family background
Nowadays, when studying great men, people can't avoid the root of myth. They are all struggling to find their family background and want to arrange a famous ancestor for each other. In people's past impressions, there must be innate factors behind the achievements of great men. However, opening the genealogy of Mao Zedong, a great modern man, may make scholars feel embarrassed and difficult, because the genealogy of this great man is too boring to grasp.
According to records, Mao Zedong's ancestor Mao Taihua was originally from Longcheng, Jizhou, Jiangxi. In order to avoid the war, the family moved from Jiangxi to Yunnan at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and settled in Lancangwei, Yunnan. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Mao Taihua took the opportunity to join the army for a living. Later, due to his outstanding military achievements, he was stationed in Hunan as an officer in the fourteenth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.
Later, two sons were born in Hunan, named Qingyi and Qingsi respectively. When he was older, his two sons got married in Xiangtan, Hunan, and left Shaoshan.
Although there were officials in our ancestors, Mao Zedong's generation dates back to the Five Dynasties, and there was never an official, let alone a scholar.
Therefore, Mao Zedong himself has always claimed that he is the son of a farmer, which is also very appropriate.
On the other hand, although Mao Zedong's ancestors were not rich and expensive, and their family environment was quite solid, it was only in the grandfather's generation that their wealth began to decline. Mao Zedong's grandfather, Mao Enpu, was weak, honest and had no alert business mind. The only piece of land left by the ancestors was also forced to pawn to others, and life was extremely poor.
It was not until Mao Zedong's father Mao Shunsheng's generation that his character became resolute.
It is said that the children of the poor came to power very early. When Mao Shunsheng was only 17 years old, he shouldered the burden of supporting his family. Although he worked hard, he was cheated because his friend was poor. Not only did he not earn money, but he was also heavily in debt. In order to make a living, Mao Shunsheng finally had to leave his hometown and go out to find a profitable business.
Fortunately, thank God, Mao Shunsheng later joined the Xiang army, which not only increased his knowledge, but also accumulated the first bucket of gold in his life. With entrepreneurial capital and flexible mind, his family began to improve gradually.
That's why Mao Zedong can afford to read when the economy is depressed.
Shi Mao's genealogy is so boring that historians who study Mao Zedong are unwilling. They searched hard and finally made a breakthrough in a county annals. According to the book, during the Qianlong period, a juren named Dai Jiong was invited by Mao Shi's clan to rebuild his family tree in the village. As soon as Dai Jiong came here, he was attracted by the beautiful scenery in front of him.
After Mr. Wang was deeply touched, he wrote: "The landscape of the husband is absolutely unique, and the wizards come out." Although Shaoshan is not in the land of Zhongzhou, it is beyond the reach of Foucault's poets. They will certainly grasp the beauty of mountains and rivers, pursue Mr. Gu's people, be the China of the country, be the hope of the country, and spread people everywhere ... "
Unexpectedly, many years later, our prediction came true. After 156, 1893 12.26, a generation of prodigies was born in Shaoshan.
Whether this rumor is true or not, it at least casts a mysterious veil over Mao Zedong's birth.
When there are men at home, it should be a happy thing for the whole family to celebrate. However, strangely, with the birth of Mao, Mao's father didn't show much joy. On the contrary, he looked sad.
What the hell is going on here?
It turned out that long before Mao Zedong was born, his mother had given birth to two children, but unfortunately, they died before they were adults.
In a mountain village that pays attention to carrying on the family line and continuing the incense, such disasters happen one after another, and Mao Zedong's parents can be scared for fear that their children will not grow up safely.
So Wen burned incense and worshipped Buddha all day in an attempt to bless God. This kind of worry didn't appear until Mao Zedong was one year old. When the family saw that the child was full of vigor and health, the parents were relieved.
Mao Zedong's birth not only brightened the lifeless family atmosphere, but also brought wealth to his father Mao Shunsheng.
When Mao Shunsheng just returned home from outside, he had to start a small business because of limited funds. Even if you are hardworking and frugal, the annual surplus is still insignificant, barely maintaining the livelihood of your family.
