Wen Lao did not practice martial arts, but the old man can write.
Wenlao surname is Bold, the name Shu Xuan [1], is the Yuan dynasty Zhennan Wang Tuhuan Timur (one said the right prime minister of the Chinese book off) of the seedlings, the late Ming “four gentry” one of the descendants of Bold Peijiang, his father Bold Guangsheng (Heting) [2] is a generation of poetry and lyrics. His father, Mao Guangsheng (Heting),[2] was a poet and lyricist of his generation. According to him, he had secretly joined the Communist Party and joined the Kuomintang for the needs of revolutionary work; after the success of the revolution, he forgot the need to prove his party membership.
Wu Lao, on the contrary, whose surname is Wen, and whose name is Qiang, is the twenty-third generation grandson of Wen Tianxiang, a great loyal minister of the Southern Song Dynasty who resisted the Yuan, and comes from a family of red gentry. He joined the Whampoa Military Academy in his early years, joined the Communist Party and the Kuomintang. Wen Qiang participated in the Northern Expedition and the Nanchang Uprising, and served in an important position in the underground party of the Communist Party of China in Sichuan, but later left the party due to internal struggles; after a period of journalism, he joined the Military Intelligence Bureau and became a key officer, and was ranked as a lieutenant general; he was captured and became a war criminal during the civil war between the Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China, and was pardoned after 26 years of imprisonment.
The two old men both come from families, from the family history, to conquerors into the Central Plains of the Bold family, to the Ming Dynasty still into the service, the end of the Ming Dynasty together with the Han resisted the female real people, there is the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, still generations of officials. The Wen family in the Yuan dynasty would not think of foreign affairs, the Ming dynasty is not known, but in the Qing dynasty out of the two “on the great doctor”, the late Qing dynasty out of the revolutionary party.
Who would not have thought that this pair from the old ancestors counted in the rival camps of the two old men, both across the Communist Party’s experience, and in later years with me, the same seat to say ancient.
A. First acquaintance with Shu Xuan Pan’s story
My friend, Ms. Xu, is a successful typical Shanghai woman, good at life, like to travel, love food. Her father served in the banking sector in the early years, passed away many years, Ms. mother to filial piety, friends are served, as “big sister”. In the mid-1990s, she took turns to be the host and ate at all the famous restaurants in the capital.
One day a lady called to tell me: “My father’s old colleague, Mr. Bold Shu Qi, wants to see you, he knows your father.” I had read a lot of Shu Lao’s articles, especially the story about him accompanying his father to Mao Zedong in 1957 and getting a glimpse of the “anti-rightist” Xiongwen manuscript, which impressed me deeply, so I readily agreed.
After setting a date, I went with my girlfriend, accompanied by Ms. Xu, to the old man’s home in Haidian Shuangyushu Nanli. This was one of the better residential buildings in those days, and I remember that Hou Dejian had also lived in this building.
Shu old man’s home in the first floor, simple furnishings, no wealthy weather. But the four walls of bookcases and desk manuscripts reveal the origin of the bookish family. The old man was over 80 years old, emaciated and elegant, with a childish face, few wrinkles, and his hair and a mustache on his lips, all neatly combed and cut. As soon as he saw me, he said, “You look very much like your father.” His voice was low and soft, and his lungs seemed to be short of breath. This typical Jiangnan talent look, how can not imagine his grassland ethnic origin. The old man sat on his special wicker chair and began to open the box of conversation ……
I never knew when he met my father before, but I just took it for granted that both of them had served in the banking sector and must have had the opportunity to meet each other. The old man himself opened this card without waiting for me to ask.
I went to Beijing on the eve of the founding of the country and was hired as a special member of the People’s Bank of China. At that time, your father, Shen Zhiyuan and Qian Jiaju were invited by Nan Hanchen to serve as advisors to the People’s Bank of China, and their offices were adjacent to each other; their status was higher than mine, so it seemed that each of them had a separate office, while we commissioners shared a room.
Next he talked about an emergency meeting called by Chen Yun to solve the food and coal burning crisis in Shanghai after the PLA conquered the city in May 1949, which I later credited to a nostalgic article. The old man said that Chen Yun was the most modest of the Communist leaders he knew. I asked him to give me an example, and he said that Chen Yun did not have a stance, unlike some people who did not know how to pretend to understand, and was able to ask questions he did not understand without shame, so everyone was willing to help. I remember the first meeting with the experts, Chen Yun said in his opening remarks: “I am a ‘bumpkin’, for example, this telephone how to play long distance, I still can not understand it! You all have a lot of knowledge, a lot of economic work to learn from you ……”
Hearing Shu Lao say so, I was a bit strange. In those days, leaders who called themselves “bumpkins” often carried revolutionary pride and even contempt for intellectuals. Later on, I read a passage in which Chen Yun described himself as having asked my father to give him a lecture at night, and it seemed that his statement to the experts was true, neither proud nor polite.
