According to the People's Daily client, in the early hours of this morning, the famous writer February River died in Beijing at the age of 73.
In the compound of the municipal party committee in Nanyang City, Henan Province, there is a small courtyard hidden. Outside are narrow alleys, brick walls, climbing tigers, and inside are small buildings, pools, and vine racks. The rooms on the ground floor for reception are large, just slightly messy and hardly any decoration. Everything exudes the air of the 1980s.
This is the home of the famous writer February River. In late May 2014, a global people magazine reporter went to interview and was catching up with his asthmatics. Before the interview began, February River drank a bowl of medicinal soup that his wife handed him. But apart from his hoarse and heavy voice, he didn't look like an old man of ancient age.
Book bugs
February River's asthma fell in Datong, Shanxi. At that time, he was an engineer, and his name was Ling Jiefang. The name dates back to 1945, when guns were pouring down.
On November 3 of that year, the Xiyang County Committee of the Communist Party of China in Shanxi Province was holding a meeting, and someone came in to report that Ling Erwen, director of the county Armed Forces Committee, and Ma Cuilan, chairman of the Women's Federation, had a son. Everyone rejoiced and gave the newborn baby a rather distinctive name: Ling Jiefang.
The meaning of the name was realized in the next 4 years. As the war changed, Ling Jiefang followed his parents around Henan. After the People's Liberation Army occupied Nanyang, Ling Erwen and Ma Cuilan remained as political commissars and vice presidents of the Deng County Armed Forces Department respectively.
His parents were very busy at work, and ling Jiefang as a child was often left alone at home, or boarded with relatives, friends, and classmates. His unfettered personality was evident from an early age— he never sat still in class, wrote without arms and legs, and ran to the river to catch fish and crabs after school. However, he was very patient with the novel, and read most of the tomes of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "Journey to the West" and "How Steel is Made". At that time, he did not intend to become a writer, but only fantasized about one day being able to ride the battlefield and make a career.
The opportunity did come. In 1968, after being raided three times in a row by the Red Guards, Ling Jiefang, who graduated from high school, joined the army in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, and became an engineer. He had the "dream of a general" in his head, but he was doing the work of digging tunnels and digging coal kilns, drilling in the holes every day.
In 1968, Ling Jiefang arrived with the troops at the same time that snow had begun to fall. "The temperature under the coal well is constant, no matter whether it is 16 degrees in winter or summer, but it is very cold on the well, and it is normal to have minus twenty or thirty degrees." In other words, the temperature difference between the well and the underground can reach forty or fifty degrees. I was young, didn't know how to maintain, sweated in the well, blew cold in the wind pipe with my shirtless, put on a damp cotton coat and returned to the well, and I was freezing and shivering. February River told the Global People magazine reporter that he had tracheitis in this way. When he was young, he once thought he had been cured, but he did not expect that when he was old, the illness was found again. In the past, when I wrote books, I coughed so badly that I would even vomit blood.
February River at the time of the barracks.
The preference for smoking is also cultivated in Datong. It was dangerous under the coal well, and it was scary to hear the coal pillars being creaked at night when sitting under the coal well to rest. "Everyone discussed, felt that there should be something that was consumed at the same time as life, and began to take money out of the 6 yuan allowance every month to buy cigarettes."
Despite the harsh conditions, Ling Jiefang did not forget to read. In the middle of the night, he flashlighted and read Chairman Mao's writings in the bed. The newspaper on the ground, even a piece of the calendar, he had to pick up and read. In this way, he was transferred to the regiment as a correspondent, responsible for running a blackboard newspaper, and a newsletter was also published in the "People's Liberation Army Daily". When the troops changed their defenses to Liaoning, they had to burn all the books in order to lightly armor and "break the four olds." Ling Jiefang secretly pulled out "Ci Hai" and "Selected Poems of Lermontov" from the fire. Later, he simply went to the countryside to find books. The Twenty-Four Histories became his daily reading. It was hard to borrow a copy of "Chatting with Zhiyi", because others were chasing him, and he copied half of it overnight.
