preface
One day in 1962, Mao Zedong walked out of his study, stretched out, stood on the steps, stared up at the sky, took a deep breath, suddenly let go of his throat, and sang two sentences of Peking Opera.
The guards standing guard on the side were secretly happy and exchanged glances with each other, although they could not understand what Chairman Mao was singing, but they knew that Chairman Mao was very happy, and he seemed to be announcing the end of three years of difficult times.
The defender Yin Jingshan recalled that he only remembered that Chairman Mao was singing the "Empty City Plan" in the Three Kingdoms, and when he ate, Chairman Mao could not release the scroll, and while eating, he read it, and what he was holding in his hand was the villain book "Burning Company Camp".
As everyone knows, the indissoluble relationship between Chairman Mao and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms has lasted for 70 years. After Li Min went to school, he was told by his father many times to read more of this book, li min really couldn't understand it, and when Chairman Mao told her the story of his childhood, Li Min was very surprised: My father is amazing.
Chairman Mao's childhood nickname: The King of the Tales of the Three Kingdoms
In 1906, Mao Zedong was 13 years old, and today at the age of 13, he can read novels, but at that time, there were very few children who could read as skillfully as Mao Zedong, and the classical novels at that time were most likely traditional characters.
Mao Zedong's preschool education time, from the age of 2 to 8 years old, was spent in his grandmother's home, and his earliest literacy enlightenment was that his uncle gave him a copy of the Kangxi Dictionary, and with this dictionary, Mao Zedong began to read the "Water Margin" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and Mao Zedong would sit in the shade of a tree to read after the busy farming.
Mao Shunsheng was Mao Zedong's father, who had done business, but had no culture, in Mao Shunsheng's eyes, these books are "not doing the right thing", and in the countryside, there are very few people who have read books, and some people who understand the Three Kingdoms often know from listening to plays or listening to stories.
Therefore, when Mao Zedong entered primary school (private school) at the age of 8, he and his classmates even talked to the teacher about the story of the Three Kingdoms, which was more wonderful than the storyteller, among his peers, Mao Zedong was undoubtedly an outstanding student, and the classmates gave him the nickname "The King of the Three Kingdoms Story".
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, whose full name is Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is China's first long-length historical novel, and Mao Zedong's understanding of the word war when he was a teenager was mainly understood by reading the Three Kingdoms. For example, before the Battle of Chibi, the alliance between Sun and Liu's families, the struggle between Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, Cao Cao's temptation, and Sun Liu's allied forces lured the enemy into deep war preparations, etc., are all wonderful chapters.
For his nickname of "King of the Tales of the Three Kingdoms", Chairman Mao also recalled after the founding of the People's Republic of China: "When I was a child, I liked to read old Chinese novels, many stories, I can almost memorize them, so I know more than the old people in the village, they also like these stories, often tell each other with me." ”
From Mao Zedong's recollections, we can see that Mao Zedong was very fond of the book "Three Kingdoms" so much that it affected his life, and in his future revolutionary career, it had a certain role in fueling his military strategic thinking.
In 1910, Mao Zedong's cousin Wen Yunchang gave Some indirect guidance to Mao Zedong, and Wen Yunchang told him that although you are not wrong to read these novels, you should read the book "Dangerous Words in the Prosperous World". At that time, Wen Yunchang wanted Mao Zedong to go out, so he gave him a book that opened his mind.
This year, Mao Zedong went to Dongshan Academy to study, here is a primary school, 17-year-old Mao Zedong went to primary school, has been late and late, but he is particularly smart, studied for five months to enter the junior high school, it is worth mentioning that before coming to Dongshan Academy to report, he carried a flat burden to school, one end picked up debris, one end picked is a basket of books, one of which is the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
From the perspective of the history of the novel cultivating a person, the rich and delicate description of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms has a unique advantage over the main history. Therefore, Mao Zedong stubbornly regarded the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" as history for a period of time, of course, this is also reasonable, after all, the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" basically follows the spirit of the seven points of historical facts, although the character description plus artistic interpretation, but the big events are very close to history, so Mao Zedong's early stubbornness did not affect him to establish his own view of history.
