Author of this article
Xiong Lei graduated from the Department of Journalism of the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1981 with a master's degree; He is currently the vice president and senior editor of Xinhua News Agency China Feature News Agency, and a senior researcher of CITIC Reform and Development Research Institute. He has been engaged in foreign reporting on China issues for a long time, and his main research areas are china issues, Chinese reports in Western countries, and human rights issues in life science research ethics.
(i)
When I was a child, I watched spy movies and felt that the underground workers of the CCP were all mercurial and dancing. After going to middle school, I learned from others that my father Xiong Xianghui was also one of them, and I wondered how he didn't look like him. My father is handsome, but both he and his mother are "dance blind"! Finally, I couldn't hold back, so I asked my father—that was after I graduated from graduate school, and before that, my father and mother had never told us about their past. They also did not have the opportunity to say: Before I was in the fifth grade of primary school, they went abroad to work, and when they came back, it was the "Cultural Revolution", and then I went to the "Northern Wilderness", my brother became a soldier, and then I went to go to college in other places.
I asked, you can't dance, how do you do underground work? Father said, who stipulates that you have to be able to dance when you do underground work? I was stunned, and then I asked, so how do you communicate with people? He said, playing mahjong - my father is really good at playing mahjong.
Then there are things I can't understand. After his father's article "Twelve Years Underground and Zhou Enlai" written by his father at the Central Documentation Research Office to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Premier Zhou Enlai's death was published in January 1991, it caused a lot of repercussions on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. At that time, Taiwan had already "lifted the strict law" and let go of the trip to the mainland, and my father used to go to Taiwan's robe after the Kuomintang Huzong south, and everyone who came to the mainland had to see his father. The first father also had the titles of CPPCC National Committee member and vice minister of the United Front Work Department, and I thought they had something to do with my father. Later, his father left, these titles were gone, and people still came to him. I was amazed: they and my father were in two camps, with very different positions and ideologies. Why are they not glaring at each other, but talking happily?
One of these "national army" old uncles who talked with his father very happily was Kong Lingsheng. After the Kuomintang went to Taiwan, he successively served as the captain of the bodyguards of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo, and also served as the "chief of police" in Taiwan, and also studied strategy in the United States and Britain, and wrote "General Theory of Grand Strategy."
These two old men, one is a retired minister of the Communist Party, the other is a retired lieutenant general of the "National Army", in them, I really can't see any estrangement of "different ways and no conspiracy". The two people always think of each other when they don't meet, and they are very affectionate when they meet. Every time they met, the two old men had endless words. At that time, they were all enthusiastic young people who resisted Japan and patriotism.
According to his father, Kong Laobo was a high-quality student in the Chemistry Department of Peking University and a proud protégé of the famous physicist Wu Dayu. Before Old Bo Kong wanted to quit school and join the army, Mr. Wu also wanted to send him abroad for further study, and repeatedly asked him to seriously consider it, and he was very reluctant to lose this disciple who he thought could become a great scientist. However, Old Uncle Kong still went to join the army without hesitation. When they met again decades later, both old men opposed Taiwan independence, both believed that the revival of Japanese militarism was the greatest threat to China, and both resented the use of power for personal gain.
Father liked to listen to Old Uncle Kong talk about the various love affairs after they went to the stage, and Old Uncle Kong was also interested in listening to his father tell some past events that he did not know at that time. For example, Old Mr. Jiang sent Jiang Weiguo to the front line.
It was February 1941, and Chairman Chiang Kai-shek's attendant room sent a secret letter to Hu Zongnan in Xi'an, which contained three things: First, Chiang Kai-shek's warrant: "I hereby send Chiang Weiguo as a second lieutenant platoon commander of the First Division of the First Army of the National Revolutionary Army." The second is Jiang Weiguo's resume, indicating that he studied at Soochow University in Suzhou, graduated from the Munich Military Academy in Germany, and also studied at the U.S. Army Air Corps Tactical School and the Finger Academy. The third is a bust photo of Jiang Weiguo. Although many people at that time, including Hu Zongnan and his father, already knew that Jiang Weiguo was actually Dai Jitao's son, Mr. Hu looked at the photo and said intentionally, like a very good, "live out of a commission."
