Memoirs of a Loser 14: The Promised Land under the Wang Regime

In 2010, I was cleaning out the dusty bookcase and found a thread-bound book "Shuangzhaolou Poems and Ci Gao" with a small hole in the cover. When I opened it, I found the "Preface to the Collection of Xiaoxiu", and the bottom chapter was "Wang Zhaoming Jingwei's Preface". I opened the book. On the second page, I read the famous lines from the four poems "Caught and Possessed": "He sang generously to Yan City, calmly served as a prisoner of Chu, used the sword to become a master, and lived up to his youthful reputation."

This sentence, "A sword leads to a quick success," was quoted by many people when I was young, but few people said it was Wang Jingwei's poem. As for the whole poem, not many people know it. This is a sentence written by Wang Jingwei with his life when he failed to assassinate the Manchu Regent in 1910 and was arrested and imprisoned on death row. He thought that he would die. It is full of emotion, free and heroic, and has both. Later, I read the 2009 lecture "The Jingwei Complex in Wang Jingwei's Poems" by Ye Jiaying, a famous poet, and quoted another of the four poems "Caught in the Mouth": "Holding a stone in one's hand leads to infatuation, and the waves are filled with sorrow. "Flying alone will never get tired, but it will be ashamed to chase the seagulls floating on the sea." It writes about the Jingwei bird's lonely, persistent, tireless and unrepentant spirit of filling the sea with rocks in its mouth. Ye Jiaying believes that Wang Jingwei's lifelong poetry is full of Jingwei's complex. Not only is it a martyr complex, because martyrs such as Wen Tianxiang also say "leaving their loyalty to reflect history" even when they die, that is, leaving their names and loyalty in history forever. But in the end, Wang Jingwei cooperated with the Japanese and was accused of being a traitor, even at the expense of his posthumous reputation. She said that she was moved by Wang's poems because Wang's lifelong focus was this Jingwei complex.

In 2013, Hong Kong reprinted "Shuangzhaolou Poetry", with a long preface written by historian Yu Yingshi in front of the book. He used a large number of historical materials to prove that Wang Jingwei, who established a regime attached to Japan, was not only not a "traitor" but also a "traitor" who was a "traitor" in China's science and technology and With its military power lagging far behind Japan's, Japan's suing for peace was motivated by the "patriotic" motive of avoiding a total defeat. At that time, Wang was not the only one who advocated peace. At least Chen Yinke, who had national integrity, also advocated this. From Wang's poems, we can see that even on the eve of the establishment of the Japanese regime, he still felt sad. Although Yu Yingshi does not deny that Wang may have personal motives, poetry expresses ambition, and his poems consistently present his unchanging "martyr" feelings.

Wang Mengchuan, a professor at Nankai University who annotated the new edition of "Shuangzhaolou Poems", after reading Wang Jingwei's poems, deeply felt his "strong sense of sacrifice" and "the people's things and their aspirations", so he wrote this poem : "A scholar who endures death and strives to be rewarded, who wants to stop the cross-current in the vast sea, carries out the plan of thousands of men alone, and commits suicide and earns eternal shame."

After Japan surrendered, Chen Bijun, wife of Wang Jingwei, was sentenced to life imprisonment. She said in court: "The area under the Wang regime is China's occupied area, which is also the occupied area of ​​the Japanese army. There is not an inch of land. It was destroyed by Mr. Wang." The occupied areas are occupied lands. Only by regaining rights from the enemy, what country can be sold?" In 1950, Chen Bijun expressed his feelings for Wang Jingwei in the CCP prison: "If the establishment of the CCP regime is for Serving the people, then Mr. Wang really serves the people who are in mourning in the occupied areas."

Under the Wang regime, the people in the occupied areas got rid of the military rule of the invading army and gained breathing space under the Chinese regime that could act as a buffer. The economy and culture enjoyed wartime prosperity. In 2017, Wu Renshu, a researcher at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, wrote a book "Paradise After the Tribulation: Urban Life in Suzhou after the Fall of the Anti-Japanese War". Citing the data at the time, he said that after the establishment of the Wang regime in 1940, a large number of people poured into Suzhou, resulting in "tribulation". The glorious scene of "After Heaven". It is completely different from the past historical writings about the people being in dire straits under the rule of the traitors.

I remember that at that time, there was a gramophone at home, and there were many new records of pop songs. Some pop songs are still sung today, such as "When Will You Come Again". A large number of film and movie stars and singers emerged, including Chen Yunshang, Zhou Manhua, Li Lihua, Li Xianglan, Zhou Xuan, Liu Qiong, etc., and they became very popular. The film industry continued to post-war Shanghai and later Hong Kong. Cultural undertakings will flourish only in societies with a little bit of affluence. Compared with the vast areas of China at that time, including the vast areas ruled by the Kuomintang and the red areas ruled by the Communist Party of China, the Wang regime could be regarded as a paradise for the people.

Although my father was engaged in business at that time, he also participated in dramatic activities in the occupied areas. I only found out about this after reading some articles and combining it with my childhood memories.

(Article published on May 24, 2021)

"Memoirs of a Loser" serial directory (continuously updated)

1. Inscription
2. break through
3. Inside and outside the circle
4. murderous
5. torment
6. pain
7. Turbulent times
8. choice
9. That time period
10. twisted history
11. prophet
12. liberals final blow
13. my family background
14. Life in occupied areas
15. The paradise under the Wang regime

 ("Memoirs of a Loser" was previously serialized in "Apple Daily" and is now being continuously updated in Matters)