For this truth, Xiao Yu, a friend of Mao Zedong's youth, once recalled: "The Three Kingdoms" is actually not a history book that records the Three Kingdoms era, which is the product of a highly artistic imagination of history.
The American writer RossTril also wrote in the biography of Mao Zedong:
Because of this point of view, Mao Zedong had a dispute with the history teacher as a teenager, and he accused any classmate who shared the same view as the history teacher, and even beat a classmate with a chair. This matter became more and more noisy, and finally it reached the principal, and the principal did not agree with Mao Zedong's views. Subsequently, Mao Zedong even wrote a letter to Xiangxiang County Ling, asking for the removal of the principal.
When Mao Zedong in his youth could make such a move to defend his own views, when Mao Zedong read the new study and understood the stories in history, he would also miss these interesting past events infinitely. But it also reflects Mao's youthful penchant for reading.
Therefore, Mao Zedong also said such a sentence: "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a novel, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a history book, the two can not be generalized, if the vivid image, the first "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", if the authenticity, naturally "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is closer to history.
Therefore, Mao Zedong was not stubborn, but only because of the difference in age and experience, he had his own opinions, and after Mao Zedong read a large number of books in the future, he could face it realistically, which set an example for all the officers and men of the army.
He also said: In the old play, Zhuge Liang was Xu Sheng, and Zhou Yu was a small student, and it was obvious that Zhuge Liang was older than Zhou Yu. This may be derived from yanyi, and in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhou Yu was 37 years old when he died, when Zhuge Liang was only 30 years old, that is, 7 years younger than Zhou Yu.
It is precisely because Mao Zedong has a full love for the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", so in the future war career, he and these two books combined to create one miracle after another.
Mao Zedong loved Romance of the Three Kingdoms during the war years
On July 29, 1927, Mao Zedong led the Autumn Harvest Uprising troops to carry out the famous "Three Bays Reorganization" in Sanwan Village, Yongxin County, at night Mao Zedong lived in a grocery store in a common people's home, and when he fell asleep, he suddenly saw a book on the shelf, which was already covered with dust and could not see clearly, Mao Zedong immediately took it down and blew the dust, and found that it was a line-bound copy of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
As a result, Mao Zedong did not sleep all night, read through all night, and the next day asked the shopkeeper if he could borrow the book.
Mao Zedong's wife He Zizhen recalled that in 1929, during the Jinggangshan period, Mao Zedong's greatest pleasure was to read, and his previous clothes had a pocket, and his pocket always contained a book, so in order to meet Mao Zedong's hobby, the logistics staff made his pocket the boss, just to let him put a few more books.
Figure | Mao Zedong and He Zizhen
In the early days of the Red Army, Mao Zedong commanded the war very strongly, which is famous, but there are also people who are dissatisfied with it, for example, before the Zunyi Conference, some people questioned Mao Zedong's military strategy, Bogu once said that Mao Zedong's set on Jinggang Mountain has long been useless, can it be done to fight according to the "Three Kingdoms"?
It was not until after the Bloody Battle of the Xiang River that the morale of the Red Army was greatly demoralized, and Bogu realized that no matter how strong Mao Zedong was, he was not very good anyway. Even so, there were still people who were dissatisfied with Mao Zedong.
At the Zunyi Conference, Kaifeng accused Mao Zedong of not understanding Marxism-Leninism, and arrogantly said to Mao Zedong: "Do you understand what Marxism-Leninism is?" At most, you read some of Sun Tzu's Art of War. ”
Mao Zedong really liked to watch "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Sun Tzu's Art of War", but why can't the war inspiration obtained from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" be used in revolutionary practice?
In this regard, Mao Zedong asked: "Have you read Sun Tzu's Art of War?" Do you know how many chapters there are in Sun Tzu's Art of War? One sentence made this comrade dumbfounded.
