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Standard photo of Yuan Shikai during his stay in the DPRK. (Image source: Public domain)
Yuan Shikai took a group photo with his children. (Picture source: Internet picture)
Qing DynastyAfter death,Republic of ChinaIt was formally established in 1912. In the early years of the Republic of China, several presidents successively served as presidents.Yuan ShikaiLi Yuanhong, Feng Guozhang, Xu Shichang and Cao Kun. Their descendants had a bad fate after the CCP came to power, and all of them were more or less persecuted by the CCP. Perhaps the words of Yuan Qifu, the eldest great-grandson of Yuan Shikai’s eldest brother Yuan Shichang, in an interview represent the true mentality of these people’s descendants after experiencing the cruel movement: “It’s a pity that people can’t be reborn. If I could be reborn, it would be nice if I didn’t have the surname Yuan again.” “It’s so painful.” Only those who feel pain in their bones can say this.
This article talks about Yuan Shikai’s death and the fate of his descendants. The historical facts of the characters involved mainly refer to the two books “Yuan Family Stories” and “Yuan Shikai Family” written by Mr. Zhang Jiongji and “Southern People Weekly: Yuan Family” Descendants are in Yuanzhai”. If descendants of the Yuan family overseas see it and find anything inappropriate, please correct me.
The Yuan family’s ancestral tomb was destroyed
In 1934, Yuan Shikai’s tomb was decorated with stone figures and horses. (Image source: Public domain)
In September 1859, Yuan Shikai was born in an official family in Xiangcheng County, Chenzhou Prefecture, Henan Province. Most of his ancestors were local celebrities. His father, Yuan Baoling, was an official to the candidate for Tongzhi, and his uncle, Yuan Baoling, served as secretary of the cabinet in Beijing. When he was 15 years old, Yuan Shikai and his younger brother went to live with their uncle in the capital and received a good education.
Because he failed in the imperial examination, Yuan Shikai abandoned literature and joined the military in 1880. After that, he gradually became prominent in the military. Due to his military merits, he was highly regarded by the court and held positions ranging from post-official to prime minister, which had considerable influence. After the Revolution of 1911 broke out in 1911, he followed the current situation and conducted peace talks between the North and the South, forcing Emperor Xuantong to abdicate. After being elected as the interim president, he became the first president of the Republic of China. The political, economic, educational, cultural and other aspects of governance during his term of office have promoted social development and the people have enjoyed a lot of freedom. However, due to Yuan Shikai’s restoration of the imperial system and the political reasons between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, historians have had different evaluations so far, and there is still no official official evaluation of it that is truly objective and fair.
After Yuan Shikai died of uremia, his eldest son Yuan Keding originally wanted to build his tomb as “Yuan Mausoleum” according to the standards of previous emperors. However, the ruling president Xu Shichang had not been emperor for a long time and had canceled the “Hongxian” name. Because of the year name, he is only allowed to be called “Yuan Lin”. In ancient times, only the tombs of saints were called “lin”, such as Konglin in Qufu, Shandong, and Guanlin in Luoyang, Henan.
“Yuan Lin” is located on Shengli Road, Beiguan District, Anyang City, Henan Province today. The designer is a German engineer. It is “modelled after the Ming Tombs but slightly smaller.” The part in front of the hall is in the style of the Ming and Qing imperial tombs, and the part behind the hall is The cemetery part has Western architectural features, and the style is a combination of Chinese and Western styles.
During the Republic of China, Yuan Lin was always protected, and even during the Japanese and puppet periods, the cemetery was not damaged. In 1952, Mao Zedong visited here and instructed to “keep it as a negative teaching material”, but this did not allow Yuan Lin to escape the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution. In 1973, when Yuan Jialiu, a descendant of the Yuan family, returned to China to visit relatives, he came to Yuanlin to pay tribute. At this time, almost all the stone figures, stone horses, stone tables, stone benches, stone pillars, stone carvings, etc. in Yuan Lin were smashed, and many flowers, plants and trees were cut down, creating a decadent scene. Yuan Jialiu silently presented a bouquet of flowers and a stick of incense in front of the tomb, and left silently without even leaving a sigh.
