Chapter 3 Chapter 2 The Weak and Radical Boy

The young Wu Jinglian was an opponent of his mother Deng Jixing. He was weak and sick since he was a child, and his father gave him the nickname "Chang Ming" and prayed for his "long life".A doctor once said that he would not live to be one year old, and Deng Jixing was very worried.When Wu Zhusi went to the funeral, according to the folk customs at the time, the children should wear hemp and mourning and kowtow step by step on the way to the funeral. Deng worried that his son would not be able to bear it, so he firmly opposed it, which can be seen from his eagerness to protect the calf.

Due to state turmoil and frail health, Wu Jinglian's study career was intermittent until he graduated from university. In 1936, 6-year-old Wu Jinglian entered Nanjing Shanxi Road Elementary School. After only one year, he stopped school and moved west due to the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War.After arriving in Chongqing, he was sent to Bashu Primary School, which is one of the primary schools with the highest teaching quality in the rear.At that time, the chairman of Sichuan Province, Wang Zanxu, was the chairman of the primary school, and the "shipping king" Lu Zuofu was the school director. Among the teachers of Chinese studies were celebrities such as Ye Shengtao, and even Zhou Enlai, the representative of the Communist Party resident in Chongqing at that time, came to give a speech.Among Wu Jinglian's students at the same time were the three children of the famous journalist Zou Taofen. His eldest son, Zou Jiahua (later renamed Zou Jiahua), later served as the vice premier of the State Council, and his second son, Zou Jialiu (later renamed Zou Jingmeng), was in the same class as Wu Jinglian.During holidays, Deng Jixing often took his children to visit, such as going to the military factory in the cave, etc. This made Wu Jinglian, who grew up in the flames of war, care about the society and the fate of the country since he was a child.

In 1941, after graduating from elementary school, Wu Jinglian was admitted to Nankai Middle School in Chongqing, another model school in the rear of the country. The founder, Zhang Boling, was a great educator as famous as Cai Yuanpei during the Republic of China.Zhang Boling's teaching emphasizes "three kinds of education without partiality", and pays special attention to the personality education and moral education of students.In his later years, Wu Jinglian still clearly remembered Zhang Boling's speech "Why should I run Nankai" at the opening ceremony for freshmen.Wu Jinglian wrote in a commemorative article: "Although I only studied in Nankai for two years, the basic training that Nankai gave me has a profound impact. In addition to Chinese, mathematics and other homework, from logical thinking , language expression, training in civics classes on how to hold meetings, how to vote, and how to vote, until the words "head straight, shoulders flat, chest broad, back straight, weather not proud" on the mirror at the entrance of each building. Don't be violent, don't be lazy, and the requirements of demeanor that should be harmonious, quiet, and solemn have been used throughout my life. In short, as far as my personal experience is concerned, the so-called "nobility" of Nankai education does not refer to The luxury and comfort in life are not arrogant and domineering, but high-quality requirements for the simultaneous development of morality, intelligence, physique, and beauty.”

Wu Jinglian was weak, always recuperating from his illness, and lacked exercise, so he was almost expelled from Nankai Middle School in the first year because of poor sports performance. He promised the school to run 800 meters every night, plus his excellent math results, and the school reluctantly agreed to him. Leave.But it didn't take long before he got pleurisy and had to take a year off from school and retake the first year of junior high school the next year.Among his second-grade classmates were economist Mao Yushi and Zhou Guangzhao, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In 1943, Deng Jixing went to Chengdu to start the Chengdu edition of "Xinmin Daily". Wu Jinglian transferred to a Christian church school called Gaoqi Junior High School with his mother.Two years later, Wu Jinglian was admitted to Jinling Middle School Affiliated to Jinling University and studied in the high school.Soon after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the national government and a large number of institutions moved back to Nanjing, and the headquarters of "Xinmin Daily" and Jinling Middle School went south together.A very interesting detail is that it was not until many years later that Wu Jinglian learned by chance that one of the students studying in the same grade (different class) with him was named Li Yining.Later, one of them was called "Wu Market" and the other was "Li Stock". They were the two most important economists during China's reform and opening up period.

Wu Jinglian did not show any interest in economics during primary and middle school. He was most passionate about dismantling clocks and watches, and "saving the country through science" was his ideal. When Wu Jinglian was a teenager, he liked science and engineering the most. He was very good at math, physics, chemistry, biology and other homework. His grandfather, who was an industrialist, and his mother, a lawyer, believed that only science and industry could save the country. They hoped that this bright boy could become a scientist or a scientist. The engineer's way.Wu Jinglian is dexterous and likes to study. When he is at home, he always disassembles all kinds of clocks and machines to have a look, and then puts them together after a lot of messing around. This gives him a sense of accomplishment.What makes him even happier is that he also has an uncle who is a "science fan".

