A string of shining names, a struggling family, the history of the Liao family is like a revolutionary history of modern China. The Liao family paid the price of their lives and blood and made great achievements for the country and the people.
Liao Zhongkai: Revolutionary Pioneer and National Bridge
Liao Zhongkai (1877-1925), formerly known as Enxu, also known as Yibai, pen names Tu Fu, Yuan Shi, and Wei Chen . A veteran of the Kuomintang and a hero in the establishment of the Republic of China, he served successively as the Minister of Finance of the Government of the Republic of China and a member of the Standing Committee of the Military Commission of the Republic of China. He assisted Sun Yat-sen in formulating the three major policies of "alliance with Russia, alliance with the Communist Party, and support of agriculture and industry", and fully assisted Sun Yat-sen in reorganizing the Kuomintang. He vigorously promoted the first Kuomintang cooperation, supported the revolutionary movement of workers and peasants, and promoted the development of the Chinese national revolution. He was good at poetry and calligraphy. His works were compiled into the first volume of "Collected Works of Liao Zhongkai" and "Collected Works of Shuangqing Dynasty".
Tracing back to the ancestral origin, Liao Zizhang, the distant ancestor of the Liao family, used his martial arts to become a general of the country during the Western Jin Dynasty and guarded Nanjing. Later, this family continued to move due to official career, and some of them were promoted to prime minister. There were also many Jinshi in the clan. It can be seen that the family tradition of "learning well leads to officialdom" has been established in the family origin.
On April 23, 1877, Liao Zhongkai was born in San Francisco, USA.
In 1893, after his father Liao Zhubin died of illness in San Francisco, he accompanied his mother to escort his father's coffin back to Guangzhou, China, and went to his uncle Liao Zhugang, who was then the General Office of the Investment Promotion Bureau of the Qing government. Soon after his mother died of illness, he stayed with his uncle, attended a private school in his hometown, and studied Chinese traditional culture. After the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894, he was influenced by the reform ideas and became devoted to Western learning.
In 1896, Liao Zhongkai moved to Hong Kong and entered Queen's College to study English as a means of learning foreign countries.
In 1897, under the arrangement of his uncle, he married Ho Xiangning, the ninth daughter of Hong Kong real estate developer Ho Bing-huan, in Guangzhou.
In 1905, Liao Zhongkai and He Xiangning assisted Sun Yat-sen in establishing the Chinese Tongmenghui and successively joined the association. Liao Zhongkai served as the deputy accountant of the Tongmenghui headquarters, the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the deputy minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As the first female member of the Tongmenghui, He Xiangning was responsible for the liaison and service work of the revolutionaries. During this period, Liao Zhongkai published translated works such as "Progress and Poverty" and "Outline of the History of Socialism" in the "Min Bao" under the pen names of "Tu Fu" and "Yuan Shi". He was one of the first Chinese to introduce and explore socialism.
After the outbreak of the Revolution of 1911, Liao Zhongkai returned to Guangzhou and took up the post of Deputy Minister of Finance of the Guangdong Military Government in November. In December, he and Hu Hanmin went to Hong Kong to welcome Sun Yat-sen, who had returned from Europe, and actively helped the revolutionary government solve its financial difficulties. .
Liao Zhongkai unswervingly pursued the three major policies, cooperated closely with the Chinese Communists, supported the workers and peasants revolutionary movement, promoted the development of the Chinese national revolution, and laid the foundation for the first Kuomintang cooperation. It played a positive role in the development and was therefore known as "the first contributor to the first international cooperation." But all he did was undoubtedly extremely detrimental to the Kuomintang right wing, feudal warlords and imperialism. Therefore, reactionary forces at home and abroad regarded Liao Zhongkai as a thorn in their side and wanted to kill him. Shortly after Sun Yat-sen's death, Xie Chi, Lin Sen, Zou Lu and others formed the so-called "Xishan Conference Faction", betraying Sun Yat-sen's three major policies and destroying the unity of the national revolutionary leadership.
At a meeting of the National Government on August 18, 1925, Wang Jingwei, who was sitting next to Liao Zhongkai, wrote him a note telling him that someone would be detrimental to him. He immediately said: "Sacrifice for the party and the country is the long-cherished wish of revolutionaries, so why worry about it!" On the morning of August 20, Liao Zhongkai and his wife He Xiangning drove to the party headquarters for a meeting. They met Chen Qiulin on the way, and then they went with the car. Unexpectedly, they were under heavy security. He was brutally killed in front of the Central Party Department of the Kuomintang at the age of 48.
Whether in the bloody war years or the tortuous construction period, Liao Zhongkai never stopped fighting for the prosperity and democracy of the country.
No matter how the national affairs change or how the family ups and downs, Liao Zhongkai loves the party and the country, strives for national liberation, and pursues the spirit of democracy and freedom.