On the eve of Chinese New Year's Eve January 27, 1949, an urgent telegram reached a wealthy family in Taoyuan, Taiwan.
The servant of the house hurriedly woke up the hostess in the main house with a telegram.
The maid lit a candle by the bed, and both the hostess and the youngest child in the house woke up.
The servant hurriedly spoke, "Ma'am, a new telegram has arrived. ”
The hostess placed the telegram in the light of a candle, and before she could finish reading it, her hands trembled at first.
The little daughter who was not familiar with the world next to her asked, "Mother, is it a message from my father?" ”
It was about to be the Spring Festival, and my father had promised to go home before the festival.
But this telegram brought not the good news expected, but a death declaration!
The man of this room, the cruise ship he was on, was killed by nearly a thousand people on board because of the collision with the freighter.
The hostess did not answer her daughter's words, but hugged her daughter and began to cry silently.
Who is this hostess? What kind of life do women and children live after the death of their husbands?
"The first half of affluent life ended due to an accident"
Wang Shuzhen was born in September 1897 to a large family in Rugao, Jiangsu Province.
Her ancestors were businessmen who opened sesame oil shops, and the business was booming and well-known in the local area.
The Wang family has believed in Buddhism since the beginning of their ancestors, and under the impression of her family, Wang Shuzhen has also believed in Buddhism since childhood.
Her solid family situation allowed Wang Shuzhen to receive a good education from an early age.
Wang Shuzhen went to the girls' middle school at that time, she could read, she could read, she could read, she could read, she could read calligraphy, and she was proficient in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting.
When Wang Shuzhen was young, she was a famous local beauty in Rugao, and many men of the right age had proposed to the Wang family.
At that time, women had to marry women when they were very young, and Wang Shuzhen was no exception.
The Wang family is a well-known local family, and Wang Shuzhen's parents want to find a door-to-door affair for her.
In 1916, at the age of 19, Wang Shuzhen married Li Haomin, a local businessman.
At that time, the Li family's business was even inferior to that of the Wang family, and Li Haomin helped his father manage the business in the grain trading house opened by his father.
Since the two married, Li Haomin has focused on business, while Wang Shuzhen has married and taught his children at home.
In the past, having more children and more blessings was a very common concept in Chinese society.
Because of the influence of many sons and many blessings, Wang Shuzhen gave Li Haomin five sons and eight daughters after marriage.
In 1930, Li Haomin seized the opportunity of hot kerosene sales and opened a shop called "Maoji WuyangHao", specializing in daily necessities.
The Li family suddenly made a fortune and became a big merchant on the rich side.
Wang Shuzhen, who married into the Li family, became the "Wangfu woman" in the population.
After making a fortune, Li Haomin bought a large mansion in his hometown of Rugao, where wang Shuzhen was the hostess of the courtyard.
Before her husband's death, Wang Shuzhen and her children lived an enviable fairy life.
However, that era was in the stage of China's internal and external troubles, and the wind and rain were drifting.
After years of war, Li Haomin judged the situation and decided to move his career to Taiwan.
In 1948, Li Haomin moved to Taiwan with Wang Shuzhen and his family of thirteen children.
When he was in Taiwan, Li Haomin gradually turned the daily necessities business into water production.
After that, Li Haomin returned to his hometown in Jiangsu, planning to bring a batch of fish fry to Taiwan in his hometown.
However, it was the beginning of 1949, and due to the influence of the current situation, a large number of high-ranking officials and nobles began to plan to move to Taiwan.
Ferry tickets to Taiwan are hard to come by.
In the end, Li Haomin relied on his trust relationship and exchanged gold bars for a ticket for a luxury freighter at that time, the Taiping Ship.
The Taiping Wheel departs on the eve of Chinese New Year's Eve and arrives in Taiwan just in time to be able to reunite with family.
But Li Haomin could not have imagined that this was actually a death trip.
On January 27, 1949, the Taiping Ship was delayed from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. due to a batch of silver dollars waiting for shipment.
The Taiping ship was heavily overloaded at the time of departure.
That night, in order to escape the curfew, the crew did not turn on the navigation lights, and while driving near the Zhoushan Islands, the Taiping ship collided with a cargo ship.
The freighter sank on the spot, and the Taiping sank to the bottom of the sea a minute later.
The people on the ship who were still asleep drowned before they could react.
Some people who barely floated on the water through the wreckage of a ship also froze to death because they soaked in the cold water for a long time.
Nearly 1,000 people were killed in the accident, including Li Haomin.
The families who were waiting for Li Haomin to return home in Taiwan were devastated to learn of the sinking of the Taiping Wheel.
