Recently, the biographical documentary work "White Pigeon Mulan: Great Love in the Flames" was published by Sanlian Bookstore. The author of the book is the famous Taiwanese writer Li Li in the United States, and the protagonists of the book, Xue Jiemin and Yao Mingzhu, are her father-in-law and mother-in-law, whom she has never met. The two of them unfortunately died in Taiwan in the 1950s, but the reason and truth of the sacrifice have long been unknown.
Through a large number of diaries, letters, archives and interviews with the parties and other first-hand information, Li Li traced the family's legacy, inquired about the history of the nation, re-outlined the complete history of the events, described the brilliance of the ancestors, and also left a witness for that tragic era again, setting an indelible personality model for the past.
Magnolia Creek and White Pigeon Ridge
"The water of Mulan Creek has been flowing for a long time, and the White Pigeon Ridge stands tall and strong, and the beloved grace of the villagers can never be forgotten." This is the last pen of the martyr Xue Jiemin in Taipei prison on January 18, 1963. Mulan Creek and Bai Pigeon Ridge are the landscapes of his hometown in Fujian, and the "beloved grace of the villagers" refers to his motherland. Xue Jiemin and Yao Mingzhu, who were born in Putian, Fujian Province, from green plum bamboo horses, like-minded cousins, experienced eight years of long-distance bitter love, and finally married a husband and wife who suffered and shared hardships, and walked together for a vigorous life. In more than twenty years of companionship, they did not let love limit their vision, but gave birth to a firm will to resist more difficulties for the people.
Xue Jiemin and Yao Mingzhu
Based on this belief, Xue Jiemin joined the Air Force, hoping to defend the sky of the motherland through his own body; Yao Mingzhu chose to study in medical school to do his part to save the country in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and at the same time joined progressive groups such as the "Chinese National Liberation Vanguard" and devoted himself to underground work after the victory of the War of Resistance. They joined the Chinese Communist Party and came to Taiwan with the Kuomintang government after 1949. Xue Jiemin was an air force officer, Yao Mingzhu opened a private clinic, and the two continued their revolutionary work.
In 1958, because of the betrayal of traitors, Xue and Yao were arrested and sacrificed in 1963, leaving three young children and being adopted. And this incident, at that time in the "white terror" of Taiwan, there was no clear statement; coupled with the adults around them, people were constantly arrested and investigated, so why the parents were killed, the three children never knew the truth. Li Li's husband, Xue Jiemin and Yao Mingzhu's eldest son, Xue Renwang, went to the United States to study with the help of his adoptive father after graduating from university, engaged in medical research, and became a famous scholar in related fields. In the late 1970s, the organization got in touch with the couple, and they returned to the mainland to start visiting their parents. It was not until the end of the 1990s, when relevant archives on both sides of the strait were declassified one after another, that Li Li really came into contact with first-hand information and collaged the obscure, tortuous and complicated fragments of the incident. Shocked, she made up her mind to write the wishes of this couple who were full of ideals, loved each other, and died side by side for the revolution.
Thirty years of searching and writing
The book is written from the birth of Xue Jiemin and Yao Mingzhu, showing their life clues in chronological order; and the ashes of the two of them are placed in the "Babaoshan Martyrs Cemetery". Because Li Li has the dual identity of "related person" (the protagonist of the writing is the parent of the closest person) and "outsider" (because she has never met them and has not experienced that period of time), she has "accidentally" become a writer with both close subjective emotions and an objective attitude towards data processing. As a history graduate of "National Taiwan University", although she later engaged in literary creation and was jokingly called "a deserter of the history department" by her old classmates, the four years of history training she learned in college — the search, analysis, verification of materials at all costs, and the more honest and accurate when quoting — played a crucial role in the writing of this book. At this point, Li Li is very strict with herself, and she requires that "White Dove Mulan" must be a credible book.
