In the turbulent Republic of China, heroes are born and the stars shine. Sun Yat-sen, the forerunner of the great democratic revolution, was as brilliant as the sun and the moon, and pointed out the direction for the democratic revolution.
Sun Ke
As the only son of Sun Yat-sen, Sun Ke was much inferior under the aura of his father's generation.
Born in a chaotic world, he was displaced at an early age.
On October 20, 1891, a young woman surnamed Lu Mingmuzhen in Cuiheng Village, Xiangshan County (present-day Zhongshan City), gave birth to a white and fat baby boy in the old house of the Sun family.
Sun Yat-sen, a new father, had just finished his fourth-year exam at the Hong Kong College of Western Medicine and ranked first in the class. When he heard the news of his wife's birth, he was very happy and immediately rushed back to his hometown.
Sun Yat-sen
According to the custom, the son was named Sun Ke. Later, Sun Yat-sen graduated with honors from the Hong Kong College of Western Medicine, obtained the qualification to practice medicine in Macao, and took his wife and children to live in Macao.
After the Opium War, the unequal treaties of the great powers were pressed on the head of the Chinese nation, and the people were in a deep and fierce situation.
Li Hongzhang signs the Treaty of Xinugu
From 1840 to 1905, China lost more than a billion taels of silver in the so-called war reparations paid alone, while the annual revenue of the Qing government at that time was only more than 80 million taels.
The country is worried about internal and external troubles. In order to save the survival of the people, countless benevolent people have gone forward and explored with difficulty. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Foreign Affairs Movement, the Restoration and Reform Of Laws... Hope is ignited again and again, and helpless is shattered again and again.
After the failure of the "Guangzhou Uprising" planned and organized by Sun Yat-sen in 1905, Sun Yat-sen was wanted by the Qing government and fled overseas in a hurry.
In order to avoid being affected by Zhu Lian, the 14-year-old Sun Ke and his family fled their hometown with the help of their villagers, crossed the ocean, and moved to Maui Island in Honolulu, USA, to live with his uncle Sun Mei.
Sun Mei
After being displaced overseas, he gave Sun Ke a profound life lesson, tempered his spirit of bearing hardships and standing hard work, and laid an ideological foundation for him to devote himself to the revolution in the future.
Under the influence of Sun Yat-sen, Sun Ke, who was only 19 years old, joined the League and joined the revolution.
The following year, Sun Ke served as the editor of the Honolulu League's flagship newspapers, Liberty New And Loudly Weekly.
Group photo of the members of the League
Sun Ke is in charge of the local and international news pages of the Free New Daily.
He actively and conscientiously collected historical information on the crimes of the Qing soldiers entering the customs and the bloody suppression of the people, as well as the wanton expropriation, corruption and incompetence.
Articles such as "Ten Days of Yangzhou", "Character Prison" and "Forbidden Books" have been written and published successively, which have aroused the people among overseas Chinese.
This played a role in guiding public opinion among the revolutionaries in mobilizing overseas Chinese to support and participate in the armed uprising with the primary goal of "overthrowing the rule of the Qing Dynasty."
The Qing Dynasty consulate in Honolulu wanted to discredit the revolutionaries among overseas Chinese, say bad things about the League, and sabotage the activities of the League, and there was no longer a market.
Sun Ke also served as the editor and chief writer of the San Francisco China Junior Morning Post, the president of the Students' Association for Students studying in the United States, and the English secretary and Cantonese translator of Lin Sen, the head of the League's branch in the Americas.
Sun Ke contacted overseas Chinese in Honolulu, New York, and other places, organized fundraising activities, and shouted for the Chinese revolution led by Sun Yat-sen.
In October 1911, the Wuchang Uprising broke out, and the Xinhai Revolution was a success.
In 1912, Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated as the provisional president of the Republic of China in Nanjing, and Sun Ke, who was overseas, should immediately be recalled to China to serve the motherland.
Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated as the interim president
After Sun Yat-sen became the provisional president, the first thing he did was to appoint officials from various ministries and commissions. At that time, Liao Zhongkai recommended Sun Ke as the mayor of guangzhou city hall, but Sun Yat-sen did not agree to avoid suspicion.
