Gao Boyu, who was in Hong Kong with Xia Gong, said: "When Jiang Xia took refuge in Hong Kong, his life remained colorful because he was a prominent figure with an extensive network of acquaintances. Those who craved social prestige were eager to get to know him. For any celebration or gathering, people would invite him to attend and often seated him and Zhang Yi in the places of honor, regarding them as 'men of virtue and high esteem.' I remember there was a meeting of the China Cultural Advancement Association for some purpose—I don’t recall what—and when asked to speak, he stood up. The content of his speech has been forgotten, but I do recall that he harshly scolded his son-in-law, Wang Xiwen, berating him for inviting him to join Wang Jingwei while failing to have his deceased father buried in Nanjing. (Wang Xiwen’s father, Wang Zhaoyong, died on September 11, 1939; he was Wang Jingwei’s eldest brother.) Someone at the table whispered to me that Jiang Xia had condemned his son-in-law with 'righteous indignation,' and that Chongqing had already given him ten thousand Hong Kong dollars, which could help him get by for the year."
Nanhai Thirteen, once the talk of the town
At the end of 1942, Xia Gong returned to the Taishi Mansion in Guangzhou. After the victory of the War of Resistance, he remained safe in Guangzhou, though he was older and suffering from hemiplegia, and naturally lacked his former vigor. After 1949, Xia Gong still lived in the Taishi Mansion in Guangzhou. Initially, no one paid attention to him. On April 8, 1951, the Buddhist holiday of Buddha's Birthday, he slipped and fell at the Liurong Temple in Guangzhou, which led to paralysis. He was admitted to Liduo Hospital in Liwan District. That year, during the land reform in Guangdong, farmers from Nanhai came to the hospital looking for "fugitive landlords" and forcibly carried him back to his hometown in a basket to subject him to struggle sessions. Xia Gong closed his eyes and remained silent, even staging a hunger strike for 41 days until his death.
Jiang Yajun’s thirteenth son, Jiang Yujin (1909–1984), also known as Jiang Yuqiu and using the courtesy name Jiang Feng, had the stage name Nanhai Thirteen. In his early years, he studied at Nanyi Middle School in Henan, Guangzhou, but was expelled for being mischievous and causing trouble. While studying medicine at the University of Hong Kong, he fell in love and left Hong Kong midway to follow his girlfriend to Shanghai. He was unable to return due to the January 28 Incident and thus could not complete his studies.
He was a young playwright famous in both Guangzhou and Hong Kong during the 1930s, and wrote Heartfelt Tears and Shadows for the Cantonese opera star Sit Kok-sin, gaining widespread acclaim. His other notable works include Daughter’s Fragrance, The Swallow Returns But the Person Does Not, Li Xiangjun, Fragrant and Cold in Seclusion, and The Romance of the Palace. Nanhai Thirteen was arrogant due to his talent. At the peak of his creative career, he suffered setbacks in both love and work, leading to a destitute life. Furthermore, due to mental instability, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. In his later years, he wandered aimlessly and eventually died in Castle Peak Hospital in 1984. His life story has been widely circulated. It was first adapted into a stage play by To Kwok-wai, which was performed in Hong Kong with Tse Kwan-ho in the lead role.
Because the stage play was so popular, it was later adapted into a film starring the same actors. It was then adapted into a TV series broadcast on Asia Television, with Lam Wai-shun playing the role. These three different adaptations of his life offer varying interpretations and present audiences with different facets of Nanhai Thirteen.
In his later years, Wang Xiwen drifted to Hong Kong. He was also a fortune-teller and quite well-known in the divination circles of the time. Zi Wei Dou Shu (Purple Star Astrology) can be described as a discipline that blends astronomy, geography, mathematics, statistics, and ethics, drawing on common knowledge and long-term experience.
