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Ding Xuesong (1918-2011), a native of Mudong, Chongqing, was born in Hanmen. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1937 and was sent to Yan'an to study at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. In 1941, he married The Korean Jeong Mun-sung, and in 1945 he went to work with his husband in Korea, where he served as secretary general of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. In 1950, she returned to China and in 1979 became The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of The Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first female ambassador of China to a foreign country.
Wrote an article to publicize the anti-Japanese salvation
Zheng Lucheng, the only daughter of Ding Xuesong and the musician Zheng Xiaoti, who was born in Yan'an in 1943, said: "My mother was born in an old house in Mudong, more than 90 miles from Chongqing, named Ding Xiaozhi when she was born, and changed her name to Ding Zhenglan when she went to school. When she was born, my grandfather had died of sores, and the family had no savings, leaving only my wife and children, old and young. ”
At that time, the family relied on Ding Xuesong's mother to set up a grocery stall and do needlework for people to maintain the family. "My mother has been carrying soap horns on her back since she was a child and running to the river to wash her clothes. The ship came, and the waves came, and she picked up her clothes and ran; the waves passed, and she went back to kneeling on the stones, scrubbing them one by one. ”
Ding Xuesong Junior High School enrolled in the self-funded Chongqing Wende Girls' High School. Zheng Xiaoti said: "My mother had good grades in the first semester, but she was ridiculed and blinded by poverty. At that time, her sister died of tuberculosis, and her mother may have been infected, and two swelling knots grew on her neck, which are called fistula in the folk and lymph nodes in medicine. Malnutrition, sullenness, swelling and swelling are unbearable. Wende women's dislike of the poor and love for the rich made her have a strong rebellious psychology. After the winter break, she vowed never to attend her own-funded school again. After staying at home for a while, I learned that there was a girls' vocational school in Chongqing that was exempt from paying for food, and during the flood, I took a small wooden boat to Chaotianmen and was admitted to this school. ”
Although the life of the girls' vocational school is hard, she is in a good mood. "Because most of the classmates are girls from poor families, no one thinks that they are poor and love the rich." But she had two swollen knots in her neck, and after my grandmother forced her to find the jianghu Langzhong to operate, it has not healed. Due to the need for regular dressing changes, she only wore a collarless top for two years. In the meantime, she hardly left the school gate or played in the lively places. ”
The girls' vocational school is divided into three subjects: agriculture, industry and commerce, and the semester is three years, and Ding Xuesong is studying business. Zheng Xiaoti said: "In the summer of 1934, when my mother was in the second grade, she heard from her classmates that the Chongqing Civilian Bank was recruiting interns, and because of her excellent grades, she could not withstand the advice, and she passed the exam as soon as she was 16 years old. ”
In the autumn of 1934, Ding Xuesong entered the civilian bank to work. "My mother felt that the previous name was too childish, so she changed it to Ding Xuesong." The bank treatment is better, the trainees earn 18 yuan per month, there are bonuses and dividends at the end of the year, and the food is also good. Due to the strengthening of nutrition and the improvement of spirits, Mom's body began to improve, the wound gradually healed, and after a year, it was completely restored. ”
At this time, Ding Xuesong was concerned about current politics, organized teams, troupes and singing teams, read progressive books and periodicals, and publicized the anti-Japanese salvation. She also submitted articles to Business Daily and Xinshu Daily. On June 9, 1936, in the crisis of North China, she published "Any dream before national liberation will become a bubble" in the supplement of "Business Daily Public Garden" under the pseudonym "Xueping". The text reads: "The small African country of Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) has been able to resist Italian fascism for seven months, and how shameful it is that we, as a mighty country, will be conquered by a single Japan!" Why is there always no resistance? If you were resisting the Japanese from the beginning, why is it today? She is indignant at the insensitivity and even drunken dreams of some people: "Before the liberation of the nation, the idea of an individual living a comfortable life can only become an illusion." "The article caused a lot of repercussions. Her remarks and performances also attracted the attention of Qi Luyu, the chief writer of the New Shu Bao and an underground party member.
