In 2003, an old man named Zhou Yanguang in Hunan accidentally turned over a yellowed IOU at home, this IOU looks quite age-old, a look to know that the time of existence is not short, but fortunately the IOU is still quite complete, the basic content can be distinguished, the time of the IOU is March 1945, more than fifty years ago, and looking to the side, Zhou Yanguang was shocked, next to the date of the person who dropped the money, impressively written five big characters "Eighth Route Army He Long".
IOUs
If it is simply a name of He Long, Zhou Yanguang may feel that it is a duplicate name, but with the addition of the Eighth Route Army 3 words, it should not be wrong, there is a good chance that the founding marshal of the "two kitchen knives to make a revolution" is the founding marshal, and the content of the IOU also confirms this:
"Borrow the patriot Mr. Zhou Lianchi to pick up the rice land, the big fat pig one, the silver dollar to pick up the piece, the copper coin Wu Bai block, and the small money ten consecutive pieces, and come to the central government when the motherland is reunified."
The situation described in the IOU seems to be that the Eighth Route Army led by Marshal He Long borrowed some supplies and money from a patriot, including rice, pork and 420 silver dollars, and this Mr. Zhou Lianchi was Zhou Yanguang's father.
Mr. Zhou Lianchi has long passed away, but the old man Zhou Yanguang recalled that his father actually had a request for this IOU, but at that time, he did not understand the meaning of that instruction.
The Zhou family was rich, is the landlord family, during the period of land reform, the Land of the Zhou family was confiscated, and his family's genealogy has been kept in the hands of Zhou Qiubao in the village, in 1980, Zhou Qiubao died of illness, Zhou Lianchi silently retrieved his family tree, but did not make a statement to the outside world, 9 years later, Zhou Lianchi instructed his son Zhou Yanguang before his death, saying that there was a note in the family tree, so that he must "solve" it in the future.
At that time, Zhou Yanguang was immersed in the grief of his father's death, did not have the heart to think about this matter, and then slowly forgot, until 2003, when he flipped through the family tree, he found that there was a black thing in the cover of the double page.
Zhou Yanguang quickly found a knife, opened the double page cover, took out the contents, and found that it was an IOU, and he knew that more than fifty years ago, his father had lent 420 silver dollars to the Eighth Route Army.
In order to confirm this matter, Zhou Yanguang took this IOU to the superior department for identification. And the matter of this IOU also spread, and many doubts could not help but arise under the curiosity of the people, questioning the authenticity of this IOU and pointing out many doubts.
Some people say that there is a problem with the font on the IOU, there are traditional characters on the IOU, there are also simplified characters, but the simplified characters are only determined by the government after the founding of the country, and the payment time on the IOU is 1945, when the country was not yet established, where is the simplified character?
However, this kind of doubt can not stand up to scrutiny, simplified characters as the legal status of the national common character, is indeed determined after the establishment of new China, in 1954, the Chinese Character Reform Committee was established, two years later, the State Council announced the "Simplified Chinese Characters Program", and in 1964 formulated a "Simplified Character General Table", which is the first time by the government officially announced and successfully implemented simplified character schemes and word lists, and the word list we are now common, is the "Simplified Characters General List" re-issued in 1986, On October 31, 2000, the Character Law was passed and officially implemented on New Year's Day of the following year, establishing the legal status of standardized Chinese characters as the national common script.
Simplified Word Summary
However, what some people don't know is that long before these, simplified characters have actually appeared and been used in the folk for a long time.
Ye Lishi, a famous chinese character reformer, made statistics on the 521 simplified characters that are more commonly used in the 2274 simplified characters in the "General List of Simplified Characters", and found that 101 of them appeared in the liberated areas and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the remaining 420 characters were already popular or existed before the liberation, the earliest of which can be traced back to the pre-Qin era.
Simplified Chinese characters have a long history, China's Chinese characters from oracle bone, gold text to seal book, and then from the seal book to the Lishu, Kaishu, and simplified characters are the simplification of Kaishu, Qin and Han period is the period of great changes in Chinese characters, Kaishu also appeared at this time, and simplified characters were also born.
In modern times, China's Chinese character simplification movement originated from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, because most of the people who participated in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at that time were people at the bottom of the society, in order to improve the literacy rate, the official documents of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were all simplified characters, and even the jade seal was simplified, and 80% of the more than a hundred simplified characters they used have been used until now.
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Jade Seal
In addition, in the famous New Culture Movement, it seems that only the vernacular movement can be remembered, but in fact, at that time, there was a very important textual simplification movement, but it was not as well known as the former.
