Author | Zhu Yuqing
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="406" > straits are difficult to separate brothers and sisters</h1>
The year before the Beijing Olympics: In 2007, My cousin flew to Beijing from Taichung City, Taiwan Province, and lived in Vanke Garden, Houshayu Town, Shunyi, which was the home of my wife and children. My wife and cousin are the same age, and both old men are Gengwu Ma, 77 years old, 3 years older than me.
In the days of staying in Beijing, the three old people went into the city every two days, went to the Gong King's Mansion, ate the Brazilian barbecue buffet, ate barbecue with preferential treatment, and ate what they didn't care too much, and that kind of ease and casualness was the most important.
Beijing Brazilian Grill | Web pictures
When the day of the return trip came, everyone was sent to the airport, and before they broke up, they invited Brother Yuan to come next year, he said: "During the Olympic Games, plane tickets and tickets will be very expensive." "Speaking like this is the style of Taiwanese people, it is true and true, but it seems that we are polite and polite."
In fact, when we held the 2008 Olympic Games, first, the tickets for good games were really expensive, and the second was that we couldn't stand the fatigue of queuing up to enter the stadium, and we didn't go to the bird's nest to watch.
My cousin's mother is my mother's own sister. Since the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1945, my uncle returned from the rear of the university, picked up his wife and children and transferred to the south, and the sisters broke up.
I was separated from the strait by my brother Yuan and my cousin for fifty-two years, and at the beginning of the century, it was I who went from Wuhan to find clues, and then to Taiwan to entrust people and make phone calls, and only then did I find him.
Memories are like in front of you...
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="408" > ordinary family in Beiping</h1>
One of my mother's sisters lives in Beiping. When I first met my two aunts, I was only four or five years old, but I was deeply impressed, as if a few old photos were frozen in my mind and preserved for a lifetime.
From Tianjin by train to Beijing Qianmen Railway Station, the foreign car pulled to xuanwumen outside the school yard two a certain gate three aunt's home, there are high steps and door piers, a separate small courtyard, a few brick houses, not a courtyard.
The door pier in the school alley | network picture
When she came to the door of a room, her mother signaled silence and gently pushed the door in. The third aunt lay in one place, and it was impossible to remember whether it was a bed or a recliner. She had a heart attack, and her mother once said that the movement of the glass on the table could scare the third aunt a lot, and when she grew up, she learned that it was a serious asthma disease, which was called pulmonary heart disease in medicine.
Here I also found another woman, who was always busy before and after, constantly working, she was very easy-going, slow and soft-spoken, her mouth was big and thin, a dignified oval face, she, was the fifth aunt. My mother was the fourth in line.
There are a large number of children in the family, but the order is very good, not messy and not noisy, the children call these two aunts as mothers, I don't understand why two mothers can be in one home? But I like it because my father has no brothers and my mother has few relatives, so it's not as cordial and lively as it is here.
Born into a family of eunuchs in Zhejiang, his uncle studied at Peking University, was a railway engineer who worked in his youth on the northeast medium-long railway, responsible for the technical work of the Siping-Taonan branch line, and his family was also based in Taonan, which is now Taonan City, Jilin Province.
His uncle's second brother studied at Waseda University in Japan, and after the September 18 Incident, he returned to the northeast to engage in anti-Japanese activities, and the Japanese arrested him everywhere, and also implicated his uncle. My family often receives letters with the words "Xuanwai School Yard Two Articles", that is, the fifth aunt wrote to my mother.
The third aunt was a continuation of the string, giving birth to three men and a girl. Why did the fifth aunt live with them? It was a secretive privacy of the elders, not even their children, and the fifth aunt also gave birth to a man and a girl, and the children called their uncle "Daddy." ”
My uncle's original partner died early, leaving a daughter named Fengqi, and when I met her, she was already a small nurse, gentle and delicate. My uncle had three women who bore him four men, three women, and seven children.
Beiping was originally an ancient cultural capital, science and technology are not developed, and it is difficult for engineers to find employment. His uncle could not find a job in Beiping, and after settling down properly, he went to Hangzhou to find a way out, where his mother and married sister lived. The fifth aunt began to support the beiping family alone.
On July 7, 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident broke out, and the Japanese army brazenly provoked a war of aggression against China. The Nationalist army resisted desperately, heroically and heroically, and in the end, Peiping still fell under the iron hooves of the Japanese Kou, and Chinese history began a long period of resistance against Japan.
Old photos of Lugou Bridge | network pictures
My mother's younger brother, my sixth uncle, was a non-commissioned officer of the 59th Army of the Nationalist Government, and in the fierce battle of Wanping City, he died for the country, and neither my mother nor my aunt knew the news.
