Chapter 31 Section 4 Alley Cries Jiangnan Ends with Tears

The celibacy that Zeng Zhaoyu has inherited and insisted on can be said to be born at the right time, but he is not satisfied with it.In a society that is chaotic and gradually losing its mind, what she gets is not the peace and comfort of the soul, but instead the clamor, malicious rumors and even poisonous arrows.Faced with the pain in her heart, she had no choice but to hide in a place where no one was around, or as Lu Xun said when she was in pain, she simply lay in the barren hills and licked her wounds in the grass.But this method of hiding from the world still can't heal her wounds. The endless thought reform movement has always been with her, forcing her to go out of the wilderness to face the severe pain of life.The Xiangxiang Heyetang Zeng family used to be a glorious aristocratic family status, but now it has completely become a mountain that is difficult to push and avoid. , the old story of the Zeng family and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Nanjing was stirred up again by mistake at a new historical intersection—although the finger was pointed at the "traitor and executioner Zeng Guofan" instead of the innocent Zeng Zhaoyu. At the end of 1949, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party completely turned their backs, and after the country changed hands, there was a wave of praising peasant rebellion across the mainland, advocating that social progress was the direct result of the peasant war.Some politicians and literati took advantage of the wind and quickly concentrated their energy on the theme of peasant rebellion and revolution, making use of the topic to make waves.Against this historical background, Nanjing began to prepare for the centennial commemoration of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Uprising and to build a memorial hall. Luo Ergang, an expert in the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was ordered to work with cultural relics and archaeologists in Nanjing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi, the main areas where the Taiping Army was active. Shaoxing and other places collected and identified historical materials related to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and prepared for the upcoming large-scale exhibition.In the process of collecting historical materials, many relics and cultural relics related to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were discovered. In 1952, in residences at No. 72 and No. 74, Tangzi Street, Nanjing, something suspected to be a mural of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was discovered.On December 7 of this year, Luo Ergang invited Zeng Zhaoyu, Pan Shu, Hu Xiaoshi and other cultural relic experts to Tangzi Street for actual investigation and identified it as the original.Afterwards, Zeng Zhaoyu wrote the "Investigation Report on the Site of a Palace of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Tangzi Street, Nanjing" and published it.In the following years, a large number of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom historical materials were discovered one after another. According to Luo Ergang’s criticism of the Hu Shi Movement at the end of 1954, in addition to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom murals with first-class people’s artistic value, there are also “The building of the Zhongwang Mansion in Suzhou has been appraised, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom’s marriage certificate is in the It was discovered in Shaoxing, the tomb of Zeng Shuiyuan, the founder of the Celestial Dynasty, was discovered in Nanjing, and the policy of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom’s policy of land to the tiller was also confirmed by documents. Before liberation, I have seen less than 400 kinds of documents on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and now I have discovered 1,200. There are more than a hundred kinds of them, and all of these have made me deeply appreciate the incomparable correctness of the leadership of the party and the government.”

When Luo Ergang said this proudly at the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Zeng Zhaoyu, who had accompanied him to Tangzi Street to appraise the murals, had always maintained a high degree of vigilance about politics, like a frightened hare hiding in its nest. Then quickly come up with corresponding countermeasures to escape danger, the same is true on the issue of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, otherwise you will fall into a trap.According to Liang Baiquan, who later served as the dean of the Nanjing Museum, "every time there is a movement above, she (Zeng Zhaoyu) is always on the wind." A beautifully printed "Hu Shi Wen Cun" that was titled to her was dug out from the bottom of the box and handed over to the "organization".Liang Baiquan's words were intended to express Zeng Zhaoyu's loyalty to the party and enthusiasm for political movements, but judging from his later words and deeds, we can see that this "moving after hearing the wind" is actually an appearance, and the inner truth is hidden in Zeng's heart The fear and helplessness of self-preservation strategies.

