On September 30, 1948, at the Kuomintang Shanghai Special Punishment Court, when Wang Xiaohe, an underground member of the Communist Party of China, heard that he had been sentenced to death and immediately executed, a frank smile appeared on his face, which was just captured by the reporter of the Ta Kung Pao. It was on this day that he was executed.
Wang Xiaohe at the Kuomintang Shanghai Special Punishment Court
This photograph, which was later preserved, reminds the world of this revolutionary who was awe-inspiring in righteousness. This photo has also become the most precious memory of his wife Xin Yuying and his two daughters. This photo is also Xin Yuying's favorite one, and she always said later: The filial piety and righteousness in the photo have made the Surrounding Kuomintang even more evil.
Eight months after Wang Xiaohe's inauguration, Shanghai was liberated, and a year later, after the founding of New China, the revolution for which he gave his life finally succeeded, and he was also positioned as a "martyr" at the last moment before dawn.
In November 1949, Wang Xiaohe's mother, wife and two young daughters held a solemn memorial service for him.
Xin Yuying (third from left) and her mother-in-law (fourth from left) and two daughters at Wang Xiaohe's memorial service
It was only at this time that Xin Yuying slowly and truly understood her husband and his revolutionary cause.
Before marrying Wang Xiaohe, Xin Yuying was an authentic village girl, she had never attended school, and she had almost no survival skills except weaving. Xin Yuying did not know that her "lack of culture" was precisely one of the reasons why Wang Xiaohe was willing to marry her.
When Xin Yuying was 7 years old, she was engaged to 11-year-old Wang Xiaohe, and their marriage was completely arranged by her parents. But seeing that he had reached the age of marriage, Wang Xiaohe was slow to marry her. Later she learned that he had joined the revolution.
Unbeknownst to him, Xin Yuying and his mother travel to Shanghai and find Wang Xiaohe. Their thoughts were: He had to give a reason not to marry.
Seeing Wang Xiaohe again that year, Xin Yuying was eighteen years old, because she had lived in the village for a long time, and her appearance looked a bit "earthy". Wang Xiaohe, who is already working as a meter reader in the control room of Shanghai's Yangshupu power plant, looks trendy and fashionable. Later, when recalling the scene when they saw each other again as adults, Xin Yuying said:
"I also saw him for the first time as an adult, and I saw that he was wearing an earthy yellow corduroy jacket, which looked very energetic, and I was all dressed as a country girl."
When they first met, Wang Xiaohe asked a lot of strange questions, such as: "Do you believe in Buddhism", "What do you do in the countryside", "What is the situation in the countryside", etc., these questions made her feel very strange, until after his sacrifice, she did not know: these questions were asked for the organization.
Xin Yuying's answers at that time were: "I don't believe in Buddhism," "In the countryside it is weaving cloth," "The Kuomintang in the countryside is very bad," and so on. She always remembered that when she said that the Kuomintang was very bad, Wang Xiaohe's face was solemn. They talked speculatively that day, and they went to lunch during the day.
It was also from this conversation that Wang Xiaohe became enthusiastic about Xin Yuying. Xin Yuying was a little confused, and later she learned that those questions were asked by the organization to see if she was suitable to help the revolution.
On another date, Xin Yuying found that someone across the road from where they were dating had been watching her. This person was Shen Hongchun, wang Xiaohe's direct leader. After Shen Hongchun nodded, Wang Xiaohe finally made up his mind to accept this feudal arranged marriage. Shen Hongchun said to Wang Xiaohe at that time:
"Country girls are good, simple and simple, which is good for us to carry out our work, and illiterate is more conducive to our work." After getting married, you can train her to assist them in underground work, so that your family can become a liaison station for underground organizations. ”
Of course, these words, Xin Yuying did not know in advance. She only thought that Wang Xiaohe had seen her in person and had a speculative chat with her before she changed her mind and accepted the marriage.
