In November 1940, a 65-year-old man named Yang Zhende silently left this world in Chongqing, when he was in the stalemate stage of the War of Resistance Against Japan, in the war-torn era, the death of an old man seemed to be a very common thing, but the death of yang Zhende's old man caused a lot of attention.
"Xinhua Daily" published a notice of the old man's death, "Xinhua Daily" general manager Xiong Jinyue personally wrote a memorial for the old man, Ye Jianying, Qian Zhiguang, Wu Kejian and more than a hundred other people from the Eighth Route Army's Chongqing office came to attend the funeral. Everyone deeply misses Yang Zhende, not only because she is Deng Yingchao's mother and Zhou Enlai's mother-in-law, but also because she is a doctor who hangs in the world and an admirable revolutionary comrade.
Deng Yingchao recalled her mother: "Although my mother is an ordinary woman, she has the courage to resist feudal customs, the spirit of pursuing progress, the character of self-esteem and self-improvement, she has played a vital role in my education and influence, without her there would be no me."
Deng Yingchao's statement that there is no mother without herself refers not only to her mother's pregnancy of her life, but also to her mother's spiritual shaping of her.
When every child is born, it is like a spotless white paper, there is no good or bad, there is no good or evil thoughts, whether this young sapling can grow into a big tree alone in the face of wind and rain in the future, depends on the parents' upbringing, when the child can recognize the changes in people's facial expressions and understand the difference between human joy and anger, this kind of upbringing has been non-existent all the time.
The so-called teaching by word and deed, Yang Zhende taught Deng Yingchao many things with his actual words and deeds, Yang Zhende is not only a kind mother for Deng Yingchao, but also a life model to learn from childhood, Deng Yingchao is physically inherited from his mother, and the quality of spiritual independence and self-improvement is the same as that of his mother.
1
Born in August 1876 in Changsha, Hunan Province, Yang Zhende was born in the late Qing Dynasty, when the country was plagued by disasters and the people, and lived in an era of frequent wars and chaos all her life, losing her parents at the age of fourteen and losing her husband at thirty-five. There is no quiet years, no peace and smoothness, hardships, ups and downs, twists and turns, these words are the key words in her life, in the face of such a fateful life, Yang Zhende, as a woman, not only did not fear, did not shrink back, but with the spirit of non-stop enterprising, constant resistance, relying on the practice of medicine and teaching skills in the society to stand on the ground, the daughter was cultivated into a material.
In Yang Zhende's life, the most stable should be childhood, her grandfather is a businessman with a good career, her father's thinking is also very enlightened, three daughters died two, Yang Zhende became the only daughter of the family "set thousands of pets in one". The father did not value sons over daughters at all, regarded Yang Zhende as a pearl in the palm of his hand, did not let his daughter wrap his feet, and did not set an arranged marriage for her as early as other parents, but personally taught her to read and read, so that his daughter learned a skill of surviving on her own, Yang Zhende developed the habit of relying on herself from an early age.
It can be seen that from the beginning of Yang Zhende's father, independence and freedom and liberation have become a tradition of educating children in the Yang family, Yang Zhende's father educated her in this way, and she later educated her daughter Deng Yingchao. It is this kind of family education that makes Yang Zhende have a strong heart, and when she does not have the protection of her parents, she can also face the storm of life alone.
Yang Zhende's grandfather died prematurely because he ate the wrong Chinese medicine, which is an unforgettable pain for the entire Yang family, in order not to let the family experience such misfortunes, his parents let Yang Zhende start to learn Chinese medicine from an early age, and the clever Yang Zhende has a strong learning ability, and he has learned at a young age. It was just that life was uncertain, yang Zhende followed her parents to Guangxi to settle down, her parents successively suffered from incurable diseases and left her, at that time, Yang Zhende, only fourteen years old.
Suddenly from the darling held by her parents in the palm of her hand to a helpless orphan girl, yang Zhende at that time how helpless and sad can not imagine, but she did not collapse, while relying on her hands to support herself, while continuing to devote herself to the study of medicine, and gradually became a well-known local doctor.
At the age of 25, Yang Zhende married Deng Tingzhong, a Guangxi military attaché who was 14 years older than himself, Deng Tingzhong was born in Guangshan County, Henan Province, learned martial arts from an early age, was best at martial arts such as knives and sticks, and during the Guangxu years, he was a wujinshi, named Wu Hanlin, served as the guangxu imperial bodyguard, and then went to Guangxi to serve as a senior military officer of the Nanning Zhentai, and was a senior military officer of the Green Battalion.
