Xu Zhuoyun looked back on the life in the rear: I was full in the first year of the eight-year Anti-Japanese War, but I couldn't do it in the second year

1. The years of Nanshan are joyful in suffering

In the first year of the eight-year Anti-Japanese War, I was still well fed, but in the second year, I was short of food and materials, and I was in short supply until the last year. We ate rations, and officials and students ate the same rations.

The things that are cooked with the rice are called eight-treasure rice, worms, barnyard seeds, small stones, and chaff...... There are as many as seven or eight kinds of rice, so it is called eight treasure rice. I don't go to school anyway, I don't do anything, I pick rice at home, and in the morning, my mother will pick out the rice that I want to eat that day, and I really can't eat the things before picking them out. My mother would give me a handful of small hairpins made of cow bones, I put the rice on the table, pick out the stones and insects with the hairpins, and put back half a grain of rice, as long as the chaff is not too dirty, and a bowl of rice can be left eighty percent down as luck.

We lived in a pine forest of thousands of pine trees near the pine village of Nanshan in Chongqing, which was originally a hospital run by Canada missionaries. The wild pigeons flew around, and I took the things I picked up from the rice picks and fed them, and the little insects that could not be eaten were all placed there, and after eating them for a while, they became familiar with each other. I hung a charcoal basket and spread newspapers on it, and the pigeons lived in it, laying eggs and hatching the young pigeons, and so on for a year. There were more than 100 pigeons at the time of departure. These pigeons recognize me, and when I don't feed them, they come back, so I know their habits very well; But my mother always scolded me for making the hallway full of pigeon.

When I first arrived in Chongqing, the prices in the mainland were very cheap, and I bought eggs in baskets, but in the second year, everything was expensive, and the money was not enough. Many patients and children die due to insufficient nutrition, and the mortality rate of infants and children is very high. Folk medicine is not enough, we will be infected with malaria every year, commonly known as swinging. Later, I donated blood in the United States, saying that I had played a pendulum decades ago, and they wouldn't let me donate. At that time, wherever there was quinine, it was all about peeling off the bark of the poplar tree and boiling it in soup.

The Canada missionary-run hospital was large, leaning against a hillside building, five stories on one side and two stories on the other, and their dormitories had no small rooms, only large bunks, no pillars to support them, and the floor was sunken down in the center. The door of the hospital and the doctor's conference room are used as the place where our Xu family lives, and they are divided into three units with tarpaulin, and my parents live in the place where they enter the door. The five-story building is home to 300 people, about 50 or 60 families, and it is a highway looking down.

During these days, although I lived a leisurely life at home, I was also very lonely. I couldn't walk the rugged mountain road to go to school, in addition to reading some books and periodicals at home, my brothers and sisters also taught me when they came back from winter and summer vacations, but the most important thing was the guidance of my father. At that time, Lao Jiu was in elementary school, Lao Ba was in Aoki Kan at the middle school affiliated to Chuo University, and Xu Wanqing was a clerk in the Ministry of Justice and Administration. My father worked in Chongqing, across the river, and only came back on weekends, and his duties were not busy, so he probably came back on Saturday on weekends and went back on Tuesday mornings. During this time when he was at home, I accompanied him to read and write things, and if he commented on the war situation, I was the listener, and I was the only one in the family who was with Lao Jiu, who was too young, and he didn't like to listen to his father talk about this, so he went to play as soon as he came back, so my father asked me to be a listener alone. He would hang two maps, a map of the world and a map of China, which were full of small white flags, small blue flags, and small yellow flags, and the ocean was the flag of the fleet, and he told me how to fight the European war, how to fight the Pacific theater, and how to fight the Chinese battlefield. When he moved the flag, he would tell me why, where, and how. My father also liked to read the recitals of the famous ministers of the Song Dynasty, and often said to me, "This paragraph is good, you listen to the ......" and assigned me to read it.

My father was very good at mathematics, he studied the navy, he was particularly interested in geometry, he told me about geometric figures, and occasionally taught me to calculate mathematical problems, but the more he talked about it, the more he was interested, and he often didn't talk about it systematically, and I couldn't figure it out. There are only two real benefits for me, one is to listen to him talk about the recitals, and the other is to listen to him talk about war.

