Chapter 49 Mingfang and his beloved daughter Xiaofang

Ma Mingfang and I met in Yan'an in 1946. In 1941, Ma Mingfang and other comrades returned from studying in the Soviet Union and returned to Yan'an via Xinjiang. They were placed under house arrest by the Kuomintang reactionary warlord Sheng Shicai, and were later arrested and imprisoned.He stood firm in prison, endured severe torture, resisted coercion and temptation, refuted the enemy's lies, and always insisted on promoting the Eighth Route Army's meritorious service in the war of resistance against Japan, expressing his belief in communism.He took part in leading the work of the party in the prison, mobilized and organized the friends in prison to go on hunger strike with the enemy until the victory achieved the goal. After many negotiations between Comrade Zhou Enlai and Zhang Zhizhong in 1945, in the autumn of 1946, the Kuomintang was forced to release more than 100 victims including Ma Mingfang from imprisonment, and sent Liu Yazhe to escort them back to Yan'an.

That autumn, I worked in the shorthand team of the Northwest Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. When I heard the news of their return to Yan'an, I ran to the hillside where the Northwest Bureau was stationed to welcome them with my comrades.When we saw the big trucks full of heroic sons and daughters passing down the hillside, we were very happy and kept cheering to welcome these unyielding heroes.After four years of living behind bars, overcoming all kinds of difficulties and dangers, he finally returned victorious.They returned to the embrace of the Party and were warmly welcomed and congratulated by the Party Central Committee, Chairman Mao, Commander-in-Chief Zhu, Ren Bishi, Lin Boqu and other central leaders.

After Ma Mingfang and other comrades returned to Yan'an, the organization arranged for them to rest for three months.After the recuperation period expired, the Party Central Committee decided that Comrade Ma Mingfang would remain as the deputy secretary of the Northwest Bureau.It was the winter of 1946, and the winter in Yan'an was very cold. I often saw him wearing a gray coarse cotton coat issued by the government, walking near his residence.He is handsome, with piercing eyes.When we meet, we often take the initiative to talk, ask questions, and have an amiable attitude.I admire him very much in my heart, and I am also proud that Mizhi County has produced such a highly respected revolutionary who was one of the founders of the Northern Shaanxi Revolutionary Base.

Comrade Mingfang's health has been greatly affected by more than four years of prison life.After he was released from prison, he learned that his wife had already died of illness, and he was emotionally hit again.Therefore, the organization is also very concerned about his marriage.During this period, some comrades told me about Mingfang's deeds, and invited me to visit Mingfang's residence from time to time.I am young and innocent, and I don't know the intention.Until one day, an old comrade sent her servant (called "little devil" at that time) to come to me and asked me to help her child with some needlework.Without saying a word, I followed this "little devil" to their house.She and another lesbian received me warmly, asked questions, but never mentioned anything about sewing.I was wondering in my heart that they explained their real intentions, that they wanted to hold a red line for Mingfang and me.Although I have been involved in revolutionary work for several years, I was still young at that time. I only thought about how to do a good job, and I hadn't thought much about marriage.Hearing these words suddenly, I felt my heart beating and my face burning, but I didn't know much about him, so I didn't know how to answer for a while.They may have sensed my thoughts, and focused on telling Mingfang's situation, which made me admire him even more.Thinking of his usual kindness and prudence, and his thin appearance with a bit of heroism, I felt a sense of intimacy in my heart, but after all, he was much older than me, and he already had a son and a daughter, so I still had concerns at that time.

Later I learned that because Mingfang had been engaged in secret revolutionary work for a long time, his ex-wife took care of his parents and a pair of children.These unfortunate encounters with Mingfang made my worries gradually replaced by sympathy, so I agreed to the marriage. We were soon married.The wedding ceremony was simple and solemn. Secretary Xi Zhongxun of the Northwest Bureau, Director of Organization Ma Wenrui, Director of Propaganda Li Zhuoran, Secretary-General Cao Liru and other comrades from the Northwest Bureau all came to congratulate.Put a plate of melon seeds and a plate of sugar on the table, even if the wedding ceremony is held.Put the original quilts of two people together to form a new family.Although the wedding was hasty and simple, I feel happy to be a lifelong partner with the person I respect and love.Although we don't have the promises of modern young people, but we are coming together for a common lofty goal.Since then, I have firmly linked my own destiny with that of this revolutionary.

