The story of "Zhou Papi" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but do you know? Gao Yubao, who wrote the story, did not have a satisfactory life in his later years.
This story reflects the oppression of the toiling masses by the landlords before the liberation of the country, especially the "rooster crowing in the middle of the night" is a vivid embodiment of the "evil" of the landlords.
However, many years later, the descendants of the Zhou family stood up to accuse the article of being untrue, calling it Gao Yubao's "malicious scandalization" and demanding that he apologize for it.
What is the truth of the matter? It's about who's right and who's wrong? How should we view the past as a modern person?
Click to pay attention and walk into the behind-the-scenes truth of the story of "Zhou Papi".
The story of "Zhou Papi".
One of the most famous stories about Zhou Papi is"Chickens crow in the middle of the night"。
It is said that in order to exploit the workers more thoroughly, the local landlord not only did not let them be fed and clothed, and kept working, but in order to gain more value, he even asked his long-term workers to sleep less and work more.
The landlord secretly came to the chicken coop in the middle of the night, pinched his nose to learn the chicken's crow, and as soon as he called the roosters in the whole village, the long-term workers were called to work.
This story is to tell everyone how serious the oppression of the landlord was back then, and the ending of the story is that the landlord's matter was discovered by the long-term worker and was beaten all over his body.
After the story was released, it immediately caused a huge social resonance, because at that time, most of the people in the country had been exploited and oppressed by the landlords, and even some things they had experienced. Especially after our party liberated the whole of China, the landlords were nailed to the pillar of shame in history, and the author who wrote the character of "Zhou Papi" was also one of the victims of the landlord's oppression.
Gao Yubao was born in 1927, and his childhood memories are only suffering. Gao Yubao's parents became pregnant with him on the way to escape the famine, and later his parents fled to Sunjiatun in Liaoning Province and barely stabilized, and Gao Yubao was also born at that time.
For Gao Yubao's family, having enough to eat is already a luxury, let alone learning and being educated, although the family has no conditions, but the studious Gao Yubao has never given up the slightest opportunity.
When he was 9 years old, in order to get a bite of food, Gao Yubao had to go to the landlord's house to do long-term work and herd cattle for the landlord.
The landlord's family was wealthy, and not only would send his children to study in a private school, but also invite a husband to teach his children at home.
This kind of "eavesdropping" lasted for several years, and he also cobbled together 200 words, which is already a remarkable achievement for rural people who have never been to school at all.
With the idea of learning a trade, Gao Yubao studied with an old carpenter for a while at the age of 15, and this craft also played a role in his later military career.
In 1947, Gao Yubao, who came into contact with the People's Liberation Army, could no longer stand the status quo, and he decided to follow the troops to liberate the country, and in November 1947, Gao Yubao became a People's Liberation Army.
After entering the army, Gao Yubao soon faced his first problem, he was assigned to the communication company, the soldiers in charge of communication naturally have a certain cultural knowledge, such as the corresponding communication technology knowledge, as well as literacy, etc., although Gao Yubao is literate, but not much, which poses a challenge to Gao Yubao.
Since he chose to join the PLA, Gao Yubao made the decision to deal with the challenge, and he decided to start self-study and pick up the knowledge he had fallen behind little by little. However, the work of the communication company is not easy, and he can only find time to study.
In fact, in the process of work, Gao Yubao once made a mistake, and it was this mistake that made him determined to study on his own.
During the Pingjin Campaign, Gao Yubao received a task, and his superiors ordered him to send three pieces of information to different places, but he confused the three pieces of information halfway, because he was not literate and the content of the information was similar, he could not fully identify which side the information belonged to, and could only send the information over according to his own understanding.
Naturally, there was a problem, but fortunately, the superiors found out in time, otherwise the fighter would have been delayed. Gao Yubao, as the "culprit", was naturally criticized. This incident made Gao Yubao deeply aware of his own shortcomings, and vowed to learn cultural knowledge well and resolutely never make mistakes again.
Since then, his comrades-in-arms will see Gao Yubao studying with tiles every time they have free time, at that time, the conditions of the People's Liberation Army were poor, and there was not so much paper and pen for him to practice, so Gao Yubao found his own way, holding tiles and nails to study by himself.
