Each of our lives is a deep and unpredictable book, with stories playing out on every page. Our parents wrote the beginning for us, and all the parts in the middle were written by our own ink, and every minute and every second appeared in the book without missing or lacking. But we can't change the page that has already been turned over.
However, no matter how ups and downs or ancient wells are without waves, our lives will eventually return to dust and disappear in the long river of time, and our lives are just a grain of sand in the vast universe.
In his old age, he was quiet and did not care about anything. Yan Xishan, the king of Shanxi, who once had unlimited scenery, waited until his old age, but it was just a simple life of eating green vegetables and steamed buns. In the time before his death, he calmly looked back on his life and found that there was nothing worth remembering at all.
For better or worse, happiness or sadness have become distant memories, and the same feelings cannot be given when remembered again. So his last gift to himself was a pair of ties.
The First Political Stage
Yan Xishan was born on October 8, 1883 in Wutai County, Shaanxi Province. His family was a small landlord family that was mainly engaged in business. Because there was no shortage of money in the family, Yan Xishan enjoyed a full education and began to read and write from an early age.
In 1902, Yan Xishan was admitted to the Shanxi Wubei Academy to study in the army, and the following year he was sent to the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School to study. During his study abroad, Yan Xishan joined the China League Association, participated in the formulation of the strategic policy of "responding to the south and responding to the north" with Sun Yat-sen, and officially entered the political stage.
After graduating from the Japanese Non-Commissioned Officer School, Yan Xishan did not choose to stay in Japan for long and return directly to China. After passing the examination in China, within a few months, he became the coach of the 86th standard of the 43rd Shanxi New Army.
After the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, although the alliance in Taiyuan, Shanxi, responded positively, because the authorities were afraid that the new army would revolt and take away their bullets, their response could only be verbal and some auxiliary cooperation, and could not be supported by force.
The decision of the authorities proved to be very correct. In 1911, the eighty-fifth standard was sent south to quell the chaos. How could it be okay to want the horses to run and not want to feed the horses, so the authorities had to send bullets.
Yan Xishan and others who received the bullet immediately decided to revolt, and it cannot be said that they were decided immediately; these plans had long been planned, but they had been waiting for such an opportunity. Yan Xishan was also elected as the governor of Shanxi after the uprising.
Stand in the wrong line
During the Beiyang government, Yuan Shikai's perverse behavior was opposed by the people of the whole country. Several parts of the country formed a new army plan to jointly attack Yuan Shikai.
In this case, Yan Xishan still sided with Yuan Shikai, obviously he could not go to the thief's ship but had to become a grasshopper on a rope, and spared no effort to support Yuan Shikai. Yan Xishan's final interest in this practice for himself was to concurrently serve as the governor of Shanxi Province.
In the time that followed, Yan Xishan did not make much movement, making the outside world mistakenly think that he decided to first TaoGuang and cultivate obscurity after experiencing the previous failures, but in fact, he secretly expanded his armaments secretly.
He sent his cronies to build various arsenals in several major parts of Shanxi Province to meet the production of guns and ammunition, and constantly expanded the army. From the original four brigades to 17 divisions, this is simply a shotgun for a cannon.
During the Northern Expedition, the Kuomintang and the Communists cooperated, and at this time, Yan Xishan's control was extraordinary, and the Kuomintang tried its best to pull him into its own camp. Although it did not succeed at that time, it also greatly improved the relationship between the two sides.
Fled to Taiwan
In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek's army was defeated, and Chinese mainland was basically liberated. Lu Han saw that Chiang Kai-shek's general situation had gone, and immediately contacted the Communist side and began to prepare for the uprising. In fact, as early as a few years ago, Lu Han already had this idea, but at that time Chiang Kai-shek was not as depressed as he is now, and he felt that he could wait and see for a while, but he had already begun to plan.
On the afternoon of December 9, LuHan put Zhang Qun, the elder of the Nationalist government, under the pretext of inviting the leaders of the various armies to a meeting.
It was still too easy to be calculating, and the leaders of the armies did not realize that they had become the turtle in the plan. When they all arrived at the meeting place, Lujan immediately ordered them all to be detained. An uprising was declared on the same day.
Originally, Lu Han's plan was for him to revolt in Yunnan, and Liu Wenhui was also detaining Chiang Kai-shek in Chengdu. After placing Zhang Qun under house arrest, Lu Han quickly sent a secret telegram to Liu Wenhui, telling him that he could plan to detain Chiang Kai-shek.
But what he did not expect was that this secret telegram was intercepted by Chiang Kai-shek. Upon hearing the news, Chiang Kai-shek took off from Chengdu to Taiwan without stopping, and has never returned to the mainland since.
Bland old age
After Chiang Kai-shek's defeat, Yan Xishan also fled to Taiwan with him. After arriving in Taiwan, Yan Xishan, who had no troops under his command, could only rely on his own ability, and his power and status were gradually leaving him. In the subsequent partisan struggle in Taiwan, he did not have a chip to increase his advantage, and others only regarded him as a dispensable foil.
Initially, Yan Xishan could not accept this huge gap. In the past, when he was in Shanxi, he was always in response to everything he wanted, no matter who saw him, he would maintain respect, even Chiang Kai-shek did not dare to despise him. But now, Chiang Kai-shek can't use him at all, and although other people won't sneer at him, sometimes ignoring one person is the most heartfelt.
After experiencing this series, Yan Xishan summed up his mental journey and changed his mentality. His mentality became more stable, and he found that everything he had pursued before was nothing more than a cloud of smoke drifting with the wind. It's impossible to have it all the time, but it's enough to have experienced and experienced that feeling.
After reconciling with himself, Yan Xishan decided to return to the simplest life, not to pursue too high and too far, and to focus on the three meals a day in front of him.
He is a native of Shanxi, and he has been in Shanxi almost since the revolution. So he didn't change his eating habits in Taiwan either, still using pasta as a staple food, followed by some light dishes as a garnish. The diet was light because Yan Xishan was older and could not eat too much greasy things. Sometimes a few steamed buns with green vegetables are just a meal for him.
When Yan Xishan realized that his limit was approaching, he didn't have much fear in his heart, he had experienced everything in his life, and his heart was already unfazed. He used this last period to write a note for himself:
When there is a big need, it can eventually become a big cause; if you go without great certainty, you will eventually find a big opportunity
。
On May 23, 1960, Yan Xishan died of illness in Taiwan at the age of 77.
brief summary:
Have we ever lived for ourselves? From birth in this world we are an independent personality, not an appendage of anyone, including our parents.
In the process of growing up, we can be guided, but we should not be forced to do what to do, to become the carrier of other people's consciousness and desires. Everyone is a person for the first time, and no one can prove that they must be right. We should not be defined by anyone, we should not be labeled by anyone, we are ourselves, our unique selves.