"Lantai Legacy Volume" Li Yanzhu Writers Publishing House
One early autumn evening many years ago, an anonymous letter fell from the sky. The person accused in the letter is Li Tianmao, the owner of the reading corner of the library of the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. As a result, the mysterious historical curtain was pulled out of a corner, revealing light, and all the characters in front of and behind the curtain appeared, and the heroic image behind this anti-Japanese war story gradually surfaced.
I’m afraid it would not have taken six years to complete such a documentary literature if I hadn’t loved my motherland and my present life deeply. Li Yan, the author of this book, is a Chinese female writer. When introducing the reasons for writing this book, she said that in the early autumn of 2014, the university where she taught suddenly received an anonymous letter accusing a Chinese woman who had immigrated to Canada for many years. The headmaster referred the letter to the author for translation. The letter is aimed at Li Tianshou, the first female pastor of the Episcopal Church who was honored as a model by the school. She was involved in the Bishop of Hong Kong, He Minghua, in the 1930s and 1940s. Around this bishop, people were active in China and even on the international stage before and after the Anti-Japanese War, as well as a series of complicated and dangerous historical events.
"The truth of history must be salvaged in time", this anonymous letter aroused the author’s curiosity. Like a sensitive and alert detective, she traced back to the source, collected a lot of trivial information, visited relevant people at home and abroad, and started a journey of exploration and writing for 67 years, which finally revealed an earth-shattering but unknown history of blood shed.
"Investigating the truth" became the driving force of Li Yan’s action. She visited various places several times in the past few years, talked with the relevant figures of the incident, read a lot of historical materials, and returned to the motherland for several investigations. The closer she gets to the truth, the more excited she is. It is the most interesting process to talk to people in history through time and space. With the deepening of her investigation, the deep truth and the collision between Chinese and western cultures are also revealed one by one. This is a little-known but real international movement.
What attracts Li Yan most is a mysterious figure: an Englishman, He Minghua, the Archbishop in Red who lives in Hong Kong. He was a religious minister, but he strongly supported the Communist Party of China (CPC); He was received by Premier Zhou Enlai alone, but he was unknown in history. In the process of investigating him, there is a very familiar name: Canadian Bethune.
Bethune and the people around him became the clues of investigation, collecting information from the clues, and the process witnessed Bethune’s little-known side to the public. Bethune and his colleagues practiced medicine to save lives despite their fate under difficult conditions. Their medical resources could not be delivered in time, their protective measures could not be guaranteed, their families were threatened with their lives, and he himself was exposed and obstructed …
Bethune’s spirit is admirable, not only because he is a communist party member, but also because of his spirit of saving lives. With the deepening of the investigation, Li Yan found that Bethune’s time and space are intertwined with He Minghua, who may also be a hero with commendable spirit, but such a person has been exposed as a "villain". What secrets are hidden in this? Is there any secret identity that prevents He Minghua from being remembered in history? With a bunch of questions about history, the secret and long-term truth verification has become the main line of the book.
One red and one white are destined to become the most familiar strangers in history.
Can a strange priest and a familiar doctor meet in the same time and space? The truth of history becomes as light as gauze in the face of bold assumptions and careful verification. However, the road to the truth is not smooth sailing. The road to verification is full of twists and turns and dangers, and it is full of historical forests of secret truth. Can it withstand detailed investigation and exploration?
A sudden car accident befell He Minghua’s beloved son. This is not an accident, but a carefully planned conspiracy. Those who are afraid of "red color" stand in the dark, only Nuo Nuo, and do evil on innocent people. It is their characteristic to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals and despise life.
On the one hand, it is angels in white who saves lives, and on the other hand, it is a cold executioner who ignores life. It is clear at a glance which is aboveboard and which is dark and vicious. When the author wrote to the Church of Hong Kong asking for information about Bishop He Minghua, he replied, "It’s gone." If a hero has no record, should he be buried by history with the passage of time? Frustration can’t beat the pace of the author’s investigation, but it is a signal close to the truth.
After returning to China several times, he even met the researchers of Bethune spirit. Li Yan was running for the truth. The driving force of all this is that a hero with bright faith is about to walk from behind the scenes of history to the stage, and there is some evidence between truth and hypothesis. The investigation can’t be completed in a year or two, not to mention investigating a historical figure who has never heard of it, which is as difficult as walking on a strange road in the dark.
With the deepening of the investigation, many other truths buried in history have also come to light, such as the tortuous process of Bethune’s "Destiny" painting returning to China, Bethune’s beloved China female doctor and so on.
Interspersed in the survey is the change of seasons in a small courtyard in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, which is the home of the author Li Yan and the place where all the surveys began. Nature in life has become the "secondary line" of the investigation in the book. Whether it is the communication with old and new neighbors or the interesting things in school, it can inadvertently provide thinking for the investigation of the truth. The flow of nature is also the change of time. The small courtyard in each season has a unique scenery. The story begins in early autumn and ends in late winter. People sigh and sigh under the flow of time and history.
Compared with the western natural scenery in the text, the title of the book is quite oriental and humanistic. "Lantai" refers to Yushitai, hence the name of royal archives’s warehouse. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ban Gu became the official historian of Lantai, and was commissioned to write "The History of Guangwu", so the historian was also called "Lantai". "The Legacy of Lantai" is a historical fact left outside the historical record and an unknown story. Maybe we remember "Bethune" and don’t remember "He Minghua". I hope that in this legacy, they will be connected and a real historical picture will be presented to the world.
"Grass snake gray line, clues, hidden in silence, fine into the seamless. On this occasion, the two rivers, each rushing, finally merged and merged into the vast ocean. " Uncover the truth of history, and when all the truth is revealed to the world, those rumors will be shattered. We admire not only those who died for their beliefs in the revolutionary era, but also those heroes who silently contributed.
This is actually not a fictional story, in a sense, it is a real history composed of flesh and blood heroes. Narrating and reading have become the best way to cherish the memory of heroes.
(Original title: "The Legacy of Lantai": The Unknown Man Behind the Historical Stage)
Source: Beijing Daily Author: Xia Ningzhu
Process Editor: U063
关于作者