Legend of the Emperor
In 1978, Ling Jiefang returned to the Propaganda Department of the Nanyang Municipal Party Committee as an officer. When his daily work became turning on water, taking newspapers, answering the phone, drinking tea and reading newspapers, he could not sit still and began to use his spare time to study the "Dream of the Red Chamber", which he had always loved.
In 1980, he wrote his proud work "Shi Xiangyun is "Lu Yin " (phonetic tongdu, meaning moth)"? " sent to the relevant publications, but the stone sank into the sea. In a fit of rage, he sent the manuscript to Feng Qiyong, an expert in red studies. After Feng Qiyong read the article, he appreciated this young man and encouraged him to write novels in this style. Ling Jiefang began to write literature, but the first few works were rejected. Until 1982, Ling Jiefang, who was already a member of the Chinese Red Society, went to Shanghai to attend a seminar, and heard some scholars lament that there was no literary work to express Kangxi's Wenzhi martial arts, and the 37-year-old immediately said: "I will write!" ”
After two years of preparation, in 1984, February River embarked on the road of writing "Imperial Novel". "When I first started writing The Kangxi Emperor, my family lived in a 29-square-meter house. I bundled all the information under the bed, spread out the newspaper on the floor, crawled under the bed, and checked the information little by little. He recalled that because he was deeply impressed by the Yellow River when the ice and snow melted since childhood, when the first part of "Kangxi Emperor" was finalized, he used "February River" as a pen name.
"Dream of the Red Chamber" had a great influence on February River's writing. In the late junior high school and throughout his high school years, he read "Dream of the Red Chamber" five or six times, and then read it more than 10 times. When writing the "Emperor Series", considering that the era in the book was similar to the era of "Dream of the Red Chamber", February River felt that the language characteristics should also follow the Dream of the Red Chamber. Writing it out, many people think that February River is a Qing Dynasty person.
In 1988, the 4 volumes of "The Kangxi Emperor" with a total of more than 1.6 million words were completed. The first volume of "Seizure of the Palace" caused a sensation after its publication, and Hong Kong and Taiwan successively launched traditional vertical typesetting. In 1989, "The Kangxi Emperor" won the Henan Provincial Excellent Book Award. From 1990 to 1992, February River created the Yongzheng Emperor in three volumes totaling more than 1.4 million words. In 1998, a TV series based on this book was broadcast on CCTV, causing heated discussions across the country. From 1994 to 1996, February River completed the first three volumes of "Qianlong Emperor" with a total of more than 1.3 million words. The history of the Three Dynasties of Kang Yongqian constitutes a magnificent political volume in his pen.
February River's works "Kangxi Emperor", "Yongzheng Emperor", "Qianlong Emperor".
History
As the influence of his works continues to increase, the controversy is also endless. One of the theories is that the February River is erecting a monument to the feudal emperor tree.
"The second month after the first book came out, a newspaper devoted a full page to criticizing me with the headline "The Imperial View of the February River." This was raised at the time as a very serious political question. February River was a little nervous, so he wrote a letter to Feng Qiyong, saying that he did not know whether there was any background in this matter. Feng Qiyong wrote a note and sent it to him: "Turbid waves empty Jun, don't be afraid, the old man is used to seeing the sea tide." ”
"From the 1950s to the 1970s, we wrote on the basis of class struggle, and literature and art served politics and served the workers, peasants, and soldiers. As long as there is a landlord in the work, it must be a villain. People now measure my works, and sometimes they still follow this pattern: Kangxi is the enemy of the people, the reactionary class, why do you want to praise? ”
February River told reporters that he judged the merits and demerits of a historical figure mainly on 3 points: First, whether he had contributed to national reunification and national unity. "I don't care what your origin is, I will praise those who have contributed, and if not, I will criticize." Second, whether it has contributed to the development of productive forces, the adjustment of production relations and the improvement of people's living standards. "No matter what kind of origin, under the conditions at that time, I can find a way to make the people live a better life, I think it is a good person." On the contrary, I don't think I am a good person. "Third, have we contributed to science and technology, education and culture, invention and creation?" Cai Lun and Zheng He were eunuchs, Bi Sheng was a commoner, Sima Qian was a disabled person, and Zodiac Was a Taoist... No matter what kind of origin, as long as they have done good things in history, I will sing the praises. In February River's view, this is the real historical materialism.
