<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" > Author: Ivory Mountain Boys</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="2" > Chairman Mao was the son of an authentic farmer</h1>
Cultivating the fields from an early age and undergoing labor training from an early age made Chairman Mao deeply aware of the pain and demands of the chinese peasant masses, developed a simple and honest style of life, and maintained it all his life.
Chairman Mao was the son of an authentic peasant.
The Mao family was originally from Longcheng County, The capital of Jizhou, Jiangxi, and the ancestor Mao Taihua joined Zhu Yuanzhang's team at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, as a junior officer, he followed the Ming generals Fu Youde and Lan Yu to Yunnan to fight. After pacifying Yunnan, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered some of the generals to guard Yunnan, and Mao Taihua was one of them. He married and had children in the local area, and as he grew older, he missed his homeland and asked for permission to return to his hometown. In 1380, Mao Taihua's family moved to Xiangxiang County, Hunan. More than a decade later, his two sons moved to Shaoshanchong, Xiangtan County. Since then, the Mao family has been reclaiming the wasteland in Shaoshan and farming, breeding and living.
Counting from his ancestor Mao Taihua, Chairman Mao was the 20th generation descendant of the Mao family.
Chairman Mao's grandfather, Mao Yichen, was known as Enpu and was honest and generous. In 1878, he separated from his brother Mao Dechen and moved from his ancestral home, Maotang in The East of Shaoshan Mountain, to the upper south bank of Shaoshan Chong, and built five thatched huts. Mao Yichen was trapped by poverty all his life, and later because of the compulsion of life, even some of the land property left by his ancestors was pawned out, and he died at the age of 58. Chairman Mao was just 9 years old.
Chairman Mao's father, Mao Shunsheng, was born in 1870 and attended a private school for several years. He was tall and athletic, and was forced to serve as a soldier in the Xiang Army at the age of 16 due to excessive debt, and he had some insight, and after returning to his hometown at the age of 17, he began to be a director of the family. He was shrewd, good at housework, diligent in labor, and also did some small business, and gradually had some savings, and soon redeemed the land property that his father pawned out, bought some new paddy fields, and rebuilt more than ten tile houses on the original foundation, which is now the "former residence of Chairman Mao", becoming a relatively wealthy middle peasant in Shaoshanchong. Mao Shunsheng was good at business, the family hired a long-term worker, and later he concentrated on the rice and pig and cattle business, the capital gradually rolled to two or three thousand yuan, and also made a kind of circulation paper ticket called "Mao Yi Shuntang".
Mao Shunsheng was a strong and grumpy person, especially authoritarian at home. In order to continue to expand the family business, he led the whole family to work hard, save money and money, and asked his wife and children to work in the fields. When Chairman Mao reached the age of 6, like most children of poor families, he began to help adults with their work. At first he helped sweep the floor, herd cattle, carry water, and feed the pigs at home.
Later, during the day, he went to the field with the adults to plow the fields, plant seedlings, and harvest grain, and all the farm work was done and done; at night, he helped his father keep the account, because by this time he was already the "most learned" person in the family. Even so, Chairman Mao ate only brown rice and vegetables. On the first and fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the family gave the hired workers some eggs and fish (rarely meat), and he and his mother and brother did not have a share.
Chairman Mao's mother's surname was Wen, a native of Tangjiatuo (later changed to Tangjiage) in Xiangxiang County. Because of the seventh oldest in the family, he is known as Wen Qijie. The Wen family also engaged in farming and had a well-off family. At the age of 18, he married Mao Shunsheng and gave birth to five boys and two girls, but four of them died prematurely, leaving only Chairman Mao, Mao Zemin, and Mao Zeqin three brothers.
Although Wen Shi did not study, she was a hardworking, kind, and wise rural woman. She loves children very much, is also very compassionate and helpful, and believes that only by doing more good deeds, accumulating virtue and doing good deeds, and sincerely helping each other in life can people get good rewards. In each famine year, the number of people fleeing from the neighboring four townships increased, and no matter who it was, as long as they walked to the door of Chairman Mao's house, Wen Always carried her husband behind her back and helped these suffering villagers with the grain that she usually saved by reducing clothes and food and making careful calculations. Not only did she do it herself, but she also encouraged her children to do so. Under the influence and support of his mother, Chairman Mao developed a helpful character when he was a teenager.
His father, Mao Shunsheng, started by hard work, was good at business and saved some money, so he wanted to expand his field property. It coincided with a famine one year, and his cousin Mao Jusheng's family was poor, and he had no choice but to sell the seven acres of land on which the family depended for their lives. After Mao Shunsheng knew about it, he took the opportunity to buy these seven acres of land. Chairman Mao and his mother resolutely opposed his practice of taking advantage of others, and moreover, they were brothers of their own race.
