In the early morning of October 11, 1950, when the National Day had just passed, ** sat alone in front of the window and was stunned.
Because at the National Day dinner not long ago, ** and the acting principal of Hunan No. 1 Normal SchoolZhou Shizhao, Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central CommitteeXu Teli, and one of the "Five Elders of Yan'an".Xie JuezaiWhen they were chatting, they happened to talk about the principal of Hunan Provincial No. 1 Normal SchoolZhang Gan
** smiled and asked, "How is this teacher of mine doing now?" ”
Zhou Shizhao has been engaged in education in Hunan, so he naturally has some understanding of Zhang Gan's situation, so he slowly introduced: "Chairman, Zhang Gan is a capable person, and he became the principal of the Hunan First Division at a young age, which is impossible to change to an ordinary person. However, before the liberation, he stood in front of the blackboard and ate chalk ashes, and after the liberation, he still stood in front of the blackboard and ate chalk ashes, which shows that he did not want to be an official, but only wanted to do a good job in education."
Hearing this, ** nodded.
After all, education is the foundation of the country, and Zhang Gan does not want to be an official, but is willing to be a teacher all his life, which is very commendable.
Just when everyone present nodded their heads in admiration, Zhou Shizhao sighed slowly.
Seeing him sighing, ** was puzzled, he asked again: "What kind of sigh is it?" ”
Zhou Shizhao wanted to speak, but when the words came to his mouth, he stopped talking.
Because decades ago, when ** was studying in Hunan First Division, Zhang Gan did something that deeply hurt the chairman's heart, so Zhou Shizhao thought about whether he should say the next thing or not.
Seeing his embarrassed look, ** said with relief: "But it doesn't hurt to say, just say whatever you want."
At this point, Zhou Shizhao said: "Zhang Gan is living a bad life now, which can be described as poor."
At this time, Zhang Gan was nearly 70 years old, and his physical condition was not optimistic, but a family of 6 was counting on his meager salary to eat, so the burden on Zhang Gan had already weighed him down.
As soon as the words fell, ** was also full of emotion, and he kept muttering: "You should take care of Zhang Gan, you should take care of ......."”
This incident has become a stone blocked in the heart of ***, and whenever I recall what Zhou Shizhao said, I will feel unbearable.
In the early morning of October 11, after thinking about it again, he wrote a letter to Wang Shoudao, chairman of Hunan Province.
"Zhang Cilun (Zhang Gan's alias) is an old man in the education circle in Hunan, now in his 70s, who has taught all his life and has not done anything bad. Now I heard that the old gentleman has a lot of family and lives a very hard life, so he plans to ask the provincial government to give a monthly allowance of rice to fund the pension ......And please send someone to the old gentleman to offer condolences. ”At the urging of ***, Hunan Province ** soon sent 1,200 catties of relief rice and some money to Zhang Gan's home.
On the National Day of the second year, ** also specially invited Zhang Gan to come to Beijing to participate in the National Day ceremony.
And Zhang Gan actually made a public review in front of everyone at the dinner, **Seeing this, he hurriedly stopped him and said cordially: "Don't mention the past."
So, when he was a young man, when he was studying in Hunan No. 1 Division, what happened to Zhang Gan, who served as the principal?
How did Zhang Gan, who was nearly seventy years old, react after receiving so much food? Why did he have to make a review at the dinner?
In 1914, the young *** was admitted to the First Normal School of Hunan Province with excellent results, that is, in the same year, Zhang Gan served as the principal of the school.
Soon after, the Hunan Provincial Assembly promulgated a new system:All senior schools in the province charge students tuition and miscellaneous fees of 10 yuan per person.
In those days, 10 yuan could be called a large amount, and students from wealthy families could take it out, but students from poor families faced this "astronomical amount", even if they smashed pots and sold iron, they couldn't make it up.
Therefore, after the promulgation of this new system, it attracted the opposition of many students, who took to the streets, holding banners and slogans, demanding that the system be abolished.
And at this time, it was revealed that this new system was proposed by Zhang Gan, who had just become the principal, to the provincial **, in order to curry favor with those ** and secure his position.
The students, full of indignation and dissatisfaction, demanded that Zhang Gan resign as principal.