On that day, the old man gave me a copy of “The Book of Sweeping Leaves”, which had just been reprinted by Sanlian Bookstore. He is the only surviving palmist, like a living dictionary of history, and all the stories I asked about, such as the relationship between Rugao’s Bold family and Huai’an’s Zhou family, his youthful classmates Jiang Weiguo, Rong Yiren, Tang Na, and the past of the movie and theater celebrity Hu Die, were all told in a clear and organized manner. At that time, it was a time when the tide of commodities was rising, and few people cared about the fading past, so a junior like me, who cared about the history, was the one he could talk to.
Shu had been retired from the People’s Bank for many years, and his wife, Mrs. Zhu Yu, was a retired doctor from Friendship Hospital, and their daughter had settled in Australia. The old couple’s life was neither poor nor rich, but rather lonely. Shu loved to talk and write, and he could talk and write about his business, while Mrs. Zhu did not like to talk or write, as if her resources had been taken up by her husband, and she was just a silent shadow.
The old man was so sociable that he would call every once in a while and carefully ask me if I had time, and he wanted to treat me to dinner. From the phone call, I could guess the old man’s inner loneliness and hesitancy to disturb people, and I always gladly accepted the invitation, drove to pick up Mr. and Mrs. Shu and grabbed the host. However, on some special occasions (such as his birthday), the old man insisted on paying his own bill. Every time he went out for a banquet, the old man must be fully dressed, head beret, hand on the civilization stick, full of celebrity style.
Second, the appointment to visit Zhang Yufeng
I asked myself that I was not sociable, so I missed a lot of opportunities to seek advice from my predecessors. He likes to introduce me to his friends, and also recommends some special people to me. It was a great pleasure for the old man to introduce himself to people from all over the world.
In March 1998, Shu called to say that he wanted to invite Ms. Zhang Yufeng to dinner and asked if I would like to go. I was a bit surprised: Mr. Shu was really well-traveled! He knew my interest in history, so perhaps he had the intention to arrange it?
I knew that Ms. Zhang had been educated by the Party for many years, so she would not reveal her secrets to just anyone. In fact, in the field of literature and history researchers, historical figures are all “materials”, regardless of their rank and status. What’s wrong with having a meal together with a normal heart? Then he replied, “I’ll treat you, and I’ll pick you up then.”
Shu visited Mao twice, in 1937 and 1957. The first time was as a journalist visiting Yan’an, and wrote the sensational “Border Area Fact Book”, which was serially published in the magazine “War of Resistance” hosted by Zou Taofen, giving a systematic report on the political, economic, cultural and educational, judicial system and popular movements in the Shaanxi-Gan’ning Border Area; the second time was because of the visit of Mr. Bold Heting to Beijing, Mao Zedong had long admired his name, and read the views on the rectification of the wind published by Mr. Heting in the newspaper, and asked Zhou Enlai The second time was when Mao Zedong, who had long admired him, read the old man’s views on the whole wind published in the newspaper and asked Zhou Enlai to ask the old man to come to Zhongnanhai for a talk. When the guests discussed the words and chapters, laughing, this restless son, inadvertently spied a great secret: the neighboring person holds a bunch of manuscripts densely corrected by Mao, the title is actually “the bourgeois direction of Wen Wei Po ……”
When the host respects the old and respectful, very respectful, parting to ask the old gentleman can have a message to give, the old man said frankly: “Now the party is rectification, I have experienced several dynasties, the Communist Party can make China so powerful, such as a lion, but also inevitably grow a few lice. As the old saying goes, “Although nymphs and lice are small, they can do a lot of harm. We must be careful!” Mao repeatedly said, “Good, good, I will definitely take it to heart!” The host personally escorted father and son to the car, and covered the door frame with his hand to prevent Elder Crane from touching his head.
Soon after the leader’s meeting, the “anti-right” tide came crashing down on him, and he was only spared by his body, but his son, Shu Qi, was exterminated and fell into what he called the “tongue-pulling hell”, and became an “unearthed relic” in his later years. “. That “glimpse” of the news, it took many years before he was written as old news broke. I once asked Shu: how did you notice that article at that time? He replied: Don’t forget, I’m a journalist! I joked: there was a foretaste of things to come, that day there was the President with a huge hand to protect, Mr. Crane did not touch the head, but Shu Lao you touched the head!
In the afternoon of March 12, together with my girlfriend as promised to pick up Shu old man (the old lady did not want to go), drove to the West Huangchenggen State Administration family courtyard parking. The old man made a phone call, Zhang Yufeng’s husband, Mr. Liu Aimin, came downstairs to meet him. Mr. Liu is a stout man with big eyebrows and eyes, a heavy northern man. We went up to an ordinary brick flat building, and Ms. Zhang and her young daughter were waiting at the door.
