The author is Chen Xiaolian, the granddaughter of General Chen Mingshu
Fifty-nine years ago I walked into Zhixin to study, ten years ago I came back from the United States to participate in the 90th anniversary celebration of Zhixin Middle School, only to know uncle Liao Chengzhi, aunt Liao Mengxing was also a letter of honor alumni, some time ago I learned that grandfather Chen Mingshu and uncle He Xiangning were once the trustees of Zhixin Middle School.
Here I would like to tell the story of my family and three generations of the Liao family.
I grew up rebellious, alone, always doing something unexpected. In 1962, when I was 14 years old, influenced by the novel "Daughter of the Army" Xing Yanzi went to the countryside to join the team, I signed up with a few classmates in the hebei countryside to join the team as farmers, to see the vast world of the countryside. This frightened my parents, tried to stop it, and finally came up with the solution of telling me to return to Guangzhou to study and accompany Grandma by the way.
Concubine and me
I was born in Hong Kong on the last day of 1948 as the first grandchild of the Chen family. Concubine Therefore, I am regarded as a pearl in the palm of my hand, and I am pampered to the point of multiplication. It is incumbent upon me to go to Guangzhou to take care of my grandmother and accompany my concubine. At that time, my father, under the persuasion of Liao Chengzhi, director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the State Council, built a house in the new village of overseas Chinese in Guangzhou, and prepared to pick up his concubine from Hong Kong and return to live there. In the summer of 1964, I was arranged by my parents to transfer to the third and fifth classes of Guangzhou Zhixin Girls' Junior High School as a transfer student. At that time, it was impossible for a little girl to transfer her hukou from one city to another alone, and I naturally helped Uncle Liao Chengzhi in transferring schools and transferring hukou.
Concubine And Uncle Liao He Xiangning have been friends for a lifetime. During the Great Revolution, they met in Guangzhou, Uncle Liao was a versatile and talented woman, and I did not know a few characters, but this did not prevent them from becoming good friends. One of the feminist advocates at the time, her uncle encouraged her to attend women's literacy classes and took her to various women's events.
Picture note: In July 1926, He Xiangning led the women of Guangzhou to the station to bid farewell to grandpa Chen Mingshu's Tenth Division for the Northern Expedition. Grandma Zhu Guangzhen, Li Jishen's wife Zhou Yueqing, and Zhou Enlai's wife Deng Yingchao all attended. The little boy in the photo is my father, Chen Guangsheng, who was only nine years old at the time.
In 1931, Grandpa went to Shanghai to serve as the commander-in-chief of the Beijing-Shanghai garrison and the commander of the Songhu garrison, and placed Grandma and her aunt's family in Shanghai.
On January 28, 1932, the Songhu Anti-Japanese War began. Concubine Zhu Guangzhen and Uncle Liao organized women to sew winter clothes for the officers of the Nineteenth Route Army, and He Xiangning sent concubines to the four major department stores on Nanjing Road, such as Xianshi, Yong'an, Xinxin, and Daxin, to collect anti-war materials, and received a large amount of donations.
The National Wounded Soldier Hospital run by Mr. Soong Ching Ling
At the same time, Mr. Song Qingling is preparing to build a high-level hospital for wounded soldiers to rescue wounded soldiers on the Songhu front. She recommended Uncle Liao He Xiangning and Concubine Zhu Guangzhen as directors to run for the establishment. The National Hospital for Wounded Soldiers was finally established on March 5, 1932, and a large number of wounded soldiers were admitted.
On May 28, 1932, the 19th Route Army held a memorial meeting in Suzhou to mourn the fallen soldiers of the Songhu Anti-Japanese War. Women representatives from Shanghai also attended the memorial service. The person in white at the front of the picture on the left is Song Qiling, followed by He Xiangning, who is supported, and the right one in the back row is Concubine Zhu Guangzhen.
After the failure of the Fujian Incident in early 1934, She left Shanghai for Hong Kong, but Uncle Liao remained in Shanghai until the fall of Shanghai in November 1937, when she and Aunt Liao's family took a boat from Shanghai to Hong Kong. As soon as her aunt arrived in Hong Kong, she immediately took her to her home in Hongfengtai on the top of the mountain. A study was also set aside for my uncle's use as a calligraphy and painting studio. Every day, after studying, Uncle Liao sat with her concubine on a rattan chair in front of the door and looked at the scenery under the mountain, talking about everything. Aunt Liao was eight years old, and like a big sister, she took her to participate in various anti-Japanese group activities in Hong Kong.
The first row of seats from left to right are Huang Mulan, He Xiangning, Zhao Hongwenguo, Zhu Guangzhen, and Deng Yingchao. Deng Yingchao stood next to Liao Meng.
In September 1938, Zhao Hongwenguo, known as the "mother of guerrillas," visited Hong Kong to publicize the anti-Japanese resistance. She was received by various anti-Japanese women's groups in Hong Kong at receptions. Uncle Liao and concubine Liao's "Hong Kong Branch of the Chinese Women's Consolation And Labor Support Association" was also one of the anti-Japanese groups at that time, and they took a group photo with Zhao Hongwenguo to leave this precious photo.
I saw this photo in the book "Dream of the Homeland - Mother Liao Mengxing and Her Time" by Aunt Liao's daughter Li Mei. In 2018, Aunt Li Xiaosong, the younger daughter of Li Jishen, took me to find Li Mei's eldest sister, and the eldest sister turned this high-definition photo out for me to copy.