Deng Jixing's sixth brother is Deng Youhai. He has no interest in politics or news, but is extremely obsessed with science.He graduated from the Department of Textile Machinery of Northwestern Polytechnical Institute, and also studied in the UK for two years. After returning to China, he worked as the factory director of a silk weaving factory in Chongqing. things, conduct experiments, and do engineering.For a while, he was so madly obsessed with the latest way of making balls that he invented, so unsuccessfully tried and tested, that the whole family could never say "balls" in front of him.Wu Jinglian had no father or brother since he was a child, so he naturally admired this sixth uncle very much, and it was a great pleasure to follow behind his ass all day long to pretend to be messy.When he was a teenager, what he dreamed of the most was a wooden box containing all kinds of tools, which was called "Universal Hands". His mother actually got him one for his 13th birthday, and it excited him for almost a year.

His interest in science and mechanics remained throughout his life, and even became a means of consolation in later difficult moments.During the "May 7th Cadre School", he worked as a bricklayer and electrician, taught himself carpentry, and repaired bicycles and radios in his spare time. He was always very sensitive to the latest technological developments and attached great importance to high-tech industries. Wu Jinglian, deputy director of the Chemical Expert Advisory Committee, often surprises experts with his professional instructions on high-tech.These are all thanks to the interests cultivated in childhood, which later became an important field of his economic research.

When he was in middle school, Wu Jinglian still did not change his dream of "saving the country through science". He wrote in an article: "At that time, my ideal was to save the country through science and industry. , we can develop modern industry, resist foreigners’ strong ships and guns and dumping of goods, and build a prosperous and strong China. As for what kind of social system to rely on to realize this ideal, I have hardly thought about it at all.” Later, Wu Jinglian, the reason why he did not become an excellent scientist or engineer as he wished, but became an economist was because of his weak health.

At the age of 17, Wu Jinglian was diagnosed with tuberculosis, because his father Wu Zhu died of the disease, and his elder sister also contracted tuberculosis just after entering university, which naturally made his mother Deng Jixing extremely nervous.Wu Jinglian's studies stopped and stopped, and he dropped out of school, becoming a helpless patient. In 1948, Wu Jinglian applied for the entrance examination of Jinling University with the same academic ability, and he chose his favorite Department of Electrical Engineering.But after passing the exam, he had to suspend school again due to illness.At this moment, he realized that with his current physical condition, he could not engage in arduous scientific experiments and field investigations, and his dream of science and engineering was shattered.

