Yao Xueyu
Yao Xueyan (姚雪垠) (October 10, 1910 – April 29, 1999) was a modern Chinese novelist from Dengzhou, Henan. A famous modern writer. He was the honorary vice chairman of the China Writers Association, the chairman of the Hubei Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and the chairman of the Hubei Writers Association. He is a member of the Sixth and Seventh National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
The long historical novel "Li Zicheng" created by Yao Xueyan, centered on Li Zicheng, the leader of the rebel army at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and Chongzhen, the emperor of the late Ming Dynasty, has created a series of historical figures with distinct images, revealing the special laws of the peasant revolutionary war at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the complex situation of class struggle and national struggle in feudal society. Its scale is grand, imposing, and novel, and it can be called a historical picture of the peasant revolutionary war. This monumental work began to be written in 1957, lasted more than 30 years, was written in 2.3 million words, and was published in 5 volumes. He once won the "Mao Dun Literature Award" and had a greater social impact.
Yao Xueyan was able to write this book and publish it because Chairman Mao gave him great support. In 1961, Yao Xueyan completed the first volume of Li Zicheng, which was published in the summer of 1963 and soon had a strong impact on society. After the cultural revolution began, although he encountered many difficulties, he still insisted on creating. On the eve of the National Day in 1975, the second volume of "Li Zicheng" was completed, but because of the political environment at that time, no publishing house dared to publish it for him. He wanted to start the third volume, but he felt that he was old and lacked the conditions, and it was very difficult to continue to create. Although Wang Renzhong, former secretary of the Hubei Provincial CPC Committee, wrote to him: In mid-August 1966, Chairman Mao said to Wang Renzhong in person at the enlarged meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee: Yao Xueyu should be protected, and "Li Zicheng" was well written, and he was asked to continue to write. But now that time has passed, no one knows what Chairman Mao said at that time. With nothing to do, Jiang Xiaotian, the editor in charge of a volume of Li Zicheng, gave him an idea and simply wrote a letter directly to Chairman Mao asking for his old man's support. Yao Xueyan was worried that such a letter would be difficult to send to Chairman Mao, so he reported to Comrade Song Yiping, an old leader he knew well in Wuhan and had served as secretary of the Wuhan Municipal PARTY Committee. Song Yiping was enthusiastic about dredging for him and talked to Hu Qiaomu about the matter, and Hu Qiaomu said that he could send the letter to Chairman Mao. On October 19, 1975, Yao Xueyu sent a letter to Chairman Mao to Song Yiping. After several turns, on October 23, 1975, Hu Qiaomu transmitted Yao Xueyu's letter to Chairman Mao, and Chairman Mao wrote this comment in Hu Qiaomu's report on November 2:
"Printing and Distributing To the Comrades of the Politburo I agree with him to write Li Zicheng's novels in two volumes, three volumes, three to five volumes. Mao Zedong"
The handwriting is written in pencil and has three horizontal lines. It was written less than a year after Chairman Mao's death. If you don't look at it carefully, it will be difficult for you to understand Chairman Mao's meaning. This is the most heartbreaking inkBlot of Mao Zedong's calligraphy in his later years. The dots are out of order, and the words are almost invisible. The dry grass is messed with vines, and the wind god is far away. In his later years, Chairman Mao often read the sentences in "The Endowment of Dead Trees" in which "willows were planted in the past years, depending on Hannan, and now I see the rocking and falling, and the miserable river ponds" and "This tree is fragile, and the business is exhausted." Seeing this handwriting, thinking of chairman Mao's illness in his later years and the withering and morbidity of the shoulders of the major events of his home and country, a generation of calligraphers, the scenery is no longer beautiful.