The First Division of Hubu's First Army was stationed at Tongguan on the yellow river, and the other side of the river was the Japanese army. In any case, Chiang Kai-shek regarded Chiang Weiguo as his own, and he sent his second son to this unit. Mr. Hu consulted with his father, who was then a young lieutenant at his side. Father believed that as the supreme commander of a country, it had never been possible to appoint his son, who had just returned from studying in Germany, as a second lieutenant platoon leader and to the troops on the anti-Japanese front. After more than 60 years, my father talked about this matter, or said, it is really remarkable. At the same time, the father told Mr. Hu that this also showed Mr. Jiang's trust in Mr. Hu. Just for the sake of weiguo's safety, it cannot be publicized, and he must be arranged very properly.
After Jiang Weiguo arrived in Xi'an, Mr. Hu assigned his father to receive him and send him to the army. His father, Jiang Weiguo, was two years old, but his military rank was two levels higher than his, so as soon as he saw his father, he immediately saluted. When getting on the car, Jiang Weiguo took the initiative to go to the right side of the car to open the car door for his father; when talking to Jiang Weiguo, his father stood up, he also stood up, turned to where he followed, his face was always facing his father, very regular. However, my father could not stand the fact that the second son of the chairman of the committee was so respectful to him, so he changed into civilian clothes that afternoon to avoid restraint.
His father admired Jiang Weiguo's personality. He said that tongguan folk customs, every third, sixth, and ninth day of the lunar calendar, have large gatherings, which are relatively lively. If there is a rest day, many garrison soldiers also go to the market. When Jiang Weiguo went to the market, he took the service soldiers with him and asked the service soldiers to carry a large basket on their backs. In the street, whenever a soldier did not salute him, he went up and took off his hat, put it in a basket, and told them: "I am Jiang Weiguo, and on Sunday morning, you go to the fifth company of the second battalion of the third regiment to get your hat." "Every time you pick it, it's dozens of tops."
How can a soldier do without a hat? On Sunday morning, when they came to get their hats, Jiang Weiguo asked his attendants to teach them to practice salutations first, then practice standing upright and taking a break, and finally return the hats to them and let them go back. Originally, some of the front-line troops did not pay much attention to military appearance and discipline, some did not wear hats, and some did not wear collar badges. As soon as Jiang Weiguo grasped this, this phenomenon decreased.
However, after arriving in Taiwan, Jiang Weiguo and Chiang Ching-kuo's brothers fell out of harmony, which surprised his father. He told Kong Laobo that in 1942, he went through the country to the northwest, and together with Weiguo, accompanied by his father, he walked for three months from Xi'an and Lanzhou to Dunhuang through the Hexi Corridor to Qinghai and Xinjiang. "The two brothers had a very good relationship at that time." Father said.
At that time, Mr. Jiang was also very good to Weiguo. Father also told Lao Bo Kong such a story: In the autumn of 1942, Mr. Jiang Lao inspected the northwest and came to Xi'an. Hu Zongnan arranged for Jiang Weiguo to be transferred to Xi'an to meet him. When Mr. Jiang and his wife Song Meiling left Xi'an, Mr. Hu and the northwestern dignitaries went to the airport to see them off, and Jiang Weiguo and my father were also present. The old man and his wife got on the plane, the propeller had already started, and when the plane was about to take off, the engine suddenly stopped again, the cabin door opened again, and an adjutant came down the spiral ladder, holding an object in his hand, walked to Jiang Weiguo, who was sending him, and gave the thing to him. It turned out that the old gentleman had given his cloak to Wei Guo. Wei Guo immediately saluted. The lieutenant put on his cloak before returning to the cabin.