Hu Hanmin told Sun Yat-sen: "Gu Zhe said, 'Don't avoid relatives when you move internally, and don't avoid revenge on your outside,' and Zhe Sheng is the ideal candidate, so Mr. Chu has no worries."
Sun Yat-sen was uneasy in his heart, and successively consulted the opinions of many revolutionary elders, and everyone agreed, so he appointed Sun Ke as the mayor of Guangzhou City Hall and concurrently served as the governor of Guangdong River.
In 1921, he was promoted to mayor of Guangzhou, and to be fair, Sun Ke, as the mayor of Guangzhou, was competent.
But this mayor is not good, first of all, the military government has just been established, and everything is waiting to be rebuilt. The feudal bureaucratic structure left by the Qing government in the past has been destroyed, and new mechanisms have not yet been established.
After Sun Ke took office, he immediately began to use his own professional knowledge to personally draft article 57 of the "Guangzhou Interim Regulations".
The regulations contain municipal management provisions for public security, public service, finance, education, and health.
Then, he made a comprehensive plan for the construction of Guangzhou Municipality, including the demolition of the old city wall and the expansion of roads.
As soon as Sun Ke's municipal construction plan was announced, the old-fashioned people were immediately stunned. At that time, the most controversial was the demolition of the shuangmen ground floor tower.
The city towers were demolished in order to widen the roads to facilitate traffic and promote economic development.
However, under the pretext of destroying the "feng shui" of the old city, some diehards and conservatives united the "Nine Great Virtues Hall" and the "Seventy-two Lines" of Guangzhou and launched an action against the demolition.
For a time, the dark clouds in Guangzhou city were dense, and the situation was very grim.
In this regard, Sun Ke was unusually calm.
He firmly believes that his plan is in the long-term interests of the citizens, but he does not confront the citizens who are provoked to make trouble. He believes that as long as the reasoning is made clear, the public will eventually understand and support it.
He invited the heads of shantang and the business board of directors who had ulterior motives and made trouble at the head of the business council to a meeting and explained to them in detail:
The thick walls, in the old days of knife-wielding guns, may also have a little defensive effect. But in modern times, it has become like an eggshell, sealing off the ancient city of Guangzhou.
Without pecking the "eggshell" open, how can the chicks inside break out of the shell and fly freely in the blue sky?
You see the double-gate bottom city tower, the city gate is narrow, like the neck of a wine bottle, blocking the road out of the city, when Guangzhou further develops, how can more and more vehicles pass?
As for the "feng shui" theory, it is nothing more than the talk of no rice made up by the alchemists, the shuangmen bottom city tower has been built for so many years, Guangzhou is not still in frequent wars, and its "feng shui" can be better?
If you look at the big cities such as New York and London in foreign countries, which one is stupid enough to besiege itself with walls!
After Sun Ke's calm explanation, the opposition was finally persuaded that the project of demolishing the city and building the road was smoothly started.
Pictures of old Guangzhou
As the mayor of Guangzhou, Sun Ke is on the official side and can also be regarded as a benefit party.
Sun Ke once proudly said that at that time:
"Looking around the country, the size of the city is slightly complete, in fact, it began in Guangzhou; since then, the word municipal has begun to become popular in the north and south, and more and more people have gradually studied experiments."
Professor Zhou Xingliang also believes that Sun Ke is the pioneer of China's modern urban system.
At a young age, he has gained too much respect that is not commensurate with his age, and he will inevitably swell.
Sun Ke, who is full of style, is a young man who has achieved ambition; Sun Ke, who is gradually entering and standing, is known for his love of playing with the young master's temper.
As for Sun Ke's temper as a great young master, Hu Hanmin, Sun Yat-sen's assistant and acting grand marshal, had the most say. Because he has suffered from it many times.
As the director of the city hall and the mayor, the biggest headache for Sun Ke is the financial problem.
At that time, although the Military Government in Guangzhou had been established for a long time, due to the division of warlords large and small, the scope of the military government's jurisdiction was far from reaching the grass-roots level.
In this way, taxes will be difficult to collect, the source of funds for the military government will be completely unfinished, and the required military expenses can only be solved by the base camp of Guangzhou.
At one time, Sun Yat-sen stipulated that Sun Ke should provide 30,000 silver yuan a day for military expenses.