Mao Shunsheng ignored it, saying that it was buying land with money, and that his brother was not a brother. Chairman Mao did not understand his father's selfishness and ruthlessness, and gradually became at odds with his father. Mao Shunsheng was in the rice business, but he refused to take mi ping out in the wilderness. Chairman Mao protested to his father that it was very inhumane to do so, and that in the years of famine, it was better to make less money or not to make money than to give the grain at an affordable price, and to give some millet to the poor who had no food to eat. For this reason, the father and son had a sharp contradiction.
Chairman Mao later recalled: My family was divided into two "parties." One was my father, the "ruling party"; the other was the "opposition party", which consisted of me, my mother and my brother, sometimes even the hired workers.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" > raise money to support work-study in France</h1>
From the autumn of 1918 to the spring of 1919, Chairman Mao worked tirelessly for work-study activities. He recalled that seven or eight people slept together on a kang, and there were many people who were narrow and could only lie on their feet. The quilt was so big that it couldn't be spread out, so it had to be closed. It can be said that "long and high kang, big sleep".
In June 1918, Chairman Mao graduated from the Hunan Provincial First Normal School.
At this time, Chairman Mao's mentor Yang Changji had been transferred to the Department of Philosophy of Peking University, and the family had also moved to Beijing. Some celebrities in Beijing, such as Cai Yuanpei and Li Shizeng, organized the Huafa Education Association and launched a work-study movement in France. Yang Changji was very concerned about the future of Chairman Mao and others, and wrote to Chairman Mao, hoping that he would respond to the call of Cai Yuanpei and others and immediately organize members of the Xinmin Society to go to France for work-study.
In late June, Chairman Mao, together with Xiao Zisheng, Xiao San, Zhou Shizhao, He Shuheng, Chen Zanzhou, Cai Hesen, Zou Dingcheng, Zhang Kundi, Chen Shunong, Li Weihan, and others, attended the meeting of the Xinmin Society. The meeting discussed the way out for the members after graduation, and agreed that the members should "develop outward". Everyone believes that it is necessary to study in France and should do their best, and elect Cai Hesen and Xiao Zisheng to be in charge.
On June 25, Cai Hesen arrived in Beijing and approached Li Shizeng and Cai Yuanpei through Yang Changji's introduction, believing that studying in France was "quite promising". Cai Hesen immediately wrote to Chairman Mao, Xiao Zisheng, and other comrades who were engaged in inviting volunteers to study in France. Cai Hesen also said in a letter to Chairman Mao that Cai Yuanpei, president of Peking University, is plotting to recruit talents from all over the world, and teacher Yang Changji very much hopes that Chairman Mao will enter Peking University in order to lay a "foundation that can be great and can be long-lasting." Not long after, Cai and Sen wrote to Chairman Mao again, hoping that he would go to Beijing as soon as possible.
On August 19, Chairman Mao, Xiao Zisheng, Luo Xuezhan, Luo Zhanglong, Chen Zanzhou, and more than 20 other young hunan youths who were preparing to go to France for work-study arrived in Beijing. As soon as Chairman Mao arrived in Beijing, together with Cai and Sen, he devoted his main energies to the preparations for going to France for work-study.
At this time, more than fifty young people from Hunan had successively gone to Beijing to prepare to go to France, the largest in the country. When Chairman Mao and others initiated this activity, they "did not anticipate the difficulties that followed." After arriving in Beijing, "there were many unexpected attacks and difficulties suffered by the members, but in the end no one was discouraged." After several contacts, the responsible persons of the Huafa Education Association have successively opened preparatory classes for studying in France at Peking University, Baoding Yude Middle School, Lixian Buli Village in Hebei Province, and Changxindian to accept the enrollment of young people in Hunan. Chairman Mao drafted a work-study plan for Young People in Hunan to Study in France, handed it over to the relevant departments for coordination, and also went around to raise money for their travel expenses.
In order to solve the problem of travel expenses to France, Chairman Mao found Zhang Shizhao, the chief of education, through Yang Changji's introduction. Due to the environmental constraints at that time, Chairman Mao did not mention the establishment of the Communist Party of China and the launching of the revolutionary movement, but only said that he would raise funds to fund a group of young people with lofty ideals to go to Europe for work-study. Zhang Shizhao immediately agreed to come down, but the time was tight, and he did not have enough money in his hands at that time.
Therefore, Zhang Shizhao personally came forward to plead with Tan Yanmin, the overseer of Hunan, to give these promising young people who built the country and Hunan a financial support. Tan Yanmin took out 20,000 yuan to show his enlightened attitude. After Chairman Mao received this funding from Zhang Shizhao, he and Cai he distributed the money to the members of the society at 1600 yuan per person. It is worth mentioning here that more than forty years later, that is, in the early 1960s, Chairman Mao very seriously proposed to return the loan of Zhang Lao in stages and batches, and repaid 20,000 yuan in ten years. In fact, this was Chairman Mao's disguised funding of Zhang Shizhao, and Chairman Mao's "debt" to Zhang Shizhao was repaid from 1963 to Zhang Shizhao's death in July 1973.