They also met for a boycott and distributed leaflets around the school, exposing Zhang Gan's various evil deeds and criticizing him for being "disloyal, unjust, unkind, and unfilial."
Soon, more and more students joined the "expulsion movement".
At that time, after seeing these leaflets, the young and vigorous ***, who was only 21 years old, felt that the content was not written accurately, and since it was a request for Zhang Gan to resign from the position of principal, he should point out his shortcomings when he was in office.
So, he re-wrote a leaflet, writing out that Zhang Gan had no way to govern the school, and flattered his superiors for his own selfish interests.
In order to quell the incident, the Hunan Provincial Department of Education sent a commissioner to Hunan No. 1 Division to convene a meeting of teachers and students of the whole school, and sternly demanded that the students resume classes as soon as possible.
The commissioner's intransigence once again aroused the anger of the students, who gathered paper and wrote on it, "Zhang Gan will not leave the school for a day, and we will not attend classes for a day," and then crumpled into a ball of paper and smashed it at the commissioner on the podium.
Seeing that everyone's emotions were so excited, the commissioner finally had to promise: "You better go back to class, and you won't let Zhang Gan come next semester."
Although the turmoil subsided, Zhang Gan, who learned that he would be dismissed next semester, was furious.
Soon after, Zhang Gan learned from a teacher that the new leaflet was written by a student in Class 8 of the second grade, so he angrily decided to expel him along with the other 16 leading students.
Fortunately, Yang Changji, Xu Teli, Fang Weixia and other teachers jointly came forward to guarantee, and Zhang Gan was forced to retract this decision under pressure.
When the People's Republic of China was founded, Zhang Gan was already 65 years old.
It stands to reason that at his age, he has been a teacher all his life, and his disciples are full of peach and plums, so it should be time to live a carefree and comfortable quiet life, but Zhang Gan at this time is worried, and there is no leisurely look on his face.
The reason why Zhang Gan was sad was mainly because of three things.
One is because he was designated as a "landlord".
Zhang Gan was originally a farmer, and he has been living a poor life for decades, and a long shirt on his body has been worn for more than ten years, and it has long been patched everywhere.
However, after the end of the Anti-Japanese War, he used the money he had saved for more than 40 years to buy a large piece of land.
But what he didn't expect was that because of this move, he was condemned as a landlord.
The second is to feel remorse for the decision to fire *** in the first place.
At that time, he was the principal of Hunan No. 1 Division, and the other party was a second-grade student in the school, and he actually wrote a leaflet criticizing him, so he planned to make this young man suffer a little.
But now, the once enthusiastic young man has led people to establish New China through hardships and dangers and grown into a great leader.
Every time he thinks of this, Zhang Gan regrets that he shouldn't have done it in the first place.
The third is the telegram he sent to *** after the end of the Anti-Japanese War.
After Japan's surrender, Chiang Kai-shek openly expressed in the newspaper that he hoped to invite *** to Chongqing to discuss the peaceful establishment of the country.
In fact, Chiang Kai-shek was delaying the deployment of troops to provoke a civil war in the future under the guise of negotiations.
And what about Zhang Gan, who was a middle school teacher at the time? After seeing the newspaper, my head was hot, and I also wrote a telegram to ***.
In the telegram, Zhang Gan bragged about the strength of the Kuomintang reactionaries, the number of troops, and the advanced equipment, and at the end of the telegram, he also wrote that he hoped that the Yan'an side would be able to "follow the edict" and go to Chongqing as soon as possible, and that there should be no luck or stubbornness.
Now that New China has been established, Zhang Gan, who is close to old age, is full of fear, after all, the things he did in the past are not glorious when he looks back.
Just when Zhang Gan was in distress and anxious for his family's livelihood, Hunan Province sent someone to send 1,200 catties of relief rice, and there was also a large amount of money.
In this regard, Zhang Gan didn't know why, and soon after, the visit of Wang Shoudao, chairman of Hunan Province, finally revealed the mystery in his heart.
It turned out that these grains and money were sent by *** arrangers.
Wang Shoudao also took Zhang Gan's arm and said: "Mr. Zhang, ** specially wrote a letter to let us come to comfort you, saying that you are an old man in the education sector and should be taken care of."
Hearing this, Zhang Gan was so moved that he couldn't cry.