The yuan brother and rong brother of the aunt's family have never forgotten, in the early years, the sixth uncle went to their home outside xuanwu gate, and his heroic posture and handsome face left them with an impression that they could not forget, and became a model they respected all their lives.
Until 1999, when I was looking for the deceased in order to repair the family tree, the son of the sixth uncle was heard. It turned out that after the sacrifice of the sixth uncle, his young wife returned to his hometown in Huaiyuan, Anhui with her young children, and the orphans and widows lived in their mother's home. When he found the sixth uncle's son, he was very old and retired. I filled in the historical gaps of my missing mother's family.
In the days of turmoil, my uncle did not find a job in Hangzhou. He followed the torrent of people fleeing to the southwest, to Guizhou, Yunnan, and to the rear of Chongqing. In the first two years, he still had a job and a salary, and he could send money to Beiping to support his wife and children, and the life of the Beiping family could still cope with.
In the fall of Beiping in 1939, Yuan Ge was in the third grade of Liangjiayuan Primary School, and when he came home from school, he saw a mat shed in the courtyard, and his third aunt died of illness at home. The obituary written on white paper was posted outside the door, and it was time for the funeral.
Originally, I could only cope with the meager financial resources of opening the door to seven things, how to do such a big thing! The fifth aunt was in a hurry to go to the room. The well-meaning neighbors quietly sent money in the dark, some saying that they were part of the money, and some said that they were lent. In fact, everyone knows that the men of this family have gone to the rear to resist japan, and on the surface they do not dare to come and go, but secretly they are concerned about it and are willing to try their best to help. My mother also sent money over.
The fifth aunt used the money to buy a thin coffin, put the third aunt into the funeral, and simply and decently came out of the funeral, and the coffin temporarily went to a charity hall outside the Guang'an Gate. This funeral completely hollowed out the family foundation of the fifth aunt, and she also owed some foreign debts.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="760" > the rear area of the war</h1>
The Nationalist government moved south, and the population poured in, needing people's livelihood resources and a large number of military materials. U.S. aid to China came by sea and was piled up on the docks in Yangon, Burma, waiting to be delivered to the front line of the Chinese mainland War of Resistance.
The Nationalist government trapped itself in China's least developed southwest region, and it became the most urgent task to maintain the situation of the protracted War of Resistance and open up channels of communication with the outside world. The government is determined to build the Yunnan Burma Highway, starting from Kunming, through the dangerous mountains and rivers, and going west to build the country into Myanmar.
The construction process was a great innovation of the military and civilians in the rear area, and from Kunming to The Town alone, 200,000 men, women and children, with their own tools, no pay, no housing, and through unimaginable and unbearable hardships, they miraculously completed this arduous project in a few months. The construction of the Burma Highway is a world wonder in itself, and the world is impressed by the power of Chinese.
My uncle first worked on the Qiangui Railway, and soon went to build the Sichuan-Guizhou Highway, and finally participated in the survey, design and construction of the world-famous Yunnan-Burma Highway. This is the achievement that he is proud of in his life, and it is also the greatest contribution he made to the anti-Japanese resistance.
After the construction of the Yunnan Burma Highway, it has greatly played the function of a life transportation line, and a large number of mechanics from the Nanyang Chinese volunteers have driven trucks that have been driving endlessly on the highway, and the materials and munitions have continuously entered the rear, and people have seen the prospects of the War of Resistance rise to the dawn.
However, when the Japanese Kou landed in Rangoon and occupied burmese territory, the garrison Ofe could not resist, and the Chinese Expeditionary Force rushed to help for a long time, but still could not stop the rout of the British army, and the burmese capital OfAngon fell from then on.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="755" > go their separate ways</h1>
Since the death of the third aunt, there is no expense for seeing a doctor and taking medicine, and it has also reduced the nursing burden of the fifth aunt, but the money for the uncle to support the family is intermittent from time to time, which makes the fifth aunt drum in her heart and has no idea.
The eldest boy, Brother Gui, was the first to leave home before he was an adult, and his birth mother had passed away, so he went to Hangzhou to join his aunt. Hangzhou also fell to the Japanese, and Brother Gui rushed to Fujian again and joined the Kuomintang Youth Army.
"One hundred thousand young people and one hundred thousand troops!" This was Chiang Kai-shek's call that year. All the American equipment of the Youth Army, directly led by Chiang Ching-kuo, aims to unite with the US army and directly attack the Tokyo !!! Since my uncle joined the work of the Yunnan Burma Highway, it is needless to say that his salary is not guaranteed except for three meals.
He threw himself into the difficult technical problems, day and night. The family in the far north can only hide in the heaviest corner of the heart, without words, without words, because there is no postal route to pass, and the life and death of wives and children are uncertain.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="414" > joined the British Concession in Tianjin</h1>
The fifth aunt and six children were trapped in Beiping. To eat and drink, to go to school, to have no financial resources, to live by selling, to be stretched, really can't open the pot, can't open the door. The family took a train to Tianjin and joined her sister, my mother.
