Wake up（109）

 

109

 

The pneumonia epidemic in Wuhan is severe, and the main theme of the official media's political propaganda is two maintenances: maintaining the core position of the cloud bureaucrats, and maintaining the authority, centralization, and unity of the core. In fact, it is to maintain the situation of "stability over everything else" and to strengthen the unlimited functions of the dictatorship of bureaucrats. On February 23, after the dignitaries delivered the "important speech", the provinces immediately made a statement of "political stance", and the whole party and the country formed a wave of propaganda about "personally commanding and personally deploying".

However, the strength of personality is irresistible. There are always some people who will stand up and express different voices.

Nan Yangsheng turned on his phone and searched for the diary written by the writer Fang Fang. He saw the diary entry "The power of personality is irresistible".

Writer Fang Fang wrote in his diary:

My father’s unit is called the Yangtze River Basin Planning Office, or “Chang’s Office” for short. My father often said that it was the largest office in the world, with thousands of employees working under it. The "Changban" is dedicated to governing the Yangtze River. They designed the Gezhouba Project, the Three Gorges Project, and many hydropower stations on the Yangtze River. The director of the "Long Office" is Lin Yishan. He is a very high-level leader. When we were young, we heard that in Hubei, only Wang Renzhong, then Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, could compare with him. And I heard that both Premier Zhou and Chairman Mao admired him very much. It was rumored that Chairman Mao once said that he did not want to be the chairman and wanted to go to build the Three Gorges with him. Of course, this was a joke made by the big leader to his subordinates, but because of such interesting incidents, Lin Yishan became quite legendary in the whole "long office".

After the Cultural Revolution began, it was natural for Lin Yishan to be impacted. I remember that "Down with 013!" was written in ink everywhere on the red wall in the courtyard of our dormitory. I didn't know what these numbers meant at first, but after my brother pointed it out, I suddenly understood: 013 is Lin Yishan. The younger brother also told me that Lin Yishan had been injured in one hand, and the big-character poster said that he was injured because he was a traitor. I was taken aback by this information, and I felt extremely wronged when I thought that my father was working under a leader who had been a traitor. At that time, I was a fourth-grade elementary school student with a strong sense of love and hate, but I didn't know right and wrong.

"Changban" has a club called the Yangtze River Club, with a green glazed tile roof and a milky yellow exterior wall. It is very beautiful and elegant, and it is a place we like to go to very much. All the celebrations of the "Changban" were held there, and of course, all the criticism meetings during the "Cultural Revolution" were also held there. One day in 1966, the Yangtze River Club held a meeting to criticize Lin Yishan. Although the rumor that Lin Yishan is a traitor is widely spread, he always has a sense of mystery in our children's hearts, and our desire to see what he looks like is very strong. So a few of my companions and I decided to watch this critique meeting.

The gatekeepers of the Yangtze River Club didn't keep us under strict supervision because we were the children of employees. We easily mingled with the adults to watch the meeting. For people of our age, this kind of meeting is naturally not interesting, and Lin Yishan is sitting in the first row of the audience, we can't see him at all. We looked forward and back and forth, and it was easy to look forward to the break. The adults went out to breathe, but Lin Yishan was still sitting there.

We ran to him and saw that he was recording something in a small notebook. His hand was indeed injured.

I squeezed forward and asked, "Did your hand get hurt when you were a traitor?"

Lin Shan raised his head and said seriously: "No, I was injured during the war with the Japanese."

I said, "You lied."

Lin Yishan said: "I never lie!"

Before I had time to ask the next question, I was pushed aside by other children.

When I got home, I told my father. My father was full of emotion, saying that Lin Yishan is a hard-headed person, he is not like other leaders who admit mistakes from beginning to end for expediency. He was always tough, he always stood his ground, he never admitted that he was running the bourgeois line. Father didn't like Lin Yishan in the past, but during the Cultural Revolution he showed great admiration for Lin Yishan's arrogance. Because like Lin Yishan, no matter how much you criticize me, I will stick to my own point of view, which weak intellectuals like my father want to do but dare not.

Later we heard that Lin Yishan was imprisoned in the basement of the building—that dark, damp place where the sun never shines. Later we heard that Lin Yishan, who was imprisoned, asked the guards to beg some sand, and then used the cement abandoned in the basement and the dark water flowing in it to build a small dam by handfuls. I don't know how this incident got out, but it is enough to make everyone who has heard of it extremely moved: touched by a person's unyielding will, moved by a person's unyielding spirit, touched by a person The pursuit of never giving up is moved, and even more so is the personality of a person who will always stand upright.

Later, my father passed away, and I also left the dormitory compound of the "Changban". But whenever I think about the past when I was a teenager, I always think of the scene where I stood in front of the first row of seats in the Yangtze River Club and questioned Lin Yishan, and I remembered Lin Yishan's serious answer. Although I have never seen Lin Yishan again since then, his spirit and personality have always been an irresistible force, quietly affecting my worldview and my life.

Nan Yangsheng carefully read the diary written by the writer Fang Fang. After reading the diary entry "Irresistible Power of Personality", he shed tears.

Chai Jianhua, an old Chinese doctor, once told him: Chai Jianhua and his grandfather He Jiafu were captured and served as soldiers when the Kuomintang recruited young men. A leg was knocked off by Little Japan, and Chai Jianhua was also injured. They should be anti-Japanese heroes. But during the civil war, they fled the national army and opposed the Chinese beating the Chinese. This should also be regarded as a patriotic act of opposing and protesting the Kuomintang. However, various political movements after the founding of the People's Republic have classified them as alternatives, and they may even be spies placed by the Kuomintang on the mainland. In desperation, Chai Jianhua and He Jiafu could only wander around and conceal that period of history. What life and society give them is nothing but loss.

Nan Yangsheng turned off the phone. He accompanied his grandfather He Jiafu to visit the old Chinese doctor Chai Jianhua. He suddenly felt that the strength of personality of these two old men was irresistible.

Grandpa He Jiafu had a leg knocked off by a Japanese devil when he was young. No woman would marry a poor and disabled man. On the contrary, the grandfather adopted the three poor children of Nanyangsheng brother and sister in the rough life. Veteran Chinese medicine practitioner Chai Jianhua was not overwhelmed by political campaigns, but used his knowledge of Chinese medicine to cure diseases and save people, and to bless the people.