On November 14, 1930, Yang Kaihui, the leader of the Chinese women's liberation movement and the wife of Chairman Mao, bravely took up his righteousness at the age of 29 in Changsha, Hunan Province. Yang Kaihui's sacrifice made the whole party deeply indignant and deplorable, and Chairman Mao said even more bitterly: "Kaihui's death will not be redeemed."
For a variety of reasons, Yang Kaihui's killer has not been brought to justice. Until one day 40 years later, a labor prisoner at a new farm in Hunan Province suddenly turned himself in to his superiors, saying that Yang Kaihui's death was not so simple.
Who is this prisoner of labor? What happened to Yang Kaihui in 1930?
In 1982, the Government of Changsha, Hunan Province, decided to renovate Yang Kaihui's former residence in Bancang. On March 6, when the construction crew repaired the bedroom wall, a gap in a mud brick on the back wall suddenly revealed a tightly sealed package of wax paper, which contained a thick pile of autographed manuscripts.
The more than 4,000-word manuscript contains Yang Kaihui's life self-description from the age of 6 to 28, and she occasionally feels the prose, but the most is the love letter she wrote to Mao Runzhi but failed to send.
"Even if you die, my tears will haunt your corpse."
"Your eyes, your mouth, your cheeks, your forehead, your head, you are my man, you belong to me!"
"I don't trust you!" As long as you are well, I belong to me and I are secondary, God bless you. ”
These words and sentences all show Yang Kaihui's infatuation with Mao Runzhi. Unfortunately, when these letters were hidden in the cracks in the wall for 52 years and finally reappeared, Chairman Mao had already passed away and could not see this full of affection with his own eyes.
Regarding the love story of Chairman Mao and Yang Kaihui, the earliest we must start from Yang Kaihui's father, Yang Changji.
Yang Changji was born in Bancangchong, Changsha, Hunan Province, and his family is a well-known local poetry and book family, and the ancestors have produced 3 Guozi supervisors and 1 teacher in four generations. Born in the wave of change in the late Qing Dynasty, Yang Changji was even more remarkable, he studied in Japan and Britain, and also made a special trip to Germany to investigate the Western education system in depth.
In 1913, Yang Changji returned from a study tour, and he refused the high-ranking position of director of the Department of Education and directly entered the Hunan Provincial Higher Normal School. In the following years, Yang Changji, as a "tree planter", cultivated, guided and even protected a large number of progressive young people in the new era.
It is reported that when Mao Runzhi, Cai Hesen, Xiao Zisheng and others founded the Xinmin Society in 1918, 20 of the 21 basic members in the initial period, except for Luo Zhanglong, were yang Changji's students.
Among hundreds of students, Yang Changji attaches the most importance to and prefers Mao Runzhi and Cai Hesen. In 1919, when Yang Changji was sick and knew that time was running out, he also wrote a special letter to Mr. Zhang Shizhao, hoping that he would carry and take more care of Mao and Cai, and spoke highly: "The second son, Hainei talent, has a great future, and if he does not say that saving the country is already over, saving the country must be the second son first." ”
As Yang Changji's proud disciple, Mao Runzhi had close contacts with Yang Changji. Behind the founding of the Xinmin Society, the part-time work in the Peking University Library, and the publication of "Research on Sports" in the "New Youth", many actions of young Mao Runzhi are inseparable from the strong support and help of Yang Changji.
During those years, Mao Runzhi often went to Yang Changji's home in Bancang to consult and discuss issues, and occasionally invited to stay. This is how Mao Runzhi and Yang Kaihui met.
Yang Kaihui, like Mao Runzhi, is also a progressive youth. Under the influence of her father, Yang Kaihui broke through the shackles of feudal etiquette and religion early on and became the leader of the movement for equality between men and women and women. She was the only student in Xiangfu Girls' School to cut her hair short, was one of the first 6 female students in Changsha to enter a boys' school, was one of the first members of the Communist Youth League in Hunan Province, and was also one of the earliest female party members of the Communist Party.
