East of Guangzhou city, the road in front of Dashatou Station was short but wide, almost like a public square, yet packed with cars large and small, every remaining gap filled in by rickshaws.
The moment Ling Wen and Yi Junnian stepped off the train, rickshaw pullers swarmed around them. The two of them had come from Hong Kong, disguised as a herbal medicine merchant and his wife. Guangzhou was a provincial capital, and the rickshaw pullers at the train station could all manage a few words of Mandarin, competing to ask the two travelers where they wanted to go—but Yi Junnian answered in fluent, native Cantonese.
Xihao Kou on Taiping South Road—they were headed for Nanhua Tower. When booking the hotel by telegram in Hong Kong, Yi Junnian had told Ling Wen about the Xinya Hotel at Nanhua Tower—it was there that he had first truly learned the principles of revolution. After the Hong Kong–Guangzhou Strike began, the Communist Party had opened a Labor Institute on the fourth floor of Nanhua Tower; Comrade Deng Zhongxia had lectured there, and he had also once met Comrade Shao Shan there.
Though they were supposedly medicine merchants from Hong Kong and hadn’t brought a great pile of trunks and boxes, Yi Junnian still hired two separate rickshaws. Under Chen Jitang’s rule of Guangdong, the atmosphere had grown rather conservative, and a man and woman riding together might draw unwanted attention. The two rickshaws proceeded one after the other onto the Dongtie Bridge; along the banks of the Dong Hao Canal, small boats were piled high with firewood, and the woodpiles on shore stretched as far as the eye could see. Back in Guangzhou again, he thought.
Past the iron bridge lay the Bund, lined with theaters and restaurants along the Pearl River. Yi Junnian had the puller slow down, the two rickshaws proceeding side by side so he could point out the local scenery to Ling Wen. Newly returned to Guangzhou, he seemed rather excited.
“Just like Shanghai—the roof of the Sincere Department Store here has an amusement park too.” He was in the middle of speaking with enthusiasm when he suddenly fell silent. Ling Wen thought perhaps he’d remembered some scene from the past.
The rickshaws proceeded at an unhurried pace along the Pearl River, and within less than an hour, they arrived at Nanhua Tower. Some time later, the two emerged from beneath the hotel’s arcade and turned into Xidi. They passed through a memorial archway, walked on for a while, and Yi Junnian pointed with his left hand toward the bank of the Pearl River, telling Ling Wen: “That’s Shamian—all the imperialist consulates in Guangzhou are there. During the great strike of 1925, they set up machine guns and opened fire from across the way—so many people died. Look at Guangzhou now—it’s as if they’ve all forgotten that scene entirely.”
The whole way, Yi Junnian talked without pause, as though he had become a different person, while Ling Wen said little, looking preoccupied. These years, she had tried her best not to think of Long Dong—she couldn’t even remember exactly how the news of his death had reached her, who had told her, or when, or how she had so readily believed it. Perhaps it was because so many comrades had died in those years; perhaps it was because deep down she believed that if Long Dong were alive, he would surely find a way to tell her. She had asked comrades who came from Guangzhou, and everyone had told her, with grave faces, that after the failure of the Guangzhou Uprising, the underground Party organization there had been almost entirely destroyed, countless comrades killed.
Lin Shi had told her Long Dong was still alive; she realized she hadn’t immediately believed the news, but her hope had gradually begun to grow. Yet now that she was in Guangzhou, she found herself doubting again.
They didn’t continue straight down Taiping Road, but turned instead into a narrow alley in front of Jianglan Street, squeezing into a crowd still steeped in the leisurely atmosphere of the New Year. This part of the Xiguan district was densely packed with shops along every lane. Though it was winter, and close to noon, the flagstone pavement was still damp in places.
The two of them walked along, looking about, seeming interested in everything. Today was the eighth day of the first lunar month, and people were all gathered in the teahouses and restaurants. Guangzhou wasn’t like Shanghai—the famous restaurants here insisted on opening in narrow lanes, upstairs full of the clamor of drinking games and shouted orders from the waitstaff, mixed with the clatter of woks in the kitchens, along with the occasional strain of string and wind music—a truly boisterous scene. No wonder Lao Yi said Guangzhou seemed to have forgotten that year’s brutal massacre.
