Renowned Hong Kong martial arts novelist Jin Yong (Louis Cha Leung-yung) passed away on the afternoon of October 30, 2018, at 94. Jin Yong’s novels were popular reading in the Chinese world but were banned once in mainland China. The reason for being banned is that Jin Yong and the Communist Party of China (CCP) had a feud over the killing of his father.
There is an adage by the ancients that goes: “The revenge of killing one’s father is irreconcilable.” To add insult to injury, when the Communist Party executes a person, it requires the victim’s family to compensate it for the cost of the bullet used for the killing.
Throughout his long life and illustrious career, Jin Young used his writing skills, his eloquent and peaceful manner, and his fame to serve justice against the CCP for the murder of his beloved father. Jin Yong and his highly accomplished Cha family are proud natives of Zhejiang.
In February 1924, Cha Liangyong (better known by his pen name Jin Yong) was born in Yuanhua Town, Haining County, Zhejiang Province. The Haining Cha family is one of the top aristocratic families in the Province. In the ancestral hall of the Cha family, a couplet hangs respectfully: “Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, there have been many great families on the south of the Yangtze River.” This is a couplet Emperor Kangxi wrote as a royal acknowledgment for the Cha family. Next to the Imperial Book of Kangxi is a list of the Cha family’s merits.
It records dozens of Cha family members who have achieved fame in various dynasties and generations, among whom it was common for many to have reached the Imperial Academy level. In the Kangxi Dynasty, there were two: Kangxi’s minister, Cha Sheng, the head of the Hanlin Academy, and the famous poet, Cha Shenxing. During the Yongzheng period, there was Cha Siting (the younger brother of Cha Shenxing), who was the minister of rites.
Jin Yong’s father and grandfather
Jin Yong’s grandfather, Cha Wenqing, earned a Jinshi degree in 1886. Cha Wenqing had three sons and two daughters, making it a large family. Jin Yong’s father, Cha Shuqing (also known as Cha Shuxun and Cha Maozhong), was born in 1897 and is the family’s third child. By the time of Jin Yong’s father’s generation, the Cha family was in decline. Still, when Jin Yong was born, the Cha family held more than 3,600 acres of land and more than 100 households with tenant farmers.
Cha Shuqing graduated from Aurora University at 22, one of China’s three major Christian universities. He received a Western education and was relatively open-minded. He belonged to the “mixed Chinese and Western” figures in the transitional era. After graduation, he headed the Da Lai Bank in Haining. During the Anti-Japanese War, the bank was destroyed by artillery fire, which disheartened him and left him with the intention of never doing business again. It was not until his later years that he regrouped and once again ran the Cha family bank — Yizhuang.
Jin Yong’s father, Cha Shuqing, a kind and righteous man
Yizhuang Bank was founded in 1825 in Beijing to support the community and promote education. During this period, the Cha family cultivated 1,000 acres of paddy fields. The descendants of the Cha family regarded the land as ancestral property and asked the local officials to register it under their household name. The land was good and fertile, and the harvest was guaranteed regardless of drought or flood.
After deductions for taxes and losses, 3,500 shi of grain rent could be collected each year and sold for silver coins. Then, the managers would buy rice and distribute it monthly to clansmen. Cha Shuqing would reduce or waive the rent for tenant farmers for every autumn harvest, depending on whether the harvest was good or bad. He also took out a sum of money from Yizhuang Bank to build Longtouge Primary School as a branch of the Longshan Academy so that children could attend school free of charge.
In Jinzhu village, Yang Deju, the son of a poor scholar, was admitted to Aurora University. The poor scholar Yang Xiucai was so happy for his son that he suddenly died of a heart attack with excitement. When Cha Shuqing heard about it, he purchased a suitable coffin. He also set aside a piece of Cha’s land, converted it into a cemetery, and buried Yang Xiucai on an auspicious day. Yizhuang Bank paid all of the expenses. Cha Shuqing also asked a friend to give Yang Deju money for his tuition a few days later.
The birth of Jin Yong and the untimely loss of his mother
In 1914, Cha Shuqing married 19-year-old Xu Lu. Xu Lu had studied in a private school. She was not only well-educated and fond of poetry but also open-minded. In her spare time, she always read books, and reading had become her favorite pastime. Cha Shuqing and Xu Lu had a close relationship and had five sons and two daughters. Jin Yong was their second child. In 1937, the Japanese army invaded Jiangnan, and his hometown was bombed. Cha Shuqing and his wife fled from the bombed-out town with their entire family. Unfortunately, Xu Lu died of acute dysentery. At that time, the 13-year-old Jin Yong was studying in Jiaxing.