Its underlying principle is to use the constellations of the Big Dipper (yin, with the main star being Zi Wei), the Southern Dipper (yang, with the main star being Tian Fu), the stars of the Zi Wei Enclosure, and other miscellaneous stars as the longitudinal framework, combined with the interplay of the Earlier Heaven and Later Heaven Bagua, and aligned with the Five Elements of Sound to establish the star chart for predicting a person’s life experiences and fortunes. By examining the corresponding positions of the stars at the time of a person’s birth—year, month, day, and hour—it studies their interactions to infer various events in one’s life journey, ultimately aiming to achieve the goal of attracting good fortune and avoiding misfortune. In his twilight years, Wang Xiwen had to make a living by writing. Coming from a family of scholars steeped in poetry and calligraphy, he ended up like Gong Yongmin, selling divinations. We can sense the loneliness and desolation of his later years, as well as the hardships and struggles of his life.
On December 30, 1959, Wang Xiwen published an article titled "The Record Is Dead, But I Am Still Alive" in the Hong Kong newspaper The Observatory, documenting his own birth chart. He wrote: "I am seventy years old this year and am currently under the Gui Si luck cycle. This year’s ruling celestial stem is Ji Hai. Ji Hai and Gui Si are in a clash of heaven and earth. I had long thought that I would die this year, but it seems I will only suffer from illnesses throughout the four seasons. Whether I will pass away at the end of the year is only known to 'heaven.' Fortunately, it is the ruling year that clashes with my luck cycle, not the other way around, so the disaster may be mitigated. If I can make it to the Beginning of Spring in the lunar first month of next year, then I will have another four years of good luck. Perhaps it is because I owe too much in literary debts that heaven wants me to repay them and does not allow me to rest early."
Writing this, I cannot help but feel moved, so I composed two lines: 'Drifting by the sea, life is bitter and lonely, yet I remain unfulfilled—how lamentable!' Forty-six days later, on February 15, 1960, he committed suicide by taking sleeping pills at the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery in Sha Tin, Hong Kong. According to his fourth elder brother: "My younger brother had two key psychological factors: first, a deep belief in fate, thinking that he was destined to die this year, and preferring to seek early liberation rather than endure prolonged illness. Second, his self-respect. He did not want to ask others for help or burden his relatives and friends. These two factors intertwined in his heart, leading to this decision."
Involved in Every Battle of the Guangdong Revolution
Among Sun Yat-sen’s most capable aides in the early days were Zhu Zhixin, Hu Hanmin, and Wang Jingwei. As the author Wang Xiwen put it: During Sun Yat-sen’s lifetime, he held Hu Hanmin and Wang Jingwei in the highest regard. The two often influenced Sun’s actions and policies. Whenever a particular issue arose, if Sun proposed a course of action and both Hu and Wang agreed, it would be implemented immediately. If either Hu or Wang disagreed or had alternative proposals, Sun might abandon his own opinion and follow theirs—this was a common occurrence. As a result, some party members referred to Hu and Wang as the "supreme premiers." Zhu Zhixin, Wang Jingwei’s nephew, was two years younger than Wang and even more formidable. At the time within the party, if he agreed with Sun’s proposals or offered a compromise solution, Sun and even Hu and Wang would often accept Zhu’s opinions. Thus, Zhu Zhixin was also known as the "supreme supreme premier."
In the 30th year of the Guangxu reign (1904), Zhu Zhixin went to Japan on a government scholarship to study economics at the Tokyo Law and Politics School’s accelerated program. During his time in Japan, he met Sun Yat-sen. In July 1905, he joined the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance in Tokyo, Japan, and successively served as an evaluator in the Review Department alongside Wang Jingwei and Hu Hanmin. From then on, he followed Sun Yat-sen and devoted himself to the revolution. He participated in all major revolutionary campaigns in Guangdong, including the 1907 Guangzhou Patrol Battalion Uprising, the 1910 Guangzhou New Army Uprising, the 1911 Huanghuagang Uprising, the recovery of Guangdong after the Wuchang Uprising, the establishment of the Republic in its early years, the campaigns against Yuan Shikai and for the Constitutional Protection Movement, and even his fatal encounter with the Guangxi forces upon the return of the Guangdong Army to Huimen. He was involved in nearly every revolutionary movement in Guangdong. Moreover, he never shied away from danger, never sought fame or position afterward, and never cared about praise or blame, earning immense trust from Sun Yat-sen. Party members admired his integrity and honored him with the title "Sage of the Revolution." (To be continued)