On June 1, 2011, in an unremarkable ward at Huadong Hospital in Shanghai, an elderly woman opened a particularly encrypted letter with trembling hands.
This confidential letter from the Central Committee is only a thin sheet, and the content on it is also very simple, and when you look closely, you find that there is only one sentence: "The matter of the Central Special Branch has passed the confidentiality period and can be told." ”
Relieved, the 97-year-old breathed a sigh of relief and then summoned a hospital nurse and asked her to bring into the room a distinguished guest who had been waiting outside the door for a long time.
When the nurse walked out of the ward, she found that the distinguished guest waiting outside the old man's door was actually Chairman Mao Zedong's only grandson- Mao Xinyu!
As a general, why did Mao Xinyu come to Shanghai at such a time to visit an inconspicuous old man? And what secret did this old man carry that he was willing to say with the permission of the central authorities?
With the arrival of Mao Xinyu, the old man named Li Yun finally spoke out about a "confidential mission" he had performed that year, and with it, there was also the legendary story of the three Mao brothers who were the most concerned about that year...
1. Mother lost at an early age
The three Mao brothers, that is, Chairman Mao's three children, are Mao Anying, born in 1922, Mao Anqing, born in 1923, and Mao Anyong, born in 1927.
Originally, the three brothers should accompany their parents and spend a happy childhood, but just after the birth of the old Sanmao anlong, the lives of the three brothers have undergone earth-shaking changes due to a series of coincidences.
Even almost staged a Shanghai version of "Sanmao Wandering", and all this must start from 1927.
On April 4, 1927, Chairman Mao's third son, Mao Anlong, was born in Wuhan.
However, just eight days later, before everyone could celebrate the birth of a new life, Chiang Kai-shek launched a counter-revolutionary coup in Shanghai that shocked China and the outside world. Subsequently, Wang Jingwei also defected to the Communists and wantonly slaughtered the Communists.
Under this critical situation, Chairman Mao rushed to Hankou to attend an emergency meeting, and then rushed to Changsha as a special commissioner of the Cpc to participate in the preparations for the autumn harvest uprising.
Chairman Mao bid farewell to his wife and children in Changsha Bancang before leaving, and after instructing his wife Yang Kaihui to take good care of his three sons, Chairman Mao went to the revolution alone.
Yang Kaihui, who remained behind, remembered her husband's instructions and stayed in Changsha, taking good care of her three children while also secretly actively carrying out revolutionary work.
In October 1930, during a secret mission, Yang Kaihui was arrested and imprisoned.
After experiencing some severe torture by the enemy, Yang Kaihui still preferred to die unyieldingly and refused to reveal the slightest news, and finally was brutally executed by the enemy outside the Liuyang Gate in Changsha on November 14, at the age of 29.
The news reached the forefront of the revolution, and Chairman Mao, who was in the Donggu Mountains of Gannan Province, was devastated.
After staying up all night, he wrote down the bloody sentence of "Kaihui's death, a hundred bodies cannot be redeemed" under the tung oil lamp, and in addition to grief, Chairman Mao's greatest concern was his three children who were still in Changsha.
After a short thought, he quickly wrote a letter and sent it to Yang Kaihui's brother Yang Kaizhi along with the only thirty silver dollars on his body, hoping to find a good place for his three children.
After receiving Chairman Mao's letter, Yang Kaizhi immediately contacted several brothers to provide shelter for the three children, but Chairman Mao did not mention his position in the letter.
For safety reasons, Yang Kaizhi, together with his brother Xiang Mingqing, sent the three children to their grandmother's house, hoping to avoid the arrest of reactionaries and spies.
However, the activities of the reactionaries gradually penetrated the streets and alleys of Changsha, and as the White Terror became more and more serious, Chairman Mao's brothers in Shanghai were really worried about the situation of their children.
So under his control, the three brothers aliased Yang Yongfu, Yang Yongshou and Yang Yongtai set off in 1931 and settled down at the Tianshengxiang Hotel in Shanghai.
The death of the second and third brothers
After Mao Zemin received the news of the children's arrival in Shanghai from the organization, he rushed to the hotel as soon as possible to meet his three nephews.
