Father, who are you?
The story of the son of a martyr who "searched for his father"
Almost everyone has an image of a father in their hearts.
For 74-year-old Liu Yuping, the image of his father, whom he has hardly seen since he was a child, is the photo in his childhood memory, a name that is both familiar and unfamiliar, and it is the image of his father who has experienced decades of hardships as an adult. Searching for the identity that finally became clear: a member of the Communist Party of China, who has been working on the hidden front for a long time, and sacrificed on the land of the treasure island in order to realize the reunification of the motherland, only 37 years old...
"Before the Battle of Liaoning and Shenyang, my father Liu Guangdian, as the owner of Fusheng Western Pharmacy on Taiyuan Street in Shenyang, was engaged in a pharmaceutical business in Shenyang. In fact, at that time, my father was running a pharmaceutical business and used the money he earned as revolutionary funds; On the one hand, he was engaged in underground work, delivering various military information to the Northeast People's Liberation Army at that time..."
To the northwest of Beijing, on the Memorial Square of the Unsung Heroes in Xishan National Forest Park, as a part-time professor of the Party Construction Department of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, this old man with white hair and spirits came to give experiential teaching to the students of the Party School, as well as the students who came to the Party School specially. The people who paid tribute emotionally told the stories of the unsung heroes who died on the hidden fronts in Taiwan in the 1950s, especially the glorious and extraordinary lives of his father Liu Guangdian and his mother Wang Sulian, and told their stories of "searching for father".
The story of the sacrifice of the martyr and his "searching for his father" and his rectification of his father's name have touched and infected countless people...
Our reporters Fang Lixin, Li Bin, Wu Mengda
Huang Haibo, Tai Sicong, Zhang Manzi
What does it feel like to "see you again" across nearly a period of time?
Liu Yuping, who was born in Shenyang’s underground intelligence station in 1948, a year before the founding of the Republic, has not seen his father since he was over a year old, and it has been nearly a decade since he “see you again”—meeting his father in Taiwan in November 2008 altar of ashes.
In the late 1980s, a list of the victims of the CCP's hidden front who had been sent to Taiwan was sent back to the mainland from Taiwan.
Among them, "Liu Guangdian, a native of Lushun" has just six words, revealing a secret that has been sealed for 40 years.
It wasn't long before Liu Yuping learned that his father Liu Guangdian was a "traffic officer" on the Chinese Communist Party's hidden front, and that his birthplace was a CCP intelligence station.
"Father, who are you?" "How did he sacrifice?" With countless mysteries, Liu Yuping has been doing one thing for thirty years: looking for his father.
As one mystery after another was unraveled, the truth finally came to light: his father was a lurker who sacrificed his life in a foreign country to work on the hidden front; A retrograde who entered Taiwan to lurk and was later exposed. In order to avoid the enemy's pursuit, he had to hide in a cave for four years like a savage; a "rebel" who was framed by the Kuomintang reactionaries and carried unprovoked charges... His short and mysterious life is like a Movie-like ups and downs.
In April 2019, with deep love for his father and responsibility for history, Liu Yuping put his father's history of revolutionary work, fighting on hidden fronts, and the events before and after his sacrifice into writing, and published "Searching for Father". ——The Red Footprint of Martyr Liu Guangdian.
"This is the trace of a son looking for his father, who is trying to piece together a complete image of his father; at the same time, this is also a high respect expressed by a Communist Party member to another Communist Party member." The preface to the book reads.
retrograde
——This is a real "hidden" story: on October 25, 1949, not long after the founding of New China, people were still immersed in joy.
He was sent to Taiwan by a letter from the Chinese intelligence services.
Years of intelligence work on the CCP's hidden fronts has turned him into an underground worker walking on the tip of a knife.
In order to complete the last intelligence work of the reunification of the motherland and the victory of the final reunification of New China, he chose to leave his wife and children without saying goodbye.
At the end of February 1954, the courtyard of Guanyin Temple No. 21, located in Wangdaren Hutong, Beixinqiao, Beijing welcomed several new residents.