On August 21, 1935, the Nationalist government published the "First List of Simplified Characters", although it was later retracted due to controversy, but it did show that the application of simplified characters was actually very popular at that time.
Thus, the appearance of simplified characters on the 1945 IOU is not a fuss, but entirely possible and reasonable.
Some people also asked: The Eighth Route Army has its own discipline and will not take a needle and a thread from the masses, so how can it owe money to others?
The Eighth Route Army does have its own three major disciplines and eight points of attention, one of which is "not to take a needle and a thread from the masses," which Chairman Mao personally formulated.
On October 24, 1927, Chairman Mao led the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army to Jingzhu Mountain, and the next step was to go to Jinggangshan, in order to establish good relations with the masses and carry out work smoothly.
This is the prototype of the "three major disciplines and eight points of attention" that was later implemented throughout the army, and many people may wonder why they did not take a sweet potato from the masses. Why would this seemingly ordinary little thing be an iron law of the Red Army?
It turned out that at that time, the troops in Suichuan Dafen were attacked by the landlords' armed forces, scattered, the soldiers were tired and hungry, very tired, at this time they found a sweet potato field, everyone did not think much, rushed up, seven hands and eight feet to dig out the sweet potatoes, randomly rubbed a piece of mud, and stuffed it into their mouths to eat.
When Chairman Mao caught up with him and saw this scene, he was very angry and asked several cadres present: "Have you obtained the consent of your old cousin?" Company Commander Zeng Shi'e shook his head in embarrassment and whispered no.
Chairman Mao said to everyone in a serious tone: "We are the workers' and peasants' revolutionary army, not the ranks of warlords, so how can we arbitrarily infringe on the interests of the masses?" As we are now, what is the difference between us and the old army? Listening to Chairman Mao's criticism, the soldiers bowed their heads in shame.
In the end, everyone gathered 6 hanging coins, wrapped them in paper, wrapped them in a piece of cloth, and buried them on the edge of the sweet potato field.
Since then, there has been the discipline of "not taking a sweet potato from the masses", which was slowly revised to "not taking a needle and a line from the masses".
Nevertheless, this does not mean that the Eighth Route Army will not borrow things from the masses, and we must not forget that among the "eight points of attention," one of them is "borrowing things to be returned." It can be seen that the Eighth Route Army is not opposed to borrowing things from the masses, but the premise is to return them.
In fact, many times, especially during the Red Army period, in the face of encirclement and suppression by many enemies, the situation of the soldiers was sometimes very difficult, so they had to borrow some materials from the masses.
During the Long March, when they first entered the Tibetan areas, the Red Army officers and soldiers found that the local Tibetans either fled or were hostile to the Red Army under the smear and propaganda of the Kuomintang, and in July 1935, a Red Army unit came to Maoergai to prepare for a rest and prepare some grain by the way.
In desperation, the Soldiers of the Red Army could only go to the fields and harvest the grain of the Tibetans, from Marshal Zhu De to the cooks, all of whom cut wheat, but when harvesting grain, the Red Army had strict rules, could not destroy the crops, in order to compensate the Tibetans, the Red Army also wrote down "IOUs" to stay on the land of the Tibetans.
The "IOU" left by the Red Army
The IOU was made of wooden planks, and the Red Army would write down the amount of its harvest and the reason for the harvest on the plank, and then insert it in the field. Local Tibetans could use this plank to go to the Red Army to get their due remuneration.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the troops led by Marshal He Long were in trouble, and it was not surprising that they borrowed some materials from the masses, moreover, the people of the people's army loved, and the people at that time had their hearts set on the Eighth Route Army, and they could not bear to see them shed blood and sacrifice to resist the Japanese invaders, so there were many patriots who sent food and money to the fighters, and at first the fighters resolutely refused to accept them, and then they could only lay down an IOU, promising that they would return all of them after the war, and Zhou Yanguang's name for Zhou Lianchi on this IOU was also "Patriot Mr. Zhou Lianchi". It is very likely that Mr. Zhou Lianchi also took the initiative to help Marshal He Long's troops at that time.
Of course, in addition to the voice of doubt, many people still believe in the authenticity of this IOU, and pointed out that in the signature of the IOU, there are two seals, one is Marshal He Long, and the other belongs to a person named "Chen Jusheng".
Who is Chen Jusheng? In the list of cadres at all levels of the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army, where He Long was the commander of the division, the commander of the Sixth Regiment of the 2nd Column was Chen Jusheng.
This seal undoubtedly adds points to the authenticity of the IOU.
