Chapter 3 My Titanic

When I was a child, there were a few things at home, which were taken off the ship. Among them are a pair of armchairs with stretched leather and wooden frames. The edges of the leather cushions are covered with brass round nails, making them very comfortable to sit on. "That's President Jiang's favorite chair when he was on our ship." Dad told me. There is also a very heavy telescope, which can see very far.Sometimes I stand by the window of our house and use this telescope to look at the pedestrians three roads away and see their expressions when they cross the street.It's a pity that I can't look at it for too long, because the telescope used on the ship in the past is very heavy, and it hurts to hold it for a while.

Leather chairs and binoculars, from "our steamer." "Our ship"? The so-called "our ship" actually refers to the ship owned by a steamship company run by my father in Shanghai decades ago. Among all the ships of this company, the most famous one is called "Taiping Ship". "Taiping Wheel", China's "Titanic". In 1949, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was announced.Before the New Year's Eve of that year, a group of rich people who were eager to leave Shanghai finally realized the urgency of the situation.

Some of these people exchanged gold bars for seats, and they just bought the seats from the original passengers.Some rely on relationships and ask for the last few seats from their father or other partners in the shipping company. Of course, among the "last passengers" of the Taiping Ferry, there were some of the richest and most powerful people in Shanghai at that time, as well as my father's best friend. In the era of war, the God of Destiny seems to be burdened with a hostility that he cannot control himself—— The Taiping wheel sank halfway through an accident. Thirty-six people on board were rescued and survived.

The jewels and Buddhist statues scattered on the boat surprised many nearby fishermen, and they were mixed with sorrow and joy. Dad never told me why the Taiping Wheel sank.It is only mentioned that every ship owned by their company at that time was insured by a famous British insurance company.The only exception was Taiping, because at that time, an acquaintance of my father opened an insurance company in Shanghai. In order to win people, he took the Taiping, which was about to start sailing between Shanghai and Taiwan, and gave it to the Shanghainese. operating insurance company underwriting.

As soon as Taiping Wheel had an accident, the insurance company immediately declared bankruptcy. All compensation shall be borne by the shipping company itself. The number of passengers who died on the Taiping ship was so large and their entanglements were extensive that no amount of compensation could satisfy their families. The lawsuit was still unresolved. The other two ships other than the Taiping ship under the company were chained in Kaohsiung Port until they were all rusted and turned into scrap iron.There are also two freighters left on the mainland and taken over by the Communist Party.

The so-called "our ship" has nothing to do with "us" from now on. Except for a pair of leather chairs and a telescope. How did the Taiping wheel sink?I never asked my dad. On the one hand, I know that this cannot be a pleasant memory, and it would be too bad to ask my father about it. On the other hand, this matter is too remote for me-I have never seen any of the so-called "our ships". The only time my father told me about the Taiping Ship was when I was in junior high school, when I read the news about "Ship King Dong Haoyun" in the newspaper.Dad mentioned that after the Taiping ship sailed for a period of time, Dong Haoyun's shipping company gradually owned their own ships.

So I put down the newspaper and asked a very boring question—— "Dad, if the Taiping ship didn't sink, sometimes I could sit on the ship and have breakfast looking at the sea, right?" "Yes." Dad answered me with a smile, without saying anything else. Until, ten years after I asked this stupid question.At that time, I had been studying at the Film Production Institute of UCLA for a year, and suddenly I received a letter from Mr. Bai Xianyong, a novelist, asking me if I would be interested in driving to Santa Barbara, California, to help him revise the film at his home. A screenplay.

The story of that movie was based on Bai Xianyong's masterpiece "The Story of the Immortal", and the director was Xie Jin, who was very important in China at the time.As I was learning how to make movies, of course I happily agreed. The heroine of "The Legend of the Immortals" is a daughter of a family.In the story, her father was the Kuomintang government's ambassador to the United States, and everything was going on the track of the world until the war came, and the ambassador and his wife "died in the Taiping shipwreck." When I arrived at Mr. Bai Xianyong's house, Bai Xianyong gave me a thick stack of related materials for reference. Among them was a photocopied newspaper clipping, which was reported by major Shanghai newspapers when the Taiping ship had an accident.

I looked at this newspaper clipping and it said: "On the night before the Lunar New Year's Eve, the Taiping ship of China United Corporation collided with the cargo ship 'Guangyuan' owned by the Rong family of Wuxi flour king Rong Hongyuan in the Taiwan Strait. Both the Taiping ship and Guangyuan ship sank. The passengers on the Taiping ship, Thirty-six were rescued by American warships, and the rest were killed..." Other clippings also briefly mentioned that the Guangyuan freighter seemed to have a serpentine appearance. Before it collided with the Taiping, it almost collided with another foreign ship...

However, the newspapers probably had no interest in conducting further investigations at the time.In the full-page full-page war and injury, the sinking of Taiping Wheel is just another way to destroy life. Mr. Bai Xianyong is very curious why I care so much about this newspaper clipping that has nothing to do with the storyline? "Because the Taiping Wheel belongs to my father's company." I replied. Bai Xianyong was dumbfounded for three seconds, and then said with a happy smile: "No wonder this script found you!" "The Legend of the Immortals" was later made into a movie, and the title was changed to "The Last Nobleman".

How did the "nobles" become the "last" batch?Many people contributed their efforts, but Bai Xianyong followed the gesture of the God of Destiny and let the Taiping Wheel join the execution team. Bai Xianyong, as the son of "King of Guangxi" Bai Chongxi, is of course a typical "last nobleman". As for me, I definitely didn't catch up with the last batch. I only appeared after a long time after the "last". Even if I wanted to, it would have long been my business. The nail-leather chair, I sit down, the heavy binoculars, I look twice, that's all. In an era, the fire burned the sky.Beside me are the leftovers from the fire, one place to the east and one place to the west, embers that are clearly extinguished. My childhood was often shrouded in the faint red light of this embers. Sometimes, I reach out to borrow a little of the warmth of this embers.Sometimes, I use my eyes to witness the prosperity covered by embers.