As for Yuan Shikai’s ancestral home and ancestral tomb, the fate was even worse. In 1958, during the CCP’s “Great Leap Forward” steel smelting campaign, people were frantically looking for iron products everywhere. As a result, the iron railings of the Yuan family’s ancestral tombs in Xiangcheng, Henan were removed, the metal ornaments in the ancestral hall were smashed, and the extra iron pots on the kitchen stove and the copper washbasins and copper soup bowls used at home were also destroyed. was thrown into a small earth oven. The one-ton iron plate family tree, which was most valued by the Yuan family, was also destroyed. Fortunately, Yuan Jiajun, a descendant of the Yuan family, quietly copied the iron plate family tree one by one in his family temple one night before it was burned. Later this became the most cherished document of the Yuan family.
But the disaster did not end there. After the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, Yuanzhai, the ancestral home of the Yuan family in Xiangcheng, was renamed the “Red Flag Brigade”. When “Destroying the Four Olds”, the Red Guards took red paint buckets and painted the “Supreme Instructions” and various slogans on the archway, stele pavilion, stone pillars and outer walls of Yuan’s cemetery. Fortunately, they did not use explosives to blow up the tomb. Yuan Shikai’s former residence was also smashed into a mess.
In 1974, the provincial work team came down and organized the masses to “criticize Lin and Confucius” as well as “criticize Yuan.” “Some of the older people burst into tears after being approved. They said they had benefited from the Yuan family, so the work team stopped asking them to speak.” Tomb guard Hou Jinliang said that after three devastating destructions, only about 50 people were left in Yuan Village. Many of the rooms are in dilapidated condition.
Yuan Shikai’s descendants are so prosperous that they cannot escape the CCP movement
Yuan Shikai’s descendants are very prosperous. He had one wife and nine concubines, a total of 17 sons, 15 daughters, 28 grandchildren, and 31 granddaughters, totaling 91 children and grandchildren. Yuan Shikai’s sons basically lived on their ancestral property. Many of them had no jobs. With a few exceptions such as Yuan Keding, most of them died before the age of 50.
After the founding of the Communist Party of China, some of Yuan Shikai’s descendants stayed on the mainland, mostly living in Tianjin, and some stayed in the United States. Everyone who stayed in the mainland has been affected to one degree or another by the previous movements launched by the CCP: some had their names changed, some could not get into university, some had difficulty joining the party, and some were silent and cautious for half their lives… among them There are professors, doctors, engineers, some have become officials of the Chinese Communist Party, and some are farmers in their hometowns. Among the Yuan family abroad is the famous physicist Yuan Jialiu, who is the third son of Yuan Kewen, the second son of Yuan Shikai.
Like many Chinese people, the Yuan family lived a humble and painful life under the rule of the CCP. Because there are too many descendants of the Yuan family, there should be hundreds of them, and it is impossible to describe them all in this short article, so I only choose a few families to talk about, from which we can get a glimpse of the tragic fate of the Yuan family under the rule of the CCP.
The eldest son Yuan Ke decides the fate of the family
Yuan Keding (Image source: Public domain)
The eldest son, Yuan Keding, was born to Yuan Shikai’s first wife, Yu, and was raised by Yuan Shikai as his heir. He has always followed his father, traveled extensively, and seen a lot of the world. It can be said that he is excellent in all aspects, but his shortcoming is that his legs are a bit lame. It is said that he was an active promoter of Yuan Shikai’s restoration of the imperial system, and even deceived his father for this purpose, including concocting a fake “Shuntian Times”. After Yuan Shikai learned the truth, he scolded him for “deceiving his father and harming the country.”
After Yuan Shikai’s death, the Yuan family gradually declined, and Yuan Keding presided over the division of the family. During the Anti-Japanese War, due to family difficulties, he asked Chiang Kai-shek to return Yuan’s confiscated property in Henan, but was rejected, so Yuan Keding had to make a living by pawning. After the Japanese army occupied North China, he refused the Japanese invitation to join the puppet regime in North China and published a statement in the newspaper that he was indifferent to anything and refused to see guests due to illness.
In 1948, the impoverished Yuan Keding went to his cousin Zhang Boju and moved to what is now Chengzeyuan of Peking University. After 1949, under the arrangement of Zhang Shizhao, a member of the CPPCC Committee, he served as a librarian of the Central Museum of Literature and History. Some people advised him to write some memoirs, but he refused.
