Cheng Yanqiu was born into a shabby aristocratic family in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and his original surname was "Suo Qiluoshi", which belonged to the Zhenghuang Banner. Cheng Yanqiu's ancestor served as Xiangguo, and his father Rongshou inherited the title of general. However, the world was uncertain, the family fell in the middle of the road, and later became a poor person, and his mother took him to live by sewing and tailoring in the poor streets of the South City. At the beginning of entering the pear garden line, his real name was Cheng Yanqiu, and later changed the word "Yan" to "Yan" to make his name have the four treasures of the study room. Nowadays, in Cheng Yanqiu's diary, we can often see his experience of reading history books. In his memoirs, Mr. Weng Yihong talked about his impressions when he first met Cheng Yanqiu in 1926, when Cheng Yanqiu was 22 years old. Mr. Weng Yihong said: I feel that he is a taciturn person, and among the famous actors I do not know much, he seems to be less like an actor and more like a scholar.
Stills of Cheng Yanqiu's "Earning Wenjuan"
Liyuan disciples often learn drama from an early age, and there are not many people who can write and write, let alone receive academic training. Most of the knowledge of Peking Opera is done by fans who are obsessed with art, but ticket holders often lack relevant stage experience, and there are often some shortcomings in the combination of macro and micro. However, Cheng Yanqiu is not the case, he can organically combine macro and micro, effectively refine technology into learning, and use academic achievements to solve specific artistic problems, which is very rare. Cheng Yanqiu left hundreds of thousands of words of imperial monuments behind, constituting his irreplaceable cultural value. Therefore, it can be said that although Cheng Yanqiu is a broken disciple of the Eight Banners, he is not only not poor but also very rich in culture, and can be called a spiritual aristocrat.
Stills of Cheng Yanqiu's "Tears of the Wild Mountain"
In the late 1930s, he went to Europe to study theater, which lasted for 1 year and 4 months, traveling to France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland. At one point, he wanted to study at the Royal Conservatory in Berlin, and was moved by a letter of appointment from a film company. However, he then thought that more than a hundred actors in his troupe were still counting on The Horns to eat, so he dismissed these thoughts and returned to China after completing the inspection task. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Cheng Yanqiu once lived in seclusion in Qinglongqiao, a suburb of Beijing, during which time he donated a primary school for the children of local peasants to attend. In 1951, he took out the income from the tour in Yunnan- Guichuan, and then took out the salary of the first three months of his work in the Xiqu Research Institute to donate aircraft cannons for the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. Later, he donated two houses in Qinglongqiao and South Avenue in Haidian District, as well as 18 acres of orchards and 60 houses in Chengjia Garden, free of charge to solve the housing problems of Beijing citizens. After a few years, Premier Zhou Enlai encouraged him to join the Chinese Communist Party and volunteered to serve as his introducer to the party, and Cheng Yanqiu said in his application for joining the party that he would donate six or seven of his real estate and three kinds of shares in the Kailuan Coal Mine, East Asia and Qixin to the state.
The so-called spiritual aristocracy, in the words of Confucius, is "a gentleman", a gentleman who acts benevolently and righteously, and in addition, he is still brave, and the premise of courage must be benevolence. One day in 1942, Cheng Yanqiu returned to the Beiping Qianmen Railway Station, and the police touched him during inspection. Cheng Yanqiu rose up to fight, relying on a pillar, with well-trained martial arts kung fu, facing the policemen, coming up one by one, knocking them down one by one, making them one by one with blue noses and swollen faces, and fleeing in a daze. Then Cheng Yanqiu wiped the blood from his face and flew away.
People often say that Cheng Pai has a high style and a soft singing voice, and it turns out that such an artistic personality comes from Cheng Yanqiu's noble personality as a spiritual nobleman. (Gong Yu)