Wang Xiaohe
After marriage, Xin Yuying found her husband very strange: he often brought batches of people to the house to rub mahjong, and he was sneaky. Xin Yuying wondered: Why do poor families still rub mahjong? What puzzled her even more was that every time they rubbed mahjong, he would let her sit in the doorway and tell her: "If a stranger comes, you will knock on the door three times."
"How do you sneak around playing mahjong?" Xin Yuying asked very puzzled. Wang Xiaohe had no choice but to make up a lie: "You just go out and watch to prevent someone from coming to catch the gamble."
Xin Yuying obediently sat in the doorway every time and watched, sometimes going to the toilet, but she never saw them rubbing mahjong. Seeing her look confused, Wang Xiaohe smiled and said, "Let's just wait." ”
Of course, Xin Yuying did not know: the people who rubbed mahjong in her house were all underground parties, and they used mahjong as a cover for secret meetings. After each meeting, Wang Xiaohe would also give the information to Xin Yuying and let her send it out.
By this time, Xin Yuying had already participated in the revolution, of course, she herself did not know. She obediently sent what her husband had given her, and because she couldn't read, she didn't bother to read the contents. She later recalled her life of "sending information" like this:
"Every time I deliver something, he tells me where I am, and when I see someone with a hoe hoeing the ground, he gives it to him. Sometimes, it is a person who coughs and spits and stuffs things into this person; Sometimes someone touches out a handkerchief, wipes his nose, and gives it to that person.
There are all kinds of people in the joint, I know but can't call them by name. There was also some material, hidden in a hole in our balcony with mud and bricks at the entrance. When you want to use it, dig the hole again. I went to see it a few years ago and the hole in the balcony was still there. ”
Although Xin Yuying felt that what her husband let herself do was strange, she never asked, she believed her intuition: Wang Xiaohe and the people who came to the house were all good people.
How do you distinguish between good guys and bad guys? Xin Yuying could not say it, she judged "good people" and "bad people", and has always relied on pure intuition.
Wang Xiaohe was very kind to Xin Yuying, and he always took her hand and said apologetically: "Our family conditions are not good, and I have wronged you." The Wang family was indeed not rich, and they were living in a room only five or six square meters in Hankou Road, surrounded by briquette stoves, and the room was full of people. The bed at home was made of several pieces of paving, and there was a section at the end of the bed, because a toilet was to be placed.
It wasn't until they moved out to rent a house that they finally got into a more spacious house. Of course, Xin Yuying did not know: the house they rented was also helped by the organization to find, and the only reference condition for them to find a house was: "Whether it is suitable for the development of underground liaison work."
What Xin Yuying thought of as "love nest" was a "revolutionary stronghold" in Wang Xiaohe's place, which she could not have imagined.
Wang Xiaohe
Wang Xiaohe also had a place that Made Xin Yuying feel "strange": he said that he would not have children at all. Xin Yuying thought: If a woman does not have children, she must not let her mother-in-law say it in the future? So she stubbornly wanted to have a child, Wang Xiaohe and Qiao, they had their first daughter Wang Peiqin a year after marriage.
After the birth of her daughter, Xin Yuying's father-in-law used the money from the cigarette box to sell in exchange for a rocking iron bed, her mother bought a chest of drawers, Wang Xiaohe bought a three-or-five-card clock, and the family's condition slowly improved. But the danger is also approaching step by step...
Xin Yuying sensed the danger because: if the Kuomintang frequently sent agents to the factory to come to their house, she heard the content of their conversation, and the agent said to her husband:
"Why are you following the Communists?" The Communist Party is poor, so why are you so bitter? You come to us, and our heads value you very much. ”
If he also said to Xin Yuying:
"Sister-in-law, you do the work he does, why would you want to be in such a place, raw briquette stove?" Our head house has been built for you, you can burn gas, why should it be so bitter? ”
In any case, Wang Xiaohe never recognized himself as a Communist. Xin Yuying was stupid, and she believed everything her husband said, and she just asked her husband with some doubt: "I can't understand it, our Kuomintang in the countryside is running amok and grabbing people and grabbing things, how can the Kuomintang in Shanghai be so good?" He also told us to go to the bungalow and told me not to use the briquette stove. What the hell are they doing? ”
Wang Xiaohe looked at his wife and said, "The crows in the world are as black as crows, and they want to use me." ”
If Wang Xiaohe's identity had been exposed when he came to their house, the most important thing he should do at this time was to transfer, but because he could not let go of the matter at hand and did not receive the order to organize the evacuation, he had not moved.