A young mother, with her three children and a nanny, moved into a 10-square-meter cottage on the east side of the courtyard.
Her name is Wang Sulian, Liu Yuping's mother and Liu Guangdian's wife.
At this time, New China has been established for nearly 5 years.
The residence in Courtyard No. 21 of Guanyin Temple is not known to be the new home that Wang Sulian's family has moved into for the first time.
In the late 1940s, the Kuomintang group that fled to Taiwan mobilized all forces to massacre the members of the Communist Party in Taiwan and the masses who opposed them.
In the past five years, more than 100,000 people have been killed, arrested, imprisoned and taught.
Among them, Liu Guangdian, as a "traffic man" sent by the Chinese Communist Party to Taiwan to perform underground secret missions, has become one of the main targets of the wanted.
Liu Guangdian, who was digging a hole in Taiwan's Qishan Mountain and insisting on fighting, was betrayed by traitors and arrested.
For this reason, the Taiwan Kuomintang group deliberately created fake news of Liu Guangdian's mutiny to confuse the public. This is the scene of Wang Sulian's family moving to the Guanyin Temple No. 21 courtyard, which is easier to be monitored.
Liu Guangdian, who was born in Lushun, Liaoning, has been out to make a living since he was 15 years old. He has not only worked in the pharmaceutical business, but also worked in coal mine finance and accounting. He is a young and talented person.
Born in a family of ordinary workers, Wang Sulian grew up in a simple family education, and then went to Shanhaiguan Normal School to become a wise woman.
The two were introduced to each other, fell in love with each other, and soon became a couple.
After the marriage, their lives got better and better.
But what Wang Sulian didn't know was that her husband traveled around the Northeast and North China all the year round. In fact, he has been using his businessman status to secretly help and protect the people and anti-Japanese personnel.
In 1946, Liu Guangdian met Hong Guoshi, a veteran CCP underground worker and a fellow from Northeast China, in Shanghai.
At this time, 24-year-old Liu Guangdian not only knew English and Japanese, but was also familiar with the pharmaceutical business.
There are guests in the seat, a good wife in the family, children under their knees, gold in their hands, and they live a good life.
Liu Guangdian could totally live a better life.
But at this time, the party desperately needs loyal soldiers who can work on the covert front.
Hong Guoshi discovered that Liu Guangdian was alert and honest, so he preached to him the truth of the revolution.
With the party's education and the help of his comrades, Liu Guangdian resolutely made his first life choice: to join the revolution, thus establishing the original aspiration of the Communists and becoming a soldier on the hidden front of the Chinese Communist Party.
"As long as the people need it, I will do it. Since the job requires it, I can try it." In this way, in early 1947, he became a traffic officer in the Dalian Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Social Affairs of the Northeast of the Communist Party of China.
In order to complete the task, Liu Guangdian often went out of the house. "With my mother's cultural quality and understanding of her husband, she vaguely felt that my father was engaged in special revolutionary work." Liu Yuping said.
Therefore, like most virtuous wives, every time Liu Guangdian goes out, Wang Sulian always prepares his luggage for him and reminds him carefully before leaving.
When Liu Guangdian was away, the three children were left to Wang Sulian's care alone.
Although there is a nanny to help her, and the organization often comes to take care of her, she has been very weak due to her heart disease. All she can do is bear everything silently and look forward to her husband's return.
On the eve of the founding of New China in 1949, Liu Guangdian ushered in the second important choice in his life.
In May, he left Peiping and went to Wuhan first to cooperate with the liberation of Wuhan.
Afterwards, he went to Hong Kong and planned to secretly enter Taiwan Island according to the organization's arrangement to retrieve important information collected by the CCP's intelligence agencies sent to Taiwan.
Between the reunification of the motherland and the choice between individuals and families, he chose the former without hesitation.
In order to prevent his family from worrying, he wrote a letter to his wife when he left Wuhan: I want to go to a distant place to do business, and I will go home in one or two years at the longest.