After listening to these stories, Old Uncle Kong said that Mr. Jiang has always been very good to Wei guo, and has liked him since he was a child and brought him with him. Mrs. Jiang also liked Weiguo. But the old man was also calm, and he thought that the power must be handed over to his son Chiang Ching-kuo.
In this regard, my father commented, but in the end, Jingguo handed it over to Lee Teng-hui.
This made Kong Lao Bo silent for a long time.
Mr. Kong said that he had studied Mao's military strategy and "fought two victorious battles according to Mao's method." Ideology aside, he said, in academic terms, Mao Zedong created a new form of war, especially the Korean War and the Vietnam War, which were fought with Mao Zedong's war theory and strategic thinking, and the United States was defeated. As a result, Mao Zedong's strategic thinking was recognized by military theoretical circles all over the world. They disagreed with Mao's ideology, but acknowledged Mao's contributions to world military strategy.
His father told him that Mao Zedong was engaged in a real people's war, and his strategy and tactics were all open. However, the people's war was not a creation of Mao Zedong, and Chairman Mao himself said that it was the American War of Independence that created the people's war.
The two old men both appreciated the "ice-breaking trip" of Mr. Lien Chan, chairman of taiwan's Kuomintang at that time, to visit the mainland, especially Mr. Lien Chan's father said that it was also the past of their Xi'an era. When Mr. Lien Chan arrived in Xi'an, Old Uncle Kong came to see his father again, and the two old men did not care about the conversation, so they watched the live broadcast of the visit on the TV station together, and they were very happy.
But what do these Kuomintang elders think of the fact that their father was an underground communist worker? Once, when Uncle Zhang Foqian, who was one round older than my father, came to my house from Taiwan, I asked this easy-going elderly man a question that made me wonder for a long time: "After you heard that my father was a Communist Party, how did you feel about him?" ”
Elder Zhang was very old, and when his father was a colonel in Hu Zongnan's place, he was already a major general. After arriving in Taiwan, he served as the director of the political department of the "Defense Command" and became a cultural celebrity. He told me that after knowing that my father was a Communist, he was "first surprised." He was a Communist, and I didn't see it at all. The second is thanks. He was by Mr. Hu's side, and there were many opportunities to kill Mr. Hu, but he didn't. The third is admiration. He did this thing so beautifully. ”
I asked, somewhat stunned, "Don't you hate him?" Zhang Laobo said, "Why hate? Your father joined the Communist Party before, and when he went to Chief Hu's side, he was the master of each of them. The only blame is that Mr. Jiang Lao had to fight a civil war later. If there is no civil war, won't everyone be at peace? ”
Mr. Zhang also recommended that Taiwan's "Biographical Literature" reprint his father's "Twelve Years Underground and Zhou Enlai" and write an article for the journal, telling why Mr. Hu used his father at that time. He said, "The most prominent thing about the bear is the purity of his temperament, which I have only seen in my life... Hu Zhi's choice of him as an attendant is a very appropriate decision, and if I am Hu, I will make the same choice. The only blame is zhou Enlai for being good at choosing people, causing Hu's lifelong regrets. Elder Zhang also wrote: "Xiong joined the Communist Party first, not after being reused by Hu and then joining the Communist Party." He is working for the Communist Party, and he should be loyal to the Communist Party, which is precisely the righteousness of each of his masters. ”
Later, the COMMUNIST Party History Publishing House published a collection of his father's "Twelve Years Underground" and other reminiscences published later, entitled "My Intelligence and Diplomatic Career", and also included Zhang Buddha's article as an appendix.
As I interacted with the elderly Kuomintang, I gradually understood that dissident fathers transcended partisan friendship. It was the brotherhood that condensed in the bloody rain and wind of fighting against foreign insults, like blood thicker than water. This is exactly "the brothers who have crossed the robbery wave, and they have a smile and a vendetta when they meet each other." What's more, they have no personal grudges. Moreover, for them, there is another kind of great righteousness that is more important than partisanship, that is, the reunification of the Chinese nation.
