We know that Chairman Mao received help from many people in his early revolutionary career, and at the end of 1926, in the process of inspecting the peasant movement in the countryside, Mao Zedong was once in trouble due to economic difficulties.
Guo Zicai was Chairman Mao's childhood playmate, he and Chairman Mao established an extremely deep friendship since he was a child, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao has always remembered that Guo Zicai once funded him, in 1950, Guo Zicai finally wrote a letter to Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao knew that the living conditions after the founding of the Guo Zicai family were difficult, Guo Zicai asked Chairman Mao in the letter to arrange a job for him in Beijing.
Chairman Mao looked at Guo Zicai's letter and was silent for a long time; for Chairman Mao, chairman has always pursued the principle of "not recommending, not introducing, not writing letters, and not speaking" to his relatives and friends, but Guo Zicai was really different from other "relatives and friends" in Chairman Mao's heart.
Chairman Mao
What did Chairman Mao write in his reply to Guo Zicai? After learning that his former childhood playmates are now living in difficulty, how will Chairman Mao reciprocate? Our story today begins in 1906, the beginning of chairman Mao's precious friendship with Guo Zicai.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="2" > the intersection of the total angle</h1>
In 1906, the thirteen-year-old Mao Zedong went to a private school in Jingwan Village, Hunan Province, the location of the private school is far from Mao Zedong's home, in order to facilitate schooling, Mao Zedong lived in a well-known local rich merchant, the owner of this rich merchant is called Guo Shiqiao, and Mao Zedong's father Mao Shunsheng often has business contacts, so Mao and Guo have a good relationship, Guo Zicai is the "little young master" of the Guo family.
Guo Zicai, who is three years younger than Mao Zedong, studied in the same private school as Mao Zedong, played together in his spare time, and slept in the same bed at night, thus establishing a friendship behind him.
For Guo Zicai, Mao Zedong is three years older than him, and his thinking and behavior are more mature and stable than him, so in Guo Zicai's eyes, Mao Zedong is a reliable "big brother" image, and Guo Zicai is full of admiration for Mao Zedong.
Mao Zedong showed a very outstanding leadership ability at that time, during the period of study in the rural private school, the private school will be cattle herding as a daily homework for students, Mao Zedong organized the children, group classes, not only improved the efficiency of cattle herding, but also let all the students get leisure time to play, which made Mao Zedong set up a good image in the hearts of the children in the private school.
Young Mao Zedong
Sometimes, Mao Zedong would also take his classmates from the private school to catch loach and dig sweet potatoes, Mao Zedong himself read a lot of books, and when he was interested, he would tell the stories in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin", which made Mao Zedong seem to become the "leader" among the private school students, and Guo Zicai's admiration for Mao Zedong deepened day by day.
Four years of private school life was fleeting, and soon Mao Zedong and Guo Zicai graduated from private school, and in 1910, Mao Zedong and Guo Zicai went to Xiangtan County together to participate in the entrance examination of Xiangtan Higher Primary School.
What is unexpected is that after the Xiangtan Higher Primary School was released, Guo Zicai was impressively on the list, and Mao Zedong actually fell off the list, which made Guo Zicai and Mao Zedong feel incomprehensible, because people who knew Mao Zedong knew that Mao Zedong had excellent results and it was unlikely that he would not be able to pass the examination.
After many investigations, Mao Zedong learned that the reason why he could not be admitted to the Xiangtan County Higher Primary School was not because he "did not have good grades", but because he was overaged, Mao Zedong was seventeen years old at the time, and most of the candidates who applied for the examination were only eleven or twelve years old.
Young Mao Zedong
Therefore, mao zedong, at the instigation and persuasion of his cousin Wen Yunchang, applied for the Xiangxiang County Higher Primary School, and Mao Zedong separated from Guo Zicai, a close friend.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > go along the revolutionary road</h1>
In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution broke out, this year Mao Zedong had just entered the primary school for less than a year, and full of revolutionary ideals in his heart, he resolutely cut off his braids and threw himself into the pen and embarked on the road of revolution.