If I can't find it by then, I will use the name Liu Fang to post a missing person notice in the newspaper.
On October 1, 1949, New China was established, and the whole country celebrated, but Wang Sulian's family did not wait for her husband to return after the celebration.
At this time, what Wang Sulian and the children did not know was that soon after the founding of New China, Cai Xiaogan, secretary of the Taiwan Provincial Working Committee of the CCP’s underground party organization, was arrested and betrayed. Identity is also revealed.
To a certain extent, Cai Xiaoqian's betrayal is no less than the serious consequences caused by Gu Shunzhang, the head of the Central Special Branch.
Due to his betrayal, our party's intelligence network in Taiwan, which was already weak, was devastated, more than a thousand people were arrested and killed, and the entire Taiwan Working Committee was completely lost.
Wu Shi, Chen Baocang, Zhu Feng and other underground workers were all arrested and killed.
At this time, Liu Guangdian did not know where to go, and the KMT spy agency issued a wanted order: "Liu Guangdian, an important fugitive spy, pseudonym Liu Xiannong, in his thirties, from Dalian, with a high stature, usually likes to wear brown suits and blue tunic suits. Once found, he will be arrested immediately. ."
Knowing that he had been exposed, Liu Guangdian took the risk of sending an alarm to the organization through the local post office: "Jun Di died of acute encephalitis".
Subsequently, he found another contact, Wang Yaodong, and has since lost contact with the organization and his family.
And until her death in 1955, Wang Sulian did not wait for the news of her husband Liu Guangdian.
search
——This is a story that was revealed after nearly half a century: as the situation in Taiwan became more and more dangerous, he moved again and again under the enemy’s bayonet and wanted, incognito, living in a cave, skinny, with particularly long beard and hair. , like a savage.
But he never gave up for a moment. He worked and lived with Taiwan compatriots in the deep mountains, and gave the rest of the money to the local people. He said to everyone: After the Communist Party comes, I will definitely build a house for you and let you Have a good time.
However, little is known about what he did. After he sacrificed for many years, an underground party who had been imprisoned brought back a list, only to reveal the secret that had been hidden for decades...
When he was a child, the biggest question mark in Liu Yuping's mind was "Where is Dad?" This question even ran through the first half of his life.
Finally, on the eve of the Spring Festival when he was 43 years old, the three Liu Yuping brothers and sisters were called together to participate in a feast arranged by the superior organization.
That night, Liu Yuping got the exact information about his father for the first time: Liu Guangdian, who went to Taiwan to work underground in 1949, was later betrayed by a traitor, was unfortunately arrested and died, and was only 37 years old.
Liu Yuping's sister Liu Yufang burst into tears.
She always believed that her father was still alive, and hoped that one day her father would suddenly appear in front of her.
Relevant staff told them that this was the conclusion reached by the relevant departments based on a list brought back by a Taiwanese Communist Party member who was arrested in Taiwan and later released after serving his sentence.
The list records the comrades who died on the hidden front in Taiwan, including the words "Liu Guangdian, a native of Lushun".
In less than a year, the formalities for recognizing their father as a martyr have been completed, and their lives have returned to peace.
But Liu Yuping always had question marks in his heart: what kind of person is his father?
Why did you leave your rich life, leave your wife and children, and go to the "silent battlefield" that no one knows about when the revolution is about to win?
How was he arrested and sacrificed?
In September 2008, Liu Yuping's son Liu Xinyu searched the Internet for information about his grandfather.
Suddenly, a fuchsia booklet of "The Story of a Bandit Escaped" popped up on a "Qimo" web page suffixed with "tw". There was an illustration next to the booklet, and a line of small characters under the illustration surprised them: "Liu Guangdian is a A bandit spy, he is a Hong Guo-style traffic officer sent by the Political Bureau of the Bandit Central Committee, responsible for the traffic liaison between Hong Kong and Taiwan."
Seeing that it was being auctioned, Liu Yuping immediately entrusted a friend in Taipei to buy it at all costs.
