Chapter 35 Section 4 Mysterious Journey to Darkness

Just as Feng Youlan wrote the inscription on the monument for the Southwest Associated University: "It has been true since ancient times that literati look down on each other. What people said in the past is the same today." Liu Wendian was shot directly or indirectly by Wen Yiduo, "two Layman Yun" is the "cause", and the interpersonal disputes and conflicts in the world are the "effect".The entanglement of melons and vines, and the corresponding cause and effect, resulted in the birth of Liu Wendian's tragedy. The origin of the incident came from Liu Wendian's dark trip.

Mohei, also known as Mohei Well, is located at the junction of Ailao Mountain and Wuliang Mountain thousands of miles southwest of Kunming, adjacent to the border of Laos, and belongs to Pu'er County, Yunnan.Mohei Well is the largest and most important salt-producing area in southern Yunnan, and the well salt produced is widely sold in southwestern provinces of China and many countries such as Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam.In addition to the salt industry, Mohei is also the main distribution center for commodities such as tea and opium.Because the two mountains are separated, there is no road in this area. To transport salt, tea and opium from Moheijing, it takes more than ten days for caravans to walk through mountains and rivers before they can get out of the deep mountains and old forests that are densely covered with forests, overgrown with weeds and infested with pythons. , Gradually step into a civilized city.Although this place is a wealthy place, due to traffic congestion and backward culture, not only the national government's decrees cannot be passed, but even the "King of Yunnan" Long Yun is out of reach. It really belongs to a remote place where "the sky is high and the emperor is far away".At this time, in Mohei Town, Pu'er County, there was a big landowner, big salt merchant, and big local tycoon named Zhang Mengxi. job.Relying on huge financial resources and black and white personal connections, Zhang Mengxi gradually eroded and controlled the Mohei Salt Well, becoming the dominant side in Si (Mao) Pu (Er) District, a well-known "local snake".According to the available data, Zhang Mengxi is violent and cruel, and has the loyalty of a gangster who clings to steel and iron. The government officials, garrisons, and officials of the Salt Works Office directly under the Central Committee of the Kuomintang who were sent to the Sipu area all treated him as domineering. Being rude and afraid of conceding three points, Zhang became more and more complacent and arrogant.Like the underworld bosses, second sons and their pawns in all ages since ancient times, once they have money and power, they will expand their ambitions, turn against their will, and attempt to steal power and seize local or central power.Although Zhang Mengxi didn't have much ink in his belly, he was also full of ambitions. He maintained a private armed team with hundreds of guns.In addition to being ruthless and domineering, the Zhang family is also arty and pretentious. He often appears in government offices and various social occasions as a well-educated and progressive gentleman. He also funded the establishment of a small school in his hometown. The teacher taught to solve the problem of schooling difficulties for Mohei children, but the quality of teaching was not good enough to meet the needs of students for knowledge.In order to improve the learning situation of the students, but also to enhance his prestige among the salt merchants and kitchen households, he cultivated talents for his hidden political ambitions.Under the guidance of strategists and advisers around him, Zhang Mengxi sent his men to Kunming to openly recruit teachers to open a middle school in Mohei at the end of 1941.When the "recruitment lists" were posted on the streets of Kunming, a man named Wu Ziliang accidentally saw them.

Wu Ziliang, also known as Wu Xianyue, is a student of the Business Department of Southwest Associated University and an organization member of the branch of the Underground Party School of Arts, Science and Law of the Associated University of the Communist Party of China. His appearance is characterized by short stature, big mouth, small eyes, thin body, and good at communication. .His mouth skills are very good, he claims to be able to move the Cangshan Mountain and the Erhai Lake, not only can he speak of the dead underground, but he can also make the living dead fight for him. In the spring of 1941, with the occurrence of the "Southern Anhui Incident", the Kuomintang set off another wave of anti-communism. The underground party organization of the Communist Party of the United Nations General Assembly followed the 16-character policy of "Long-term ambush, concealment and ability, accumulation of strength, and waiting for the opportunity". A group of exposed or about to be exposed underground members of the Communist Party of China within the General Assembly evacuated and left the school, and went to various states, counties or towns to hide and carry out secret activities.This time, Wu saw the recruitment notice posted by Zhang Mengxi near the United Nations General Assembly. He was overjoyed. This is a good place to hide. Stronghold, this decision was quickly approved by the Yunnan Underground Party Working Committee of the Communist Party of China.Out of various considerations, the CCP’s underground party organization also appointed another student at the CCP, Dong Dacheng, a member of the CCP, to apply together with Wu.After contacting and obtaining guarantees (according to the South: to retain their student status, and Feng Baolin, an assistant professor of the United Nations University, acted as the guarantor), the two left the United Nations University in October of the same year and went to Mohei Town, deep in the mountains of Ailao, to work.