Yuan Keding has three children, daughters Yuan Jiajin, Yuan Jiadi and only son Yuan Jiarong. Yuan Jiarong was born in 1904 and went to the United States to study at the age of 16. Also studying with him were his tenth uncle Yuan Kejian and twelfth uncle Yuan Kedu. The three of them are all about the same age. Later, Yuan Jiarong went to college in the United States, first studying geology at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, and then receiving a doctorate in geology from Columbia University. In the United States, he enjoyed a free and wonderful time. After returning to China in 1930, he married Wang Hui, the niece of Hubei governor Wang Zhanyuan. She was good at poetry, writing, and reasonable. After the marriage, the two had a good relationship. They had seven children together. The more famous one is his second son, the painter Yuan Jiyan, who now lives in Canada. , also known as Yuan Shi.
On the eve of the Kuomintang regime’s retreat from Taiwan, Yuan Jiarong’s American classmates managed to get a plane to take his family to the United States. However, Yuan Keding was unwilling to go to the United States, let alone Taiwan, and insisted on staying in mainland China. In order to fulfill his filial piety, Yuan Jiarong stayed. Here fate took another turn.
Zhang Yihe quoted Zhang Boju’s words in “The Past Is Not Like Smoke”: “In 1958, Keding’s 80th birthday was celebrated in my home, and he also died in my home.” Yuan Jiyan said, “I remember that my grandfather died in 1957, and my grandmother died later. One year. Grandpa didn’t live to be 80, he was 79. He died at the age of 18 in his own home.” Yuan Keding’s eldest son and eldest grandson Yuan Menglin recalled: It was a long house of about 10 square meters, where his grandfather, grandmother (a surname) and a son lived. It was difficult for four old people, including an old servant and a masseur, to turn around.
Yuan Jiarong first worked as an engineer in Kailuan Coal Mine, then went to Suiyuan to lead geological exploration, and was later assigned to be a professor at Guiyang Institute of Technology. He retired in 1964. Died in 1999 at the age of 95.
Yuan Jiarong’s eldest son Yuan Jiwu, also known as Yuan Menglin, was born in 1933. His living conditions were very favorable when he was a child. In 1953, he was admitted to the Minzu University of China. When he was young, he was lively and cheerful, versatile, good at singing and dancing, and also liked skating, playing basketball, riding bicycles, etc. In 1957, he was almost labeled as a “rightist”, so after graduation, he was assigned to the remote Huanglian Township in Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, and his job was to collect feces from the manure pits and deliver them to designated locations for commune members. use. For a person who once lived in a privileged environment, the pain caused by such punishment can be imagined. Not only that, after the locals learned that he was the great-grandson of Yuan Shikai, a group of children often followed him and insulted him by singing folk songs, which further traumatized him. Sometimes the children spit at him and beat him with branches, but he could only endure it silently and let the tears flow. He was lonely and helpless, but the Yuan family was helpless.
After working there for two years, Yuan Jiwu was able to return to the city. When he returned to the city, he said: “Huanglian Township is worthy of its name. Life there is really harder than Huanglian.” His once lively and cheerful personality also changed. After returning to the city, he worked at Peking University, Tsinghua University, North China University of Technology, etc., and moved to the United States in his later years. After returning to his hometown to worship his ancestors in 2009, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Beijing.
Yuan Jiyan, born in 1941, is the second son of Yuan Jiarong. When he was four or five years old, he lived with his grandfather Yuan Keding for more than a year. He recalled that people at the Museum of Literature and History used tape recorders many times to ask his grandfather to talk about the Revolution of 1911, but Yuan Keding said nothing and just read there. “He was unwilling to betray his father. I heard from the old man that he was responsible for many things during the Revolution of 1911, especially the peace talks between the North and the South. If he could tell that period of history, the truth about the Revolution of 1911 would be revealed It would be more complete. But because the Communist Party regards Yuan Shikai as a negative figure, it is a pity that he will not talk about that period of history.”
Yuan Jiyan said that when he was a child, he was most afraid of history class because he would be ridiculed and ridiculed by his classmates. Influenced by his mother, he fell in love with painting, and after graduating from high school in 1959, he was admitted to Hebei Academy of Fine Arts to study oil painting. After graduation, he worked in the Exhibition Department of the China Association for Science and Technology, and was later transferred to the Decoration and Design Office of Beijing Erqing Bureau. After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, his home was raided twice as a child of the “Black Category Five”. Because it was rumored that he would be deported back to his place of origin, he simply stopped going to work. After that, he made a living as a temporary worker, doing a lot of hard and dirty work. live.