Shu had informed Zhang Yufeng that he was bringing his goddaughter with him, and when we met, Zhang looked at my girlfriend and said, “You have such a beautiful goddaughter!” The feeling was very easygoing and friendly. She was fifty-five years old, but well maintained, fair complexion, no make-up visible, short hair trimmed, slightly white silk at the temples; wearing a lotus-colored round-neck cashmere shirt and beige camel pants, quite harmonious with skin tone and hair color, the overall feeling clean and bright.
Ms. Zhang assisted Shu to sit down in the living room and served tea. From helping the old man into the seat to serve tea, I feel that the hostess is really well-trained, all the actions are very natural and in place, worthy of being a service work origin. I remember on the way Shu Lao talked about that he and Ms. Zhang met when they went to Inner Mongolia to participate in an activity, she is very good at taking care of the elderly.
Shu Lao introduced to his host, “This is Mr. Zhang, whose father was an old friend of Chairman Mao.” It was common knowledge that my father had the experience of working with Mao Zedong and was criticized by Mao by name in 1957. I remember once at Yu Qiuli’s house, at the dinner table he asked me like a cadre assessment, “What does your father think of Chairman Mao?” “What do you think about this issue?”
This time I was not sure how Shu Lao had informed me beforehand, so I did not explain how the two were a kind of friend, and Ms. Zhang did not ask either. If we talk about personal endings, Mao’s close comrades Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai, He Long and other founding fathers of the Chinese Communist Party were even more tragic than his father. Historians do not waste their public heart with their private views. I ask myself that I am at peace with Mao, nothing more than seeking truth from facts and reducing God to man.
We visited the room, which is an ordinary three-bedroom house with a simple and clean interior, just like its owner. Zhang Yufeng said it was assigned to them to live in the year she and Lao Liu got married; there were two old bookcases moved from Zhongnanhai in the room, a gift from Mao Zedong to them at that time. She said she had followed the chairman for many years, and this was the only memento the old man had left her. In the bookcase and on the coffee table, there are several sets of thread-bound poems and couplets, as well as some Xuan paper scrolls, so it seems that Ms. Zhang was nurtured by the old man and also has a love for poetry, calligraphy and painting.
On the wall hangs a pair of calligraphy by Qigong, which is Yang Shen’s poem “Linjiang Xian”, which has been recited for thousands of years.
The rolling Yangtze River is passing by, and the waves have panned out the heroes. Right and wrong, success and failure are empty. The green mountains are still there, and the sunset is red for several times. The white hair of fishermen and woodcutters on the river islet, used to see the autumn moon and spring breeze. A pot of muddy wine happy to meet. How many things in the past and present, all paid off in a laugh.
Reading such words and chapters on this occasion is really something else in my mind, and it reminds me of Yuan Zhen’s poem “Xing Gong” ……
I paid attention to the family photo on the wall, when the eldest daughter was four or five years old, and the youngest daughter was two or three years old, being held in her father’s arms; the faces and eyebrows of the two girls were like Liu’s from the same mold. There is also a recent photo of Zhang Yufeng taken in the northeast: snow-capped mountains, she was wearing a military coat, red beret with a red scarf, red dress under the jade trees and branches, still looks beautiful youth.
Ms. Zhang treats people modestly and atmospherically, grasping the right amount of proportion, people do not feel the presence of proportion, from the language to the tone of voice, all seemingly without artifice. There was a notebook on the desk, and when the hostess saw Shu’s interest, she graciously opened it for us to browse, which seemed to be some poems she had transcribed. My girlfriend thought her writing looked like “Mao style”, but I thought it was a bit like Jiang Qing’s, but it was more elegant than “Jiang style” and still belonged to the “secretary style” category.
Mr. Liu was working as a director in the railroad department at that time, while Ms. Zhang had just retired. She was not lonely at all after she retired, and many people who missed Mao moved their feelings for the old man to those around him, so they often had various invitations. We talked about the topic of writing memoirs, and she said she couldn’t do it yet (she had an agreement with the organization). I said: the memory is inevitably indifferent after a long time, now it may be worthwhile to take your time to write it first, and after writing it, you do not have to be busy to publish it, just record it. She did not deny it, and I did not say more.
After chatting for a while, I invited the family of three (the eldest daughter was already studying abroad) to dinner. Ms. Zhang changed her clothes, and Mr. Liu and I drove in two separate cars to the “Night Shanghai” restaurant in the Guanghua Chang’an Building for dinner. That night, we had a pot of Shaoxing wine and had a good time catching up on family matters, and no one touched on sensitive topics, as I had expected. Shu particularly appreciated the braised lion’s head and said he would come back for more next time. Once again, I noticed that Zhang Yufeng took good care of the old man while he was eating.
I sent Shu home, and on the way back, the old man was slightly impressed: “How was it? Not easy, right? In the end is Chairman Mao conditioning out!” Shu old life reading people more than enough, I can see that he appreciated Zhang Yufeng, so playfully said: “You also enjoy the treatment of the President today.”