Zeng Zhaoyu did not have many contacts with Hu Shi, because she kept inextricably linked with her brother Zeng Zhaolun, as well as Chen Yinke, Yu Dawei, Fu Sinian and other relatives and friends in academic circles, military and political dignitaries, etc. It was natural and harmonious to get acquainted with Hu Shi. A matter of course. In the winter of 1948, the Kuomintang suffered successive defeats on the Huaihai battlefield. A large number of wounded soldiers were airlifted to Nanjing, and some of them were stationed in the exhibition room of the Preparatory Office of the Central Museum for treatment and recuperation.Zeng Zhaoyu was very dissatisfied with this, and when the persuasion was ineffective, he sent a letter to Wang Chongmin, a professor at Peking University and a well-known expert on Dunhuang cultural relics, imploring Wang to report it to Hu Shi, then president of Peking University and director of the Central Museum.In a letter to Hu Shih on December 2, Wang said: "Ms. Zeng Zhaoyu wrote a letter saying that the Supreme (Authority) ordered the Central Museum to collect antiquities and vacate the house to house honored soldiers. Knowing that there is nothing you can do to help her husband, but she is willing to tell the people to tell him." From this The letter shows Zeng's respect and reliance on Hu.When the country changed hands and the movement of "criticizing Hu" and "reversing Hu" was about to come, Zeng Zhaoyu, who had already become a frightened bird, responded hastily with a set of "Hu Shi Wen Cun" and muddled through the crisis without losing dignity. It was really helpless One of the countermeasures.Seeing the climax of criticizing Hu Shi unfolding and gradually escalating across the country, many people in cultural and academic circles were either forced or voluntarily shouted bastards in front of the mirror in newspapers and radio stations—cursing both Hu Shi’s ghost and themselves, frantically distorting the facts And chopped Hu Shi's shadow with a knife and an axe.Deeply influenced by Confucian culture and with a background in Western church schools, Zeng Zhaoyu responded positively on the surface, but her inner cultural conscience and moral norms made her prepare to escape slipperyly.When the "organization" sent officials to the Nanjing Museum to criticize Hu with the prestige of the "movement", Zeng Zhaoyu, as the head of the first academy, just called a meeting of the whole academy to deliver instructions and let everyone denounce on the spot. Encouraging the masses to write critical articles, posting them in the courtyard and publishing them in newspapers and periodicals, let alone appearing in person to criticize Hu Shi.When the "organization" sent someone to order him to write an article and publish it in a newspaper to demonstrate the attitude of the cultural and ideological circles in the province to the movement and criticize Hu's performance, Zeng firmly refused on the grounds that he "didn't have a deep relationship with Hu Shi".

Many years later, Lu Jianfang, a researcher at the Nanjing Museum, believed that Zeng Zhaoyu’s actions and choices, which took great political risks, were not only recognition of Hu Shi’s friendship and intellectual personality, but also a deeper reason for Hu Shi’s consistent advocacy of an objective view of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, that is, Appreciate the historical achievements of Zeng Guofan and the Hunan Army objectively.Whether it is true or not is open to discussion, but in any case, Zeng Zhaoyu was not involved in the vortex of this movement, which is a blessing for both herself and Hu Shi, who lives across the ocean.However, the unfortunate thing is that at this time Zeng Guofan has been identified by the authorities as a "traitor and executioner who suppressed the peasant uprising."In the academic circles, it was suddenly rumored that a new overseas seal "Li Xiucheng's Confession" came out.Not long after, with this "Confession" entering the mainland, and Luo Ergang's subversive re-evaluation of Li Xiucheng's words and deeds and Qi Benyu's re-subversion, the descendants of the Zeng Guofan family, represented by Zeng Zhaoyu, who remained in the mainland, once again fell into embarrassment and pain. .

