In 1959, a ragged peasant woman pointed to Marshal Chen Yi in the newspaper: My Lang Jun
In 1959, in a small grocery store in Xianxiawei, Yudu County, Gannan Administrative Region, Jiangxi Province, a middle-aged woman with a child and dressed in patched clothes stared at an old newspaper photo of Vice Premier Chen Yi receiving foreign guests.
When the middle-aged woman confirmed that it was indeed Chen Yi in the photo, she murmured while crying: "Brother Chen Yi, my Lang Jun, it turns out that you are still alive." "
Then she began to run outside with the newspaper like crazy, and cried out loudly: "Chen Yi is alive!" Chen Yi is alive! "
This crazy-looking woman was named Lai Yueming, the second wife of founding marshal Chen Yi.
At this time, Chen Yi was already the founding marshal of New China, and why did Lai Yueming, who was Chen Yi's second wife, live so badly?
This matter must start from the acquaintance of Lai Yueming and Marshal Chen Yi to love.
The marriage of the "matchmaker"
In July of the old calendar in 1914, Lai Yueming was born into a poor family in Baishi Village, Xingguo County, Jiangxi Province, because the family was too poor, and was adopted by Lai Yueming to her uncle when she was three years old.
Lai Yueming's uncle had a bad habit of smoking opium, most of the family's property was used to buy opium, when Lai Yueming's uncle sold the family property clean, he hit the idea on his niece Lai Yueming, who had just turned 14, so Lai Yueming was sold to a family surnamed Xie in Jiecun Wei and became a child bride.
Marshal Chen Yi
In 1929, Red Army troops arrived in Xingguo County, Jiangxi Province, and established Soviet power, Jiecunwei also established a Women's Improvement Committee, and Lai Yueming became the director of the village's reform committee.
After the establishment of the Central Lenin Normal College in Ruijin in April 1932, after the organization decided to send Lai Yueming to Ruijin for study, Lai Yueming was assigned to work in the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee after graduating.
At that time, the director of the Organization Department of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and the minister of women was Ms. Cai Chang, and several professional students assigned to him by the Central Normal School were assigned to work in the army, and some were assigned to work in county and district organs, but Lai Yueming was "detained" by her.
Cai Chang is a well-known "love matchmaker" in the Red Army, after she met Lai Yueming, she felt that this girl was very good-looking and had good academic performance, so she wanted to find a good family for her.
After Cai Chang returned home, he said to her husband, Li Fuchun, who was then the secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and political commissar of the Provincial Military Region: "Our regiment school has just assigned a little girl, who is a party member, who is very good-looking, and I want to introduce her to Commander Chen as a daughter-in-law, so I have not divided her down for the time being. "
Li Fuchun and Cai Chang
The Chen commander in Cai Chang's mouth refers to Chen Yi, who was then the commander-in-chief and political commissar of the Jiangxi Provincial Military Region, and Chen Yi once had a wife named Xiao Juying.
On January 17, 1931, after the establishment of the Ganxian Special Administrative Region Committee of the Communist Party of China, Chen Yi was appointed secretary, and Xiao Juying was transferred to the women's minister of the Special Administrative Region Committee. At that time, the Soviet district was engaged in a purge campaign, so many comrades were persecuted because they were treated as so-called "ab regiments".
One night in April 1931, several armed cadres knocked on the door of Chen Yi's house and asked him to go to a meeting in a foreign country. At that time, many cadres were called to a meeting at night and never came back, so Chen Yi thought that he might be more vicious than lucky. So he said to Xiao Juying, "If I don't come back in three days, you won't wait for me." "
Xiao Juying
In fact, Chen Yi did go to the meeting this time. Fearing that his wife would be worried, he rode home on a horse immediately after the meeting. Unfortunately, Chen Yi was attacked by local Kuomintang forces on his way home, and his horse was shot and killed.
Therefore, when Chen Yi rushed back to Xingguo, it was already the 4th day, and he accidentally learned that Xiao Juying committed suicide by throwing himself into a well on the 3rd night of his departure because he mistakenly thought that Chen Yi had been killed.
When Chen Yi pushed open the door of his house in frustration, he saw Xiao Juying, who had just been fished out of the well, lying soaked on a wooden board, and white flowers hung in the room.