"The views of different periods are not constant. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, we did not talk about the ingredients, as long as the War of Resistance was a good person, no matter how good the composition was, but if it became a traitor, it would not be wrong. When carrying out land reform, it is a great progress in itself to distribute the land to the peasants and let the peasants have land to plant and have food to eat, and if you oppose it at this time, it is also wrong. "For criticism, February River rarely refutes it, but hopes that people will make choices in the slow cognitive process, can maintain their own views, and can also discuss peacefully." I think that today's society is a pluralistic body, allowing you to speak, and you have to allow others to speak. Everyone can speak out to be a harmonious society. ”
Wang Qishan's "Confidant"
Global People Exclusive Interview February River ↓↓
When February Yuehe recalled the deliberation meeting of the Henan delegation to the Second Session of the Twelfth National People's Congress on March 7, 2014, he told the Global People reporter: "At that time, I talked about the issue of anti-corruption and clean government from a historical perspective. ”
At the meeting, February River said to Wang Qishan: "I have finished reading the Twenty-Four Histories. To tell the truth, there was no period in which we have the intensity of anti-corruption efforts today, which restored the people's confidence in the Party Central Committee's anti-corruption and clean government. The books I have written have the content of Yongzheng's anti-corruption, and I have some understanding of anti-corruption in history, and we can learn from historical experience and compile the stories of honest and honest people in ancient and modern times into textbooks. Wang Qishan responded with "Zhiyin": "I understand the meaning of the February River, because I know him more than he knows me." I read the 'Emperor Series' he wrote carefully. If you read his book, you can read him. Zhiyin is what it is, and Zhiyin can understand what the composer wants to express by listening to music. ”
"Comrade Wang Qishan and I also talked about this problem: high salaries cannot support honesty. The Song Dynasty is a prime example. Historically, officials in the Song Dynasty had the highest salaries, with official incomes 6 times that of the Han Dynasty and 10 times that of the Qing Dynasty, but the Song Dynasty was the most corrupt dynasty in Chinese history. What does a high salary make? Raised Wen Tian Wu Xi! Civilian officials love money, and military attaches are afraid of death. When the salary is high, no one is willing to suffer or do something for the country, let alone sacrifice their lives for the country. In the end, the political and military mess was made. ”
"I once saw a source that Bao Zheng's income was equivalent to about 6.5 million yuan. 6.5 million yuan only raised a clean and honest Bao Gong, more is to raise Gao Li and Qin Juniper, and raise a group of corrupt officials who force people to go to Liangshan. ”
"Every year in the civil service exam, thousands of people compete for a place. The reason for this is that ordinary civil servants have stable jobs, have a high social status, and have enough income to support their families. If we pursue high salaries and low salaries, what will happen to the civil service? If the state still pays high salaries to cater to those who are flying and chasing fame and fortune, their pursuit of this profession will be even crazier, and they will spend more money to go through the back door and bribe officials. Moreover, no matter how high the salary, it cannot be compared with the amount of corruption and bribery. For greedy people, it is not enough to give a high salary. ”
February River told the "Global People" reporter: "Wang Qishan is an anti-corruption hero in my eyes. We didn't have much personal contact, but from him, I saw the determination and will of the central authorities to fight corruption and promote clean government; from the macro perspective of history to reality, I saw the long-term, complex and arduous nature of the anti-corruption struggle. This can be said to be a very heavy problem for our generation and the next generation. Such a thing cannot be done by two or three years or two or three people, and it requires the joint efforts of the whole society. ”
Author: "Global People" reporter Yin Jie Wang Leran