In this way, when he returned to school again, he obediently chose the Faculty of Arts.He said in his oral history: "Actually, I don't like literature, but there are other things in the Faculty of Liberal Arts, such as economics. Later I chose the Department of Economics. This knowledge seems to have a little relationship with saving the country through industry." In the future, this outstanding economist will "get started" sickly and half-heartedly. Let’s go back and talk about the political stance of the young Wu Jinglian.In this he was far more radical than his mother, who believed in laws and reform. His disappointment with the Kuomintang regime began with a series of political conflicts in 1946. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party negotiated in Chongqing and reached the "Double Ten Agreement" and the "Armistice Agreement".However, friction between the two sides continued.The right-wing extremists in the Kuomintang are even more unscrupulous and continue to deliberately provoke. From January 10 to 31, 1946, the National Political Consultative Conference was held in Chongqing, and five agreements were passed, including the program of peaceful nation-building, the draft constitution, and military issues. Topics such as political democratization and the implementation of constitutionalism were brought up again. The "new stage of peace and democracy" is coming, and Wu Jinglian is also full of hope, thinking that his wish to save the country through science and industry can be fulfilled. On February 10, all walks of life in Chongqing held a mass meeting to celebrate the closing of the CPPCC. More than 20 people, including Guo Moruo and Ma Yinchu, were elected to form the presidium of the meeting. Li Dequan was the chairman and Li Gongpu was the commander-in-chief.On the same day, KMT secret agents rushed into the venue and started a fight on the grounds that the presidium was improperly selected. Guo Moruo, Li Gongpu, Tao Xingzhi, Zhang Naiqi, journalists and labor association members were injured and more than 60 people were injured. ".At that time, Wu Jinglian was in Chongqing and witnessed the tragedy. Ten days later, it was reported that Kuomintang agents were going to cause trouble during the "anti-Soviet parade" on February 22, and threatened to destroy "Xinmin Daily", "Xinshu News" and the Communist Party's "Xinhua Daily" .Wu Jinglian clearly remembered that on the night of the 21st, the whole family was very nervous, and Chen Mingde and others all left the newspaper office.The next day, when the parade passed Qixinggang, where the Xinmin Daily newspaper office was located, there was no smashing incident.However, a group of organized mobs destroyed the business offices of Xinhua Daily and the Democratic League's official newspaper, Democracy Daily. After Wu Jinglian's family moved to Nanjing, in June 1946, the Kuomintang army mobilized millions of troops to prepare for a large-scale attack on the liberated areas, and the civil war was imminent.The Shanghai Federation of People's Organizations decided to organize a meeting against the civil war. After consultations from all walks of life, 20 people including Ma Xulun and Hu Juewen were elected to form a peaceful petition group to go to Nanjing to petition the Kuomintang government. On June 23, more than 50,000 people in Shanghai held a mass meeting at the railway station square to send off representatives to Nanjing to petition.When the delegation arrived at Xiaguan Station in Nanjing, hundreds of "refugees" suddenly swarmed up and surrounded the delegates. The siege lasted for more than 5 hours, and then a violent attack broke out. Ma Xulun, the leader of the delegation, was beaten, and Chen Zhenzhong, the student representative She was seriously injured, and Pu Xixiu, the director of the interview department of Xinmin Daily and a famous female reporter accompanying her, was torn off half of her hair by the thugs, and her face was covered with blood.That night, Wu Jinglian's eldest sister, Wu Jingyuan, accompanied her mother to visit Pu Xixiu. She was deeply shocked by the tragedy and vomited blood when she came back. With the breakdown of the negotiations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the civil war broke out, and the country fell into chaos again. "Xin Min Bao" upholds a consistent anti-war stance and severely criticizes the Nationalist government, which is deeply hated by the Kuomintang.In the next few years, the Shanghai and Nanjing editions were suspended, the Chengdu edition was shut down, the Chongqing edition was harassed and vandalized, and many editors and reporters were arrested, killed or beaten.Chen Mingde—the children of the Wu family always call him "Uncle"—is a very gentle person, very good at handling relationships with all parties, and a master of public relations. He has never blushed with anyone on weekdays.But once, his brother-in-law, Deng Youde, deputy director of the Information Bureau of the Executive Yuan of the Kuomintang government, advised him to criticize the Kuomintang government as little as possible, otherwise he might be poisoned. Wu Jinglian saw him blushing and shouted angrily: "You Let them shoot me." This series of events that happened in front of him made Wu Jinglian completely desperate for the Kuomintang regime.He believes that the mother's ideal of constitutionalism is illusory and weak, and the suffering of China must be saved through revolution.At this time, he often stayed at home due to illness, so he used a lot of free time to read. From the "Youth Self-study Series" in the Life Bookstore, he read Marx's "Das Kapital", Ai Siqi's "Popular Philosophy", Gorky and "The Complete Works of Lu Xun" and Ba Jin's novels and so on.Among them, the one that fascinated him the most was the Russian philosopher and revolutionist Nikolai Chernyshevsky at the end of the 19th century. His novel What to Do? "is the first book that influenced the young Wu Jinglian's worldview, and the protagonist in the book, the young revolutionary democrat Rakhmetov, became his idol.It is in such readings that a "science junkie" becomes a Rakhmetov-style left-wing radical youth. Wu