During this period, Yuan Jiyan married Luo Yunhua, who graduated from Tianjin Normal University. Although life was difficult, the two still had their own happy little world. In 1968, they welcomed their child Yuan Fangwu, who went to the United States when he grew up.
After the Cultural Revolution, Yuan Jiyan went to work as the art editor of the literary monthly “Excalibur”, and Luo Yunhua also joined the magazine as an editor. In 1982, Yuan Jiyan and his wife quit their jobs and set up the “Original Decoration Design Studio” and made a lot of money. From that day on, he changed his name to Yuan Shi, hoping that everything would start anew.
In 1987, Yuan Shi closed the prosperous design studio. Yuan Shi said: “Why don’t I value power and money so much? It’s because I have seen too much magnificence and magnificence become empty in an instant!” “Instead of pursuing money and power, it is better to pursue art with eternal vitality.” In the autumn of 1989, The couple applied to go to the United States. Yuan Shi said, “My husband and I have been citizens and objects of dictatorship for decades in society, and our living space in this society is very narrow.” The world is so big, well, let’s go live somewhere else. However, he still cried when he went abroad. Yes, if you can live a good life in your own home, who would want to leave your hometown?
The second son Yuan Kewen’s family
Having finished talking about the fate of Yuan Shikai’s eldest son Yuan Keding’s family, now let’s talk about the fate of his second son Yuan Kewen’s family.
Yuan Kewen was the second son of Yuan Shikai, born to his third concubine, Jin, whom Yuan Shikai married in North Korea. It is said that when he was born, Yuan Shikai was taking a nap. In a trance, he saw the King of North Korea holding a baby with a golden chain around its neck. The spotted leopard came over with a smile. As they approached the door, the leopard broke free from the chains and went straight into the inner room. After Yuan Shikai woke up, he heard a baby crying from the inner room: Yuan Kewen was born. Therefore, Yuan Kewen was given the nickname “Bao Cen” by his father.
Although Yuan Kewen was born to the Jin family, because his aunt Shen was childless, he was adopted to the Shen family. Mr. Shen loved him very much. He lived in favorable conditions and received a good education. He had outstanding talents and was praised by people at the time as the first of the “Four Young Masters of the Republic of China”. His life is full of legends. He was familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics, was proficient in calligraphy and painting, liked poetry and songs, and also loved collecting calligraphy, paintings, antiques, etc. His library once collected 200 Song-printed books, which was a very remarkable thing at the time. However, he lived a bohemian life and had many wives and concubines. His opposition to Yuan Shikai’s proclaimed emperor angered his father, so he fled to Shanghai and joined the Youth Gang to protect himself. He also opened incense halls in Shanghai, Tianjin and other places to recruit disciples, and was known as the “Tianjin Youth Gang Leader” called. He was senior to the then Youth Gang bosses Huang Jinrong and Du Yuesheng. The son of the president of the Republic of China joined a gang. The contrast was shocking.
After Yuan Shikai’s death, he inherited an inheritance, but because he spent money like water, he quickly lost all his property. In the end, I had to make a living by selling words. He died of illness in Tianjin in 1931 at the age of 41. After his death, his in-law Fang Dishan, who was also his teacher and friend and a great figure in the Republic of China, wrote an elegiac couplet: “I am smart for a while, but I am confused for a while, and I have no choice but to die; I am born in heaven, but I can go to hell, and I am speechless for the third prince.” ”
Yuan Kewen had four sons and three daughters, namely sons Yuan Jiagu, Jia Zhang, Jia Liu, and Jia Ji, and daughters Jia Yi, Jia Hua, and Jia Zhi. Among them, Jia Hua later moved to the United States. Yuan Jiazhang and Yuan Jialiu studied in the United States and both learned a lot. Cheng, all became American citizens and settled down. Yuan Jialiu later became a world-famous Chinese physicist, and his wife was the “Queen of Physics” Wu Jianxiong.
The Yuan family married Fang Qinggen, the daughter of Fang Dishan, a strange man from the Republic of China. Their son Yuan Zhu (jiǎ) Cheng was an alternative and was the Yuan family’s first member of the Communist Party of China. Before he graduated from high school, he joined the Wang Puppet Navy and trained on Liugong Island. The officers and soldiers on Hou Island launched an uprising in November 1944, which attracted the attention of the CCP. The CCP sent people to contact them, and they all surrendered to the CCP. At that time, the CCP’s “Xinhua Daily” also published a long report titled “The Puppet Navy of Liugong Island, Weihaiwei, Shandong Province, Under Our Military and Political Offensive”.