That night, Zhang Gan lay in bed tossing and turning, unable to sleep at night, and a sense of gratitude in his heart kept him awake.
He decisively got up and came to the study, and after thinking about it for a while, he picked up a pen and paper and wrote a letter to *** under the dim lamp.
"Chairman Hui Jian: Respectfully,......I deeply feel that my brother cares about the dry life, and my brother has thousands of opportunities in the country, and he is not far away, and his gratitude can be described."After the letter was sent, Zhang Gan had to go to the door several times a day to see if there were any letters.
After waiting for a few days, he finally received a reply from ***, which reminded him to pay attention to his body, and if there are any difficulties in life, he can raise them with the nearest local **, as long as he does not violate the principles, and do his best to help solve them.
After reading the letter word by word, Zhang Gan's hanging heart finally relaxed, and he said to his children more than once: "* Emphasis on love and righteousness, and magnanimity, it is really a blessing for the country!" ”
In the autumn of 1951, Zhang Gan received a letter from *** again, hoping to invite him to Beijing for a gathering and attend the National Day ceremony in the near future.
Zhang Gan was overjoyed to receive this invitation letter, and he couldn't wait to pack his bags and step on the train to Beijing.
In order not to make Zhang Gan feel lonely, ** also intimately invited Li Shuqing, Zou Puxun and others, who were former teachers and friends of Hunan No. 1 Normal School, to come to Zhongnanhai.
On the evening of Zhang Gan's arrival in Beijing, ** set up a dinner party in the Juxiang Book House to pick up the wind and wash the dust for him, and in front of Mao Anying's children, he gently stroked Zhang Gan's shoulders and said: "Dolls, you often praise how good your teacher is in front of me, this is my teacher, and my teacher is also very good."
After saying that, Zhang Gan, who was still a little restrained, became calm, and he couldn't help shedding tears of remorse while eating the dishes that *** personally sandwiched.
He choked up and said, "I was really blinded at the beginning, I shouldn't have proposed to withdraw from your school, and I shouldn't have given you a big demerit......."”
Seeing the elderly Zhang Gan doing a "review", he couldn't bear it, so he hurriedly stretched out his hand to stop him: "I was still young at that time, and I was too one-sided and excited about the problem."
Then, ** raised his glass and said to everyone: "Don't mention the past, let's have a good drink tonight."
After the dinner, ** saw that the moon and stars outside the window were scarce, and the whole earth was illuminated by the moonlight as if it was day, so he personally acted as a guide and led everyone to visit Zhongnanhai.
Early the next morning, ** also specially invited Fu Lianzhang, vice minister of health, and several doctors to examine Zhang Gan's body.
Soon after, on October 1, that is, the day of the National Day, ** also sent someone to invite Zhang Gan to the viewing platform of the Tiananmen Gate Tower to join the grand National Day ceremony.
During this trip to Beijing, Zhang Gan stayed here for two months and visited all the places of interest in Beijing.
After he returned to Hunan, under the arrangement of ***, he was also hired as a counselor to the Hunan Provincial Military and Political Commission. In this way, Zhang Gan can not only receive a salary from the school every month, but also get an additional provincial bride money, which solves the family's livelihood problem.
In the early 60s of the last century, it was the most difficult period for New China's economy, and even *** specially instructed the kitchen: "The usual meals should be simpler, and the food and money saved can also help some people eat well."
But even though he was so diligent and thrifty, he still entrusted Zhang Huaping, then secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, to send a package to Zhang Gan.
The package contained several pieces of clothing, two envelopes. One of the envelopes contained 2,000 yuan, which was the manuscript fee that *** usually accumulated, and the other envelope contained a letter from the chairman.
In this letter, ** asked Zhang Gan again how his recent physical condition is, and if he has any discomfort, he should go to the hospital immediately for examination to prevent delaying his condition. In addition, "send a few thin items" in case of emergency.
After reading this letter, Zhang Gan had already burst into tears, and he said to Zhang Huaping vigorously: "Secretary Zhang, my body is old and I can't do anything anymore, and the chairman actually loves me so much, I really deserve it, I de......serve it."”
The past decades ago are vividly remembered, and every time Zhang Gan thinks about it, his heart is full of shame.
And what he is most grateful for is the forgiving heart.