In China, after death, people generally leave the inheritance after death to their own descendants to inherit. However, an American female journalist has left her high-fee legacy to Marshal Zhu De of China after a hundred years. Who is this woman? Why did she leave this large inheritance to China's founding marshal?
The American female journalist was named Smedley.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" Data-track="4" Who is Smedley >? </h1>
In 1892, Agnes. Smedley was born in the United States. The United States is developing day by day. But people's joys and sorrows are not the same. Smedley was born into a very poor family. Her parents, both working-class workers with meager salaries, were exploited and oppressed by capitalists in the United States, and had a very difficult life. Born in such a family, Smedley has no choice, she deserves to work hard in society early to earn some money and fight for the support of her family like her parents. He even worked as a maid in a rich family, and his life of three or four inferiors made Smedley's anger towards the capitalists deeper and deeper.
Unlike other poor children, Smedley believed that knowledge changed fate. She didn't want to be immersed in such a dim and bright day without a bright future, and she couldn't choose her birth, but the change of the day after tomorrow was completely something she could do.
Smedley studied hard, and Heaven always showed people talents in different areas that others could not reach. Smedley found herself particularly sensitive to words, a gift from God that she earned by this gift.
In this way, Smedley became a female journalist, had a glamorous job, and was no longer a maid in a capitalist luxury villa.
And it was because of this job that smedlet's lifelong journey changed.
The identity of a journalist, the years of war, can give her the opportunity to go abroad to cover the world abroad. By chance, Smedley came to China. Perhaps it is the entanglement in the underworld, in this strange land, this girl with the appearance of an American has found resonance between the white mountains and black waters of China.
Smedley's first contact when he came to China as an American journalist was within the Kuomintang. In that environment, China was torn apart, and each force had different supporters behind it. The Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek is a pro-American faction and a capitalist system. As a new democracy, the Chinese Communist Party is supported by the Soviet Union, which is the same as the United States.
Here in the Kuomintang, Smedley heard some bad things about the Chinese Communist Party from soong Mei Ling and others. They believe that the Chinese Communist Party is a bunch of people of the same nature as bandits. Although there are preconceived notions among Kuomintang insiders, as a journalist, we must pay attention to the substantive evidence, and when we have seen it with our own eyes, we must not distort the facts of the report, hearsay.
At the same time, because of his status as a journalist, Smedley also liked to explore the nature of things in the crowd, and in the mouths of ordinary people, the Communist Party was not as bad as the Kuomintang population said. In this way, Smedley became more curious about the Chinese Communist Party.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="51" > Smedley and the Chinese Communist Party and Zhu De</h1>
What to think about, this may be the destiny of the underworld. In 1937, Japan began its ambitious war of total aggression against China. The two parties, the Kuomintang and the Communists, which have been at a stalemate, have been in full swing after the death of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. On the other hand, Chiang Kai-shek also insisted that the outside world must first be an internal party to hang the Chinese Communist Party. But individuals cannot change the tide of history. Faced with Chiang Kai-shek's stubborn obsession with suppressing the Communists, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng planned the Xi'an Incident. By kidnapping Chiang Kai-shek, he forced Chiang Kai-shek to start resisting Japan.
This time, those who disagreed with Chiang Kai-shek also secretly wanted to secretly kill Chiang Kai-shek. But killing Chiang Kai-shek was not the intention of Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng. In the end, the Nationalist government could not be leaderless, and under the planning of Soong Mei Ling and others, Chiang Kai-shek agreed to unanimously resist Japan. Abandoning his idea of suppressing the Communists, the Chinese Communist Party also advocated a peaceful solution to the Xi'an Incident, and the Kuomintang and the Communists began their second cooperation.
Breaking the ice in the relationship between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party provided Smedley with an opportunity to interview chinese communists. Taking advantage of the events of the Xi'an Incident, Smedley embarked on a journey to the Soviet region of northern Shaanxi in 1937. It was this journey that changed the footprints of her life.
Along the way, Smedley imagined in his mind countless times what the Image of the Chinese Communists would be. The Chinese Communist Party, on the other hand, sent Zhu De to meet the journalist from the United States.
When Smedley first saw Jude, he was shocked. Because it's completely different from the leaders she's interviewed in the past. The Chinese man in front of him, with a thick face, smiled and showed eight teeth, and there was no shelf for an official at all. Jude's clothes looked very worn, and most of their original colors had been washed away. The elbows and other parts were also patched, which was the appearance of a leader, nor like the appearance of a bandit in the Kuomintang population, and in Smedley's eyes, he was only a peasant in the yellow land.
But soon, Smedley was ashamed of her appearance.
Judd was enthusiastic, and soon they became acquainted. Smedley's Chinese was not very good, but she obviously did not expect that this peasant-like Jude in front of him could actually speak English and a little German and French. After all, Jude had also studied in Germany, and the two were barely able to communicate.
Here, for the first time, Smedley correctly understood the Chinese Communist Party, a people-centered political party, in Zhu De's mouth. A party against exploitation, against oppression. In Judd's bright eyes, Smedley seemed to understand a lot, and it seemed to be what she had been pursuing.
Smedley grew up poor under the exploitation of capitalists. She agreed with the ideas of the Chinese Communist Party. People are empathetic, and looking at these toiling masses in the colonies can't help but make Smedley think of his young self. The sense of substitution is strengthened, and the ability to empathize with understanding is deepened.
