"Li Yiting: From Prodigy to Master" Chapter 1 Born poor

Chapter One: Born into poverty

Wuhan, composed of the three towns of Hankou, Hanyang and Wuchang, was commonly known as Dahankou in the old days. Because Wuhan is located in the middle of China, the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Han River, and the northeast edge of the Jianghan Plain, the transportation is very convenient, and it has always been known as the "Thoroughfare of Nine Provinces". Such innate conditions have made Wuhan develop into a commercial town very early in history.

In the 1940s, there was a JishengZuo Lane in Hankou, which concretely and subtly reflected many of the city's characteristics. There are hundreds of families living in the alley, most of whom make a living by doing small businesses and selling crafts, such as masons, carpenters, hairdressers, small vegetable sellers, popsicle sellers, etc., in short, belonging to the poor class. The famous film "Seventy-Two Tenants" shows a very similar scene of life.

In this alley, the most famous family is the Li family at No. 33. The head of the household, Li Donghan, is a carpenter, with two sons and a daughter under his knees, and the life of the whole family of five people is basically supported by the income of Li Carpenter. Lee is not famous not because of how well he does carpentry—on the contrary, his craftsmanship is so average—but because he plays chess well, and he is the king of chess in this alley.

At this time, it is the eve of liberation. When a regime is about to collapse, everything seems chaotic, and the life of the Li family, like other ordinary people, is in trouble, which can be said to have eaten a lot of sorrow. Li Yiting, the eldest son of the Li Donghan family, who was born in 1938, turned ten years old, because of the family's extreme constraints, after two years of primary school, he had to drop out of school prematurely. Faced with such a living situation, Li Donghan, as the head of the family, more and more blamed himself for his early life, and felt that he had not fulfilled the responsibility that a man should do to the family.

Li Donghan's ancestral home is in Hejiang Town, Tianmen, Hubei Province, and his father's carpenter skills are very exquisite, famous far and wide, and there is a workshop in his home. When Li Donghan was young, due to his family's wealth, he always lived a comfortable and carefree life, and also studied in private school for 8 years. He never seriously learned the carpentry skills passed down from his family, but he had some bad habits, but he was contaminated with a lot, the most serious of which was gambling. As an adult, he spent all day in the casino tea house, shaking colors, pushing mahjong, pushing cards nine, and everything related to seeing, he did not say anything, in the long run, not only consumed money, but also consumed the will.

In the 1930s, his father began to break into the world in Dahankou with his craft, and gradually gained a foothold, and then moved his family to Wuhan. After Li Donghan married his daughter-in-law, he separated from his father. It is conceivable that with his clumsy carpentry skills and indulging in gambling habits, how could Li Donghan have the ability to let the family live a decent life? With the increasing burden of the family population and the increasingly difficult life, Li Donghan's gambling habits were slowly quit because there was no money to lose, and the rest did not need any capital hobbies. It's chess.

Although Li Donghan likes to play chess, the level is actually not in the flow, and the so-called chess king in the alley is only the meaning of "there is no tiger in the mountain, and the monkey is the overlord". In this alley, Li Donghan can be called an enemy of each other is a mason Huang Master. Wuhan is one of the "three major furnaces" in the country and is known for its high summer temperatures. The most terrible feature of Wuhan summer is that the temperature difference between day and night is very small, the heat is raging all day, even if it is late at night, it does not weaken much of its power, people lie in bed, often feel sweltering and uncomfortable, tossing and turning is difficult to sleep. In this case, the spectacular open-air bamboo bed array on a summer night is a unique scenery in the hot season of Wuhan. The chess battle between Li Donghan and Master Huang was always set up under the street lamp at the entrance of the alley, and several bamboo beds were put together, which was both a stage and an audience seat, and the lively scene generally lasted until the second half of the night.

In the winter, the battlefield moved to the home of a boss surnamed Yang in Xiangyuli. Boss Yang's family is well-off, with a large house with two floors up and down, with an area of more than 200 square meters, and all aspects of the conditions are among the best in this alley. Boss Yang also likes chess, so he is happy to gather chess friends at home to enjoy it. I don't know when it began, li Yiting's figure in the audience ranks stayed longer and longer, and later he became the most loyal audience, often waiting for his father to leave and go home together.

Even Li Donghan found it strange that he never taught his son how to play chess. But Li Yiting learned this game from nowhere. Perhaps it was because he dropped out of school and did nothing at home, or maybe it was because of the special relationship between chess and Li Yiting's calm and thoughtful personality, Li Yiting soon became fascinated with chess people. He first confronted the children of the same age in the alley, but before long none of them were his opponents. Dissatisfied, he began to boldly challenge his uncles and uncles in his neighbors, and in the same way, it didn't take much time, and those adults also lost a mess, and they were no longer embarrassed to sit against little Li Yiting in front of the chess. In Li Yiting's life, he felt the taste of hero's loneliness for the first time, and he looked forward to walking out of this Jisheng Left Lane in his heart.

Chess was neither seen as a profession nor an art at the time, but in the minds of the people, it was just a game for pastime, or even a tool for gambling. Watching his son so obsessed with chess, Li Donghan's heart was full of helpless emotions. Because of the painful lesson he once had about the loss of his mind as a plaything, Li Donghan wanted Li Yiting to learn a legitimate craft that would be able to support his family in the future, so as not to repeat his mistakes. But what should Li Yiting learn? Li Donghan also felt very dazed, and the most important thing was that he did not have any ability to design his son's future growth path at this time. He could only resign himself to it.

The whole country has just been liberated, and everything is in ruins to be rebuilt, and the life of the Li family is still embarrassing. In desperation, Li Yiting's mother also had to go out to find something to do. The mother was a small-footed woman, a typical old-fashioned housewife, who had no life skills and had to go to the vegetable market every day to sell small dishes. Every morning, when watching her mother carry two quintals of small dishes weighing a total of 50 kilograms and waddle to the vegetable market two stops away, Li Yiting's heart felt a pang of bitterness. His only wish at the moment was that he would grow up quickly and share the burden of this life for his poor mother.

(To be continued)