After Mao Zedong decided to join the revolutionary army, he remembered his childhood friend Guo Zicai, so Mao Zedong specially came to Xiangtan to find Guo Zicai and persuaded him to join the revolutionary army with him.
Under the influence of Mao Zedong, Guo Zicai also joined the ranks of the revolution.
Mao Zedong and Guo Zicai initially chose to join the Hunan New Army, and after spending some time in the army, Mao Zedong found that this so-called "revolutionary contingent" was actually no different from the troops of the old warlords, and Mao Zedong understood that such a unit could not save the country, which was inconsistent with the great revolutionary ideals in his heart.
Later, Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shikai reached a peace agreement, the Hunan New Army announced the temporary dissolution, three months later to regroup, Mao Zedong took this opportunity to apply for retirement, to hunan province first normal school to continue study.
Sun Yat-sen
After the temporary dissolution of the Hunan New Army, Guo Zicai did not choose to take the same path as Mao Zedong, for him, if he retired from the army in advance like Mao Zedong, unlike Mao Zedong, he could only go home to help his family run a business, so Guo Zicai insisted until he completed his military service before retiring from the army.
Guo Zicai worked in the Xiangtan County Electric Light Company for five years, and in the past five years, Guo Zicai's life was stable, which was really difficult to do in the chaotic world, and in 1925, Guo Zicai and Chairman Mao met again.
In 1925, Chairman Mao, who had become one of the leading figures of the revolution, returned to his hometown in Hunan to inspect the peasant movement, and Guo Zicai and Chairman Mao met again, and when they met and parted, both their social status and political situation had undergone earth-shaking changes, but for Chairman Mao and Guo Zicai, the precious friendship between the two was not half damaged by these changes.
After learning of Chairman Mao's purpose of returning to his hometown this time, Guo Zicai took the initiative to vacate his office in the electric light company to chairman Mao and other members of our party as the place for secret meetings; not only that, Guo Zicai also used his own grocery store to cover for our underground party members, and when Chairman Mao and some members of our party held a secret meeting, Guo Zicai would also stand at the door to set up a guard for them.
However, we know that at the beginning of the revolution in our Party, the economic conditions were very tight, and the organization of various movements throughout the country required a great deal of expenditure, and by the end of 1926 Chairman Mao's funds had bottomed out, and the revolutionary activities were in a predicament for a time.
When Guo Zicai learned of Chairman Mao's situation, he took out forty oceans to fund Chairman Mao and help Chairman Mao successfully survive the difficulties, and later Chairman Mao learned that these forty oceans were All of Guo Zicai's savings, which he had saved over the years by saving money and thrift...
It can be said that Guo Zicai has been "greatly benevolent" to our Party; in the past two years, Guo Zicai has successfully won the trust of our Party, so Guo Zicai successfully joined our Party on the recommendation of Chairman Mao and became a fighter on the revolutionary front.
After joining the party, Guo Zicai met his future wife Liu Tianmin, and it is fortunate that Liu Tianmin also joined the party with the help of Chairman Mao, and her "resume of joining the party" can be called a series of twists and turns.
When Liu Tianmin was five years old, her parents, who had deeply rooted feudal concepts, sent her to a local powerful landlord's family as a "child bride", in the landlord's home, Liu Tianmin was extremely abused, her husband often beat her or scolded, Liu Tianmin's childhood life was full of darkness.
Liu Tianmin, who was strong, had fought back, however, Liu Tianmin, who was a small and weak person, was the opponent of the adults, and her resistance could only anger her husband in vain, and every time Liu Tianmin resisted, her husband would hang her up and beat her, and the fiercest one even directly grabbed Liu Tianmin's hair and crashed into the tree, liu Tianmin was beaten several times by the blurred flesh and blood.
Liu Tianmin's cousin-in-law Li Genghou was the son of Chairman Mao's teacher Li Shuqing, and Li Genghou really couldn't see that Liu Tianmin had been abused in the landlord's house, so he helped her escape from the landlord's house and sponsored her to study at the Xiangtan Girls' School.
