Original: Qian Baiming
My birthplace is Qianjiazhuang, Maqiao Town, Xianning County, Hubei Province. My family's old house is more than 130 years old and was built by two great-grandfathers and uncles and brothers led by their great-grandfathers. My cousin Qian Yishi (1889-1938, mingdingcheng, also known as Jiepan) was given 3 rooms, my father Qian Tiyuan (1890-1952, mingdingtang, also known as Jian) was given 2 and a half rooms, and uncle Qian Zhongheng (1897-1947, mingdingjun, also known as Jun) was given 2 and a half rooms. In 2002, because his uncle Qian Yishi was the old residence of the revolutionary martyrs, it was listed as a key cultural relics protection unit in Hubei Province.
Qian Yishi (1889-1938)
Mr. Qian Yishi, the Great Uncle of Tang, was introduced by Dong Biwu and Chen Tanqiu in 1924 and joined the Communist Party of China, and was a famous activist and educator in the early days of our Party. Due to selfless work and overwork, he died of illness in Shanghai on January 29, 1938. On February 27, all walks of life in Wuhan held a solemn memorial meeting at the Hankou General Chamber of Commerce, and the elegy sent by Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De read "Philosophers wither", expressing their deep condolences to Qian Yishi.
After liberation, his uncle's eldest son, Qian Yuanduo, was a progressive cultural figure in our party and served as an important post on the cultural front of Hubei Province; the second son, Qian Yuanjing, threw himself into the War of Resistance and made a heroic sacrifice; his daughter Qian Yunling threw herself into the Great Revolution, and ran to Yan'an as a couple of xian xinghai, and took up a post in Zhejiang after liberation. When his uncle Qian Zhongheng was studying at the First Normal School of Hubei Province in Wuchang, he was friendly with the communist Wu Defeng, was influenced by progress, and was especially educated by his cousin Qian Yishi. After the Northern Expeditionary Army conquered Xianning, he was elected as the county magistrate of Xianning County, actively organized support for the Northern Expeditionary Army to attack Wuchang City, and organized revolutionary peasant armed forces. In 1927, he was transferred to the county magistrate of Nanzhang County, and was called "a good county magistrate who does not want money and does not put up shelves" by the masses. After the rebellion, he abandoned his official position to do business and returned to Xianning County Central Primary School to teach.
Xianning Qian Yishi Former Residence Hubei Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Unit
In the spring of 1938, my father and uncle went to Hankou to attend the memorial service of Uncle Qian Yishi, and had many contacts and conversations with Zhou Enlai and Dong Biwu. In December, his father became the governor of Xianning County, and his uncle was appointed secretary. His uncle matched the cooperation between the Two Parties of the Xianning Kuomintang and the Communist Party and supported the Communist Party in resisting Japan. In May 1945, the Xian (Ning) Tong (Shan) Yang (New) Political Affairs Committee led by the Communist Party of China was established, and his uncle was elected chairman of the Political Affairs Committee. Later, he returned to his hometown for treatment due to tongue cancer, during which he refused to surrender himself to the Kuomintang, and he calmly said: "I am about to die, I have nothing to fear", and finally did not bend. He died at home in March 1947.
During the agrarian revolution, his father Qian Tiyuan opposed local armed forces and was ostracized and persecuted; during the War of Resistance Against Japan, he was imprisoned by the Kuomintang for raising funds to establish the Communist Anti-Japanese Armed Forces and supporting his sons and nephews to join the Communist guerrillas. Later, he was imprisoned by the Japanese army in Wuhan for persuading the students to lead the anti-Japanese team anyway. After liberation, his father was a representative of the people of Xianning County, who served as a county counselor, and in the spring of 1952, he was falsely accused by someone in Xianning County and was escorted back to Xianning County for examination. At that time, my father was upset, and he said that the Kuomintang arrested me and put me in prison, the Japanese arrested me in prison, and now the Communist Party has arrested me and put me in prison. In the winter of 1952, he suffered from dysentery and died in Xianning Detention Center. Since then, many relevant leading comrades in the province have learned of their father's death, and they are overwhelmed with regret.
