Text/Xu Yongchao
Time is like a white colt passing through the gap, and countless people and things are lost in the long river of history. Looking back at the Republic of China, there was a prominent family active at that time, and several sisters were either rich or noble, which was the Song family. Especially the three sisters of the Song family, they are well-deserved "three golden flowers".
Compared with Song Qingling, who cares about the people and dedicates everything to the country, Song Meiling, who calls the wind and rain and dances with long sleeves, the eldest sister Song Xiaoling is not well-known, because she is accustomed to plotting everything behind the scenes. She is deeply baptized by Western culture and is familiar with The Chinese style of human sophistication. After her death, the New York Times commented: "This is one of the richest women in the world who has amassed wealth by her own shrewd means, a matchmaker who introduced Soong Mei-ling and Chiang Kai-shek to marriage, and the creator of the song family myth."
Song Xialing spent a happy childhood, and the family lived in a villa on the outskirts of Shanghai. When she was 10 years old, her father Song Yao also deliberately ordered a bicycle from the United States for her. Mother Ni Guizhen wants her daughter to learn female red, Song Xialing is unwilling to follow the rules, does not want to learn to do needlework, and begs her father to let her study in the church girls' school. This year, she was only five years old.
Fast forward ten years, Song Xialing is already a big girl, and her father hopes that his daughter will study in the United States. Under his preparation, Song Xialing embarked on the road to study in the United States. When the cruise ship arrived in San Francisco, immigration officials did not allow her to enter the country and threatened to send her to the detention center, Song Xialing had no fear, tried her best to defend, and after several maneuvers, she was finally able to set foot on American soil. This experience made her unforgettable, and when she returned to See President Roosevelt, she asked him: "How can the United States, which is known as a democracy, be so rejected?" "President Roosevelt had to apologize to the little girl. This incident has triggered a heated discussion in the American media.
Song attended Wesleyan Women's College. She excelled not only academically, but also in acting and music. Shortly after returning from studying in the United States, she joined the League and later became Sun Yat-sen's secretary. With the help of her father, she met Kong Xiangxi. At the dinner party that day, Kong Xiangxi talked about his family's history and how he had rescued the arrested missionaries. Song Xialing was fascinated by it for a moment. In her opinion, the man in front of her has both business acumen and revolutionary feelings, and is still a Christian, an ideal husband. After a period of dating, the two decided to get married. So in April 1914, they married in a small church in Yokohama, Japan, under the witness of relatives, friends and God. After marriage, she not only bore four children for Kong Xiangxi, becoming the only one of the three sisters of the Song family to be a mother, but also used her shrewd mind to seek benefits for the family. Among them, her most important plan was to urge her little sister Song Meiling to come together with Chiang Kai-shek.
In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek, as the commander-in-chief of the Northern Expeditionary Army, proposed marriage to the Song family, hoping that Miss San would marry him. At that time, except for Song Xialing, no one agreed to this marriage. To this end, Song Xialing and Chiang Kai-shek decided to break each other. She invited Tan Yanmin, a Kuomintang elder, to persuade her brother Song Ziwen and asked Chiang Kai-shek to promise him to be finance minister. Tempted by the high-ranking official, Song Ziwen changed his opinion and said that he could persuade his mother to agree to the family affair. On the other hand, she asked Chiang Kai-shek to sever relations with his ex-wife and lover. Under the mediation of the super red lady Song Xialing, on December 1, 1927, the two families of Jiang and Song were officially married. Since then, the four major families have stepped onto the stage of history.
After the start of the all-out War of Resistance, the three sisters of the Song clan worked together for the War of Resistance. At that time, countless children were displaced, in order to take in the children who were in distress, Song Xialing and her husband Kong Xiangxi founded the National Children's Welfare Association, and in 1940, the three sisters gathered in Hong Kong, they jointly attended the dinner, and the whole of Hong Kong was shaken. After that, they went to Chongqing and ran for the anti-Japanese resistance in many ways. On April 3, they went to Leshan and visited five hundred children there. This group of lively children made Song Xialing feel a lot of emotions, and she thought that this was the most meaningful thing she had ever done.
In the fall of 1947, the couple settled in the United States. In the years that followed, they were no longer involved in politics. In 1967, Kong Xiangxi died, song Meiling went to mourn, she hoped that her eldest sister could go to Taiwan with her, but Song Xiaoling refused. Five years later, Song Died of Illness at the age of 84.