After Wu and Dong arrived in Mohei, they first organized a junior high school cram school, which achieved good results and won the trust and respect of Zhang Mengxi and the parents of the students.One day, while chatting with Wu Ziliang while holding a hookah, Zhang Mengxi suddenly asked: "How did Chiang Kai-shek get started?" Wu Ziliang replied: "It's not from the Whampoa Military Academy." : "We can also run a good school!" Wu Ziliang immediately realized the ambition of the other party, and also wanted to follow the example of Chiang Kai-shek in running a school, so as to cultivate basic talents for him to use in the future.Wu Shunshui pushed the boat forward and immediately stated a set of school running plans, and promised to hire a group of excellent teachers from Kunming to run the school well.Zhang Mengxi was overjoyed by this move, turned over from the couch, held Wu's hand and asked him to quickly plan the school, and then ordered the salt merchants to raise funds to establish Mohei Middle School at the end of the next year and start recruiting students.According to Xiao Di, who later taught at Mohei Middle School, recalled: "Considering the needs of the party, as long as we do a good job in the united front work against Zhang Mengxi and the local gentry, run the school well, and win the trust of the people, we can not only gain a firm foothold, but also hide safely. The backbone of the CCP’s underground party can also spread revolutionary ideals to the simple youths in the mountains and villages, and gradually develop into a party activity base. After a year of hard work by Wu Ziliang and Dong Dacheng, they have established prestige among the students’ parents and Zhang Mengxi The conditions for running a school are more mature. At the end of 1942, Wu Ziliang returned to Kunming to look for like-minded comrades to run a school in Mohei. Since he applied for a job and had formally gone through the "guarantee" procedures, there is no need to conceal that he is a classmate of Southwest Associated University. Zhang Mengxi I myself have heard about the relocation of the Southwest Associated University to Kunming and the gathering of famous professors. Therefore, when Wu Ziliang returned to Kunming to hire a professor, he proposed to hire a famous professor to stay in Mohei and write for his late mother. The epitaph is "Yi Guangmenlintel" to further enhance his social status in southern Yunnan." In order to achieve the political goal of "stabilizing his foothold", Wu Ziliang promised Zhang Mengxi to hire a famous professor to work for him as much as possible.At that time, bureaucrats, politicians and even ordinary people in Yunnan were particularly interested in their parents' epitaphs and inscriptions. Many people spared no expense to ask celebrities to write and engrave them, and there was a trend of comparison among them. The higher the social status of the writer, The bigger the literary name, the more popular it is, and the person who pays the inviter can be regarded as a blind man following the bald man, taking advantage of the light to ascend to the top.

Obviously, the person Zhang Mengxi is eager to hire must be a professor who understands classical literature, is good at rhetoric, and can write inscriptions and epitaphs.After repeated weighing and weighing, Wu believed that among several famous professors in the Chinese Department of the United Nations University, Liu Wendian was the most suitable.In terms of reputation, Liu has a glorious history of following Sun Yat-sen in the revolution, and once served as Sun Yat-sen's secretary; he was given the nickname of "National Treasure" by Chiang Kai-shek and served as the president of Anhui University. He was kicked after being slapped twice by Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek's Dandan's "chivalry"; he has the headlines of "Living Zhuangzi" and "Master of Chinese Studies", and he also has the professional expertise of "soldiers and old bureaucrats from all over the world are vying to be hired as flattery tomb essays".More importantly, Liu also has a well-known nickname of "Eryun Layman". In Kunming, where inflation is high, it is not appropriate to eat and drink water. Huge financial backing?Although Liu Wendian got a lot of extra money writing epitaphs for others, he didn't earn money every day, and he was often hungry.The Liu family belonged to the same hometown as Duan Qirui, who is in charge of the Beiyang government. In the early years, they often called Duan a "turtle bastard", and they were all enemies with the Duan family.Liu and Li Hongzhang are also from the same hometown. The Li family has been criticized a lot by the people of the country, but Liu Wendian is very close to the descendants of the Li family.After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Li Guangping, the grandson of Li Hongzhang, who was somewhat related to Liu Wendian, worked as a secretary in the Kunming provincial government and had some financial strength.Li and Liu were very speculative and had a close relationship. Every time Liu Wendian stopped cooking, he would write a note with four words on it: "Wash the pot and wait" and send it to Li. Li Guangping got the note and sent someone to send it to him. A little money for its emergency.It can be seen from this that Liu Wendian, who can earn extra money but often "wait for the pot", has to smoke opium and munch on ham all day long. It is indeed not an easy task.Inviting Liu Wendian to Mohei became the first choice.