Prior to this, Wang Xiaohe participated in the General Strike of Shangdian, and because of the trust and support of the workers, he was also elected as the branch officer of the Yangshupu Power Plant of the Shanghai Electricity Union. During this time, he constantly inspired the minds of the workers and led them to fight against the Kuomintang and start a civil war.
Yangshupu Power Plant
Wang Xiaohe's behavior attracted the attention of the Kuomintang, and at first they wanted to win him over, and seeing that he was "ignorant", they decided to get rid of him.
On the night of April 19, 1948, Wan Yi came to Xin Yuying's house again and issued a final warning to Wang Xiaohe: "Filial piety and you beware." It's time to get started. Xin Yuying looked at Wang Xiaohe with some nervousness, and Wang Xiaohe looked at Wan Yi with a straight face: "What hand, what did I do?" I'm just doing a little bit of a favor for the workers at the Yangshupu power plant. ”
Because Wang Xiaohe never admitted that he was a communist, Xin Yuying was still "she believed whatever her husband said." On the night of leaving, Xin Yuying found that there were many people outside the house, and remembering the warning of "going to do it", she was sure that her husband was in danger.
"There are a lot of plainclothes police outside, both in front and behind." Xin Yuying nervously told Wang Xiaohe. Wang Xiaohe was not ready to flee, he was busy finding out what was written in the house, burning it, hiding it. Seeing her husband's actions like this, Xin Yuying realized that what her husband said before was a lie, and he was probably a Communist Party, as he said.
When going out to pour ashes, Xin Yuying found that there were more and more people outside. "Let's go!" Xin Yuying, who was aware of the seriousness of the situation, finally couldn't help but plead, and Wang Xiaohe hugged his wife and said, "I didn't receive a notice from the organization to let me evacuate, and I resolutely can't leave, that is, let you suffer!" ”
That night, Wang Xiaohe hugged his wife and made a final settlement and instruction to him, saying:
"You have enough milk, and after I catch it, you can be a wet nurse; Children can be left to my mother to raise. Life is difficult, everything in the family, chest of drawers, wardrobes can be sold. If I can come out one day, I will buy these things back to you. But usually, what I let you do, the people I know, absolutely cannot be said. ”
Xin Yuying finally determined that her husband was a Communist Party, and she had no idea at all, and only cried vigorously. When she was in the countryside, she knew that the Kuomintang was fierce, that they were still cruel to the common people, and that they did not know how to "punish the law" against the Communist Party that opposed them.
Wang Xiaohe seemed to have anticipated his own end, and he sighed and cried to her:
"If I can't come out, when you are young, find another loyal and reliable partner and raise our daughter Pechen, and you just need to let her know who killed me, and I will thank you." 」
On April 21, Xin Yuying's worst fears happened, and that morning, Wang Xiaohe was arrested and sent to the Weihaiwei Road Kuomintang Garrison Brigade. On that day, everything seemed to be the same as usual, Xin Yuying later recalled the scene in an interview:
"As he usually did in the morning, he went down the stairs, and our ten-month-old daughter stood on the edge of the bed and walked on her feet, and when she left, she said Byebye."
When he was taken away, Wang Xiaohe did not know that his wife was pregnant with their second daughter.