Wang Shuzhen firmly believes that her husband will not die so easily.
The next day, Wang Shuzhen hired a private jet to the sunken sea to look for her husband.'
But Wang Shuzhen finally found nothing.
"From rich wife to maid for thirteen children to become doctors"
When her husband died, Wang Shuzhen was 52 years old, and what she did not expect was that she would be widowed for 54 years.
After Li Haomin's death, none of his former business partners believed in Wang Shuzhen's ability, and the trees fell and scattered, and most of them interrupted the business with the Li family.
Former business rivals have also begun to suppress Wang Shuzhen's family.
Before his death, Li Haomin ran an agricultural fish pond in Taoyuan.
But the roof leaked during the overnight rain, and an accident occurred in the fishing ground, and a worker slipped his foot into the fish pond and drowned.
Although people around her said it was the workers' own mistakes, Wang Shuzhen insisted on compensating the relatives of the workers who died.
Wang Shuzhen's decision did not even understand her children, but Wang Shuzhen told the children that honesty and responsibility are the most important.
After this, Li Haomin's industry was rapidly defeated.
Creditors and workers came to Li's house to collect debts.
Wang Shuzhen could only sell all the properties and shops purchased by her former husband and pay off the debts she owed.
Some people may wonder that Wang Shuzhen already has four adult children, so why not let them inherit their father's business?
Because the wealthy merchants of the time were satisfied with their money, they began to expect their children to go to the end of their careers.
The same is true of Wang Shuzhen's family. They grew up without contact with their father's business empire, but studied diligently.
Because the family had no money, Wang Shuzhen took her children to live in an old thatched hut far from the city.
The family had no income, so Wang Shuzhen began to work.
The first half of her life was a wealthy family, Wang Shuzhen's ten fingers did not touch the Yang Chunshui, but for the sake of thirteen children, Wang Shuzhen put down her body and started from the most bitter and tiring work.
She went from being a rich lady to becoming a maid in someone else's house.
After the children of the family realized the embarrassment of the family, they all said that they would drop out of school and go out to work to help their mothers share the housework.
But Wang Shuzhen disagreed, because she had received education before, so Wang Shuzhen understood the preciousness of education better.
She demanded that her children must continue their studies, study desperately, and become elites in all walks of life.
At the request of their mothers, none of the thirteen children gave up their studies.
At that time, Wang Shuzhen's family lived in the suburbs, and every time they went to school, they had to walk for more than half an hour, but the children did not shout bitterness or tiredness, and worked hard to learn.
Among Wang Shuzhen's dozen children is the world-famous criminal investigation expert Li Changyu, who is known as the contemporary Sherlock Holmes.
When Li Changyu was in school, the school did not allow students to enter the campus barefoot.
But at that time, Wang Shuzhen's family was really too poor, and Wang Shuzhen cobbled together everywhere to buy a pair of shoes for Li Changyu to wear.
Li Changyu is well aware of his mother's difficulty, and he especially cherishes this new pair of shoes that are not easy to come from.
It takes half an hour from home to school, and Li Changyu goes back and forth to school barefoot every day, waiting outside the school gate to put on his shoes.
After graduating from high school, Li Changyu was admitted to ocean university, but at the same time, Li Changyu found that the Central Police Academy was enrolling students.
The latter has no tuition fees, subsidizes the living expenses of students, and can arrange jobs after graduation.
Li Changyu remembered the poor family conditions, and in order to reduce the burden on his mother, he chose to apply for the Central Police Academy.
Not only Li Changyu, but also The remaining twelve children of Wang Shuzhen are so sensible.
But Wang Shuzhen did not let the children's studies stop at university.
After graduating from Li Changyu University, he became an ordinary policeman.
Although the salary is good, but the daily work is very simple and repetitive, in this kind of day, Li Changyu's life has become unenterprising.
After her mother, Wang Shuzhen, discovered this problem, she educated Li Changyu. She asked Li Changyu to continue his studies until he read a doctorate.
Every child, Wang Shuzhen, demanded this.
Wang Shuzhen's children once said that they were not afraid of anything outside, but when they returned home, if they saw their mother angry, they would become very afraid.
The side also reflects that Wang Shuzhen's requirements for her children are very strict.
Under her instruction, some of the children studied for doctoral studies in Taiwan or went to the United States to study.
Because of the poor family conditions, the children maintained a state of half-work and half-study during the period of study.
Under these conditions, the children became more and more enterprising, and Wang Shuzhen's thirteen children eventually received doctorates.
