August 14, 2008, was a special day for me – it had been exactly 30 years since my mother had left me.
One summer after the turn of the millennium, I returned to Beijing, where I put an elaborate photograph on my mother's tombstone at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. That photo is the cover of a book I just published in Taiwan, titled "Smoke and Dust", which was changed to "Family on the Knife's Edge" when it was published in the mainland, and is a novel based on the story of my mother's family's fifty years of experience.
Famous pottery family
China has a long history, and many families have hundreds of generations of records. In my understanding, only a famous father, or a famous mother, is probably difficult to say "famous".
At that time, there were three large families in Huanggang, Hubei Province, the Xia family, the Wan family, and the Tao family. The Xia family had a Xia Shoukang, who was upright and honest, and had done yuan shikai's history of purging the government, that is, the president of the Control Yuan, exposed corruption, and shot the mayor of Beijing. Chiang Kai-shek launched five encirclements and suppressions against the Red Army at Jinggangshan, and the battle that finally led the Red Army to embark on the Road of the Long March was commanded by Wan Yaohuang; in the "Xi'an Incident," it was also Wan Yaohuang who played a decisive role in promoting the final peaceful settlement. The three surnames of Xia, Wan and Tao have been married since ancient times. My grandmother's surname is Wan, Xia's surname is her mother's family, and Wan Yaohuang is her uncle and second brother.
My grandfathers are two brothers, the eldest brother Mr. Tao Shu Zeng, we call "father-in-law". He sneaked away from home at the age of 16 to join the army in Wuhan and participate in the Xinhai Revolution. Later, he studied architecture and was a classmate of Mao Yisheng, a famous Water Conservancy Engineering expert in China. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, American Flying Tigers fighters took off every day from the airfield he built, and the airfield he guided the construction of was full of front lines and rears. After the Yellow River Garden Mouth broke the embankment, many European and American experts stopped, and it was he who led the successful blockade of the mouth. In 1954, the Yangtze River flooded, and it was he who led the preservation of the three towns in Wuhan. Building the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, he was the deputy commander-in-chief. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as vice governor of Hubei Province. As for the Tao family, not to mention the ancient events of Tao Yuanming's descendants moving from Jiangxi to Hubei to settle in Huanggang, in the near future, I returned to my hometown of Cangbu Town and saw the bronze plaque installed on the wall by the Cultural Relics Bureau: Mr. Tao Jiongzhao's former residence - Tao Jiongzhao is my great-grandfather. In 1903, when the Qing government held the first "economic" special examination, Tao Jiongzhao was on the list. However, now, the famous Tao family in China's modern history, Chinese under the age of 60, have really learned very little.
But his younger brother, my grandfather, Mr. Tao Xisheng, was much more famous than he was in Chinese history. Almost all the major events in modern China have left their indelible traces.
Step by step into the core of decision-making
Tao Xi Sheng
My grandfather Tao Xisheng was born in 1899, and at the age of 16, he followed his father to Beijing and was admitted to the preparatory department of Peking University. During this period, he participated in the "May Fourth" movement and tasted the grandeur of the democratic revolution for the first time. After graduating from Peking University, he went to the Shanghai Commercial Press as an editor and became friends with Yun Daiying, Zheng Zhenduo, Shen Yanbing and Hu Yuzhi. When the "May Thirtieth" Movement broke out, My Grandfather wrote an article in anger denouncing the indiscriminate killing of innocents by the British military and police, and was named and taken to court by the British Consulate.
But Shanghai cannot stay any longer. At that time, just in time for the start of the Northern Expedition, Grandpa risked his life to break through the warlord siege and rushed to Wuhan, the center of the Northern Expedition at that time. He accepted the letter of appointment personally written by President Chiang Kai-shek as a political instructor at the Wuhan branch of the Whampoa Military Academy. Yun Daiying presided over the work of the school at that time, and Guo Moruo was his grandfather's direct superior.
The Wuhan Military Academy, once combined with the Hubei Peasant Movement Training Institute, formed an independent division, commanded by General Ye Ting, and marched west to resist the attack of the Sichuan warlord Yang Sen. Grandpa was also among them, serving as the chief of the Military Justice Department. Due to disagreements on some specific practices, after Wang Jingwei launched the "Ma-Ri Incident", Grandpa chose to break away from the Communist Camp and became a liberal scholar.