Yuan Zhicheng was only 18 years old when he participated in the uprising. He joined the Chinese Communist Party that year and then followed the Chinese Communist Party in its southern and northern wars. After the CCP entered Beijing, his unit was reorganized into the Central Guard Division of the Ministry of Public Security, and Yuan Zocheng served as the management section chief of the 1st Zhongnanhai Guard Division. Later, after the establishment of the Chinese Communist Navy, 23-year-old Yuan Zuocheng was transferred to the Naval Department of the East China Military Region and served successively as the deputy captain of the “Xi’an Ship” and the captain of the “Kaifeng Ship”.
At the age of 29, Yuan Zocheng studied at the Military Academy of the People’s Liberation Army of the Communist Party of China. After graduating in 1959 at the age of 33, he was assigned to the Harbin Military Engineering Institute as a tactics instructor. In 1963, he was transferred to the Naval Academy and continued to serve as a tactics instructor. In 1966, Yuan Zocheng transferred to the Industrial Political Department of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China. During the Cultural Revolution, he was transferred to the “May 7th Cadre School” for reform. He returned to Shanghai in 1972 and was assigned to the Shanghai Petrochemical General Plant as the director of the reception department and director of the office. Retired in 1979.
Yuan Jiaqi is Yuan Kewen’s fourth son, born to his concubine Yu Peiwen. He was very naughty when he was a child, loved to play, and often skipped school. In 1942, he was promoted to the Middle School Affiliated to Tianjin Technology and Business College. Because he did not want to be forced to learn Japanese, he often caused trouble in class. His teacher reported him to the Japanese military authorities, who were preparing to arrest him. Jiaji had no choice but to flee to Weihai, Shandong. It was also on Liugong Island that he was admitted to the seventh phase of the Wang Puppet Navy and entered the naval department. In October 1945, the Nationalist Government established the Central Naval Training Corps in Qingdao and recalled the sailors who had studied in Liugong Island for intensive training. In 1949, he retreated to Taiwan Province with the warship, and was later transferred to the Zhongsheng Ship. In October of that year, the Zhongsheng ship was ordered to garrison Matsu Island. The captain took the opportunity to transport parallel goods for smuggling in Hong Kong. Jiaji was sent to the shore to make contact, so he took the opportunity to escape.
Yuan Jiaqi first went to seek refuge with his uncle Liu Maoyi, who was doing business in Hong Kong, but was not welcomed by his aunt. So he went to find his eleventh uncle Yuan Ke’an again, but Yuan Ke’an went to the United States, and the person who received him was Yuan Ke’an’s wife. Yuan Ke’an was born to Yuan Shikai’s fifth aunt. He studied in the United States for ten years in his early years and was not very fluent in Chinese.
After waiting for a few days, Yuan Ke’an finally came back. With a cheerful personality, he held his nephew in his arms and expressed his joy. He suggested that Yuan Jialiu should first stay in Hong Kong and work as a typist for Cathay Pacific Airways, and secondly, go to the United States to find Yuan Jialiu and continue his studies. Yuan Jiaqi was reluctant to pursue either of these paths. He felt that he was not good at studying.
In hesitation, Yuan Ke’an flew to the United States again. Yuan Jiaqi, who was stranded in Hong Kong, was seduced by the “prosperous” situation in Tianjin described by an underground member of the Communist Party of China who worked on a sea ship, and followed him secretly back to Tianjin in June 1950. After coming back, because he had no job, he spent all day teaching friends how to dance cha cha, rumba and various jazz dances at home. But such days did not last long. In April 1951, Yuan Jiaqi was detained for questioning because he was suspected of being a Taiwan spy. Afterwards, he was sentenced to three years in prison for being accused of impersonating a public security officer. After serving his sentence, he served as a forced farm employee and worked in various kilns and farms for 20 years. During this period, he farmed, raised pigs, burned kilns, pushed wheels, built canals, built houses, drove tractors… and did all kinds of physical work.