Not long after we got married, Hu Zongnan, a reactionary Kuomintang, attacked Yan'an in a big way. I followed the Northwest Bureau's brigade and often moved to northern Shaanxi day and night, marching on the Loess Plateau, sometimes wading knee-deep in icy rivers. The enemy's cannons and machine guns fired, and followed the brigade regardless of safety, for fear of falling behind and getting lost.Once I lost my shoes while walking in the heavy rain, and I didn't know it.Mingfang strictly demanded itself in all aspects, and it also strictly demanded me. Marching in that harsh war environment, I never enjoyed special treatment because Mingfang was the chief. I insisted on walking instead of riding a horse.Because I often marched across the river at night, I suffered from gynecological diseases and was infertile all the time.After Beijing was liberated, I went to Beijing with Ming Fang in October 1949. I stayed in Union Medical College Hospital and underwent surgical treatment and conditioning by Dr. Lin Qiaozhi. After returning to Xi’an, my body really recovered. (Dr. Lin told me after the operation that one of my fallopian tubes was inflamed, swollen, and adhered to the uterus. If the operation was not performed, it would be life-threatening.) One day in October 1950, a healthy and lovely baby girl was born. Xiaofang, it really didn't come easily.

After the liberation of the whole country, Ming Fang successively served as Secretary of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial Government, Third Secretary of the Northwest Bureau, Deputy Director of the Central Organization Department, Deputy Secretary-General of the Central Committee, Minister of the Central Finance and Trade Department, and Third Secretary of the Northeast Bureau.Our family also moved from Xi'an to Beijing, and then from Beijing to Shenyang.Live a busy and harmonious life. Mingfang liked children very much, and loved his eldest daughter Ma Rui and son Ma Guang very much. He sent them to Yan'an Nursery Primary School to receive a good education.Xiaofang is his youngest child, known in Shenyang as "Old Pimple", innocent and lively, smart and beautiful, he loves him even more and treats him like a pearl in his palm.Everyone around him knows how much he loves Xiaofang. When he comes home from business, he always calls Xiaofang's name first when he enters the door, and makes out with Xiaofang for a while. If he doesn't see him for a while, he looks around until he sees Xiaofang.When Xiaofang was in junior high school, she was in poor health. Mingfang was very sad, and even cried in secret, saying that even if she was selling things, she had to find a way to treat Xiaofang.As long as he has free time, he will tell stories to Xiaofang, explain the truth of life, and explain the problems that his daughter cannot understand.She also taught her to write calligraphy, draw pictures, play table tennis and play games.In short, do everything possible to make my daughter happy.The hard work paid off, and after his meticulous care and doctor's treatment, Xiaofang was in a better mood, actively cooperated with the treatment, and soon recovered to health.Under the guidance of the teacher, it only took more than one month to make up the mathematics and Russian courses for nearly a year, and returned to school.Ming Fang is such a good father!

Ming Fang is honest and honest, and strictly disciplines himself.In the early days of liberation, when the original supply system for cadres was changed to a salary and allowance system, Ming Fang’s salary level organization was set at three levels, and he himself requested to reduce it to four levels.I remember that in 1965, I asked for leave several times and took Xiaofang to other places to seek medical treatment. After returning, Ming Fang said: "You haven't worked hard this year, so you don't need to receive salary. You should pay all your salary for this year." Pay your dues."So I immediately handed over all the salary of nearly 1,000 yuan a year that had been paid to me to the party team leader, Comrade Sun Yu, secretary of Qiang Xiaochu, and collected it as party dues.This move also gave me a profound education, pay more attention to the distinction between public and private, and be strict with myself.

Ming Fang was very frugal in life.His food is very ordinary, and the most common food is the simple food from his hometown, such as noodles and so on.I often go to the kitchen to help the chef make noodles when I get home.His clothes are also very simple, never elegant, and he often wears patched shirts and shoes and socks that I sew.He educated his children with the virtues of his old mother's diligence and thrift in housekeeping, saying that the old grandmother was not allowed to throw away even a matchstick at will, and never wasted property.He followed the fine traditions of his mother's education and the Party, was diligent and frugal, and did not do anything special. He was very angry when he found someone wasting and destroying public property, and immediately criticized and corrected him.

