Zhao Jinlei: A family affair of a descendant of the Zhao family

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A family affair of a descendant of the Zhao clan

Text / Zhao Jinlei

On April 4, 2017, the Zhao family of Boshan Longshui held a grand genealogy conference in Yuanshan Building, and more than 350 representatives from various branches of the family attended the meeting. As a descendant of the Zhao clan of Longshui, I also had the honor to participate in this family reunion event. The main planner and organizer of the conference is Zhao Handong, a descendant of the 20th Dynasty.

In the past, we didn't have a family tree, only that my generation was twenty-three. When I was a child, every Spring Festival ancestor worship, I went to the neighbor's uncle's house to borrow a very old red paper post, which wrote the names of the six elderly people on my ancestors, and I wrote their names on the tablet and respectfully placed them above the square table, which was the only family information I had. I heard the old people say that we also had a family tree, and there was a tall stone tablet on the old forest, which recorded the history of our family, but unfortunately after the unprecedented movement in the late 1960s, all this no longer existed. The family tree was burned, the stone stele was smashed to make paving stones, and the graves were leveled into land, and I was born in the sixties, and I still vividly remember the lush old forest full of cypress trees.

Every time on the day of the festival sweep, I will come to the Zhao family old forest, looking at the vast mountains in the distance and the deserted graves nearby, I always feel confused and confused, when did our ancestors come to Shangwa Spring? Why are they here? I don't know.

In the summer of 2015, I hosted a descendant of the Zhao family who came to visit the family. He introduced himself as Zhao Handong, the 20th zhao of Boshan Longshui. For me, who was eager to know the family information, I was very happy and excited by the visit of this elder. Zhao Handong has in his hand the family genealogy published in 1877, I reported the names of several great-grandfathers in my memory to him, he checked in the electronic archives, and the results were completely consistent with the old genealogy, which made us all overjoyed! As the contact person of the Zhao clan of ShangwaQuan Longshui, I naturally undertook the information statistics of our family members later.

Since then, I have met Zhao Handong, a descendant of the Zhao clan who has struggled for the rest of his life for the family business. He not only presided over another genealogical overhaul after 140 years after the Zhao clan of Longshui after 1877, but also edited the "Collection of Stories of the Zhao Clan of Longshui", making outstanding contributions to the inheritance of family culture. Deep down, it's more about being grateful to him. Without him, I would not have known that my family was one of the twenty-eight cultural families in Shandong Province; without him, I would not have known that I was a descendant of the royal family of the Great Song Dynasty; without him, I would not have known that we had been a famous and prestigious family on the banks of the Xiaonu River.

The Zhao clan of Longshui refers to the thirteenth grandson of Zhao Guangyi, the second emperor of the Great Song Dynasty, Zhao Ping, who was the ancestor of Zhao Ping, who was the ancestor of zhao in the early years of the Ming Dynasty in order to avoid war and chaos. For more than six hundred years, the family tree has been renewed several times. At the end of the Ming Jiajing era, the sixth ancestor Zhao Ren wrote the "Records of the Zhao Sect", which opened the precedent of the Zhao family record in The Cage Water. After the tenth generation, the Zhao clan of Longshui was already a well-known cultural family, and the eleventh ancestor Zhao Qichang edited the first "Genealogy of the Zhao Clan of Longshui", but it could not be printed. After several generations of inheritance and continuation, the family tree was passed on to the 19th ancestor Zhao Zhenqing. Zhao Zhenqing sold part of the property, raised 10,000 silver dollars, lasted three years, and in the third year of the Guangxu Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty (1877), he completed the "Genealogy of the Zhao Clan of Longshui", and printed and issued it, which was the first genealogy of the Zhao clan of Longshui. In 1937, the descendants of the Zhao clan gathered in Boshan to prepare to continue the score again, at this time, the war of the Japanese invasion burned into Boshan, and the family had to flee.