Therefore, Sun Ke, the mayor, the most important job is to constantly raise funds, and every day the phone in Sun Ke's office rings non-stop, saying that it is a word: "money".
The main way to raise funds is to sell municipal assets for the time being. Over time, gossip came out, and many people accused Sun Ke of accumulation and corruption.
These remarks finally reached Sun Yat-sen. Sun Yat-sen immediately asked Hu Hanmin, what do you think of this matter? Hu Hanmin replied:
Unless you are not an official, being an official will inevitably lead to slander and resentment. If it weren't for Zhesheng's best efforts, where would the daily military salary of 30,000 yuan in the base camp come from? I absolutely trust and support Zhesheng in this regard.
Hearing Hu Hanmin say this, Sun Yat-sen was relieved.
Hu Hanmin only discussed things on the facts, and was by no means biased in favor of Sun Ke.
Hu Hanmin
However, in the process of working together, because of Sun Ke's young master's temper, there were often contradictions, and sometimes even to the point where Hu Hanmin ran to Sun Yat-sen and asked for his resignation.
Once, Sun Yat-sen personally went to the front line of the East River to supervise the battle, and urgently needed to pay 200,000 yuan to the Dian and Gui armies before they were willing to go out. He ordered Hu Hanmin to issue a warrant in the name of the Grand Marshal's Office, and asked Sun Ke to do it immediately.
Sun Ke took the warrant from the hand of Zhang Meng, the deputy of the guard attendant, and looked at it, and it was 200,000, which was not a small amount, and he said impatiently:
"I can't print silver paper (Cantonese dialect, meaning banknotes), where is so much money!" In a fit of anger, he tore the warrant and threw it into the paper basket.
On the same day, at the Presidential Palace, Sun Yat-sen asked his subordinates: "Have the Dian Army and the Gui Army set off?"
The commander of the Dian Army said bluntly on the phone: "No food, no soldiers." The pay had not yet been received, and the troops refused to leave. ”
Sun Yat-sen immediately looked for Hu Hanmin: "Has the warrant been issued in the end?" Hu Hanmin replied, "Zhang Meng has already been asked to take it."
At this time, Zhang Meng returned empty-handed.
Sun Yat-sen was furious, and Sun Ke immediately rushed to the scene, and the danger was a round of good scolding:
"Military intelligence is in a hurry, why are you completely inappropriate?" Immediately transfer 200,000 to me, if you can't do it, don't be the mayor!"
Sun Yat-sen and Sun Ke
In front of Sun Yat-sen, Sun Ke certainly did not dare to say anything, but he immediately ran to the second floor to find Hu Hanmin's obscurity.
Sun Ke accused Hu Hanmin of provoking discord between their father and son. Hu Hanmin, as the second most popular figure in the Kuomintang at that time, was not a soft persimmon to be manipulated, and of course he argued on the basis of reason.
During the quarrel, Sun Ke took up his cane and hit Hu Hanmin.
Of course, Hu Hanmin would not sit still, only to see him flicker slightly, and his cane hit the glass of the desk, and the glass shattered to the ground, and the sound alarmed Sun Yat-sen, who was working on the third floor.
Li Liejun
When Sun Yat-sen went downstairs to see this situation, he was so angry that he burst into flames and snatched the shell gun from the guard's hand, and he was about to shoot Sun Ke.
Frightened, Sun Ke took the road and fled, but Sun Yat-sen was angry, and he chased after the gate of the presidential palace with a gun, and did not even notice that the slippers had fallen off.
If it were not for Li Liejun and others to dissuade him, this human tragedy would be difficult to avoid.
This small episode of little harmony shows that under the circumstances at that time, Young Master Sun Ke's temper was indeed not small, but at the same time, it also showed that the fundraising mayor was really not good.
In a hurry, this teenager who once loved to play with the young master's temper turned into a middle-aged man with a big belly.
Sun Yat-sen died
With the death of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the aura on Sun Ke's body is getting weaker and weaker. The people who used to be only his father's horse were not only disrespectful to him, but also scolded him as "a dou who can't be supported."
At the end of March 1948, the Kuomintang government in Nanjing held presidential and vice presidential elections.
There is no suspense about the presidential candidate, and it is none other than the old Chiang Kai-shek.