So, did Mao Zedong rely on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms to fight a war? In the 1960s, Mao Zedong said this many times: Many comrades in the party at that time said that I was not smart at fighting wars, and I fought according to two books, one was "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and the other was "Sun Tzu's Art of War". In fact, how can the war be fought according to the book? At that time, of these two books, I had only read one copy of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and the other "Sun Tzu's Art of War" I had not read, and the comrade said that I had read it, and I asked him how many chapters of "Sun Tzu's Art of War" had? What is the title of the first article? He couldn't answer. In fact, I haven't seen much myself, which forced me to watch "Sun Tzu's Art of War" and watch it over and over again.
Obviously, Mao Zedong did not fight according to the "book", which he personally said, but absorbed the essence of the soldier's book and then applied it to practice. In this regard, Zhou Enlai, who had studied abroad, also admired Mao Zedong's super high military command art.
Zhu De recalled that during the Jinggangshan period, there was a defense war in the Huangyang Boundary, whether it was Mao Zedong or Zhu De, in fact, they all thought of the "empty city plan", because Mao Zedong led the army down the mountain to support the trapped troops, and Jinggangshan was actually guarded by few people, but even so, it was still a big victory.
At the celebration party after the victory of the HuangyangJie Defense, someone compiled a set of Peking operas based on this plot, called "Mao Zedong's Empty Mountain Plan", and one of the passages sang like this:
I stood on the top of the Yellow Ocean Boundary and looked at the mountain, and overheard the people and horses under the mountain. Looking up, it turned out to be soldiers sent by Xiang gan. First, there was little experience in the peasant struggle, and second, the Twenty-eighth Regiment left Yongxin. Since you have ninggang Maoping, why did you come to invade my five wells? If you come and bring the mountain in, why do you camp down the mountain? You are uncertain, I have no ambush inside and no rescue soldiers outside. You come, come, come! I am preparing pumpkin red rice, red rice pumpkin, rewarding your three armies; you come, come, come! Please come to Jinggangshan and talk about the revolution.
This is probably the earliest work to praise Mao Zedong, and these descriptions fully reflect Mao Zedong's strategic ideas and the super high ideas that can draw the essence from the book and use them in practice.
Mao Zedong's reading of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and his use of knowledge of the Three Kingdoms at different times reflect Mao's ability to transform knowledge into ideological tactics. Mao Zedong not only looked at the Three Kingdoms from the perspective of war, but also saw the importance of diplomacy and organization in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Mao Zedong once said to Bo Yibo that when we watch the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, we must not only look at war and diplomacy, but also look at the organization. You northerners—Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, and Zhuge Liang—organized a group to go south to Sichuan and, together with the "local cadres," established a very good base area.
Chairman Mao meant that foreign cadres must unite well with local cadres in order to make a difference. He also said that cao cao went down to Jiangnan, and who became the commander of eastern Wu became a problem, so he found a "youth league member" Zhou Yu, who became the governor at the age of 29, and everyone was not convinced, and later persuaded, or Zhou Yu was the commander, and the result was a victorious battle. Mao Zedong used this incident to explain that in selecting and promoting cadres, we should not only talk about seniority, but also talk about talent by ability when necessary.
This fully shows that Chairman Mao not only liked to read the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" but also brought the essence of it to the fullest, for example.
In 1957, Mao Zedong said at a meeting of cadres in Shanghai: Liu Bei won Kong Ming, saying that it was "like a fish in the water", which is indeed true, history said so, the novel is also written. The masses are Kong Ming, and the leader is Liu Bei, which shows the wisdom and importance of the masses of the people.
For a long period of time after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao repeatedly used the plot and characters in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" as examples, and the most said was Cao Cao, Chairman Mao's love for Cao Cao will not be repeated, as can be seen from a poem "Langtaosha Beidaihe": The past has been more than a thousand years, Wei Wu waved his whip, there are relics in the east of Jieshi, and Xiao Ser's autumn wind is now another world.
Figure | Chairman Mao was reading
Chairman Mao's seventy years of three national bonds
If you spend a lifetime reading a book, such a reading record is very rare, and Chairman Mao's reading of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" can be said to be far ahead of many cultural scholars, he read the history of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" for more than 70 years, he also educated some generals, and even educated children to read more of this book.