I don’t know what the difference is between this “Little Zhang”, whom Mao teased as “Zhang Fei’s offspring”, and Zhang Yufeng, who was powerless and returned to simplicity, but I could see that she had a simple respect for the elders. At the same time, I think it is better to see than to hear, at least to clarify the individual boring rumors, so that I have changed some preconceptions.
It should be admitted that, although people have their own lives, the appreciation of the literati Shu Qi is not without reason, and the masters of Mao Zedong saw the same thing.
Third, Wen Qiang generous words back then
One day Shu Lao called and said, “Mr. Wen Qiang [3] old man wants to see you, he knew your father at the beginning of the war and wants to catch up with you.” I knew the name of this legendary figure, Wen Qiang, for a long time. I remember that during the “Anti-Rightist” period, some people denounced my father, and one of the charges was “Zhang Naiqi collaborated with Wen Qiang, a big agent of the military junta”, but how to “collaborate”. I have never been able to figure it out.
On the day of the meeting, I went to Zengguang Road in Ganjiakou, Haidian District with Shu and his old friend Mr. Lv Derun (formerly a famous reporter for Dagong Bao). At that time, this area was called “Xinjiang Village”, and there were many Uyghur restaurants on both sides of the street, so I remembered that I had come here to taste “La Jiao Zi”.
The old man lives in a building in the north of the street, he and his wife have been waiting at home (this is his third wife, and finally divorce). The old gentleman is hale and hearty, his head has been removed from the top, cheeks thin, wearing a black leather jacket, inadvertently brought out the lean professional characteristics, between the hands and feet, you can see that a martial arts training people.
“I am so happy to be able to meet with the descendants of old friends today!” He spoke a not-so-strong official Changsha dialect, but with a much stronger undercurrent than Shu Lao. “Your father contributed a lot to our nation and to the war effort, and I wrote a couplet for you this morning.”
Wen Lao’s line of work, to borrow the words of a blind public to Dai Gan’s eight characters, is “Wen is not Wen, Wu is not Wu, between Wen and Wu”. In fact, the old man was literate and martial, and he had the talent to speak out. I remember that in Mr. Dong Zhujun’s house, there were five poems given to her by Wen Lao.
After chatting for a while, we drove to the “Nine Headed Bird” restaurant, a Hubei-style restaurant that Shu was familiar with, which obviously met Wen’s taste for spicy food. He mentioned that he had a son who was very good at food and had opened a restaurant behind the Guiyou Building under the name “Ah Wen Soup Buns”. This Shanghai restaurant, famous for its crabmeat soup buns, happened to be my regular haunt. I only knew that his son, Wen Guanzhong, was a scholar in the United States, but I didn’t expect that the Wen family had another gourmet.
From time to time, Wen’s conversation revealed a generous and chivalrous spirit. He was also very good at the way of health, and was very proud of his martial arts skills. He talked about a visit to the armed forces, had a match with young soldiers, two strong boys at the same time, he was knocked down, the year he was 90 years old. I still remember this fighting skill after Wen taught it to me on the spot at the dinner table.
That day, Wen talked about his acquaintance with my father.
I was in charge of intelligence work against Japan in the Military Intelligence, and after the “August 13” War, I was instructed by General Dai Kasa to contact your father. At that time, your father was teaching at Shanghai University, and he had several students who were working in the Japanese organization, one of them was Peng Shou and the other was Cheng Kexiang, who offered to serve the motherland. Your father then approached General Dai Yunong to introduce them to us, and they later came under my leadership.
At the critical moment of life and death of the nation when the enemy was at hand, it was understandable that different political forces cooperated with each other and united with each other, but during the “anti-rightist” trend in the 1950s, it became one of my father’s sins. About this story, Wen Lao has already told it in “Wen Qiang’s Oral Autobiography”, so I will not repeat it in this article. As for the two young men he mentioned, they later served in the military intelligence, conducting espionage warfare against Japan. My father said that Peng Shou had done some good work for the democracy movement and went overseas after 1949.
I know that my father met General Dai Yunong in 1936. At that time Chiang Kai-shek summoned my father and Shen Junru and Li Gongpu to meet with them, hoping that the Salvation Party they led would not make trouble with the government. It was the head of the military junta who went to the station on behalf of Chiang to meet and greet them and arrange for their hospitality. I once asked him, “What is your impression of Dai Gasa?” My father said, “Dai Gan was competent, had bloodshot eyes and a more murderous aura, but was always humble and courteous to me.” He also recited the famous couplet that Mr. Zhang Hsing Yen (Shizhao) used back then to elegy General Yu Nong.
He was born for the country and died for the country, and his life was characterized by chivalry, but his merits and demerits were not yet determined.
The world is full of reputation, the world is full of slander, the chaotic world does spring and autumn affairs, right and wrong are left for future generations to judge.