As soon as the eight-year-old Mao Anying saw Mao Zemin, he fell into his arms crying, crying and shouting, "Uncle, my mother is dead!" ”
When Mao Zemin thought of the inhuman abuse that Yang Kaihui, as a sister-in-law, suffered before his death, as well as the situation of his brother, he had nothing to say for a while, only shed a stream of hot tears, and comforted: "Man, don't be sad, the revolution will always kill people." ”
At that time, the three children, the eldest was only eight years old, and the youngest Mao Anlong was only three years old, for the personal safety of the children and for Chairman Mao to work in China with confidence.
After discussions by the party organization, Mao Zemin decided to send several children to study in the Soviet Union.
Before the ticket to the Soviet Union was finalized, the three were temporarily placed in the Datong Kindergarten, a peripheral organization of the party.
In the kindergarten, the three children enjoyed the comfort and happiness they should have at this age for the first time, among them, Mao Anying, who was stimulated by the death of his mother, gradually eliminated his psychological shadow and was able to chase and play with his peers.
However, it did not take long for the happy days to fall on the three children again.
In June 1931, three-year-old Mao Anlong suddenly had a high fever, accompanied by diarrhea and vomiting and other symptoms, Mao Anlong's nursery immediately sent Xiao Anlong to the nearest Guangci Hospital for treatment.
After the emergency doctor diagnosed it, it was immediately judged to be diarrhea, but because Mao Anlong was too young, although the doctor had made every effort to treat it, it was ultimately unable to save the life of Xiao Anlong.
After Xiao Anlong's illness and death, before Mao Anying and his brother Mao Anying were sad, an accident occurred in Datong Kindergarten.
Due to Gu Shunzhang's rebellion, Dong Jianwu, the principal of Datong Kindergarten, had to go underground and hide his whereabouts.
At the same time, a nursery school in Datong Kindergarten also suddenly disappeared after going out.
For the safety of the families of all party organizations in the kindergarten, the Party Central Committee decided to urgently dismiss Datong Kindergarten, and all the children in the kindergarten were sent back to the homes of their families, while the children who were not claimed by the family members were organized and arranged in the homes of reliable party organization members.
Mao Anying and Mao Anqing, who had lost their home, had nowhere to go and were eventually arranged to the home of the principal Dong Jianwu.
In order to protect the safety of the children, Dong Jianwu changed his home address four times, and when he went out every day for activities, he also specially asked his relatives to help him take care of Mao Anying and Mao Anqing, but for the sake of confidentiality, he did not tell the other people in the family the true identities of the two children.
It is also for this reason that Mao Anying and Mao Anqing have been wronged in Dong Jianwu's home, and although Dong Jianwu has taken good care of them, the rest of the Dong family has obviously no kindness to these two young "uninvited guests".
In the end, when Dong Jianwu went out on a mission, Mao Anying and Mao Anqing could not stand the scolding of the Dong family's relatives and escaped from the Dong family.
Dong Jianwu, who returned home, panicked, immediately reported the situation to the central government, and began to look around at the same time, but Shanghai is so big, the two little children are like boats in the river, and there is no trace.
Third, Li Yun is looking for a son
Dong Jianwu frantically searched for his two children in Shanghai.
In 1935, in the CCP's special branch group in Shanghai, a special branch member named Li Yun received a top-secret document from the core organization.
"Look for the descendants of the two martyrs, both boys, the eldest is thirteen or fourteen years old, and the younger is about ten years old."
The letter did not specify the identity of the child, but Li Yun still did not dare to delay at all, and immediately began a carpet search on the streets of Shanghai.
However, after searching all the homes of the Communists in Shanghai, no children of the right age were found, and fearing that they were imprisoned by the reactionaries, Li Yun also sneaked into the Shanghai prison, but still could not find the two children.
Seeing that the time left for the organization was running out, Li Yun, who had been busy for half a month, was finally exhausted.
Holding the mission book from the organization, Li Yun sat in the broken porridge shop outside the Shanghai City God Temple and ordered a bowl of porridge, planning to take a break before continuing to search.
However, while waiting for the porridge, a group of stray children near the porridge stall attracted Li Yun's attention.
Such street children, almost everywhere in Shanghai at that time, wandered the streets and alleys, or begged for a living or robbed for a living, their bodies emitted a stink, and they were the objects that everyone did not want to approach.
Among the stray children who drank porridge, two children were particularly different.