In addition to the difference in cultural level, the two elderly people, Concubine Yan and Uncle Liao, but there are many miraculous similarities. They are both short, both like to smoke, eat without avoiding food, and love sweets. Uncle Liao is a well-known heavenly foot, although my concubine was forced to wrap her feet when she was a child, when she was a little older, she cut off the foot wrap herself to return her freedom, and although her toes were injured, she still retained a pair of big feet that could walk freely. Both lived to be more than ninety years old, which is a long life. When they met, they talked on their knees, and when they didn't see each other, they wrote letters continuously.
These two New Year's greeting cards were carefully made by Aunt Liao herself in 1939 to commemorate her, and she has always been around as a treasure.
In 1941, Hong Kong fell, my aunt went to Guilin, my grandfather went to Chongqing, and my grandmother stayed in Hong Kong to look at the house alone until the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1945.
In 1976, when I was transferred back to Guangzhou from Hainan Island, my concubine, who was in her nineties, sold her Hongfengtai house in Hong Kong and left Hong Kong to move back to Guangzhou Overseas Chinese New Village to live with me. The ink calligraphy and paintings of literati and inkers who interacted with my grandfather in the family, such as Liu Yazi, Ye Gongzhuo, Lin Zhimian, Xu Shiying and others, were brought with my mother to the United States, and it was not until after my mother's death that I sorted out the relics and found that there were so many cultural relics of historical value.
Among them, Chen Mingshu's "Monument to the Martyrdom of the Nineteenth Route Army and the Cemetery of the Fallen Soldiers Over the Years" written by Li Jishen, and the "Monument to the Fallen Soldiers of the Anti-Japanese Resistance" written by Chen Mingshu liu Jishu are the most precious. In 2017, I brought these cultural relics back to Guangzhou and donated 27 to the "Grand Marshal's Palace Memorial Hall".
Chen Mingshu wrote Li Jishen's book "The Nineteenth Route Army Songhu Martyrdom and The Monument to the Cemetery of the Dead Soldiers Over the Years"
Chen Mingshu wrote Liu Ji's "Monument to the Fallen Soldiers of the Anti-Japanese War"
When the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea broke out in 1950, his grandfather Chen Mingshu served as vice chairman of the General Branch of the Central and Southern China War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. He pledged a property in Shanghai at the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee's Meeting to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. Because the property was in her name at that time, Uncle Liao immediately wrote to her and asked her to agree. How could her concubine drag her feet, even her only son was sent back to the mainland to build a factory to support the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea and defend the country.
When I was 3 years old, in order to support the construction of New China and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, my father persuaded my mother-in-law to move the factory with me and my 1-year-old sister to Tianjin. After settling down, my father also took his concubine to Tianjin to live with us. Every festive holiday, the whole family will go to Beijing to visit Grandpa and his old friends, and the home of Uncle He Xiangning is a must-visit place for us.
In 1956, when I was 7 years old, my father took me and my grandmother to Beidaihe to visit my aunt. Concubine Liao and Aunt Liao talked all day, and they had endless words and endless past events. Before leaving, Uncle Liao gave us a large basket of peaches, which were the best peaches I can remember. She only lived in Tianjin for two years, mainly because the cold winter made her often cold and sick, and she had to move back to Hong Kong. Every year when the weather is warm, she will come to stay for a while.
A picture that Aunt Liao mengxing gave me to my parents.
After my family moved to Tianjin, my parents also maintained correspondence with the second generation of the Liao family, especially Aunt Liao Mengxing. In the past few years, when I was sorting out the information, I found that aunt Liao sent me a number of photos of my parents, and the photos were signed by her, which were sent to my parents by Aunt Liao in the late Cultural Revolution.
In 1965, I was admitted to Zhixin High School, and the Cultural Revolution began in 1966. I didn't have the opportunity to finish high school and I wasn't eligible to stay in Guangzhou. In 1968, the torrent of going up the mountain to the countryside pushed me to Lanyang Farm in Danxian County, Hainan Island, farther away from home.
It seems that since 1971, Zhiqing can go home to visit his family once a year. At that time, the traffic was very inconvenient, and I had to toss and turn for several days to return to Tianjin from Hainan Island to visit my relatives. In addition to airplanes, various means of transportation, ox carts, cars, ships, and trains take turns to get home. At that time, my family lived in a small alley called Delongli, which only had one room and one living room, and I was really a bit crowded when I went back. On holidays, Dad would go to Beijing to visit relatives and friends. In addition to visiting his aunt's (grandfather's sister)'s family, he will definitely take me to Xibianmen to visit his teachers Li Yiping and Aunt Liao Mengxing. Because Gonggong Li and Aunt Liao live in the same compound, their two families are where we must go.
The letter sent to me by Aunt Liao Mengxing is still kept by me.
Aunt Liao was very happy to learn that I worked on a farm on Hainan Island. She also talked to me about some of her past visits to Xinglong Overseas Chinese Farm and asked me to leave a mailing address. Since then, Aunt Liao and I have become penpals for many years. From Hainan Island to returning to the city to work in 1976, studying in the United States in 1979, and getting married in 1981, I have been in constant correspondence with Aunt Liao for more than a decade. Aunt Liao is my mentor and spiritual pillar, she helped me more than my parents, and her teachings made me know how to be strong in the face of hardships and hardships.
Later, I also inherited my father's habit, and every time I went to Beijing, I would visit Li Gonggong and Aunt Liao. The last time I saw Aunt Liao was in 1985, and the picture above shows me taking a picture of Aunt Liao, my mother and sister in her apartment in 1979 before I went to study in the United States. Aunt Liao left in 1988, and I was in the United States. Not being able to go back to see Aunt Liao for the last time is my lifelong regret.