This also allowed me to understand the father's personality from another side. If the father is not a friend to be made, no matter how great the national righteousness, it will not prompt these elderly people to re-talk to their father after decades of isolation. This changed my stereotype of Communists. Since communism wants to absorb the essence of all cultures, communists must naturally have a broad mind. The so-called "sea is a hundred rivers, there is tolerance is great". In order to flaunt their political correctness, they wear a "class struggle" face all day long, and they are completely incompatible with different views, different opinions, and different factions, and they are not really communists. Firm faith and strong human feelings are not contradictory.
(ii)
In recent years, I have come into contact with many media people who want to understand my father's "lurking" experience, and they do not understand the legend that my father was able to retreat from the important information of the Kuomintang army's "blitzkrieg" and attack on Yan'an twice in 1943 and 1947, and even speculated that Hu Zongnan was "communist" or had too much affection for his father, so he "let Xiong Xianghui go on a horse."
This speculation is unfounded. Some people only look at the successful delivery of these two important pieces of information in isolation, but do not understand the tenacity and wisdom of the "idle chess and cold children" of my father's generation in the enemy camp. I once combed through some of the things he did in the four years from March 1939, when my father served as Hu Zongnan's confidential secretary, and in July 1943, when he sent Chiang Kai-shek's secret order for Hu Zongnan to blitz Yan'an:
On his first day in office, he caught up with the completion of the River Defense Brigade of the Fourth Regiment of The Battle Cadres—the cadets were all officials above the county chief, and Hu Zongnan was going to speak. Mr. Hu got up at 7 o'clock, ate at 7:30, and while eating, he read the speech prepared for him by the original secretary, and felt that it was not good to write, so he asked his father to write another one. The ceremony begins at 8 o'clock and takes less than 30 minutes. My father wrote the speech in 15 minutes, and Mr. Hu was very satisfied.
In March 1940, when General Zhang Xueliang was detained by Chiang Kai-shek in Yangmingdong, Xiuwen County, Guizhou, he wrote a letter to Mr. Hu encouraging him to resist the War to the end, and sent a poem expressing his feelings, recalling the days when he spent time with Hu Zongnan in Wang Qu, and many feelings for Wang Qu's landscape and scenery.
Zhang Xueliang is using the scenery to say things. Mr. Hu read his letters and sentimental poems, and asked his father to draft them first and write a letter back to Zhang. He said, let's also borrow the scenery to talk about things. It means not to write too explicitly, but the meaning of the expression should be written. The father's letter reads:
Mr. Han Qing:
Reading the three or four hand books, very dependent, infinitely dependent! Promise a good poem, heroic, there are great waves of indignation, I want to see the grandeur of closed-door learning in recent years!
Wang Qu is a very good term, good mountains and good water, good plains, there are smoke clouds and trees, everywhere lining up the great, and now there are good pastures, good hotels, good swimming pools, good parades, good primary schools, good forest farms, weather, not in the Taishi Cave at the right time!
Nearly 20,000 students of the military academy near Wang Qu were outstanding young people in Yanzhao Lubian, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, with warm emotions and murderous spirits, showing the magnificence of qinling mountains and the scenery of Wang Qu.
Every time on the Qinglong Ridge, looking at the smoke and clouds on the mountain, the bright moon in the sky, all of them miss the heroes and beauties thousands of miles away, the light, the honor, and the feeling of being overwhelmed.
My brother has been very ashamed to review the work of the past, especially in the tactics of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and he is quite indignant about what is right and wrong today and what was wrong with yesterday, and he is prepared and prepared, and he will certainly live up to the good battlefield, the good country, and the good times.
I will leave Chengdu and return to the northwest, with the most sincere heart, I wish my brother good health! And thank you!
Brother Hu Zong went south, march 22 in Chengdu
Mr. Hu read it and was also very satisfied.