Ming Fang has strong organizational discipline.In 1954, I was transferred to work in the Secretary Office of the General Office of the Central Committee, and later transferred to the Zhongnanhai Party General Branch as a full-time cadre and organization member. It can be said that I have worked beside the top leaders of the Central Committee for seven years.He never inquired about my work.He never talked to his family about his work, so I never asked. His work style is democratic, realistic and approachable.He often goes deep into the grassroots and is used to cross-legged conversations with fellow villagers and comrades.He never speaks ill of others behind his back, and often tells us that we should treat comrades with more attention to their advantages and strengths, and less attention to their shortcomings and weaknesses.Therefore, he has a very harmonious relationship with his subordinates and the staff around him.He is good at thinking and doing ideological work. He speaks humorously and convinces people with reasoning.He paid great attention to the influence of the masses, and rarely brought his family members with him when he went out for meetings or inspections.He takes the overall situation into consideration, dares to criticize himself and takes responsibility, and maintains the prestige of others.

During the years of living with Mingfang, I not only experienced the happiness of the family, but also felt many excellent qualities and the charm of personality from him. There was a thunderbolt on a sunny day, and a double disaster befell our family.It was the decade-long "Cultural Revolution".This is a catastrophe for the Chinese nation.For our family, this disaster is even more devastating. Soon after the "Cultural Revolution" began in 1967, the Ming Dynasty was slandered as a "big traitor" by Lin Biao, Kang Sheng, and the "Gang of Four".He was first arrested by the "rebels" of Liaoning and the Northeast Bureau, and paraded through the streets to criticize him, and then sent to Beijing to be arrested and imprisoned.The heroic and unyielding revolutionary who was once in the enemy's prison was charged with "betrayal of revolutionary comrades" and suffered longer than before-eight years of life behind bars. Ming Fang was imprisoned in 1967, and our family members were not allowed to visit until 1973. When I visited him for the first time on April 13, 1973, I saw that he was dressed in rags, his body was emaciated, and his face was haggard, as if he had changed.The warm scene of welcoming them back from the Kuomintang prison in Yan'an is still vivid in my memory.I couldn't believe it, in the blink of an eye he became a "big traitor" and lived a life of a prisoner.He said to me: "I am definitely not the person they slandered, and I will not do that kind of outrageous thing. If so, I will not go back to Yan'an, and I will have no face to face people and Chairman Mao. I will Kowtow step by step and go to Yan'an to plead guilty to Chairman Mao." "You believe in me, and you must also believe in the party, and you will finally figure out my problem."He was so painful, but also so firm and full of confidence, which gave me the courage to live on. On October 16 of the same year, I received a notice that Fang was sick, and immediately left Xiaofang and rushed to Beijing from the countryside of Liaoning.At that time, I saw that he was tortured into a trance, injured all over his body, and often felt that someone said to him when he was eating or smoking: "The traitor is still eating bread! The traitor is still smoking!" So he immediately stopped eating bread angrily. , Stop smoking. During the many years of detention and trial in the Ming Dynasty, he continued to read Mao Anthology, and the cover of the book was worn out.The long letter he wrote to Premier Zhou in prison could not be delivered due to strict surveillance.The long-term humiliation and cruel persecution finally caused Ming Fang to die unjustly in captivity on August 13, 1974, at the age of 69.We did not expect that he resisted the enemy's iron shackles with his flesh and blood, and when he was full of enthusiasm to build a beautiful socialist homeland, his life was taken away for no reason. At the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution", my home was robbed five or six times, and all my books and clothes were confiscated. My daughter Xiaofang and I were forced to leave home to live a life of avoidance and wandering, and then we were swept out of the house and took our household registration and food to the countryside. ——The Red Flag Brigade of Hujia Farm in Panjin District, Liaoning Province jumped in the queue and settled down. After seven or eight years of labor reform, they were forced to raise funds and build two houses by themselves. During my two visits to Mingfang in Beijing, in order not to increase his mental burden and to take care of the sick and disabled, I never told him about Xiaofang's miserable situation and the severity of his illness.I always say some comforting words to reassure him that all Xiaofang's sufferings are borne by me alone.In fact, how did Mingfang know how miserable and pitiful the humiliation, bullying and persecution his beloved daughter Xiaofang suffered during his detention and trial! At the beginning of 1968, I was ordered to go to the "May 7th" Cadre School in Panjin to work and undergo inspection, while Xiaofang stayed in Shenyang alone.At this time, the "rebels" ordered the so-called "children of gangsters" organized by the Northeast Bureau to stay together, and forced