My father also liked to read "Ta Kung Pao", and if he saw an editorial written by Zhang Jiluan, he would definitely tell me about it, which invisibly trained my ability to write articles. There are also the magazines "Time and Tide" he brought back, Chongqing's "Current Affairs News" and the "Xuedeng" supplement of "Ta Kung Pao", which are full of famous works. But at that time, I didn't understand it very well, but in the late stage of the Anti-Japanese War, I understood it better, what Fei Xiaotong, Zhou Kunsheng, I have slowly understood their articles.

So my education is different from others, I miss my father's guidance to me, he gave me education is like a United Kingdom general education, he taught me to be a person who understands history, taught me about war history, geography, political science, diplomacy and language training. There are eight of us brothers and sisters, and I have benefited the most from his guidance in this area, because the others have been away from home for a long time. My father was very learned, but unfortunately he became an official, and if he became a professor, he must be very remarkable. My father taught me knowledge, but my relationship with my mother is closer, and the situation in our family is different from other people's families. My father had a very gentle personality, and my mother had a strong personality, so we were loving fathers and strict mothers. I think my basic personality is the same as that of my late father, more gentle, but I make decisions quickly and quickly, probably like my late mother. The deceased mother made decisions very quickly. I made a decision, I made a decision, I never regretted it, and if I was wrong, I just corrected it from the next step.

2. Brother Pao breaks "business"

In this way, until the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, my parents all went down the mountain in those years, and Brother Ling was at school, and I lived a very leisurely and lonely life. We have an orderly, actually a follower, named Wang Sisan, he is a sharpshooter, the gun is very accurate, you put some bottles and cans in front, he bangs five shots, five cans are finished, the muzzle of the gun is hit up, it is a bird falling, what a sharpshooter. He came out of the army, and he was responsible for taking care of me and Brother Ling, eating, washing, and scrubbing.

His brother later became Brother Pao, and he had to memorize "under the sea" to participate in Brother Pao, but he didn't know how to read. The so-called "undersea" is a small book, on which some code words are written, he asked me to read to him, I read a sentence, he memorized a sentence, and as a result, my "seabed" is more familiar than him, and maybe even "fill the shell", that is, pretend to be a robe brother. Pretending to be a robe brother is a capital offense, and they can capture you and kill you.

Many people in the robe are related to the transportation industry, cars, boats, horses, sedan cars, ...... These floating populations, when they are connected in series, the "bottom of the sea" is a stall, and you will know which plate you are. If you want to live in the local area, he will immediately take you in, if you are really a useful person, he will value you very much, like Wang Sisan's marksmanship is good, as long as he shows his hands, people will obey him, saying that I have a sharpshooter in this hall, you better sell some accounts.

Brother Sichuan Pao is related to the Hong Gang, not the Qing Gang, there is no figure like Du Yuesheng, and there is no figure like Yang Qingshan, the local warlords Liu Xiang and Deng Xihou are all in the gang, but their status is not high. There is a person named "Fan Haer" Fan Shaozeng, whose status is not low, "Haer" means fool, and there are many stories about Fan Haer. There is a "Fan Zhuang" in Chongqing, which is Fan Har's Zhuangzi, which specially entertains gang friends and dignitaries, and later gives it to the government.

There is a teahouse at the corner of the street in Huangjuya, the typical teahouse in Sichuan is set up with bamboo, high legs, one side is set on the side of the road, the other side is suspended on the side of the mountain, the wind blows and sways, because the bamboo has toughness, so it will never fall. This teahouse is the base of Brother Pao, where they talk about "official business", Wang Sisan sometimes carries me away, I listen there, and also give me a cup of tea to drink, everyone knows me.

Wang Sisan's status in the robe brother was very high, first, he had good marksmanship, and second, he emphasized righteousness. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he returned to Xiamen with us, and then left, becoming the head of Fujian's robe, which originally had no robe. He was later shot by the Communists.

I listened to a lot of business in the teahouse. The "old man", that is, the uncle, with a blue and white cloth on his head, sits in it, and if he listens to official business, and anyone who sits there drinking tea on the pass is qualified to observe. For example, Zhang San and Li Si have a money lawsuit, the public says that the public is reasonable, and the mother-in-law says that the mother-in-law is reasonable, and the two can entrust an agent to "represent" him, which is equivalent to a lawyer, and finally the uncle will decide. The content of official affairs includes money lawsuits, and there are also things for men and women, but women usually do not come out, and this kind of thing is relatively rare.