Deng Tingzhong had married a wife before, but unfortunately died early, and his three sons also died prematurely, Yang Zhende married Deng Tingzhong to fill in the house, and one article and one martial art can also be regarded as a match made in heaven. With Deng Tingzhong's official rank and social status at that time, he was fully capable of providing Yang Zhende with a rich wife life without worries about food and clothing, but Yang Zhende was accustomed to self-reliance, and she did not want to rely on her husband's power to enjoy a good life, but continued to practice medicine to save people.
Deng Tingzhong, a military attaché by birth, wanted Yang Zhende to have a son for himself, and Yang Zhende's first child after marriage was indeed a boy, but he died shortly after birth. On the nineteenth day of the nineteenth month of 1904, Yang Zhende gave birth to their second child, Deng Tingzhong saw that it was a daughter, he was disappointed, he wanted to give his daughter away at that time, Yang Zhende forced her husband to put down this idea with death, she ran into the kitchen with a kitchen knife and said to her husband: "You want to send your daughter away, unless you kill me first." ”
Unlike her husband, Yang Zhende cherished this daughter very much, and she gave the child a milk name called Yu Ai, the scientific name Wen Shu, and Wen Shu changed her name to "Ying Chao" when she grew up. When her daughter began to learn to speak, Yang Zhende personally taught her to read, just like her father taught herself, she also wanted to train her daughter to be an independent woman who could survive in the chaotic world on her own.
When people around her told Yang Zhende that she would be like many people at that time, she would tie her daughter Deng Yingchao's feet, otherwise she would not be able to marry out in the future, Yang Zhende resolutely refused, she said: "I just don't want my daughter to marry such an old-fashioned figure, I will not give my daughter an arranged marriage, and her marriage will be decided by herself in the future." ”
Being too strong is often easy to break, and Deng Tingzhong's irritable personality eventually hurt him. When Deng Yingchao was 3 years old, Deng Tingzhong resigned from the government on the grounds that he wanted to return to his hometown in Henan to visit the grave, because he was too sharp and not tolerated by his superiors, and ran to his relatives in Yunnan to find another messenger. The boss seized this opportunity to retaliate and accused Deng Tingzhong of committing the crime of deception, so Deng Tingzhong was exiled to Xinjiang, and in 1911, the 50-year-old Deng Tingzhong suddenly fell ill and died in Xinjiang, leaving behind his wife and 7-year-old daughter.
The unfortunate life of the young bereaved father and the middle-aged widow was met by Yang Zhende, and once again suffered the blow of losing his family, Yang Zhende was heartbroken, but looking at the young daughter in front of him, Yang Zhende picked up the tears that would only make people feel weak, and took his daughter around practicing medicine for a living, when the doctor earned not enough money for the living expenses of the mother and daughter, she relied on cultural knowledge to go to other people's homes as a tutor, after leaving Guangxi, they went to Guangzhou, Shanghai and other cities, It was not until Yang Zhende became a doctor at the Changlu Nursery in Tianjin that he temporarily settled down.
At that time, the democratic revolutionary Chen Yilong founded a civilian school in Beijing, which specially accepted students from poor families to enroll in school, without charging any tuition and miscellaneous fees, Yang Zhende was recruited to be a teacher in a civilian primary school, and 9-year-old Deng Yingchao studied here with his mother.
In that period of turbulent displacement, no matter how difficult life was, Yang Zhende always had self-respect and self-improvement spirit, which deeply affected Deng Yingchao in childhood, although life was hard, but Deng Yingchao studied as diligently as his mother since he was a child, he was strong and self-motivated, and his academic performance was very good.
In 1913, because of supporting Sun Yat-sen's crusade against Yuan Shikai and cooperating with the uprising in Beijing, Chen Yilong was arrested by Yuan Shikai, and the school was also sealed, Yang Zhende actively contacted colleagues to rescue the principal and restore the school, and finally Chen Yilong was brutally killed, and Yang Zhende organized everyone to collect the body of the principal.
In 1915, 13-year-old Deng Yingchao falsely reported that he was admitted to the First Girls' Normal School in Tianjin at the age of 2, Deng Yingchao was worried about the country and the people, his speech was outstanding, and he served as the president of the student union in the school, although he was only 15 years old, he was called "the old senior" by his classmates. During the May Fourth Movement in 1919, Deng Yingchao, together with Zhou Enlai, Guo Longzhen and others, led the student movement in Tianjin.
After graduation, Deng Yingchao taught at The Affiliated Elementary School of Beiping Normal University and Tianjin Daren Girls' School. At this step, her mother's goal of cultivating Deng Yingchao to support herself by relying on her skills has actually been achieved, but after the baptism of the "May Fourth Movement", Deng Yingchao's ideal has long been unable to stop at the pursuit of personal stability in the world, but to seek happiness for thousands of suffering people in the world.
