Chapter 44: Without a Country, How Can One Have a Home?

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  On September 20, 1916, at the Second Revival Party Congress, Zhang Yusheg gave a closing speech as the chairman of the autonomous region and secretary of the Revival Party Committee. The content of this speech after deploying all work matters was indeed shocking!

  Comrades and cadres, good afternoon!

  Someone once asked me, what's the most important thing in life? Someone also asked me, what is the purpose of living in this world? Or similar questions like these, in simple terms, what is the point of this life? What needs to be achieved before one can stop rushing around? But I've always been unable to answer this question, because I think: Life is just being born and continuing to live. That's all...

  To be honest, I'm only 30 years old this year, and my life journey has just begun. There are still many things that I don't understand or see through. If I really had to answer what's most important in life, based on my current cognitive abilities, dignity, life, material possessions, health, family, etc. are all very important. Losing any one of these would make life imperfect, although my life was already imperfect to begin with!

  There are many important things in life, but for now, I still think family is more important. Because I'm not married yet, being unfilial has three major faults and having no offspring is the worst, although I'm an orphan, I still need to have a child to make up for my parents and ancestors who passed away. But when can I find a wife and start a family? Can't wait to have many children and live happily together! But am I capable of it? With this weird and crazy appearance, who would look up to me? The matchmaker hasn't tied the red string yet, what's the use of being anxious?!

  Let's put aside this oily and slippery issue for now. First, we need to figure out what is a family? Without a country, how can there be a family?

  In our Chinese people's eyes, the concept of home is actually very simple. For men, a warm and wonderful home is just having a gentle and considerate wife, stable income, certain property and good social reputation, clever children and healthy elderly. For women, before marriage, they listen to their parents' teachings, learn to manage household chores, learn etiquette and morality, etc. After marriage, they take care of their husbands, teach their children, respect the elderly, unite with neighbors, work hard and be kind, etc., which is also a complete life, gaining a complete and happy home.

  What I just said is the small family of a country, and what surrounds daily life is also firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea. As a group, the goals that families strive for are harmony, prosperity, and peace, which can be simply put as children becoming talents, the whole family being healthy, and life being stable, which is also known as family happiness.

  Home is like a harbor where one can rest on their journey, and the drifting life is like a floating duckweed in the wind and waves without any foothold. Only with home can one know what happiness is. Returning home is the return of one's soul, it is the way for the body to release after experiencing all kinds of hardships, it is the process of identifying one's sense of belonging.

  Men and women with families, regardless of the quality of their family life, are happy. Unmarried people cannot be called unhappy, forming a family requires fate and cannot be forced. As an individual living independently, you can devote more thought and effort to creating a better future for your happiness. When you really start a family, a good material foundation and rich life experiences can make the home life more stable and harmonious. Of course, this is aimed at one person, a small part of the family.

  We, the ones present here, you may not be able to see your own face now, but please stretch out your hands and take a look. We are all yellow-skinned descendants of the Huaxia nation, we can observe each other's faces, and at the same time, we can know that we are Chinese people with black eyes, our ancestors have deeply branded us with the mark of China a long, long time ago, for life, forever!

  Just now we talked about a person's home, it is just a very small collective unit among the 400 million Chinese people. There are countless families of Chinese all over China and the world, but our big family has only one, our country has only one, that is called China.

  I'd rather not repeat the tedious details of how glorious our great China has been; let's just talk about the difficulties we're currently facing.

  After the abdication of the Qing emperor, the feudal system that ruled China for thousands of years and the brutal Qing dynasty that oppressed the Chinese people for hundreds of years were formally buried in the yellow earth. The wind of republicanism swept across the nine provinces, and the people who had finally escaped their shackles looked forward to a better life, at least one where they could live in equality and have enough food and clothing. However, there are not a few people who do not want to see hardworking and intelligent Chinese people return to happiness.

  Imperialist powers do not allow the Chinese people to be free, they need a vast Chinese market to dump their products, establish their privileged position and achieve their dirty goal of plundering huge profits. For this purpose, they can take any inhumane action.

  The remnants of feudalism are also unwilling to lose their superior position, they are accustomed to enjoying respect and luxury, how can they adapt to the equal life of the republic, they need to trample the people under their feet again, climb onto the throne where they enjoy nobility, that is feudal rule.

  Since then, from the not thorough enough Xinhai Revolution, all kinds of dramas have been staged on this land, with the revolutionary party and the Northern Warlords vying for power and profit, and confirming their ruling position. Assassination plots, military threats, and foreign pressure were all used, and in the end, the largest feudal remnant force, the Northern Warlord government, ascended to the throne. Their leader had a notorious name: Yuan Shikai!