Later, when Chairman Mao returned to Shaoshan to develop the peasant movement, Li Genghou served as Chairman Mao's secretary, and one day he told Chairman Mao about Li Tianmin, and Chairman Mao immediately came to Liu Tianmin's house and gave some advice to Liu Tianmin's family, and Liu Tianmin's family finally agreed to dissolve the marriage.
On the other hand, Li Genghou went to negotiate with the landlord's family, and with the efforts of Chairman Mao and Li Genghou, Liu Tianmin formally dissolved his marriage with the landlord's family and regained a new life.
Li Genghou
After this incident, Liu Tianmin was very grateful to Chairman Mao and Li Genghou, and Chairman Mao considered that Liu Tianmin might have trouble continuing to stay in Xiangtan, so he took her to Changsha and arranged for her to study at the Zhaotan Girls' Middle School.
Liu Tianmin studied hard while working part-time to make ends meet at school, and later, after Chairman Mao's introduction, in 1923, Liu Tianmin joined the Communist Party of China.
After joining the party, Liu Tianmin worked hard and bowed down to the revolutionary cause, and soon he was recognized by the party organization and became the head of the youth department.
After this, Liu Tianmin and Guo Zicai met in the revolutionary ranks, and the two soon fell in love, and soon after they married, passing on as a pair of "revolutionary partners".
After the defeat of the Great Revolution in 1927, the Kuomintang reactionaries headed by Chiang Kai-shek carried out a frenzied persecution of our Party figures, and because of the betrayal of traitors, the identities of Guo Zicai and his wife were exposed.
Chiang Kai-shek
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > frustrated life</h1>
After working at Xiangtan Electric Light Company for several years, Guo Zicai used all his years of savings to buy shares in the company in order to improve his income level, and jumped from an ordinary employee to a shareholder of the company.
However, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, China's economic situation has been sluggish, and the income of Xiangtan Electric Light Company has been affected by the situation, often losing money, and finally, the company declared bankruptcy, and Guo Zicai also lost all his money.
Since the money previously used to invest in the electric lamp company was all his savings, after the collapse of the electric light company, Guo Zicai's family situation was once in an extremely difficult situation, and Guo Zicai had no choice but to find a bristle farm to continue working, hoping to make ends meet with a small income.
At that time, the production mode of the bristle factory was almost primitive, and the various daily necessities made of bristles did not have any technical content, so the business of the bristle factory was also sluggish, and the salary for Guo Zicai was very low.
Not only that, in that special era, it was common for factories to have no income, so the bristle factory sometimes could not afford to pay employees for several months, which made Guo Zicai's life more difficult.
After the founding of New China, the economic situation of many poor peasant families was improved, but Guo Zicai, who had a poor family, not only failed to receive support and help as a poor family, but was classified as a landlord because his father belonged to the original rich merchant class.
At the founding ceremony, Chairman Mao announced the founding of New China
In this regard, although Guo Zicai's family felt aggrieved, they did not complain, because they chose to quit at the most difficult time of the party, which was the scar of Guo Zicai's husband and wife's life, in their view, now their living conditions are embarrassing, which is completely "self-inflicted".
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, many of Chairman Mao's relatives and friends in the Shaoshan and Xiangtan areas wrote letters to Chairman Mao requesting help, and some people advised Guo Zicai to write to Chairman Mao to report that the current living conditions were difficult, Guo Zicai was not embarrassed at first, until August 1950, Guo Zicai's family was really poor and could not stand it, and Guo Zicai and his wife wrote two letters and sent them to Chairman Mao in Beijing.
After the letter was sent, Guo Zicai and his wife were worried that Chairman Mao was busy with state affairs and did not have time to reply to the letter, but they did not expect that at the end of the month of the month when the letter was sent, Guo Zicai and his wife received a reply from Chairman Mao, and Chairman Mao wrote in his reply:
"Second brother Zi Cai."
