Chen Zhuofan, a patriotic democrat in Chaoshan Province, raised martyrs and orphans and rescued revolutionaries

Source: Shantou Daily

　　Chen Zhuofan's family (taken in the 1930s and 1940s)

■ Zhu Changning

My uncle Chen Zhuofan was a well-known patriotic democrat who actively resisted Japan. Huang Xianzhang called him "the chief patriotic democrat of Chaoshan in his Commentary on the Characters of the Chaoshan Republic of China".

My family's ancestral home is Shaoxing, Zhejiang, and my grandfather Zhu Yichen came from Zhejiang to start a business in the 1920s, and the whole family settled down in Baohuali, Gonghe Road, Shantou. My grandfather had 5 daughters and 2 sons, and Mrs. Chen Zhuofan's wife, Zhu Xiaren, was my second aunt. When the second aunt was young, she was dignified and beautiful, gentle and virtuous, and kind and generous. Because of their common ideals and interests, she and her second uncle married in Shanghai in the summer of 1929, and after marriage, worked as an assistant at the Shanghai Nanqiang Bookstore founded by the second uncle.

His uncle was a native of Chenghai Zhanglin Tangxi, and as early as during his study in Japan, he organized the "Red Heart Society" with Peng Pan, Li Chuntao, Du Guoyu, Yang Sizhen, Wang Dingxin, and others to spread progressive ideas. In 1925, he was appointed by Zhou Enlai as the governor of Jieyang County. He was one of the founders of the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party, and after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he openly supported the Communist Party's policy of the anti-Japanese united front, which led to the secretaries of the Kuomintang in the nine counties at that time jointly writing to Chiang Kai-shek, saying that "the Chaoshan region is about to be redwashed by Chen Zhuofan"...

After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, my uncle and aunt returned to Shantou, our entire family of dozens of people live together in Gonghe Road Baohuali, living in a house with two stories high, No. 1-4 connected together, an area of nearly 1,000 square meters, the architectural style is unique, there is a balcony in front, there is a terrace in the back, the entrance corridor passage is planted with a variety of flowers, bonsai, once in the flowering period, the intoxicating fragrance fills the entire compound. The elders in the family came from Shaoxing, and when I was a child, I often heard the adults humming Shaoxing operas. His uncle Chen Zhuofan loved Chao opera and Chaozhou music, and at that time he also collected some Chao opera and Chao Le records. In 1946, a personal telephone number of Chen Zhuofan with the number "1729" was installed in the home, and at that time there were less than 30 private residential telephones in Shantou.

My uncle was a well-known patriotic democrat with deep affection for the people and relatives of his hometown. My father died when I was very young, leaving me, my mother and my sister at a young age, and my uncle and aunt took great care of our orphans and widows. From the late 1940s, members of the Zhu family left Shantou one after another to develop in Zhejiang, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and other places. After the founding of New China, my uncle also participated in the establishment of people's power and engaged in united front work in Guangzhou. Since we were still young at that time, we could only stay in Shantou for the time being. When I left, my uncle and aunt tried every means to settle the lives of our mother and son, and left a "winner brand" sewing car for my family, which became a tool for my mother to make a living by hand.

After arriving in Guangzhou, my uncle was always concerned about the situation in his hometown, and he never forgot his flesh and blood relatives in Chaoshan and always had to entrust or mail some materials to help our family every year. After the end of the 1960s, due to work relations, I often had to go to Guangzhou for business, and every time I went to my uncle's house to visit, the old man was always very concerned about the situation in the Chaoshan area, and every time he asked with great interest about the development and construction of his hometown, farmland production, harvest, etc., and several times he also asked me about the construction of the Chenghai Hanjiang Water Conservancy Bridge. Usually at home, the elderly also require that the family must speak Chaoshan dialect. He and his aunt were rigorous in their education of their five children and set an example for their juniors with their own words and deeds.

Throughout his life, my uncle supported justice, was righteous, and charitable. He did everything he could to raise the orphans of martyrs, help the victims of disasters, and rescue revolutionaries. Hubei Huangmei martyr Yang Sizhen engaged in secret party work in the Hailufeng and Chaoshan areas in the mid-1920s, and left behind three young sons after being killed by the enemy in August 1927, and for the martyrs' orphans, his uncle treated them as his own, and regularly sent them living expenses until they grew up; in 1936, Peng Shilu, the son of the martyr Peng Pan and a teenager, wandered in Chaoshan and was arrested and imprisoned by the Kuomintang Chao'an authorities, and his uncle tried every means to rescue them and send them to his grandmother. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, when his uncle was serving as an administrative inspector in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong Province in Fengshun Tangkeng, he refused to accept a few pounds of gold sent by the family of the local bully Xu Mingdong, punished this local tyrant who did nothing evil and was known as the "three-legged tiger", and was called "Bao Qingtian" by the local people, and the story of Commissioner Chen's punishment of the "three-legged tiger" is still circulating in the Fengshun area; after the victory of the War of Resistance, my uncle managed to rescue a group of CPC members and progressive youth... Before the founding of New China, he saw that there was no complete middle school in his hometown of Chenghai in northern Jiangsu, so he initiated the establishment of Subei Middle School in 1946; after moving to Guangzhou, he founded Xinchao Middle School (the predecessor of the Ninth Middle School in Guangzhou) in Guangzhou in the early 1950s.

Although my uncle had a lot of experience in his life, he maintained a fist heart from beginning to end, and in his old age he still loved life very much, loving flowers and calligraphy. On March 29, 1976, my uncle died of illness.

Looking back on my uncle's life, it was a revolutionary life, and he made great contributions to the country, the nation and his hometown with his indomitable spirit, and his patriotic feelings, revolutionary spirit and noble character will always be remembered in the hearts of our descendants.