After Mao Zedong was born, his father Mao Shunsheng's luck began to improve. With Mao Shunsheng's painstaking efforts, his family is getting better and better. The money he earned can not only maintain his livelihood for one year, but also have extra funds to redeem the industry pawned by his ancestors.
The fate of the Mao family's generation of poverty began to change here with his father Mao Shunsheng. This enabled the Mao Zedong family to stand firm in Shaoshan and have enough capital to stand here.
Two years after Mao Zedong was born, her mother gave birth to her brother Mao Zemin. With more and more sons, Mao Shunsheng's fighting spirit is even more stimulated. In the agricultural age, many hands make light work. Every extra child means an extra labor force in the family, which can create more wealth.
According to Mao Zedong later recalled:
"When I was young, my family had 45 acres of land." My father Mao Shunsheng is a middle peasant in a strict sense. Later, he bought 7 acres of land with his money. Later, with the birth of his younger brother, his father increased his investment in assets and his family became rich.
The family finally stopped worrying about their livelihood.
When he became rich, Mao Shunsheng not only built houses and increased land, but also hired long-term and short-term workers. In just ten years, the Mao family became a rich man in the village.
Father-son contradiction
Growing up in a wealthy family, no longer worrying about food and clothing, and being able to study in a school every day seems easy to achieve today, but in China at the beginning of the 20th century, it was very valuable. Fortunately, Mao Zedong lives in this good environment with food and books to read.
By rights, he should be very happy.
However, this was not the case in Mao Zedong's later personal memories.
In the chat between Mao Zedong and Si Nuo, between the lines, we can feel that young Mao Zedong is full of resentment and frustration towards his father.
All this is related to the violence of his father Mao Shunsheng.
Referring to the memory of his father, Mao Zedong said without hesitation: "I was full of resentment against my father when I was very young."
So what did his father Mao Shunsheng do to young Mao Zedong to make him so dissatisfied with his father?
According to Mao himself, the biggest contradiction between him and his father mainly focuses on reading.
At that time, his father, Mao Shunsheng, chose to let him study in a private school in the hope that he could read through the history of classics so that he could file a lawsuit for himself in the future.
His father, Mao Shunsheng, was worried about the lawsuit because he was illiterate in his early years, and a profiteer who took advantage of himself by hook or by crook won the lawsuit because of his eloquence. This incident has greatly stimulated him, and he hopes that his children can go to private schools in the future to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
However, young Mao Zedong is not interested in these boring classics at all. His interest is to read more fascinating "light reading".
For Mao Zedong, a teenager, books such as The Water Margin, The Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties, The Romance of Three Kingdoms and The Journey to the West attract him more than boring classics.
Like in class, Mao Zedong was found reading other books again and again by the teacher. Later, when the teacher called his parents, Mao Fu not only "bitterly complained" about Mao Zedong's deviant behavior.
In many cases, it is direct punching and kicking, which makes the relationship between father and son tense.
According to Mao Zedong's own later memories, that day, after being beaten by his father, he angrily chose to run away from home. He was only ten years old that year.
Afraid of his father's continued violence, he dared not go home and had to go in the direction of the county. Unfortunately, however, I got lost halfway and have been wandering outside for three days.
Fortunately, he was finally found by his family.
Mao Zedong's running away from home also frightened his family. Mao Shunsheng, who found his son, never dared to be rough with his son again, and his temper and personality were much gentler than before. This silent struggle also made young Mao Zedong taste the sweetness of victory, and his struggle finally ushered in a turning point.
Besides reading, there are great differences between father and son. On the attitude of disciplining children, Mao Zedong was quite dissatisfied because his father was cruel and harsh, and he was too stingy in his life. In the eyes of young Mao Zedong, his father is an unreasonable "tyrant".
