In Qingyang District, Chengdu, there is a restaurant called "Hard Meal", which was established in 1929 on Sanqiao South Street, moved to Ancestral Street the following year, and settled in Qingyang District in 1983.
The founder of the restaurant, Che Yaoxian, was not a generational chef, but a revolutionary. He joined the Communist Party in 1929 and served as a member of the Military Commission of the Sichuan-Kang Special Committee.
Che Yaoxian's "Hard Meal" not only provided revolutionaries with cheap fast food, but also provided free food to those who were in difficulty, just by saying the code of "one dish and one soup".
This made the "hard meal" famous among the revolutionary masses and became known as the "red restaurant". However, Che Yaoxian himself was arrested in the 1940 Chengdu "rice robbery incident", and has not been heard from since, leaving his wife Huang Tixian and his children struggling to survive in the restaurant, looking forward to his return.
In the winter of 1950, three People's Liberation Army soldiers came to the "Hard Meal", and on a snowy morning, they sat down, and the young man stepped forward to greet: "May I ask what do you want to eat?" ”
The leader replied, "Let's have a dish and a soup!" ”
When the young man heard this, he looked up at the three of them, and then hurriedly ran into the inner kitchen to look for the proprietress . Huang Ti first heard the words "one dish and one soup", and his heart was slightly shocked.
After the war, such codes were rarely mentioned anymore. Are they really coming? She hurriedly washed her hands, and then appeared in front of the three PLAs: "Do the three of you need one dish and one soup?" ”
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) at the head replied: "That's right, one dish and one soup, and then some red sorghum rice." Huang Ti listened first and then made a gesture of invitation to the guests: "Three of you, please come to the No. 1 private room for dinner!" ”
After the three guests entered the private room, Huang Ti first closed the door of the private room, and then said excitedly: "You are finally here, I have been waiting for you for ten years!" ”
It turns out that these behaviors are all a kind of secret language, identifying each other by ordering food, ordering soup, and entering a specific room. Only those who pass these levels are true friends, not just because of what the other person is wearing.
This is the code that Huang Tixian and her husband Che Yaoxian formulated before liberation. When the three PLA soldiers saw Huang Tixian, they seemed very excited, and one of them said, "Sister-in-law, please take a seat." ”
After Huang Tixian sat down, he continued: "I am Wang Weizhou, the political commissar of the Southwest Army. We brought some stuff from the old car. Hearing these words, Huang Tixian felt an ominous premonition: "What's wrong with the old car?" ”
Wang Weizhou took out a stack of manuscripts from his backpack, and said in a trembling voice: "He ...... the old car."At this point, he couldn't stop crying. "Lao Che was killed by the Kuomintang in 1946. ”
Huang Ti heard the news first, and instantly fainted to the ground, although this was the result she had expected countless times, but when this result came out of the mouth of her familiar friend, she still couldn't bear it.
Huang Tixian and Che Yaoxian met in 1908, when Huang Tixian was still called Huang San, which is a common nickname for most people in Chengdu, consisting of a surname and ranking.
In Huang San's family, his father traveled far away to do business for many years and did not return, leaving his mother, her and her younger brother to run a grocery store together, and the life was hard but warm. In the summer, there was a new apprentice Che Yaoxian in the Yishengrong store opposite, and he always looked at Huang San across the street in his spare time, secretly falling in love.
Huang San has a pretty face, and every time he sees Che Yaoxian's infatuated eyes, he is a little moved in his heart. Although the two stores are next to each other, due to various reasons, Huang San and Cha Yaoxian have never had the opportunity to talk together.
It wasn't until one day, Cha Yaoxian's chef suddenly returned to the store in the middle of the night that a rare opportunity was created for them.
That day, Cha Yaoxian's chef returned to the shop and found that the weather was cold and he wanted to drink some wine to keep out the cold, but found that there was no alcohol in the store. So, the master asked Che Yao to go to Huang San's shop to buy wine first.
When Che Yao heard the news, he excitedly walked across the street to the door of Huang San's shop. However, by the time he got there, the shop was already closed. Che Yaoxian knocked on the door excitedly and shouted, "Buy wine!" ”
Huang San was also very excited when he heard it in the store opposite, and he agreed to Che Yaoxian's request. After a while, Huang San wordlessly took the wine bottle from Che Yaoxian's hand, filled a bottle of wine, and then handed it to Che Yaoxian.
