"Sell newspapers!" Sell newspapers! On the streets of Wuhan, the newsboy shouted loudly as he walked, and the pedestrians who passed by looked at him curiously, but only a few people stopped him from buying a newspaper.
A middle-aged man dressed in cloth asked for a copy of Xinhua Daily, and on the way to school, he glanced at it casually and saw a familiar name. He looked more closely, only to see a name written in a search notice on the back of the newspaper.
The man checked repeatedly and found that the newspaper really wrote the words "Zhou Enlai", but not in the content, but in the publisher. As an underground party member who settled in Wuhan and ostensibly became a teacher, he had never seen the name in a non-military article in the newspaper, so he was surprised.
The search notice is to find a 10-year-old girl, which only writes the name of the girl's caregiver, Zhao Chunshan, and the address and contact information are not written on it. It looks ordinary, no different from the frequent search notices in the war years, but the special identity of the publisher makes people curious.
Who is this girl? Why did Zhou Enlai personally publish a newspaper to look for her? Is her identity special?
Pictured| Zhou Enlai
In 1937, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in full swing, and in order to protect the homeland, the Kuomintang and the Communists put aside their prejudices and began a second cooperation. In order to engage in united front work in the Kuomintang-ruled areas, the Party Central Committee arranged for Zhou Enlai to serve as deputy director of the Political Department of the Military Commission of the National Government, and Zhou Enlai also moved to Wuhan with the Kuomintang to work.
Before Zhou Enlai was transferred, Liu Shaoqi and several comrades came to his residence to bid farewell and wished him all the best in his work in Wuhan. After the dinner, several other people left, but Liu Shaoqi hesitated, as if he was going to leave, but his expression was very entangled.
Seeing Liu Shaoqi's appearance, Zhou Enlai knew what difficulties this comrade Xu had, but he was embarrassed to mention it, so he took the initiative to break the deadlock and said: "Shaoqi, how many years have we known each other?" This question is telling Liu Shaoqi that they have known each other for so long, and they know each other's roots, and there is something that can be said directly.
Liu Shaoqi heard what he meant and laughed, but his face sank again when he remembered his worries, and he said, half worried and half embarrassed: "Enlai, you know, I had three children before, but because of the revolutionary work, I entrusted all the children to others, and now that the situation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China has become better, I wonder if I can get them back." ”
Hearing these words, Zhou Enlai also put away his smile. In order to work with peace of mind and save their families, many comrades in the organization had to be separated from their families, and then lost news of each other in the war, not knowing whether they were alive or dead.
These comrades had all made sacrifices for revolutionary work, and Zhou Enlai was certainly willing to help them find their relatives, and carefully asked Liu Shaoqi: "Is there any information about the three children?" ”
His three children have not been heard from since they were separated, and Liu Shaoqi only knows some of the circumstances when he first left: "The eldest son, Liu Yunbin, was born in 1921 and was sent back to his hometown of Ningxiang in Hunan in 1925; the eldest daughter Ai'er was born in 1927 and entrusted to the care of Zhao Chunshan, a Hankou worker activist; the youngest child, Liu Yunruo, was born in 1930, and his mother was arrested in 1933, before which the child was entrusted to the landlady." Beyond that, there's no more information. ”
Figure | Liu Shaoqi (left)
After saying that, Liu Shaoqi himself did not have the confidence to find the child. At that time, the situation was very urgent, and there was little news to know, not to mention that it had been so long, and whether the child was still a problem was still a problem. Zhou Enlai comforted him: "You must believe that they will take good care of the children, and I will definitely arrange for people to look for them carefully, and these children should return to the arms of their parents." ”
That being said, whether or not he can find the child, Zhou Enlai has no bottom in his heart. Liu Shaoqi had too little information in his hands, and the first people who went out to look for him were fruitless, so Zhou Enlai had no choice but to pin his trust on the strength of the people and publish a search notice in xinhua daily:
"Looking for a co-worker Zhao Chunshan: 10 years ago, a daughter of Mr. Liu Shaoqi was raised by Mr. To, and now he wants to see his daughter, and those who know about it ask to come to the business department of this newspaper library to talk about it."
As soon as this search notice was released, because the publisher was Zhou Enlai, it did attract more people's attention, but the person in charge of the newspaper's business department waited for a long time, and did not wait for the masses who provided information.
Is it true that Comrade Liu Shaoqi's daughter cannot be found?
