On July 30, 2014, Dawut Maihesuti died at his home at the age of 88.
On his deathbed, he asked his children to hang the five-star red flag by the bedside and said: The first five-star red flag in Kucha was raised by my own hands, and before I died, I also wanted to see it.
His will, there is not much to say. The main thing is to tell their children to work hard to live and maintain national unity.
He said: Without national unity, there would be no good life today. We must remember the Communist Party and follow it all the time.
This is the scene before the death of Dawuti Maihesuti, the oldest state civil servant in China, who has been thinking about the party all his life, and it is surprising that he is the last hereditary prince of China.
What exactly did he go through that made a "prince" still think about the party and the national flag before he died? What was his life experience?
Gears of fate
Ai XinJueluo Puyi was the last emperor of China, and those Qing Dynasty princes who were brothers with Puyi should logically be the last princes of China. But don't forget, Wang Ye is not only a person with the surname of Wang, but also a person who has made great contributions to the country.
During the Qianlong period, the first generation of princes of Huibu, named Mirza Ejiao, initially only commanded the three major cities of Kucha, Aksu, and Baicheng in southern Xinjiang.
At that time, Dzungar and Dae and Zhuo both rebelled. The Qing Dynasty was attacked on its back, and Mirza E, who commanded the southern frontier, immediately decided to send troops to support, and the Qing Dynasty won the war.
Later, mirza E made outstanding contributions to safeguarding the reunification of the motherland. For this reason, the Qianlong Emperor crowned him as "Yipin Zasakdar Khan".
This is the origin of the hereditary throne of Xinjiang Kuqa. By September 26, 1949, Xinjiang was peacefully liberated, and there were 12 generations of hereditary princes. The figure we are going to talk about today, Dawuti Maihesuti, is the twelfth prince.
Dawut Maihesuti was born in 1927. At that time, the Qing Dynasty no longer existed, and was replaced by the Republic of China.
In order to stabilize the situation in southern Xinjiang, the Nationalist government did not abolish the title of "King of Kuqa" and let his family continue to enjoy political preferential treatment.
He was not born as the heir of the prince, but only because his uncle as the prince had no heirs of his own, he took the two-year-old Dawuti Maihesuti to the palace and made him the heir of the royal family, so that he could receive a good education.
Turbulent youth
In 1937, due to opposition to the brutal rule of Sheng Shicai, the ruler of Xinjiang Province at the time, the eleventh generation of Kucha king MaiheFuzi was killed, the royal palace and family property were confiscated, and Dawut was sent to his parents to become an ordinary person again.
In order to appease the people and consolidate their rule, the ruler at that time had to instruct the Governor's Office in 1941 to approve Dawuti Maihesuti to inherit the Kucha King, and the fourteen-year-old Dawut became the 12th Kucha King.
Such a young Dawut received a strict education as an heir from his uncle's side, so even though he was used as a political prop in this matter, he still couldn't bear it and chose to slowly improve himself.
Relying on his meager living expenses, Dawut finished secondary school with excellent grades.
It was not until 1946 that the 19-year-old Dawut was elected to the Senate. The following year, he became the vice president of Kuqa County Bank.
In many interviews, Dawut Maihesuti always summed up his fate in this sentence: I did not realize the value of my life until the second half of my life.
The first five-star red flag of the Garage
Although the prince at that time had no real power, Dawut, as the king of Kucha, still regarded the happiness of the people as his responsibility.
He clearly knew that only national unity and the reunification of the motherland could stabilize the Kucha he guarded.
On the eve of the founding of New China in September 1949, Tao Zhiyue, then commander of the Xinjiang Provincial Garrison, and Bao Erhan, chairman of Xinjiang Province, electrified the uprising.
Dawut, who is serving as vice president of the Kuqa County Bank and a senator from Xinjiang Province, also responded positively, and despite the persuasion of the people around him, he resolutely hung the five-star red flag at the door of the Kuqa County Bank, indicating his attitude.
Although the Curry Bank was attacked by reactionary forces as a result, Dawut did not regret it at all.
Xinjiang is also the largest and most difficult area to manage, and it is precisely because of such a group of advanced young people who unite in the southern Xinjiang region that they have successfully avoided the division of the southern Xinjiang region and maintained the stability of the situation in Xinjiang.
Falsely accused and imprisoned
New China was founded, and everything was developing in a good direction. But just when he was at ease working in the bank, he was suddenly falsely accused of having intelligence dealings with secret agents, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for this matter.
In 1952, the government corrected the wrongful conviction and imposed a serious sentence, believing that the sentence of Dawut Maihesuti was too heavy, and changed the sentence to seven years. It was not until 1958 that he was released after completing his sentence.
Such a big ups and downs in life has given Dawut a strong willpower.
Faced with the hat that was buttoned like a mountain, he did not become depressed during his prison sentence, but actively learned architectural knowledge and mastered all the skills of professional builders.
Successful people don't allow any time of their lives to be wasted.
After his release from prison, Dawut relied on his knowledge and ability to learn in prison and led his wife and children to live a simple and self-sufficient life.
In 1984, The ups and downs of Dawut was elected vice chairman of the Political Consultative Committee of Kucha County, and the "prince" of the old society became a servant of the people.
His main responsibility is to safeguard the unity of the motherland and the unity of the nationalities, and to promote local social stability and economic development. For Dawut, this is the beginning of his realization of the value of life.
The later years of the royal palace
When people's lives were on the right track, the state began to attach importance to the protection of cultural heritage. In 2004, the Kucha Palace, which had fallen into disrepair for 67 years, was rebuilt.
Founded in the 24th year of the Qianlong Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty and covering an area of 40,000 square meters, this palace has regained its glory in the new era, and Dawut, who grew up here, is also allowed to live in the palace.
The elderly Dawut did not idle, but wanted to guard the land of Kuqa, and he dedicated himself to communicating between the government and the masses, hoping that Kucha could continue to live in peace for a long time and contribute to promoting exchanges and unity among all ethnic groups.
epilogue
In history, there has never been an inevitability. The reason why we can have such a good life today is because there are those awakened people who have not changed their original intentions, those who have bravely moved forward and those who have sacrificed their lives and forgotten their lives.
Dawut, who has such a special status as "Wang Ye", should have been honored and noble, enjoying a life, but "born at the wrong time", born in an era that did not belong to this identity.
But because what he has in his heart is not personal fame and fortune, but the happiness of the people, that's why he is so admired by us.