A group photo of Tang Daboniang (second from left in the front row) with his eldest son Qian Yuanduo (middle in the back row), second son Qian Yuanjing (back row left), daughter Qian Yunling (front row second from right), son-in-law Xian Xinghai (back row right), eldest son's best friend Huang Bing (front row left), and Yang Hansheng's daughter (front row right).
In 1951, when the land reform was reviewed, our family was promoted from a middle peasant to a landlord, and the whole family was treated unfairly for decades. In the autumn of 1952, our mother and son were swept out of the house and rushed to a cowshed by the landlord of the village more than ten miles away. My mother was a small-footed woman who had never read a book, and with her hard work, she brought me up with hard work. In the spring of 1955, we were lucky enough to leave the countryside and move to Wuhan. At that time, after graduating from the military academy in the northeast after the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, my brother was paid. With my brother's help of 15 yuan a month, my mother and I could barely make ends meet in Hankou.
Her cousin Qian Meiling (courtesy name Qiru, 1936-1998) was her uncle's only daughter. Above her, there were two older brothers, who died young. After the death of my uncle, my aunt and Sister Meiling also struggled to survive under the mutual care of our big family. Mei Lingjie was smart and diligent from an early age, after finishing junior high school in Xianning County, she applied for the free Xiaogan Normal School for 2 years for family economic reasons, taught for a year after graduation, and then was admitted to Central China Normal College in 1956, and was assigned to teach at Wuhan No. 1 Middle School after graduation in 1960. I was admitted to Wuhan No. 1 Middle School from Autonomous Street Primary School in 1961, and only after entering the school did I know that my cousin Qian Meiling taught at the school.
1960 Family Portrait Front row from left: mother, nephew, aunt; back row from left: sister, mei ling, brother, author
During the three years I was in school, my mother first went to the dormitory of the Tiesi Bureau Tunnel Engineering Team where my brother-in-law worked in Sichuan to take care of my grandson, and then to my sister in Xinjiang to take care of my grandson. When my mother was not at home, I had to manage my own life and study. When I went to school, I had two meals in the school cafeteria, and on Sundays I had to cook simple meals on the stove, and I washed clothes and so on. Sister Mei Ling took care of me in those years, and bought vegetables in the teacher's canteen many times to improve my food. In that era, the necessities of life were all supplied by ticket, and she gave me one copy and she had one less. I remember that Mei Ling sister only substituted for one class in my class, giving the impression that she was tall and white, teaching in class, and her habit of blinking was unforgettable. I once said very impolite things to a female classmate in another class because of the ping-pong table, and she criticized me fiercely, enlightening me to be kind to others, which made me convinced and beneficial for life.
"Go to the countryside, go to the frontier, go to the place where the motherland needs it most", this song frenzy was generally popular in 1964, when I graduated from junior high school, and also involved me in this wave. When I graduated from junior high school this year, I was deprived of the opportunity to go to school because of my landlord family origin. Of course, Mei Ling sister can understand me better, and she encouraged me to face life bravely, be positive and optimistic, and take care of my body. At this time, Wuhan was preparing to organize a pilot project for fresh graduates to go to the countryside collectively - a new team, and she encouraged me to sign up, fulfill my promise before the exam, and respond to the call to go to the countryside to Qianjiang County as a farmer.
In the summer of 1964, the mother took her grandson (2 years old) and grandson (1 year old) from other places to Wuhan to take care of them. The mother is also in her 50s, and she suffers from hypertension, and the difficulty of one person with two young children can be imagined. She hoped that I could stay around and help her, and she also knew that going up to the mountains and going to the countryside was the only way out for me, and it was also right for generations of scholars to produce a farmer. After I went to the countryside to Qianjiang, I was very grateful to my neighbors for their help and let my mother endure the hardships of those years.
In 1964, there were 6 students from our first middle school who signed up to go to the countryside. There are Rong Xiaoli, Luo Kangling, and Li Yuping, who graduated from high school and were not admitted to college, I who did not accept high school after graduating from junior high school, and Wang Zhibin and Li Minghan, who have been admitted to the first middle school and the nineteenth middle school. I especially admire Wang and Li, two students who gave up the opportunity to study and insisted on going to the countryside.