Endure the test and join the Party
Originally a descendant of the Jiangjin family, Qi Luyu studied medicine in Japan, joined the Communist Party of China in 1929, was arrested for underground work in Shanghai, and was sent to the Central Soviet District as the director of the Health Bureau after his release from prison. After the Long March of the Red Army, he stayed behind to take care of the wounded Chen Yi. Later, he was scattered during the battle, lost contact with the organization, and fled back to his hometown in Jiangjin by begging, and later became the chief writer of the New Shu Bao through submission.
Zheng Xiaoti said: "My mother once recalled that Qi Luyu used to explain the basic knowledge of the party on the upper floor of an empty shop on Baixiang Street. He also held a reading class attended only by my mother and another comrade, on the history of the Soviet movement, at three o'clock in the morning. Sometimes after dinner, he called his mother to Xiaoshizi Road, pretended to be shopping, and inspired and educated her as he walked; sometimes he held secret gatherings in no man's land or basement in the suburbs, and taught people to sing the Internationale in a low voice. Qiluyu believes that her mother is loyal and reliable, so she gives her some secret tasks to perform. At the turn of the summer and autumn of 1937, a Red Army secretly passed through Chongqing, and his mother and companions went to Wenhua Street to deliver tickets and clothes for him, successfully completing the task. ”
In October, Qi Luyu connected with the party organization, restored his party membership, and later served as the secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Working Committee. "He found my mother and was very happy to say that the Chongqing Party organization had been restored, and the Sichuan Provincial Working Committee agreed to form the Chongqing Municipal Working Committee of the Communist Party of China headed by him, and he also showed my mother the secret credit iodine wine approved by his superiors. He said to his mother: 'For more than a year, you have been tested and your performance is outstanding, and now the organization has decided to be the first to develop you into the party.' My mother filled out an application for joining the party on the warehouse of one comrade's house, and held an oath-taking ceremony at another comrade's house. On the day she joined the party, when she left Chongqing, the organization decided to send her and Wen Houhua, an underground traffic officer, to Yan'an to study. ”
Wen Houhua was originally a student of Ba County Middle School, when he was an intern at Huatong Trading Company, and after 1949 he was the party secretary of Xinjiang University. He recalled: "I still remember the situation when Cedar came to me, she came to the door of the road from Tongtong Street, found me with excitement on her face, and quietly asked: Qi Fuzi asked me to ask you, there is a chance to go to Yan'an, can you go?" I am overjoyed, my heart has been longing for a long time, why not go? At that time, Ding Xuesong and I were very popular, and in the activities organized by the National Salvation Congress, we often showed our faces and walked in front, which had already attracted the attention of the Kuomintang. ”
Spent an unforgettable eight years in Yan'an
Ding Xuesong and Wen Houhua first went to Chengdu to transfer cadre relations, and then from Xi'an to Yan'an. Zheng Xiaoti said: "The letter of the transfer of relations was written in swill water on a white silk handkerchief, and my mother sewed it into the edge of the silk cotton cheongsam. Qi Luyu told her that after arriving in Yan'an, she would hand it over to Luo Mai (i.e. Li Weihan). As early as the Jiangxi Su District, QiLuyu and Luo Mai were very familiar. ”
On a midwinter night in December 1937, Ding Xuesong and Wen Houhua met at the Lianglukou Depot and boarded a long-distance open-top car to Chengdu. "After half a month of transferring relations between them in Chengdu, they found a car to turn over the Qinling Mountains and finally arrived in Xi'an. At the Eighth Route Army Office of The First Seven Sages Zhuang, I met Lin Boqu, connected the relationship, and then took a car to Yan'an. ”
In January 1938, Ding Xuesong reported to the Yan'an Guest House. Zheng Xiaoti said: "My mother carefully took the letter out of the cracks in the silk cotton cheongsam and handed it to Luo Mai, and was subsequently informed to enter the Chinese Anti-Japanese Military and Political University to study. She took off her tweed coat and silk cotton cheongsam, put on a gray cotton military uniform, put on leggings, tied a belt, and became a female soldier of the Eighth Route Army. ”
The silk cotton cheongsam that Ding Xuesong wore from Chongqing did not wear after arriving in Yan'an. "The school only distributes clothes for two seasons, a single military uniform in the summer and a cotton military uniform in the winter, and there is no change of seasonal clothes, and the skillful cadets take out the cotton and turn it into a jacket." Once it is learned that a certain trainee is going to work in the rear area, female trainees from big cities will immediately find out the cheongsam and coat they are wearing and let them choose. Mom's tweed coat and silk cotton cheongsam may also come in handy. ”
