On October 1, 1949, New China was formally founded, and after Chairman Mao took office, there were many large and small affairs that needed to be handled every day. He not only has to deal with various political, economic, cultural and other events at home and abroad, but also deals with relatives and friends asking for help from him.
Among them, Chairman Mao's wife, Yang Kaihui, and her close friend Li Shuyi wrote to him and made two demands, while Chairman Mao only agreed to the first request, and the other did not let up.
Figure 1
Let's take a look at what these two requirements are today. What's the story behind it? Why did Chairman Mao only promise the first and not let up on the second?
The first request: To miss a close friend
In 1957, Li Shuyi wrote a long letter to Chairman Mao, the content of which was not to ask for convenience for herself, but to ask for a word for her close friend Yang Kaihui, called "Yu Meiren".
Why did Li Shuyi make such a request?
In fact, after the sacrifice of Chairman Mao's wife Yang Kaihui and Li Shuyi's husband Liu Zhixun, the two families had no contact.
Figure 2
Even though Li Shuyi knew that her friend's husband had become the president of the country, she did not publicize it to the outside world, but kept this secret in her heart and has been working diligently in her position as a teacher.
This time, she wrote the letter because she saw Chairman Mao publish several poems in the Poetry Journal, which reminded her of Yang Kaihui's pursuit of freedom of marriage and chairman Mao's marriage in spite of customs when she was young.
Figure 3
Yang Kaihui and Chairman Mao's life after marriage is very sweet, Chairman Mao also filled in a poem for Yang Kaihui "Yu Meiren", Yang Kaihui came to share this word with her with a happy face, Li Shuyi is still fresh in his memory.
Among the several poems published by Chairman Mao in the Poetry Journal, Li Shuyi did not see the poem "Yu Meiren", she felt that Chairman Mao would not forget this word, plus she really missed her close friend Yang Kaihui, so she wrote to Chairman Mao to ask for words.
After writing the letter, Li Shuyi did not know whether Chairman Mao would reply to her, and she waited every day. Finally, after a few months, she waited.
Chairman Mao gave Li Shuyi a four-page letter, and it can be seen that Li Shuyi has weight in Chairman Mao's heart, and in fact Chairman Mao also respects Li Shuyi very much.
Figure 4
Chairman Mao expressed his concern for Li Shuyi in the letter, and said that the original poem "Yu Meiren" was not good enough, and he rewrote a poem for Yang Kaihui.
This song is the "Butterfly Love Flower · Answer to Li Shuyi:
"I lost pride in Yang Jun and lost willow, and Yang Liu flew straight up to the heavy Xiao Jiu." Asking Wu Ganghe everything, Wu Gang held out osmanthus wine. Lonely Chang'e Shu wide sleeves, long miles in the sky and dance for loyal souls. Ignoring the fact that the human world once ambushed the tiger, the tears flew down as a downpour."
Figure 5
After receiving Chairman Mao's reply, Li Shuyi was very excited. At the same time, the school where she worked was also constantly interviewed and called, and the outside world was eager to know what her relationship with Chairman Mao was, which made Chairman Mao fill in the words for her.
Li Shu ignored everything, but returned to his hometown and took Yang Kaihui's brother and sister-in-law to Yang Kaihui's tomb.
She read Chairman Mao's poem to Yang Kaihui with tears in her eyes, touching Yang Kaihui's tombstone with tears in her eyes. Yang Kaihui's brother Yang Kaizhi behind her was also unable to cry.
Figure 6
Sister Yang Kaihui died in 1930 in Literacy Ridge, daughter Yang Zhan died in Zhaibei in 1941, nephew Mao Anying died in North Korea in 1950, Yang Kaizhi lost too much in this life, the Yang family lost too much, and endured too much.
Li Shuyi's visit to Yang Kaihui's tomb this time gave the Yang family a relief, knowing that Chairman Mao had not forgotten them, and the letter to Li Shuyi was also full of concerns for them. And Yang Kaihui also knows that her run brother is still worried about her as always.
Figure 7
Later, Chairman Mao also met with Li Shuyi and took a group photo, and Li Shuyi could not forget this meeting for a long time, and he also deeply respected Chairman Mao from the bottom of his heart.
See the truth in the revolutionary period
After returning to school from her hometown, Li Shuyi wrote to Chairman Mao that she had visited Yang Kaihui, and her life was back on track. But what she did not expect was that Chairman Mao actually wrote back to her again.
Figure 8
In addition to expressing concern, the letter also sent Li Shuyi five hundred yuan, which Chairman Mao took out of his own manuscript fee.