2
When her daughter Deng Yingchao embarked on the road full of thorns in the revolution, Yang Zhende, as a mother, not only expressed absolute support and understanding, but also silently encouraged and supported her daughter in her own way behind her daughter.
Although Deng Yingchao was a primary school teacher, but she was busy with revolutionary work all day and could not support her family at all, Yang Zhende continued to practice medicine, teach, maintain the life of mother and daughter, and follow her daughter around without complaint, because her daughter's ideal is also Yang Zhende's ideal.
In 1925, Deng Yingchao joined the Communist Party and was later transferred to Guangdong as a women's minister, and in August of the same year, Deng Yingchao and Zhou Enlai married in Guangzhou, and since then they have walked together for more than 50 years of unswerving struggle.
Deng Yingchao has always been very fond of children, and once said enviously to Zhao Wei, the secretary of his children' double quan, "one son, one daughter and one flower", and Deng Yingchao, who cares for children with strong maternal love, is affectionately called "Deng Mother". In fact, Deng Yingchao also had the opportunity to be a mother, but in the years of suffering, Deng Yingchao's two children unfortunately died.
Deng Yingchao's first pregnancy was shortly after marriage in 1925, when Zhou Enlai and his mother Yang Zhende were not around, Deng Yingchao was too young, felt that the work was too busy and had no time to take the child, he bought the fetal medicine without authorization, Yang Zhende heard the news after he arrived in Guangzhou, and he was distressed and angry, blaming his daughter for not knowing how to cherish the body, such a big thing is not the same as discussing it, fortunately Yang Zhende understands Chinese medicine, helps his daughter to maintain his body, Deng Yingchao slowly recovered his health.
In 1927, Deng Yingchao was in labor again, Zhou Enlai was transferred to Shanghai to work, Yang Zhende deliberately rushed back from school to take care of his daughter, because the fetus was too large to cause difficult childbirth, three days and three nights did not give birth, there was no condition for caesarean section at that time, the doctor and Yang Zhende discussed using forceps to clip the child out, but the child still died of head injury.
At that time, it was the time of the "April 12" counter-revolution, Chiang Kai-shek was in Guangzhou to hunt down communists on a large scale, Deng Yingchao's residence was confiscated, the mother and daughter duo were lucky to escape the disaster in the hospital, under the cover of doctors, Deng Yingchao did not have time to rest for a moment, and left Guangzhou with his mother, all the way to Shanghai.
In order to find Zhou Enlai, Yang Zhende posted a statement in the newspaper: "Wu Hao, you and your wife have not seen each other for a long time, and now I am taking her to Shanghai to find you, and I hope that you will hurry to the hotel to meet us." Wu Hao is the former name of Zhou Enlai.
After Reading the news in the newspaper, Zhou Enlai was very anxious, because the hotel where Deng Yingchao was staying was very unsafe, and quickly sent someone to pick up the mother and daughter. Because she did not get a good rest after childbirth, Deng Yingchao's uterus did not contract well, the doctor said after examination that it was difficult for her to get pregnant again, she regrettably lost the opportunity to be a mother forever, although Zhou Enlai was also very sad, but his love for Deng Yingchao was never reduced in the slightest.
After the "April 12" coup d'état, Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao carried out underground party work in Shanghai, Yang Zhende used his identity as a doctor to cover his daughter and son-in-law, subsidized their lives with the income from practicing medicine, and in order to avoid the enemy's search, they had to move every once in a while.
In 1932, Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao went to work in the Jiangsu Su District, and Yang Zhende, who was nearly sixty years old, did not sit down and enjoy the happiness because his daughter and son-in-law had status, but became a doctor in the Red Army, treated the soldiers' illnesses and wounds, personally fried and dispensed medicines, and brought meticulous care to the soldiers like a mother.
In 1934, Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao followed the Red Army on the Long March, Yang Zhende was old, did not want to drag the troops, so he stayed, in 1935 was arrested and imprisoned by the enemy, in prison Yang Zhende was tortured, the enemy forced her to write a letter to let her daughter and son-in-law break away from the Communist Party, Yang Zhende was not afraid, calmly replied: "When the child grows up, he has his own ideas, I can't manage it when I am old, can't you Chairman Jiang also not manage his son?" "Chiang Ching-kuo was in the Soviet Union at the time.
When the enemy was in a hurry, Yang Zhende said with the determination to die: "Sons and daughters have the right to freedom of thought, I will not do the despicable work of persuading them to surrender, if you think this is also a sin, please kill my head!" ”
Yang Zhende was not humble, and the enemy had no choice but to imprison her in Jiujiang until 1937, when the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cooperated for the second time. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao worked in Chongqing and placed their mother Yang Zhende and other revolutionary families in Qingyang Town, Guiyang City. The two-year career in the iron window seriously damaged Yang Zhende's health, her eyes could only see within a foot, Zhou Enlai was very filial to his mother-in-law, and specifically instructed his comrades who took care of her to read to her often and let her read less newspapers.