In that era, there were not many women like Yang Kaihui who were knowledgeable, progressive in thought, cheerful and generous. Adhering to the principle of "scarce things are precious", Yang Kaihui has undoubtedly become the ideal lover in the minds of many revolutionary youth in Hunan, and the suitors are one after another.
Only at that time, when Yang Kaihui's morale was high, she threw herself into the revolutionary cause and had no time to take care of her children's private feelings, so she did not respond to those pursuits. Even for The first few years of Mao Runzhi's acquaintance, Yang Kaihui also admired and admired him, and did not rise to the stage of admiration.
Chairman Mao and Yang Kaihui
It was not until the autumn of 1918, when Yang Kaihui, who followed his father to the north, reunited with Mao Runzhi, who had entered the Peking University library, in Beijing, that the relationship between the two changed qualitatively. Under the mediation of Yang Changji, Mao Runzhi and Yang Kaihui had a long-term relationship, and finally came together, and a simple wedding was held in the winter of 1920.
Today's newlyweds mostly pursue fairytale romantic weddings, grand scenes, beautiful wedding dresses, flowers and balloons, the same can not be less. However, Mao Runzhi and Yang Kaihui deliberately omitted all forms, no palanquins, no banquets, no worship of heaven and earth, no ceremonies such as entering the cave house. Mao Runzhi just personally cooked a table of dishes, and then took Yang Kaihui's hand and announced the combination of the two in front of relatives and friends.
Although from the current point of view, their wedding is simple and somewhat sloppy, this is what Yang Kaihui wants to "not be conventional". And compared with the huge and luxurious wedding, the revolutionary lover identity of Mao Runzhi and Yang Kaihui's free love is already the most touching and enviable romance of love in that era.
In July 1921, the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Shanghai, and Mao Runzhi was appointed secretary of the Xiang District Committee of the Communist Party of China, officially embarking on the road of leading the revolution. Yang Kaihui also followed in her husband's footsteps and joined the Communist Party, becoming the second female party member after Miao Boying.
From 1921 to 1927, from Changsha, Shanghai, Shaoshan to Guangzhou, Yang Kaihui accompanied Mao Runzhi. As a wife, Yang Kaihui takes care of her husband's life and living in great detail, and relieves him of worries. As a comrade-in-arms, Yang Kaihui actively organized the workers' and peasants' movement, founded night schools, collected and sorted out research materials, and did his best to assist Mao Runzhi's revolutionary work.
Although life is very hard and the revolution is very difficult, Mao Runzhi and Yang Kaihui have always maintained a positive and optimistic attitude. They accompanied each other, gave each other comfort and encouragement, and firmly believed that one day the dark clouds would clear and China would usher in the light. Unfortunately, Yang Kaihui could not wait for that day.
In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei launched counter-revolutionary coups in Shanghai and Wuhan, and the first Kuomintang-Communist cooperation broke down. The defeat of the Great Revolution and the victory of Jiang and Wang in seizing power by force deeply touched Mao Runzhi. He was acutely aware that no matter how united the workers and peasants were, no matter how long the strikes and strikes lasted, the mere and pure mass movement was vulnerable to gunfire.
It was against this background that Mao Runzhi first put forward the idea of "power out of the barrel of a gun," thus pushing the CCP into a new stage of armed struggle. After the general policy was established, Mao Runzhi immediately embarked on the road of leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising and the Jinggangshan Revolution.
As always, Yang Kaihui very much wants to walk side by side with her husband. However, Mao Anlong, Mao Anqing, and Mao Anying were still young and it was not appropriate to run and toil between the mountains, forests, and villages for a long time, and the revolutionary work in Hunan also needed someone to continue to lead. In desperation, Yang Kaihui could only return to his hometown Bancang with his three sons alone. She entrusted her children to her mother's care, and she organized and led an underground armed struggle in the Changsha area.