My mother
My family has nine parents, siblings and grandmothers living in an English house in the British Concession of Tianjin. When the mother and the five aunts and sisters met, they were incomparably affectionate, and the two children were deeply affectionate and happy to get along. The beds were not enough, the boys slept on the floor, fortunately, the rooms in my house were all wooden frames, wooden floors, and sleeping on them was quite elastic.
My cousin and I were seven or eight years old, and we looked a little alike, with a round face and a little dark skin, but her eyes were like a deep pool of water, like her father. She is gentle and quiet, and knows how to share her mother's worries, which has a good influence on me.
The little girl likes to let me accompany me to the wall and the river, where the bushes and weeping willows are shaded, which is both quiet and wild. The bed of the Wall River is not wide, but the river bank is very high. The small river runs through the entire British Concession and is a natural landscape in the city.
Once the Wall River | network pictures
Today's former site of the Wall River: Nanjing Road | network pictures
In the 1970s, the world changed greatly, the Wall River became an underground railway, and the river and the bank completely disappeared without a trace, known as Nanjing Road. The little girl died of typhoid fever in the subsequent miserable life, and the pure friendship between the two girls will always remain in my memory alone.
My parents and relatives were very affectionate, and when my fifth aunt and children arrived, my father did not have the slightest disgust or dissatisfaction, and according to my mother's opinion, how to arrange the lives of these relatives was good.
The father's attitude is not only respect and support for the mother's family management, but also another meaning of being a man, that is, to express admiration for the uncle's will to fight in the rear, and it is incumbent on taking care of his family. Although the character of parental love, kindness and helpfulness was a natural act of affection at that time, it was a natural act of affection over time, so that future generations felt that the more mellow the years passed, it was a noble moral character and family style.
My grandmother was a very powerful person, who had to decide everything and did not think much about the consequences. From the arrival of the fifth aunt, the grandmother's face was very ugly. Her contemptuous eyes, her impatient expression towards poor relatives, did not hide her unwelcome attitude.
I was very dissatisfied with my grandmother's appearance, so I led the girls to hide in the basement or attic to play. Grandmother's eagle-like eyes flashed in front of the window from time to time, it was a window that could see the courtyard gate, and she always stared at the people of the fifth aunt's house, whether she carried her baggage out to the pawn and sold, and guarded against people as thieves.
The children of the two families are divided into piles by age, there are delicious sharing, there are fun children's fun, and the sorrow of national disasters and family affairs is placed in everyone's heart, and they only live a casual life without restraint.
I don't know exactly how long my aunt's family lived in Tianjin, nor the specific date of their return to Beiping, but I feel that due to my grandmother's indifference, my mother is under pressure, which is the main reason why my aunt can't stay for a long time. Objectively, the two families live together for a long time, and the expenses will be a little tight, after all, the father is only a senior employee with a salary. But the biggest disaster was the subsequent Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that triggered a world war.
At the end of December 1941, the United States declared war on Japan, and overnight, the Japanese army occupied the British and French concessions in Tianjin. The life of our family has since fallen into the abyss of darkness for three years and eight months. My aunt must have left before this period, I don't know about my aunt's family's return to Beiping, anyway, the letter with the words "Xuanwai School Yard Two Articles" has never been received again...
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="759" > the country is scattered</h1>
The Chinese Expeditionary Force went west to the country, but in Burma it failed to repel the Japanese attack, but instead the retreat was cut off, so that part of the army fled to India; some entered the primitive forest Savage Mountain, where the skeletons of tens of thousands of young soldiers were left.
However, the Japanese army drove straight along the newly built Burma Highway, occupying Kunming and even occupying the whole province of Yunnan. It is said that when Long Yun, the overseer of Yunnan, heard that the Japanese army had occupied the road, one of his faces was red like a pig's liver, and he did not move for a long time.
The blow of the major defeat to the confidence of the military and civilians in the rear areas to resist Japan was obvious, and a large number of people serving the road transport in Yunnan and Burma were completely unemployed. Thousands of mechanics who voluntarily came to serve the motherland from Nanyang, as well as tens of thousands of people from other provinces, were left alone in the rear area, seeing the mountains and rivers shattered, their hometowns far away, and where did their relatives flee? Life and death are at stake.
Life is uncertain and the future is hopeless, and many people, including those who already have wives and families in their hometowns, have married and started families with locals. My uncle had no job, no place to live, and he had completely lost hope of returning to his hometown.
At the beginning of the 21st century, when I was old and rare, I finally had time to explore the past years, one night, I answered a call from Brother Yuan from Taiwan, and his eloquent narration made me understand my aunt's journey of family destruction. So while crying, I quickly recorded it...