The other stray children are all picking up their own broken bowls and transporting them to drink porridge, and you and I are competing with each other, but these two children are incompatible with this group of stray children who grab porridge and drink.
Not only were their broken bowls clean, but the older stray children gave it to their brothers after they had eaten the porridge.
Li Yun's eyes immediately lit up. Perhaps it was the woman's intuition, and almost instantaneously, she could tell that these two children were behaving in an extraordinary manner, and they were definitely wandering the streets recently!
On top of that, the two brothers are also exactly the same age as the organization describes!
In order not to fight the grass and snakes, Li Yun first used several pieces of ocean to gather the surrounding stray children, and after mingling with them, Li Yun seemed to inquire about the two brothers' origins.
The street children did not know the identity of the two brothers, only that the two had recently appeared on the street, and it seemed that they were still in a good family's home before, and they were driven out.
Hearing this, Li Yun was more certain, so she squatted in the porridge shop day and night, and finally saw the figure of the two brothers again.
Li Yun first pretended to be pitiful to the two brothers, took the initiative to invite the two people crouching on the side of the road to drink a bowl of porridge, and then tentatively asked a few questions.
However, no matter how Li Yun asked, the two brothers just shook their heads and refused to spit out a word.
Li Yun had no choice but to take the brothers back to his home, bathe them, change into clean clothes, and then report to the organization.
Soon, the organization sent a central commissioner who knew the two brothers to confirm their identities, and after seeing the organization's arrival, the two brothers finally cried out and admitted their identities.
It turned out that after the two left the Dong family, they had nowhere to go and wandered the streets.
Because the death of his mother brought a huge psychological shadow to Mao Anying, he had a deep fear of the reactionaries.
Therefore, afraid of being caught, he decided to hide his identity with his brother, and in order not to make his Changsha dialect stand out, he directly pretended to be dumb.
Thanks to this, the brothers were able to wait for Li Yun in Shanghai, where secret agents were everywhere. It was also thanks to Li Yun that he was able to reach the low-level people that the reactionaries disdained to look for and find the blood relatives of the chairman.
Fourth, gratitude after many years
After recovering the Mao brothers, the organization deeply realized the danger of the domestic situation and believed that it could not be delayed any longer, and that the two children must be sent abroad to avoid danger immediately.
In order to "make up for his mistakes", Dong Jianwu contacted Zhang Xueliang through his daughter who was engaged in underground work, saying that his son and the children of his two cousins had always wanted to study abroad so that they could serve the motherland in the future.
After saying that, he sent precious antique porcelain, which made Zhang Xueliang laugh and immediately agreed to his request.
Afterwards, Zhang Xueliang found Li Du, who was also a founding general of the Anti-Japanese War, and ordered him to transfer his three children to France and the Soviet Union in the near future.
So in June 1936, After several years of drifting, Mao Anying and Mao Anqing finally boarded a ship bound for the Soviet Union.
And all this, Li Yun at that time did not know.
It wasn't until the summer of 1936 that Xu Qiang (also a member of the Ccp, Li Yun's husband) told me that Chairman Mao's two children had found and been sent to safety. As for who found it, where it was found, and how, although I was his wife, he never told me. ”
This secret was concealed for 52 years, until Xu Qiang's death in 1988, and only with the consent of the organization did he tell the events of that year.
It was at this time that Li Yun learned that the two little stray children he had found were actually the children of the famous Mao Zedong!
Regarding his life, Li Yun never felt any regrets: "I feel that I have not wasted my life and have done a little for the country!" ”
And the rescue of Chairman Mao's son also became the deepest secret in her heart, and although it was extremely glorious, it was never told to others.
It wasn't until 2011, when Li Yun was 96 years old, that Mao Xinyu found her.
Facing Mao Xinyu, Li Yun was a little confused for a moment, as if through his face, he recalled the time when he saw Mao Anying and Mao Anying at the beginning of the year.
At that time, the two brothers held their hands tightly, as if they had clenched the hope of life.
And now Chairman Mao's descendants have not forgotten her, found her again, and clenched her hands.
This unknown glory came too late, but when Mao Xinyu burst into tears, he said: "Thank you for saving my uncle and my father, it can be said that without you, there would be no Mao Xinyu today." Li Yun knew that everything he had done in the past now had meaning.