She was an entertainer from the old society, when she heard that a certain height of the Chinese Volunteer Army had been bombed by more than a hundred enemy planes by American invaders, and the soldiers of the whole company were heroically sacrificed, she was angry, thinking that she could not personally go to the battlefield to compete with the enemy's real knives and guns, so she decided to use another way to fight the invaders, that is, to buy a fighter jet to donate to the volunteer army, this great artist is the famous Yu opera master Chang Xiangyu.
Chang Xiangyu
Speaking of Chang Xiangyu, who is a well-known performance artist, who said that women are inferior to men in his famous singing section "Mulan", I believe that friends after the 70s will hum a few words:
(Melody) Big Brother Liu speaks too biasedly, who says that women enjoy leisure, men fight to the border pass, and women weave in the homeland.
This singing voice is the main play performed by Chang Xiangyu for the donation of fighters.
Chang Xiangyu, whose original name was Zhang Miaoling, was born on September 15, 1923 in a poor family in Nanhedu Town, Gong County, Henan Province, whose ancestors had been farmers for generations.
Xiao Miaoling's father, Zhang Maotang, is a local folk artist who likes to sing Yu opera, and often goes out with the troupe to perform in his spare time, Xiao Miaoling follows his father, and he learns many singing sections.
It was a fortuitous opportunity for her father to discover that Xiao Miaoling had a talent for singing.
It is said that during June 1931, Xiao Miaoling and her father went to Xinmi City to sing on stage as usual, the play staged at that time was "The Case of Gongmei", after the gong and drum sounded the performance began, the actor who played Qin Xianglian's son Yingge in the play suddenly fell ill, and the class owner jumped straight to his feet, at this time Zhang Maotang thought of his daughter, so he proposed to let Xiao Miaoling temporarily save the scene to play Yingge, who knew that this appearance Xiao Miaoling was a hit, and was recognized by the audience, and then became a small actor in the troupe, this year Xiao Miaoling was 8 years old.
Finding that her daughter had such a high artistic talent, Zhang Maotang asked famous teachers to guide her daughter to learn drama, and Xiao Miaoling successively studied drama with Ge Yanting, a martial arts student of Peking Opera, Wang Jinzhi, Xu Shuanghuai, as well as Zhai Yanshen and Zhou Haihai.
After three years of diligent study and hard work, Xiao Miaoling learned many skills, such as birth, dan, beard, and ugliness, which laid a solid foundation for her future development.
However, Xiao Miaoling's road to art is not smooth. There is a year. When Xiao Miaoling returned to his hometown of Gong County with his father to sing opera, he was reprimanded by the local clan chief Zhang Clan, who originally thought that women's singing was offensive and frivolous, and the patriarch thought that Xiao Miaoling's singing was detrimental to the family rules and family law.
At that time, the stubborn Xiao Miaoling was angry and changed his name and surname, and his father often changed his surname to "Chang" and took the name "Xiangyu". Chang Xiangyu held back the idea of fighting for breath, and studied drama and acting more diligently.
In November 1935, she accompanied her father to work in Zhou Haihai's Taiyi class, and performed back and forth between Zhengzhou and Kaifeng for three consecutive months, resulting in a box office hit. Chang Xiangyu, with her solid skills in both literature and martial arts, and her excellent acting skills, eventually became one of the main actors of the Taiyi class, this year she was 13 years old.
In 1938, Chang Xiangyu clashed with the local military police when he performed with his father in Luoyang, and then the performance was often disturbed by unknown people, and the father and daughter knew that it was the military police who made the bad behind it, and in a rage, they left Luoyang, Henan Province, with The Taiyi Class, and went to Xi'an to make a living.
Who knew that Xi'an had been gone for 10 years, and after that, Xi'an became Chang Xiangyu's second hometown.
Since Shaanxi and Henan are close neighbors, Chang Xiangyu's family chose to move to Xi'an. Xiangyu always firmly believes that women do not lose to men, and the young age has stood up the portal, so many men are ashamed.
During this period, she opened a drama school in Xi'an, set up a drama class, and got to know well-known artists like Cui Lantian and Liu Kuiguan, often exchanging skills with them, polishing the script from one move and one singing and one cavity, and Chang Xiangyu's performance skills became more and more mature.
Chang Xiangyu and Chen Charter
Just when Chang Xiangyu's performance was becoming more and more popular, she unexpectedly gained a love.
Here's what happened: In the first month of 1943, Chang Xiangyu, then 20 years old, was performing in Baoji to collect donations for Henan refugees, and the repertoire was about Liu Lanzhi and Jiao Zhongqing's love story "Mandarin Duck Dream", and the script was written by the famous screenwriter Huang Zifang. Since it is a new play, Mr. Huang Zifang personally speaks for Chang Xiangyu.
This play is a very test of the actor's singing ability, singing a lot of words and Wen Zou Zou, which makes people listen to a little difficult.
When he was tutoring, several people looked for Mr. Huang, including a young man named Chen Charter, both of whom were screenwriters, and Mr. Huang handed the script to Chen Charter and said to him, "You help me to tutor, I have something to do." ”
Mr. Huang and the people who came to him left, and Chen Charter began to counsel Chang Xiangyu, for some reason, Chang Xiangyu did not dare to look into the eyes of this young man, and there was a strange thought in his heart.
In a trance, he listened to Chen Charter tell her about the play, Chen Charter talked about the play to be easy to understand, he read the script very awkwardly, so he changed those elegant words to popular plain words, Chang Xiangyu tried to sing, the effect was better than the original, Chang Xiangyu admired this young man, and then the two met and fell in love.