Jinglian, who was bedridden, really did some concrete work for the revolution.His second brother-in-law, Guan Zaihan, used to be a reporter for Xinmin Daily, then transferred to the Associated Press, and finally became the director of the Nanjing office of Agence France-Presse.He has been in close contact with the CCP delegation during the peace talks.After the delegation retreated, they also used their status as reporters of foreign news agencies to do some work for the Communist Party.Wu Jinglian cooperated with him. He secretly listened to the Yan'an broadcast in bed every day, and then Guan Zaihan published it in the name of a foreign news agency.Once, Xinhua Radio Station in northern Shaanxi broadcast Mao Zedong's "The Current Situation and Our Tasks" at recording speed. Wu Jinglian recorded it word by word, copied it and circulated it among acquaintances. At the end of 1947, the national government held elections for representatives of the National Congress and members of the Legislative Council. Chen Mingde and Deng Jixing both decided to run for the election. Zhang Pingjiang, Tan Tiwu and others were very supportive and encouraging.But within the family, there was almost a quarrel over whether to run for the election.Wu Jinglian and Guan Zaihan resolutely opposed it, thinking that this was collaborating with the reactionary forces, and Deng Jixing "believed in the rule of law to the extent of superstition."Deng Youde, a supporter of the Kuomintang and Deng Jixing's third brother, also expressed his opposition. In his view, Deng Jixing entered the Legislative Yuan to fight against the Kuomintang.Chen Deng, who is in the middle, is not pleasing to the left and the right.This scene is almost a microcosm of the folk constitutionalists in China at that time. If you stretch it a little bit, you can still see the embarrassment of Liang Qichao, Deng Xiaoke and others more than 30 years ago. In fact, as early as September 1946, Chen Mingde published an article on the Chongqing edition of "Xinmin Daily", describing the difficulties of the middlemen. He wrote: "Today, everything is a fight, Everything is characterized by chaos. We stand in the middle to run a newspaper, talk about peace, talk about democracy, and oppose civil war and civil strife. Of course, we are ignorant of current affairs...Although we know that this middle road is a road that is unfavorable to left and right, but for the sake of Distinguishing right from wrong, distinguishing the true from the false, for the sake of speaking on behalf of the people, this newspaper will always do so.” Perhaps it was based on this understanding that Chen Deng decided to run for election.Chen Mingde was successfully elected as a representative to the National Congress, while Deng Jixing's election as a member of the Legislative Council was boycotted, and she was deprived of her qualifications for nomination by the Kuomintang.The hardline Deng Jixing immediately ran as a free man.Her constituency is in Sichuan, and the Kuomintang obstructed her in every possible way by distributing leaflets and detaining voters.Deng Jixing went to the grassroots and gave speeches everywhere to canvass votes. His colleagues from "Xinmin Bao" spared no effort. After three months, he finally stood out from the encirclement and was elected with a high number of votes.Among the more than 600 members of the Legislative Council at that time, there was almost no one like Deng Jixing who had no party or affiliation. Participate in politics. The independent Deng Jixing was indeed not tolerated by all parties in the Legislative Yuan.After entering 1948, the balance of victory was tilted towards the Communist Party, and the Kuomintang army retreated steadily on the front line. At this time, the incident of "Deng Jixing rioting in the Legislative Yuan" occurred. On June 17, the People's Liberation Army captured Kaifeng, and the Kuomintang sent an air force to bombard the urban area of ​​Kaifeng, causing countless civilian casualties. On June 24, Defense Minister He Yingqin gave a report on the Central Plains war situation at a secret meeting of the Legislative Yuan, and several Henan legislators complained in tears.Deng Jixing contacted more than 30 legislators to propose an interim motion, condemning the bombing of Kaifeng and demanding that the bombing of the city be strictly prohibited.The next day, Nanjing's "Xinmin Daily" published details of the legislators' questioning and Deng Jixing's interim motions, causing an uproar across the country.At the meeting of the "Legislative Yuan" that day, the KMT's legislators accused Deng Jixing of "leaking military secrets". More than a dozen people shouted: "The tail of the Communist Party has reached into the Legislative Yuan. Get rid of the traitors in this hospital!" When Deng Jixing took the stage to speak, the audience was still shouting and booing. Before she could speak, someone yelled: "Get off, get off." Deng Jixing stood expressionlessly with an autumn face. On the stage, he looked around coldly, waiting to speak.Then a scolding broke out between her supporters and opponents, which spread across the country and was known as the "Xin Min Bao Leak Incident" in history. After this incident, the Kuomintang finally regarded the "Xinmin Bao" as a thorn in its side, and had to get rid of it soon. On July 9, Chiang Kai-shek personally wrote a warrant announcing the permanent seizure of the Nanjing edition of "Xin Min Bao".Then there was news that the authorities had decided to arrest Deng Jixing and transfer him to a "special criminal court" for punishment. In October, Deng Jixing fled to Hong Kong with the help of his friend Huang Miaozi who bought the air ticket on behalf of him. Two months later, Chen Mingde, who had completed the aftermath, also left under a pseudonym. From then on, this barrister and peerless female newspaperman who took "improving the constitution" as her lifelong ideal was "forced to the top of the mountain" and completely broke with the Kuomintang regime.In a sense, this also means the "death" of reformist thought in China.And all of this is obviously what her son Wu Jinglian would like to see.