The word father was vague in Shen Congwen's impression. His education was also mostly given to his mother.
In his autobiography, Shen Congwen also wrote: "My mother was able to read and write at a very young age, knew medical prescriptions, and could take pictures. My uncle was a man with a new mind, and the first photo studio in the county was run by the male father, and the first post office was also run by the male father. The initial education of my brothers and sisters was all the responsibility of this thin, alert, courageous and common-sense mother. ”
Shen Congwen's father, Shen Zongsi, was a man with a story. Probably because of the family atmosphere. He often had the urge to be a hero.
Or, in the old days, the traditional Chinese consciousness was mostly good boys with ambitions in all directions. In Shen Congwen's memory, his father was responsible for creating the hero's story to him. However, the story ended in tragedy, and the father did not succeed in the end.
Shen Zongsi was not the biological son of Shen Congwen's grandfather, but the illegitimate son of Shen Congwen's uncle and a young Miao girl. Because his grandfather Shen Hongfu had no heirs, Shen Zongsi was passed on to Shen Hongfu. Shen Congwen's Miao ancestry is derived from this.
His father, who began to learn martial arts in his teens, soon joined the army and became a general guarding Tianjin Wei. In the year of Gengzi (i.e., 1900), when the Eight-Power Alliance invaded Tianjin Dagu, the viceroy committed suicide, while Shen Zongsi, who was a general, fled back to his hometown.
In this way, if it were not for the defeat in this war, Shen Zongsi would not have returned to Western Hunan from the army, and naturally, Shen Congwen would not have been born.
However, after returning to his hometown, Shen Zongsi still played the role of a revolutionary party, and after the Xinhai Revolution, at one point, he was the elected supreme leader of Fenghuang County. This soldier, who was not willing to be lonely, soon ran for a conference delegate to Changsha with a man surnamed Wu in the same county, but the election failed.
He was very angry, and after dropping a few small objects in the house, he ran to Beijing again. This break has almost become a song that will never be able to guess the mystery.
After Shen Zongsi arrived in Beijing, he and several township parties organized an iron-blooded regiment. They want to assassinate Yuan Shikai. How easy is it to talk about? Before he could do anything, he was discovered by the detectives. Que Zhuming, who had traveled with him to Beijing, was shot on the spot, and Shen Congwen's father fled to Rehe for refuge because he had been informed by an acquaintance.
However, this avoidance is seven or eight years. Shen Congwen's eldest brother, Shen Yunlu, ran to Beijing and the northeastern provinces in order to find his father, and when the money was spent, he made a living by painting portraits on the streets, saving some money, and then began to inquire everywhere again. After searching for many years, he found Shen Zongsi in Chifeng.