Someone came in from the mouth of the lane carrying an enormous bamboo basket loaded with live chickens and geese; once he’d turned and entered a restaurant, Yi Junnian and Ling Wen continued on, emerging from Shiqifu Lane onto Jianglan Street.
At the Hong Kong communications station, someone had told them that continuing on past Shiqifu Lane to Yang Lane, they would see a building with a white round roof—that was the Tiannan Teahouse. Beside the teahouse was a lane called Xirong Lane, and inside it was the Xingchang Medicine Shop.
Jianglan Street was lined entirely with medicine shops, stocked with every kind of Chinese and Western medicinal material. Each shop specialized in a few particular items, and if a merchant customer needed something a shop didn’t carry, they could simply source it from another shop nearby, sharing stock and profit alike. It was precisely because of this convenience that the underground Party organization had opened a medicine shop here—serving on one hand as a communications station, through which personnel and supplies were transferred to the next station, one link after another all the way to the Soviet base area, and on the other hand as a means of purchasing and shipping urgently needed medicine to the Soviet areas.
The large medicine merchants on the main streets outside had wide storefronts, most with arcades in front. The Xingchang shop, tucked away in the deep lane, occupied what Cantonese people call a “bamboo tube house”—two stories, narrow frontage less than a zhang and a half wide, but three courtyards deep. Standing at the shop entrance, one could already smell the scent of medicinal herbs; inside, shelves lined both sides, holding dozens of kinds of medicinal materials in bamboo trays—fructus amomi, pinellia, schisandra, and more, on display for customers to inspect. Large bamboo baskets sat on the floor too, filled with things Cantonese people liked to buy for soup-making—fig root, Solomon’s seal, Chinese yam, and the like. The shop wasn’t doing business during the New Year, but the neighbors nearby still often came to buy these.
The shop was empty of customers, but from the inner room came the sound of mahjong tiles being shuffled. After a moment, a shop assistant came out to greet the guests. Yi Junnian took a letter from inside his coat and handed it over, mentioning that the shop had also received a telegram the previous day. The assistant took the letter and called into the inner room for the boss.
The shop owner came out, taking the letter to read while calling out to the customer, wishing him prosperity, and telling the assistant to help him take a turn at the mahjong table. The contact at the Hong Kong station had told Yi Junnian the owner’s surname was Mo: “Comrade Mo Shaoqiu is an experienced underground worker, with excellent social connections in Guangzhou.”
The shop owner already knew the identity of his visitors, but on the surface he simply said the telegram had arrived, and he hadn’t expected Mr. Yi to come so soon after the New Year.
Yi Junnian said: “It wasn’t so urgent, really. It happened to be New Year, so I thought I’d bring my wife along to see Guangzhou.”
“Ah, if I’d known Mrs. Yi wanted to spend New Year in Guangzhou, I should have invited you both a few days earlier. Jianglan Street has its flower fair during the New Year—the Flower Market at Shuangmendi is quite something to see.”
“The flower fair—isn’t that at Shuangmendi?” Ling Wen said. “‘At the flower market on Shuangmen the crowds throng in rows, baskets and great trees packed thick with blooms.’ I’d rather like to see the Lingnan bell-flowers myself.”
Ling Wen had always loved cultivating flowers and plants, and remembered a good many verses about them.
The shop owner said: “These past few years, Jianglan Street has had its own flower market too.”
The group went into the inner room; at a table by the window, people were playing mahjong. The shop owner explained: “All neighbors from the shops next door—would Mr. Yi like to join in for a bit?”
Yi Junnian smiled and shook his head. The three of them continued on, and behind the door was a staircase leading up to the second floor. Guangzhou’s weather wasn’t cold, and the two paneled windows with colored glass panes were half open; sunlight streamed through the etched patterns and fell across a flower stand beneath the window. The shop owner pointed to a row of pots: “These are the bell-flowers.” There were also large sprays of peach blossom and narcissus.
