In the youth of Chairman Mao Zedong, he studied at the Changsha First Normal School. At that time, he and his close friends Xiao Zisheng, Cai he and Sen were both proud disciples of Yang Changji's teacher, and because the three of them were both excellent in character and learning, and they were like-minded, they were called "Three Friends of Xiangjiang" by people at that time.
At that time, the relationship between Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng was very good. In the summer vacation of 1917, the two also spent more than a month, without a penny on their bodies, traveled through 5 counties and villages such as Changsha, Anhua, and Yiyang, and traveled nearly a thousand miles.
However, it was such a pair of close friends who chose to part ways on the eve of the founding of the party in 1921. Xiao Zisheng took the initiative to break with Chairman Mao and did not have any more contacts.
As everyone knows, Chairman Mao later led the party and the people to establish New China and became a great leader of the Chinese people. However, Xiao Zisheng, a former friend of Chairman Mao, disappeared in his later years and went into exile overseas.
Xiao Zisheng
So, why did Xiao Zisheng break up with Chairman Mao? What is the final outcome of Xiao Zisheng?
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Xiao Zisheng was born in July 1894 in Xiangxiang, Hunan Province, eight months younger than Chairman Mao. He has been quick thinking since he was a child and is very talented.
Like Chairman Mao, Xiao Zisheng also studied at the Dongshan Higher Primary School in Xiangxiang, except that Xiao Zisheng entered the "Dongxiao" in 1907 and graduated in 1909. Mao Zedong, on the other hand, was admitted to the "East Elementary School" in 1910.
Later, Xiao Zisheng went to the Hunan Provincial First Normal School to study, and Wang Qin'an, the chinese language teacher of the First Division, admired Xiao Zisheng's poems and articles, and felt that he "had the legacy of Ouyang Wenzhonggong (Ouyang Xiu, courtesy name Wenzhong) during the Song Dynasty." Yang Changji, who was teaching in a middle school at that time, also admired Xiao Zisheng very much, and also copied and recorded Xiao Zisheng's wonderful words and aphorisms.
Yang Changji
For example, Xiao Zisheng once wrote such a sentence in his composition: "Do not create me for me, but for the country to create me; do not seek learning for me, but seek learning for learning." After Yang Changji saw it, he couldn't help but marvel at it, and couldn't help but copy it into his diary, and commented below: "I have seen a lot, so I record it here." "Zhang Zi Zhengmeng" says that "the Tao can be great in the body and death", and it is also said that "the greatness of a gentleman is also greater than the Tao", which is exactly what it means. ”
On the other hand, when Mao Zedong was studying in "Dongxiao", he met Xiao Zisheng's younger brother Xiao Zizhang (also known as Xiao San), and the two were classmates in the same class and had a very good relationship. Once, Mao Zedong borrowed a copy of the "Biography of World Hero Haojie" from Xiao Zizhang, and admired the stories of Washington, Peter the Great, Napoleon, Lincoln and others recorded in it, and hoped that China could also have characters like them to lead China out of its current predicament and save the Chinese nation from danger.
Xiao Zizhang
When returning the book to Xiao Zizhang, Mao Zedong solemnly said: "China is weak and weak, and it will take a long time to make it rich and strong and independent, but it doesn't matter if the time is long, you see Washington won the victory after 8 years of war and established the United States!" We also have to be prepared for a long struggle! ”
In 1913, at the age of 20, Mao Zedong was admitted to the Hunan Provincial Fourth Normal School, and the following year, the Fourth Division merged with the First Division, and Mao Zedong became a member of the First Division. Because Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng were considered "fellow villagers" (Xiangxiang was adjacent to Shaoshan) and were good friends with Xiao Zisheng's younger brother, they soon met.
Mao Zedong, like Xiao Zisheng, was also known for his poetry, and his compositions were often scored by Yang Changji. Mao Zedong once wrote an essay called "The Power of the Heart", Yang Changji loved it after reading it, scored a full score of 100 points on the spot, and after thinking about it, Yang Changji added five points to the full score.
Young Mao Zedong
At that time, there was an exhibition room in the first division, and the school often selected representative works from the compositions written by students in more than a dozen classes of the school to be exhibited here for the teachers and students of the whole school to observe and study. Because Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng's articles often became a model for teachers and students to observe the whole school, the two of them had a full understanding of each other's ideas and style, and the relationship between the two changed from "acquaintances" to "like-minded friends".
