Naming the children but not allowing the children to follow their father's surname, for Chiang Kai-shek, the birth of these two children was a "shame" for the Chiang family, but he did not expect that many years later, if the two children had not changed back to their surnames, they might not even be able to find a spokesperson among the descendants of the Chiang family.
As the saying goes, unfilial piety is the greatest, why did Chiang Ching-kuo obviously continue the incense for the Chiang family, but was regarded by Chiang Kai-shek as the "shame" of the Chiang family? Since Chiang Kai-shek was so opposed, how did they later change their surname back to Chiang?
In the eyes of many people, with a father like Chiang Kai-shek, he doesn't need to worry about the future at all, but in fact, the father and son have contradictions in many opinions, but both of them have a common habit, that is, to write a diary.
Chiang Kai-shek wrote a diary under the influence of the great Confucian king Yangming of the Ming Dynasty, and Chiang Ching-kuo wrote a diary after returning from the Soviet Union, and insisted on writing a diary every day at the request of his father, because at the end of the year, the diary had to be handed over to his father for review, so there was no possibility of even being lazy.
However, in his life experience, trapped in the Soviet Union is not a strong stroke, although he went to the Soviet Union to study, but later Chiang Kai-shek and the Soviet side of the bitter relationship, returning to China turned out to be a problem, it is said that Chiang Ching-kuo was once sent to the factory to work as a coolie, and he and his wife Jiang Fangliang met during this period.
Jiang Fangliang is just her Chinese name, this beautiful Belarusian woman was also ill-fated in her early years, followed her family to escape the war and went to the Ural Mountains, and later her father and mother died one after another, she was brought up by her sister, after graduating from vocational school, she entered the Ural Machinery Factory to work, and married Jiang Jingguo, who was 23 years old at the age of 17.
It is said that Jiang Fangliang did not look down on this little-known Chinese man at that time, and she was not in a hurry to marry herself as a factory flower, and later the factory persuaded her to accept Chiang Ching-kuo's pursuit on the condition of promotion and apartment allocation, and the two married in 1935, and were divided into a separate apartment after marriage, and were also arranged for a "honeymoon trip".
Because Chiang Ching-kuo didn't know when he would be able to return to China at that time, he lived with Jiang Fangliang until 1937, when the family was able to return to China, at this time they already had a daughter Jiang Xiaozhang, because Chiang Ching-kuo was sent by Chiang Kai-shek to go on a business trip, so Jiang Fangliang was left in his hometown in Zhejiang to get along with his mother-in-law.
Later, due to the war, Jiang Fangliang was transferred to the rear of Jiangxi, but he was still unable to meet Jiang Jingguo often, Jiang Jingguo was not yet thirty years old at that time, it was the age of blood and strength, although he sneered at the polygamy system of feudal China, but met Zhang Yaruo, who was only 25 years old.
Speaking of which, Zhang Yaruo is also a hard-working woman, before meeting Jiang Jingguo, there was an unhappy marriage, her husband Tang Yinggang was angry, and the two gave birth to two boys after they were combined, which was originally quite happy, but after Zhang Yaruo accepted the wave of new ideas, the family relationship took a sharp turn.
Zhang Yaruo was difficult to adapt to the constraints of the old rites, so he used his father's relationship to find a job in the Nanchang High Court, and later persuaded her husband to go out to work.
But because she still has children to raise, she gritted her teeth and went out to work, because she was very good at writing reports and propaganda, and never wore cheongsam, changed to men's clothes and work clothes, but she didn't expect to be appreciated by Jiang Jingguo, and she was promoted to personal secretary, and her feelings were out of control.
The affairs of men and women are dry firewood, but Jiang Jingguo has a wife, and in order to influence it, he can only choose an underground relationship, but although he tries his best to keep it secret, it has long become an open secret in the eyes of many of Chiang Ching-kuo's henchmen, and it was not until Zhang Yaruo gave birth to a pair of twins that Chiang Ching-kuo felt that this secret could no longer be hidden, so he confided it to Chiang Kai-shek.
In the face of such a "surprise" that his son suddenly brought to himself, Chiang Kai-shek was indeed angry and happy, but he still named the two children Xiaoyan and Xiaoci, but the surname Jiang was not allowed, so the two children were crowned with their mother's surname.
At that time, Zhang Yaruo also thought that if he couldn't solve the status of mother and son, he would take his son to live abroad, how could this be allowed by Jiang Jingguo, but he didn't expect that his wish had not come true, Zhang Yaruo died of a sudden illness after returning from a banquet with his friends, and his death was too strange, so it became an unsolved mystery.
In Chiang Ching-kuo's diary, there are more than 100 pages missing in 1941 and 1942, according to his whereabouts during this period, it is very likely that it was around the time when Zhang Yaruo was about to give birth, and he also added in his diary in 1954 that he denied that he had a child with Zhang Yaruo, and the blatant lie made the matter even more confusing.
As for the two brothers, Xiaoyan and Xiaoci, they grew up under the care of their grandmother and uncle, and their families deliberately hid their true backgrounds, but the two of them were still aware of it after all, especially after going to Taiwan, although they could not publicly recognize their father, they still received special care because of their identity.
However, the biggest wish of the two has always been to recognize their ancestors and return to their ancestors to change back to the surname Jiang, unfortunately Xiaoci died of illness in 1996, and Xiaoyan finally recognized his ancestors and returned to his ancestors after the millennium, which is considered to have fulfilled his dream with his younger brother, but he did not expect that after many years, the only fourth generation of the Jiang family in politics turned out to be Jiang Xiaoyan's son Jiang Wanan.
Born in a famous family and diligent and studious, he went to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States to study and obtained a master's degree in law and a postdoctoral fellow, and in 2005, he returned to his ancestors with his father and changed his surname to Jiang, first founded a law firm in the United States, and then returned to Taiwan with his wife and children to settle down, and gave up his US green card in 2015, and since then he has entered the Taiwanese political arena.
As for how long he can go in Taiwan's political arena and whether he can make any contribution to the realization of peaceful reunification between the two sides of the strait, it still needs to be proved through time, but for the Chiang family, only one of the descendants is engaged in politics, and the people who represent the Chiang family were not allowed to have the surname Chiang, is it ironic in another dimension?
Information sources:
Strait Herald2021-04-27 "Shi Hai Hook Sinking: Jiang Jingguo's Diary Disappeared for Two Years and 100 Pages, Hiding the Mystery of Jiang Xiaoyan's Mother Zhang Yaruo"
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1698154167932783624&wfr=spider&for=pc
Strait Herald 2025-03-21 "Xu Qiaoxin and Wang Hongwei are included in the danger list, Jiang Wanan: must stand with the blue camp people"
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1827174130406136690&wfr=spider&for=pc