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="416" > miserable life in an almshouse</h1>
Returning to Beiping from Tianjin, the life of my aunt and children was unsustainable, the furniture was sold out, and the house could not be rented. The rear area is completely separated from the occupied area, the uncle has completely lost any news, and the family is looking at the end of the world.
An old policeman who was in charge of public security in this area concealed the fact that his aunt's man in charge of resisting Japan in the rear area only nailed a wooden sign on the door of his aunt's house with the words "The head of the household, so-and-so, is idle", so as to avoid the trouble of being interrogated by secret agents and gendarmes.
In the old movie "My Life", Shi Hui played a police role, commonly known as "Stinky Foot Patrol". In the hutongs of old Beijing, I often encounter such a good policeman, who understands the situation of each family, shares the bitterness with the poor people, and does his meager strength to help them get out of their predicament. In fact, the police themselves are also very poor, but they wear one more uniform than the common people.
Web pictures
Some people may ask, "Since you have a dog skin, why don't you bully people?" Why not extort the people into getting two dollars to spend? Why not fight the small reports of anti-Japanese people and promote them to the third level? ”
Answer: "Afraid of lack of morality!" Fear of retribution for future generations! Afraid of the smell of ten thousand years! ”
It seems that people in this world always have to be afraid of something to maintain a peaceful order, moral bottom line, and it is useless to sing any high-key.
In the end, it was the old policeman who found a way to make a living for his desperate aunt and children, and introduced them to the almshouse run by the social bureau of the puppet government to make a living. The family had a place to live, and they survived there for more than three years until the day Japan surrendered.
When my aunt's family moved into the almshouse, she would definitely write to my mother and reassure her only sister. However, the sister's home is broken, what about the people, can the sister really be assured?
Another cold winter, I think it was the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943, which was the most difficult and bleak period of the entire Chinese War of Resistance. My mother took me by train to Beiping to visit my fifth aunt, and I especially remember that when I went out of the Qianmen Railway Station, the cold wind blew through the cotton robe, and my mother asked for a car.
Old photos of Qianmen train station | network pictures
The car passed the archway of Chang'an Avenue, turned into an alley, and stopped at the door of the almshouse with wooden signs not far away, which was Shibei Hutong. The unique gray bricks, gray tiles, and sandy old Beiping Hutong made me feel very cold and uninteresting, accustomed to European-style buildings and clean environments.
The fifth aunt had a hut in the almshouse, a cloaked hut built outside the north wall of the East Wing, with two small wooden beds and a table, which was considered a home. Seeing this scene, the mother's heartache can be imagined.
Sister Fengqi was a nurse and lived in the hospital where she worked for many years; two little girls, Xiao Ya and Xiao Bao, lived with their mothers; the poor thing was that the three boys, who were all in their teens, only slept in the large dormitories of the almshouse, did not close the fire in winter, and roasted people in summer.
The total number of people in the almshouse is more than 200, divided into women's and children's departments, and infants and young children can live with their mothers. The front yard is the children's department, which is divided into two bungalows for boys and girls, and there are two rows of kang shops in the house.
A few people cover a quilt, originally pulling east and west, covering the head without covering the feet, and then there is bedwetting, the water floods the golden mountain at night, and during the day you have to take it out to bask in the sun, and the tide of the quilt is always baked. Before going to sleep, a large crock pot was placed on the ground for use as a urinal, and in the morning it was carried out by the eldest child and dumped into the pit of the dry toilet.
The girl's side has little strength, lifting the urine bucket is very difficult, especially in the early morning of winter, the snow freezes into ice and it is very easy to slip, a toe, a girl who is splashed with urine and wet clothes crouches on the ground and cries. The boy stood in the doorway laughing, waiting for the girl to come for help.
The cement ponds in the yard were divided into grids and assigned to each class to share the common washbasin, and the result was that everyone was infected with trachoma. The staple food served in the almshouse was a meal of two mixed noodle nests, which were bloated and did not dare to eat at once, hidden in the sleeves and stolen out and chewed slowly.
Brother Rong led me to the so-called canteen, and saw a large wooden barrel in the middle of the ground, which was filled with vegetable soup, and spooned a pot of soup for each person to eat on the nest, in fact, I only saw a few vegetable leaves in the soup, let alone a little oil star. Occasionally, you can eat one or two noodles, and there are steamed buns, flower rolls and a little meat during the New Year's Festival.
In the beginning, the almshouse only accepted the admission of five children from the aunt's family, the aunt was still outside to help the domestic workers to support themselves, the almshouse was only allowed to visit on Sundays, parents could sometimes bring some peanuts to their children to eat, and the family gathered for a while.
There were police officers standing guard at the entrance of the almshouse, and parents who came to visit were lined up to be released. It is difficult to meet each other, it is even more difficult to not be apart, and when it comes to saying "goodbye", there is no parent who is not in tears, and it is so far away from the mouth of the alley that they can't wipe their tears.