When the uncle listens to official business, he should listen to the opinions of those present, even those who pass by, and the uncle will say, "Brothers, brothers, tell you a reason." "There is a reason for all the nonsense. Sometimes he even named me and said, "Seven less! You are a knowledgeable person, what do you say? I said, "I don't understand!" "

So these days, it's quite interesting, I heard a lot of truths, and there are some trivial things. Some of the content is quite interesting, for example, debt does not mean that the debt is repaid, but the personal relationship between two people is counted in it, brothers, brothers, relatives, neighbors, strangers, generations of friendship, just past friendship, outside meet merchants, all relationships are counted in it, very complicated.

For me, it was a class, and to be honest, I really went deep into the people from that time and listened to them describe the disputes, which made me really understand many issues in the people. For example, two cousins, one rich and the other poor, the poor used to be rich, the rich used to be poor, and then they turned it around, if they were in debt, and the former rich owed the former poor, Brother Pao would persuade: "Think about it, how much did his father help you in your father's time?" "I've heard too many examples of this.

From this situation, it can be understood that in the traditional society in the past, unless it was a lawsuit that the people really couldn't solve, it would not go to court, and it would be solved in the community! The uncle's judgment is very binding, and the loser has to pay all the tea money.

But this tea is not a good tea, we eat any tea. Someone brought their own tea. The most commonly drunk is "eagle tea", which is the coarse tea leaves picked from the tree, which have not been roasted, but just dried in the sun, which is the cheapest. There is also a kind of "hand tea", where the tea leaves that others have drunk are poured into the basket and then smacked. But this tea is not given to us to eat, it is for the passing pickers or the poor, for a small amount of money. There is also a type called glass, which is boiled water. It also costs some money to drink glass, because the water has to be carried up from the bottom of the mountain, and it is hard to pick up buckets and buckets. So drinking glass also costs money, but it's cheap.

You can also eat in a teahouse, so it's a community center, and there is a local order in traditional society, which is completely different from the so-called "tea house" in our city. Some people play Go, chess, backgammon, and nine-palace chess, all of them. You can gamble money or not in chess, and bystanders can bet money on the side and bet a few moves to win. I know how to play these chess, but I haven't bothered to do it, so I'm not proficient, just above average. But I'm not very good at Go, below average, sometimes I can make up a number, and I can play with others, they say, "Seven less!" Let's have a plate. "I'll just have a plate.

During this time, I was equivalent to going to social university, and my father also taught Chinese for me and talked to me. To be honest, I was writing an editorial in the newspaper today, and the short article was written with ups and downs, and it came and went, which was quite beneficial to listening to the discussion at that time.

3. Battle of Fangcheng

Because my father was always at home on weekends, we got to know another group of people. These people were Northeast politicians, such as Liu Zhe and Mo Dehui, and Zhang Xueliang was detained in Guizhou at that time and was not with them.

These Northeast politicians were scattered in Chongqing and lived next door to us. They like to play mahjong, and they don't enjoy playing it themselves, and they invite their ancestors to play together, and sometimes they come to my house to play mahjong, so I have seen these Northeast politicians.

The Northeast members have a big wolf dog at home. Liu Zheren was tall and big, and he also had a Rendan beard, and every time he went out for a walk, the orderlies pulled the dog in front, and he followed behind, the dog was as big as a leopard, and it was very fierce, and there were Tibetan mastiffs: they were all defending them. To be honest, Chiang Kai-shek had relieved them of all their military powers, so they didn't trust Chiang Lao very much.

My father had a strategy for playing mahjong with these Northeast people, and often won money, and they all felt strange, why did he always win? Once I sent an adjutant to stand behind my father and watch, but I still couldn't see a reason. Later, my father told them that his strategy was to accumulate small victories into big victories, and that he would definitely win when there was a chance to win, and it would never take time. Northeast soldiers have always liked to be big names, but my father often won small victories and accumulated small victories, so he always won, and after winning he even said: "I don't want your money, your family has a lot of food, so it's good to bring some food." "Because our family is rationed by civil servants, we don't have enough to eat.

The most common supply they had was chickens. As soon as they brought the chickens to my house, we had two days of good food, and we often ate the little roosters. There is also chocolate candy, which I ate as a child, but forgot the taste. At that time, eating milk chocolate candy was very expensive and high-end, and it was brought by people, like gold ingots.

The first father and the first mother will play mahjong, every time after playing mahjong quarrel is a noisy strategy, the first mother's method is not to engage in small wins, do big wins, so not big wins or big losses. My father didn't tell me these things at the time, but I talked to him when I grew up, and he told me slowly.