Grandpa deeply studied Chinese society and history. In 1931, he was recruited to peking university law school as a professor and served as the head of the department, and became a friend of Mr. Hu Shi. Together, they edited the Independent Review, often discussing the world's major events. After the "12.9" movement, Grandpa and Mr. Hu Shi consulted overnight, and with the support of Jiang Menglin, president of Peking University, personally ran to Qin Dechun, then mayor of Beiping, to intercede, arranging for Song Zheyuan to talk and reconcile with Peking Xuejiao, and rescue the students and professors from their cells.
The "July 7 Incident" rewrote Chinese history. Grandpa, together with tens of millions of scholars, abandoned his teachings and joined the anti-war team. He went to Lushan to attend a tea party to discuss the strategy of the War of Resistance. There, he was appreciated by Wang Jingwei and was summoned by Chiang Kai-shek for the first time. It was also there that he met Communist Party representatives Zhou Enlai, Lin Zuhan, and Qin Bangxian. Since then, Grandpa has been in the political arena, has not been able to break away, and has entered the core of decision-making step by step.
With the help of Du Yuesheng, he fled the Wang pseudo-clique
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Grandpa's most thrilling experience and the scene that shook Chinese history the most was the "Gao Tao Incident". Wang Jingwei broke away from Chongqing and went to Shanghai privately to negotiate with the Japanese army. His assistants at that time included Chen Gongbo, Zhou Fohai, Mei Siping, and his grandfather. During the negotiation process, Grandpa discovered the wolf ambitions of the Japanese and Kou to destroy China, and decided to break away from the Wang puppet clique and return to the camp of the War of Resistance. He secretly contacted Du Yuesheng, who was in Shanghai at the time, stole beams and changed pillars, escaped from Shanghai, and arrived in Hong Kong. Discovering that Grandpa had absconded, the "Riwang Clique" detained his mother and two uncles, who were still in middle school, as hostages, and forced Grandpa to return to Shanghai.
When Grandpa escaped from Shanghai, he and Gao Zongwu stole several of the most confidential copies of the "Riwang Secret Treaty" and prepared to publish it to the public. Du Yuesheng took these documents with him and flew to Chongqing to ask Chiang Kai-shek for instructions. When Chiang Kai-shek learned that his grandfather's three children had been detained in Shanghai, he ordered Du Yuesheng to rescue the children before allowing the publication of the "Riwang Secret Treaty." This incident is also recorded in Chiang Kai-shek's diary, which was recently published. Last year, when I went to Taipei for a meeting, I came across Chen Shui-bian demolishing the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, and I hurried to pay my respects to my mother's savior.
Du Yuesheng assigned Mr. Wan Molin, who was lurking in Shanghai, to organize dozens of gunmen to ambush everywhere, change cars in turn, smuggle my mother and two uncles out of the sea from under the eyes of the "Riwang" special police, and arrive safely in Hong Kong, and the family was finally reunited. Then, Grandpa published the "Riwang Secret Treaty" in Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao, sweeping away the last glimmer of illusions in the world about the Japanese Kou and strengthening the will to resist the war. At the same time, these secret covenants also shocked the world.
After that, my grandfather returned to Chongqing, where he became the head of the chairman's attendant office, the deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee, and the chief writer of the "Central Daily". Chiang Kai-shek's only signed book, The Destiny of China, was written by his grandfather. It was October 1942, and Chiang Kai-shek's manuscript was originally a "Letter to the People of the Whole Country", but it was only 30,000 words, and after many revisions and additions, it was finally expanded to more than 100,000 words. Grandpa's nephew Tao Dinglai once said his personal opinion on this: "Jiang asked him to write this book, obviously not only because he can write articles, but there are many people under Jiang who can write articles. Jiang asked his uncle to write precisely because he admired his research achievements in the history of Chinese political thought and the history of Chinese society, hoping to supplement Chiang's own theoretical deficiencies. Years later, my mother told us about the time I wrote this book, as if I could still feel my grandfather walking on thin ice and trembling. It is not an easy task to speak for the "Son of Heaven.".
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chen Bray died, and his grandfather became Chiang Kai-shek's "literary boldness", and all of Chiang Kai-shek's manuscripts were written by his grandfather, including the famous "New Year's Day Announcement", which announced Chiang Kai-shek's resignation.
