11. Married In Chongqing
In August 1942, the Ordnance Industry Department had not yet finalized the transportation in India, and the Fang Zhaohao and brother Kai all stayed on standby. Therefore, Liu Zhiguo and I had to go around. I felt uncomfortable. The little money I had left was becoming less and less. After Bhamo’s retreat, I was afraid of repeating it. So I heard that Yu Dagang invited Shen Dingsan to work in the storage and transportation office of Fuxing Company, but Shen Dingsan could not decide to do business or still be a civil servant so he did not accept the offer. I heard the situation then discussed it with brother Kai, he introduced me to Fuxing Company. Yu Dagang was the assistant manager of the storage and transportation office, and I was the head of the accounting team, the new job was started in October 1942.
Shen Huilin went to Chongqing before Liu Zhiguo and I. Fang Zhaohao Introduced Shen Huilin to work in the Dadukou Steel Plant. Shen Huilin had a relative family in Chongqing. His god sister’s name is Wan Zhongxian who worked at the post office and was one year younger than me. After his introduction, we had been in contact with each other for more than half a year and got married in the Zhongxian’s home in the Qingmuguan town on June 6, 1943. On that day, Mr. and Mrs. Shao Enfu, Mr. and Mrs. Zhou Shijun, and other relatives of Zhongxian came to congratulate. Zhongxian’s parents set up a two-table wedding feast to celebrate the ceremony.
I did not invite relatives or friends in advance, and only published the marriage notice in the Chongqing newspaper that day. First of all, when my brother kai was in New Delhi, India, he heard that I got married, immediately sent a large sum of money for my marriage and gave Zhongxian an OMEGA watch as a first time meeting gift. In Chongqing, relatives, friends, colleagues and classmates saw the newspaper and gave gifts. For this reason, on July 18th, 1943 we invited a wedding wine at the Zhongmei Building in Chongqing. It was a Western-style meal, and there were more than 100 guests including sister-in-law Fang and nephew Ning, Ning already knew how to write, and signed his name on the Red Silk. Other guests were third uncle, Ye Yuanqing, and Zhuang Xiaosheng.
The following guests arrived on the same day:
Wang Dajun, Li Juequn, Niu Xianming, Xie Chengmei, Zeng Zhaoliu, Zhuang Shuya, Summer School, Shao Enfu, He Zushao, Hong Changzhuo,
Xie Zhuoyun, Shi Qiwen, Zheng Yongning, Tong Bofang, Cha Jicha (now retired), Shen Dingsan, Zhu Songwei, Shen Zhonghe, Shen Yunlin, Guo Chengfu, Fu Hexuan, Xie Chengjian, Yang Deren, Tu Shuang, Qin Changzhao, Wang Silin, Zhang Ying, Chen Can, Zhou Shijun, Gong Ruiying, Yun Xingui, Xia Daoxiang (Manager of Fuxing Storage and Transportation Office). In addition, most of them were colleagues from the Fuxing Company, including a few Nanyang Middle School classmates and Zhongxian’s relatives.
Those who gave gifts but did not attend were Director Yu Dawei (later Minister of Transportation), Yu Dagang, Fang Zhaohao, Fang Zhaokai, Xi Debing (General Manager of Fuxing Company), Yu Shaoguang (Associate of Fuxing ompany), Jin Zhuomin (Huan Chun), Wu Zhenqi (aunt’s nephew, Shengguan), Zong Fupei, Wang Zhousun, Wu Zhongxian (Jimin’s brother Along), Tu Baozhang. Some relatives and friends also came to attend and give gifts because of brother Kai.
After marriage, we lived in a Fuxing Company dormitory for the family members in Xiangjiapo on the south bank. It was in the middle of the mountain, with two glass windows, bright and spacious, and some furnitures. Sister-in-law Fang, Ning and Mrs. Zheng once visited together. From the dormitory, walking to the 20th Factory of the Tongyuan Bureau on south bank was not too far to visit sister-in-law Fang. I once walked with Zhongxian. In general, passing the Haitang River and crossing the Yangtze river to the Lianglukou downhill and then crossing the Yangtze river, but going around a big circle.