In July 1940, Bai Chongxi, deputy director of the Military Training Department and deputy chief of staff, visited Xi'an. After that, Hu Zongnan accompanied him and took two cars to Lanzhou. Some of the advance personnel left first in the bus. Hu Zongnan and Bai Chongxi, as well as their father and Bai Chongxi's confidential secretary Xie Hegeng, traveled in two small cars one after the other.
Xie and Lao Bo were also idle chess players arranged by Zhou Enlai, but neither he nor his father knew each other's secret identities at that time. When the group walked along the Sealand Highway to Liupan Mountain, it began to rain heavily. The section of the Sealand Highway, known as the "Dirty Highway", was a dirt road, and the heavy rain caused the mountain to collapse, blocking the road at once. At this time, the front car had already disappeared, and before the car behind could keep up, there were only two small cars in which Bai and Hu and their father and Xie and Geng were riding.
In the northwest, the Loess Plateau is crisscrossed by ravines. My father looked down and saw a deep ditch about 30 meters deep, and there was a house in the ditch. It was raining heavily and it was getting dark. The father told the driver to dig out a milestone made of stone strips on the side of the road and put it under the tires of the trolley to prevent the trolley from slipping. Then he braved the rain, ignored the steep slippery road of the ditch, went down into the ditch, and walked to the lonely house. There is only one elderly couple and three daughters-in-law in the family, and the son is not at home when he goes out to work. The house is very simple, the house is connected by two kangs, one side has a stove, and the other side is leaking rain. Father arranged the overnight stay, came up to the two chiefs and said, there is no way, just spend the night here.
The two chiefs, supported by the guards, went to the house. Two Kang, one for the landlord's whole family to squeeze, and the other for Bai Chongxi and Hu Zongnan. But there was no food, only yam eggs. Fortunately, there was still a little hay in his house, and there were two crock pots on the stove, one with a little salt and the other empty. I boiled yam eggs with hay and added a little salt for dinner. There were no candles for the lighting, so they used flashlights brought by their father and Xie he.
At that time, it was still raining outside, and the house was leaking rain, and everyone's clothes and bedding were wet. Bai Chongxi and Mr. Hu could not sleep, so they sat on the kang and chatted.
Mr. Hu asked Bai Chongxi, can we fight with the Communist Party, can we fight the Communist Party?
Bai Chongxi said: We are engaged in the upper echelons and the Communist Party is engaged in the lower levels; we have the upper echelons and the Communist Party at the lower levels have the upper echelons; there are fewer people at the upper levels and more people at the lower levels.
Mr. Hu also asked: Now that the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression has entered its fourth year, what plans does the center have for the next step?
Bai Chongxi said: The original preparations for resistance were all along the coast, and the national defense fortifications were all built there, but they were not used. After the fighting, the Japanese suddenly wrapped up, and some of the fortifications were lost before they could be opened. At present, Chongqing is bordered by Yunguichuan, and Hunan is incomplete; only Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningqing, and Shaanxi are left in the northwest, Henan is incomplete, and the situation in Xinjiang is very complicated. The other provinces are incomplete. Now here, the Sealand Highway is like this. The Sealand Highway is a defence highway, it has collapsed, and we still live here. Now it can only be "space for time, and small victories are big victories." Father said that this was based on Chairman Mao's "On Protracted War."
Mr. Hu's questions and Bai Chongxi's answers are very indicative of their attitude on the question of whether the Kuomintang can defeat the Communist Party. At this time and in such an environment, what they say is their true words. Father said that such thoughts could not be heard in ordinary times and in public. And they did not shy away from their father and Xie hegeng when they talked about such issues, which was enough to show their trust in these two secretaries.
In the middle of the night, Bai Chongxi wanted to be relieved, but it was still raining outside, and he couldn't go out, so he picked up the empty can on the stove. The daughter-in-law's hands were fast, and the sharpshooter snatched it away, saying that the total of these two cans in the family is a treasure, how can you be a urinal can. Bai Chongxi was stunned and said, How powerful! My father told him, "Pee in this house."