The content involved in "Li Xiucheng's Confession" is an unsolved case that has been circulated in the court and the public for a hundred years, that is, on the day the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom fell, Zeng Guofan hastily executed Taiping Army general and loyal king Li Xiucheng in Tianjing. Before his execution, Zeng Guopan ordered Li Xiucheng to write a confession, and then copied Li Zhi's confession, and reported it to the Qing court's military aircraft department "for future reference"; on the other hand, it was engraved and published in Anqing, titled "Li Xiucheng's Confession" , and there is also the author of "Confessions of Recovering the Jinling Bandit Party", the original manuscript is hidden in the old house of Zeng's family in Heyetang, Xiangxiang, which is kept secret.

With the collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the demise of the opposing Qing Dynasty, the matter should have come to an end.Unexpectedly, after the establishment of the Republic of China, another group of peasants rebelled and raised their revolutionary slogans again. The Hongyang Rebellion began to be used by some people as the pioneer and model of the revolution to advocate and imitate.As a result, an upsurge in the study of the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom quietly rose in the land of China where warlords fought and guns rumbled.According to Luo Ergang: "Before the War of Resistance Against Japan, Mr. Chen Yinke, a well-known historical research scholar, had to read "Li Xiucheng's Manuscript of Self-narration". If they refused to publish it, the descendants of the Zeng family also refused to publish it. In June 1936, Mr. Meng Sen, an expert on the history of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, wrote a preface to the photocopy of "Li Xiucheng Confession" by Peking University. I hope that they will publish the original confession in time. Meng Sen’s words can be said to represent the public opinion at that time that the Zeng family’s collection of "Li Xiucheng’s Manuscript of Self-narration" was unwilling to be published, but the descendants of the Zeng family ignored it. In 1944, Zeng Guofan’s The great-grandson Zeng Zhaohua worked in Guangxi, and after a family meeting, he reluctantly agreed to send someone from the Guangxi Tongzhi Museum to transcribe it. Later, the transcript and more than ten photos were printed and photocopied for publication.”

According to Luo Ergang, the person who went to the Zeng family in Heyetang, Xiangxiang to transcribe the "Li Xiucheng Confession" was Lu Jiyi, the secretary of Guangxi Tongzhi Museum. According to the comparison between the handed down copy and the Zeng's family's secret copy, Lu made a supplementary copy of the handed down copy and was sent to Zeng Guofan. More than 5,600 characters were deleted, and 16 pages of photography were returned to Guangxi.After identification and research by Luo Ergang, it was determined that Zeng's secret book was genuine, and the deleted content was extremely unfavorable to Zeng Guofan and the Hunan Army. In 1951, Luo Ergang's "The Original Manuscript of the Autobiography of Zhongwang Li Xiucheng" was published by Kaiming Bookstore. In the book, he put forward the theory of Li Xiucheng's false surrender. Plan to restore the great cause of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In 1957, the updated version of the book still held the theory of "pseudo-surrender".Just when Roche's views were resounding in academia and society like a donkey jumping out of a flock of sheep, they were blocked by some scholars. In 1959, the historian Zhao Shiyuan pointed out that Li Xiucheng "admitted that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom revolution had failed, lost confidence in the future of the revolution, and asked Zeng Guofan to recruit his followers. This should also be admitted."Afterwards, Shi Jiayuan Shuyi believed that Li Xiucheng's words and deeds in the last ten days of his life were a manifestation of his loss of confidence in the future of the revolution and his illusions about feudal forces, and his nature was "compromise and surrender".

Scholars and politicians from all walks of life have written articles to express their views on the two different views of "false surrender" and "real surrender", with mixed opinions.At the same time, the question of whether Zeng Guofan obliterated, deleted, and destroyed Li Xiucheng's confession has also become a hot topic of debate in the historian circle. Just when historians were arguing over the above issues, in 1962, news suddenly came that Taipei World Bookstore photocopied and published the secret book "Li Xiucheng's Confession" originally hidden in Heyetang Zeng's family in Xiangxiang, inscribed "Li Xiucheng Confession". Xiucheng's handwriting."This closely guarded secret book is said to have been secretly brought to Taiwan by Zeng Yuenong when he left the mainland in 1949.After leaving the mainland with his sister Zeng Baosun, Zeng Yuenong and his sister Zeng Baosun moved from Hong Kong to Taiwan to settle down and continue to work in education.Before leaving, they took away some of Zeng Guofan's collections in Xiangxiang's "Fuhoutang", including this secret collection "Li Xiucheng Confession", which is of great historical value to the research of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