I always believe that without understanding the secret society in Chinese history, it is impossible to interpret the history of modern Chinese parties. In his line of work as an agent, Wen was deeply involved with party figures. His father was a member of the League, a friend of Huang Xing and the secretary general of Cai E. I think he joined the Huaxing Society before becoming a member of the League; and the relationship between the Huaxing Society and the Hongmen is well known. But Wen Lao for his own generation in the jianghu, but never mentioned, I also did not ask.
Anti-war army Xing, Dai Qing was instructed by Chiang Kai-shek to cooperate with Du Yuesheng to organize “Rangers” and “Loyalty Salvation Army” in the Song and Shanghai area, the members were mostly gang members, and the specific work was handled by Wen Qiang. The “Loyalty Salvation Army” is actually not as bad as the modern Peking Opera “Shajiabang” renders it, but a number of Chinese Communist Party members also joined this force. Later, Wen was sent to monitor the “East Tombs Bandit” Sun Tianying, who was also a party figure before his debut.
During his conversation, Wen also mentioned two friends, one of whom happened to be my uncle, Wang Guenzhong. He was a disciple of Du Yuesheng and a patron of the Vocational Education Society run by Huang Yanpei (Ren Zhi). On the eve of the Pacific War, Wen was ordered to evacuate from Shanghai, but he had no funds for Sichuan and his men, so Wang immediately gave 20,000 yuan to save his life. Not long after his arrival in Hong Kong, the Japanese army began to attack Hong Kong. Together with General Chen Ce, he worked with the British Hong Kong authorities to organize the M.P.[4] to maintain social order.
General Chen Ce was an old Confederate and former member of the Navy, a life-and-death friend of the Founding Father, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who was an official Vice-Admiral and a leading figure in the Hong Kong secret society. I have read a book about the fall of Hong Kong, I know that when the Japanese attacked, the party figures under the order of “Uncle Ce”, went to the streets to maintain the ground, Hong Kong social order, which is exactly the same as what Wen Lao said. Later the British army defeated and surrendered, “uncle” and other evacuation, various “rotten brats” to seize the Japanese army before the stationing, ransacking the rich areas.
I told Wen Lao: Wang Guonzhong is my mother’s cousin, who studied in Japan. Although he was a large landowner in Pudong, Shanghai, but his business is modern, run farms, banks, highway construction, education, and later joined the Democratic National Construction Association, belong to the enlightened gentry, after 1949 as a counsellor of the State Council. When his family wanted to seize him back to struggle during the land reform, he ran to his knees and begged Huang Renlao to save his life. At that time, Huang Renlao advocated “no feudalism in Jiangnan” and pleaded with Zhou Enlai on his behalf, who told the Shanghai authorities, “Let’s settle the matter in Beijing. This saved his life. It is said that one of the methods of the struggle was to punish the disabled man for climbing the seawall, and he died soon afterwards.
IV. Sibling rivalry is really like a dream
He was introduced by Xia Xi and enrolled in Huangpu Military Academy together with Mao Zetan, who fought with Lin Biao at school. His teacher Zhou Enlai introduced him to the Communist Party, while Shao Lizi introduced him to the Kuomintang. When cross-party elements chose their membership, he chose the Communist Party. Later, he left the party due to internal struggles and went back to Hunan to run a newspaper, and then was spotted by Dai Kasa and went to the Military Intelligence to do intelligence work against Japan.
After Dai’s death in a plane crash, the Military Intelligence gradually split into three factions, and they were at odds with each other. Determined to leave this circle of right and wrong, Wen volunteered to serve under General Cheng Qian (Song Yun) in Hunan. But his fate was inescapable, and three months later he was transferred by Chiang Kai-shek to be the acting chief of staff under Du Iu-ming. Before he left, Songyun said to him, “This time you go, be prepared to be a prisoner.” The prophecy turned out to be true, and he was indeed captured in the Huaihai Campaign. I secretly thought: If he had stayed with Cheng Qian, he might have been a rebel general in the future. At that time, the difference between a “war criminal” and a “rebel general” was just a step away, but there was a world of difference in luck. When the battle of Pingjin, Chen Changjie was captured on the orders of Fu Zuoyi, defending Tianjin to the death; half a month later Fu accepted a peaceful reorganization in Beijing, Chen has always resented the Fu governor did not inform him in advance.
After Wen Lao was captured as a war criminal, his attitude was tough, and in his own words, “I am the 23rd generation grandson of Wen Tianxiang, and your Mao family even climbed with my family and married my seventh sister Wen!” Because of his old relationship with Mao, Zhou and Zhu, the highest authorities intended to release him in the 1950s, but he had to write a letter of repentance (which was said to be the wish of the Duke of Zhou), and he refused to do so, resulting in more than twenty years of imprisonment before the last batch of amnesty was granted in 1975. I asked Wen Lao: “Are you influenced by your ancestors to believe that loyal subjects do not serve two masters?” He readily admitted to having this thought. In fact, the Kuomintang had also asked the arrested Communists to repent in the newspapers, but at that time, it was each for his own righteousness, and even the staunch believers of Communism refused to repent.