The vice president's position is vacant, and Li Zongren, Cheng Qian, Yu Youren, Mo Dehui, Xu Fulin and others are eager to try.
Seeing that the Gui family has a tendency to dominate, Old Jiang is very jealous of this and wants Li Zongren to take the initiative to abandon the campaign.
Old Chiang
Li Zongren is also not a vegetarian. At the age of 25, Li Zongren, who replaced Lu Rongting as the "King of Guangxi" of the Gui clan, spent his life as a horse, and he was known for his great achievements in battle, and he was known for his ambition to win the Central Plains, of course, he refused to look up to people's sniffles.
The rejected old Jiang had no choice but to prop up Sun Ke, who seemed to be relatively controllable, to the throne, expecting Sun Ke to defeat Li Zongren and become his puppet.
In order to compete with Li Zongren, the old Jiang even secretly revealed to Hu Shi through Wang Shijie his desire to run for president.
Hu Shiyi was a literati, and at first glance, he was moved, but after thinking about it, after consulting with his old wife Jiang Dongxiu, he still decided not to mix this matter.
Hu shi
In this way, Old Jiang could only bet all the treasure on Sun Ke, and in order to let Sun Ke advance and retreat with himself, he also asked his wife Song Meiling to personally go out to persuade Sun Ke to participate in the election.
Old Jiang and Song Meiling
Sun Ke also had no intention of running for a puppet vice president. But it seems that in the relationship between Song Meiling and Song Qingling, he also has to give a few thin noodles, go out of the field, and make up a number.
Although Sun Ke thought that he was making up the numbers, old Jiang was very concerned about this matter, and he ordered the military command to do his best to help Sun Ke run.
Li Zongren was not willing to show weakness, and in order to defeat Sun Ke and win votes, he was extremely "kind" to the "NPC deputies."
Li Zongren
On April 19, Lao Jiang was elected with 2,430 votes, and the Kuomintang elder Ju Zheng, who accompanied the election, received 269 votes.
On the 23rd, the vice president campaign held the first round of voting.
As long as there are more than 1523 votes, they can be elected, but the six candidates are less than half, Li Zongren has the largest number of votes, 754 votes, and Sun Ke is second, with 559 votes.
In the second round of PK, Li Zongren got 1163 votes, Sun Ke got 945 votes, cheng qian got 616 votes, and still no one had more than half of the votes.
The results of the third round of voting were consistent with the second round. In the final round, the vice president's seat will be won among Li Zongren and Sun Ke.
On the afternoon of the 29th, the vote count was completed, Li Zongren got 1438 votes, and Sun Ke got 1295 votes. Sun Ke defeated Li Zongren by 143 votes.
After the election was lost, Sun Ke did not think so, but the old Jiang was furious and scolded Sun Ke as a "unable to support Adou."
When the radio broadcaster broadcast the election results, the angry old Jiang actually kicked the radio over.
A year later, a million heroes of the People's Liberation Army crossed the river and captured Nanjing, and the five-star red flag flew over the presidential palace, announcing the arrival of a new era.
After the Kuomintang defeated Taiwan, Sun Ke hardly asked about politics. He wanted to go abroad to get away from the political noise, but he was too shy to sell his house to pay for the trip to France.
A year later, Sun Ke went to the United States again to serve as the chairman of the Sino-US Cultural education foundation.
After years of wandering, he was poor and sick. The old couple is frugal and dependent on each other. Livelihoods are difficult, and they are destitute and can only eat sweet potatoes to survive.
Thinking of his early career as a noble prince, it is really lamentable.
However, several of Sun Ke's children were very filial and tried their best to take care of the second elder. Moreover, after the second son came to the United States, he took Sun Ke and his wife to live together at home.
It is only the second son who is also a mud bodhisattva crossing the river himself, and the family life is still difficult, and even grows his own vegetables in order to save money.
After living in a foreign country for many years, he finally returned to his roots and returned to Taiwan, where he died of illness in Taipei.
As the son of the world-famous oriental giant and the great revolutionary forerunner of China, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Sun Ke's achievements are not worth mentioning, and some people even think that they are tiger fathers and dogs.
But as an ordinary person, Sun Ke's life is already wonderful enough. His name was Sun Ke, not just Sun Yat-sen's son.