This booklet was handed over to him on September 30, 2008: it is 7 cm long and 10.5 cm wide, with a black regular script "A Story of a Bandit Escape" in the center of the cover, and "A Story of a Bandit Escape" in the lower left corner. The Taiwan Provincial Security Commander compiled and printed the words "January 44th".
Among them, "Liu Bandit Guangdian's Escape Area Map" details Liu Guangdian's 4-year escape career in Taiwan from March 1, 1950.
An illustration on the third page immediately attracted Liu Yuping: a person wearing a floral coat, tie, trousers, leather shoes on his feet, and a suitcase in his hand.
The other, wearing a sackcloth and pulling his trouser legs, was beside a tricycle.
"This illustration is titled "Sleeping at a Tricycle Driver's House in Taipei", and the person carrying the suitcase is my father, Liu Guangdian! This is the first time I've seen him go to Taiwan since my father left us when he was over a year old. Image!" Until now, Liu Yuping can't hide his excitement when talking about the moment he "sees" his father again.
Through this booklet, Liu Yuping learned that his father once found a small cave with an entrance of only 50 centimeters wide, 60 centimeters high, 1.1 meter deep and 1.7 meters high on Qishan Mountain, which is more than 1,000 meters above sea level in southern Taiwan. For nearly 4 years, he has lived a "primitive life" like a savage without food and clothing.
It was a miracle to get this booklet!
Liu Yuping rekindled hope: there must be more files to record his father's days in Taiwan.
The hard work pays off, and the constant search for information has made Liu Guangdian's footprint in Taiwan increasingly clear.
In the so-called "Secret Documents of the Security Bureau - Compilation of Bandit Cases Over the Years" edited by Li Ao, Liu Yuping learned that under the careful arrangement of his comrade-in-arms Wang Yaodong, his father first lived in the home of Taiwanese farmer Lai Zhengliang when he fled south.
His father handed some vegetable money to Lai Zhengliang and worked with him, trying to change his stretched life.
Yet dangers kept coming.
With the intensification of the enemy's search, Liu Guangdian had to leave Lai's house and live in the home of Wang's old husband and wife, trying to find a way to leave Taiwan and return to the mainland.
But because of Taiwan's strict lockdown, he had to hide in the mountains.
Sometimes they dig a hole in the mountains, and sometimes they build a shack in the forest.
In the end, my father could only hide in a small cave to settle down.
Liu Yuping said: "I often think: From the spring of 1950 to the beginning of 1954, for nearly four years, my father slept in the rough during the turbulent raid, and there was not a single Taiwanese citizen who exposed him or reported him!"
In Liu Yuping's mind, the image of his father became clear in Liu Yuping's mind in the descriptions of others that he had continuously obtained on his pursuit for more than 30 years.
"Although he was unable to return to the mainland, he never forgot his mission: to make Taiwan compatriots live a better life. Everywhere he went, he considered Taiwan compatriots and safeguarded their interests. When he saw the king who helped him The old couple’s house was dilapidated and wet, so I told them that after the Communist Party liberated Taiwan, they would definitely build a house for you, so that you can live a good life.” Liu Yuping said.
Once Liu Guangdian learned about a Taiwanese underground party member who had a family and a family and his life could not be maintained, he had the idea of surrendering, so Liu Guangdian immediately found him and left him all the emergency NT$200: "Buy something to eat and spend the rest of your life. Let's persevere together. Taiwan will be liberated." In fact, Liu Guangdian had no living expenses at that time, so he could only exchange some change with bamboo weaving.
Liu Yuping said that his father's conduct impressed many Taiwan compatriots.
Years later, Zhang Jialin, a Taiwanese veteran who had moved to the United States, still wrote about his short acquaintance with his father in prison in a memoir-style essay:
"I was suddenly transferred to No. 8, where Liu Guangdian, a native of Lushun. When we first met, he reported his name, which made me feel good about him... Liu Guangdian is tall and handsome, with long hair and beard. , like a savage... Gradually I found that he is very capable, not only can speak Hokkien, but also Japanese. He never talked to me about the case he was involved in, but he got along well and often chatted. One day he talked about his father . He said 'My dad is a shunting worker at Shenyang Railway Station.' I asked casually 'Then why are you coming to Taiwan?' He said 'I am ordered!'"