Talking about the life of imprisonment, Wen mentioned the end of a person we both knew, which was very shocking.
“I was in Qincheng Prison during the Cultural Revolution. One day I was sent to clean the yard and found a mat in the corner. This woman died a tragic death!
In 1978, I met Cheng Yuan’s sister, Cheng Qicheng (wife of the famous poet and translator Yuan Kejia), through the writer Hu Lanji, so I knew a little about her unfortunate life. I know a little more about her unfortunate life.
Cheng Yuan, formerly known as Cheng Qiying, was the eldest daughter of her family. She was a famous girl who had studied in both the East and the West and had both talent and beauty, and many celebrities were attracted to her in the social scene. In 1935, the scholar Liu Simu (a member of the Chinese Communist Party underground) was betrayed by the traitor Lu Haifang and his family was chased by the military junta. After her release, she did a lot of work for the resistance and democracy movement, and after 1949, she took the blame for the history of her arrest, and all the political movements. Ms. Cheng taught at Peking University and was highly competent in business, but she could not even be rated as a professor; she remained celibate and was shunned by her former friends and suitors; during the Cultural Revolution, she was falsely accused of being “Miss Mary”, the female agent in the novel “Red Rock”. During the Cultural Revolution, she was falsely accused of being “Miss Mary”, the spy in the novel “Red Rock”, and after being criticized and humiliated, the famous woman of her generation died. In the past, I only heard that she died by suicide, but why her body appeared in Qincheng prison is still an unsolved mystery.
“After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Cheng Yuan’s relatives and friends such as Hu Lanji fought for her, and Liu Simu also testified for her and was finally rehabilitated. At the memorial service, there was only an empty urn with a pair of built-in glasses. During the mourning music, the Cheng sisters remembered the tragic death of their elder sister, crying like a tearful person, everyone who saw it was moved.
Mr. Cheng Siyuan, a former Kuomintang dignitary, accompanied Mr. Li Zongren to return from overseas in the 1960s. He and Cheng Yuan seem to have a love affair, one time in the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference met Wen Lao, reminiscent of this year’s autumn water, Cheng Lao described a couplet: “Cheng Siyuan think Cheng Yuan, the more you think, the farther”, Wen Lao said: “Zhang Xueliang learn Zhang Liang, do not learn bad”.
I don’t know how he associated with Zhang Xueliang, but the next couplet is literally impeccable. It is said that when Er Cheng attended the wedding of Guo Moruo and Yu Liqun, someone gave this top couplet to the groom, and Guo failed to get it right.
When I told Wen about Cheng Yuan’s death, he said with a long sigh, “I should be the last person to see Cheng Yuan, she was a victim of the struggle between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang!” I thought afterwards, how could General Hanqing not be like that!
After Wen was pardoned, he was summoned to the hospital by Zhou Enlai, who was seriously ill, and the teacher and student met one last time after all the calamities. Zhou blamed him for refusing to write a letter of repentance earlier, and said something like this.
The Kuomintang and the Communist Party, in fact, are blood brothers, and the separation has caused a lot of trouble, but in the end they are going to make up.
During the 1949 peace talks, General Zhang Zhizhong had said that “the struggle between the two parties is like the struggle between brothers”, but Zhou Enlai did not agree with him; at this time, he knew that he would die soon, but he had this epiphany. A few days after the conversation, Mr. Zhou died. Wen Lao was so sad that he wrote eight poems in one breath.
I remember that in the year of his death, Mr. Hu Deping called and asked for my father’s “I Want to Write a Novel – Twenty Years a Dream” written in 1946, saying that he wanted to quote it in a meeting with Mr. Zhang Xiao Yan. That political essay described a big dream that the novel’s protagonist had: for twenty years the two Communist parties had sought common ground while preserving differences, and China had achieved democratic constitutionalism and embarked on the road to wealth and power; “all the tragic and unfortunate things that had befallen us had not happened in the dream, and thus many ugly and shameful phenomena had turned out to be beautiful and delightful”; the essay concluded by saying that “If dreams are ideal, is reality foolish? The last twenty years have been wasted. Can we waste another twenty years?”
Fifty-six years after the Kuomintang left the mainland, Chairman Lien Chan led a delegation to visit the mainland this year. It has been nearly four years since Wen’s death, and I can’t help but think of his last words and his father’s “talking dream”. ……
V. The old man returned to the mountain
Shu old man maintained the naivety of the old days, and from time to time, he made some comments on the painful events in the political arena and the hundred states of the world, and asked me some questions that were difficult to understand, worrying about the country and the people but unable to do anything about it, and was often ridiculed by his old companion as an “old child”.