The news of the publication of "Li Xiucheng's Confession" caused a shock in both political and academic circles in the mainland, and the relevant parties quickly sent people to purchase this book for appraisal through Hong Kong.This photocopy clearly retains the traces of deletions made by Zeng Guofan and others with ink brushes and ink pens, and is more than 9,000 characters longer than Zeng Guofan's Anqing block copy.After multiple appraisals, the photocopy is undoubtedly the authentic version of "Li Xiucheng's Confession".The whole book has seventy-four pages, and the whole page is full. The last sentence on the last page is "I don't know, if you know it", the whole article ends.

Judging from the number of pages filled and the regularity of writing, it seems that Li Xiucheng's words have not been finished, and there should be a continuation below, at least the sentence "Ruzhi" should be finished.How did it become the status quo of photocopies?This means that the last part of Li Xiucheng's confession must contain deeper secrets, or words that are extremely unfavorable to Zeng.For fear of being exposed to the world, Zeng Guofan or descendants of the Zeng family deliberately tore up the last part and destroyed it.As for why the authentic version was printed at this time, according to Luo Ergang's inference, because the transcripts of the Guangxi Tongzhi Museum had been widely circulated in the society at that time, "this made the descendants of the Zeng family have to photocopy the original manuscript."

Not long after the Taiwan photocopy of "Li Xiucheng's Family Confession and Handwriting" was introduced to the mainland, Luo Ergang once again raised the theory of Li Xiucheng's "false surrender", which was echoed by many scholars for a while. In addition to newspapers and radio stations responding to the case, some dramas showing that Li Xiucheng would rather die than surrender after being captured, and plot to make a comeback have also been released and staged all over the country.To the surprise of Luo Ergang and his supporters, a more arrogant black horse roared out from the flock of sheep again. This person was Qi Benyu, known as the "new cutting-edge" in the field of history.In an article titled "Comment on Li Xiucheng's Self-Report—and Discussion with Mr. Luo Ergang, Liang Kulu, Lu Jiyi, etc.", the young and vigorous Qi Benyu subverted the evaluation of Luo Ergang and others again.The article said: "Li Xiucheng, an important general in the late Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was captured by Zeng Guofan's army on July 22, 1864. He wrote a self-report in the enemy's cage. This self-report, judging from its historical value , is undoubtedly extremely precious; however, from its fundamental standpoint, it is a 'confession' that betrays the revolutionary cause of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom." The final conclusion is: the loyal king is not "loyal", Li Xiucheng is a traitor, and " Acknowledge the thief as your father." Once Qi Wen was published, it caused a greater shock and controversy in the history circles. People of all colors expressed different views one after another, causing the debate to become more and more intense, and finally evolved into a competition at the top of the cultural and ideological circles.Back then Lu Xun denounced him as one of the "four men". At this time, Zhou Yang, who was in charge of the Central Propaganda Department, denied Qi Wen's point of view.However, Jiang Qing, who claims to be a "mobile sentinel" in the literary and art circles, jumped out at the right time for political purposes, clearly pointing out that the views of Zhou Yang and others are wrong.The Zhou family, who was proud of his officialdom but didn't know where he was, and his gang of small and big minions expressed dissatisfaction, and the two sides fought back and forth.Jiang Qing saw that his power was not enough to subdue Zhou Yang and others, so he sent Qi Benyu's article to Mao Zedong for review.After reading Qi Wen and the photocopy of the original manuscript of "The Autobiography of the Loyal King Li Xiucheng", Mao gave the following instructions: "In black and white, the evidence is as solid as a mountain. Unfaithfulness at the end of the day is not a lesson." Shang Fang's sword flashed coldly, Zhou Yang and other men's erect heads froze on the spot