During his stay in Qingyang Town, Yang Zhende and his daughter contacted each other by writing letters, and in April 1940, Yang Zhende wrote a family letter to Deng Yingchao, which she had been around and treasured for more than 50 years, and the words of the letter reflected Yang Zhende's deep maternal love:
"Xiang Chao'er: On April 1, I received a letter from Lanzhou on March 16 and took three photos, and when I saw that you were fat and strong, my joy was beyond the words of pen and ink. Xiang Zhi's hand healed, and he was particularly relieved. I have sent you three letters before, letters to the clouds, only one letter, thinking of the second letter, has floated and sunk. Letters sent during October of your guests' years were not received; letters sent in August were received. My old lady and I were all in good condition. Don't worry. However, the living standard, compared with the first half of last year, the price of grain and goods is more than two or three times higher. The people here are all accustomed to hard work, and nine times out of ten, they can support themselves. Although I feel the pain of living too high, the local people's feelings are still quiet. When you arrive in Chongqing, you will write a letter to inform you, hoping for consolation and suspense, and you will not be able to say enough. This is the same, and I wish you both blessings. Mother's Handwriting April 2nd"
The "Xiang" in "Xiang Chao'er" refers to Zhou Enlai, because the word "Xiangyu" of Zhou Enlai refers to Deng Yingchao. In 1939, Zhou Enlai was in Yan'an because of a horse frightened and fell down, resulting in a fracture of his right arm, accompanied by Deng Yingchao to the Soviet Union to heal his wounds, in 1940 after being healed and returned to China, Deng Yingchao told his mother in a letter that Zhou Enlai's injuries had healed, Yang Zhende was very pleased.
"Old lady" refers to Zhou Enlai's father, Zhou Yineng, Yang Zhende said that he and Zhou Yineng were in good health, so as not to worry their children, Yang Zhende's letter also wrote that at that time, the price of goods soared, the people lived in the water, even in such a difficult environment, the local people are still industrious and self-sufficient.
Three letters written by Yang Zhende to Deng Yingchao, they only received one, deng Yingchao wrote a letter in October of the first year, Yang Zhende did not receive it. The mother is worried, the children are abroad, Yang Zhende is inevitably worried, and now that he has returned, he can be more assured, so at the end of the letter, she wrote again:
"I used to think this way, it is better not to know the faith, you have come back to your country, on your way. I have less to worry about. If this is the case, it is a wish to comfort the private heart. ”
In 1940, Yang Zhende fell ill, and when she was seriously ill, she was still afraid of delaying the work of her daughter and son-in-law, and she never let people tell Deng Yingchao about her illness, and when Deng Yingchao went to visit her, she said: "Xiao Chao, I am going to 'old home', you don't have to be sad!" ”
Knowing that her mother had died not long ago, Deng Yingchao took her back to the Chongqing office to take care of her, Yang Zhende was still as strong as before, unwilling to cause trouble to others, she said to everyone: "I am an unimportant person, you don't have to be busy for me!" In November 1940, when Yang Zhende died at the age of 65, comrades from the Eighth Route Army's chongqing office held a solemn funeral for her downstairs in the Hongyan office. The altar written by Xiong Jinyue, general manager of Xinhua Daily, for the old man reads:
"Mother Deng is a person with high ambitions, her thinking is advanced, her personality is strong, she is self-sufficient, and she never slacks off. Educate students, practice medicine to save people, provide for daughters to enroll, raise daughters to adulthood, lead daughters to stand on their own, and train daughters to be reasonable. Two years alone in prison, mighty, determined, admirable, and now dead from an illness, who does not grieve abnormally. ”
Deng Yingchao, who lost her loving mother, spoke at the funeral, saying:
"On the day of parting with my mother, I cannot forbid my weeping, but this is not the time for me to weep. Under the bombardment of enemy planes, I don't know how many thousands of fathers and mothers died tragically, leaving their children behind, and I don't know how many thousands of children lost their parents. The deaths of parents and children happen every day, and we as revolutionaries have a more difficult cause. ”
Yang Zhende was buried in the "Red Rock Cemetery" at Xiaolongkan Fuyuan Temple in Chongqing, where Zhou Enlai's father, Zhou Yineng, died two years later. All his life, Yang Zhende hated the bad habits of the old society, hated the tradition of women clinging to men, longed for the new society of "world unity", influenced his daughter Deng Yingchao with the education of "moisturizing and silent", and assisted her daughter and son-in-law in the revolutionary cause with the spirit of hard work and progress.