Pu Yi's "The First Half of My Life"
In the Jin Dynasty, there was a minister named Zhang Hua, who was good at astronomy, and once he saw the image of a treasure candle in the sky, he asked his friend Lei Huan to go to Fengcheng to search for treasures. Lei Huan dug out a pair of swords in the county prison, the male was called "Pure Hook", and the female was called "Zhanlu". Lei Huan admires one of them, and one of them is dedicated to Zhang Hua. Later, Zhang Hua took this sword to the mouth of Yanpingjin, and the sword suddenly jumped out of the scabbard, reached the water's edge, and turned into a dragon. A dragon also came out of the water, formed a pair, and flew to the sky. Zhang Hua was surprised for a while, and sent someone to Lei Huan to ask, Lei Huan replied that he had crossed the Pingjin Pass before, and the sword fell into the water. Zhang Hua knew that the two swords were separated and reunited, and they went away with this change. Today, people say that karma coincides and karma meets, and the phrase "Yanjin Sword Combination" is often used.
There are several versions of Puyi's autobiography "The First Half of My Life", including:
The First Half of My Life, mimeographed, upper, middle and lower volumes (1958); "The First Half of My Life", a large-size, 16-folio edition, labeled "unfinalized", three volumes (1959); In January 1960, "The First Half of My Life" was officially published by the People's Publishing House (the first edition) of the "gray book" (modified and cut and pasted by the author); In March 1962, Pu Yi personally revised the "Pu Yi Revised Edition" "My First Half of Life" in three volumes, with 16 large characters; Li Wenda and Pu Yi changed their manuscripts three times, and the revised version of September 2, 1963 was preserved by Pu Yi in the Nine Reforms and Nine Schools.
The versions of "The First Half of My Life" in the above periods were collected by me over a period of more than ten years and divided into four times, and the process is quite called "Yanjin Jianhe".
In the early 90s of the last century, I was in a thrift market stall called "Shuanglong" near Panjiayuan, and for the first time I got the upper and lower editions of the revised edition of Pu Yi's autographed version of "The First Half of My Life". The revised version dated September 2, 1963, which was revised and preserved by Pu Yi himself.
The second time, in the miscellaneous manuscripts of a book by an old collector surnamed Xu, I found the novella of Pu Yi's autographed revision and the first and second volumes of the mimeographed version of "My First Half of Life" in the spring of 1958. In this way, I got together the revised copy of "The First Half of My Life" by Pu Yi, which was 8 years different from my first discovery. It is a pity that the mimeographed copy of "The First Half of My Life" in the spring of 1958, the most precious of all, is missing.
A year later, I made a third discovery. This time, I unexpectedly harvested the third mimeographed copy of "My First Half of My Life" in the spring of 1958, a "gray book" of "My First Half of My Life" in 1960 that was revised and cut and pasted by the author, and a volume of material materials written by Pu Yi for "My First Half of Life". Because these are remnants, I bought them with little money, but they made up a "complete picture" with what I had hidden at home.
The fourth time, I found the first, middle and lower three volumes of "My First Half of My Life" printed in the autumn of 1959 in a large-size, 16-folio edition based on the mimeographed version of "My First Half of My Life" in the autumn of 1959 in a batch of old books of Mr. Lu Zhenyu that I bought back two years ago. I was overjoyed.
After almost thirteen or fourteen years, I finally gathered several precious editions (manuscripts to be exact) of the diaspora "The First Half of My Life". In order to understand the story of "The First Half of My Life", I consulted a lot of relevant materials. Now I will sort out the manuscripts that I have stored at home.
"The First Half of My Life" is the autobiography of Puyi, the last emperor of China. According to relevant sources, including Pu Yi and his younger brother Pu Jie, the book was actually compiled from Pu Yi's confession at the Fushun War Criminals Administration. In 1954, the Fushun War Criminals Management Institute launched a campaign to confess and report war criminals, requiring war criminals to pick up the pen and reflect on their own crimes by combing through history and summarizing the past. With the help of Pu Jie and some puppet Manchurian ministers, the first draft of Pu Yi's 450,000-word autobiographical confession "The First Half of My Life" was written.
In the spring of 1958, a total of 60 mimeographed copies of "The First Half of My Life" were submitted to the Ministry of Public Security and distributed to leading institutions such as the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the United Front Work Department. The mimeographed version of "The First Half of My Life" quickly attracted great attention from the Ministry of Public Security, the United Front Work Department, and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Xu Bing, head of the United Front Work Department, instructed: "Print 400 copies of large-character copies and distribute them to the central leading comrades. In the autumn of 1959, 400 copies of "The First Half of My Life" were quickly printed in large-font, 16-folio editions in the form of "unfinalized" and distributed to Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and other central leaders and responsible persons in various fields. In January 1960, the first edition of "The First Half of My Life" was officially published by the People's Publishing House, with a gray cover, 32 folios, divided into upper and lower volumes, with a total of 7,000 sets printed, stipulating "internal distribution", which was limited to cadres above 17 years old at that time. This is commonly known as the "gray book". In June 1962, the revised version of "The First Half of My Life", with a total of 500,000 words, was divided into three volumes, printed in 16 large characters, and distributed to all parties for comments. On the basis of extensive solicitation of opinions, "The First Half of My Life", which was published in Beijing and Hong Kong in March 1964.
I put all the editions (manuscripts) of "The First Half of My Life" in my family collection on my desk and compared them one by one. The 1958 mimeographed edition of My First Half of My Life (three volumes) and the 1959 large-size, sixteen-folio edition of My First Half of My Life (unfinalized, three volumes upper, middle and lower) are all available; In January 1960, the "gray book" of "The First Half of My Life" was cut and pasted by the author, and the revised version is also there. In addition to the above three editions, there are still three volumes of "My First Half of My Life" corrected by Pu Yi and printed by the Mass Publishing House in March 1962, with 16 large characters and the first and second volumes of "My First Half of Life" preserved and revised by Pu Yi on September 2, 1963 (clear proof).
According to the instructions for the reprint of the "complete version" of "My First Half of Life" published by the People's Publishing House in 2007, they also had a "first draft" that "started anew" in June 1962 and a "second draft" printed in October 1962. Then the big print in March 1962 should have preceded the "first manuscript"; The revision on September 2, 1963 was supposed to be one of the three changes between Li Wenda and Pu Yi, and one of the nine reforms and nine schools.
I don't know if the "whole book" "The First Half of My Life" contains these versions of the collection. If I have them, they have them there, then I have solved a conjecture that has been nesting in my heart for more than ten years: these "manuscripts" of mine may really be Mr. Pu Yi's old collection. (Fang Jixiao)
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