He often talked with me about the contents of his memoirs, commenting on Zhou Enlai, Li Kenong, Pan Hannian, Jiang Qing, Tang Na, Dong Zhujun, Lu Clang, etc. When he talked about not confirming his identity as a secret member of the Communist Party, Shu often showed some kind of regret. I also put it bluntly: “I think memoirs should be independent in character and thinking, and may be based on patriotism and the sense of justice of intellectuals, without taking party history as the axis.” In all fairness, although “regret complex” is a common feeling, “forgetting each other in the rivers and lakes” is the true nature of the literati.
The old man looked back and wrote all the stories of his childhood love in eight paragraphs, calling himself “eight dreams”. The old lady often refused to forgive him for this, saying hatefully, “He just can’t forget those affairs!” For this reason, his memoirs were not published until after his death.
An amorous gentleman pitying the jade is a realm pursued by literati in the old days. When people today read Shu Lao’s “Broken Dreams”, they often draw parallels with his ancestor’s “Reminiscences of Yingmei’an”, or consider it similar to the “playing deep” in today’s love affairs. But when I read his posthumous works, I felt a humanistic concern for women. It seems that his relationship with these women of his choice was mostly a spiritual one, perhaps belonging to the category of “Si Wu Xie”. In his autobiography, Shu reminisces about his past love and confesses his sorrow; he often deplores the untimely deaths of several unfortunate women in his feudal family; he still regrets and blames himself when he recalls his mischievous behavior toward his maids as a child.
I remember that the old man’s last birthday was spent at the “Dongpo Restaurant” in the courtyard of the Beijing Library, where the owner of the restaurant was a former volunteer prisoner of war who had been through a rough patch, along with Mr. and Mrs. Lu Derun. During the meal, Shu drank a few glasses of wine and said something like his days were numbered, but I immediately stopped him. I have some sadness in my heart, because the old lady told her girlfriend privately, Shu Lao’s health will not last long, she is a medical student, she knows very well. In the future, after the old gentleman’s centennial, she is prepared to go to live with her daughter in Australia.
After the birthday party, I was often a bit apprehensive. Perhaps because of the similarity of humanistic backgrounds during my upbringing, I felt a non-verbal connection with the old man. It was as if I saw my older self in him, but he was more vulnerable than I was.
Finally, one day, the phone rang, and Ms. Xu, who introduced me to Shu, began to report the unfortunate news, and the rendezvous of the loop of my life with the old man came to the end point. “The bell hanging from this small ring was Ms. Xu’s telephone bell.
The old man went peacefully, without alarming anyone, as its fear of trouble others style. The afternoon of his death, he drank a glass of milk, sitting on a wicker chair to take a nap, the little nanny went out for a while, came back to find the old man had died. According to the will, no ceremony and no notice to friends, it was directly cremated.
Rushing to the familiar small living room in the south of the double elm, the interior of everything as before, but the familiar rattan chair is empty. Its owner was turned into a cloud of ashes, and is now quietly staying in a wooden box on the desk in another room, waiting for friends to say goodbye.
When I walked into the family’s funeral home and bowed, I looked at the old man who had turned into a picture in the frame, and my girlfriend couldn’t help but start crying. The old lady seemed calm and prepared for what was happening, and now she was comforting the hangers-on. As I walked out of the room, I looked back, the old man in the frame, is also looking at me with a slightly sad eyes ……
The last time I met with Mr. Wen Qiang was at the funeral of Mr. Dong Zhujun[6] at Wan’an Cemetery (I will recount the past events of this legendary woman in a separate article). It was a cold day, and the Wanan Cemetery is notorious for its gloom. With his back straight, he still looked like a standard soldier and stood in the cold wind to pay his last respects to this old friend who had saved his life. Wen Lao, me and some friends and relatives had a speech at the grave. The old man told me that his book would be published soon. At the end of the ceremony, we said goodbye to each other, but I never thought it would be forever ……
There is a cause, there is a fate, my connection with this Wenwu two old man, actually began because of Ms. Xu. She was a very busy person, not many times she came to the party afterwards. 2000, she held a 90th birthday party for her mother, I met Shu’s wife, Ms. Zhu Yu, at the birthday party again, she was calm as usual, silent as usual. In recent years asked Ms. Xu about the old lady’s situation, she was very emotional, saying that Auntie Zhu is currently under the care of a relative, she went to visit and wanted to invite her aunt to a New Year’s Eve dinner, but was turned away, saying that the old lady has a neurosis ……
It seems that the old lady did not realize her wish to spend her old age in Australia with her daughter, really not as blessed as Mama Xu in her old age, I wonder if she is still alive? This year, Mama Xu has also passed away, having lived for 90 years ……
“Those who have gone are separated by the day, those who have come by the day are close to me, and when I look straight out of the gate, I see mounds and graves! Seeing the elders return one by one to swim in the mountain, my heart was troubled.
