Wen Tianxiang

Wen Tianxiang

Wen Tianxiang,the last resisting prime-minister of the South Song Dynasty, was captured by Kublai-Khan,and was brought back to Beijing under house arrest,where he could have female entertainers and musicians met ,so to help to pass away his time ,under the soft imprisonment. Khublai-Khan wanted to use Wen Tianxiang as his prominent minister [under the Mongol Overlordship] ,to control the Han Chinese population ,but Wen Tianxiang refused to accept this offer from the Mongol Emperor, and during this soft imprisonment ,or house arrest ,in the west of Beijing, Wen Tianxiang wrote his famous Song of the Spirit of Resistance [ Jeng - Chee ],which the Taiwanese educational system is now using ,to indoctrinate the Taiwanese younger generation.This house still exists in the west of Beijing and is now turned into a temple under his name , together with a school ,also under his name. The mother of Chairman Mao Tze -Tong, the Chairman of the Chinese People's Republic, was supposedly a descendant of the Wen family .

After several years of captivity under the Mongol rule,one day , Khublai-Khan visited Wen Tianxiang house in person ,in the west of Beijing ,and asked what would satisfy Wen Tianxiang .

Wen Tianxiang replied that he could not serve two masters, and that he wished for a swift death.

The next day, Khublai-Khan gave order for the execution of Wen Tianxiang in the house where Wen Tianxiang had lived for the past few years . The day after the execution , Khublai-Khan did not take food,and for several days Khublai-Khan mourned the execution of Wen Tianxiang, because Khublai-Khan regretted having taken his decision too hastily.

Wen Tianxiang's own two sons were killed when they were young ,so they were without descendants ,so Wen Tianxiang adopted very early on ,the three sons of his younger brother as his own sons ,and advised very early on,these three ,in the south ,to form new resistance groups against the Mongols. There are now three branches of the Wen family in the provinces of Jiangxi , Quandong, and Fujian, with family names Man and Boon ,a change from Wen , according to the local dialect pronounciations. Some descendants from the Chiu-Chow coastal section of the Wen family branch, emmigrated to Indo-China,and these had their family name change from Wen into Van ,this is to conform to the Vietnamese pronounciation of the Chinese character Wen. Wen Tianxiang was borned in the Province of Jiangxi. The name Wen originated from the Sechuan province 1500 years ago, before that date, the Wen family name existed during the western Chow Dynasty 3000 years ago.