In 1940, three years after Xu Lu’s death, Cha Shuqing remarried. Gu Xiuying, 17 years younger than him, became his new wife. She was Jin Yong’s stepmother.
The forced seizure of China was a fatal blow
After the CCP seized power in mainland China, a “suppression of counter-revolutionaries” campaign was aggressively launched across the country, using a three-pronged approach of “killing, Imprisonment, and control.” Due to the decentralization of authority to allow and condone killings, indiscriminate arrests, and arbitrary killings were frequent occurrences. Just because Cha Shuqing’s son was in Hong Kong, he was naturally labeled as having “overseas connections” and was investigated as an illegal landlord.
Soon, Cha Shuqing was eventually degraded to arbitrary imprisonment, during which a remnant bandit from a neighboring village accused him of hiding guns, so he was charged with possession of a firearm. There were other charges against him, among which include “plotting to murder cadres,” which refers to a false charge brought on by a pistol incident.
Some years later, Jin Yong’s eldest sister, Cha Liangxiu, revealed the facts about the gun: On the eve of the Communist Party of China seizing power in 1949, stepmother Gu Xiuying’s younger brother secretly hid a weapon in the grain depot in the backyard of his sister’s house. Cha Shuqing and his wife did not know about this; they had never seen it. Unexpectedly, Gu Xiuying’s younger brother leaked the matter to his colleagues.
Dragged out of prison and shot dead
On April 26, 1951, Cha Shuqing was dragged out of prison. After comparing his name and photo, he was tied up and thrown into a car. The vehicle was driven away, and after arriving at a playground, a group of four people were shot immediately with their bodies left on the ground.
Jin Yong’s stepmother only found out the news afterward and held back her tears to collect his body. She saw her husband’s dead body lying on the field beside the playground, his body lying in a pool of blood. The wife and children took the body home and buried it overnight without leaving a grave marker. After Cha Shuqing was pitilessly and summarily executed, the Communist Party also asked his family to compensate them for the cost of the bullet.
This incident profoundly impacted Jin Yong, who often explored the theme of his father’s absence in his later works. Jin Yong once said that his father’s murder was an unimaginable and unacceptable tragedy. The unjust killing of Jin Yong’s father is described in detail in The Biography of Jin Yong.
After Jin Yong’s father was killed, the family property was robbed by the CCP, leaving only two old houses. Jin Yong’s stepmother, Gu Xiuying, was left in a desperate situation, needing to raise several children. In desperation, she tried to sell her old house. However, she was falsely accused by the CCP of being a “landlord who wanted to counterattack.” Gu Xiuying was interrogated and criticized by the public and was beaten severely for three days and nights.
There is no meaning left
On the morning of July 18, 1981, Deng Xiaoping, who had taken control of the military and political power of the CCP, met with Jin Yong. Jin Yong was then the president of Hong Kong’s Ming Pao. During the meeting, Deng Xiaoping talked about Jin Yong’s father, Cha Shuqing, who was sentenced to death by the CCP in the early 1950s.
On the matter of execution, Deng Xiaoping said lightly: “Unite and look forward.” Jin Yong had no choice but to nod and say: “People cannot be resurrected after death; let it pass.” However, Jin Yong’s heart was filled with deep resentment; it was an unacceptable and unforgettable abomination.
Deng Xiaoping had already stated that the CCP needed to unite the front. In 1985, the People’s Court of Haining County, Zhejiang, revoked the original verdict, acquitted Cha Shuqing, and granted the so-called “rehabilitation.” Cha Shuqing was only “rehabilitated” because Cha Shuqing now had a son, Jin Yong, who became famous and could write martial arts novels. In contrast, thousands of small landowners, with only a few dozen fields, were all killed, but were not rehabilitated because they did not have a son who could write popular martial arts novels.
The cold-blooded executioners who killed people may have forgotten everything after they carried out their gruesome tasks. However, when one beloved family member is killed, the whole family will bear the scars and deep grudges. When Jin Yong lived in Hong Kong, he spoke about it and cursed indiscriminately. He often refers to “chickens cursing dogs” in martial arts novels. There is also an extraordinary account of his father’s unjust killing in The Biography Jin Yong.
The pro-communist media reported the account of his father’s killing as Jin Yong thanked the CCP for rehabilitating his father. In the end, Jin Young was a living example of the principle: Don’t get even; get ahead.
Translated by Chua BC
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