After Xiao Juying's death, Chen Yi was very sad, coupled with frequent battles, his body became more and more emaciated, so Cai Chang had the idea of helping Chen Yi reorganize a new family and find a female comrade to take care of him in life.
Young Chen Yi
However, when Li Chunfu and Cai Chang talked about this matter with Chen Yi, Chen Yi refused on the spot. Chen Yi believes that the little girl of the family comes to assign work, but if she is introduced to herself as a daughter-in-law, it will not be a daughter-in-law.
Cai Chang saw that Chen Yi had a resolute attitude, so he took the method of secretly Chen Cang and sent Lai Yueming to the Children's Bureau of the Provincial Youth League Committee as an officer to create opportunities for Chen Yi.
In 1932, the Central Red Army successfully crushed the Guangdong warlord troops of the 20 regiments in the revolutionary base areas that "encircled and suppressed", and the Jiangxi Red Army, which was cooperating with the main force at that time, returned to Ningdu to make adjustments.
In order to welcome the combat heroes, the Jiangxi Provincial Youth League Committee immediately organized a condolence performance, and the finale program of this performance was a duet of the Xingguo Mountain Song performed by Lai Yueming and Li Meijun, director of the Propaganda Department of the Provincial Youth League Committee.
Zhang Jizhi, secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Youth League Committee who accompanied Chen Yi to watch the performance, thought that Chen Yi was still alone, so he also had the idea of matching Chen Yi and Lai Yueming, so he said to Chen Yi: "Commander Chen, do you see that this Lai Yueming is good, you are a lonely Langzi, do you want me to talk about it, is it good to find a sister-in-law to warm her feet?" "
Although at first Chen Yi resolutely refused at the beginning, he could not stand the persuasion of Zhong Hao, the head of the organization department of the Provincial Youth League Committee, and others, plus he did have some interest in Lai Yueming, so he pushed the boat along the water and said: "Well, you go and talk to that little devil." "
Chen Yi military uniform photo
After Chen Yi made sense here, Zhang Jizhi found Cai Chang and asked her to help with Lai Yueming's work.
In the contact for several days, Lai Yueming has taken Cai Chang as his own sister and quickly agreed to this family affair.
In this way, Chen Yi and Lai Yueming came together under the mediation of a group of "matchmakers". Cai Chang set the wedding date of the two of them on the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth lunar calendar, that is, the day of the Chongyang Festival, which means that the white head is old and the sky is long.
A few days before the wedding date, Chen Yi found Lai Yueming with a new bundle of cloth to buy new clothes for the bride. Cai Chang, who was next to him, saw the situation and said to Lai Yueming: "When the girls in Gannan get married, they always have to mention a few conditions, and You also mention a few in Yueming." "
After thinking about it, Lai Yueming said: "Then I will put forward 6 conditions, first, if others get married, they will hold a banquet, and I will also have a banquet; second, buy me a cardigan; third, buy me a watch; fourth, teach me more cultural knowledge; fifth, train me to join the party; sixth, don't leave me." "
On October 8, 1932, Chen Yi and Lai Yueming held a wedding ceremony at a restaurant in the East Gate of Ningdu, and comrades from the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Soviet Provincial Military District and the nearby county party committee came to celebrate them. In order to hold a decent banquet, Chen Yi and his wife took out a 15 yuan public bond and the "food tail" they had accumulated in the usual time to run a banquet.
Li Fuchun, secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee, served as a witness to the marriage between them, and in the presence of his comrades-in-arms, Chen Yi took out a gold watch and gave it to Lai Yueming as a wedding souvenir.
Li Fuchun
A couple who gather less and leave more
Because it was a revolutionary period, Chen Yi was shouldering the heavy responsibility of commanding 6 divisions and all local armed forces, and his work was very busy. Therefore, he and Lai Yueming always get together less and leave more, and in the six months after marriage, they have been together for less than a month.
Someone once suggested that Chen Yi transfer Lai Yueming to work in the military region, so that the two of them would have more opportunities to meet, but Chen Yi refused, because he was the commander of the first army and the commander-in-chief of the unit, and he could not engage in specialization, and he believed that as a husband and wife in the new era, they could not lock up their wives in their rooms, and revolutionaries should completely obey the needs of the revolutionary struggle and should not regard the family of their lovers as more important than the revolution.