Listening to my mother, in those years, the family was often full of high-ranking friends, and Chen Lifu, Jiang Weiguo, and Wan Yaohuang were all regular customers. My mother said that every time they talked at my house, they talked late, and Grandma just cooked a pot of noodle soup or fried two eggs. My third uncle once stole Jiang Weiguo's car, was caught by the gendarmerie, and sent home.
On December 25, 1948, Xinhua published a list of 43 Kuomintang war criminals, and Tao Xisheng ranked 41st. After Chiang Kai-shek's defeat, his grandfather went to Taiwan and served as a "standing committee member of the Kuomintang Central Committee." He retired as chairman of JoongAng Ilbo in 1968 and died in Taipei in 1988.
For a long time, what Grandpa did in his life, including his contributions to the Chinese nation, was forgotten by the world.
A lonely and self-respecting teenager
Many people envy the famous family, but few people will know that the aura of the famous door often brings misfortune to the children.
My mother, Tao Qinxun, graduated from Southwest United University in the 1940s, and my father, Shen Suru, worked as a translator. When my grandfather left the mainland, his parents refused to go to Taiwan with him. My mother accompanied my grandmother to Hong Kong, but eventually returned to the mainland.
I was born in Nanjing in 1947. I spent my childhood in Shanghai, and I heard my mother say that I was very happy at that time, as evidenced by many photos. But in my own memory, from the beginning of understanding, I was very lonely.
When I was 7 years old, I moved with my parents from Shanghai to Beijing. When I was in elementary school, although I didn't know exactly what kind of family I was born into, I could always vaguely feel the difference between my family and other people's families.
In my home, my parents used to close the curtains, play Strauss's records, and dance. On the shelves of the home are The Complete Works of Shakespeare, The Count of Monte Cristo, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. My mother loved to talk about her college graduation thesis, "Tess Girl", and would recite the original English work to us. At home, my father asked us to memorize "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty." On each outing, the whole family has to change into guest clothes. My father wanted us to learn about culture and to be human.
In junior high school, I knew that the mountain that weighed on my family was above my head, and I could never change it. My grandfather Tao Xisheng was Chiang Kai-shek's "literary boldness" and a Kuomintang war criminal hand-picked by Mao Zedong; my mother was a "rightist" designated in 1957. I began to understand why I could never blend in with the crowd around me. So I accepted the truth, I endured loneliness and spent my cold youth.
Am I sad? Of course, teenage youth, longing for friends, yearning for love, but I am alone all day, how can I not be sad. But sometimes, in the depths of their own hearts, there is self-esteem, or hope.
My loneliness comes from the shadow of my family, my self-esteem, and my reputation. My mother, with the personal approval of Premier Zhou Enlai, continued to correspond with my grandfather in Taiwan at the height of the political situation. My mother often took me to the Qianmen Post Office to send letters or parcels, which was the only place in Beijing at that time that could send letters to the outside world; and because Premier Zhou took care of it, the first performance of the large-scale song and dance music epic "Dongfang Hong" was performed, and we all entered the Great Hall of the People; we could also be present at the opening ceremony of the National Games.
My mother's uncle, Mr. Tao Shuzeng, whom we call "Gonggong", was once the vice governor of Hubei Province and director of the Water Conservancy Department, and often traveled to Beijing on business, and every time he took us around to play, telling interesting stories about him and his grandfather when they were studying at Peking University, and telling stories about the early years of Beijing. Therefore, when I was a child, I went into luxury hotels, ate almost all the long-established brands in Beijing, and sat in all the models of cars in Beijing at that time.
Every year, our whole family goes to Beijing Dongzongbu Hutong several times to visit his second uncle, Mr. Shen Junru. When I was in the sixth grade of elementary school, my second uncle sent his Jim in a big car to pick up my grandmother to chat, and my grandmother took me there. On that occasion, I admired the stones collected by the second uncle and listened to him tell many interesting things. In 1964, the second uncle died, and at the Zhongshan Park public festival, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Dong Biwu, Peng Zhen, Chen Yi, and He Long all came. I am one of the children standing in front of the coffin to keep the spirits.
All of these are very memorable experiences that will last a lifetime for a ten-year-old boy.