Zhang Jialin remembered the three words "I am ordered" for a lifetime, and he could never forget the determination in Liu Guangdian's eyes when he said these words: "Listening to him, I feel that this person has something. Of course, I know that he is the real one. The Communist Party, but I don't tell anyone..."
After being arrested, Liu Guangdian was very calm and fearless in the face of severe torture to extract a confession. He never revealed any secrets of the organization and was secretly detained for nearly five years.
Five years in prison did not change Liu Guangdian's beliefs, but it made the Taiwan Security Bureau completely lose patience.
In the "Suppressing Bandit" handbook compiled by the Taiwan authorities at that time, Liu Guangdian was evaluated as follows: "Living in the mountains, digging the ground as a cave, living a primitive life for many years, still obsessed, and continuing to engage in reactionary propaganda, this shows that his thoughts are influenced by The poison is deep."
Liu Yuping said that this is the highest evaluation the enemy can give an ordinary Communist.
On February 4, 1959, the impatient Taiwan Security Bureau killed Liu Guangdian at the Ankeng execution ground in Xindian, Taipei.
Correct name
——This is not a story of "one person": on the hidden front, there is such a group of people walking on the tip of a knife, born in the dark, but chasing the light.
They fought in a silent battlefield that no one knew about, and they were born and died, but they were content to be anonymous; they couldn't publicize their victories, and they couldn't explain their failures. Maybe only they knew what they stood for.
When they returned, there were no flowers or applause; when they sacrificed, they didn't even have time to leave anything for their children.
Perhaps only history knows how they used their lives to rewrite the Spring and Autumn Period and return to today's happy life.
In 2019, the work written by Liu Yuping, the first domestically approved and published work that reflects the lives and struggles of people on the hidden front in Taiwan, "Finding Father - The Red Footprint of Martyr Liu Guangdian", was published by the People's Publishing House.
The real hidden frontline struggle is thousands of times more cruel and complicated than those in the film and television works. Those intelligence officers are on the brink of death every day, bearing huge psychological pressure, and even bearing infamy all their lives.
The historical details have been found out, and the deeds of Liu Guangdian and other heroes are also known to more people.
In 2009, Liu Yuping, together with two Taiwanese CCP members, suggested to the relevant central authorities to build a memorial site to commemorate the heroes on the hidden front.
At that time, there were many hero memorial halls all over the country, but there was no large-scale memorial place for the martyrs who died in Taiwan.
Soon, their requests were answered.
In 2013, in the Xishan National Forest Park in Beijing, a memorial square for the unsung hero was completed, which was specially built for the martyrs who died in Taiwan in the last century.
Go up the left and right steps along the landscape wall of the Memorial Square for the Unknown Soldier. The granite walls on both sides are engraved with the names of martyrs. There are many blanks and spaces in the middle, so that new names of martyrs can be discovered in the future and can be added at any time.
In the center of the square on the second floor stands a monument with a length of 14 meters and a width of 4 meters. There are five groups of relief sculptures on the front, and the main inscription of the monument is engraved on the back.
There are also 5 refined copperplate inscriptions on prominent positions in the square, the themes are "loyalty", "light and shadow", "home and country", "faithfulness" and "chasing dreams".
Here, as an adjunct professor at the Central Party School, Liu Yuping often tells the story of the hero and his father to the students studying at the Central Party School.
At the end of the presentation, many people will take off their glasses and rub their red and tearful eyes.
Li Kaicheng, the grandson of General Li Kenong, and Liu Xinyu, the grandson of Liu Guangdian, said after careful research that they carefully sorted out the group of martyrs who went to Taiwan on the hidden front, and found that most of them were originally well-fed, highly educated, and had a good social status.