In the spring of 1933, Lai Yueming received a notice that she was organizationally planning to promote her to study at the Ruijin Central Party School. Lai Yueming thought that it was of course a good thing to be able to go to the Central Party School, but Ruijin and the Jiangxi Provincial Military Region garrison Yudu were separated by dozens of miles, and he had been there for half a year, and it was almost impossible to meet Chen Yi in these six months, so his mood was very contradictory.
After Chen Yi knew this, he patiently told him that his personal feelings were too strong and would affect the revolutionary work. When the revolution requires the abandonment of personal feelings, the revolutionary must not hesitate to obey the arrangements of the revolution.
Map: Ruijin City and Yudu County
In this way, Lai Yueming embarked on the road to Ruijin, and after 6 months of study at the Central Party School, she went to Hetian in Fujian Province for 3 months for internship, during which time he never met Chen Yi.
When Lai Yueming returned to the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee at the end of 1933, Chen Yi had already led his troops to carry out the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" operation on both sides of the Ganjiang River, and the couple still could not meet.
In early October 1934, Lai Yueming learned that Chen Yi had been wounded in a battle, so the organization wanted her to go to Ruijin Meikeng National Hospital to take care of Chen Yi.
Because of the failure of the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" operation, the communication route between the Central Soviet Region had been cut off, and Lai Mingyue began to hide in Tibet in order to see her husband, and finally arrived in Meikeng in late October.
However, at this time, Chen Yi had already moved with the central office to Kuantian District, Duxian County. Lai Yueming saw the situation, and tirelessly ran to Kuantian again, and successfully found her husband, who had not seen each other for nearly two years.
Chen Yi was wounded in a battle on August 24, 1934, and although it had been more than two months, the wound had not healed and was still oozing blood. Under Lai Yueming's meticulous care, after only more than a week, Chen Yi's legs were swollen and he could occasionally get out of bed and stand.
Chen Yi
Forever parted
The time for husband and wife to get together is always very short, and after the defeat in the Shicheng Blockade Battle, the Red Army's action of crushing the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" on the inner line has completely failed, and only the Long March is left.
Because Chen Yi had a leg injury, coupled with his long working hours in Jiangxi, he had a high prestige inside and outside the party and was easy to carry out work. Therefore, Bogu and others decided to leave Chen Yi in the Central Soviet Region to cooperate with Xiang Ying in the guerrilla war.
At the same time, the troops needed to mobilize a group of Red Army family members and the wounded and sick to evacuate the masses and lay in ambush at the local level to fight, and Lai Yueming was one of them.
In this way, a couple was forced to begin to separate. At the last moment of separation, Chen Yi solemnly said to Lai Yueming: "Remember, to live strongly, you must believe that no matter what the organization will find you, I will also look for you, and I will definitely find you." "
Bogu
After separating from her husband, Lai Yueming returned to her hometown of Xingguo County and served as a women's minister in the Soviet government of the Soviet district in the southeast of Xingguo County. Lai Yueming turned her thoughts of Chen Yi into a driving force and threw herself into the revolutionary cause, firmly believing that one day she would return to her husband.5
Unfortunately, however, with the Kuomintang completely occupying the Central Soviet Region, Lai Yueming lost contact with the organization during a battle, and in order to avoid the liquidation of the Kuomintang homecoming group, Lai Yueming had to hide in the home of his sister in Nanshan Village.
During this time, there were always all kinds of rumors in the village, such as "who is on the big shackles, who worshiped the ancestors of the Jiang clan at the mouth of Fenghua Xikou in Zhejiang, and Chen Yi, who was a military commander in Jiangxi, was also dug into his heart."
Lai Yueming, who was worried about her husband's safety, heard the rumors and cried every night with her sister in her arms. After Lai Yueming lived at his sister's house for half a month, a group of heavily armed Kuomintang troops stormed into the hut where Lai Yueming lived.
Lai Yueming had just returned to the village because she was picking wild vegetables, and happened to see this, which frightened her into quickly throwing down the basket, turning around and running outside the village, never returning to Nanshan Village.
