Soong Ching Ling went to Shanghai for the last time and sold a lot of things. From December 31, 1978 to February 25, 1979, Soong Ching Ling returned to Shanghai from Beijing. This was also her last visit to Shanghai. She usually lived in her apartment in Beijing. She said that sh

Soong Ching Ling went to Shanghai for the last time and sold a lot of things

From December 31, 1978 to February 25, 1979, Soong Ching Ling returned to Shanghai from Beijing. This was also her last visit to Shanghai. She usually lived in her apartment in Beijing. She said that she went to Beijing to go to work and to Shanghai to go home. On the one hand, she wanted to spend New Year's Day and Spring Festival in Shanghai this time. On the other hand, she knew that she was getting older and needed to clean up the things at home.

On December 31st, Zhang Suping, secretary-general of the municipal government, and I (I was the deputy director of the municipal government agency affairs bureau at the time) went to pick her up at the airport. Later she said there was something she wanted us to help dispose of. First, there are more than a dozen jade ornaments in her home, all of which were given by others in the past. They look very beautiful and valuable; there is also a large box of leather clothes and leather robes. Although she did not say it, we know that they were worn by Sun Yat-sen. Because the organization has repeatedly explained that Soong Ching Ling is the leader of the country, and the municipal party committee cannot make decisions about her family matters, and must report to the central government for instructions. Therefore, I cannot deal with these things casually. I must first report to Peng Chong (then member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and first secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee). Peng Chong had no objection, so I asked the business system to send someone from a thrift store to do a valuation. As a result, people from the thrift store came to see it and said that these jadeite jadeites were all fake and looked very decent, but were actually colored glass. As for the leather goods, some places have become brittle, and some places the fur has fallen off. At the last estimate, the fake jade ornaments were only worth a few hundred yuan, and the leather goods were only worth more than a thousand yuan. The two items added up to a total of more than two thousand yuan. We considered that although these things are fake, they are Sun Yat-sen's relics. They have been displayed in Soong Ching Ling's house for decades. Even if they have no commercial value, they still have cultural relic value. Therefore, we decided that these things cannot be sold easily. The agency will pay for them in advance, and the things will be temporarily stored in the warehouse until the future. Later I heard Song Qingling say: "I thought these things could be sold for more than ten times the price." It was not surprising for her to say this, because she always thought that jadeite was real and leather clothes were good.

Song Qingling and Sun Yat-sen

The reason why Song Qingling needs this money is because the economy is relatively tight. Although her monthly salary is more than 500 yuan, she has many contacts with overseas relatives and friends and has a lot of expenses. Before the "Cultural Revolution", the organization provided her with a reception fee to cover her reception expenses, but after the "Cultural Revolution" she took the initiative to cancel it without charging a penny. She insists on paying the nanny's salary herself and not letting the state bear the cost, including the cost of nanny Li Yan'e. In addition to these expenses, she often takes money to help staff in need around her. Once, Soong Ching Ling ran out of living expenses, and her English secretary Zhang Jue helped her advance the payment.

After the Central Committee learned of Soong Ching Ling's financial difficulties, in February 1979, Comrade Ye Jianying (then Vice Chairman of the CPC Central Committee, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress) wrote a letter to Peng Chong, deciding to allocate funds from the national finance. Give Song Qingling 50,000 yuan. Leave this matter to me and ask me to go to the Shanghai Municipal Finance Bureau to go through the formalities and then hand it over to Soong Ching Ling. I took Ye Jianying's letter to the Finance Bureau. They had received the notice and handed the money to me and asked me to write a receipt.

I paid to see Soong Ching Ling. She said: "Thank you! I don't care about the money, you will keep it. Carve a private seal for me in the name of 'Lin Tai' (Song Qingling's pseudonym). If I need money in the future, someone will take it with me." The letter goes to you. "

I went to have the seal carved by Liu Youshi. I asked the Finance Department of the Municipal Party Committee General Office to deposit this 50,000 yuan appropriation into the nearby People's Bank; until Soong Ching Ling's death on May 29, 1981, this money was not used up. The number of times the "Lin Tai" chapter was used Not much, just a few expenses, totaling more than 10,000 yuan.

Since then, the money has been kept by the Shanghai Soong Ching Ling Former Residence Memorial Hall and has never been used again. In the first half of this year, I went to a meeting of the Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching Ling Cultural Relics Management Committee. The memorial hall announced at the meeting that according to the settlement in the first quarter of 2007, together with interest, there were more than 70,000 yuan in the account (including interest for the past 30 years).

- Excerpted from "Archives Spring and Autumn" Issue 09, 2007

Author: Li Jiachi's dictation Zhang Jingjing You Yi Editing: Zhou Yiqian Editor: Zhang Yu