The turning point of fate occurred when his half-brother Yuan Jialiu returned to China to visit relatives. In 1973, Yuan Jialiu and his wife Wu Jianxiong returned to their hometown as world-famous physicists and were received by Zhou Enlai. Zhou Enlai said to them: “Your Yuan family has three families. Your grandfather is a politician, your father is a writer, and you are a scientist. Now, there are Communists among the descendants of the Yuan family. Your Yuan family is truly a generation. More advanced than a generation ago.” Zhou Enlai’s heartbreaking words made Yuan Jialiu feel a little sad in his heart.
Naturally, he wanted to see his relatives when he returned to China. Yuan Jialiu also specifically mentioned that he had a younger brother who was still in prison and wanted to meet him. Out of the need for united front, Zhou Enlai personally ordered the Tianjin Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Revolutionary Committee to spend three days to implement various policies for the descendants of Yuan Shikai in Tianjin, including returning private property, restoring reputation, arranging work, etc. For the Yuan family, which has always been at the bottom of society, the appearance of Yuan Jialiu and the treatment he received were undoubtedly a timely blessing.
Let’s first talk about Yuan Jiazhi’s meeting with his brother. Yuan Jiazhi was born in 1915. Her grandfather died when she was one year old. When she was three years old, she was abandoned by her biological mother. Her romantic father rarely cared about her. Her status in the Yuan family can be imagined. After the CCP came to power, she worked as a laundress and an aunt in a nursery. Her husband Duan Zhaodan is the grandson of Duan Zhigui, another important figure in the Republic of China. After her husband died of illness in 1961, she raised her four children alone. Every morning, she reports to the labor dispatch station on the street, waiting to be assigned a temporary job: pulling a cart, carrying grain bags, carrying ash buckets, digging tree pits, cleaning toilets, gluing matchboxes… what kind of hard and dirty work She has to do it all. However, what was more painful than the physical pain was the mental torture during the CCP’s previous movements. Later, if someone spoke louder, she would hide and tremble secretly.
After receiving a telegram from her brother Yuan Jialiu to return to China to visit relatives, Yuan Jiazhi was so excited that her lips trembled. However, the next morning, the CCP authorities sent someone to warn her that when meeting with Yuan Jialiu, she must strictly abide by the following rules: No discussion of current affairs is allowed; Talking about politics; not allowed to reveal state secrets; not allowed to do anything that insults the country; not allowed to expose Yuan The family was brought to this dilapidated house; when they arrived at the station, the whole family had to wear new clothes; they had to smile when they met and were not allowed to cry… It seems that the CCP is also very shameless, fearing that its cruelty to the people will be known to the outside world. , as for the so-called “leaking of state secrets”, I wonder if telling the other party’s real life situation is the so-called “confidential”.
On the day when she met Yuan Jialiu, Yuan Jiazhi’s family all put on new clothes, but she had too little time to wear new clothes in her life. When Yuan Jialiu saw his sister and his family wearing new clothes and talking to him as if they were acting, he naturally understood what was going on. Yuan Jiazhi held back tears and kept a smile on his face.
When he sent Yuan Jialiu back to the hotel and there were only two people left in the room, Yuan Jiazhi could no longer control himself and threw himself on his brother. He choked and said, “Brother, do you know what kind of life I have lived for so many years?” Before he finished speaking, tears burst out.
Yuan Jiazhi passed away in 2002 at the age of 88. His son Duan Kui was the head of an enterprise in Tianjin before he retired.
Yuan Jiaqi, who worked on the farm, was looking forward to meeting his second brother, but in the end he didn’t. It may be that the CCP deliberately prevented the two from meeting, so as not to reveal the so-called secret of the party-state’s persecution of people. After learning that his second brother had returned to the United States, Yuan Jiaqi hid in an apple orchard alone and cried bitterly. It was not until 1975 that Yuan Jiaqi regained his freedom after 25 years of inhumane life. He was assigned to the Tianjin Transportation Bureau Automobile Repair Factory No. 6 and finally had his first official job in his life. But within a few years, his wife Liu Aifang passed away in 1985. She was the daughter of a rural landlord, and the two got married through someone else’s introduction. The two had a son and a daughter. Even during the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guards criticized her and asked her to divorce Yuan Shikai’s filial son and grandson, she insisted on divorce and repeatedly said: “We are both hard-working people, and he knows how to love me.”
In an interview with Zhang Jiujiang in 2011, Yuan Jiaqi once said bitterly: “Everything I have experienced in this life is just wounds, alas…” Yuan Jiaqi died of a heart attack in 2013.
(To be continued)
Editor in charge: Wen Li
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