General Chen Baocang and General Wu Shi are senior military officials; Martyr Zhu Feng was born in a wealthy family of businessmen in Zhejiang; Martyr Xiao Minghua graduated from Peking Teachers College and already has considerable attainments in the academic field; Martyr Wang Shenghe graduated from the Economics Department of Qilu University and has a career in Civil Aviation Administration. Decent and decent jobs; Liu Guangdian graduated from the Department of Economics of Fu Jen Catholic University in Beiping... They could have lived a relatively stable and prosperous life in troubled times, but they chose to join the party organization and embarked on the road of revolution.
"Grandpa is not an isolated case or a case of this life trajectory." Liu Xinyu said that so many comrades in arms who have received higher education and can "stand alone" have chosen this path, which shows that the organization of the Communist Party of China is indeed advanced. Theory and practice can indeed achieve their ideals.
Long Yi, the original author of "Hidden", wrote in the preface of "Searching for Father: The Red Footprint of Martyr Liu Guangdian": "Thousands of underground workers like Mr. Guangdian are actually ordinary people... They are called heroes because of their strong beliefs and lofty beliefs, and because while working hard for great ideals, they still need to endure the survival, family, health, and sophistication that every ordinary person must endure. , the distress and torment caused by social relations.”
Every ordinary person becomes a hero with his own choice.
The names of these unsung heroes are unknown, but their deeds have not been forgotten.
Not long ago, the "Opinions on Strengthening the Commendation of Martyrs in the New Era" issued by the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the General Office of the State Council, and the General Office of the Central Military Commission pointed out: Heroes and martyrs are the backbone of the nation and the vanguard of the times. The common historical memory and precious spiritual wealth of the Chinese nation are the source of strength that inspires the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups to make unremitting efforts.
Before and after the Qingming Festival, many people came to pay homage to the heroes every day in the Memorial Square of the Unsung Heroes in Xishan, Beijing.
People will see this sentence on the inscription on the square: "The long river is the throat, and the green mountains are the evidence; how can it be called silent? The river and the mountain are the name!"
People cherish the memory of the martyrs, and the descendants of the martyrs miss their loved ones.
After decades of hard pursuit, Liu Yuping has gray hair, and the years have left many wrinkles on his face.
When he retired at the age of 60, in order to commemorate his father Liu Guangdian, he specially invited a sculptor to cast a bronze statue of his father in bronze according to the photos of his father when he was 20 years old.
Liu Yuping placed the bronze statue and wrote the following sentence: A 60-year-old son will accompany his 20-year-old father all day long.
After his father was posthumously recognized as a martyr in 1991, the descendants of Liu Yuping placed an empty urn in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery and "went on a long road to find his father's body".
After much searching, in April 2003, Taiwanese friends actually found an urn with the name "Liu Guangdian" written on it in the Linggu Pagoda of the Liuzhangli Cemetery in Taiwan.
On the afternoon of November 9, 2008, the plane taken by Liu Yuping and others landed slowly at Taipei Taoyuan Airport.
As arranged in advance, Taiwanese friends waited for their arrival, and together they boarded the car and ran to the Liuzhangli cemetery.
Friends accompany them into the columbarium, where there are wooden urns for storing ashes, which are composed of small wooden cabinets that are closed one by one.
The friend opened one of the wooden cabinets where the urn was placed, a light yellow porcelain urn with a height of about 30 centimeters and a diameter of about 15 centimeters. On the body of the altar, there was a note with the words "Liu Guangdian" written in block letters. .
So far, Liu Yuping, her sister and brother finally "see" their father again after a lapse of nearly a year.
"The 60 years are a little over a period of time. Who can understand how I spent more than 21,000 days and nights of suffering, and how excited I was to find any clues about my father, until I basically figured out the situation of my father. Delighted." Liu Yuping said.
They retrieved half of the ashes of Martyr Liu Guangdian and placed them in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.
The other half is still placed in the Linggu Pagoda in Taiwan's Liuzhangli Cemetery.
Liu Yuping said that the motherland has not yet been reunified, and the ashes of his father will be put together on the day of reunification.