aunt Six married a doctor at the Nationalist Central Hospital and has not been heard from since. My mother left an address and phone number for the gravekeeper, hoping to get in touch with my cousin Rong Rong one day.
My maternal grandfather was a senior officer in the Kailuan coal mine and was well paid, and he was a Westernized man who sent his children to church schools in Tianjin or Beiping. My mother was enrolled in Tianjin Shengong Girls’ School, and after graduating from junior high school, she moved on to study with my great-aunt at Muzhen Girls’ School in Beiping, while my great-uncle Song Xitong attended Yuying High School in Beiping.
In 1942, when my great uncle was 17 years old, he left his privileged life behind and fled Beiping with his two best friends to fight against the Japanese in the Great Rear. They had little money with them, so they took a train and went west on foot. After crossing the Tongguan Pass, they were penniless and sold their extra clothes and luggage one after another. When they arrived in Xi’an, they were in rags and looked like beggars. At that time, the Central Police Academy was enrolling students, and all three of them were high school students who won the exam. In September 1949, Dong Qiwu led 100,000 people to revolt in Suiyuan, and all the military and political personnel of the Kuomintang were retained, so my great uncle was transferred to the second branch of the Guisui Public Security Bureau as the head of the unit.
My maternal grandfather, who knew that things were unpredictable, sent several letters urging my great uncle to retire from the army, apply for the university of technology, or enter the Kailuan coal mine, and urged him, “Wouldn’t it be a pity to put your energy into something useless?” Great-Uncle did not obey, but actively participated in the rent reduction and anti-hegemony, rectification and trial of the dry movement, but unexpectedly in December 1952, Great-Uncle was suddenly arrested and charged with “concealing guns, embezzling public money and letting go of landlords”.
The news of the “concealment of firearms” spread to Qin City, and Zhang Wan Yi, the uncle’s grandfather, led his family to dig the ground to find the guns without success. Surprised to learn that the great uncle was imprisoned for embezzlement, grandma and aunt hastened to sell their Gold and silver jewelry to raise money to pay back. Soon, the Public Security Bureau found no evidence, and notified the money back, the great uncle refused to accept, angrily rebuked: “You do not want money? Send you well!” As for the charge of “letting the landlord go”, it is even more absurd. That person is a high school principal in Tianjin, the family composition of landlords, great-uncle public affairs, to give people a way to return to their hometown to visit their relatives.
In the autumn of 1955, cousin uncle Zhang Chunhua was in his first year of secondary school in Beijing, and one day, he suddenly received a letter from his fifth brother (the fifth in the Song family, known as “the fifth young master”), saying that he had been sentenced to labor. One day, he suddenly received a letter from his fifth brother (the fifth in the Song family, known as “the fifth young master”), saying that the labor reform was difficult and that he ate doughnuts dipped in soy sauce every day and hoped to send some money. The cousin uncle was afraid and wrote back with a lot of revolutionary reasoning. Fortunately, the second aunt was kind and mailed ten yuan to the great uncle to relieve his hardship.
Later, when the prison authorities learned that he was good at mathematics, science and chemistry, and good at design, they transferred him to the prison as a technician in the newborn steel enterprise, and he was retained after his sentence. In the “Cultural Revolution”, the rebels smashed the public prosecutor, and in early 1970, the prison was abolished, and the authorities decided to transfer the prisoners to Linfen, Shanxi, and to send the factory workers back to their hometown after their sentences. The cadre police sent great uncle back to Qinhuangdao, arrived at Beijing station, gave him the file and said, “You go home first, after half a month, I will go over to set up your account and do the procedures to arrange work.” And send a telegram to the great-uncle to pick up the station. When the great uncle got off at Qinhuangdao station, the great aunt saw him returning to his hometown with his own file and suspected him of absconding and asked in surprise, “How did you come back alone?”
The next day, great-uncle went to the police station of his origin to report a temporary account, and was detained on the spot for the reason: “There are still ten major unsolved cases in Qin, so for your own safety, you will be detained first.” Great-uncle was imprisoned again, and he was given two baked rice nests every day and slept on the concrete floor. At that time, the prison was being expanded because of the cramped cells, so my great-uncle volunteered to prepare, measure, and construct, and as a result, the rice nests were replaced with large white buns to get a belly. After twenty days of imprisonment, the Inner Mongolia police arrived in Qin City, and when he saw that his great-uncle was imprisoned again, he had a fight with the Qin City police. The police station of his place of origin decided that according to the records, he was still a counter-revolutionary and would not be accepted at his place of origin, so he returned to Inner Mongolia prison.
In 1971, the prison authorities sent a ten-wheel truck to send eight ex-prisoners with technical skills to Taigemu Commune to receive re-education for the poor peasants. Who knows that in 1973, the prison restored, because of the lack of technical personnel, the Inner Mongolia Public Security Department issued a document to the banners and towns, ordered to have a skill of released prisoners, the deadline to report to the prison. One day, the secretary of the commune called eight people for a lecture, and then sent people to escort them on the road, such as toilets, meals, are sent to keep an eye on. When they were escorted to the flag Public Security Bureau, they realized that there was no such thing. As a result, eight people returned to Taigaku pastoral, continue to receive re-education.
