Figure 丨 In his later years, Lu Muzhen
preface
"Arco, take a pen and ask for a new one!" After Lu Muzhen read Sun Yat-sen's letter to himself requesting a divorce, he resolutely wrote a word on the letter.
For a long time, Soong Ching Ling was well known as Sun Yat-sen's closest comrade-in-arms and companion, but before Sun Yat-sen was 50 years old, Lu Muzhen, who lived with him for more than 30 years, was little known.
In the more than 30 years of marriage to Sun Yat-sen, Lu Muzhen silently supported Sun Yat-sen's cause and supported Sun Yat-sen's family behind her back, and it can be said that she is an indispensable and important figure on the road of Sun Yat-sen's revolution.
Parents' orders are hard to disobey
Sun Yat-sen's life was inextricably linked to his brother Sun Mei, and the union between Sun Yat-sen and Lu Muzhen was also facilitated by Sun Mei's direct concern. In 1883, Sun Mei sent Sun Yat-sen to Honolulu to study, and Sun Yat-sen at that time was dissatisfied with the constraints of the school's feudal etiquette and religion, and often caused trouble, so Sun Mei had no choice but to let his brother return to his hometown to receive Chinese studies education.
Picture 丨 Young Sun Yat-sen
Unexpectedly, after returning to his hometown, although Sun Yat-sen was guarded by his parents, he still maintained his "restless" personality, deliberately pushing down the idols in the temples at the head of the village, and in the face of the accusations of the villagers, Sun Yat-sen's parents promised to repair the idols and send Sun Yat-sen to Hong Kong to avoid the wind.
Deeply influenced by Western culture while studying in Hong Kong, Sun Yat-sen soon joined Christianity and became the starting point of his great life during his studies. Sun Mei saw that his brother was difficult to discipline, and he thought about deciding to use marriage as a bond for Sun Yat-sen, he returned a sum of money to the family, part of which was for his brother to study, and hoped that his brother could get married as soon as possible to avoid causing a bigger incident.
Their parents quickly accepted Sun Mei's suggestion, and under the introduction of a sister of Sun Yat-sen's mother, Lu Muzhen walked into Sun Yat-sen's home for the first time. Lu Muzhen's ancestors went to the family to be well-off, but due to the early death of his father, the family's situation gradually declined. Although the two families were not far apart, Sun Yat-sen was far away in Hong Kong at that time and had no chance to meet at all.
Figure 丨 Lu Muzhen old photo
For Sun Yat-sen at that time, he was initially reluctant to marry, and he was deeply influenced by Western liberal ideas, which was very different from the traditional ideas of his parents on the issue of marriage.
However, Sun Yat-sen has always respected his parents and has not regarded traditional Chinese marriage as important as the anti-Qing revolution, so Sun Yat-sen did not disobey the orders of his parents and eldest brother on the issue of marriage.
Although Lu Muzhen looks ordinary, she is virtuous and kind, diligent in her work, and coupled with the acquaintance of her father and Sun Mei, she can naturally be called a door-to-door pair. On May 7, 1884, Lu Muzhen and Sun Yat-sen married in a newly built bungalow next to Sun Yat-sen's old residence, when Sun Yat-sen's family was rich, so the wedding was quite annoying, which left a deep impression on the people who came to Daoxi.
After marriage, Sun Yat-sen did not take marriage as his bondage, he was on the orders of his parents, and naturally did not have much affection for Lu Muzhen. Sun Yat-sen soon returned to Hong Kong to continue his studies after marriage, and only returned to his hometown to reunite with Lu Muzhen during the holidays. Sun Yat-sen received a good Western education abroad and always treated Lu Muzhen with respect.
Pictured by Sun Yat-sen and his original wife Lu Muzhen
As they spent more and more time together, Sun Yat-sen also learned more about Lu Muzhen, was touched by what she did in this family, and gradually became respectful of her.
In the years after his marriage, every time Sun Yat-sen returned home, Lu Muzhen would sew him a new set of clothes and shoes and socks, and even most of the clothes on his mother-in-law were also from Lu Muzhen's hands.
Once, when Sun Yat-sen returned to his hometown, it coincided with a Christian priest who went to the village to preach, and Sun Yat-sen, as a Christian, took the pastor to live in his home. Sun Yat-sen's parents and eldest brother had always opposed Sun Yat-sen's Christianity and were therefore even more dissatisfied with Sun Yat-sen's act of taking the priest to live in his home.