Later, Huang San also asked Che Yao to help her calculate the account once.
In 1911, at the age of 17, Che Yaoxian ushered in a major turning point in his life. In order for him to start a family, his mother decided to propose marriage to their baby relatives.
However, the other party refused. Although at the time of their engagement, Cha Yaoxian's father was doing well in business and making a lot of money. However, in 1904, Cha Yaoxian's father failed to do business in other places, lost the breadwinner of the family, and never returned home.
The woman's parents thought that the Che family was not so stable, so they broke the contract. Che Yaoxian's mind has always been on Huang San, and although this result did not hit him hard, it still made him feel the heat and coldness of the world.
Cha Yaoxian's mother sent him back to Yishengrong and poured bitter water with his wife. The wife said, "It's okay, your son has taken a fancy to Huang San opposite, I'll talk about it tomorrow." However, the kindness of Mrs. Cha Yaoxian made him leave their shop.
Che Yaoxian's wife told Che Yaoxian's mother and son that Huang San had been married to a family that sold tobacco soil. When Che Yao first learned the news, he was in a heavy mood and did not speak or eat for several days.
The following year, he left home to join the army, but the night before he left, he wandered around Huang San's shop all night, and he did not have the courage to say goodbye to Huang San. Cha Yao was on the way to leave, wiping his tears as he walked, he didn't expect to be able to reunite with Huang San a few years later.
Che Yaoxian, with his bravery and skill in fighting and a certain level of education, was soon promoted to company commander in the 2nd Regiment of the 2nd Division of the Sichuan Army. Although he longed to make a difference in the army, his mother was worried about that era of war and chaos, fearing that something bad would happen to him, leaving the Che family without a successor.
Therefore, she came to Yishengrong to confide in Che Yaoxian's wife and asked her to help find a suitable girl to marry Che Yaoxian to ensure the future of the Che family.
Che Yaoxian's wife suddenly remembered something and hurriedly said, "Oops, I almost forgot about it!" Huang San's side withdrew from the marriage, and the family that sold tobacco and soil lost a lot of money, and there was no bride price money, so the contract was terminated. ”
She patted her thigh as she spoke, "Write a letter to your son quickly, let him come back and marry Huang San, if you miss the opportunity, there will be no more!" With that, she immediately went to Huang San's shop.
Hearing the news, Huang San's mother smiled from ear to ear and said that as long as Che Yaoxian agreed, she and her daughter would be willing. After receiving his mother's letter, Che Yao did not hesitate to ask the leader for leave, and rushed home early the next morning.
He was worried that the duck had flew, and he would regret it for the rest of his life.
In 1918, two 24-year-old young hearts finally came together, and the red thread between them finally joined together after years of breaking. After getting married, Che Yao first brought Huang San to the army, asked her to cut off the footcloth, named Huang Tixian, and taught her to read.
But soon, Cha Yaoxian was wounded while helping Liu Xiang attack another warlord, and he was transferred to the rear to receive **. In the hospital, Cha begins to wonder if he made the right choice, and he realizes that it is difficult to achieve his ambitions among the warlords.
He worked hard for the selfish interests of the warlord leader, and even if he was injured, it was only a means of grabbing land and people, and this kind of effort was not worth it. Just when Che Yaoxian lost confidence in Liu Xiang, Liu Xiang's army was reorganized into the **21st Army) by the Kuomintang, and he was promoted to regiment commander.
Che Yaoxian used to be full of confidence in the revolution, but Liu Xiang's "313**" made him completely disappointed in the Kuomintang. So he left Liu Xiang with his wife and children, went to Korea and Japan to investigate, and came into contact with the Communist Party.
He believed that the Communist Party was the only hope for saving the Chinese nation. In 1929, he joined the Communist Party. After returning to Chengdu, he decided to open a noodle restaurant on Ancestral Street called "New Noodle Restaurant".