When the fifth aunt was at her mother's house, she attended a girls' school, and in addition to Chinese, she also learned new subjects such as mathematics and geography. I've read her letters, beautifully calligraphed and sentenced. Later, the almshouse also accepted her, but she was not entirely a recipient of relief, and she also took on some jobs, such as managing students and managing libraries.
Fortunately, with my aunt's hut as a base, the family can often get together, enjoy some natural fun, or get something to eat, that is, a feast. Brother Yuan recalled on the phone: "Your mother brought a jar of braised meat, which was condensed with a layer of white lard, and the aroma of the meat attracted the salivation of others in the courtyard. "The memory of this jar of meat, the cousin will never forget.
Brother Yuan, who was three years older than me, liked this little cousin, and remembered that when she first came to his Xuanwai home, she didn't talk much but had a cute look; squeezing the train back to Tianjin from Beijing Station, she was the last to be stuffed by the police on the platform, and the poor little thing was always in his mind.
Brother Yuan will carve, for me to carve a stone chapter, lishu, I have preserved for more than seventy years. He also uses mud to make faces, and carefully draws various theatrical characters. The moment my cousin looked at each other, his dark and deep gaze touched my heart. It was a pair of big eyes but godless and lightless, which made people feel heartache. The mother said it was due to a lack of oil and water and nutrients.
My mother and I slept huddled together in that hut all night, and before going to bed, we were warmly reunited with my aunt and family. In the meantime, a scorpion crawled over the wall of the big winter, but was immediately shot to death by an aunt standing barefoot on the bed with the soles of her shoes.
Everyone was rejoicing, but the aunt screamed loudly in fright, and everyone was stunned, it turned out to be the tail of the scorpion, which was wrapped around her big toe. The children laughed and laughed at how good their aunt was in front of their sister.
The children attend primary school in the almshouse, and in a classroom, the third, fourth and fifth grades are all together, and the teacher is Jiang. The dean of the almshouse, Zhang, was a decent person, and he encouraged the older children to study hard so that they could go outside the hospital to take the school entrance examination. Brother Houyuan and a few classmates were really admitted to Chongshi Middle School, and the dean was very happy, and arranged accommodation for them in Taipingcang, and there was a big desk in the house.
In the early morning, on their way to school, they always saw the children of Li Lianchun's drama class practicing martial arts, and at school at lunch, they ate the nest they brought with them. Later, they also bathed with a shower head.
Only one year after the victory of the War of Resistance, the harsh living environment, and extreme malnutrition caused Brother Sen and Xiao Ya to die of typhoid fever one after another. Before he fell ill, Sen Ge was sent to work in the printing factory of the almshouse, and when he fell ill, he was sent back to the hospital, and the hospital had no money to buy medicine to cure such a big disease. The docile little girl who was the same age as me, like a tender seedling, died prematurely before she could stand tall.
In the winter of Beiping, dry and cold, the body lacks cotton clothes, less bedding on the kang, and it is very easy to suffer from typhoid fever, which is worse than pneumonia, which is really incurable. Adults say that even if typhoid fever can be cured, the recovery period is still dangerous, because patients need to insist on eating nutritious liquid food, even a small piece of steamed buns, or a dumpling may hurt the stomach and intestines, and even die.
Most of the children in the almshouse died of illness in the winter, and their bodies were piled up in the gatehouse, it was cold, there was no fire, and there was no one left in the house, it was empty. Dead children's ears and toes are often gnawed off by rats. After Brother Sen and Xiao Ya died, they were also placed there, and when the hired scooter workers pulled them away and buried them, the bodies were frozen.
Tragically, fengqi's death was also tragic, she suffered from tuberculosis, but I heard what misfortune she had suffered, what kind of injuries and humiliations she had suffered, but who knows? A gentle girl who has no father and brother to care for, only a stepmother to hold on to the day, how much can she take care of? She quietly walked away alone, never saying goodbye to her father who was far away in the end of the world, and never saying goodbye to her poor little brothers and sisters.
This succession of blows like the collapse of the earth, the aunt alone endured. Who can share what for her? At that time, everyone was suffering from their own. Families are broken, countries are lost, and there is no place to go! Why have the people of a thousand-year-old civilization been brutalized and insulted to such an extent by the little devils of Japan?
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="418" > Japan pitched</h1>
On August 15, 1945, the Emperor of Japan issued an edict to the military and civilians of the whole country. At 12 o'clock in the afternoon, the little Japanese children put the radio (that is, the radio) in the center of the room, crawled to their knees to listen to the emperor's edict, and thought about what good things were, thunderbolts on a sunny day! It turned out to be – unconditional surrender!