At the beginning, Gao Yubao asked his comrades-in-arms around him for advice, but most of his comrades-in-arms only began to study after joining the PLA, and their cultural level was not high. Everyone saw that he loved learning and was willing to share it with him.
Recalling that period of time, Gao Yubao once smiled and said that his application for joining the party was still written and drawn.
Start creating
From a poor farmer who can't read to a "warrior writer", how did Gao Yubao achieve what he is doing step by step?
In fact, he had the idea of writing a story during Gao Yubao's study, but due to the cultural level at that time, he couldn't even write a complete application for joining the party, let alone create a complete story.
However, Gao Yubao has a habit, that is, he likes to listen to books, before joining the army, he will occasionally go to the teahouse to listen to books when he has free time, Gao Yubao naturally has no money to spend in the teahouse, but his eyesight is excellent, he takes the initiative to help the storyteller maintain order, and will stay next to the storyteller and take the initiative to serve him tea and pour water, seeing him in such a situation, everyone will naturally turn a blind eye, Gao Yubao has also listened to books here for several years, and the stories in those famous books are naturally very familiar, after joining the army, He was also able to tell the stories he had heard to his comrades.
One day, a soldier said that Gao Yubao looked like a writer, which completely stimulated Gao Yubao's desire to create, so he was ready to pick up the pen and write his own story.
I remember that when the first draft came out, there were still a lot of typos and pictures in it, and Gao Yubao said that the words he couldn't write at that time were replaced by homophones, or directly used the method of drawing. Of course, Gao Yubao also knew that his method was not good, so in the subsequent creative process, he continued to ask people for advice, and did not miss any opportunity to learn.
Once, when he encountered a problem in his creation, but there was no one around him to ask for advice, he had to stop the commander's horse in a hurry, which frightened the guard who led the horse, and taught him that it was too dangerous to stop the horse directly, but the commander made a good impression of this young man who was actively studying, and not only guided him in his problems, but also praised his spirit of study.
Gao Yubao's deeds of "stopping horses and asking words" were widely spread in the army, and even some professionals heard his story and volunteered to help guide him to complete it.
With the continuous efforts of Gao Yubao and the help of professionals, an autobiographical book called "Gao Yubao" was completed in a small way. Gao Yubao sent this ** to the Literature and Art Section with a feeling of anxiety, and after the minister saw his**, everyone appreciated the content, which was indeed the norm of people's lives at that time.
The Minister of Literature and Art even personally found Gao Yubao to carry out literary processing and modification of his **, and later his ** was ** to the "People's Liberation Army Literature and Art" magazine, and the story described in it resonated with many people.
*"Weekly peeling"This figure was widely circulated among the people, and even became synonymous with "evil landlord" for a time.
The "Zhou Papi" in the text is actually a prototype, named Zhou Chunfu, who is indeed a landlord in the village where Gao Yubao lived when he was a child, and the "Yubao" in the text is based on him. And at that time, Gao Yubao didn't know enough about creation, so he used Zhou Chunfu's real name when creating.
After the article came out, Zhou Fuchun's family was overwhelmed with accusations, especially the descendants of the Zhou family, who were often ridiculed and blamed by the people around them. In fact, the Zhou family has been arguing that they have not done these things, but no one believes it, and they have not been able to find a chance to clarify for many years.
It wasn't until a creator named Meng Lingqian appeared that the Zhou family had a chance to clarify things, this Meng Lingqian is the great-grandson of Zhou Chunfu, even if he has reached the generation of Zhou Fuchun's great-grandson, the reputation of "Zhou Papi" still follows him.
When Meng Lingqian was a child, someone took the text of "The Crows in the Middle of the Night" for him to read aloud, at that time he didn't understand the meaning, he just acted according to the requirements, but when he read the text, other friends smiled at him, and he was also ignorant at that time.
One day, a little friend pointed at him and said: "Zhou Papi", Meng Lingqian suddenly remembered that his mother's surname was Zhou, so he ran home to ask his mother the truth of the matter, and saw that the matter could not be hidden, so his mother had to tell him the facts, and said that those things in the book were not done by the Zhou family.