The next morning, when my father saw that the rain had stopped, he ran to the road above, contacted the Lanzhou side through the repair soldiers of the military telephone line, and successfully brought the two commanders and their party to Lanzhou.
Before leaving, Mr. Hu ordered the landlord to give 400 yuan. In front of Bai Chongxi, Mr. Hu said: The common people are so poor, how can they do without revolution!
My father had told him about this more than once, and he wanted to impress him very much.
Father also told him that on December 7 of that year, Mr. Hu told him that he was going to Go to Mount South Wutai to commemorate the third anniversary of his father's death. Mr. Hu's explanation was very simple, only telling the ritual sacrifice with the old etiquette, and the father understood. From arranging the spiritual hall, offering tables, sandalwood incense burners, to preparing dried fruits, cold cuts, hot dishes, and fruits, especially a chicken in the hot dish, a pinch of hair on each head and tail, and a tablet for the offering, my father was very thoughtful. Until how to pass the sacrifice to Mr. Hu after the sacrifice began, how to light candles and burn incense, how to place the futon that gave Mr. Hu three kneeling and nine prostrations and sing the promise, the father arranged it meticulously, and Mr. Hu was particularly satisfied.
Father said that many things are opportunities, such as this one, which is a coincidence. He did not know in advance that Mr. Hu was going to worship his father, nor could he have made sufficient preparations in advance. But in the whole process, mr. Hu thought of things, he did for him; the things he did not think of, he also thought of doing for him. Moreover, to handle such things, it is not enough to be diligent and alert, but also to understand these old etiquettes and traditional national culture, and it is necessary to have knowledge and accumulation of life. None of these aspects can be done overnight.
From this, it is also understandable why Zhou Enlai, when selecting secret party members who had infiltrated the south of Huzong, proposed to come from a family of officials and eunuchs. Therefore, Hu Zongnan reused his father for many reasons, not just opportunities and coincidences.
After that, my father secretly went with Mr. Hu to meet Tang Enbo at the mouth of the Xixia Pass in Henan, accompanied him to Henan and Shanxi to meet wei Lihuang and Yan Xishan respectively, helped him arrange for Jiang Weiguo to go to the front-line troops, accompanied Chiang Ching-kuo's brothers jiang Weiguo on his inspection tour in the northwest on his behalf, attended a meeting of senior generals convened by He Yingqin in Xi'an, and also accompanied Mr. Hu to meet with Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Lin Biao, generals of the Eighth Route Army of the CPC, who had traveled from Xi'an to Yan'an.
In particular, from August 15 to September 14, 1942, Chiang Kai-shek inspected the northwest. After Mr. Hu went to Baoji Airport to greet him, he suffered from wind and cold, and was too sick to walk. Therefore, he ordered his father to accompany Chiang Kai-shek on his behalf. Because more than two months before that, his father accompanied Chiang Ching-kuo's brothers Chiang Wei-kuo on a visit to the northwest, and later sent them all the way to Chongqing, where Chiang Kai-shek received him at home, invited him to dinner, and expressed his gratitude.
This time, my father accompanied Chiang Kai-shek in inspecting Gansu, Qingdao, Shaanxi, and other provinces, focusing on inspecting the Hexi region, and then returned to Xi'an to participate in the military conference he convened and presided over. During the escort, my father also told each other jokes to Mr. Jiang Lao.
Father told Mr. Hu about his casual relationship with him and told a story. Once, in Xinglongling, the attendant soldiers came to wake up his father in the middle of the night, saying that Mr. Hu was going back to Xi'an, and he couldn't sleep and was waiting in the car.
At about one o'clock in the middle of the night, when I got into the car, my father dozed off. Mr. Hu is in good spirits! When he saw the moon, he said, "How can you sleep on such a good night?" My father had to wake up.