The shop assistant brought tea upstairs and set it down; the group took their seats. Mo Shaoqiu still wore the smile of a shopkeeper greeting a customer, but his tone had changed: “Comrade Lao Yi, Comrade Ling Wen—did the journey go smoothly?”
The Hong Kong communications station had notified the medicine shop in advance, and Mo Shaoqiu had already made preparations. He asked Yi Junnian and Ling Wen to sit a while, saying someone would come to see them shortly.
“Have you been to Guangzhou before?” Mo Shaoqiu asked them.
“I worked in Guangzhou for many years, and withdrew only after the Uprising,” Yi Junnian answered. “Comrade Ling Wen has never been here before, though her husband, Comrade Long Dong, worked in Guangzhou—he later gave his life here.”
Ling Wen glanced at him. Lao Yi always liked to tell people about Long Dong’s death; she could guess what was on his mind, but she didn’t much care for it. She felt that the closeness Lao Yi displayed toward her in front of other comrades exceeded the actual degree of their intimacy. And whenever Lao Yi mentioned Long Dong—despite having never actually met him—he always spoke of how capable, how heroic he had been, embellishing secondhand stories into revolutionary legend. In truth, Ling Wen knew that the traces of Long Dong around her—photographs, old clothes, the occasional fragmentary remark she let slip—all seemed to make Lao Yi uncomfortable. On this particular matter, Yi Junnian’s manner seemed somehow not quite genuine.
Besides, Lin Shi had told her that Long Dong hadn’t died at all.
“Long Dong? I know him. He didn’t die.” Mrs. Mo spoke up. They had just finished a round of mahjong when she’d come upstairs, arriving just in time to hear what they were saying.
Mo Shaoqiu and his wife had been entrusted by the Party organization to run this communications station—the couple had worked here together for many years. With her words, everyone turned to look at her.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this—I was transferred off that line of work long ago, and by rights I shouldn’t be talking about those matters to others.” She sat down beside Mo Shaoqiu and said to Ling Wen, “But you’re his wife—I think it’s alright to tell you. Revolution should have room for human feeling too, don’t you think?” She turned to ask her husband.
“You gossipy old woman.” Mo Shaoqiu cursed her, laughing.
“I know Comrade Long Dong. After the Uprising, it became very hard for the Party organization to survive in Guangzhou—that was—the seventeenth year of the Republic. The organization had me serve as a courier, since I was a woman, and rather the gossipy type—walking down the street, the enemy wouldn’t easily suspect me.
“For an entire year, the streets were far too dangerous—plainclothes agents could stop you at any moment. Sometimes they’d come swaying up to you dressed in gauze shirts, wearing bowler hats, and start searching you right there. If your accent didn’t sound like a Guangzhou local, they might just arrest you on the spot.
“I did courier work for a few months, then was transferred here to run the communications station, and became your other half,” she said, turning to her husband. “I remember one day they told me to deliver a letter to Gaodi Street, to be delivered before dawn. It rained all night; just before daybreak, the rain stopped, leaving a heavy mist. The flagstone road was slick with mud, one foot after another—my shoes and trousers were soaked through.
“There wasn’t a soul on the whole street—only night-soil carts passing by, wheels creaking, ringing their bells to call people to empty their chamber pots, clang, clang, the bell ringing on and on through the side lanes. I was almost there—the contact point was in a lane beside the Commoners’ Palace. Do you know the Commoners’ Palace? Chen Jitang confiscated an opium-smuggling boat and used the fine money to build it, claiming it was to shelter the homeless poor—but there were poor people everywhere, how could it possibly shelter them all? Warlords—just putting on a show.
“Once I got into the lane, just a few more steps and I’d be there. At the corner where Gaodi Street turned into the lane, someone was hiding under the arcade and suddenly stepped out, blocking my way, saying, ‘Don’t go in.’ Why shouldn’t I go in? I didn’t even know this man.