The Fuxing Commercial Company of the Trade Commission of the Ministry of Finance specialized in the purchase of domestic local products, bristles, raw silk, tung oil, etc. as bulk products. Other medicinal materials such as wolfberry and musk were also purchased. Exported via the Yunnan-Myanmar Highway in exchange for foreign currencies, a small portion was sold to the Soviet Union via Xinjiang. There were branches in more than ten provinces including Southeast, Southwest and Northwest regions. The accounting team was in charge of all branch and station purchases, warehousing, transportation, and accounts for the quantity of inventory, regardless of the money. The format of the station table of each branch was different, the reporting period was not uniform, and the unit of measurement was not uniform, which made it extremely inconvenient to summarize statistics.
Therefore, based on my past experience, I suggested to the Department to unify the report format, name, number of copies, submission period, measurement unit, etc., for management purposes. The draft was completed after a few months of research and discussion with the Department’s consent. It was about from April to May 1943, at the business meeting of various branches held by the company, the storage and transportation department proposed a draft reform report. However, some branches were located behind enemy lines, with inconvenient transportation and insufficient conditions, and only several major ones were allowed to be unified. This was indeed the truth, and because the delivery time of Zhejiang, Fujian, Gansu and other provinces was uncertain, it was eager to not be able to collect it in time every month. Only a single branch can make a copy. Leadership planning and planning had its own difficulties, but fortunately, When the company was also an official entity, it was not really doing business. There was no need to worry about profit and loss. The Ministry of Finance was in control. Yu Dagang came into the company because his classmate, the son of Zhang Shouyong, the president of Guanghua University, was the secretary-general of Fuxing. It’s not Yu Dagang’s own academic interest, it’s just used for transition to a comparable position. After I left Fuxing, he seemed to leave soon.
Once I went to play with Liu Nianzhi, Wang Chunyuan, and Liu Zhiguo at Liu Hongsheng’s home on the south bank, and met Liu Hongsheng. I thought he was really shrewd and capable, and very polite to some of us young people. This may also be because Nianzhi talked about the relationship between some of us in Myanmar who had assisted Nianzhi in the transfer of northwest wool spinning machinery and materials. His eighth son was also there.
At that time, the third uncle lived at the second brother Baozhang’s house in Geleshan. Once my brother Kai and I went to pay a visit, only the second sister Jingzhen, her daughter Rourou, and the third uncle at home. I had not seen each other for many years, and we were very happy together. The third uncle had been living in the second sister’s home after leaving his job in Guizhou. Soon the third uncle and the second sister came to Chongqing for a visit, I invited them to dinner and watched a show. I thought the third uncle and Liu Hongsheng were of the same age, and they were contemporaries. If the third uncle had Liu Hongsheng’s idea of running an industry, then the life of the third uncle might be very different.
In August or September 1943, Zhang Zuping wrote to me in Dibrugarh, India, informing me that the India-Iran Transport Office would be established, with Zhou Xiansong as the director. At that time, Zhou Xiansong was the representative of the Ministry of Communications in the Eastern District of India. Zhang Zuping worked under him and asked if I wanted to go abroad. I had just been married and I was a little unwilling to work abroad, but there was no future in the Fuxing Company, and there was no achievement, and life in China was difficult. I asked Zhongxian, she thought my career should be first and agreed to let me work abroad. I immediately asked Zhang Zuping to try. Soon after, Pan Zuyou, the chief of the General Affairs Section, Zhou Xiansong’s representative in Chongqing, came to me (Pan was also from Changzhou and used to work for the Jiangnan Railway Company) to help me get my passport. I flew to Kolkata via Kunming on October 22, 1943.