Chairman Mao worked tirelessly for work-study activities, and at first he temporarily stayed at the home of Mr. Yang Changji at No. 9 Tofuchi Hutong, Hougu tower. Chen Shaolin and Luo Xuezhan, along with him, lived in guild halls in Some Hunan Counties in Beijing. The guild halls are scattered inside and outside the city, and everyone runs back and forth every day, very tired, and it is very inconvenient to study and discuss work. Soon, he, Cai Hesen, Xiao Zisheng, Luo Zhanglong and seven other people moved into No. 7, Ji'an Dongjia Road, Sanyanjing, Jingshan East Street. It's a shabby little courtyard and everything is extremely rudimentary. Although meetings and contacts are much more convenient, life is much more difficult.
Chairman Mao recalled those days this way: "My own living conditions in Beijing were very poor, but on the other hand, the scenery of the ancient capital was bright and vivid, which was a compensation for me. "Especially at night, seven or eight people are huddled together to sleep on a tong kang, and we sleep next to each other on a pit, and there are many people with narrow kang, and we can only lie on our feet." The quilt was so big that it couldn't be spread out, so it had to be closed. It can be said that 'Long Ran Gao Kang, big sleep together'. It was almost breathless, and when I was about to roll over, I often had to warn the people sleeping on either side of me in advance. ”
From the autumn of 1918 to the spring of 1919, Chairman Mao lived here for six or seven months.
At first, they ate in small restaurants outside, because the meal was expensive and they were not used to life, but later everyone discussed and made it themselves. For the sake of the economy, they changed to eating noodles, but because they were southerners and could not make noodles, they made a lot of jokes, and finally with the help of the landlord, they finally ate steamed bread and pickles.
Soon, winter came, and the winter in the north was particularly cold for these young people in the south. The eight people had only two cotton coats, which they could only wear when they went out. Chairman Mao was the busiest of them, and often had a cotton coat draped over him. Wearing it, Chairman Mao traveled around in the cold and hunger to implement the work-study of Hunan youth in France.
After the friends went to the preparatory classes to study, Chairman Mao stayed in Beijing. Because there was also a regulation of the Ministry of Education at that time, secondary teacher training graduates could not immediately enter the university, but had to serve for several years. Therefore, Chairman Mao could not go to the university, and the cost of living in Beijing was too high for Chairman Mao. In October, through Yang Changji's introduction, Chairman Mao met Li Dazhao, who was then the director of the Peking University Library.
Li Dazhao arranged for him to work as an assistant in the library. In addition to cleaning, the daily work is to register new newspapers and periodicals and the names of those who come to the reading room in the second reading room, and to manage 15 kinds of Chinese and foreign newspapers. At that time, the monthly salary of professors at Peking University was two or three hundred yuan, and Chairman Mao's monthly salary was only eight yuan, which was only enough for personal food.
Chairman Mao did not care at all about material poverty; what he cared about was that Beijing was the center of the new cultural movement. Peking University is a gathering of talents and the birthplace of the new cultural movement. President Cai Yuanpei "follows the principle of free thought and adopts inclusiveness", where various ideas and scholarships compete for glory, and the new cultural movement gradually enters a climax. This atmosphere was simply not accessible to Chairman Mao in Hunan, and it was particularly exciting and exciting for him! Here he read many books and periodicals that he had never read before, and came into contact with many figures who had never been in contact with him before, especially Li Dazhao's remarks and friendships that gave Chairman Mao the most direct influence.
Chairman Mao's keen thinking and extraordinary ambition in his conversation with Li Dazhao left a deep impression on Li Dazhao. Li Dazhao introduced Chairman Mao's efforts to accept new ideas, and introduced him to the Journalism Research Society and the Peking University Philosophy Research Association organized by the Progressive Students of Peking University.
On March 12, 1919, Chairman Mao left Beijing with Cai Hesen and Xiao Zisheng for Shanghai. On the 17th, the first batch of work-study students to France set off. Chairman Mao waved goodbye to Cai Hesen and Xiao Zisheng at the dock, and at this time he had a new idea in his heart.
Since then, studying in France has become a very enthusiastic movement, changsha newspapers have continued to advocate, education circles have also vigorously promoted, and the work-study movement in Hunan has reached a climax. Chairman Mao was in complete condition to go out, and some members of the Xinmin Society also wrote to invite Chairman Mao to France.
But Chairman Mao decided to stay at home in order to have a deeper understanding of China and society.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="39" > Author Profile: Ivory Mountain Boy, a history lover of Northeast China, a history teacher who is serious and comical. </h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="40" > welcome history lovers to share and exchange. </h1>