September 6, 1964 was the day of our departure. In the morning, Mei Ling's sister and aunt came to the boat dock to send me off. My aunt saw me in the village team secretly weeping, she was sending me for my mother, but also for my mother. Mei Ling sister bought a sailboat pattern of azure enamel washbasin, blue towel and white cup to send me, I love and cherish very much.
At 7 o'clock, the "Jiangjin" wheel sounded the whistle and slowly left the Hankou wharf. We waved goodbye to our loved ones, said goodbye to Wuhan, and rushed to the distant countryside. In my heart, I was reluctant to leave Wuhan and even more reluctant to leave my alma mater. The curiosity was removed as soon as it was mobilized, and I suddenly felt inferior to the students who could continue to study in school. Years later, I remembered that it was also a good thing to leave school in this way, otherwise I, a "landlord cub", would have suffered even more when I arrived at the Cultural Revolution.
I have been working honestly and diligently in Qianjiang County for 13 years. Among them, the rural production team worked for 9 years, from the beginning of March after the Spring Festival to the end of November to harvest the late rice ploughing, and then more than 2 months of digging the river and picking the embankment of the water conservancy construction. In September 1973, he was assigned to work at the commune tractor station. In February 1975, he was transferred to Qianjiang County Automobile Repair Factory until September 1977, when he was approved to settle in Hong Kong. For more than ten years, he used hard life and strong physical labor to achieve ideological transformation and break with the old family of the landlord class. It now seems that this revolutionary approach did not achieve its ends.
In the Cultural Revolution of 1966, Mei Lingjie actively participated in accordance with the political requirements of the time, and all words and deeds were subject to editorials of two newspapers and one periodical. In the repetition of the Cultural Revolution, she had the persistence and pleasure of faith, but also the confusion and helplessness of being impacted. Later, due to these reasons and the need to work nearby, she applied to be transferred to Wuhan 52 Middle School in 1970, and then transferred to Wuhan Qiyi Middle School in 1973 until retirement. Mei Lingjie is one of the first batch of senior teachers in Wuhan, and was a director of the Wuhan Municipal Political Teaching and Research Council and the vice president of the Jiang'an District Political Teaching and Research Council.
In April 1968, Mei Lingjie and one of her middle school students were in Badaling, from left: Zou Fangben, a high school student of the 62nd class, Peng Zibin, Mei Lingjie, and Chen Huiwu
In the early summer of 1998, Mei Lingjie was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was hospitalized at Union Hospital, but her family did not dare to tell her about her condition. I went to visit her in the hospital, and she looked good mentally and physically, especially with a thin skin tone, not like someone over 60 years old. It can be seen that she also knows that she has an incurable disease, but everyone tacitly agrees. Her lesion doctor also said that it was not suitable for surgical resection, and could only be treated conservatively, and it was postponed until her unfortunate death on December 8, at the age of 62.
For more than a hundred years, the benevolent people of modern China have struggled hard to succeed them, just like my cousin, father, and uncle. Isn't what these upright intellectuals have been pursuing all their lives an independent, free, and democratic new China? Don't they hope that the chinese people can live a happy life? Sister MeiLing's teaching and educating people, and my going to the countryside to farm, don't they all have the same goal?
Xianning Qianshi, full of loyal and loyal, I feel extremely proud.
July 2018 in Hong Kong
Qian Baiming
About author:Wuhan No.1 Middle School 1964 junior high school students. In 1964, he failed the examination due to his family origin. In the same year, with the support of her cousin Qian Meiling, she responded to the party's call and was sent to the Qianjiang New Construction Team (the first demonstration site for young people in Wuhan to go to the countryside) for thirteen years. He is currently based in Hong Kong.
Mr. Qian Baiming passed away in Hong Kong on 22 July 2020, and this article commemorates the 50th anniversary of the intellectual youth going to the mountains and going to the countryside.
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EDIT: Sailor