In early 1974, the first uncle became a family, at the age of 48. Aunt name Liu Xiu, ancestral hometown of Hongdong County, Shanxi, uncle and aunt are old revolutionary, her husband is a division-level cadres of the People’s Liberation Army, stationed in Xinjiang, because of the family composition of landlords, “Cultural Revolution”, after being tragically criticized and committed suicide. In the early 1970s, Liu Xiu moved to Inner Mongolia with the army, and was introduced by a good friend to her great-uncle, who had a rural household, and adopted an abandoned baby, named Fang Fang.
At the end of the 1970s, the rise of rural enterprises, great-uncle saw the opportunity to work to support the family, applied to work outside, but the commune did not release. In order to leave Taigaku pastoral, great-uncle designed and manufactured agricultural machinery, which was exhibited and won awards in Hoh, and designed and built the commune hall (accommodating 600 people), so that the commune secretary let him find his own way.
In that year, the four Ma brothers contracted the Sihexing Steel Reform Factory to produce coils, hiring the great uncle to be responsible for the purchase of equipment, raw materials, production and sales, and the factory was very effective, and the family lived in a new house. Who knows that in early 1977, the Public Security Bureau on trumped up charges, the plant manager Ma boss prison, the great uncle went to Shanxi business trip, back to Hoh on the day, was escorted to the jeep, into the prison, a prison for more than 90 days, neither arraignment, nor ignored. One day, the cell door suddenly opened, the jailer told uncle: “Go back, you’re fine!” Uncle questioned: “Why should I be locked up?” The jailer said, “You will know when you get to the place!” Great uncle asked again, “Has the old horse been released?” At this moment, the great uncle’s familiar colleague from the Public Security Bureau came over and said kindly: “Old Song, you are you, he is him, you don’t care so much. Three months, it is time to go home!”
Great-Uncle shrewd and capable, already famous in Hoh, people just released from prison, the township enterprises are competing to hire. He was hired to unite the brigade township enterprises, the brigade secretary to keep the great uncle, to build him a new house, but before the family moved in, the Hoh City Industrial Bureau transferred the great uncle, and promised to transfer. Great-Uncle is really capable, once he went there, he designed and manufactured the first cleaning car in Hoh. In 1978, Ma Boss was acquitted, and he was invited to return to Sihexing Steel Reform Factory with a high salary.
After thirty-three years of injustice, in 1985, the great uncle was finally rehabilitated and received by the Hohhot Public Security Bureau, “enjoying the treatment of the uprising personnel”, set the deputy section level, and was forced to retire at the age of 59. The Public Security Bureau was so desperate to not give Great-Uncle a room and a grade transfer. The good thing is that the great uncle is full of skills, he is a brisk person, he has friends all over Hoh, he is employed in many township enterprises, he has designed and manufactured equipment such as feed crushing and beating machines, swimming pool sewage treatment facilities, coking cooling towers, etc., and he earns a lot of income, he is righteous and supports his poor friends and relatives without asking for return; he contributes hundreds of thousands of dollars to send his nephew to Hokkaido, Japan to learn animal husbandry; whenever he comes to Xi’an to visit his family, he will send his nephew and niece leather jackets, leather bags, Mongolian knives, etc.. In 1994, my great-uncle broke his leg accidentally before he stopped and went home to enjoy his retirement life.
I remembered that night in the early spring of 1975, I was smoking in the dark with my great uncle against the bed, and we were talking. Great uncle let out a long sigh: “Alas, I can’t say! When I was in Yuying, three friends, two of them joined the war, I went to Chongqing and ended up like this. The other one defected to Yan’an and became the vice mayor of Wuhan after liberation. The one who was a traitor, fled to Japan after the war and became a county councilor. Alas, I can’t say! After more than 20 years in prison, when he came out, he was paid a settlement, which was worth only a few dollars a month.” In the early 1970s, when China and Japan had diplomatic relations, the friend returned from Japan and made a special trip to Qin City to inquire about Song Xitong’s whereabouts, but his friends and relatives avoided him and lied about not knowing his whereabouts.
On October 23rd, 2012, the day of the reunion coincided with the frost, and at 5:00 a.m., my great-uncle passed away in his sleep, four days after his 87th birthday. After the death of his aunt, he was taken care of by his adopted daughter Fang Fang’s family, so he was born in trouble and died in peace and happiness. Great-uncle was shopping for a porcelain vase before he died, and he willed to burn his body after his death, seal the ashes into the vase and sink it in the Yellow River at a later date.
In his old age, my great-uncle often couldn’t sleep at night, “I want to think about the past, more than sixty years of suffering! (Great-Uncle’s reply letter) He would get up, smoke, and write his statement, or write a long letter to his third sister (my mother) to tell his heart, and talk about his wrongful imprisonment over and over again. It seems that although my great-uncle was released from prison, his soul was tied to the cell, and he was not freed for the rest of his life. Woe is me!
April 5, 2018 (Qingming Festival) Morning grass
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