Zhou Enlai was unwilling to give up, and he found the child for Liu Shaoqi, not only to help Liu Shaoqi's family reunite, but also to give an account to the comrades who made sacrifices. And if these children can be retrieved, it is also a shot of tonic for comrades in the same situation within the organization, so that they can feel at ease.
Thanks to Zhou Enlai not giving up the search, a few days later an underground party member who had been lurking in Wuhan for many years secretly contacted the office of the Eighth Route Army in Wuhan. The underground party member came to the office and first asked, "Has Comrade Liu Shaoqi's daughter been found?" ”
The picture | the former site of the Eighth Route Army Office in Wuhan
Seeing the person in charge shake his head, he said the news he had heard: "I accompanied my wife back to my hometown to see relatives yesterday, and when I inquired, I found that someone inside had heard Zhao Chunshan's name, and I asked my wife that the person lived by the Hankou River, and the organization could go there to find it." ”
Unexpectedly, the news of the fruitless search was sent to the door by himself, and the person in charge quickly asked the party members about the origin of the matter, after all, this was not the work arranged by the organization for him, how could he investigate this matter?
It turned out that everything was a coincidence. This underground party member, dressed in cloth and publicly identified as a primary school teacher, noticed this search notice when the newspaper was just published, although he could not expose his identity to take the initiative to look for it, but he always pretended to be a zealous mass, inadvertently telling the people around him: "There is a girl with a bitter fate who cannot return home, if you know Zhao Chunshan, you can go to the newspaper to provide news." ”
Although he paid special attention to the news about Zhao Chunshan, he found nothing for a long time, and it was inconvenient to contact the Eighth Route Army office to inquire about the progress of the search. On this visit with his wife back to his hometown, he had not yet had time to inquire about it, and his wife took the initiative to ask whether his family had heard of Zhao Chunshan.
This time he didn't have any hope, but who knew that the old man sitting next to him eating wine suddenly remembered something and said: "This name is very familiar!" When he wanted to ask for more information, the old man said he didn't know, and Buyi explained: "I also heard this name when I was working, and I don't know this person." "However, after inquiring, I knew that the old man worked in the Hankou area.
The underground party member did not know whether to report the news, did not report it for fear that this person had missed the opportunity, and worried that the inaccurate information would increase the comrade's work. In the end, his wife couldn't look at it and asked him: "Why don't you go to the newspaper to provide information?" Haven't you been worried about this all the time? "That's why we have today' suffering."
The person in charge did not expect that in private there were comrades who inquired for them in many ways, and immediately reported the news to Zhou Enlai. Zhou Enlai was very grateful to this comrade who had been working quietly, and he wanted to entrust the search work to this comrade, but considering that the comrade's identity was not very convenient, he finally contacted another underground party member.
After Zhou Enlai got off work, he got into a rickshaw, and the driver tapped the sole of his shoe with his pipe and asked him, "Sir, where are you going?" "This coachman is the underground party member who has been well connected, and the pipe knocking on the sole of the shoe is the code for their joint."
To the code, Zhou Enlai said softly, as usual from work, with a little tiredness: "I will go home and go to the Hankou River." Of course, Zhou Enlai's residence is not in Hankou, and the next half of the sentence hints at the address of this person.
The coachman shouted "Good", sent Zhou Enlai home, turned around and picked up a few more guests, did not rest until nightfall, pretended to go home, and then left from the back of the house and went all the way to Hankou. Because he did not know other information, he could only knock on the door along the river to ask for the news of Zhao Chunshan, there were many nearby households, and no one had heard of Zhao Chunshan when he knocked on the door for several days.
The coachman was patient and divided the area for nearby households, according to the information provided, even if the Zhao Chunshan family lived here, the family conditions should not be ideal. After thinking about it, he found it directly from the shantytown, and this method really worked, knocking on a few doors and someone told him the specific location of Zhao Chunshan's home.
After so long of searching, there was finally a result. When the coachman arrived at Zhao Chunshan's house in the afternoon, he could see the situation in the courtyard when he stood outside the door, the family seemed to be busy, there was no shadow, only a little boy staying in the mud to play.
How come there is only one boy? Isn't Liu Shaoqi pinning his trust in the family a girl? The coachman giggled in his heart, and suddenly had a bad premonition, he stopped the little boy and asked, "Child, what about your family?" The little boy was startled, ignored him, and rushed directly into the house, and after a while a woman came out, who looked like zhao Chunshan's wife.