Although Lu Muzhen did not read much and did not understand Christianity, she knew that her husband Sun Yat-sen believed in Christianity, and as early as when they were married, there were pastors who were familiar with Sun Yat-sen who came to congratulate her, and Lu Muzhen saw that her in-laws were dissatisfied with Sun Yat-sen's behavior, but considering that the pastor was a guest invited by Sun Yat-sen, she tried her best to persuade her in-laws to warmly entertain the pastor. When the pastor left, he praised Lu Muzhen's courtesy.
Picture 丨 Sun Yat-sen and his family in 1912
In the spring of 1888, Sun Yat-sen's father was seriously ill, and when Sun Yat-sen returned to his hometown to visit his father, he saw Lu Muzhen walking in front of his father's hospital bed and personally serving his father's life, which greatly touched Sun Yat-sen. After a long period of contact and understanding, Sun Yat-sen and Lu Muzhen gradually had feelings, and their relationship became increasingly harmonious.
Gather less and leave more without complaint
Seven years after Sun Yat-sen and Lu Muzhen were married, son Sun Ke was born, and the following year Sun Yat-sen graduated from school with honors and opened a Chinese and Western pharmacy in Macau, so Lu Muzhen took the child to live with Sun Yat-sen and soon moved to Hong Kong. Sun Yat-sen's eldest daughter, Sun Yat-sen, was born in 1894, and this period of time became the most stable period of her life as Sun Yat-sen's income increased.
In 1945, Lu Muzhen boarded a U.S. warship
Although Lu Muzhen was not highly educated and did not understand the anti-Qing revolutionary cause that Sun Yat-sen was engaged in, she never obstructed Sun Yat-sen from carrying out the revolution.
As a traditional Chinese woman, Lu Muzhen supported her husband's cause in another way, taking all the affairs of the family and taking risks for Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary activities, so that Sun Yat-sen had no worries about his family and devoted all his energy to the revolutionary cause.
In 1895, Sun Yat-sen planned an armed uprising in Guangzhou, which was suppressed by the Qing government before it was officially launched, and the anti-Qing righteous soldiers who planned the uprising were arrested and generously righteous, and Sun Yat-sen went into exile in Japan, and for the next 16 years, Sun Yat-sen has been fighting hard for the anti-Qing revolution overseas.
After the failure of the Guangzhou uprising, the Qing government began to frantically arrest revolutionaries, and although Sun Yat-sen had gone into exile, his family was also implicated. At that time, the scribes of the Qing government mistakenly wrote Sun Yat-sen's hometown cuiheng village as cuiwei village, and when the officers and soldiers of the qing government rushed to cuiwei village to arrest people, they found that they had made a mistake, and when they returned to cuiheng village, Lu Muzhen had already fled with her children and mother-in-law.
Tu 丨 Lu Muzhen and grandson photo
Just as they were worried about where they were fleeing, a member of the Xingzhong Association returned to his hometown to get married, and after hearing about what happened to Sun Yat-sen's family, helped them first go to Hong Kong, and then take a boat to Honolulu to join Sun Mei, who was doing business there. At the end of the same year, Sun Yat-sen came to Honolulu alone to reunite with his family here, and although Lu Muzhen lived a tortuous life because of Sun Yat-sen, he never complained.
After living with his family for half a year, Sun Yat-sen was unable to stay in Honolulu for a long time due to work reasons, and after saying goodbye to his family, he went to Europe to carry out revolutionary propaganda.
In October 1896, Sun Yat-sen was imprisoned in London by the Qing government's envoys to Britain, and a month later Sun Yat-sen was released to spend his thirtieth birthday in London. On this day, Sun Yat-sen's second daughter, Sun Wan, was born, and when Lu Muzhen heard about Sun Yat-sen's encounter in London during childbirth, she almost died with her body.
In her 12 years in Honolulu, Lu Muzhen was only reunited with Sun Yat-sen three times, adding up to no more than a year and a half. In 1906, Sun Mei had no choice but to move to Hong Kong because of his support for Sun Yat-sen's revolution, and Lu Muzhen took his children and mother-in-law and followed Sun Mei to Hong Kong to live.
Pictured by Sun Wan's family and their mother Lu Muzhen
After arriving in Hong Kong, her life was very different from that in Honolulu, but Lo Muzhen still took good care of her mother-in-law and two children. Sun Yat-sen's mother died within a few years of arriving in Hong Kong, and the impoverished Sun Mei had no money to bury her mother, but fortunately, she later received donations from revolutionaries and members of the League, so that Sun Yat-sen's mother was buried.
When Sun Yat-sen's mother died, Sun Yat-sen was preparing to go to Nanyang to plan the second Guangzhou Uprising and raise funds for the revolution. The death of her mother-in-law left Lu Muzhen without family concerns, so she immediately took her two daughters to Sun Yat-sen. Not long after the family reunited, Sun Yat-sen was expelled for reasons of the Qing government, and had to bid farewell to his wife and daughter and go to Europe and the United States again to raise funds. Lu Muzhen's mother and daughter's life was once again lost, and they could only raise funds from local overseas Chinese to raise 100 yuan per month for them.