Failed to inherit the family tradition of Peking University
When it came to the "Cultural Revolution", the fate of a family like mine was naturally even worse. The younger sister was young and quarreled with the neighbor's children, and some parents would stand in the courtyard, waving their fists and shouting: Down with the Kuomintang! We must liberate Taiwan! Several raids were made, and the contents of the house were swept away. In the end, the pieces of paper did not survive, and even the four-volume English edition of Mao Xuan was treated as a foreign book and the soles of his shoes were torn.
I went to northern Shaanxi to join the team, and began to work hard with my height and strength, and got along well with my fellow villagers. Later, one day, the village party secretary returned from a meeting of the commune and said that he had read the files of Beijing students. As soon as I heard it, my head exploded. The fellow did not know who Tao Xisheng was, and the zhishu himself did not know, and after thinking about it for half a day, he said: It was with Hu Zongnan. The compatriots in northern Shaanxi all knew Hu Zongnan, so I became Hu Zongnan's bandit gang. The compatriots looked at me differently, and the Beijing students also moved their butts and stayed away from me.
Family portrait of Shen Ning (middle middle) in 1974
When the college entrance examination was resumed in 1977, my mother said that she could not tolerate her children not going to college, and my brother and I signed up. My grandfather graduated from Peking University in the 1920s and became a professor at Peking University Law School in the 1930s. In the early 1940s, my mother also studied at Southwest United University, so our brothers all applied to Peking University.
At first glance, all my grades are much higher than the admission line of Peking University, and my brother's grades are better. My mother was so happy that she thought that our brotherhood would become an alumnus of Peking University, and wrote to my grandfather to report the good news. However, we all failed. Or because of family reasons. The mother vomited blood in a hurry. In the end, we have not been able to inherit the family tradition of Peking University.
In 1978, her mother died in Beijing at the age of 57 due to rheumatoid disease. Grandpa, who heard the news on the other side of the strait, burst into tears. The death of his mother became the most unbearable pain in his grandfather's later years.
In 1979, his father was rehabilitated, released from his cell, and appointed deputy editor-in-chief of China Today.
Famous people are not giants
In 1982, I graduated from university, and after working for Shaanxi Television for a year and a half, I went to the United States to study at my own expense. He worked as a teaching assistant at the University of Iowa Research Institute in the United States, and studied the Departments of East Asian Culture and Mass Communication. After that, I came to San Francisco, California to teach, and my family moved to the West Coast of the United States. After teaching for 3 years, I got my green card, started studying American business management, and started a company instead.
Grandpa knew that I had arrived in the United States, because he missed his family very much, and personally asked Chiang Ching-kuo for permission to let me go to Taiwan to see him. I didn't go. In the 1980s, the old man was nearly ninety years old and came to the United States to see me. He wanted to trace his daughter's figure on me and comfort him with endless thoughts. Grandpa listened to me speak authentic Beijing dialect and liked it very much. Grandpa has a lot of affection for Beijing, and especially loves this land. That month, I spent time with my grandfather day and night, listened to my grandfather's storytelling, learned to read from my grandfather, watched my grandfather write, walked with my grandfather, and relived the life of the traditional book-scented house again, which can be said to be the happiest period of my life.
Famous people are not giants, the giants worship the rich or powerful, and now some people like to call themselves aristocrats, saying that they are just broader than who they are. The Mingmen family pays attention to cultural accomplishment, and from Grandpa Tao Xisheng, I have deeply experienced the profound and far-reaching cultural cultivation. No matter how deeply he has been involved in politics, Grandpa is first and foremost a successful scholar and a traditional literati. He was proficient in Peking Opera, and often boasted to his descendants: he had heard Tan Xinpei's "drumming and cursing Cao", invited Yu Shuyan to dinner, and talked to Cheng Yanqiu about drama. Grandpa is also a good calligrapher, he said that it was hard work, when he studied in the preparatory department of Peking University, he wrote a hundred small letters every day. As for the number of books my grandfather read, the breadth of my scope, the depth of my knowledge, and the collection of literature, history, law, and politics, that is even more recognized by the academic circles.
Being born into a famous family may be a kind of pressure, and it is not easy to inherit the traditions of the famous family, but it will also become a driving force to promote the efforts of the younger generations and not to insult the reputation of the family.
(Source: Excerpt from "A Hundred Years of Political Family", Edited by Global People Magazine, Modern Publishing House, 2016.3)