During their time at the First Division, Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng discussed not only literary issues, but also often the future path of China. The two of them often learned about major events at home and abroad through the newspaper, and talked on the "Miao Peak" of the First Division's Houshan Mountain.
At that time, Yuan Shikai was serving as the president, and Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng agreed that Yuan Shikai was a person who deceived the world and stole fame, and That Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the real revolutionary leader, but unfortunately Mr. Sun had no military power. They felt that if they wanted to change this situation, they could only find new forces and plan out a firm ideal that they believed in.
Yuan Shikai
In the summer of 1915, Xiao Zisheng graduated from the First Division, while Mao Zedong remained in the school to continue his studies. However, the distance did not affect the feelings between the two friends, on the contrary, the friendship between them was long-lasting. Of the 13 surviving letters from Chairman Mao to Xiao Zisheng from 1915 to 1918, there are three from the end of June to the beginning of July 1916 alone. It is no wonder that Mao Zedong would give Xiao Zisheng the couplet "Contrary to each other for a few days, love is like a thousand miles and three autumns" to express his longing for his friends.
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In July 1917, after the summer vacation of the First Division, in order to understand the people's feelings, familiarize himself with society, and exercise his courage, He found Xiao Zisheng, who was teaching at Chuyi Primary School, and invited him to follow him as a "beggar called Hanako".
Xiao Zisheng (film and television image)
Mao Zedong did not really want to be a "beggar", but planned to take a long trip without a penny, and the problem of eating and living was solved by "begging".
In the old society, poor readers or unemployed school teachers, because they were trapped in their livelihoods, would often choose to send couplets to large businesses everywhere and accept a little gift from the other party, which was called "playing the autumn wind" in society. Mao Zedong planned to conduct a rural social survey in the five counties of Changsha, Ningxiang, Anhua, Yiyang, and Yuanjiang through the method of "beating the autumn wind" and "begging and studying."
Xiao Zisheng was very interested in Mao Zedong's proposal, and the two of them each brought an umbrella and a satchel containing clothes and four treasures of the study room.
On the day of departure, Xiao Zisheng decided to give a poem to a strong itinerary, and after a moment of contemplation, Xiao Zisheng opened his mouth and chanted:
Umbrella bags and shoulders, no crown on the head, no money.
Go to see the rivers and mountains for thousands of miles, how to rectify the battle of the empty fist.
After setting out, Xiao Zisheng and Mao Zedong relied on the way of "fighting the autumn wind" to pass through many towns and remote rural areas, learned about the living conditions of peasants and people of all classes, and the customs and customs of society, and feasted on a large number of scenic spots and historical sites.
During the day, the two braved the scorching sun and braved the scorching heat to rush to the road, and at night, "the sand is a bed, the stone is a pillow, the blue sky is a tent, and the moonlight is a lamp", and sometimes they meet well-wishers, and they will stay overnight.
Whenever Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng went to a place where they encountered schools, shops or households, they went to "fight the autumn wind." However, Xiao Zisheng could not let go of the pride in his heart, he was only willing to write couplets, not willing to send couplets. If you want to ask people for directions, you must first sort out your clothes, cough twice, and then ask the other party.
Sending a couplet Xiao Zisheng was unwilling to do it, and naturally it fell to Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong was a humble man, whether the other party was a merchant or a peasant, he treated each other with courtesy, and he was easy-going and could talk to anyone.
When the two arrived in Anhua, they decided to visit Xia Mo'an, a well-known local scholar and the director of the persuasion institute who was over the age of HuaJia. As a result, Xia Mo'an was self-righteous and had always been reluctant to pay attention to the scholars, so they asked for a meeting twice in a row, but they were all turned away by Xia Mo'an. When the two visited for the third time, Xia Mo'an was finally willing to see them, but in order to try their knowledge, there was an uplink: "The sound of birds on the green poplar branches, spring to also, spring to go also." ”
After listening to it, Mao Zedong improvised the answer to the lower link: "Frog sentences in the grass pond, for justice?" For personal gain? ”
Mao Zedong's joint canon is from the Book of Jin and the Chronicle of Emperor Hui: "The emperor tasted in Hualin Garden, smelled the sound of shrimp and toads, and said: 'Is this minghu official?'" Selfish? Sima Zheng, the Emperor of Jinhui, meant: "Are these grunting things in Hualin Garden (he doesn't know toads) public or private?" And Mao Zedong's next link means: "The frog in the clear pool is calling sentence by sentence, is it for the public to call, or is it for itself?" ”
It can be said that while Mao Zedong's lower joint battle was neat, it was cross-examined decently and had a profound meaning. Because of this, Xia Mo'an admired his talents and learning, and immediately treated him with courtesy and let the two stay overnight. The next day, when they were separated, Xia Mo'an personally delivered it to the gate and gave 8 silver dollars as travel expenses.
Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng's study tour lasted for more than a month, and in order to commemorate this event, the two of them returned to Changsha and deliberately wore the clothes and straw shoes of the trip to take a photo.
The notes written by Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng during this study tour also made the classmates and friends of the First Division compete to borrow them, and everyone praised them one after another: "Half-written, worried about the world."
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The era when Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng grew up was the old society in which warlords were at war and the people were bored. At that time, almost all young people with lofty ideals were actively looking for ways and means to extricate China from its current dark situation, and Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng were no exception.
They believe that if they want to change the status quo, they must launch a philosophical and ethical ideological revolution to fundamentally change the thinking of the whole country.
To this end, the two of them spread the "enlightenment of recruiting friends" in Changsha City, and invited young students who are "morally high, diligent and down-to-earth, and pursuing progress" to "move forward together".
After a period of preparation, Mao Zedong, Cai Hesen, Xiao Zisheng, Xiao Zizhang, etc. established the Xinmin Society in April 1918, and elected Xiao Zisheng as the director general of the society and Mao Zedong as the officer. The word "xinmin" here comes from the "University", and in modern times, Yan Fu, Chen Duxiu and others have carried it forward and called on the Chinese people to "cleanse the old from time to time, dye and new".
Cai and Sen
The original purpose of the Xinmin Society was to "innovate scholarship and improve character", but later the society revised its purpose according to Mao Zedong's proposal and became "transforming China and the world".
When the Xinmin Society was first established, there were only about 20 people, and later after successive absorption, the membership expanded to more than 80 people, most of whom were ambitious students.
In 1918, the Xinmin Society was ready to arrange for the members of the Society to go to France for work-study, so it specially recommended Cai Hesen and Xiao Zisheng to go to Beijing to find Yang Changji together, and at the recommendation of the other party, they met with Cai Yuanpei, Li Shizeng and other initiators of the work-study movement in France, and then began to raise travel expenses in Beijing.
Soon after, Mao Zedong also took Zhang Kundi, Luo Zhanglong, and other members of the society who were preparing to go to France to Beijing and lived in No. 7, Ji'an Hutong, Sanyanjing, Di'anmen, Beijing.
Li Dazhao
While in Beijing, Mao Zedong, while running preparatory classes for studying in France with Xiao Zisheng and others, worked as an assistant in the library of Peking University. Here, Mao Zedong met the guide on the road of revolution: Li Dazhao, director of the Peking University Library.
During this time, Mao Zedong read through Li Dazhao's "The Victory of the Common People", "The Victory of the Bolsheviks" and other articles introducing the October Revolution and Marxism in Russia, and was deeply attracted by them. Later, through his contacts with Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and others, he experienced the baptism of "controversy between problems and doctrines", which gave him a deeper understanding of Marxism.
At the same time that Mao Zedong began to contact Marxism, Xiao Zisheng, as the secretary of the Chinese-French Education Association, took a boat from Shanghai to France in February 1919 with the first batch of students who went to France, where he received 20 batches of more than 2,000 students.
At that time, various doctrines and currents of thought were popular in France, and at the same time the influence of the revisionism of the Second International remained. It is precisely for this reason that the members of the Fa Xinmin Society are uneven in their world outlook changes.
For example, during his time in France, Cai and Sen clearly understood the trend of the world revolution and understood the guiding ideology and organizational principles of the Communist Party through careful observation and thinking, and transformed into a communist in the summer of 1920.
During his time in France, Xiao Zisheng was influenced by the revisionist ideas of Bernstein and Kautsky, and felt that China should take the reformist road.
He said at a conference: "The evolution of the world is indefinite, the revolution is also infinite, and we do not recognize the sacrifice of a part for the welfare of the majority." He advocated a moderate revolution, that is, a revolution with education as its instrument, a revolution for the benefit of the people as a whole." ”
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Cai and Sen and Xiao Zisheng could not make up for their ideological differences, and wrote to Mao Zedong to state their ideas and win his support.