After hearing Wu's introduction, Zhang Mengxi was very happy. He said that the "National Treasure" of the Liu family who had kicked Chiang Kai-shek's balls would not be invited, and made a promise that if Liu "National Treasure" came to Mohei, he would guarantee the safety of his family of three. Living expenses, as for opium and ham, it is not a problem, there are a lot of them, just enjoy them.Not only that, when Mrs. Liu returned to Kunming, in addition to presenting generous gifts, he also offered fifty taels of first-class "cloud soil" as a reward, and so on.

With this plan and favorable conditions in mind, Wu Ziliang returned to Kunming, and soon hired two male students, Xiao Di and Zheng Daojin, and another female student, Xu Yimin, as teachers of Mohei Middle School at the United Nations University A member of the "community" led by the underground organization of the United Nations General Assembly), and then quietly do Liu Wendian's persuasion work.After listening to the conditions offered by the other party, Liu expressed his willingness to go after some consideration.According to Xiao Di's recollection: "We had different opinions with Comrade Wu Ziliang and others on whether to invite Mr. Liu Shuya to go to the black school, but in the end Comrade Wu Ziliang analyzed that Mr. Liu Shuya was a 'gray professor' in the United Nations University, but he was a professor in the academic circle. With a higher reputation, he will lie on the cigarette couch and smoke all day long after arriving in Mohei, and will not interfere with our school work. However, our main purpose when we first arrived in Mohei is to gain a firm foothold and win over Gentleman, in-depth work (run a good school), train students'. Inviting him to go with him does not violate the requirements of the party's sixteen-character policy, and it can also play a certain role in covering our work. It can also establish prestige for us , and gained Zhang Mengxi's greater trust. In the end, we agreed to this opinion."

At the beginning of 1943, after Liu Wendian greeted Jiang Menglin, then member of the Standing Committee of the Southwest Associated University, and Luo Changpei, director of the Department of Chinese, he took his wife and children with him and began to march towards Mohei with Wu Ziliang and others.On the thousand-mile trail from Kunming to Mohei, there are high mountains and deep valleys, dense forests and grass, swarms of wild animals, and bandits along the way are rampant, and robberies occur from time to time. Travelers can only follow the caravans equipped with guns and artillery.Liu Wendian and his party were no exception. Zhang Mengxi sent a caravan of dozens of people to Kunming to meet them with guns and ammunition in advance.Three members of Liu's family and Xu Jimin, a female classmate of the Lian University, rode on a sliding pole, and the rest of them each had a horse to carry luggage and ride.Along the way, there were many small horse gangs "following the gang" with great momentum.In order to prevent accidents, Zhang Mengxi, who was born in the army, used his momentum and network tentacles to send people to the cottages along the way to say hello and arrange reception matters.Stopping and stopping like this, it took more than 20 days to reach the Mohei site.In the remote mountains and villages in the southwestern border, a group of students from the national university suddenly came, and the former secretary of the founding father, Sun Yat-sen, Liu Wendian, the master of Chinese studies known as the "national treasure", was there. There was a sensation, and before the crowd arrived, local bureaucrats and ordinary people with good deeds ran out of the village to greet him, wanting to see the look of this "extraterrestrial visitor".In order to show off his power and prestige as a local snake, and to add luster to the face of Liu Wendian, a "national treasure", Zhang Mengxi personally led the local gentry to greet him on horseback and in sedan chairs. They ran to the peacock screen thirty miles away and waited for their teacher and "national treasure" to greet them.