Wang Xiaohe was righteous
19 days after her husband's arrest, the distraught Xin Yuying was finally allowed to visit her in prison. On the day she saw her husband again, she cried like a tearful person, and years later, she recalled the scene like this:
"He was wearing shackles and handcuffs, and he dragged him out step by step, and a person who was originally very angry actually changed his appearance and did not recognize it."
On that day, seeing her crying vigorously, Wang Xiaohe comforted her with red eyes: "Don't cry, take good care of your body."
When Wang Xiaohe's clothes were changed, Xin Yuying cried again: his white shirt was covered with blood. She later learned that her husband had been tortured in prison by "grinding ribs" and sitting on a tiger stool. When she knew that "grinding ribs" was to take a rough wooden stick and press down and rub it down from the ribs to let the blood ooze out, her heart also ached.
Wang Xiaohe at the execution ground
Behind Wang Xiaohe, the Kuomintang arrested people everywhere, and it was difficult for the underground party to carry out its work, so in desperation, the underground party quietly brought a message to Xin Yuying: let her try to rescue Wang Xiaohe in a noisy way. Xin Yuying knew that this was her last chance, and she had to do everything in her power to rescue her husband.
Xin Yuying went everywhere to complain and make trouble, and she had been to the gate of the Kuomintang government, the door of the Daguang Cinema, the door of the Yangshupu Power Plant, and everywhere else. Because she made such a big fuss that it alarmed the Kuomintang top brass, the Kuomintang garrison commander had to call her away and ask her who had instructed her to do so, and she insisted:
"No one taught me that I did this because I wanted to wash Wang Xiaohe's grievances, and he was a good man. You are unreasonable and arrest people indiscriminately. ”
Xin Yuying didn't know, if she didn't insist that she herself would most likely be caught.
In September, five months after Wang Xiaohe's arrest, Xin Yuying read in a newspaper special issue that her husband had been executed. At that moment, her mind was completely blank. After crying and shouting, she decided to give it a go, she held the child, stood up with a big belly, and took her mother-in-law to the prison gate to make trouble.
A pregnant woman with her mother-in-law and child made trouble at the prison gate, which quickly attracted the attention of the public and the media. On that day, because there were too many onlookers, the traffic at the prison gate was completely blocked.
The panicked guards of Tilanqiao Prison desperately beat Xin Yuying with wide belts, the news reporter desperately pressed the shutter, and the crowd of onlookers was also angry, they shouted at the guards: "What are you beating her for, she has such a big belly, she is still holding a child, she has no crime!" ”
Years later, Xin Yuying recalled this period and said with gratitude:
"Many people spontaneously came to protest the atrocities of the Kuomintang. The Special Criminal Court was frightened and announced that it would be rescheduled. After liberation, I learned that I had played a role that the underground party could not play. ”
Xin Yuying's role was ultimately limited, and a few days later, on September 30, the Kuomintang executed Wang Xiaohe. Xin Yuying did not know it beforehand, so she has been hating to scold the Kuomintang for "secretly executing" her husband.
After liberation, Xin Yuying and two daughters
It was only after the liberation that the executioner was arrested that Xin Yuying learned the details of her husband's murder: the executioner who disposed of him killed countless people, but because of sympathy for Wang Xiaohe, he could not get his hands on it, and the executioner said:
"I sympathize with him so much. The truth he preached along the way touched me, and I couldn't get my hands on it, but it made him suffer. I fired three shots, and when I didn't get it right, my hands were shaking. ”
Xin Yuying also learned that before her husband died, he did not shout "Long live the Communist Party" as other revolutionary martyrs did when they sacrificed, but shouted "wronged" before he was killed. Why? This was actually Wang Xiaohe's final struggle: the Kuomintang at that time wanted Wang Xiaohe to admit that he was a Communist, and the purpose of their torture on him was to force him to admit and force him to confess to the underground party.
Wang Xiaohe did not betray a single person until his death, and he used his life to save the underground organization. Also doing everything to protect the underground organization was Xin Yuying. During Wang Xiaohe's arrest, the Kuomintang had asked her to go to the Yangshupu power plant, and they called all the suspects to her for identification.
