On December 27, 1949, Song Xilian, a lieutenant general of the Kuomintang Army, followed in the footsteps of Shi Dakai and was defeated by the Dadu River.
Song Xilian's ten-year transformation career began here. Song Xilian once "stayed" with Wang Lingji, the former chairman of Sichuan Province, in the Bai Mansion in Geyue Mountain, Chongqing, and the room they "stayed in" was the best room in the Bai Mansion, and this room had been locked up by General Ye Ting.
In 1953, Song Xilian, Shen Zui, Zhou Yanghao and others were transferred from the Bai Mansion to Songlinpo Prison, and less than a year later, they were transferred again to the Gongdelin War Criminals Management Center in Beijing and began a new reformed life.
Gongdelin imprisoned more than 100 war criminals, and their previous positions were relatively high, such as Du Yuming, Wang Yaowu, etc. The war criminals participated in collective labor every day and studied and discussed in the evenings.
They are allowed to read books and newspapers, learn about the outside world, and express their feelings, but they are also required to write regular ideological reports.
Song Xilian has been deeply educated since he was imprisoned, and he does have experience and feelings, and he has no problem writing materials such as ideological reports. However, he was afraid to write personal historical materials, especially not to touch on that year, that event, and that person.
That was Song Xilian's lifelong pain, he didn't want to say it, let alone say it, but he couldn't forget it, and once he thought about it, he felt guilty.
It was the morning of June 18, 1935, on the execution ground under the Luohan Ridge outside the West Gate of Changting, Fujian, a former Huangpu political instructor drank bullets and spilled blood, and died heroically, only 36 years old, his name was Qu Qiubai.
The one who ordered Qu Qiubai to be shot was none other than Song Xilian, Qu Qiubai's former student and then commander of the **36th Division.
Song Xilian and Qu Qiubai have a lot of origins. When he was still studying in Changsha, Song Xilian had read many of Qu Qiubai's articles and admired his extensive knowledge and outstanding literary brilliance.
A few years later, Song Xilian met Qu Qiubai on the podium of the Whampoa Military Academy, Qu Qiubai was in charge of the CCP's propaganda work at that time, and at the same time he was also an alternate executive member of the Kuomintang, responsible for handling the issue of cooperation between the two parties. He went to the Whampoa Military Academy many times to give reports and preach revolutionary ideas. Among the students in the audience was Song Xilian.
At that time, Song Xilian was both a member of the Kuomintang and a member of the Communist Party, and he once revered and admired a young and talented leader like Qu Qiubai.
In just a few years, Song Xilian, a student of the first phase of Huangpu, has become the first teacher, and the former teacher has become his prisoner. The vicissitudes of the world, the creation of people, make people speechless.
When Qu Qiubai **, Song Xilian was not in the camp, and after learning that his own teacher at the Whampoa Military Academy was captured, he was in a state of turmoil, and hurriedly rushed back to the division headquarters from other places, and went to visit Qu Qiubai the next day.
Seeing the idol he admired back then, Song Xilian also wanted to persuade Qu Qiubai to surrender, but before he could speak, Qu Qiubai saw it, and he said to Song Xilian: "Master Song still remembers what I used to say in the Whampoa class? It is more important for a person to love his own history than for a bird to love his wings, and I can't tear my own history apart. ”
Please do one thing for me, give me some pen, ink and paper and a book of Tang poems, I want to read and write. Qu Qiubai made these requests.
Song Xilian immediately called the chief of staff and instructed him: "Change a big house for Mr. Qu, and buy a collection of poems and pen, ink, paper, and inkstone; Meals are provided according to the meals of divisional officers; Allow him to walk around the door of his room; remove the guards and prohibit the use of all torture instruments; Below me, I will always be called 'sir', and I must not be rude! ”
Song Xilian made a series of demands in one breath, and the chief of staff was dumbfounded, he didn't know why the division commander valued this prisoner so much.
With the four treasures of the study room and other things, Qu Qiubai spent a few days like a scholar here in Song Xilian, where Qu Qiubai carved stamps, read books and wrote poems, and wrote "Superfluous Words", expressing the tortuous mental journey of an intellectual participating in the revolution.
Just as Lu Xun, Soong Ching-ling and other patriotic cultural figures were actively trying to rescue Qu Qiubai in Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek secretly ordered Song Xilian on June 17, 1935: "Immediately execute him on the spot."
This night, Song Xilian couldn't sleep all night. He specially instructed his subordinates to prepare four dishes of side dishes and a pot of good wine in the pavilion in Zhongshan Park.
At 8 o'clock in the morning, the director of political training handed over Chiang Kai-shek's telegram to Qu Qiubai, who glanced at it, and casually changed into freshly washed white pants, a black cardigan Tang jacket, black cloth shoes and black socks, and made a cup of strong tea, lit a cigarette, and wrote down his masterpiece
When the clouds and smoke under my eyes passed, I was at ease. ”
At 9:20, Qu Qiubai, accompanied by Jiang Xianqi, the director of political training, walked out of the room where he had lived for more than a month, and walked out of the door with a calm demeanor.
Song Xilian struggled for a long time, and finally didn't have the courage to send Qu Qiubai on the road in person, he stood in his office on the second floor of the division headquarters, stood upright, watched Qu Qiubai walk step by step to the back of the execution ground, and gave the last salute to the teacher.
On the execution ground, Qu Qiubai sat cross-legged on the grass and left his last sentence: "This place is just right, shoot!" ”…
Afterwards, Song Xilian asked someone to buy a good coffin, and carefully buried Qu Qiubai, and the address was chosen next to Zhongshan Park.
Many years have passed, and Song Xilian still can't forget the shooting of Qu Qiubai. Because of this, Song Xilian held a mortal attitude for a long time after being captured, refusing to talk and take pictures.
At the Gongdelin War Criminals Management Center, Song Xilian gradually understood the policies of New China, and also established a good relationship of trust with the administrators, and finally, he mustered up the courage to write down the whole process of shooting Qu Qiubai that year.
Song Xilian was not convicted of one more degree because of this. On December 4, 1959, the first batch of amnesty lists was released, and Song Xilian was among them.
According to Song Xilian's recollection, "When the amnesty list began to be announced, when I read my name, I was so excited that I didn't know what to do for a while. ”
In 1980, Song Xilian went to the United States to visit relatives and later settled in New York. In his later years, Song Xilian wanted to run for the peaceful reunification of the motherland, but this move attracted Taiwan's "**** abuse, accusing Song Xilian of being "willing to be the eagle dog of the Chinese Communist Party".
Song Xilian was not annoyed or angry after hearing the news, but changed the title of the book "Song Xilian's Self-Statement" he wrote to "Eagle Dog General-Song Xilian's Self-Statement".
Song Xilian once said to a friend in his later years: "In the past, others scolded me for being Chiang Kai-shek's eagle dog, and I still have disgust. Now some people are calling me an eagle dog of the Chinese Communist Party, but I am happy to accept it. ”
The title of "Eagle Dog General" is a compliment or disparagement, and the world has its own comments that Song Xilian did act as Chiang Kai-shek's "Eagle Dog" back then, but as Song Xilian said: "I feel guilty for killing Qu Qiubai for the rest of my life......."”