He used the two words "don't be sure" to ask Li Shuyi not to refuse, because he knew how stubborn Li Shuyi was, and how strong he was to work alone and raise his children for so many years.
Yes, how can a woman who can become a close friend with Yang Kaihui be an ordinary woman?
Li Shuyi's father is Li Xiaoyan, and he and Yang Kaihui's father Yang Changji and Liu Zhixun's father Liu Wuting are all friends, so the three of them have also developed into friends from an early age. Later, they met Chairman Mao, and the four of them became close friends.
After Yang Kaihui broke the tradition and married Chairman Mao, Li Shuyi and Liu Zhixun also married, and in those years, their lives were so happy that they envied others.
Figure 9
But then, when war broke out, four young people with deep friendships embarked on different paths, but they all ran for the safety of the country.
At that time, a "counter-revolutionary coup" occurred in Hunan, and Liu Zhixun was sent by our party to the Xiang'e-Gansu District to carry out secret work. Since then, Li Shuyi has lost contact with Liu Zhixun. She didn't expect that in that parting, it would be forever.
Figure 10
On the side of Chairman Mao and Yang Kaihui, the two were also assigned different tasks by the party, and the husband and wife were separated from each other from each other, who could have imagined that this was also a permanent separation between heaven and man.
Yang Kaihui and her children have been carrying out the secret work of the underground party, the war situation is turbulent, the people's livelihood is uneasy, and they have paid too much to save the nation from danger and for the people's life and happiness. Yang Kaihui did not complain about this and firmly believed that the revolutionary road was correct.
Just when Yang Kaihui had been fighting with the enemy for three years, once she could not bear the thought of her child, and when she went back to visit her mother and child, her whereabouts were discovered by enemy spies, and that night Yang Kaihui and Mao Anying were captured by the Kuomintang reactionaries and imprisoned.
Figure 11
Even though a group of celebrities pressured the Kuomintang not to torture Yang Kaihui, He Jian, who was in charge of interrogating Yang Kaihui at the time, was eager to make meritorious contributions and scorned all public opinion and pressure.
During the revolution, cruelty was everywhere, let alone enemy hostages. He Jian had no way to do anything after being soft and hard, he just wanted to get information about Chairman Mao from Yang Kaihui's mouth, so he lynched Yang Kaihui.
Day after day, all kinds of torture devices were cruelly executed on Yang Kaihui, but even so, Yang Kaihui's answer was only "I don't know" three words. This made the reactionaries even more angry, and their punishment of Yang Kaihui was even more cruel.
Figure 12
Time passed slowly like this, and in a hurry, He Jian thought of Yang Kaihui's close friend Li Shuyi! So he found Li Shuyi and wanted Li Shuyi to persuade Yang Kaihui to relax.
Who is Li Shuyi? He is Yang Kaihui's close friend, and Yang Kaihui is Chairman Mao's wife, and the person who can become a close friend with Yang Kaihui is a person who can be summoned by the reactionaries with three words and two words.
On the surface, Li Shuyi accepted the demands of the Kuomintang reactionaries, but in fact she wanted to see Yang Kaihui and see if she could find a way to save Yang Kaihui.
After seeing Yang Kaihui, Li Shu
Figure 13
A tear welled up. The flower-like friend was tortured by the reactionaries and lost shape, and there was not a single skin on his body that was good, even Li Shuyi wanted to hug Yang Kaihui.
Yang Kaihui asked Li Shuyi to rescue Mao Anying, because she knew that she could not escape, and Li Shuyi agreed with grief.
However, it is really whimsical to save people in the heavily guarded prisons of the Kuomintang reactionaries, and Li Shuyi, as a weak woman, has a heart but is powerless.
After Li Shu left, He Jian still did not get the information he wanted, and he could only torture Yang Kaihui more severely.
Yang Kaihui vowed not to say anything about Chairman Mao and not to sever relations with Chairman Mao. The enemy, exhausted, dragged her to Literacy Ridge and shot her.
That year, Yang Kaihui was only 29 years old.
Figure 14
Chairman Mao learned of this information a month after Yang Kaihui's sacrifice, and he was deeply saddened and said: "Kaihui's death cannot be redeemed."
After Yang Kaihui's sacrifice, Li Shuyi was heartbroken, often washing her face with tears, and after experiencing the murder of her friend, she could not help but worry more about her husband. She and Liu Zhixun were married for only two and a half years, but they had deep feelings for her husband.
Love in the revolutionary period is so precious that even if two people are separated from each other, and there is no connection for several years or even decades, they still firmly believe that each other's hearts belong to themselves.