After the founding of New China, chairman Mao, in order to read more versions of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as long as someone wrote an article about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he must read it. For example, in the 1950s, Chairman Mao saw the writer Wu Zujian's "About" in the Beijing Daily<三国演义>, and asked his secretary to buy it.
In 1955, Chairman Mao asked the guard Li Liancheng on the train: "Xiao Li, your time here is not short, it has been more than half a year, do you still not understand what I am talking?" Xiao Li said, "I can understand." Chairman Mao also instructed: "It is not that you cannot understand the words, but that you have learned less, that you have not read books, that you have not read "Dream of the Red Chamber", that you have not read "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", that as a Chinese, these books are not good to read, and you should study and study more. ”
Figure | Chairman Mao and two daughters
According to General Pi Dingjun's recollection, the first book he read was the Romance of the Three Kingdoms given to him by Liu Bocheng, and why Liu Bocheng read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was influenced by Chairman Mao.
In 1949, Chairman Mao's eldest daughter Li Min was sent to Beijing by He Zizhen, and soon after moving into Zhongnanhai, Li Min began to attend junior high school, and before the school started, Chairman Mao assigned her daughter a task, that is, to read the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin".
After the founding of New China, the newly published "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was still a bit difficult for junior high school students to read after several revisions, but Chairman Mao followed the temptation: "If you can't read it, you can read it slowly, but you can't read it without reading." When Li Min graduated from junior high school, Chairman Mao instructed again: "Have you finished all the books I asked you to read?" ”
Li Min said with grievance: "I can still understand "Water Margin", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" I really can't understand, I can't see it, I can see it all the time, one will fight this and that, one will fight with another, I don't know who fought with whom. ”
Chairman Mao laughed when he heard it, and he told his daughter that when he was a child, he read all the previous ones, even in traditional Chinese, and even so, he liked to read them. Li Min admired her father. Every time Li Minnan went down to visit He Zizhen and asked about the story of his father's youth, He Zizhen also clearly told Li Min that Mao Zedong had always liked to read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms during the Jinggangshan period and even during the Yan'an period.
Li Min and his sister Li Ne once discussed his father's book list, and Li Min said: Dad is really remarkable. As chairman Mao's younger daughter, Li Ne had a more profound influence on her father's education.
In 1959, the year of Li Min's marriage, Li Ne was admitted to the history department of Peking University, and before the opening of the school, Chairman Mao was worried that Li Ne would not read books, so he compiled a set of "teaching materials" for her, Li Ne recalled: "Father first let us read "Water Margin", because "Water Margin" is easy to read, and the story is more fascinating. Then read "Dream of the Red Chamber", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and poems. Chairman Mao also printed out his own selected poems into a book and bound several copies, one for each child.
From Li Ne's recollection, it can be confirmed that mao zedong, whether it was educating Mao Anying Mao Anqing or Li Min Li Ne, the books he repeatedly asked to read were "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which also shows that Chairman Mao was extremely fond of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
In 1974, Chairman Mao was seriously ill, and during his period of senile cataracts, he still insisted on reading the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", often flipping through various versions of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in the study room.
In the swimming pool study room in Chairman Mao's later years, in addition to storing a variety of paperback copies of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and large-character copies of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", in the last few years of his life, he often read it with great interest in the study. In his later years, Chairman Mao, because of the inconvenience of his eyes, liked the books in large characters the most, and he read and read them again, and they were also densely filled with criticisms.
On September 9, 1976, Chairman Mao passed away. When the children were sorting out their father's belongings, they found that the books he had just read on his desk were in addition to a copy of the Complete Works of Lu Xun and a copy of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Chairman Mao used the three-country complex of the past 70 years to warn future generations that learning to read and insisting on reading is an important matter for anyone.
Resources:
Biography of Mao Zedong, RossTril
"Interpreting Young Mao Zedong" Zhang Jinli
"The Reading Record of Chairman Mao in His Later Years" Xu Zhongyuan