When a group of people arrived in Mohei, the welcome scene was unprecedentedly grand, and the locals were truly eye-opened.A few days later, Mohei Middle School held its opening ceremony.The whole ceremony was presided over by the principal Wu Ziliang, and Liu Wendian and Zhang Mengxi, who is the chairman of the school, spoke on stage respectively.In his speech, Zhang praised several new young teachers, and treated Liu Wendian like a god, calling him a professor, a master, and a "national treasure" over and over again.Finally, Zhang announced his school regulations to all the students and the parents of the People's Association, saying: "After the students enter school, everything is handed over to the teacher, and the parents are not allowed to intervene. If the students do not study well, they can repeat the grade. If they make mistakes, the teacher has the right to punish them. They can be beaten and placed in confinement, but they cannot be expelled. If anyone is really uneducable, they should be handed over to him and shot." This "high opinion" surprised several new students from the Lianhe University and Liu Wendian.Mrs. Zhang's move was obviously intended to show off his prestige as the "Emperor of Earth" in front of several newcomers, and it was also a catchphrase for later shooting and killing a Lianda student who was teaching in Mohei.

In this way, the opening ceremony ended with colorful flags waving, the surface was peaceful and peaceful, but the actual murderous intent was ambush.As the principal, Wu Ziliang didn't care much, and led the teachers to run the school in a hurry.Not long after, Wu Ziliang saw that there was an opportunity to take advantage of, and began to plan for his own goal, that is, to select a group of students from among the students to join a secret reading group, to study Marxism-Leninism and Communist Party books and periodicals, so that Mohei gradually developed into an underground party of the Communist Party of China in Sipu. The central stronghold of regional activities, and laid the foundation for a series of bloody and fierce struggles.The local emperor Zhang Mengxi was very happy to see that the schools run by several scholars were really well-organized and thriving.Especially thinking of the prospect of Chiang Kai-shek running Whampoa Military Academy and Mohei Middle School, his ambitions soared and his arrogance multiplied. He immediately ordered people to post on the gate of his house "benevolence and righteousness, no worries, no confusion, and no fear; prosperity of the country is based on virtue, words and deeds" The couplet was torn off, and a new one was written: "Riding above Europe and the United States, being a citizen of heaven, and having the universe in mind; among Sipu, being a landlord, despising the capital."

As for the life of "National Treasure" Liu Wendian in Mohei, according to Xiao Di: "Although he lives in Mohei Middle School, he does not interfere with our school work, and rarely goes out, and mostly stays in his dormitory. He smoked, and talked with Zhang Mengxi and the local gentry about the past and the present on the couch. Most of these occasions were accompanied by alumnus Wu Ziliang. He also took some time every week to talk to some of our teachers and the local gentry, "Zhaoming "Selected Works" and Wen and Li Shi occasionally give reports to students, but junior high school students can't understand them very well, so they don't often." He also said, "Mr. Of course not completely ignorant. But he didn't make any interference, and sometimes he made some compliments to us among some gentry. Said that he made us a 'wind wall', except that his arrival made us stronger. In addition to "prestige", he also wrote the epitaph for Zhang Mengxi's mother, which also made Zhang Mengxi feel extra honored, which is beneficial for us to carry out united front work against him." Some articles believe that Liu Wendian's trip to blackmail was ignorant of the complicated local political background and the real purpose of Wu Ziliang and others. It was a well-planned conspiracy that was put into a cover and turned black. I became a "windshield" used by others and a tool for political struggle. I was really the number one victim in the world.However, judging from the recollections of Xiao Di, who witnessed the incident, and the specific situation at that time, as Liu Wendian, who followed Sun Yat-sen in his youth to stir up trouble, stir up revolution, and shouted "All thieves should perish, Sun Wen should stand", Liu Ziliang and others The political purpose of coming to blackmail is not only to "not know everything", but to know it well, otherwise it will no longer be Liu Wendian, but Li Wendian or Huang Wendian, or even Liu Wencai, a famous bumpkin landlord .However, at the age of 55, Liu Wendian was no longer a vigorous revolutionary youth, nor was he a "saint fighter" who was in charge of Anhui University and rivaled Chiang Kai-shek. .As Lu Xun said in 1932: After the "New Youth" group dispersed, "some were promoted, some retired, and some advanced." His revolutionary experience and experience, he has a clear understanding of the fire, and he is aware of the political goals of Wu Ziliang and others, but as a "two-cloud layman", he has no choice but to pretend to be ignorant in the remote mountains and fields thousands of miles away, and ride the clouds on the smoke couch. Occasionally, I go to the home of the local gentry to talk about ancient books and enjoy the temporary pleasure of being a fairy. I don’t care whether other ordinary people are going to pull the pole to rebel and start a revolution, or carry out counter-revolutionary activities of smashing, smashing, looting and burning.