When the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in 1937, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party began to cooperate for the second time, and the Kuomintang temporarily stopped the persecution of Communists. Therefore, Chen Yi began to send people to Xingguo County several times to look for his wife, only to accidentally learn that Lai Yueming had committed suicide by jumping into a well under the persecution of the Kuomintang returning to his hometown.
Chen Yi did not believe that his wife had been sacrificed, so when he went to Nanchang on October 3, 1937 to negotiate, he deliberately stayed in Xingguo County for a day, hoping to know the truth of the matter.
After Chen Yi arrived in Xingguo, he stayed at the Xingguo Hotel, and some revolutionaries who had lost contact with the organization came to Xingguo and came to the hostel to report the situation to him, Chen Yi specifically inquired about the whereabouts of his wife, and everyone said that Lai Yueming had died.
That night, Chen Yi sat alone in the hotel room. Thinking of his 36 years of life, two wives have sacrificed for the revolution, and then thinking of himself and Lai Yueming, although they gathered less and left more, but the life of each other, they could not help but be sad from it, and wrote the sad "Xingguo Hostel".
In this seven-word poem, Chen Yi wrote sadly, "I am still left with the hardships of the war, and Amon is ashamed of my old feelings." "
Since then, Chen Yi, who has deeply trusted Yueming's sacrifice, has never sent anyone to look for Lai Yueming.
In the winter of 1938, under the introduction of Zhu Kejing, Chen Yi and Zhang Qian of the field service regiment of the detachment married each other.
Mr. and Mrs. Chen Yi
In fact, Lai Yueming did not die.
The "suicide by jumping into a well" was a rumor deliberately spread by her father. After Lai Yueming left Nanshan Village, he fled back to his hometown. Because Lai Yueming's uncle was unwilling to let Lai Yueming enter the house, Lai Yueming had to return to his biological father's house.
When the father learned of his daughter's dangerous situation of being hunted down by Kuomintang agents, he married her to a shoemaker surnamed Fang under Xianxia. And spread the news that her daughter committed suicide by throwing herself into a well, and the shoemaker surnamed Fang was a human duty, and they gave birth to a daughter after a year of marriage.
Soon after the birth of his daughter, the shoemaker went to do business in other places, but because of a sudden illness, there was no money for treatment, and he died of illness. A few years later, Lai Yueming married a disabled soldier under the arrangement of a matchmaker and gave birth to a son and a daughter for the other party.
"Reunion" in the newspaper
Because Lai Yueming's husband was basically incapacitated, their family lived very hard.
In 1959, one of Lai Yueming's youngest children fell ill and spent a lot of savings, and after recovering from the illness, he clamored for candy to eat. In desperation, Lai Yueming had to carry him on his back and walked to a grocery store. He took out a nickel dollar and handed it to the grocery store owner, hoping that he could give the child a little candy to eat, Lai Yueming's little money was not enough to buy sugar, but the kind-hearted boss also touched a little rock candy from the jar and sent it to Lai Yueming's child's mouth.
Then he pulled an old newspaper out of the counter and pasted it in a paper bag. At this moment, Lai Yueming suddenly grabbed his hands and stared at the newspaper in his hand with his eyes shining, and the boss followed Lai Yueming's gaze and found that Lai Yueming's eyes were fixed on the photos of Vice Premier Chen Yi and foreign guests in the newspaper. On the top of the photo is a line of large characters: "Vice Premier Chen Yi receives foreign guests in Zhongnanhai."
Vice Premier Chen Yi and foreign guests
Just when the grocery store owner was overwhelmed, Lai Yueming snatched the newspaper from his hand, and after carefully examining it for a moment, he cried while muttering to himself: "Brother Chen Yi, my Lang Jun, it turns out that you are still alive." "
The grocery store owner was startled by what Lai Yueming said, and quickly said: "Don't talk nonsense, that's Marshal Chen Yi!" "
Lai Yueming yelled at the grocery store owner: "You are just talking nonsense, I am Chen Yi's wife!" "
Then, like crazy, she ran outside holding the newspaper while crying loudly: "Chen Yi is alive!" Chen Yi is alive! Even if the child on her back had begun to cry, she didn't care.
Lai Yueming's new husband, Fang Liangsong, only knew that his wife had been a party member, but he did not know that his wife was actually the wife of Marshal Chen Yi.