When the letter was received, it was extremely gratifying that the people of Beijing were overwhelmed with trouble, and it was more appropriate for my brother's work problems to be solved by local friends who were familiar with my brother's situation. Foolish to see this, still pray for consideration.
Mr. Liu Tianmin greeted him with the same greeting. ”
Chairman Mao's letter to Guo Zicai's family
The implication was that Chairman Mao was very pleased with Guo Zicai's letter to him, but considering Guo Zicai's own reasons, he might not be suitable for working in Beijing, so he refused Guo Zicai's request to Chairman Mao to help him find a job in Beijing on the grounds that "people are superfluous.".
However, Chairman Mao did not ignore Guo Zicai in this way, and the chairman sent 300 yuan with a letter to help Guo Zicai's family tide over economic difficulties, and it should be known that Chairman Mao's monthly salary was only more than six hundred yuan, which was equivalent to Chairman Mao's half-month salary.
Since the letters from Guo Zicai and his wife Liu Tianmin were sent to Chairman Mao separately at that time, in 1950, Chairman Mao wrote a reply letter to Liu Tianmin, in which Chairman Mao wrote:
"Ms. Tianmin:
The letter was received, thank you very much.
Li Genghou had died.
Li Jiehou is now studying at the People's Revolutionary University in Beijing, and his situation is still good.
This reply, in line with the greeting. ”
It can be seen that The letters from Liu Tianmin and Chairman Mao are actually more based on old love memories, and Li Genghou was the person who helped Liu Tianmin dissolve the marriage relationship with the landlord's family in those years, and after learning the news of Li Genghou's sacrifice, Liu Tianmin was sad for a long time.
Liu Tianmin also more or less revealed in his letter to Chairman Mao that he wanted the chairman to help him find a job, and unlike Guo Zicai, Chairman Mao introduced Liu Tianmin to the work of a librarian of literature and history in Hunan Province, but even with Chairman Mao's introduction, the local government still had different opinions on whether Liu Tianmin could be competent for the work of a librarian of literature and history, and in the end, Liu Tianmin did not work as a librarian of Hunan literature and history.
However, the relevant departments in Xiangtan arranged a job for Liu Tianmin to work for the Xiangtan CPPCC in accordance with Chairman Mao's opinion, and the living conditions of Guo Zicai's family also improved somewhat.
After that, after Liu Tianmin had a formal job, Guo Zicai also subsidized the family by doing some odd jobs, but the bad luck always liked to patronize this family that was suffering and suffering, and soon Guo Zicai was completely incapacitated due to blindness in both eyes, and the family all pointed to Liu Tianmin's meager income for a living, in addition, Liu Tianmin also had to bear the medical expenses for Guo Zicai's treatment of eye diseases, and the family's life was more difficult.
The news of Guo Zicai's blindness reached the ears of Chairman Mao in Beijing, and when Chairman Mao learned that the life of his old friend's family was once again in distress, he instructed his secretary to send a letter of greetings on his behalf, and attached three hundred yuan to the letter. ”
In 1961, chairman Mao remembered his old friend and asked his secretary to send three hundred yuan to Guo Zicai's family as money for medical treatment, and Chairman Mao's secretary said in a reply letter: "The chairman entrusted me to tell you that if you still have difficulties in life in the future, you can still write to him." ”
In 1962, after Chairman Mao heard the news that Guo Zicai was terminally ill, he entrusted the secretary to send two hundred yuan to Guo Zicai's family, which was the last time Chairman Mao sent money to Guo Zicai's family, and later, according to Guo Zicai's daughter Guo Zhijiu's statistics, from 1950 to 1962, Chairman Mao successively sent eleven letters to Guo Zicai's family, of which there were 6 with Chairman Mao's gifts, totaling 1700 yuan.
In 1964, when Guo Zicai died of illness at the age of 58, Guo Zicai's daughter Guo Zhijiu said with emotion in later memories: "Through the story of Chairman Mao and my parents, we have deeply realized how Chairman Mao, as a great proletarian revolutionary, correctly handled the relationship between public and private, between love and law. ”