Mr. Hu also said, such a good night, how can there be no poetry! Father said that since he said so, Mr. Hu would have a good sentence. Mr. Hu said that innovation is not as good as retro, I think of Cao Cao, Yokozuna Fu poem, "The moon star is rare, the black magpie flies south, three turns around the tree, what branches can be relied on?" The mountains are not tired of height, and the sea is not tired of being deep. Zhou Gong spits and feeds, and the world returns to the heart", very courageous.
Father said that today there is a moon, but there are no crows, and it is unlucky to say "three turns around the tree, and what branches can be relied on".
Mr. Hu said, you see? What do you have to say? Father said, since you said that innovation is not as good as retro, it is still Chen Ziang's "Deng youzhou platform" those two good sentences, "before I did not see the ancients, after I did not see the comers." Thinking of heaven and earth, alone but weeping. ”
In the middle of the night, there was only one car on the road, and there was no one in front and no one in the back. Mr. Hu was very happy and said, "I don't see the ancients before, and I don't see the comers after me"!
By July 1943, my father's roots in Mr. Hu's place were already deep. The level of trust thus built up cannot be easily shaken.
(iii)
Since I hadn't heard my father and mother talk about anything related to their work when I was a child, I never knew what my father was doing. In my opinion, a father is a father, he cares for us, we respect him, and that is enough. It doesn't matter what he's "out there" about.
It wasn't until the winter when I was in the fourth grade of elementary school, by chance, that my mother took me to Diaoyutai— which was a bit like a cadre club at that time, and wasn't heavily guarded today— that I met Premier Zhou. The prime minister asked me who my father was, and my little hairy boy refused to say his father's name, but instead said to the prime minister in a daze, "You don't know him anyway." The Prime Minister smiled and said, then you can say it and see. I reluctantly said that his surname was Xiong. Unexpectedly, the prime minister immediately said his father's name: Oh, Xiong Xianghui, I know him. I was very surprised and did not understand how the prime minister could know my father, who was very ordinary in my mind.
Many years later, I learned that the relationship between my father and Premier Zhou began as early as the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. He did underground work before liberation and diplomatic work after liberation, both under the direct leadership of Premier Zhou. Premier Zhou was one of his father's most revered men. Father also had great respect for Chairman Mao, Chen Yi, Ye Jianying and several other veteran marshals.
Out of this reverence, after the 1980s, the central party history department listed his father as the "rescue target" of party history, and when he wrote articles recalling these great people and the historical events he experienced, he gladly began to write, which led to these later articles.
Unfortunately, not everything my father wanted to write was written. One is that his body is no longer able to do it. He suffered from severe duodenal ulcers at a young age, and in his later years suffered from bladder cancer, prostate cancer, cervical spur hyperplasia and compression of the spinal cord, until he finally developed lung cancer and was hospitalized several times a year. The second is that he is too serious, and the verification of writing requirements, especially historical facts, is too strict, which not only affects the speed of writing, but also makes it difficult to find his suitable assistant. One of the big reasons I couldn't be an assistant to my father was that he didn't think I was rigorous enough. Third, because he was so conscientious and rigorous, he could not tolerate a little inaccuracy in important party history articles, and when he found them, he would write an article to point out that this also cost him a lot of energy.
I once advised him to write his own article and ignore the mistakes of others. However, he felt that it was very important to sweep away counterfeiting and crack down on counterfeiting and clean up the source. In the book "My Intelligence and Diplomatic Career", there are several articles that revise important historical facts in this way, and this is how they are written. I feel that this is like a kind of basic construction of history and party history, and these articles, like other articles of my father, provide valuable historical materials for future generations of scholars, and also provide a more valuable and rigorous attitude towards the study of future generations. I have heard more than one staff member of Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou say: The articles written by your father are the most authentic and credible.
Although my father did not write a complete memoir, these articles are not only a true record of the wisdom, heroism, and great talent of chairman Mao and Premier Zhou's generation of Communists, but also reflect my father's extraordinary life experience.