In 2007, Zhao Handong, the 20th descendant of the Zhao clan of Longshui, received an 1877 edition of the precious family tree, and he has since developed a strong desire to explore the origins of the family. At that time, many families across the country were continuing to repair the family tree, and his uncle Zhao Shujun also put forward the wish to repair the family tree. He said that our Rongshui Zhao clan is a brilliant family, with many talents over the centuries, which has made great contributions to promoting social development, and the continuation of the family tree is of great significance to inheriting the family culture. However, since the establishment of the spectrum in 1877, it has not been renewed for more than 130 years, if it is not repaired now, with the development of society and population migration, it may be difficult to continue in the future, he hopes that Zhao Handong can take on this heavy responsibility.

Zhao Handong was born in a family of ordinary cadres in the 1960s and received a good family style tutor from an early age. After joining the work, he served in the financial department of Zibo City, successively serving as a teacher, deputy section chief, section chief and other positions. The long-term administrative work has cultivated his conscientious work attitude and vigorous work style. When I got to know him, I also found that he had many outstanding qualities. He attaches great importance to his own cultivation, he must do what he says, he must do what he can't do, he never boasts about the sea, nor does he easily promise. He is conscientious and methodical, and even if several people have a meeting, they will outline the content and list them clearly. He has a deep and solid writing foundation, hundreds of thousands of words of information, he will edit without any mistakes; he has super organizational skills, hundreds of people he can also arrange the conference carefully and thoughtfully, orderly.

In 2013, after Zhao Handong left his post, he devoted all his time and energy to the continuation of the score.

The renewal of the family tree is the establishment of family files, which is a huge project that requires not only excellent work ability, but also the spirit of selfless dedication. Over the long years of hundreds of years, the Zhao clan of Longshui has multiplied into a huge family of tens of thousands of people, and now the population is spread all over the country and overseas, even if there are modern communication conditions, how difficult is it to summarize the information of tens of thousands of people? Zhao Handong only had a genealogy from 1877 in his hand, when the entire family was only more than 6,000 people, and now he could only follow the information left above to find and implement them one by one. For four years, he drove a Geely car, a total of tens of thousands of kilometers, all at his own expense.

In order to take care of his eighty-year-old mother, he also had to go home on time every afternoon to fulfill his filial piety, and the most valuable thing was that his work was understood and supported by his family.

With the persistent spirit of struggle and perseverance, after four years of running, with the help of the vast number of clansmen, Zhao Handong realized a grand long-cherished wish for the descendants of the Zhao clan in Longshui, and completed the great cause of genealogy cultivation, a family tree of more than half a meter thick, containing more than 30,000 people's information.

When the family reunited, the elder Zhao Handong's few sincere confessions impressed me the most: "On the road of searching for many years, I have also encountered many difficulties and setbacks, and whenever I am at this time, I seem to see the expectant eyes of the ancestor Zhao Ping." The Zhao clan of Longshui is a brilliant family, someone must take on the responsibility of cultivating the spectrum, this person is me, I have no choice! In four years, I traveled all over the land of Qilu and met countless descendants of the Zhao clan. Whenever I see them, it's like seeing my own loved ones. To serve them is to serve themselves, and no matter how much you pay, you will have no regrets! ”

From Zhao Handong, I saw a selfless dedication and broad mind of the descendants of the Zhao clan.

Families form families, families form societies, and the strength of families will eventually become the strength of the country. Serving the family business, carrying forward the excellent family style, and inheriting traditional culture are the goals and pursuits of the elders Zhao Handong in their later years, and also the responsibility and obligation of every descendant of the Zhao family, zhao Handong has set an example for our juniors!

【About the Author】Zhao Jinlei, Chairman of Zibo Boshan Cooperative Chicken Raising Professional Cooperative, Loves Literature, Member of China Essayists Association, Member of Zibo Writers Association, Member of Boshan District Writers Association, Signed Writer of Oriental Prose and Haihe Literature Magazine.

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