He can't see that I'm idle. He either asked me to keep accounts or let me do farm work in the fields. He is extremely violent and often uses violence against his children. Rich as he is, he is stingy. He doesn't even want to give us a penny at ordinary times, and gives us the worst food. The middle of each month is his most generous day for employees, and employees can eat eggs on this day. However, for their children, there are neither eggs nor meat. "Mao Zedong later recalled.
When I was a child, my father's cruelty left a shadow on Mao Zedong. After so many years, when talking about his father, Mao Zedong showed an aggrieved look.
Besides, Shi Mao and his son have different attitudes towards the poor.
In Mao's view, most of the reasons why a person is poor are laziness and bad luck. Such people naturally do not deserve sympathy and pity. On this point, Mao Zedong and his mother agree. They all agree that those vulnerable groups in life deserve sympathy and kindness. Especially in famine years, my mother often sent food to the poor, which impressed young Mao Zedong deeply.
But the mother's charity can only be carried out in the absence of her father. Once father is present, he won't allow mother to do so. More than once, my mother was reprimanded by my father for delivering food to the poor.
Admiring his mother's kindness, Mao Zedong often quarreled with his father on her side.
"On one occasion, a farmer promised to sell his pig to Mao Shunsheng, and the family also received a deposit from Mao Zedong and made a bet." But who knows, only a few days later, the price of pork has gone up, and farmers have to buy a few dollars less.
Later, his father Mao Shunsheng asked Mao Zedong to collect pigs. At this time, the farmer complained to him, "My pork is cheap. These few dollars may be nothing to you rich people, but it is true that we have several months of oil and salt money. "
Knowing what had happened, Mao Zedong brokered the deal on the spot without saying anything. When he got home, his father, who knows the truth, cursed Mao Zedong when he saw that the business was not done, saying that he was a black sheep and lost money in business.
In the face of his aggressive father, Mao Zedong, who is hot-blooded, turned against him and said that he was a cold miser.
In addition, Mao Zedong and his father have great differences in the orientation of life goals.
What annoys little Mao Zedong most is that his father always sets life trajectories for others according to his own wishes.
Many times, after drinking a few glasses of wine, father Mao Shunsheng confided to his sons and forcibly grafted his grand blueprint on his son Mao Zedong.
He often patted his son on the shoulder and said, "Runzhi, in the past two years, first pick up the burden in the field and let dad concentrate on doing his own thing." Or "In two years, Runzhi will learn to do business, and Runlian will take over your brother's class and take charge of the fields." I thought your grandfather left me a mess, and later it was thanks to my father's hard work that our family established this inheritance. In the future, as long as our grandfather Qi Xin, Qi Xin, works together and manages the family diligently, I dare say that in twenty or thirty years, the Mao family will be a hundred acres of fertile land and become a noble family. At that time, I can be happy with my grandchildren, enjoy my old age and die without regret.
Mao Zedong, a teenager, showed disdain after hearing his father's beautiful vision, while Mao Zedong, a teenager, hated the local rich man who was greedy for money. At that time, he had been attracted by romance novels, and all his fantasies were Liangshan heroes and politicians.
Although Mao Zedong and his father Mao Shunsheng are incompatible because of their different viewpoints and positions, from the realistic analysis, the deep-seated reason that really leads to the disagreement between father and son is their different personalities.
Mao's father is tougher and even a little bossy. He likes to go his own way and always imposes his views on others. He always looks like a parent and thinks he is the pillar of the family. Everything he says and does is Lao Tzu's top priority, and his children, wife and children must resolutely carry out his orders.
Mao Zedong, a teenager, is stubborn and never allows others to arrange herself. He has a rebellious mentality in his bones. The less others object to him, the more I insist on finishing. In young Mao Zedong's view, he insisted on the truth of things, even if others threatened by violent means, he would still insist on his own truth and never waver.
The character of father and son wheat against resistance is doomed to a huge conflict between them.
According to Mao Zedong's memory:
1On the solstice of winter in 906, my father Mao Shunsheng gave a banquet to entertain relatives and friends, 13-year-old Mao Zedong was in charge of entertaining guests. And he didn't want to do these things, which made his father Mao Shunsheng scold him for being lazy, useless and unfilial. Mao Zedong, whose self-esteem was trampled on, stood up directly with his father and directly retorted in front of the guests: "Father is kind and filial, and only father is a filial son." Mao Shunsheng was so angry at his son's words that he started to fight directly.