Mao Zedong once had a certain degree of illusion about reformism, but after the failure of the "Hunan Autonomy Movement", he realized that "the political circles have become deep, corruption has been deep, and there is no hope for political reform", firmly established his Marxist belief, and became a staunch communist.
Therefore, Mao Zedong sent letters to Cai hesen on December 1, 1920, and January 21, 1921, saying that he did not agree with Xiao Zisheng's proposition because:
"Education must have money and people. Third, there must be organs. In today's world, money is in the hands of capitalists, education is presided over by capitalists, and the two most important educational institutions, schools and newspapers, are also in the hands of capitalists. ”
It is clear that it is hopeless to convert the capitalists to communism through education.
Through these letters, it can be seen that Mao Zedong and Xiao Zisheng, two good friends, are no longer moving in the same direction on how to save and transform China.
In March 1921, Xiao Zisheng returned to Changsha and engaged in many fierce debates with Mao Zedong on how to transform China within the Cultural Book Club, but they all broke up.
In June, Mao Zedong prepared to go to Shanghai to attend the upcoming Communist Party Congress, but because he had been actively involved in the revolution for a long time, he was too shy to even buy a ticket to Shanghai.
At the same time, Dong Biwu in Hubei was also very anxious because he did not have money to go to Shanghai. Fortunately, xiong Jinyue, a member of the Xinmin Society, learned of this situation and immediately gave 20,000 oceans for them to go to Shanghai, and said that the remaining money was used to fund the party's activities.
Xiong Jinyue
On the evening of June 29, Mao Zedong and He Shuheng came to the Xiangjiang Ferry Terminal together and boarded a steamer bound for Shanghai. As the steamer passed through Yueyang, Mao Zedong accidentally saw Xiao Zisheng, who was getting on the ship, and coincidentally, the two were in the same cabin.
Later, Xiao Zisheng recalled this meeting, saying: "It was the last night, we slept in the same bed, we talked about dawn, Mao Zedong kept persuading me to join the Communist Party, he said, if we go all out, not a thousand years, just 30 to 40 years, the Communist Party can change China." ”
Chairman Mao
Soon after, Xiao Zisheng disembarked in Hankou, and the two former friends parted ways because of their different ideas, and they never saw each other again.
After separating from Mao Zedong, Xiao Zisheng went to France again, stayed in France for three years and returned to China to join the Kuomintang, and began to serve as a member of the Kuomintang Beiping City Party Affairs Steering Committee, the editor-in-chief of the Minbao, and later in the Nanjing government as the deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Mines and the director of the Beiping Agricultural Experimental Field.
After entering the 1930s, Xiao Zisheng gradually faded out of the political arena and lived abroad. Later, Li Shi ran a "China International Library" in France, and Xiao Zisheng became the director of this library. In 1951, the library moved to Uruguay, and Xiao Zisheng followed suit, and has since worked in Uruguay in writing education.
Although Chairman Mao and Xiao Zisheng broke up because of different ideas and beliefs, Chairman Mao never forgot this good friend of that year, and when he interviewed the American journalist Edgar Snow a few years later, he recalled to Snow the summer vacation in 1917:
"A student named Xiao Yu (Xiao Zisheng) was with me, and we walked through five counties without spending a single copper plate. The farmers gave us food and a place to sleep; everywhere we went, we were greeted and entertained with kindness. ”
After the founding of New China, Chairman Mao also wrote a letter to Xiao Zisheng through the old members of the Xinmin Society, warmly inviting him to return to China to participate in the work.
However, although he witnessed the establishment of New China by the Chinese under the leadership of the Communist Party and achieved many great achievements, Xiao Zisheng's thoughts at this time failed to turn a corner, refused Chairman Mao's sincere invitation, and insisted on staying in Uruguay.
In November 1976, Xiao Zisheng completed the last part of his life in Uruguay, at the age of 82, before Xiao Zisheng died, he left a will: "After death, the ashes and The ashes of Mrs. Xiao are placed in the same place, and if possible, they will be transported back to the ancestral grave in Xiangxiang, Hunan province and buried with the bones of the original wife." It can be seen that in the depths of his heart, Xiao Zisheng still wants to return to the roots of the fallen leaves.
Chairman Mao and Xiao Zisheng, the two of them were once close friends who talked about everything, but because of their different beliefs, they eventually embarked on two different paths.
Chairman Mao led the people of the whole country to establish a new China, but Xiao Zisheng could only go into exile overseas and die alone.
Things are uncertain, but that's not all.