On that day, Xin Yuying's heart was pounding, and she found that many people there were familiar faces of her, and they often came to her house. Remembering her husband's advice before his arrest, she plucked up the courage to hold her head high and said:
"Come and go, just in case you are." You come to our house a lot. I don't know anyone else. ”
Xin Yuying's words saved countless people, and later, one of these people, an underground party surnamed Li, said:
"The lives of several of us are in Xin Yuying's mouth." Although she was a countryman, she knew many of us when she was asked to recognize people, but she didn't say a single one. ”
21 days after Wang Xiaohe was killed, Xin Yuying gave birth to their second daughter at the health station with great grief. In accordance with her husband's instructions in a letter from prison before his death, she named her daughter "PeiMin".
Looking at this child who had never had a father in his life, Xin Yuying cried out.
Xin Yuying in front of her husband's tomb
After giving birth to her second daughter, Xin Yuying, who had no money to spend, lived in her mother-in-law's house. The underground party knew her difficulties and often stuffed some money into her. With their help, Xin Yuying finally survived.
In the days after Wang Xiaohe's death, Xin Yuying often wept with the letters he had written to her in prison. During his 5 months in prison, he wrote her more than fifty letters, and in each letter, he almost had to say "I'm sorry for her, let her suffer." She couldn't read words, but when people around her helped recite the letter, she recognized the three words "I'm sorry": they appeared too often.
Letter from Wang Xiaohe to his wife (Source: Shanghai Municipal Archives)
It was also from this letter that Xin Yuying finally smoothed out everything in the past. She understood that he had lied to her too much, and that their marriage did not start out of "like" or "love", but for revolution. But did she hate him? She didn't hate, she had read his feelings for her from his guilt-ridden letters.
"Wouldn't it be better for a relationship to be mixed up in the revolution?" Xin Yuying always thought so, and after a long time, she missed him more and more.
After liberation, after a memorial service for her husband, her life was properly arranged by the organization. She was first sent to night school to study, and then entered the Shanghai Electric Power College for formal study. The organization not only arranged a formal job for her, but also assigned her a house at the small south gate. The house is in a good location, or a two-room Shikumen house.
After the days were getting better and better, Xin Yuying missed her husband more and more, and every time she thought of her husband, she kept crying. Xin Yuying wept day after day, which aroused the sympathy of a young man upstairs. This young man was none other than her later husband, Lu Zulan. Lu Zulan was three years younger than her and felt extreme sympathy for her because she knew she was the widow of a revolutionary.
After a long time, Xin Yuying and Lu Zulan came together. After marriage, Xin Yuying still often remembers and pays tribute to Wang Xiaohe. Under her careful teaching, the eldest daughter and the youngest daughter were well educated. The eldest daughter Pei Qin played the violin in the Shanghai Ballet after graduating from the affiliated high school of the Conservatory of Music, and now moved to Australia, and the youngest daughter Pei Min has been engaged in local history work since graduation.
Xin Yuying and her two daughters are in front of her husband's tomb
Xin Yuying and his two daughters said:
"Liberated, your mother enjoyed the preferential treatment of the Communist Party, but your father was the most bitter and did not enjoy it at all."
However, Wang Xiaohe, who had not enjoyed any preferential treatment, received a special honor after his death.
After liberation, Wang Xiaohe was buried in the Hongqiao Cemetery and later moved to the Shanghai Martyrs' Cemetery. In 1988, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Wang Xiaohe's inauguration, all walks of life in Shanghai solemnly gathered to commemorate it.
The people of Shanghai are in front of Wang Xiaohe's tomb
On November 29, 2019, the opening ceremony of Wang Xiaohe Advanced Deeds Exhibition Hall was held in his hometown, and Wang Peimin, who participated in the whole process, was deeply moved, and she was convinced: The spirit of her father will live forever!