Founded on June 1, 1936, the First Three Phases mainly trained high- and middle-ranking cadres in the Red Army, with about 1,000 people in each period. From the third phase onwards, the number of people gradually increased. "Mom caught up with the end of the third phase of the Anti-Japanese War, which had 3 brigades in total. The first and second brigades are cadres of the Red Army, and the third brigade is the intellectual youth. At that time, there were few female intellectual youths, so they were combined with female Red Army cadres to form a female team, which was attached to the second brigade. Mom went through the third to fifth periods of Kang Da in Kang Da for a year and a half, until the summer of 1939, when the Kang Da General School moved to the front, and she transferred to the Women's University. From the fourth period in April 1938 to the fifth period in 1939, my mother was successively transferred to the district captain of the four major teams of girls, the captain of the five major teams of girls, the captain of the first team of the girls' brigade, and the captain of the first team of the five teams of girls. ”
Guo Jiyun recalled the famous "female captain" in the article "Mei Jie Fengdan": "Under the leadership of Ding Xuesong, the female soldier brigade was in good spirits, and Ding Xuesong's voice was loud and the password was clean and neat. All the comrades took a neat step and advanced and retreated in an orderly manner, and Chairman Mao and the head of the Central Committee looked at our exercises and said with praise, 'The Army of The Ladies and Daughters, it is really remarkable!' Ding Cedar thus earned the nickname of 'Female Hero'. ”
In Yan'an, chiefs and ordinary cadets all wore coarse cloth uniforms, and there was no obvious difference between men and women. "Kang Da is named a university, there are no decent auditoriums, classrooms, everyone lives in a cave, as if back to the cave dwelling era." Once Chairman Mao gave a lecture to them and said: You are living a Stone Age life and studying the most advanced science of our time, Marxism-Leninism. ”
The teachers of the Kang Da Theory Course are strong, such as Ai Siqi, He Enjing, Ren Baige, Xu Maoyong, Zhang Qingfu and so on. "The big report of the anti-big is more famous. Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, He Long, Luo Ronghuan, Peng Zhen, Bogu, and other central leading comrades all came to Kang Da to make reports. In the open-air venue, the students put their backpacks away and sat down on the floor. ”
In 2000, Ding Xuesong looked back on the Yan'an years in his memoirs: "In Yan'an, I spent an unforgettable and extremely meaningful eight years, in the Kang Da, the Women's University, through the care and cultivation of the party, I, a young Sichuan girl, increased her organizational ability and grew into a cadre with independent work ability. After the tempering of military life and labor, my physique has also become stronger. It was in Yan'an that I found an unswerving love for life and death, and I married Zheng Lucheng as a lifelong partner. Those eight years in Yan'an were an important journey in my life, inheriting the past and laying a solid foundation for my future development. ”
He changed into a cheongsam and became an ambassador
Ding Xuesong put on his military uniform from 1938 to Yan'an Kangda and did not wear a cheongsam again until 1979. Zheng Xiaoti said: "On April 11, 1979, my mother was sent to the Netherlands as an ambassador, and on the day of the inaugural reception at the embassy, she wore a silver-gray brocade cheongsam, greeted the main officials of the embassy at the door, and then circled between the main guests. Western journalists noted the changes in the costumes of diplomats after China's reform and opening up, and made a special note in the report: the old-school blue and blue wool clothing has been replaced by fine Chinese silk. ”
How did Ding Xuesong become an ambassador? At that time, my mother served as the vice president of the Chinese Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. In the summer of 1978, when she was preparing to go on vacation in Qingdao, Wang Bingnan, president of the Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, asked her to talk. He said to his mother: Your job will change, the organization may send you abroad as an ambassador, first say hello to you. The news came suddenly, and my mother was not mentally prepared and did not express her position for a while. Although she has worked in the diplomatic circles, the Foreign Affairs Office of the State Council, the Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and the International Liaison Department of the CPC Central Committee, compared with professional diplomats from the science class, she has no professional training and is not a foreign language. But thinking of her father's encouragement to her when she was alive, she had a bottom in her heart and flew to The Hague on February 5, 1979. ”
The next day, Xinhua Issued a telegram: "Ding Xuesong, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, left Beijing yesterday to take up his post. Ding Xuesong was the first female ambassador of the People's Republic of China to send abroad. ”
On February 23, Ding Xuesong submitted his credentials at the Susdek Palace. The National Book is enclosed in an extra-large envelope and sealed with a piece of white plum-edged rice paper stamped with steel seals. The text of the Letter of State is as follows:
Her Majesty Queen Juliana of the Netherlands:
In order to consolidate and develop the friendly and cooperative relations between the People's Republic of China and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, I appoint Ms. Ding Xuesong as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, succeeding the former Ambassador, Mr. Chen Xinren.