When Lai Yueming went home crying and told him that he was going to Beijing to find Chen Yi, he even suspected that his wife's spirit was wrong. After Lai Yueming's mood stabilized, he told her husband about the legendary experience between himself and Chen Yi.
Fang Liangsong believed her words, but resolutely refused to let Lai Yueming go to Beijing to find Chen Yi. Because if his wife left, his family would be scattered, so he resolutely refused to let his wife leave. At this moment, after Lai Yueming and Fang Liangsong's children heard that their mother was leaving, they rushed over and pulled her sleeve to prevent her from leaving, and Lai Yueming had no choice but to stay.
In 1967, Lai Yueming thought it was necessary to tell Chen Yi about his recent situation. So he wrote a letter to Chen Yi, describing his experience in detail, hoping to meet Chen Yi. However, after she threw this letter out, it was like a stone sinking into the sea without a word.
In the spring of 1968, Lai Yueming wrote a letter to the Jiangxi Provincial Revolutionary Committee, hoping to seek help.
A month later, a sedan drove through the gates of the Senshita Commune, and out of it came two cadre-like figures. After the cadres got off the bus, they named luo Hualun, the secretary of the brigade.
After the three of them met, the cadres told Luo Hualun that the organization wanted him to assist in the investigation of a person named Lai Yueming, who should belong to the management of the Yangtian Brigade.
Soon, the cadres found Lai Yueming through Fang Yiti, the secretary of the Yangtian Brigade.
After inquiring about her experience in detail, he said to her regretfully: "You now have your own home, full of children and grandchildren, a happy life, Comrade Chen Yi also has another family, but also a happy family, we are very sympathetic to your situation, we can take you to live elsewhere." And arrange your life in accordance with the relevant regulations, but you had better not go to Beijing, if you go to the families of both sides, it will not be good for the families of both sides, and Comrade Chen Yi's life is actually not very good now. "
It turned out that in February 1967, Marshal Chen Yi could not receive a letter from Lai Yueming because he had received some "shocks". This led to Lai Yueming's letter to Chen Yi eventually sink into the sea, and in the past two years, Marshal Chen Yi's situation has also been very difficult.
After the cadres left, Lai Yueming was very worried about Chen Yi's situation, and one day even dreamed that Chen Yi was wearing a gray military uniform and riding a tall white horse to pick her up.
Lai Yueming thought that this was not a good sign, and gradually germinated the idea of begging all the way to Beijing to see Chen Yi, hoping to see Chen Yi for the last time, but she was unable to become Beijing in the end.
On January 6, 1972, Marshal Chen Yi, the founder and leader of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, died in Beijing at the age of 71.
After the news of Chen Yi's death reached Xianxiawei, Lai Yueming was knocked down by this sudden news, and on the hospital bed, she asked her husband to erect a spirit plaque in the hall to express her last thoughts for Chen Yi.
Lai Yueming
On January 6, 1985, Lai Yueming thought of the help that Ms. Cai Chang had helped herself when she was in the revolutionary ranks, and felt that it was necessary for her to report her experiences over the years, so she wrote a letter to China Women Magazine and Cai Chang respectively, describing her experiences over the years.
At the end of the letter, Lai Mingyue said that he did not want to get special care, but only hoped to go to Beijing to meet his eldest sister.
Lai Yueming and Cai Chang's last meeting
Four months later, the Bureau of Letters and Visits of the CPC Central Committee Office sent a letter to the YUDU County Party Committee of the CPC: I asked the comrades of the county party committee to convey to Lai Yueming that Comrade Cai Chang was now living in the hospital for a long time because of his old age and illness, and it was not appropriate to meet guests, so he asked the comrades of the county party committee to apologize to Comrade Lai Yueming and gently advised him not to go to Beijing.
Therefore, Lai Yueming gave up the idea of going to Beijing, until 1988, after Lai Yueming learned that Cai Chang might die soon, he resolutely embarked on the pace of going to Beijing, hoping to see Cai Chang for the last time.
However, at this time, Cai Chang was very ill, and even her sister could not see her.
Lai Yueming did not feel discouraged and went to the All-China Women's Federation for help.
With the assistance of the staff of the Women's Federation, in September 1988, Cai Chang and Lai Yueming, who had been separated for 54 years, met at the Beijing Hospital, and their hands shook together for a long, long time...