The woman saw the coachman and asked, "Who are you?" What's the matter with coming to my house? The coachman told the agreement between their family and Liu Shaoqi, and she immediately knew what the coachman had come to do, first staring wide-eyed in surprise, then covering her face and crying loudly.
The coachman guessed that the child was probably not very good, endured the worry in his heart, and patiently calmed her emotions. When she was in a better state, he asked her: "Big sister, don't you cry first, is that girl still alive?" ”
When the woman heard this, tears flowed down again, and answered the question intermittently with tears: "The child is still alive, but the family was too difficult back then, the child's grandmother was seriously ill, Chunshan had no job, and the family really couldn't support her." In order to find a way for the child to live, he sold his child to a family with good family conditions as a child bride. ”
After the Zhao Chunshan family sold the child, they did not see the child again, only heard that the male owner of the family was very good and good to Ai'er, but the actual situation was only known to the parties. What the coachman feared had already happened, and it could only be said that the child was still alive.
Explaining clearly Comrade Liu Shaoqi's intention to take Ai'er back, Zhao Chunshan's wife did not delay the time, and immediately put aside the affairs of the family and took the coachman to the family's house to see the situation.
In the evening, every household cooks rice, and the aroma of the meal can always soothe some of the tiredness and pain in the heart. In a certain family in Hankou, a little girl skillfully washed pots and pans, cooked rice, and did not dare to slow down the work of adding firewood, she looked at the women in and out of the courtyard in fear, and every time she saw her come out, it was as if she saw a flood beast, and her body trembled.
She was sold into the home four years ago and has never experienced the life of a normal child again. Saying that she was bought as a child bride, in fact, she found a yahuan, and every day a large family eats and drinks Lasa, and she has to take care of everything.
When she first came here, the girl was only a few years old, and the hostess asked her to wash clothes and cook for the first day, to work for the family, saying that when she sold it to their family, she would make them cattle and horses until she was satisfied. But she was small, the work was always not good, the hostess was angry when she saw it, and she beat her up, and the bruises on her body for several years were always good and came, and they were never clean.
At first, Ai'er would pray in her heart that her mother would take her home, but as the time passed, the hope in her heart was slowly worn away. Obviously only the age of the child, but always without a word, the old man sat and waited for the hostess to arrange the work for her, and occasionally looked at the sky outside the courtyard with sullenness, and this bitter girl was Ai'er.
On this day, Ai'er was drawing water by the well as usual, and the half-human-high wooden barrel could almost block most of her body, but she could carry the water and walk, although the steps were slow and slow, but she could see the skill in the movements.
When Zhao Chunshan's wife walked to the door of the courtyard, she saw the people between the barrels at a glance, and the familiar figure made her tears burst the embankment again, covering her mouth and crying silently. Seeing her reaction, the coachman knew that this child was the beloved child he had been looking for for a long time, and rushed forward to take the flat burden on the girl's shoulder.
Ai'er only felt a light on her shoulders, and looked back in confusion, she thought that the man in the family was helping her, and only the man in this family would help her do some work and stop her when the hostess hit her.
Unexpectedly, she actually saw her mother, the mother who often jumped out in her dreams to take her home. Ai Er was stunned and rubbed her eyes in disbelief, still unable to believe that her mother had really come to see her.
Seeing Ai'er's reaction, the coachman's nose was sour, and it was hard to imagine what the girl had gone through to be so careful. Zhao Chunshan's wife cried even more, regretting that she had handed over her love to someone else, and regretting that she had not come to see her all these years.
Now it is a cold winter, but Ai'er only has a single dress and pants, the cloth shoes are still broken, the exposed places on the body are frozen red, and there are not only frostbites on her hands, but also some undeven bruises. This look did not need Ai'er to say it herself, and the two could guess her experience.
Zhao Chunshan's wife endured remorse, calmed her mood, and called out Ai'er's name in a warm voice: "Ai'er, Ai'er, your mother has come to pick you up." Seeing that Ai'er was still stunned, she went forward to hold the child and warm her body with her body temperature.
After a few seconds, Ai'er finally reacted, opened her mouth and cried loudly, the crying was very loud, lasted for a long time, and the tears were endless, as if to vent all these years of fear and sadness at this moment.
The coachman was so distressed that he was eager to let Ai'er return to his biological father and enjoy the life he deserved, but he knew that Ai'er had suffered over the years, afraid that he would not easily believe the words of others, so he thought of letting Zhao Chunshan's wife take Ai'er home first, and then slowly tell the child her origin.