Many people asked How Wang Shuzhen educates her children, and Wang Shuzhen said that her godson sutra has only 15 words: "Treat people well, concentrate on doing things, talk less, and do more things." ”
"Moving to the United States, but giving up the love for the motherland"
As we all know, Li Changyu is Chinese-American.
His twelve siblings all became American citizens and settled in the United States.
What's going on here?
In modern society, Taiwan was first ceded to Japan, and then occupied by the Kuomintang after the war.
Although Wang Shuzhen and Li Haomin's ancestral homes are in Jiangsu, they also have strong patriotic feelings.
But Ms. Wang's children, who grew up in Taiwan, rarely receive a patriotic education.
It is precisely because of growing up in this atmosphere that Wang Shuzhen's children choose to decide the United States because of the generous treatment.
In fact, Wang Shuzhen herself loves this land of China very much.
But at that time, because of her family's poverty, Wang Shuzhen was only thinking about how to make her children talented, and ignored patriotic education.
By the time Wang Shuzhen woke up, the children's thoughts had taken shape and could not be recovered.
In her later years, Wang Shuzhen moved to the United States with her children, taught herself English, and passed the U.S.C.I.S. English test at the age of nearly seventy.
During her time in the United States, Wang Shuzhen never forgot her motherland.
She demanded that children must communicate in the Jiangsu dialect at home, along with grandchildren, and Wang Shuzhen also asked them to learn to Chinese.
Wang Shuzhen often teaches her children that they must not forget their roots outside.
Three of the 13 children raised by Wang Shuzhen were awarded the "Top Ten Outstanding Young People of the United States."
At Wang Shuzhen's 100th birthday party, President and Mrs. Clinton, as well as the mayor of New York City, attended the banquet to congratulate her on her happy birthday.
When the children asked Wang Shuzhen what she wanted, Wang Shuzhen replied, "I want to go back to China and build a school for Chinese children." ”
This simple sentence reveals Wang Shuzhen's inseparable love for the motherland.
The children also obeyed Wang Shuzhen's instructions, and Li Changyu and his family contacted the relevant institutions in rugao, their hometown.
From there they learned that the home school was perfect, but lacked a professional stadium for children to play.
Upon hearing the news, Wang Shuzhen's children immediately decided to donate a stadium to Rugao.
Wang Shuzhen believed in Buddhism and was given the Dharma title "Shore Buddha" in her youth.
After the completion of the stadium, it was named "Li Wang An Fo Stadium".
Because Wang Shuzhen is over a hundred years old, it is not realistic to travel a long way to China.
In 2001, Li Changyu specially traveled from the United States to the Rugao Normal Primary School, dug up a bunch of dirt from his hometown and brought it to his mother.
Two years after the stadium was built, Wang Shuzhen died on March 6, 2003, at the age of 106.
Wang Shuzhen's funeral was held very solemnly, and on the day of the funeral, the motorcycle opened the road, and people paid tribute to this old Chinese lady along the way.
The old man, who has spanned three centuries, was finally able to reunite with her husband after 54 years.
She was able to say to her husband with a clear conscience that I had done my best for the children.
"Passing on the torch of patriotism"
Education is not only to fill your mind with knowledge, but also to become an adult before becoming a talent, and to have a smart mind also needs a patriotic heart.
Fortunately, although Wang Shuzhen's children have all changed their nationality, they have not left their mother's teachings behind.
After retiring, Li Returned to China as a professor at several schools and recruited graduate students to the mainland.
Li Changyu also began to establish China's first forensic science museum in his hometown of Rugao, which was officially opened on November 5, 2016.
In 2018, Li Changyu participated in a show called "Thank You, My Home".
In the program, Li Changyu read the letter he wrote to his grandson.
He mentioned many times in his letters that he should never forget that he was a Chinese.
Our hometown is in Rugao, Jiangsu Province, where we have our roots.
Li Changyu and other siblings are most grateful to their mothers in this life.
Every year back in China, Li Changyu will come to li wang an fo stadium to see the children in his hometown for his deceased mother.
"People go up, water goes down."
At that time, not everyone could have the consciousness that Qian Xuesen and other great people gave up the preferential treatment abroad and chose to return to China.
In different times, we can't blame them for their choices.
But what we do know is that today, the construction of the country needs more talents, and our country is also a new look compared to the past.
China is developing steadily, the country is rich and the people are strong, and more and more talents choose to stay in China.
The family is the first classroom in life, and parents' education of their children ranges from "small family" to "everyone".
The patriotic education provided by primary and secondary schools is also constantly strengthening, and patriotic feelings are deeply rooted in all aspects of life.
Today, patriotism is being passed on everywhere in China!
——End——