On June 3, 1944, the 21-year-old Chang Xiangyu and the 27-year-old Chen Charter formed a bond, after which Chen Charter became Chang Xiangyu's royal screenwriter, and the couple opened the Yu Opera School and the Xiangyu Opera Club in Xi'an.
After the liberation of the whole country and the founding of New China, Chang Xiangyu was personally received by Chairman Mao, and the drama of the discrimination in the old society turned over and became the master.
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out in the United States, and US imperialism did not die in an attempt to bring the flames of war to our country.
Chairman Mao saw through the sinister intentions of the United States, and at the sound of an order, a million volunteers crossed the Yalu River with great vigor and vigor and began the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
Chairman Mao received Chang Xiangyu
Chang Xiangyu always paid attention to the progress of the Korean War, and he told the students: "The country is in difficulty, and the humble dare not forget the country." ”
Fast forward to June 1951, one day, Chang Xiangyu turned on the radio and heard a message that a certain height of the Chinese Volunteer Army had been bombed by US enemy aircraft, and a company of fighters had been killed.
Chang Xiangyu was heartbroken and decided to donate a fighter jet to support the front line.
The idea is good, but the cost of buying an airplane is not small, how easy is it to talk about? So some people said in a gossip, "Chang Xiangyu is just to make a name for himself, just to talk about big words, who has the ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to buy an airplane?" "Look at the big guys who look at his jokes.
Chang Xiangyu has been stubborn since childhood, the image of Mulan has long been rooted in the heart, she is a woman who must do what she says, and she must do what she wants, in order to raise money to buy an airplane, Chang Xiangyu obtained the consent of her husband, sold the family's real estate and valuables, and took out the private money at the bottom of the pressure box. The first to donate 40 million yuan (old currency) was decided to use the box office proceeds of the tour as a fund to buy the plane until the funds were raised.
Show poster
At this time, some people said that the wind and cool words, how much can the box office revenue in a year be? Buying an airplane you thought was a toy? Don't wait for the Year of the Monkey?
Chang Xiangyu firmly said that within a year I would be able to raise funds in place.
In order to concentrate on the charity performance, she sent three young children to the Xi'an Nursery School full care, in order to ensure the quality of the opera, she did not rehearse in black and daylight, with the support of her husband, The Xiangyu Opera Society rehearsed a number of new dramas.
During the warm-up audition in Xi'an, many audiences took the initiative to pay more tickets in order to support her, such as 10 yuan for 5 yuan a ticket.
Even once, after buying a ticket, a big lady secretly stuffed a basket of eggs to Chang Xiangyu, and the old lady's words were very simple, she said, "I don't have more money to support the country, so I will give these eggs to the volunteer army!" Chang Xiangyu was deeply moved.
Such cases abound, and Chang Xiangyu felt the determination of the people of the whole country to fight against the invaders, which added confidence to her in raising funds to buy an airplane.
On August 7, 1951, Chang Xiangyu led the cast and crew of the "Xiangyu Opera Society" to leave the ancient city of Xi'an by train and went east, and the first stop came to Kaifeng City, Henan Province.
Kaifeng is the place where Xiangyu teenagers became famous, this time he led the drama club back to Kaifeng, which was warmly sought after by the locals, and everyone rushed to buy tickets to watch the play, and the scene was very hot.
On September 1, Xiangyu led all the staff to arrive in Zhengzhou city and began the second charity performance. The drama club performed a total of 25 performances in Zhengzhou.
On October 10, the Xiangyu Opera Society came north from Zhengzhou to Xinxiang City to perform, and the citizens heard that Chang Xiangyu was to raise money to buy an airplane, and they generously donated money, and some ordinary people also took the initiative to help transfer the stage.
On November 5, the drama club went south to Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, due to the prior publicity in place, the tickets were booked early, and some people also bought station tickets, and the Box Office revenue in Wuhan was red.
On December 14, the Xiangyu Opera Society arrived in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, and although it was winter, the southern provincial capital was still warm as spring. Although the audience here is accustomed to watching Cantonese opera, when they hear the Central Plains Yu opera singing tone, they feel very fresh and have a lot of fun, so word of mouth spreads, and more and more people buy tickets to watch the play.
In January 1952, the drama club went north from Guangzhou to Changsha, Hunan Province, and the citizens of Changsha ushered in the New Year in the laughter of watching "Mulan".
Chen Charter and Chang Xiangyu
From August 7, 1951 to February 7, 1952, for a full half a year, the Xiangyu Opera Club toured about 180 performances, with an audience of more than 310,000 people, and its ticket sales revenue was 1.52 billion yuan (old currency) in addition to food and accommodation expenses, transportation expenses and the purchase of necessary clothing.
At that time, it cost 1.5 billion yuan (old currency) to buy a fighter jet, which means that there was still a surplus to buy a fighter jet.
On the second day of returning to Xi'an, Chang Xiangyu remitted 1.5 billion yuan to the General Association for Resisting US Aggression and Aiding Korea, entrusting it to purchase a fighter jet and donate it to the Air Force of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army.
Soon, the MiG-15 fighter donated by Chang Xiangyu flew over North Korea to strike hard at the American invaders, and the Air Force named the aircraft "Chang Xiangyu" and later changed it to "Xiangyu Drama Society".
After the end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the "Xiangyu Opera Society" flew back to China and is now on display at the China Aviation Museum in Changping, Beijing.
The Xiangyu Drama Society fighter
Fast forward more than 60 years, and the fighter jets are silently displayed there, telling the visitors about the past when the Chinese people once worked together to fight against the aggressors.
Text/Reading Spring and Autumn by Candle