those children in their early teens to "draw a clear line" with their parents and "expose and report" their parents' "crimes". The "rebels" insulted their parents, and anyone who refused to obey would be criticized.Pity these children, all fear and tension to the extreme.Xiaofang, who had just recovered from her illness, found it difficult to bear this kind of pressure, and it was even more difficult to accept the slander against her most trusted and dearest father.Poor young and innocent, she was only 15 years old and said the truth in front of the "rebels": "My father is a good man, you killed my father...".Immediately, the male and female "rebels" jumped into a rage, and armed with sticks, picks and other weapons, they rushed forward and attacked Xiaofang.And yelled at Xiaofang: "You are an active counter-revolutionary, your father is a big traitor, and your father will never be able to reverse the case in his life...".A group of adult thugs exerted their prestige on an innocent and innocent girl, causing Xiaofang to collapse, lose consciousness, and lie naked on the concrete floor, unable to eat, drink, or speak.In order to shirk responsibility, the "rebels" called me back from the cadre school, and accused Xiaofang of "playing crazy" and being an "active counter-revolutionary".It was only after my begging that Xiaofang was allowed to be sent to the hospital for treatment, but because she was the daughter of a "big traitor", she was not admitted for treatment.At this time, our mother and daughter called each other not to answer every day, called the earth and the land was not working, and could not return home, and let him bully us.Sometimes Xiaofang woke up and cried, "Dad, I miss Dad, I want Dad", which made my heart feel like a knife.Mingfang passed away unjustly, and I have been hiding it from Xiaofang, not daring to tell her the truth.Now her disease is difficult to cure, her health has been completely destroyed, she doesn't know about her father, nor the things around her. The brutal persecution of Xiaofang during the "Cultural Revolution" was far more than that.In those years, I was imprisoned, imprisoned, paraded, and criticized by the "rebels" of the Liaoning and Northeast Bureau agencies, held intensive study classes, and was sent to the "May 7th" cadre school for trial through labor reform. I was unable to take care of Xiaofang, and was forced to send Xiaofang to I took refuge at my nanny's house in Xi'an.Unexpectedly, in Xi'an, I was also discriminated against, humiliated, bullied and beaten by those bad people to extract a confession, and I suffered all kinds of torture.Xiaofang was beaten and humiliated until she was disheveled and disheveled. She was locked in a thatched hut alone, living a life worse than a beggar.Poor Xiaofang reluctantly bit off a piece of flesh from her wrist in order to remember the scars engraved on her body and mind forever.Whenever I think of these things, my heart is pierced like a knife, and it hurts extremely. Mingfang also missed Xiaofang very much when he was detained in Beijing for trial.When he was allowed to visit, he saw the family of the elder daughter Ma Rui, the family of the son Ma Guang, the younger brother Ma Zhengfang and me, but he did not see Xiaofang because the task force did not allow it.Sometimes he heard the cry of a child outside the window and thought Xiaofang was crying; when he couldn't hear the cry, he thought Xiaofang had been tortured to death.I remember the second time I came to Beijing from the countryside to visit Mingfang. His health was very poor. Maybe he also felt that he had no hope of going out. One day he said to me: "It seems that I can't wait for the day when I can figure out the problem. You I’m still young, so I want to find a good man to be my partner, who treats Xiaofang like my own daughter, so I’m at ease.” I said to him, “Don’t think that way, I built two houses in the countryside, After you came out, our family lived a normal life in the countryside, and it’s pretty good.” He said, “Okay! I’m used to life in the countryside, and I like farming, so it would be great.” It’s a pity that Mingfang is only one year away. In 2009, we did not wait for the day when the "Gang of Four" was crushed.His wish to see Xiaofang was not realized until his deathbed. A loyal revolutionary, a pure little girl, a pair of affectionate father and daughter, the ending is so tragic.My family's disaster turned out to be broken and disabled!This is a pain that will never fade from my heart. Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, it has been 26 years since Comrade Mingfang left us, and my children and I miss him all the time.I often think that if Mingfang is still alive, Xiaofang will regain her health.Because I am deeply touched that Mingfang is a person who is particularly patient and capable of doing ideological work.He will be considerate and take care of Xiaofang carefully, and he will also explain life to Xiaofang and explain problems that Xiaofang cannot understand; he will restore Xiaofang to a happy mood and become a useful talent in the new era. I have lived side by side with Comrade Mingfang for 28 years.After Ming Fang passed away, although I had more hardships than happiness in these years, I have no complaints or regrets about my original choice.Ming Fang's revolutionary career was bumpy but brilliant, and his ideology and morality will always be engraved in my heart.He is a revolutionary predecessor and our relative. I love him deeply, respect him, and miss him.He is an example for us to learn from!