After the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, Sun Yat-sen, who was raising funds in the United States, saw the news that Wuchang was occupied by the revolutionary army, and immediately decided to stop the plan to continue to give speeches and raise funds, and returned to China to personally lead the Xinhai Revolution. After two months, Sun Yat-sen came to Nanyang, and after a brief three-day reunion with his family, he set off for Shanghai again.
Lu Muzhen and his son Sun Ke took a photo in front of the office of the Presidential Palace
On January 1, 1912, Sun Yat-sen inaugurated the provisional president in Nanjing, and called Deng Zeru, a revolutionary in Nanyang, asking him to return to Nanjing to discuss state affairs, hoping that he would return to China with his family. After Deng Zeru received the telegram, he called the next day to inquire about Lu Muzhen's return date, but due to the problem of travel funds, Lu Muzhen did not set a downward date, and Deng Zeru immediately raised a thousand yuan to transfer to Lu Muzhen.
Lu Muzhen took good care of Sun Yat-sen's life in Nanjing, never showing her face, and it was difficult for people to see her dignity, so that she was often confused with Chen Pufen, another revolutionary partner of Sun Yat-sen. Although the couple had been reunited, the Provisional Government had just been born, and Sun Yat-sen spent most of his time in his office, having no time to talk to his wife about his personal affairs.
Three months later, Sun Yat-sen resigned as interim president and returned to his hometown with his family to reunite with his relatives, and after only three days of stay, Sun Yat-sen bid farewell to his eldest brother and sister-in-law and took his wife and daughter to investigate various places. In order to win over Sun Yat-sen, Yuan Shikai specially asked him to plan a national railway, and Sun Yat-sen then went to Japan to investigate the cause, and Lu Muzhen also took his daughter to Japan a month later.
Photo of Sun Yat-sen and Lu Muzhen, his children, and Song Xialing in Shanghai
During his inspection in Japan, Song Jiaoren, acting chairman of the Kuomintang, was assassinated by Yuan Shikai's dispatches for opposing Yuan Shikai's dictatorship, and Sun Yat-sen immediately terminated his investigation in Japan and returned to China to carry out anti-Yuan struggles. After the failure of the "Second Revolution" against Yuan, Sun Yat-sen was forced into exile in Japan again, while Lu Muzhen went to Macau to defect to Sun Mei.
"I'm sorry for your mother!"
At that time, Sun Yat-sen's eldest daughter, Sun Yat-sen, studied in the United States, and just when Sun Yat-sen went into exile in Japan again, the 20-year-old Sun Yan was unable to cure his kidney disease for a long time and returned to Macao to continue treatment under the care of her mother. Not long after sun came to Macau, sun Yat-sen made a special trip to macau to visit his daughter. On the same day that Sun Yat-sen left Macau, Sun Yan passed away.
The grief of Lu Muzhen's loss of her daughter has not yet been eliminated, and Sun Yat-sen has made a request for divorce to her, which has once again dealt her an unprecedented blow. After Sun Yat-sen's secretary, Soong Ailing, married, he arranged for Soong Ching-ling to continue to serve as Sun Yat-sen's English secretary, and the common revolutionary ideals gradually developed their feelings from friendship to love.
Pictured by Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching-ling
Sun Yat-sen has always advocated equality between men and women, explicitly opposed the feudal society of concubinage, and coupled with the fact that Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching-ling are both Christians and practice monogamy, Sun Yat-sen must divorce Lu Muzhen if he wants to marry Soong Ching-ling. Out of reverence for his eldest brother Sun Mei, Sun Yat-sen did not file for divorce during his lifetime, and later he wrote a sincere long letter asking Lu Muzhen to agree to the divorce, and sent his son Sun Ke to bring the letter home and personally hand it over to Lu Muzhen.
At that time, Sun Ke was very scared in his heart, and accompanied by Zheng Zhuo, Sun Yat-sen's bodyguard, he handed Sun Yat-sen's letter to his mother. Lu Muzhen already knew their intentions, and she had already seen the news in the newspaper. After reading Sun Yat-sen's letter, Lu Muzhen inquired about some of Soong Ching-ling's situation and said to his son Sun Ke without hesitation:
"Arco, take a pen and ask for a new one!"
Then he resolutely wrote a "can" on the letter and agreed to divorce Sun Yat-sen. At that time, Lu Muzhen also said to Zheng Zhuo,
I don't know enough and I don't know English, so how can I help my husband?