Marshal He Long
After Zhou Yanguang took out the IOU, the higher department attached great importance to it and began to find a way to confirm the authenticity of the IOU, and the Hunan Provincial Collection Association specially identified it, and it turned out that the IOU used Chegg paper for accounting before liberation, and the ink and seal were old, and the chronology was consistent.
As for the content, it has been so long since the matter has passed, and the parties are no longer there, it is undoubtedly very difficult to confirm.
After several turns, Zhou Yanguang found a soldier named Xiang Xuan, this soldier is not simple, 7 years old to join the Red Army, 9 years old Long March, is China's youngest Red Army soldier.
More importantly, Xiang Xuan's mother was He Mangu, the fifth sister of Marshal He Long, and after the sacrifices of his mother and great aunt He Ying, Xiang Xuan found his uncle He Long and kept him around, when He Long was the commander of the 120th Division, Xiang Xuan was a correspondent of the 120th Division Headquarters, so he must have been impressed by what happened in He Long's troops at that time.
Old Red Army Xiang Xuan
When Zhou Yanguang found Xiang Xuan, he was already an old man close to ninety years old, and after the old Red Army knew Zhou Yanguang's intentions, he took the IOU and looked at it, and immediately affirmed that there was indeed something wrong, and the IOU was true.
According to Xiang Xuan, Chen Jusheng was the logistics minister at the time, and the IOU was signed by him in the name of Marshal He Long, and there was no possibility of falsification.
Although there is a slight discrepancy with the speculation about Chen Jusheng's identity, it finally proves the authenticity of the IOU, which makes Zhou Yanguang very happy, although the land in the landlord's family has been confiscated, this IOU is enough to prove that his father Zhou Lianchi is a truly patriotic person.
Although the Zhou family's family was very well-off at that time, 420 silver dollars was by no means a small amount for them, and being able to lend it to the Eighth Route Army was enough to explain the heart of Mr. Zhou Lianchi's fist.
Now everyone may not have any specific concept of the value and purchasing power of silver dollars at that time, so to speak, as the common currency of the Republic of China, compared with the rapid depreciation of the "gold yuan coupons" and "legal tenders" issued by the Kuomintang in the later period, the silver dollar is actually quite strong, and it is also a currency that the people at that time recognized.
You know, in that turbulent era of war, what is the most concerned about the people? One bite, of course. As the saying goes, the people take food as the sky, this sentence is even more reasonable in wartime, because of the war, people run, flee, become soldiers, fight wars, anyway, farming is less and less, grain is more and more expensive, in that era, grain is a proper hard currency, and the current grain price is not the same, but it was in this situation at that time, a silver dollar at that time can still buy dozens of pounds of rice, buy ten pounds of good pork.
At that time, as an apprentice in a restaurant, he could only get 8 silver dollars a year, and those warlord soldiers who carried their heads to beg for food on the battlefield, the monthly salary was only 5 silver dollars, which can be imagined to be precious, it is said that Mr. Lu Xun bought a courtyard in Beijing, what is the total cost? 3500 silver dollars! The courtyard of the Imperial City Root can be called an inch of land and gold, and the value does not need to be repeated, which also shows the strong purchasing power of the silver dollar at that time.
This is still in the big city of Beijing and Tianjin, in these places, the purchasing power of silver dollars is actually relatively low, in some backward areas, 3 or 4 silver dollars can buy a piece of land, equivalent to 3 acres, plus a few pieces can buy a cow, a family of three The most basic living security has it.
Therefore, it is conceivable that 420 silver dollars were definitely a "huge amount of money" at that time, not to mention those rice, pork, copper coins, etc. The time of the IOU was March 1945, when the War of Resistance Against Japan was not over, as an ordinary person, he could be in a precarious situation at any time, in this case, Mr. Zhou Lianchi was willing to lend these materials and money to the Eighth Route Army, and contributed to this war against aggression in his own way, which also showed his patriotism and high style.
After determining the authenticity of the IOU, the relevant departments immediately converted 420 silver dollars into RMB according to the calculated exchange rate. Fifty thousand dollars. Zhou Yanguang originally just wanted to prove the authenticity of the IOU, but he did not expect that after more than half a century, he actually received this "arrears", and the old man who was very touched even said: "The Eighth Route Army is about credit, about credit!" ”
Only when an army wins the support of the people can it win the final victory, which is the lesson summed up by history and the line that our army has always upheld, and this IOU from decades ago is like a shining medal, witnessing the feeling of the army and the people working together to overcome the difficulties of the times at the moment of the survival of that country.