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The year before, at the invitation of the teachers of Guangya Middle School, I visited the school. In front of the "Mountain Long Building", when I saw the statue of Yang Zai'an, I couldn't help but stop and stand in awe.
The pine breeze around me was slightly cool, and my heart echoed yang Zai'an's poem "Rafting":
The head of LiziWan is getting low, and the song is lightly waterfowl crying.
Bian Zhou went to the deep smoke one by one, and the small tree taught the Green Fan.
Domineering has been sunk and cultural relics have been changed, and the clouds are hanging despite the strings.
Tianxin is tired of people's thinking, and the bottom thing is that Spring City is still drumming?
The poem was published in the Guangdong Zhonghua Xinbao on May 28, 1918, when Yang Zaian had been a graduate for many years. From the beautiful scenery of Liwan described in the poem, it can be seen that when he studied in the Guangya campus in Guangzhou Liwan, the nearby scenic spot Lizhiwan left a deep impression on him.
Yang Zai'an has been reciting poetry and ancient texts with his mother on her lap since he was a child, and when he was studying at the Zhongshan Gongdu Academy, his academic performance was excellent, and his poetry writing talent was early. After graduating from primary school, his family sold his land, and his relatives took him to Guangzhou and was admitted to the preparatory department of Liangguang Higher School.
At that time, the school was the most famous school in South China (formerly known as the "Guangya Academy" founded by Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Liangguang, later known as the "Guangdong Provincial First Middle School", etc.), and the school was successively principaled by the famous Sinologist Wu Daorong and the poet Huang Jie, with courses in mathematics, science, chemistry, and Japanese. Under the guidance of a good teacher, Yang Zai'an not only laid a deep and broad foundation in the study of literature and history, but also came into extensive contact with various social trends of thought, such as the Zhang Zhidong Western-style faction, the Kang and Liang reformists, and his Xiangshan compatriots Sun Yat-sen's democratic revolutionaries and Liu Shifu's anarchist faction.
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After graduating from Guangdong Provincial No. 1 Middle School in 1914, Yang Zaian returned to his hometown to teach at Gongdu Primary School. Soon, with a yearning for the future, he and his cousin Yang Zhangfu and other overseas Chinese merchants crossed the east by boat to Yokohama, Japan. He already had a foundation in Japanese at home, and when he arrived in Japan, he was soon able to translate because of his hard work. He often ran bookstores and libraries, eagerly studying Japanese books on Marxism and various schools of social thought in the West, laying the foundation for him to publish a large number of translations in his future return to China.
In the winter of 1916, Yang Zaian returned from Japan, married Wu Peiqi, a girl from a neighboring village, and went to Macau to teach after marriage. At the beginning of 1918, the family moved to Guangzhou, where he taught at the private Shimin Middle School, concurrently served as a reporter for the Guangdong Zhonghua Xinbao, and lived with Yang Zhangfu at the Yang Family Ancestral Hall at Sihou Street (now No. 116 Yuehua Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou).
Yang Zaian lived in this hut from 1918 to 1928, worked and fought in Guangzhou for ten years, which was an important period in his revolutionary life, yang clan ancestral hall is an important activity base of the CCP Guangzhou party and organization, many important leaders have left their footprints in yang clan ancestral hall. It is also the place where the activities of the Guangdong Communist Group are located, where many benevolent people such as Zhou Enlai, Chen Yannian, Tan Pingshan, Su Zhaozheng, etc. share their ideas and discuss the future of the country and the nation, and then from here to the world.
Under the oil lamp of the Yang Family Ancestral Hall, Yang Zaian wrote a large number of articles to promote Marxism, and he was the first person in South China to systematically introduce Marxism.
During his ten years in Guangzhou, he joined the Communist Party of China, actively engaged in the workers' movement, went to the Shijing Arsenal in Guangzhou, organized a "group of ten" among the workers, propagated Marxism to the workers, and raised the class consciousness of the workers. At the end of 1923, he opened the "Beijiang Commercial Transport Bureau" in Huangsha Haipeng Street, Guangzhou, carrying goods from Shaoguan, Qingyuan and other places, using the Escort of the Dian Army to cover the party's activities among the workers of the Guangdong-Han Railway and to plan activities for the party.