Japanese people kneel to listen to the emperor's edict| online pictures
Some of the little Japanese children went crazy at once; some committed suicide by caesarean section that night; some of them were rational, shut themselves in the house, did not go out for a few days, and thought about how to face the Chinese with a shy face and how to deal with future events.
Within two days, Chinese, who had woken up from his dream, set off a frenzy of beating up the little devil. The Japanese soldiers were assembled, their families and expatriates were unlucky, and the angry crowd rushed into the Japanese's home, smashing! Fight! Some were dragged to the road and beaten by a group of people, most of them were evil and indignant agents, and the Japanese who did not wear military uniforms were equally guilty of the crime.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="420" > bitter broken mirror re-round</h1>
My aunt left the almshouse and came to my house again, and she had only three children left. The two families reunited after the disaster, sad and mournful. In the depths of my young soul, I will always leave these painful memories, know what to hate, and know what to cherish.
Forget the date, anyway it was spring, the first spring after the victory, my uncle returned from Chongqing and was reunited with my aunt and three children at my house.
Spring has a special breath, the density of the air is particularly thin, the heavens and the earth seem to be covered with a light veil, wrapped in distant songs, jingles, cheers, mixed together into a symphony of spring, pervading every corner and corner, let people breathe the air will be drunk.
My two older brothers, almost every day with Brother Yuan, went out to the Tong Lou Horse Farm to ride horses, and Brother Yuan remembered that my little brother promised to teach him to be a horse racing master; Brother Rong liked to coax my little brother and sisters to play at home, and the courtyard was full of laughter; and I was alone upstairs, sad for the death of the little girl, sad that she had not been able to see her father who thought about it day and night, and floated alone in another world.
One afternoon when I came home from school, I saw the adults with serious expressions, and my aunt was crying and her eyes were red. Later, in her mother's bedroom, the sisters talked in secret for a long time, and then they both walked out at dinner. After the meal, my parents and aunt and wife sat around and talked together, and I saw that my aunt's face was already calm, and even revealed a glimmer of happiness. The uncle's attitude was also calm, not like the dodgy gaze before.
Soon, I learned the secrets of the adults. It turned out that my uncle and a local woman in Chongqing were married again, and they also had two young sons.
During the most difficult days of the Anti-Japanese Resistance in the rear area, my uncle was unemployed, had no food and lodging, and could not even afford to rent a house when he returned to Chongqing from the road construction site. Hearing many tragic things about the burning, killing, and plundering of the occupied areas, he did not dare to imagine how far his wife and children would fall, were they still in the world? It was chaotic, I didn't dare to think about it, so I had to think about nothing and numb myself.
During the war, Chongqing was home to a number of idle people, who copied the past mode of survival in Shanghai, speculating and hoarding, hoarding, and selling military materials, thus making a fortune for the country; dance halls, casinos, and other entertainment venues came into being, a social scene of drunken dreams and death; Wang Jingwei and his ilk committed treason and established a pro-Japanese puppet regime; Kunming was lost; the expeditionary force was defeated; and the reality of all kinds of unbearable conditions made people who persisted in the War of Resistance shudder.
At this time, the people from other provinces and the overseas Chinese from Nanyang had very complicated feelings, and they were not without prudent reflection on their original choices. However, intermittent news of the counterattack of the Nationalist army: the Battle of Myitkyina; the Battles of Gaoligong Mountain and Songshan; the Reconquest of Tengchong; and in particular, the successful flight of the god-like Sino-AMERICAN "Hump" transport line gave great encouragement and hope to the people in the rear.
When the atomic bomb blew up the small Japanese island country, the victory came so suddenly, people did not know whether to cry or laugh, rejoiced, did not want anything, the people of the provinces were only busy packing their bags to return home. His uncle was also leaving, and he once again experienced the scene of "Don't Be Cold Kiln", but this parting, there is no return date, and it is difficult to return to the mountains. You can't give up the feelings of suffering, you can't give up your young children.
After reuniting with his old wife, his uncle told the truth, and his aunt was full of mixed feelings, overturned the bitter water jar, broke the old vinegar jar, and was angry, hateful and distressed by her husband. After my mother's persuasion, eight years later, it was fortunate to see the man's safe return, helpless, the fifth aunt forgave him, only to ask the children to hide this from the end, and the husband agreed.
Many years later, the two brothers Yuan and Rong, who had withdrawn to Taiwan with the nationalist army, met their father's former old colleague and learned from him that his father, who remained in Hangzhou on the mainland, had been living in alimony for decades to give to his two sons who remained in Chongqing. The two brothers stranded on the island could not help but gush out inexplicable grievances and bitterness in their hearts. In the spring of 1949, it was my father who decided to go to Taiwan as a military cadet, fearing that they would be arrested.