“I looked up at him—this man was tall, big, quite handsome, wearing a raincoat with the hood pulled up over his face. The sky was dark, and there was mist, but his eyes were very bright. I felt a bit embarrassed. He suddenly said: ‘There’s police inside, plainclothes.’ Seeing that I was pretending not to understand him, he added: ‘That contact point has been discovered by the enemy, there’s an ambush. I was afraid some comrade might walk in and get caught, so I’ve been waiting here.’ That’s how he saved me. When I went back and reported to my superior—my superior was Secretary Ouyang, Ouyang Min—he thought about it and said, that must have been Comrade Long Dong.
“Long Dong—I remembered that name. Secretary Ouyang also said that he wasn’t part of our working system—his work was more important, more secret—so he warned me not to mention it to anyone. Secretary Ouyang was very happy that day, because the secret letter I’d been sent to deliver was extremely important—if it had fallen into enemy hands, the consequences would have been severe.
“He said—thank goodness for Comrade Long Dong, that Comrade Long Dong was truly a rare talent for the Party organization, that he knew every secret of the Guangzhou warlord government, that his intelligence network had penetrated deep into the enemy’s ranks. I felt he’d said too much—he shouldn’t have told me all that. For some reason, I found myself secretly worried for Comrade Long Dong—if so many people within the underground Party knew about his secret work, then it couldn’t be far from reaching the enemy’s ears either.
“Another year passed, and I saw in the Guangzhou Republican Daily that the Nationalists had cracked a Communist intelligence network, executing on the spot a comrade named Lu Zhongde who had been embedded in the public security bureau, and arresting the entire underground Party cell, including the district committee secretary, Ouyang Min. The only one who escaped was Comrade Long Dong—the enemy apparently couldn’t find a photograph of him, so they had a portrait drawn and printed in the newspaper, offering two hundred silver dollars to anyone who reported him to the local police. After that, there was never any news of him again.”
“Lu Zhongde—I remember that name. Someone mentioned it during the Hong Kong–Guangzhou Strike. A seaman, I think. Later he joined the workers’ picket corps—not sure if it’s the same person.” Yi Junnian suddenly remembered, cutting in.
“That’s very possible,” Mo Shaoqiu said. “After the great strike, the Party organization sought out workers of firm revolutionary resolve and sharp wits, had many go underground, and specifically selected strong, capable comrades to infiltrate the enemy’s garrison headquarters and public security bureau. I tried out for the public security bureau myself—but that bastard bureau chief Zhu Huiri had people lined up to pick from, and I was thin as a sugarcane stalk, so they threw me out.”
“What date was that newspaper?” Ling Wen asked. “You said it was in the Guangzhou Republican Daily—when was that exactly?”
“I don’t remember exactly. The eighteenth year of the Republic, around Dragon Boat Festival, I think.”
“Could that day’s newspaper still be found?” Ling Wen pressed further.
“Turn the corner from Jianglan Street and you’re on Guangfu Road—Newspaper Row in Xiguan. Someone there might know,” Mrs. Mo said.
Just as they were talking, the shop assistant called up from downstairs: “Boss, we’ve got a customer.”
The newcomer had come all the way from Ruijin, via Changting, Yongding, and Dapu—ten-odd days of travel. He said to Mo Shaoqiu: “I heard in Qingxi that someone had come from Shanghai—I was afraid I’d missed him.”
He was a messenger from the Soviet base area, carrying an important verbal message that had to be delivered personally to Lin Shi. He hadn’t expected that Lin Shi wouldn’t be in Guangzhou as originally planned. The messenger froze. His superior’s instructions had been explicit: only upon seeing Lin Shi in person could he reveal the content of the message.
This was an unforeseen situation. Lin Shi himself couldn’t possibly have known in advance that an important message awaited him in Guangzhou, one that had to be received in person.
For the messenger, this was a test. He could stop the transmission and return the way he’d come to report back—the safest, most secure course of action. But because it was a verbal message, he knew its content, understood the gravity involved—if it couldn’t be delivered to Shanghai in time, the losses could be incalculable.