With a genial smile, Mao Zedong ran to the small pond in front of his house and threatened that his father would dare to lean forward, so he jumped directly into the river. Father knew Mao Zedong's character, which drove him into a hurry. The child will do anything.
In the end, Mao Shunsheng could only compromise. The war between father and son is only a temporary respite.
From then on, Mao Zedong realized a truth: If you are meek and cowardly under pressure, you will suffer more beatings and curses. Only by resolutely resisting can we protect ourselves.
Compared with his dissatisfaction with his father, teenage Mao Zedong loves his mother more. Whenever he recalls his mother, he always says, "My mother is generous and always ready to help others. She is a kind and noble woman. "
In his letter to his classmates, Mao Zedong also expressed his reverence for his mother. He said: "there are three kinds of people in the world: those who harm others and benefit themselves;" People who are self-interested and do no harm to others; Someone who can benefit others at his own expense. And my mother is the latter. "
For the eldest son Mao Zedong, his mother also has a special preference for him. Whenever there is a dispute between father and son, the mother always stands firmly on her son's side and tries her best to safeguard his dignity. Although the relationship between father and son is always tense, Mao Mu always hopes that father and son can shake hands and make peace. She always sends good words to each other in private and tries her best to bridge the gap between father and son.
In this regard, Mao Zedong often uses figurative metaphors to describe family relations. In Mao Zedong's view, "his family is divided into two factions: one is his father and the ruling party; He, his mother and younger brother formed an opposition party, including employees sometimes. However, Mao recalled that members of the opposition party did not always adhere to the United front, and mothers often acted as "peacemakers" in the middle. When children show emotional rebellion or openly start the strategy of overthrowing the ruling party, they will be opposed by their mothers, who are always making their own efforts for the harmony of this family.
It was with the efforts of my mother that the relationship between father and son gradually eased. Many times, under the persuasion of his mother, young Mao Zedong was arrogant and unreasonable to his father and chose a tolerant attitude.
Later, Mao Zedong recalled: My father's cold attitude can't be said to be completely useless. This makes me more diligent, more serious to complete the work arranged by my father and avoid unnecessary punishment.
Although on the issue of principle, young Mao Zedong gave in and argued. Many times in order to defend the truth, he even threatened to run away from home and throw himself into the river, but on the whole, he still didn't want to fall out with his father completely. He is fighting for the rights and respect he deserves.
The most vivid example is that Mao Zedong later recalled to his old friend Si Nuo: "Let him know from his resistance to his father that if he openly opposes his father and fights for his rights and interests, his father is likely to soften. If he obeys meekly, he will often be beaten and cursed more cruelly than his father. "
Although Mao Zedong, a teenager, has a completely different reaction to his parents, which is typical of resisting his father and loving his mother, we will find that Mao Zedong's character is more influenced by his father in life.
For example, his father, Mao Shunsheng, is hardworking, persistent, decisive and resolute, always has unshakable faith in what he wants to accomplish, rational and pragmatic, and down-to-earth ... This is Mao Zedong's character. Even the father's stubbornness, arbitrariness and stubbornness are deeply imprinted on his son.
Of course, unlike his father's indifference, rigidity and even lack of interest, Mao Zedong is full of emotion, and more poetic imagination and sympathy. Mao Zedong himself is an emotional person, who often sees things, thinks of people and is sentimental.
These personality characteristics just reflect his mother's figure.
A scholar who specializes in Mao Zedong once pointed out: "Reading Mao Zedong's poems, you will find that he is a romantic poet with super imagination and jump thinking. But if you study the game between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek again, you will find that he is good at calculation, very cautious, extremely calm, and does not report any luck. He is also a super rational politician.
Surprisingly, this contrasting double-faced personality has achieved a perfect fit in Mao Zedong. "