  The feudal remnants used every trick in the book to achieve their goals, and even if they seemed successful on the surface, they had already sealed their own failure. Because our people could no longer bear the life of exploitation and oppression, the people needed to turn over a new leaf and become their own masters, masters of their own country. Any attempt to rebuild the cruel feudal system of exploitation was doomed to fail.

  Yuan Shikai, who dreamed of restoration, ultimately failed, but the feudal forces he represented did not collapse. In various provinces and regions of China, the exploitative feudal system and warlords that harmed the people were still active. Although they did not openly advocate for feudalism, in essence, they remained enemies of the people and obstacles to their pursuit of a better life.

  The imperialist powers imposed on the Chinese people are nothing but shackles of interest. Some of them are arrogant and unreasonable towards the Chinese, cruelly exploiting them for commercial interests. This is just because they envy the Chinese for having created a prosperous and flourishing civilization in the past. To this end, they need to use all kinds of despicable means to suppress the backbone of the Chinese people, destroy the spine of the Chinese nation, all for temporary gains, all for psychological satisfaction. The real obstacle to the Chinese people's march towards democratic revival is still the Chinese themselves.

  In a big agricultural country like China, the main body of society is peasants. Land is the fundamental basis for people's survival and also the root of their small family happiness. However, until now, the vast majority of peasants still do not have land, and the landlord class still relies on renting out their land to reap benefits without labor, and cruelly exploits peasants in order to maximize profits.

  How many warlord governments are truly representative of the people's interests? They have many soldiers at their disposal, but few politicians who work for the welfare and construction of the people. The landlords exploit the poor peasants they can exploit, relying on military power to exploit even more peasants, until the masses of people wander on the edge of life and death, or are directly separated from their families and homes destroyed. Anyway, none of this happens in their own families, so it doesn't matter to them.

  Such a phenomenon, such people are tragic. In the rich and fertile Jiangnan region, in the prosperous Central Plains of China, even in the impoverished southwest, with harsh living conditions in western provinces, etc., there are such people and things everywhere. The vast and populous China, with abundant resources, has not been crushed by the oppression of imperialist countries, but has been ravaged by its own compatriots, leaving scars all over the land and wailing voices everywhere.

  A prosperous and thriving nation, to make it go down is not to let it sink in military blows, a truly powerful nation is unbeatable. What can make it go extinct is the intensification of internal contradictions, just like a physically strong person, how can he be knocked out by a few heavy punches? But if you let his body start to have diseases, even the strongest person will slowly weaken and die.

  And our country is the same, the backward feudal ruling system has long been unable to keep pace with the times and is not what the people aspire to, it will eventually be replaced by a democratic policy government. However, China, which had accumulated poverty and weakness, was heavily struck by other forces several times, losing its edge. Nevertheless, internal chaos ultimately led to the giant's division, various classes all having their own powerful groups, and many feudal remnants hoping that their interests would not be infringed upon. The warlords also hoped to have a broader and more prosperous territory, but here is another question: where did the true social subject go?

  Why can't the people themselves be their own masters? Why can't they elect a government that represents the interests of the vast majority of the people? Why should the people's interests be subject to brutal deprivation? Why can't the people struggle and resist for their own interests?

  As a political party that aspires to make the people stand up and be their own masters, as a government that serves the people wholeheartedly, and as an army that shields the interests of the masses. The People's Government is committed to bringing benefits to the people, leading more and more people towards prosperity and democracy, revitalizing China, and restoring the nation to its rightful place among the world's great nations...

  For this, for our common people. We need to make many, many efforts, even bloody sacrifices, we need to struggle with the feudal remnants of oppression and exploitation, we need to transform the feudal ideology that still shrouds many parts of China, we need to struggle with the warlord governments in various provinces and regions, including armed struggle.

  We have our own ideas and strength, we need to put our promises into practice, and truly lead the vast number of people towards happiness is a difficult journey. However, a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step, we have completed the transformation work of a large province, and there are more populations and broader territories that require us to strive.

  We need to proclaim our political views, let more people stand on our side, especially the poor laboring masses, let more people support our ideals and join our revolutionary ranks, join the great army of struggle for liberating the people and reviving the nation.

  Hence, the vast rural areas of China are our focus of work. There we must carry out a deep and sustained land struggle, leading the people to happiness with effective land struggles. Of course, we need to transform some people's thoughts, making them understand democracy, support democracy, and even more support our revival and liberation. Then create one after another revolutionary base areas where the people are masters of their own affairs, until they are connected together covering the whole of China.