This sudden bad news made Mao Runzhi feel sad. He did not dare to imagine what kind of torture his wife had endured before the sacrifice, nor did he want to accept the reality that he learned of Yang Kaihui's death more than a month later. But before the great cause of the revolution, he had no time to indulge in sorrow and mourning, all he could do was to send some money to the Yang family, ask them to bury Yang Kaihui well, and build a tombstone for her.
Later, with the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, the military and the people of the whole country threw themselves into the struggle for national liberation. Because the revolutionary task at that time was too arduous and the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party were too complicated, our party failed to arrest Yang Kaihui's murderer in time.
No one expected that after 40 years, someone would suddenly stand up and turn himself in, saying that he was the executioner who killed Yang Kaihui.
One day in 1970, a labor reformer named Yao Chuzhong suddenly found a Red Army cadre on a new farm in Yueyang City, Hunan Province. He turned himself in and said that in 1930, when he was working as a spy in the Kuomintang, he personally killed a female comrade of our party, that person was Yang Kaihui. With Yao Chuzhong's confession, the truth of Yang Kaihui's sacrifice finally surfaced.
Stills from Mao Zedong Yang Kaihui's film and television drama
The successful establishment of the Jinggangshan revolutionary base area in that year made the Kuomintang feel a serious blow and threat. They regard Mao Runzhi as a thorn in their eye and a thorn in their flesh, and they are bound to arrest him and bring him to justice. In order to obtain Mao Runzhi's whereabouts and seize his handle and threaten, the Kuomintang began to hunt down Yang Kaihui and their three sons in Hunan.
With the help of his fellow villagers and comrades-in-arms, Yang Kaihui escaped from the tiger's mouth many times and fought with the enemy for 3 years. Unfortunately, under the Kuomintang's tactics of the sea of people and frenzied casting nets, Yang Kaihui was finally arrested by the enemy at his home in Itakura on October 24, 1930, and Mao Anying, who was only 8 years old, was also imprisoned.
In the next 20 days, the Kuomintang brutally tortured Yang Kaihui. They abused lynching, beating Yang Kaihui to a coma with a leather whip and a stick, then pouring cold water on her, threatening and inducing her while she was unconscious, trying to dig out mao Zedong's specific location and the list of underground CCP members from her mouth. Such a scene is repeated every day.
Of course, the results are known to everyone. No matter how severely the enemy tortured him, Yang Kaihui was unyielding, and the three words in his mouth were always "I don't know." During this period, the Kuomintang also tried to seduce Yang Kaihui, saying that as long as she unilaterally severed her conjugal relationship with Mao Runzhi, he would let her go. For this ridiculous request, Yang Kaihui naturally refused without hesitation. She stared at the enemy sarcastically and said firmly, "I want to disassociate myself from Mao Runzhi, unless the sea is dry and rotten."
After 20 days of torture, the Kuomintang realized that it would be difficult to rebel against Yang Kaihui. Annoyed and angry, the Kuomintang finally issued an execution order.
On November 14, 1930, Yang Kaihui was taken to the Literacy Ridge Execution Ground outside the Liuyang Gate in Changsha. With a gunshot, Yang Kaihui, who was only 29 years old, collapsed in a pool of blood.
Then, the shockingly painful inside story appeared. The shot at the time of the execution did not hit Yang Kaihui's key point, and she still maintained a sober consciousness after falling to the ground. A soldier at the execution site discovered Yang Kaihui's situation and reported it to Yao Chuzhong. After receiving the news, Yao Chuzhong did not hesitate to return to the execution site and shot Yang Kaihui, who was scarred and struggling in pain. It was this shot that ended Yang Kaihui's young and fresh life.
The killing of Yang Kaihui with a gun was buried in Yao Chu's loyal heart for 40 years. Not knowing whether it was finally a conscience discovery, complete repentance, or unbearable the torture of worrying about the truth being exposed day after day, Yao Chuzhong finally chose to take the initiative to tell the truth and accept punishment.
In July 1974, Yao Chuzhong was sentenced to death for counterrevolutionary homicide. Although this apology and confession came too late, it must have brought some comfort to Yang Kaihui's family.
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