Che Yaoxian is well versed in business, and he found that the breakfast guests were in a hurry and did not have time for in-depth communication, which caused him trouble. After some consideration, he changed his business strategy and opened a new restaurant called "Shuji Restaurant", so that he could have more time to deal with customers, especially in the evening, he would accompany the military and political personnel to drink, so as to gradually build a relationship.
In 1929, he moved the shop to Sanqiao South Street and named it "Endeavor Restaurant", a name borrowed from Dr. Sun Yat-sen's famous phrase "The revolution has not yet succeeded, and comrades still need to work hard".
In order to attract more Kuomintang military and political officials, he also launched a dish called "Revolutionary Rice". Whether it is a "hard dining house" or a "revolutionary meal", in fact, there is a hidden meaning of pun.
Che Yaoxian wittily used his position as a restaurateur to work underground, and in January 1938 he founded the weekly "Loud" in the restaurant to expose the "pro-Japanese" conspiracy of the Kuomintang.
However, the growing influence of the weekly magazine "Loud" attracted the attention of the Kuomintang agents in Chengdu. They have seized "Loud" many times, and also blacklisted Che Yaoxian.
On one occasion, agents searched the Endeavor restaurant on the pretext of a routine inspection, but found no evidence. The unwilling spy began to question: "Your restaurant is called hard meal and sells revolutionary rice, whose life are you trying to kill?" I think you're trying to rebel! ”
Che Yaoxian used the restaurant as a cover to engage in revolutionary activities, adhering to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's belief that "the revolution has not yet succeeded, and comrades still need to work hard". His two daughters also joined the underground revolutionary ranks.
Luo Weiwen is a representative of the Provincial Working Committee and maintains a one-line contact with Che Yaoxian. In order to keep it secret, they began to use code words, such as "one dish, one soup". Although the Kuomintang agents tried to attack them by planting blame, they did not succeed in the end.
On March 13, 1940, a "rice grabbing incident" broke out in Chengdu. The facts behind the incident were carefully planned by Kuomintang agents. The purpose of the spies was to use this incident to strengthen the oppression of the local powerful factions in Sichuan on the one hand, and to undermine the Communist Party organizations in Sichuan on the other hand and obstruct their revolutionary work.
After this incident, the Kuomintang agents blamed Luo Weiwen and Che Yaoxian, arrested them, and quickly sent them to Guizhou, and then to Chongqing. While in prison, Che Yaoxian showed great courage and wisdom, not only completing his autobiography and "Sichuan Military History", but also founding the Dregs Cave Party Organization with Luo Weiwen and adhering to the revolutionary cause.
In 1945, World War II ended and Japan announced its unconditional surrender. At this time, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party discussed the state of the country together in Chongqing. During the negotiations, ** asked the KMT to release Che Yaoxian and Luo Weiwen, however, the KMT did not express its position on this.
In 1946, the Kuomintang brazenly launched a civil war and carried out a brutal ** against the Communists in the scum cave. As a result, Che Yaoxian and Luo Weiwen fell in the Kuomintang prison on the eve of liberation.
However, at this time, Huang Tixian, the owner of Chengdu Hard Restaurant, knew nothing about it. In 1949, Chengdu was liberated, and Huang Tixian mistakenly thought that Che Yaoxian had returned home. However, one day ten years later, Wang Weizhou told her that Che Yaoxian was brave and unyielding in prison, leaving behind two valuable legacies: his autobiography and the "Military History of Sichuan".
These legacies have exchanged our lives for the happy life we have today.
Huang Tixian, a name may be little known, but it carries a touching love story. Her husband Che Yaoxian is a revolutionary martyr, and the two have been running the shop "Hard Meal" together for more than 20 years.
However, Che Yaoxian died heroically in the revolutionary cause, leaving Huang Tixian with endless thoughts and life pressure. * Later, it was decided to give Huang Tixian a martyr's pension, but she resolutely refused, saying that she would donate the money to those who needed it more.
Not only that, Huang Tixian also donated her husband's manuscripts, showing her selflessness and great love. She donated the "Hard Meal" to Chengdu City ** for free, and took over two small restaurants to make ends meet.
However, due to excessive longing and the hard work of running the restaurant, Huang Ti fell ill first and passed away soon after. At the end of 2008, "Hard Meal" was listed as the party history education base in Chengdu, and people began to miss this woman who had worked hard for love and life.