And it was in the midst of this brief conversation that Smedley had a firm idea. She was going to write a biography of the man in front of her. Since then, Smedley and Judd and their party have eaten and lived together. Feelings have no borders, and people who have been with each other for a long time will inevitably have feelings. Of course, the relationship between Jude and the American female journalist is more like a brother and a father. In life, Judd takes care of her, and at the same time, in Judd, Smedley also learns things that he would not have touched before.
At the same time, Smedley is also very warm in the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party, and the people here are very enthusiastic. Give her the feeling of being at home. The atmosphere here is not the same as the hypocritical greetings and polite bureaucratic style of the Kuomintang. And those ghostly words spoken by the Kuomintang in front of American journalists in order to smear the Chinese Communist Party for their own selfish interests have long been thrown out of the clouds by Smedley. Sure enough, everything is seen and heard.
War soon broke out under the trend of the times, and Zhu De had to go to the front line to lead the soldiers to defend the country. Smedley was faced with a dilemma of whether to go to the front with Judd and the others. Smedley has never been in close contact with a battlefield where she will die in a fleeting way, and she struggled for a long time, and finally decided to go to the battlefield with Jude and others, on the one hand, to record the real moments for Jude's biography, on the other hand, it is really impossible to leave the people here.
However, on the eve of his departure, Smedley fell on horseback and was seriously injured. As a guest sent by the United States, the safety of life is always the first priority. Under everyone's persuasion, Smedley returned to the county to receive good medical treatment.
After recovering from his injuries, Smedley was still preoccupied with the front line. After many people failed to persuade him, Smedley boarded the journey to the front line of the War of Resistance. However, the war is becoming more and more intense, and the casualties are getting worse. Jude himself didn't know if he could still see the sun of tomorrow. Helplessly, under Judd's hard insistence, Smedley left the battlefield.
And this distinction is a lifetime!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="55" > The Great Road: The Life and Times of Jude</h1>
In 1941, Smedley returned to her homeland, to the land where she was born. After returning to China, she still had her heart set on writing a biography of Jude. But with the advent of World War II, the United States was in turmoil, and I was busy as a journalist. And the United States, as a capitalist country, is even less likely to allow the positive material of Communists like Judd to burst out. Smedley's writing plans were also frequently suppressed.
People's beliefs were strong, and the United States could not stay any longer, so Smedley came to England. But the British authorities did not make Smedley happy. The U.S. government even released sugar-coated shells to get Smedley to smear China's Jude. But that was impossible, and the time spent with the Chinese Communists day and night had already been imprinted in Smedley's heart, and perhaps this woman also had the revolutionary spirit of the Chinese Communists at that moment.
Later, the hungry and cold Smedley suffered from stomach disease, which continued to deteriorate and became a serious stomach cancer. She had to hurry up to complete the biography.
No one wouldn't want to live longer, let alone someone like Smedley who still has faith? She chose to undergo surgery to remove her stomach, prevent the cancer from spreading, and perhaps have a chance of survival. However, it was in the mid-20th century, and the level of science and technology was far less developed than that of modern times. This kind of large surgery is still risky even if it is done now, let alone in that era?
The risk of surgery is high and you may never wake up again. If she really can't wake up, what if she still has unfinished things? So Smedley arranged her affairs in advance and left her last words and wishes.
"All my income from the manuscript fee is given to Marshal Zhu De of the People's Republic of China. In addition, if possible, I hope that my ashes will be buried in China, and it is best to sing a Chinese national anthem for me when I am buried. ”
God is always so manipulative that he doesn't go around perfectly. Smedley fell on the operating table forever, and she didn't survive the operation or overcome the disease. In accordance with Smedley's will, the lawyer handed over her manuscript inheritance to Marshal Zhu De, who was far away in China.
When Marshal Zhu De received this news, he was already in tears. Although I haven't seen it for many years, those pictures flash in my mind like a marquee, frame by frame as if everything happened yesterday, but everything is already human.
With a joint effort, Smedley's ashes were shipped to China. Zhu De personally received her ashes and personally buried her in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, buried in the Chinese land that Smedley had in mind.
On her tombstone, the citizens of the People's Republic of China wrote:
"Friends of the Chinese people and writer of the American Revolution, Agnes. Tomb of Lady Smedley. ”
On the day she was buried, Zhu De played "The March of the Volunteer Army", The National Anthem of China, in front of her tombstone. Looking at the tombstone of this former friend, Judd followed the melody in front of Smedley's tomb, gently humming the familiar melody, which was a final farewell to this friend.
And that biography of Judd was also seen after Smedley's death. In 1979, the book was published in China under the title The Great Road: The Life and Times of Zhu De. Worthy of god's appreciation of food and writing, Smedley's writing style is very delicate, introducing Zhu De and inserting the history of Jude's life. The respect expressed between the lines of Zhu De also expresses high respect for the indomitable history of resistance.
To this day, the book is still on sale, and countless people have come to read it. It has become an enduring work, and it will continue to be passed on.
There are many foreign friends like the American journalist Smedley who struggled for the Chinese revolution, such as The Well-known Doctor Bethune, who took it as his duty to save lives and help the wounded on the battlefield, and in his heart there were no borders, and some were just patients waiting for him to be pulled back from the hands of the god of death. Although we have different skin tones and different pupils, we come from different countries. But when we have the same faith, there are no borders between us. We will be comrades-in-arms!
And these people will not be forgotten by China, and the writings left by Smedley, the medical school named after Dr. Bethune, and the heroes who slept in the revolutionary cemetery are engraved in China's history and will never be erased.
With the passage of that history, the people in that history no longer exist, but the spirit they left us will last forever and is worth learning from future generations.