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One day in July 2021, I stepped into the Yang Clan Ancestral Hall, the red stronghold of the Chinese Communists' activities. It used to be the activity point of the early organization of the Communist Party of Guangzhou, the activity site of the Guangdong District Committee of the Communist Party of China, the registration place for only the members of the Communist Party of China when enrolling in the Huangpu Military Academy, the three preparatory liaison offices of the Communist Party of China, and the medical points for foreign CCP members. This ordinary traditional building once radiated a mighty light, illuminating the path of humanity's pursuit of liberation.
At the Yang Clan Ancestral Hall, I heard an anecdote about Yang Zai'an's loyalty:
On May 9, 1927, the Fifth National Congress of the Communist Party of China was elected by the Central Supervision Commission, whose main duty was to supervise the party's central organs and staff on behalf of the majority of party members and ensure the unified discipline of the party. Yang Zaian was elected as a member of the Central Control Commission. At that time, he was responsible for supervising the funding of party activities. Once, his child found a coin from an empty money bag, and when he was playing with the coin, he found it, immediately took back the coin, and solemnly told the child: This belongs to the organization to fund, we can not intercept it at will. Afterwards, Yang Zaian handed the coins back to the party organization.
From this small matter, we can see Yang Zaian's loyalty to the party and his incorruptible personality.
After leaving Guangzhou in 1928, Yang Zaian went to Shanghai to work. In July 1931, he was arrested and killed at the Shanghai Kuomintang Longhua Garrison Headquarters, leaving behind a poem "Show Your Fellow Prisoner" the day before his execution:
Generously board the car and go, the phase is complete.
There is nothing to love, and the enemy is present.
Knowing the poor Zhang Jian, chi xing smiled Chu Yuan.
Parting ways from Zi and looking at each other.
The first four verses of the poem write about his calm attitude towards impending death. The fifth and sixth sentences, with two allusions, are an admonition to the inmates: We would rather die as Zhang Jian, who is loyal and righteous, than to be Chu Yuan, who is graceful but out of control.
Zhang Jian of the Eastern Han Dynasty fled, and whenever he saw the door of others, he defected to ask for shelter. The master revered his fame and virtues, and preferred to take him in at the risk of the destruction of his family.
"Chi Xing Xiao Chu Yuan" is a poem in the Tang Dynasty poet Han Wei's "Thirty-Four Rhymes of Sentiments", which Yang Zaian directly used in his own poems.
Chu Yuan was a man of southern Qi, he was beautiful in appearance, kind in demeanor, and very personable in every move. At each meeting, the civil and military officials and foreign emissaries all stretched their necks to watch Chu Yuan's actions. Emperor Shu of Southern Qi of Song Ming once lamented: "Chu Yuan can move slowly and slowly, so it is up to him to be the prime minister." But Chu Yuan later defected and surrendered to the enemy state.
When Yang Zaian was dying, he remembered the historical Zhang Jian and Chu Yuan, and hoped that he, as well as his fellow prisoners, would be a virtuous person like Zhang Jian, not a renegade Chu Yuan.
The final "farewell from the zi, look at each other" is to tell the inmates: I am going to go to the disaster, when everyone talks about me, do not cry and cry.
This poem embodies Yang Zai'an's heroic spirit of generosity and righteousness.
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Yang Clan Ancestral Hall, also known as "Si Ru Bookstore", this century-old house began to be repaired in 2018 and has now become a base for us to inherit the red gene and carry forward the revolutionary spirit.
What impressed me was that on the wall in front of the ancestral gate, there were many poems by Yang Zai'an, among which "Sending Xiaomei" had a sentence that made me repeatedly recite "Public loyalty must not be forgotten". This verse can well explain Yang Zai'an's commitment to faith and infinite loyalty to the party.
From the Guangya campus of "pragmatic and realistic", Yang Zaian's brilliant life is worthy of our admiration.
Yang Zai'an (November 1896 – August 1931) was a native of Beishan Village, Nanping Town, Xiangshan County, Guangdong Province (now part of Zhuhai). A member of the Communist Party of China Secretary and Acting Director of the Organization Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee, Member of the Central Executive Committee, Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Founder of the Sun Society, Pioneer of the New Culture Movement and the Spread of Marxism in South China. In August 1931, Yang Zaian was secretly shot by the Kuomintang reactionaries in the wasteland inside the Songhu Police Headquarters at the age of 35.