The people of the Northeast are very rich, and they have a lot of supplies that we don't have. As far as I know, the shops they invested in are not in the Northeast, but mostly in the Tianjin and Shanghai concessions. In 1996, I was in Hawaii, and Zhang Xueliang was also in Hawaii, and his life was very prosperous at that time!

4. Neighbors

Our place is called "Matsumura", which was originally a hospital for Canada missionaries, and was later bought by Shen Xin as a staff dormitory, and my family also borrowed two large rooms and lived in them for several years.

At that time, Wang Shijie was the head or chief of staff of the six organizations, including the head of the propaganda department of the Kuomintang Central Party Department, the chief instructor of the Central Training School, the secretary general and chairman of the presidium of the National Political Participation Council, and the director of the Counselor's Office of the Military Commission. He and Li Jinglu (who served as "vice minister of economic affairs" and general manager of Weiquan Company after coming to Taiwan) are brothers-in-law, and Li Jinglu's wife is the sister of Wang's wife, Xiao Dehua, and they live next door to us. When he escaped the alarm in the past, Xue Gong (Wang Shijie, the word Snow Boat) ran to us, so Xue Gong was very familiar with his father and uncle. Later, Xue Gong became the president of the "Academia Sinica", and when he took office, I was already serving in the institute, and he knew that the son of the deceased was also in the institute, and he felt very happy, but he didn't expect that a child back then would now become his subordinate.

On the one hand, because of the relationship between Xue Gong, on the other hand, the Ministry of Finance, where my father served, was also related to the Resources Committee and the Ministry of Economy, so my father was very familiar with several political science figures at that time, and this relationship chain was also quite long, because everyone was a technocrat. My father was also a technocrat who was in charge of transportation and waterways.

My father and Lin Jiyong were very familiar with each other, and the factory moved to Sichuan was presided over by Lin Jiyong, and later we lived in Lane 17 of Yongkang Street in Taipei, Aunt Lin lived in Lane 23, and Lin Jiyong lived with his little wife. Aunt Lin often came to our house to chat with my late mother, and the friendship has been passed down for decades.

Li Jinglu's son still hangs out with me a lot in Pittsburgh. I was in my teens and he was seven or eight years old, and we shared a front porch, which was where I kept my pigeons, and he used to come out and play with them. Xuegong's eldest son, Wang Jiwu, also often went to Nanshan to escape the alarm, but we did not know each other at that time, and later came to Taiwan to frequent contacts, and his wife was Zhang Zhongdong's sister.

During those years, Chennault's planes defended Chongqing, so there was very little bombing. I have seen Chennault's plane fight with the Japanese plane, because the airfield is at the coral dam between Wanglongmen and Longmen Hao, and the two sides are fighting fiercely, somersaults, circles, and figures, so powerful that a plane is slammed down, and a fire falls.

Coral Dam is a small airport in the middle of the Yangtze River, which will be flooded in the summer until the water recedes, and it is an airfield near the city, where Chiang Kai-shek's planes often come down, and then he takes a boat to the mountain city of Chongqing. In the summer, planes must take off and land at Jiangbei Baishiyi Airport.

[Xu Zhuoyun, a native of Wuxi, Jiangsu, was born on September 2, 1930 (the tenth day of the seventh lunar month) in Gulangyu, Xiamen, Fujian. At the end of 1948, he went to Taiwan, China, with his family, and in 1970, he settled in Pittsburgh, United States. Historian, Professor Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh, United States, and Academician of Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Xu Zhuoyun is one of the most influential historians in the Chinese-speaking world, proficient in ancient history, economic history, cultural history, archaeology, and sociology. The academic masterpiece "Ancient China Trilogy" ("History of the Western Zhou Dynasty", "History of Ancient Chinese Society", "Agriculture of the Han Dynasty") has become a model work for the study of ancient China for decades. In addition, dozens of popular historiographical works such as the "Trilogy of Chinese Culture" ("Ten Thousand Ancient Rivers", "Speaking of China", and "The Spirit of Chinese Culture") have been published, and millions of copies have been sold at home and abroad. His work "Eternal Rivers" won the 3rd "National Library Wenjin Book Award"; Xu Zhuoyun was awarded the Special Contribution Award of the Asian Society in 2004, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the 4th Global Chinese Sinology Ceremony in 2020, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Chinese Influencing the World in 2022-2023. 】