“The dead are like this, do not give up day and night”, so is life ……
June 9, 2005, Rain or Shine Reading House
This article has been included in the author’s book “A gentleman’s friendship is like water” (published by Writers Press in January 2007)
[1] Bold Shu Xuan (1914-1999), pseudonym Shu Xuan, a native of Rugao, Jiangsu, born in Wenzhou, of Mongolian origin. After 1948, he was a special member of the People’s Bank of China, editor-in-chief of China Finance, editor-in-chief of the financial weekly Ta Kung Pao, and a researcher at the Institute of Finance. He is the author of Jingzhong yingguo, Tianzhizhi zhaozhao, Dong Xiaowan, The Story of Beijing City, Langtaosha, Li Bai and Du Fu, Shuoye ji, Wanli fengyun, Miscellany of Beijing China, Foolishness is Worse than Poverty, Talking about Heaven and Earth, Men and Women in Food and Drink, The Lonely Moon This Heart Bright, and Weisheng sobre Meng.
[2] Cao Guangsheng (1873-1959), a native of Rugao, Jiangsu Province, was a candidate in the 20th year of the Guangxu era of the Qing Dynasty. He served as a minister in the Ministry of Justice, a history and geography instructor in the Wucheng Academy in Beijing, and a minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce in the Qing Dynasty. In the Republic of China, he served as an advisor to the Ministry of Finance, chairman of the National Economic Survey Society of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, supervisor of customs and diplomatic commissioner in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. During the War of Resistance against Japan, he lived in Shanghai and engaged in the study of scripture, history, lyrics and music, and wrote extensively. After the war, he lived in Nanjing, where he was appointed as a researcher for the National Museum of History and drafted many biographies of people. His posthumous works include “three kinds of Jing’s Yi”, “Da Dai Yi Yi Ji Yi Yi Ji”, “Najia said”, “Nayin said”, “Tang Shu Tufan lineage table”, “Mongolian lineage table”, “Mongolian source flow chronology”, “Guan Zi Ji Shi Shi Shi long compilation” (unfinished), “Xiao San Wu Ting poems and words”, “four voices hooked”, “pour cup examination”, “Song song chapter and verse”, “new school cloud ballad set of miscellaneous songs Fa Fan”, “new school Zhongyuan phonetic rhyme set song Fa Fan”, “Guizhai word theory”, “Guizhai word theory”, “Song song chapter and verse”, “new school cloud ballad set of miscellaneous songs Fa Fan”, “new school Zhongyuan phonetic rhyme set song Fa Fan”. The “Guilt Zhai words theory”, “Guilt Zhai miscellaneous drama”, “Houshan poetry supplement”, “batch book “Suiyuan poetry”, “East scales and west claws record is the sequel”, “sin sea flower” gossip, and so on, and proofread the engraved ancient books a variety of.
[3] Wen Qiang (1907-2001) was a native of Changsha, Hunan Province. In 1931, he left the party and returned to Hunan to work as a journalist, and after 1935, he joined the military and was responsible for the intelligence work of the military intelligence against Japan. During the Anti-Japanese War, he was engaged in secret warfare and military work behind enemy lines. In 1975, he was pardoned and served as a commissioner of the Committee of Literature and History of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, etc. He is the author of “Wen Qiang’s Oral Memoirs”.
[4] M.P is the abbreviation of Mounted Police, which originally means Mounted Police, here it refers to the Civil Defense Force.
[5] Cheng Yuan (1904-1968), formerly known as Cheng Qiying, was a native of Wanxian, Sichuan, and studied at the University of Berlin and the University of Göttingen in Germany from 1923 to 1925. After the outbreak of the war, he served as a member of the 14th Shanghai Communist Party. After the outbreak of the war, he served as the acting director of the 14th Shanghai Wounded Warrior Hospital, and was in charge of the Quantum Cai Circulation Library, the tutorial school and the theater troupe; in 1940, he became the principal of the private orphanage elementary school in Chongqing. In 1957, he was transferred to Peking University to teach in the Department of Western Languages. “During the Cultural Revolution, he was brutally persecuted and died in January 1968.
[6] Dong Zhujun (1900-1997), formerly known as Dong Huang, was born in Shanghai, Jiangsu Province, and went to Japan to study in 1915; from 1922 to 1936, he founded the Sichuan Yellow Car Company, the Women’s Stocking Factory, the Shanghai Qunyi Yarn and Tube Factory, the Jinjiang Sichuan Restaurant and the Jinjiang Tea Room. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, he handed over the Jinjiang industry to the government for free and settled in Beijing. He served as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, chairman of the board of directors of Shanghai Jinjiang Hotel, and a consultant. “During the Cultural Revolution, he was brutally persecuted and imprisoned for five years. In his later years, he published a book-length memoir, “My Century”.
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