The family of the five aunts, since the fall of the three northeastern provinces, fourteen or five years of life, which step is related to the situation of the country, they are just an extremely ordinary family of ordinary people, without any coincidence or accident, but their family, with the country's fate, bear the suffering, never yield, wrote a real history of national suffering, a history of national struggle.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="744" > long separation of flesh and bone</h1>
The three children of aunt and Yuan, Rong and Xiaobao moved with their uncle to the hotel temporarily, ate and drank, waited for the ferry ticket, went to Huludao in Liaoning Province, and reported to the post. My uncle returned from the rear of the university, although he was not a receiver, but he also came with tasks and positions.
After the war, the United States still had material aid to China, and there was an agency called the "United States Relief Agency for Surplus Material Assistance to China." It is said that everything from machines and production equipment to children's leather shoes. I also got two or two kaisers of rice wool at school.
My uncle knew machinery and all kinds of engineering equipment, and with his strengths, he served as the head of the cargo receiving station at Huludao Port, which belonged to the Dalian Materials Bureau referred to as the "American Relief Administration", and the family lived a worry-free life.
Two years later, his uncle returned to professional and technical work and took up a position in the Hangzhou Railway Department. This period of time is the happiest time of the five aunts' family, she sent a husband and wife group photo, the photo of her fat, but the two temples are still sunken, she is only forty years old.
The two cousins were in middle school in Hangzhou at that time, both were boy scouts, and the letter said that the festival parade was carried out by tram, but Tianjin was marching on foot, and the tiredness was almost broken, I was so envious!
In the beginning of 1949, the city of Tianjin was breached; Peiping entered the city peacefully; the People's Liberation Army was about to cross the Yangtze River... The panic in the cities of Jiangnan can be imagined, my family and Hangzhou have been cut off for several months, because the entire line of Jinpu Road has been liberated by the People's Liberation Army in sections, and it cannot be connected by train or mail.
The Nationalist army recruited troops on a large scale, preparing to hold the Yangtze River to the south, and then try to regain the north. In each middle school, there are daily lists of the national army, recruiting a wide variety of military branches and service personnel, and according to the chief of the armor, if there are young people of the right age in the family, they will all be registered and recruited.
The fifth aunt was once again caught up in the anxiety of family separation, and finally chose to go to military school, at least the brothers would not go to the front line immediately to fight. However, when the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan, the cadets retreated by boat in a systematic manner.
The son left his mother in the spring of 1949, and in the autumn of 1990, as soon as his son retired as an officer, he flew to the mainland in a panic to look for his father. After 40 years of separation, my father was buried, my mother was suffering from severe diabetes that led to blindness in both eyes and amputation of one leg. "See" by the second year of the son, the mother also went.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="422" > wanderer returns</h1>
In the year of the millennium, the two brothers and my cousin I were reunited for the first time after fifty-two years of broken news, and the strange thing was that when everyone met, they only laughed, and no one cried, but only asked: "Cousin is so capable, how did you find us?" ”
The first on the right in the front row, the first on the left are the cousin's sisters and his wife (born after the victory of the War of Resistance), and the second cousin on the left, next to me.
I invited my cousin to luoyang in Henan province to travel, visited the world cultural heritage: the Longmen Grottoes, as well as the Shaolin Temple, the world's only tomb museum and other places, and also ate the Luoyang Peony Water Feast. But they still like old Beijing.
In 2007, Yuan Ge came to Beijing for the second reunion with my husband and wife, and the three elderly people were nearly 230 years old. This time, Brother Yuan came to Beijing alone, Brother Rong had died of illness, when he came to Taiwan, he was only 15 years old, one meter and five meters tall, he could not carry a gun, his military movements were not standardized, and he could not even be an ordinary soldier.
Rong Ge went to a big engineering company to repair bridges, and retired from interns. The boss appreciated his cleverness and his ability to deal with critical problems, and gave him a special retirement allowance, and the boss's daughter still faithfully carried out the work to the end after succeeding him.
Brother Yuan flew to the mainland this time to fulfill a wish, a wish that has not changed for decades, and before he died, he was bound to kowtow to the tomb of his fourth aunt and parents. Although I was a senior architect before I retired, my unit belonged to a state-owned enterprise, and the pension given by the government was very low and low. Brother Yuan's mind was meticulous, he took out a thousand yuan, entrusted me to act as an agent for all matters of tomb sweeping, and he would never add a little financial burden to his cousin.
The cousins took the Beijing-Tianjin intercity train and arrived in Tianjin 30 minutes later. My eldest brother, younger brother, nieces and other people, carrying flowers, accompanied Brother Yuan to the tomb of his parents in Tianjin Dormitory, and my cousin knelt down and choked up and said many words of thanksgiving.