He was no ordinary courier—he was a high-level confidential communications agent of the Central Communications Bureau. Like Lin Shi, the tasks entrusted to men like him were often of extreme importance, yet also prone to unexpected complications, requiring them to make decisions based on experience and loyalty.
By standard procedure for confidential couriers, he wasn’t even required to meet with Yi Junnian and Ling Wen—but he decided to see them anyway.
“When are you planning to leave Guangzhou?” he asked them.
“We’ve booked a round-trip boat ticket, boarding tomorrow evening at seven, departing at midnight.” Yi Junnian had no idea who this newcomer was; the shop owner had simply brought him upstairs, saying only that this was Lao Xiao, come from the Soviet area.
Lin Shi had told Yi Junnian about the situation at the Guangzhou communications station. Mr. Mo and Mrs. Mo weren’t a fake couple—the shop assistant too was a Party comrade. The permanent staff of the station were these three people, led by Mo Shaoqiu. Ordinarily the medicine shop also had regular assistants, and during busy periods Mr. Mo would hire additional workers. These people were presumably honest and reliable, but matters related to the underground Party organization still had to be kept from them. Lin Shi hadn’t told Yi Junnian there would be a “Lao Xiao from the Soviet area.” This Lao Xiao seemed to know Lin Shi quite well—he said: “How is it he didn’t come himself?” Did they work in the same system? Yi Junnian wondered. He told Lao Xiao: “Comrade Lin Shi was injured. The organization decided to have the two of us take his place on this mission.”
“Where was he injured?” Lao Xiao looked particularly concerned.
“His leg,” Yi Junnian said, gesturing at his own calf. “A bullet passed through it—not too severe, but walking long distances is difficult. The underground Party has its own doctor; the wound is healing well.”
“What happened over there?”
So the news never reached Ruijin, Yi Junnian thought—the extent of damage to the underground Party organization must truly be severe. Some of the central and local command systems had withdrawn, while others were still holding their ground. Lin Shi’s superior authority appeared to be based in Ruijin—so which unit had dispatched Chen Qianli to Shanghai?
Having worked in the underground Party for many years, this was the first time Yi Junnian had a chance to understand, on a broader scale, the command and communications structure between organizations. He knew that many cells relied solely on individual single-line contact between superior and subordinate, making it extremely difficult to pass information, and command far from smooth. Under such conditions, persisting in the struggle often depended solely on each person’s loyalty and will as the organization’s cohesive force.
“Special agents disrupted a secret meeting, but no one’s identity was exposed—the organization rescued them from custody,” Yi Junnian told Lao Xiao.
“We had no idea about this situation on our end.”
“We really ought to establish a radio station as soon as possible,” Yi Junnian said.
Lao Xiao glanced at Yi Junnian. A wireless radio station had already existed for two years, kept extremely secret. At first, because the station’s power was low and transmission wasn’t very stable, communications from Shanghai to the southern Soviet area had all been relayed through a secret radio station in Hong Kong. Later, the Hong Kong station had been destroyed by the British police.
The following year, the Red Army captured a high-power radio transmitter on the anti-“encirclement” battlefield, and from then on wireless communication between Shanghai and Ruijin was established. But the distance was great, transmission and reception still unstable, and the underground Party’s radio unit in Shanghai had repeatedly come under investigation by secret agents and the concession police, nearly being exposed several times.
The “Hao cipher,” though ingeniously designed, was still fundamentally based on adding to and subtracting from plaintext—used too frequently, especially for matters the enemy might already know about, it was liable to reveal patterns. And Lao Xiao knew very well in his heart that the message he had to convey to Lin Shi could only be delivered face-to-face by the most trustworthy courier—wireless transmission wasn’t secure enough, and might not even be fast enough. Even if they sent a telegram to the Shanghai radio unit, since the various underground Party organizations had no lateral connections with each other, the message would need to be passed layer by layer upward, then relayed back down through another single line from a higher level—passing through several tiers before it reached the temporary action group. That, clearly, wasn’t secure enough either.
