Chapter 8 8. Hometown trip

In March of the new year, the spring is still cold in Beijing, but the season in the south of the Yangtze River is already the season when the warbler flies and the grass grows. Ding Ling and Chen Ming are together with a kind of "birds love the old forest, pond fish think about the old abyss", With the joy of "being in a cage for a long time, I can return to nature", I went to visit Hubei and Hunan.This is the first time she has returned to her hometown since March 1931, after sending her youngest son Zu Lin back to her hometown after Hu Yepin was killed.The time span is 23 years.

The first stop is Wuhan.Yu Heiding and Yu Lin, the leaders of the Central South Federation of Literary and Art Circles, accompanied them to visit Luojia Mountain and East Lake, and had lunch at East Lake.Ding Ling had a good impression of the scenery of East Lake, and she thought to herself: "If you can write something when you transfer here, you should rest here for a few days." She also met Li Da, a professor at Wuhan University. He and his first wife, Wang Huiwu, have always been good friends of Ding Ling. After Hu Yefan died in 1931, Ding Ling lived in their home for a period of time. In 1936, Ding Ling went from Nanjing to Peiping to find During the relationship with the party, he also lived in their home.Now that Li Da has divorced and remarried, he is reluctant to let Ding Ling go to his house. Ding Ling jokingly said in his diary, "Because his golden house is so delicately hidden, he has to be scruples about me."Well, then don’t go, then go to the house of Zhao Yimin, an old acquaintance from the Yan’an period and the propaganda director of the Central South Bureau, and then go to the famous “Guanqiangtai” on Dongting Road to eat Western food. On the morning of March 5, Ding Ling also gave a speech to literary and art workers in Wuhan. She spoke for three hours. As a result, she felt tired at noon, and she went to bed after dinner and slept until four o'clock.After getting up, I rushed to the station and took the train to Changsha.

The time I arrived in Changsha was two o'clock in the morning on the 6th, and I arranged to live in the Provincial Communication Office.Go shopping by car in the morning and visit Huoshen Temple in the afternoon.In the evening, there was a party at the Provincial Communication Office, and Teng Daiyuan, the Minister of Railways, was entertained. Ding Ling and Chen Ming also went, and met Zhou Xiaozhou, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee.Ding Ling and Zhou Xiaozhou were old acquaintances. In Yan'an in 1937, Ding Ling often went to Chairman Mao's cave to chat. Zhou Xiaozhou was Chairman Mao's secretary at that time, and he often came to participate in the conversation.Zhou Xiaozhou did not forget the old love, and invited Ding Ling and his wife to his house for lunch the next morning.After the meal, the two ministers of the Propaganda Department came to discuss the itinerary together. They agreed to go to Changde and Xiangxi, and sent them a jeep.The next day, I went to Shaoshan to visit the former residence of Chairman Mao, and then took the jeep back to my hometown in Changde.From Changde, they went to Jishou, the capital of Xiangxi region. The chairman of the region, Shi Bangzhi, was Ding Ling's classmate at the Central Party School in Yan'an, and he was very enthusiastic.The stories of suppressing bandits in Xiangxi are very exciting, and Ding Ling has collected many of them.

After returning to Beijing, she went to several villages such as Wenquantun in Zhuolu County, Hebei Province to interview and continue to collect materials on the struggle of the land protection team during the War of Liberation. On the morning of June 29, Ding Ling went to the Literature Workshop to give a lecture. The topic she chose was: Creation must have strong living capital.That was a summary of how well prepared she was in those days.Ding Ling felt that the work in her heart had gradually taken shape, and she was ready to start writing.So, she and Chen Ming began to prepare to go out again.