Perhaps the vast majority of people do not know about the very event which marked the ending of the Southern Sung dynasty. Facing a probable defeat, but realizing the irredeemable fate of the nation they loved, 780 loyal people of FurongVillage made their choice. They preferred to die as loyal fighters of their country than to live as slaves.
Thus occurred the heroic act of 780 citizens, who all ended their lives by jumping off a cliff. In comparison, the widely circulated story of Lu Xiufu's jumping into the sea with the Little Emperor, fades into the background.
One of the recent surprising events which took place in FurongVillage is another unknown story. It was the founding of the experimental business development model, the Furong Rural Development Association. It was during the Japanese invasion war of the late 1930s and early 1940s that Mr. Chen Yen-Sung, the chief of the Cooperation Department of the State Department, after careful research and strategic planning, founded this active and influential association of entrepreneurs. It was very successful, and could we now imagine that, if modern Chinese history had not taken its present course, we would now be much farther advanced in our present economic development in China?
FurongVillage continues to surprise us. This little village, known for its heroic and entrepreneurial spirit and as the home of intellectuals and rebels, lives on as she did in her days of old. She is as loyal as in days past and as attractive as she was in her days of youth.
FurongVillage is a NationalHistoricMonument especially preserved by the state government. It is located on the renowned NanxiRiver. In this book, I try to retell the difficult journey of modern Furong during the past 60 years. We start from the beginning of the Republic of China founded by Sun Yat Sen. This is a story about going home.