In order not to expose her identity, Zhao Chunshan's wife made an excuse that the child's uncle went home and wanted to see the child, so he brought back Ai'er from the hostess. When Ai'er came home, she stuck to her mother and cried loudly the moment she left. Seeing that the child was in such a situation, the coachman went back to Zhou Enlai and asked: "Will the child stay at the adoptive mother's house first, or will he be brought back to the organization immediately?" ”
This matter has been investigated for a long time, and in case the adoptive mother and the family that buys the child bride leaks the news, the Kuomintang authorities may not be able to find anything, and when the identity is exposed, the child and the family caring for the child may encounter an accident.
Considering all the circumstances, Zhou Enlai still decided to let the child come back first, saying: "It is not easy to find back, but there must be no more mistakes." "As for the families who raised the children, the organization paid compensation to thank them for their previous care of the children.
In the past few days since returning home, Ai'er has learned of her complicated life from her mother. At first she thought that her mother was going to sell her away again, but she refused to believe it until the coachman changed into the uniform of the Eighth Route Army to assure her that she stopped crying and agreed to go with him to see her father.
Before meeting her father, Ai'er was sent to the Office of the Eighth Route Army in Wuhan. Coming to the unfamiliar environment, Ai'er was very nervous, grabbed the driver's hand and asked, "Are you talking about my father here?" ”
Hearing the girl's words, the coachman smiled bitterly, squatted down and said goodbye to her: "Your father is not here, after a while, someone will take you to Yan'an to see your father, don't worry, just like your own home here." ”
Ai'er's big dark eyes had been staring at him, as if to distinguish whether what he said was true or not, but she had already walked out of the house, and now regretted that she couldn't find her way home, so she could only nod her head sullenly and replied, "I know." ”
Seeing her dull attitude, the coachman specifically instructed his comrades to take care of the children before leaving. As soon as he left, the comrades of the Eighth Route Army Office came up and enthusiastically introduced themselves to her.
Deng Yingchao once fought with Ai'er's biological mother, He Baozhen, so she was very fond of Ai'er, took the initiative to take care of her child's life, washed her face and hair, and told stories at night, telling the revolutionary story of Ai'er's mother, He Baozhen.
Pictured| Deng Yingchao
During this period, Zhou Enlai also came over, looked at the little girl, felt sad for her experience, and assured her that he would soon see his father. Ai'er's previous clothes were patched with many patches, both thin and not good-looking, and when Zhou En saw her, he asked her to change into a new one. The Eighth Route Army office only had military uniforms, and Deng Yingchao picked and chose to take the smallest military uniform for her to change.
Seeing that she was dressed exactly like the newly recognized "Mother Deng", Ai'er smiled and felt that she had found a sense of belonging here. Because the comrades in the office were so kind to Ai'er, until the time of parting, she didn't want to see her father.
The comrades escorting the children cried and laughed, and it was hard to wait until someone in the office wanted to go to Yan'an to work, and they could take the children to meet with their biological fathers by the way, who wanted the children to be happy and did not think about it, and had long forgotten their own fathers.
In fact, it is not that she does not dislike her father, Ai'er is rarely pampered by this kind of care, and she really does not want to work with the "fathers and mothers", especially for strange fathers, she still does not understand at all. After arriving in Yan'an, Ai'er did not immediately see her father, Wuhan to Yan'an all the way is the anti-Japanese battlefield, Ai'er has long heard that her father's identity is special, in order to defend the motherland is very busy.
Ai Er did not understand these things, and could only wait according to the arrangement of the staff, waiting for more than twenty days, and finally someone told her that she could see her father. On this day, she changed into her favorite clothes and waited in the courtyard.
Liu Shaoqi was not alone when he returned home, many comrades heard that his daughter had found her and wanted to see them, and when they walked into the courtyard, they saw a little girl wearing a small Eighth Route Army uniform looking at them in a daze, and that look made them smile.
It's just that there are too many people coming, and Ai'er doesn't know which one is her father, until a person rushes up and hugs her, she knows that this person is her father, and immediately and sensibly shouts: "Daddy! This father not only made Liu Shaoqi's eyes red, but also made all the comrades present feel sad.
After many hardships, the father and daughter finally recognized each other, and then Liu Shaoqi's three children returned home, ai'er also took the official name Liu Aiqin, and the family was finally reunited. Even if the reunion is many years apart, as long as they are still alive, all the regrets of the past will still have time to make up for it in the future, which is the greatest luck in the war years!