Even Meng Lingqian's grandfather said before he passed away that no one in the Zhou family had seen Gao Yubao or exploited others, and those things were not true at all.
In the era of Meng Lingqian, he still had to face criticism from the outside world, and it was hard to imagine how the family survived in those years, thinking of his grandfather's last words before he died, he decided to investigate this matter.
The truth of the matter
Blamed for "Zhou Papi", Meng Lingqian is determined to investigate the truth.
Before Meng Lingqian investigated this matter, he first read the article "Chicken Crow in the Middle of the Night", and at the same time asked his family about the facts of the year. According to the family, many of the stories written in the book were not made by the Zhou family.
In order to understand why Gao Yubao wrote about the Zhou family as such a "sin", Meng Lingqian decided to meet Gao Yubao in person, and he visited Gao Yubao as a reader, Gao Yubao naturally didn't think much about it, and received him warmly.
Looking at the person in front of him who had made his family suffer accusations for many years, Meng Lingqian asked him directly: "Is it true that the rooster crows in the middle of the night?" ”
Regarding this incident, Gao Yubao recalled the situation back then: "Of course, this matter is true, but this matter was not done by Zhou Papi, but by other landlords in the village. ”
Hearing this, Meng Lingqian still didn't plan to let him go, and asked him directly: "Since it is written ** and has a certain amount of artistic processing, why do you still use your real name?" Haven't you thought about the life of the descendants of the Zhou family? ”
This sentence made Gao Yubao feel a little guilty: "When I was creating, I just wanted to write stories that reflected the facts, and I didn't think too much about these things. ”
In fact, after the publication of the work for a period of time, Gao Yubao realized the impact on the Zhou family, but the image of Zhou Papi is too popular and has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, Gao Yubao has also stood up to explain, but no one cares about his explanation, and many of the stories are indeed based on real life, and they are also the epitome of landlord oppression, and this matter can no longer be corrected.
After the visit, in order to tell the world that the Zhou family is not a cruel exploiter, Meng Lingqian wrote the article "Chickens Don't Crow in the Middle of the Night", using biology to refute that the landlord learning to crow chickens can't drive the whole village to crow together, trying to deny Gao Yubao's article, but the effect is not good.
Meng Lingqian said that his grandfather Zhou Chunfu also started in poverty, and Zhou Chunfu was the first member to "break through the Guandong", because his hometown could not survive, so he could only go away. The Zhou family, who first arrived in Liaoning, was not wealthy, but later relied on Zhou Chunfu's hard work, simplicity and frugality, and Zhou Chunfu's sons could also do it, so they slowly saved money.
After Zhou Chun got rich in savings, he took it to buy land, and the land was more and more grain, and the family became rich, and the Zhou family's land was 200 acres at most, and it was true that some long-term workers would be invited, but the Zhou family did not treat long-term workers badly, and the treatment of long-term workers was not bad.
And in response to the matter of learning to crow chickens in the middle of the night, the Zhou family also put forward a rebuttal logic: how to wake up the long-term workers at night, and how to farm the land when the lights are blind? Since they can't farm, what's the point of them waking up?
Therefore, the Zhou family believes that Gao Yubao is really deliberately scandalizing the image of the Zhou family, causing the descendants of the Zhou family to be ridiculed by the outside world for many years, so they asked Gao Yubao to come out and apologize publicly.
In fact, Gao Yubao has long clarified that "Zhou Papi" is just a microcosm of the oppression of landlords, he cannot represent every landlord, and his behavior is also a character created by integrating the behavior of many landlords.
Literary creation is indeed subject to certain factors of the times, and the story of landlord oppression written in Gao Yubao's book also happened in that era, if it is written out of reality, it will not resonate widely in society, and the role of "Zhou Papi" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and he is undoubtedly successful in terms of literary and artistic works.
As for the descendants of the Zhou family, their statements may be true, but many things have long been impossible to investigate, and they can't be explained clearly by relying on the words of others.
There is no right or wrong in this matter, creation is the processing of reality, "Zhou Papi" is a character created according to the times, he is an era, a symbol of literature.
As for the descendants of the Zhou family, as long as they no longer exploit the toiling masses and are willing to use their own labor to live, we should not be entangled in the affairs of previous generations.