in the excitement, the curtain of the competition came down with a bang, and Li Xiucheng was characterized as "loyalty and disloyalty". Now that the general situation has been settled, Zhou Yang, who understood, turned the steering wheel quickly, and quickly instructed the Central Propaganda Department to call various places and issue an order: From now on, all articles and dramas praising Li Xiucheng should not be published or performed.As a result, the drama "Li Xiucheng" being staged was banned.However, Luo Ergang and others who strongly advocated Li Xiucheng's "false surrender" and the loyal king's "loyalty" naturally became figures on the opposite side of the revolution, and were labeled as "traitor Li Xiucheng's defender" and punished.For a while, another movement to criticize Li Xiucheng was set off in the field of cultural thought.In this movement, Hong Xiuquan became a flawless revolutionary peasant leader; Yang Xiuqing was identified as an "ambitious person"; Wei Changhui was a "class dissident"; Shi Dakai was a "separatist"; ".The important figures in the entire Taiping Heavenly Kingdom can be said to have their own red face, black face, painted face, and white face, and each has his own place. During the more than ten years when the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was turned upside down with the changes in the political situation, and the "steel helmets" on the heads of the main characters were constantly changing, Zeng Zhaoyu, who was squatting in the Nanjing Museum, paid close attention to every move of the outside world with a complicated mood.It’s just that no matter how the “steel helmets” on the heads of Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing, Wei Changhui, Shi Dakai, and especially the most controversial Li Xiucheng changed, no one replaced the black “steel helmets” of Zeng Guofan, the “traitor and executioner” who suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.Not only was it not replaced, but with the controversy over "Li Xiucheng's Confession" and the appearance of photocopies in Taiwan, a tangible and invisible pressure hit the entire Zeng family.People in cultural and academic circles who have always been dissatisfied with the descendants of the Zeng family for their delay in handing over the authentic copy of "Li Xiucheng's Confession" have made a Zeng Yuenong secretly took it to Taiwan and published it in a publishing organization controlled by the Kuomintang. He was even more annoyed and strongly suspected the sinister intentions of Zeng Guofan himself and his descendants.This kind of anger and doubt could not disappear from his heart after more than ten years, just as Luo Ergang said later: "Why did Zeng Guofan refuse to publish the "Original Manuscript of Li Xiucheng's Self-narration" and hand it over to the Qing court? This is what Mr. What is the "hidden secret"? It is the secret that Zeng Guofan mentioned above deceived the Qing court, harmed others and benefited himself, and destroyed the existing manuscript after seventy-four pages." Luo's angry words represent academic The attitude of most people in the world once influenced the highest authority and caused displeasure among some leaders. Fan Wenlan, a popular historian, also sang along, writing an article claiming that Zeng Guofan was an out-and-out counter-revolutionary and traitorous executioner.Under such a political situation and context, Zeng Zhaoyu, who is in the field of culture and cultural relics and is in charge of a large national museum, naturally has mixed feelings. He is in great pain and cannot speak publicly. He can only express his distress to his close friends in private.One day, Zeng said to He Changqun, director of the history department of Nanjing University, with grief and indignation: "Fan Wenlan's 'traitor executioner Zeng Guofan' can't be figured out; it is good to say that he is the executioner who suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom; but he is a traitor. , our Zeng family will never accept it, because it is not true." In the spring of 1963, Zeng Zhaoyu took the opportunity of a business trip to the south to visit Chen Yinke at Sun Yat-sen University, and had a private discussion with Chen about the Taiwan photocopy of "Li Xiucheng's Family Confession".The content of the discussion and the contingency measures of the strategy