Sun Ke and Zheng Zhuo were greatly relieved after listening to it, and prepared to stay for a few days and then go back, who knew that Lu Muzhen would not let them delay at home, and let them go back to their lives immediately.
Pictured after Sun Yat-sen's death, Lu Muzhen and his children took a group photo in Macau
In front of his son and the guards, Lu Muzhen was very open-minded,
In fact, after Lu Muzhen and Sun Yat-sen divorced, he once locked himself in his room without eating or drinking for several days. In the early years, she had persuaded Sun Yat-sen to take a concubine, hoping that he could find a sage in the revolutionary cause, but she never thought that Sun Yat-sen would abandon himself because of this.
On September 1, 1915, Lu Muzhen went to Japan at the invitation of Sun Yat-sen to discuss divorce, and many revolutionaries around Sun Yat-sen at that time opposed his marriage to Soong Ching-ling, and repeatedly failed to persuade him. Sun Yat-sen knew that the most critical reason for this matter was still with Lu Muzhen, so he and Lu Muzhen had a long secret conversation in the room, and after coming out, Lu Muzhen said in front of everyone:
"Mr. Sun traveled overseas for the revolution, I wandered everywhere, physically and mentally exhausted, unwilling to live a stressful life anymore, hoping to live in peace in my hometown. Since there are already people to take care of the life around him and to help his political activities, I am willing to do everything and agree to divorce Mr. Sun. ”
Although Lu Muzhen has said so, it is still difficult to convince the public, many people still can't figure it out, and they are upset about Lu Muzhen, and only a very small number of people support Sun Yat-sen's idea. Later, on the day of the wedding of Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching-ling, only Liao Zhongkai's family attended the wedding of revolutionary comrades.
Pictured sun Yat-sen's letter to Lu Muzhen
Sun Yat-sen and Lu Muzhen's divorce was very guilty of the harm lu Muzhen had suffered, and he once proposed three conditions to Lu Muzhen:
1. She will always be a member of the Sun family; 2. Sun Ke will always be her son; 3. Convert to Christianity after returning to her hometown.
Each of these three conditions later became a fact, and Sun Yat-sen's arrangement for Lu Muzhen to settle in Macau and live in Sun's mansion was the best embodiment of seeing her as an eternal member of Sun's family.
Except for the occasional return to Cui Heng Village, Lo Mu Zhen lived at the Macau Sun Mansion after her divorce until her death for nearly 40 years. From the divorce until sun Yat-sen's death, Sun Yat-sen has always been concerned about Lu Muzhen's physical condition of life, often sending money to Lu Muzhen as her living expenses.
After the establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy, Lu Muzhen sent her adopted daughter to the revolutionary ranks, and later more than a dozen young people in her adopted son-in-law's hometown also asked to apply for the Whampoa Military Academy.
Tu 丨 Lu Muzhen took a group photo with his family on his 80th birthday in Cuiheng Village
On March 12, 1925, Sun Yat-sen died of illness at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, and before dying, he said to his son Sun Ke: "
I'm sorry for your mother!
"Lu Muzhen was deeply saddened to hear the bad news of Sun Yat-sen's death, and specially asked someone to ghostwrite and publish a memorial article praising Sun Yat-sen for having"
Great spirit, great personality.
”
Since Sun Yat-sen's death, Lu Muzhen has been looking for ways to protect the cultural relics of Sun Yat-sen's former residence in Cuiheng Village, and in 1936, Zhong Rongguang, president of Lingnan University, was ordered to collect Sun Yat-sen's relics, and Lu Muzhen believed that this was a propaganda and commemoration of Sun Yat-sen, so he gave some of Sun Yat-sen's relics.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, on the eve of the fall of Zhongshan County, Lu Muzhen, who was far away in Macau, worried about the accident in Sun Yat-sen's former residence, sent people to transfer all the things that could be moved away in the former residence to the Sun Mansion in Macao, knowing the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, these cultural relics were re-transported back to Sun Yat-sen's former residence. On the occasion of Lu Muzhen's 80th birthday in 1947, he specially led his children back to Cuiheng Village, feasted on the whole village at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, and lived there for a week.
Figure 丨 Macao Lo Mu Zhen Tomb
On September 7, 1952, Lu Muzhen died of illness in Macau at the age of 86, because she followed the advice of Sun Yat-sen and converted to Christianity during her lifetime, so the Macau Baptist Church held a solemn funeral for her according to The Christian ceremony, and the three children jointly erected a monument to commemorate her. At that time, Sun Ke was far away from overseas, and he did not have time to return to Macau to see his mother for the last time.