  We need to build a more powerful revolutionary military force, a strong armed force is necessary for overthrowing the corrupt warlord government, creating a unified Chinese government that can represent the people, and providing a powerful guarantee for representing the broad interests of China in checking the imperialist powers, and ensuring social production, people's interests, and national sovereignty.

  We need to build a government system that is reasonably organized, functionally clear, honest and dedicated, and wholeheartedly serves the people. The purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly is unshakeable at any time. Establishing a sound social legal system, promoting good moral style, creating a good social atmosphere for common progress and prosperity, promoting the harmonious development of society, and being a good master for the people!

  We need to establish a sound and powerful industrial system, whether it is the light industry involving civil life, or the major undertaking related to national defense engineering, including the heavy industry that creates huge social wealth and the tertiary industry dominated by services. We must continue to consolidate and adjust the development model of traditional industries, dare to venture into new fields, give full play to the autonomous innovation of all people, solidify now and innovate in the future, continuously enhance the country's comprehensive strength and the competitiveness of national enterprises, and let the prosperity of industry stabilize the prosperity of the country.

  We need to build a complete education industry chain, from children's early childhood education to basic education, higher education, and vocational education for school-age children. We need to create good educational environments and conditions so that education is not divided by family wealth or poverty, gender, age, health, or disability. Everyone is equal before the law, and in the field of education, every Chinese person is also equal. Anyone has the right to receive education and enjoy the educational facilities and welfare provided by the government.

  Of course, high-quality talents are the goals that education pursues, but there are great differences between people, interests and hobbies, family influences, personality tendencies, etc., which determine their own learning attitudes and learning outcomes. Among the 360 professions, the profession of education is no exception, and high-quality talents not only refer to scientific and cultural knowledge, but also sports, military and other aspects can be the goals for students to become talents.

  We need to establish the best public welfare, national welfare policy and universal medical care policy as important as universal compulsory education. From birth, a person is a member of society, regardless of whether he or she has made contributions to society, regardless of whether he or she has committed crimes against society, we cannot deny that he or she is a member of our society. Since it's a Chinese characteristic, they must receive help and support from society. Respect for the elderly, care for the young, protection of the weak and punishment of the strong are excellent traditions of the Chinese nation, as well as the foundation of the Chinese civilization for thousands of years. The weak should be protected, the sick should be treated, social harmony should be like this, and the great Chinese nation should treat its brothers and sisters in the same way.

  Of course, there are many things we need to do, but doing every little thing around us solidly is a contribution to the progress of society. The power of one person is very small, but the power of a group of people united and striving together can move mountains and fill seas, just like our family: one person has only a small home, the happiness of the small home still depends on the harmony of everyone, if everyone cannot be happy and content, how can a person's small home be called good?

  So, having said that, I believe many of you have already understood what is most important in life. Of course, everyone's opinions may still be conflicting and inconsistent, but we can be certain of one thing: We are able to have a home because we have a country in our hearts; without a country, how can we have a home?

  Life is full of unpredictable encounters, and sometimes the scenery along the way can be intoxicating. The beauty of mutual affection, the happiness of a harmonious family, the joy of struggling to succeed, the loss of composure in the face of unexpected setbacks... A person's life will experience many, many things that cannot be predicted, but we can grasp our current selves. Whether or not there is a small home at present is unimportant; what matters is that we do not forget that we are on a journey through life, and it is unpredictable when we will meet the right person and have a small home. But we know that this arduous journey, this tireless struggle, is all for the sake of a common home - our country!

  My speech is over, dismiss!!

  This session can be said to be quite successful. Later, someone commented that the most important point in the Republic's journey to revival is where? Many people pointed out that this second party congress has a very significant meaning. From the initial fewer than 1,000 party members and cadres, they were able to cultivate a beautiful industrial flower in the remote and poor countryside of the southwest border. Now, with nearly 100,000 party members, they need to embark on an even more arduous and difficult road. In the words of later generations, this is called "rural areas surrounding cities". This conference established the most important work focus for the next stage, which is precisely this point: taking root in the vast Chinese countryside, continuously struggling, opening up a new world, and waiting for changes.

  Of course, Zhang Yu couldn't help but laugh for a long time after the meeting, because this time he was no longer the only one who plagiarized, as someone else had done it even more excessively. The entire meeting from start to finish didn't leave any impression on him, and there was nothing worth recording. Except for that phrase "No country, how can there be a home?" which left a deep mark in his heart. Holding a meeting is not as good as finding a political book from later generations to read, maybe it would even inspire more applause than some people.

  After returning, Zhang Yu still wrote his own experience and inspiration for the conference, only six words but with great significance: Without a country, how can there be a home?