are unknown to outsiders. It is conceivable that the topic naturally involves old things such as Zeng Guofan, the Hunan Army and the Taiping Army.When Zeng Zhaoyu mentioned that he wanted to purchase the confession of the new overseas Indian Taiping Army general Li Xiucheng, Chen Yinke must also be thinking about the acquaintance between his ancestors and the third generation of the Zeng family, and the fact that his grandfather Chen Baozhen used a plan to capture the young master Hong Tianguifu when he was Zeng Guofan's staff. , A feeling of white clouds and dogs, vicissitudes of life, and impermanence came to my heart. Back then, Zeng Guofan especially appreciated Yu Yue's poetry of "the flowers fall and the spring is still there". Now, the flowers are falling and the spring is gone.On the day of Zeng Zhaoyu's visit, Chen Yinke wrote a poem in sorrow: The silver sea is full of snow and snow, and it is sad to meet you again. There is still room for Jianzhuluo to go down, and there is no way to ask the sky in the south of Weidu City. Xiong Xinqiao's Ci is passed down to the old version, and Kunming's Huijie is talking about new smoke. Talking about the infinite meaning of Jiao Sanshi, spit to the side of the sick bed in the medical window. Because Chen Shi has always been known for being obscure and difficult, and has a unique code system, although the later Shijia deciphered Jianshui, it refers to Jianshui and Dingshui, which all flow through Luoyang and inject Luoshui, and later generally refer to Luoyang. Luoyang at the place also refers to Nanjing where Zeng Zhaoyu is located, and "Shan Xiongxin is an enemy of Wang Shichong's general and Li Shimin, and Li Xiucheng is an enemy of Zeng Guofan as a general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom". However, it is still difficult to read and fully decipher the hidden codes in Chen's poems.As Zeng Zhaoyu and Chen Yinke passed away successively, the content of their conversation is even less known to the outside world.The two poems "Reading Li Xiucheng's Autograph Handwriting" written by Zeng in 1964 can slightly reveal Zeng Zhaoyu's inner activities and countermeasures in criticizing Li Xiucheng's movement: A fire broke out at the Wanwu Market in Jinling, burning his body as if trying to save the fish in the pond. The century-old mind is clearly there, try reading Ming Wang's Confessions. Wan Jiachun felt deep in thought, and cried all the way to the south of the Yangtze River. Who knows what is right and wrong behind him, and wants to summon the soul from the left ink. again: The meritorious deeds of the Kuang Dynasty are the talents of the Kuang Dynasty, and the towering pillars of the sky are reborn. Why is it a bad ending, and the name of a hundred battles is paid for. Hongmao Daiyue is a matter of time, and the choice is clear as her husband. A message to the world that people must pay attention, and there is no ambiguity about the boundaries of relatives and enemies. The sentence in the poem "why does a poor end, and a hundred battles pay off the ashes" should be Zeng Zhaoyu's close follow-up of the situation, and the "traitor" Li Xiucheng who has set the tone, because of his "surrender and apostasy" in the last ten days. He sighed regretfully at the robbery.The last two sentences should be taken as a warning to the living, that they must think carefully about major life events as light as a feather and as heavy as Mount Tai, and don't blindly distinguish between in-laws and enemies, and treat counter-revolutionaries who are originally like bears. Treat him as a revolutionary hero, or as the "counter-revolutionary hero" Luo Ergang praised at first.Especially in the last sentence, it regrets that Li Xiucheng "recognized a thief as his father" and should not beg for surrender to the "hypocrite" and "reactionary executioner" Zeng Guofan. The first counter-revolutionary giant "Zeng Guofan broke up. When Zeng Zhaoyu wrote this poem lying alone in an empty room in Nanjing Museum, it was the 100th anniversary of Li Xiucheng's death.Compared with the "confession" made by Li Xiucheng when Li Xiucheng was imprisoned a hundred years ago, Zeng's poem, which he sang out under severe political pressure and painstaking efforts to protect himself, is very sad.And at this time, it was less than a year before Zeng Zhaoyu died in the Death Valley Pagoda.