I am confident that Ms. Ding Xuesong will do her best to fulfill her mission. You are kindly requested to receive her and to give her trust and assistance in the work she carries out on behalf of the Government of the People's Republic of China.
Ye Jianying, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China Huang Hua (Deputy)
November 30, 1978 in Beijing
Guo Zi No. 459
During his term as Ambassador of the Netherlands, Ding Xuesong contributed to the visit of Dutch Prime Minister Van Acht to China, which was the first visit to China by a serving Dutch prime minister in modern history, and the visit was very successful.
The international situation is changing rapidly. Ding Xuesong said in his memoirs: "After sending off the Dutch prime minister, I stayed at home for vacation, but I did not expect that during this period, the Incident of the Netherlands selling submarines to Taiwan caused changes in Sino-Dutch relations, resulting in the relationship between the two countries once being downgraded from the ambassador level to the chargé d'affaires level." ”
Zheng Xiaoti said: "Mother hopes that the dark clouds hanging over Sino-Dutch relations will dissipate as soon as possible. Sure enough, at the end of 1983, the Dutch cabinet and its leaders publicly declared that the approval of the sale of two submarines to Taiwan in 1981 was only a one-time transaction, not to mention the following, and also made a commitment not to sell weapons to Taiwan, and reconfirmed the principles stipulated by the Sino-Dutch Diplomatic Exchange in 1972. Diplomatic relations between China and the Netherlands were restored again to the ambassadorial level from 1 February 1984. ”
She has been called the "Beer Ambassador"
It is well known that on the shores of the Long Causeway northeast of the Danish capital Copenhagen, there is a bronze sculpture of a mermaid. In May 1982, Ding Xuesong was appointed ambassador to Denmark and flew to Copenhagen to discover the "secret" of the mermaid.
Zheng Xiaoti said: "This matter has to start from Beijing. When my mother returned to China to run an errand, she opened the newspaper in Beijing and accidentally saw a headline: 'Where is the beer?' At that time, the domestic beer production capacity was not good, and there was only fresh beer, which was inconvenient to preserve. At the end of the streets, people can often be seen holding hot water bottles, holding pots and pans, and queuing up in front of restaurants to buy fresh beer under the scorching sun. Mom thought, Denmark is rich in beer, why not thread the needle from it and introduce it? She said that she would do it and travel at home and abroad, and finally led to a beer cooperation project between China and Denmark, and China built the first modern brewery with an annual output of 100,000 tons, Huadu Brewery. The problem of beer shortage in Beijing was solved, and for this reason, the danish brewery boss humorously called my mother a 'beer ambassador'. ”
In order to introduce the advanced technology of Danish beer, Ding Cedar was in and out of Carlsberg Beer Company several times. Mom learned that the mermaid statue was created by Carlsberg Beer Company founder Carl Jacobson. One day, Jacobson was watching a ballet based on "The Daughter of the Sea" at the Theatre Royal, and he had a sudden idea that "The Daughter of the Sea" had adapted oil paintings, dances, and music, but the statue was missing. So the famous sculptor Eriksen was asked to make it a mermaid statue. The original is stored at Carlsberg Brewery and a reproduction that is doubled in size is given to the City of Copenhagen. In 1913, the mermaid statue was officially placed on the shores of the Long Causeway, becoming a symbol of Denmark and a world-famous attraction. ”