On the way back, walking on the Yongdao of the cemetery, facing the west, I and my brothers and nephews lined up in two rows to kneel in front of and behind the five aunts and parents in the spirit of heaven, and asked Brother Yuan to forgive us for not being able to personally go to Hangzhou to worship and return to worship, brother Yuan panicked and knelt on the spot to thank him.
The mothers of the two families passed on the benevolent and righteous family style to the future generations, and the actions of Brother Yuan and my brother made the nephews and younger generations feel a lot, so as not to forget the fine family style of filial piety, loyalty and gratitude, poetry and etiquette, which are traditional Chinese traditions.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="747" > Beiping past</h1>
My childhood cousins, along the roots of the red city wall of Beijing's ancient Forbidden City, stepped on the gravel road, "Ballast! Ballast! Ballast! Grinding the soles of his mother's old cloth shoes, dreaming back to the Qing Dynasty, sighing for those poor little eunuchs and little palace women who could never see their fathers in the palace, and were full of happiness and were still wrapped around their mother's knees.
The first time I entered Jingshan Park (I didn't need to buy a ticket at that time), Rong Ge said: "When you enter the door, you will climb the mountain, there is no other way." "He ran in front like a monkey, I never had the experience of climbing in Tianjin, there was only a small Tushan Park, there were steps to walk without climbing."
Such a high mountain in front of me, looking up and not seeing the top, I was very afraid, I insisted, grabbed the roots and grass, carefully stepped on the recesses, climbed up and did not dare to turn back, and the silent source brother was protecting behind. When I got to the largest pavilion at the top of the mountain, I saw an old lady with small feet sitting there, and then looked at the east and west sides, and it turned out that Jingshan could pick up the steps, and there were small pavilions in the middle of the way to rest, which suddenly realized that I was deceived.
The two cousins want to do their best to be landlords, and take their cousins to Zhongshan Park (no need to buy tickets), which has food and drinks, of course, because the pockets are empty, and they don't have to be polite to each other, just browse and appreciate.
Old photos of Zhongshan Park | online pictures
"Ah, Five Mile Brand Wine!" Rong Ge blurted out a big billboard. This sound made me remember a brand from now on - five-star beer. Also remember this big white man. Oh, and the "sugar fried tickets"! Will not forget.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="424" > return home</h1>
Venues for the Olympic Games, such as the famous Bird's Nest and the Water Cube, are still under construction, surrounded by tight fences and invisible. The new Beijing did not arouse much interest from Yuan Ge, who felt very strange. The former residence of Erjo of Langfang outside Xuanwu Gate, where there are too many warmths, too many poverty and bitter memories.
In 2007, I accompanied my cousin to come here again, he saw the small steps outside the wooden door in the distance, but he refused to take another step, he just stood for a long time, is it the phrase "looking at homesickness is more timid"? Or is it too old to look back? I whispered, "This piece has already begun to be demolished..." reminding my cousin that I would never have another chance to visit.
Going to Shibei Hutong was not proposed by Brother Yuan, he had already heard that this place had been demolished, and the old site of the almshouse was gone, which made people feel comfortable, after all, those miserable days could not bear to be remembered. The current Shibei Hutong is still in the north-south direction, but it is half a hutong, and the houses on the east side of Hutong Road, including the almshouse of that year, have long disappeared, and this piece of land has now belonged to the green belt of the newly built National Centre for the Performing Arts.
Beijing Shibei Hutong | online pictures
For the new Beijing, my cousin appreciates the Brazilian barbecue buffet the most, the three of us old people with identity documents, a total of 75 yuan, you can enjoy a lunch at will, comfortable, want to eat what to take, chat about the day, listen to romantic background music, do not worry about being slaughtered, do not have to rush to pay. Brother sighed: "This is the real equality and harmony, the real people are the masters!" Blessed are we to be old! ”
Beijing Brazilian barbecue buffet | online pictures
Since then, my cousin has come to the mainland with the tour group several times, visited Hangzhou, Wuhan and other cities, his mood has been slowly infected by clear and fresh scenes, no longer so melancholy, entangled in the past experience, as if returning to his old Beijing! I patted my chest and said for him, "It's not blown, let's, the real old Beijing is also!" The brother also laughed and said that the sister was naughty.
On the third day of the Chinese New Year, Brother Yuan called from Taichung City and invited his cousin to come to Taiwan for a self-guided tour, he said, "As long as you get a round-trip ticket, whether it is to the airport in Taipei, Taichung or Tainan, I can pick you up." I will arrange the accommodation and food, and we will visit the places of interest together, take a day off, and swim calmly. ”
The brotherhood that once suffered and shared continued for a lifetime, and even the strait was separated for more than half a century, and when we met again, as if we parted yesterday, the family affection is still the same.
I was 81 years old when I was a horse, and now I am 91 years old, and I am 88 years old, but we still haven't met in Taiwan.