Li Shuyi and Liu Zhixun have never been in contact, and she is more and more worried about her husband's safety, and one night she dreamed that Liu Zhixun was standing in front of her covered in blood. Li Shu woke up in a dream, his tears blurred, and wrote down the poem "Bodhisattva Man Frightening Dreams".
Figure 15
In this way, Li Shuyi raised a pair of children while working while waiting and worrying, and remembered the agreement with her husband to send her children to college.
Chairman Mao admired Li Shuyi's loyalty to love and great love for his children, and he greatly appreciated Li Shuyi.
The second request: to participate in the National Day ceremony
On the tenth anniversary of the founding of New China, Beijing was preparing to celebrate the National Day. At that time, every corner of beijing's streets was filled with a warm atmosphere of celebrating festivals.
Li Shuyi saw such a peaceful and prosperous world, and she was also very happy to see the joyful and happy smiles on people's faces.
At the same time, she thought of her good friend Yang Kaihui, her husband Liu Zhixun, and the thousands of communists who had sacrificed their precious lives for the revolution, and she wanted them to see the prosperity of new China.
So she picked up her pen and wrote to Chairman Mao, making the second request: I want to climb the Tiananmen Tower on the day of the National Day and watch the Grand Ceremony of the National Day.
Figure 16
As a family member of a martyr, as a friend of the martyr, she wanted to see such a grand ceremony, and when she went to the tombs of Liu Zhixun and Yang Kaihui in the coming day, she could tell them about the grandeur of the celebration, and there was no problem with such a thought.
This time, however, Chairman Mao did not directly accede to her request, and the Chairman's reply read, "Comrade Shuyi:
The letter was received, the poem was read, and I was very grateful! Observing the ceremony and going to Tiananmen May not work, to be asked about the situation to see. If there is no reply, it is not possible. The same is true of Mr. Ji Fan's family. After a week, if you have time, I would like to invite you to come here. If there is no time, give up, and then there will be a chance to meet. Good luck".
Figure 17
Chairman Mao's letter did not directly accede to Li Shuyi's request, but said, "We will see the situation when we ask about it.", the meaning is very clear. He handed the issue over to the relevant departments to discuss and decide, and expressed to the relevant departments that he did not have to look at the chairman's face and let Li Shuyi go to Tiananmen Square to watch the ceremony. This matter must be done on official business, and the relevant departments must be allowed to investigate whether Li Shuyi's conditions are not met.
Chairman Mao has always been a man who distinguishes between public and private, and in this matter he handed over the decision-making power to his subordinates and adhered to his principle -- "Loving relatives does not favor personal interests, remembering the old does not seek profits for the old, and helping relatives does not support relatives."
Figure 18
After receiving Chairman Mao's reply, Li Shuyi waited anxiously every day, how eager she was to be able to stand on the Tiananmen Observatory and see with her own eyes the rebirth of the new China.
Just the night before the National Day, the staff of the organizing committee knocked on the door of Li Shuyi's family, and after discussion, they issued an invitation to Li Shuyi to observe the ceremony, and solemnly handed over the Invitation to the National Day Ceremony to Li Shuyi's hand.
Why can Li Shuyi stand on the Tiananmen Observatory? First, she was the widow of a martyr, and her husband, who had been the secretary of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee, had died for the revolution.
Second, li Shuyi, as a school teacher, has worked hard to educate students in her position, and the peach orchard is all over the world, cultivating many outstanding talents for the motherland.
These two conditions were enough for Li Shuyi to stand on the Tiananmen Observatory.
Figure 19
On the day of the National Day in 1959, Li Shuyi was excited, she saw Chairman Mao waving to the audience and to the soldiers, saw the heroic posture of the soldiers, and also heard the slogans of the soldiers, and she wet her eyes with excitement.
The prosperity of the world was bought by millions of revolutionary martyrs, and how difficult it was for All this, Li Shuyi knew, and all the Chinese people knew it.
After that, Li Shuyi's whole wish was fulfilled, and her old age was well lived, with children and grandchildren.
On September 9, 1976, our great leader Chairman Mao passed away, and the people of the whole country were deeply saddened. Chairman Mao's life was dedicated to the people and to the sake of New China, and his departure is a loss to all of China.
Figure 20
Twenty-one years after Chairman Mao's death, Li Shuyi, who was 97 years old, also left the world.
She left, looking for her husband and friends.
Through understanding the whole thing, we know what kind of person Li Shuyi is, and know her strength and loyalty.
We also respect Chairman Mao even more, because he is not in a hurry or busy in handling things, and he has his own principles for handling affairs as a leader of a country, and each of us should learn from Chairman Mao and learn from his code of conduct that distinguishes between public and private.