The situation was urgent, but he was only a messenger, not authorized to decide on his own. He considered having Old Mo seek instructions from a superior, to try to get him to Hong Kong to use the underground Party’s secret radio station to send an inquiry to Ruijin. But there were simply too many uncertain factors involved. Would Old Mo’s superior even agree to contact the radio station? How many organizational links would be involved along the way? Would there be a problem with him deciding on his own to go to Hong Kong? Could the radio operator get through to Ruijin quickly? Once the Ruijin station received the message, could the decoded text be handed promptly to the right person, and then delivered to the leader who truly understood the situation?
In truth, he had only three options: do nothing and return to Ruijin to seek new instructions; deliver the message to one of these two comrades, having him or her return to Shanghai to inform Lin Shi; or make the trip to Shanghai himself. Returning to Ruijin—there simply wasn’t enough time. Going to Shanghai—he had no idea whether he could get a boat ticket right away. As for these two comrades, he didn’t know either of them well enough. But he had to make a choice.
“The two of you came to Guangzhou together—who’s in charge?” Lao Xiao asked.
“Me,” Ling Wen answered. Everyone was surprised, because on the surface, Yi Junnian seemed more like the one in charge of the two-person team. To be honest, Ling Wen herself had found it odd when Chen Qianli made this arrangement before their departure. Everyone knew that Yi Junnian had originally been the head of the underground cell she belonged to. But that was how Chen Qianli had put it, and no one knew why he’d made this decision: for this operation, the two of them were to follow Ling Wen’s lead on everything, with Yi Junnian’s main duty being protection and cover. Comrade Chen Qianli really was a man full of surprises—in any case, carrying out a mission like this, Ling Wen didn’t have much experience herself.
“Alright then—come with me to speak a few words in the back,” Lao Xiao said to Ling Wen.
The bamboo tube building was like its name—a narrow front, but deep inside, like a stalk of bamboo with many joints, one room after another—front room, second hall, third hall, back room, and behind the back room, the kitchen—one section connected to the next. The roof of tiles above the second floor rose in successive tiers as well, but the third and fourth tiers weren’t connected, with two sections of wooden board blocking the gap between the gable walls—only visible from inside the second-floor rooms was that gap, a small terrace. Ling Wen and Lao Xiao stood here to talk.
“Do you know who the highest-level person in charge of the ‘Map of a Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains’ plan is?”
“Comrade Lin Shi never mentioned it.”
“It’s Comrade Shao Shan. This trip to Guangzhou, I’ve come under the direct commission of Comrade Shao Shan, to find Lin Shi and deliver a secret instruction to him verbally.”
“But Comrade Lin Shi isn’t in Guangzhou—”
“My task is to speak the content of the message to Lin Shi in person, and under no circumstances reveal it to a third party.”
Then why are you telling me this? Ling Wen thought to herself, but she said nothing.
“Perhaps I should go back to Ruijin to seek instructions.” Lao Xiao seemed torn, unable to decide—this experienced old communications veteran, who had handled countless difficult problems over the years, had never once hesitated as he did now. “But there’s no time. Comrade Yi Junnian is right—we really do need to put serious effort into the radio station.”
But he quickly shook off these feelings and said to Ling Wen: “Come back here before noon tomorrow, and I’ll give you my final decision. If I can get a boat ticket, I’ll go back to Shanghai with you both. If arrangements don’t work out, then it will fall to you alone to carry this message safely to Lin Shi. This is an absolutely secret message that cannot be revealed to anyone—if it must fall to you to complete this, you must deliver it to Lin Shi in person.”
Ling Wen felt somewhat at a loss—she didn’t know this comrade at all, and he had suddenly appeared before her, entrusting her with an absolutely secret mission.
“Comrade Ling Wen, if this matter must be entrusted to you to complete, you must protect this secret message with your life, and complete this mission even at the cost of your life.”
Seeing the look on Ling Wen’s face, he added this last line.