In addition to a large number of letters (family letters, love letters), diaries, notes, and direct and concise interviews with relevant figures, equally important is the declassified materials of Taiwan's "National Archives Bureau": after the DPP came to power, the "Archives Administration" was established in 2001 to collect information on political cases during the "martial law" years of the Kuomintang. After years of collation and "decryption", Li Li obtained the interrogation file of Xue Yao's case as a family member of the victim in 2014 – there were more than 2,000 pages of pictures in two CDs, and she flipped through the pages to find credible clues and available information, which was the most arduous and painful project.
Compared with the above information, the "information" that the three orphaned brothers and sisters left by the martyr Xue Yao can provide is very limited. This was because Li Li couldn't bear to ask them to dig up those deeply buried memories, not to mention that at that time, they didn't know what had happened. This is Li Li's psychological preparation, so more than one point in the book points out that the children who were probably at the scene at the time invariably can't remember clearly, or leave no memory at all, and the only explanation is the forced forgetting under excessive shock and injury. But there are some scenes that cannot be forgotten, like the scene of the children seeing their parents on the cold stone slab on the day after the execution, which only they can narrate, and Li Li's heart is like a knife when he writes it down.
After making up his mind to write, Li Li spent thirty years exploring this tortuous and long family history. In the process of pursuing, she gradually discovered the inseparable and grand national history behind it. This is not only the story of two people, but also the story of a big era. In the past thirty years, countless searches have crossed the ocean to both sides of the Taiwan Strait, hundreds of pages of yellowed and crisp handwriting on letterhead notes, more than two thousand pages of interrogation pictures of the Taiwan Archives Bureau that are difficult to read with blood and tears, and repeated additions and deletions in two years... Finally, in November 2019, the traditional Chinese version of "White Dove Mulan" was launched in Taiwan. It was immediately selected by Hong Kong's Asia Weekly as one of the top ten Chinese books (non-fiction) in 2019. The mainland edition was published by Sanlian Bookstore in December 2020.
The characteristics of the simplified chinese version are the expectations of the author
Shortly after the traditional Chinese version came out, after some relatives and friends put forward guidance and suggestions, Li Li made corrections and additions in details: such as the ranking of Yao Mingzhu's mother, the description of the two photo characters; the importance of historical events such as the "Zhao Liangzhang Incident", and more Yao Mingzhu's patriotic activities in "FuYi", the true identity of Xue Jiemin's classmate "Cai Ruxin", and the photos that were not used in the traditional Chinese version... And so on, all of them have been added and added to the mainland simplified chinese version. There are also some books that still feel that the words are not exhausted after they are completed, and Li Li also took this opportunity to add an "afterword".
Xue Jiemin
And Li Li believes and sincerely expects that after the publication of the simplified Chinese version, there will be more additions; especially a few major doubts that have not yet been clarified, such as what is the real specific task of Xue Yao and his wife being ordered to go to Taiwan? As a civilian woman, Yao Mingzhu's crimes on the "verdict" are not extremely serious and conclusive, so why was she finally sentenced to death? Taiwan's "State Archives" should have publicly "declassified" archives that are supposed to be complete and complete, but in the more than four years that Xue and Yao were detained, there were no records of a single word on paper for two years, and there was no investigation and interrogation, which almost violates common sense; how big is the "secret" that claims to be completely declassified and not made public? Or was it deliberately erased? Why? Even the status and importance of Xue Yao and the two in the secret service system lurking in Taiwan could not find direct proof. When these most crucial "secrets" will be solved, it is beyond the author's ability to know.
What is also intriguing is that the son of the martyr not only did not encounter any trouble in military service in Taiwan afterwards, but also became a gendarme; studying abroad was able to obtain an exit permit through layers of examinations and smooth boarding... One by one, these major thresholds have passed safely, and it seems that there is a pair of invisible hands that secretly protect him; where this is the blessing from, I am afraid, will always be a mystery.
The author hopes that after the publication of this book on the mainland, if there is a clue to clear the fog in the echo, it will add the most important and final stroke to the book - because this is not only the story of individuals or families, but it is many such stories that have converged into this long volume of the arduous and magnificent history of the Chinese nation.