IN CHINESE mythology, the eight Immortals were born human but now live on Penglai Shan, an island paradise some where east of China. They can walk on water, a useful trick should they wish to visit the mainland. The Communists liked the idea and picked their own eight Immortals. Mao Zedong is one, obviously; Deng Xiaoping is another. Yang Shangkun is almost the last to leave for paradise.
中国神话中有八仙的故事，他们出生时虽是凡人，后来却居住于蓬莱山（一座位于中国东部某处的仙岛）。他们能行于水上，如果他们在大陆游历，这将是很有用的一项技能。共产党人钟情于这一理念，选出了自己的八仙。毛泽东占一位，这很明显；另外一个是邓小平。而杨尚昆几乎是升天成仙的最后一位。
Mr Yang and the others joined the fledgling Communist Party in the 1920s, and survived the rigours of the Long March in the mid-1930s. The march was actually a retreat from the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, but, like the British army’s escape from Dunkirk in the early days of the second world war, it is celebrated as something of a miraculous victory. The few who did make it, and survived the battles against Japan and the Nationalists, were in line for powerful jobs in the Communist government that took power in October 1949.
20
世纪
20
年代，杨尚昆同其他人一道加入了当时还羽翼未丰的共产党，并在
20
世纪
30
年代中期严酷的长征中幸存下来。事实上这次征程是一场撤退，为的是躲避蒋介石为首的国民党军队的追击，但是同二战时期英军的敦刻尔克大撤退一样，它作为某种不可思议的胜利而闻名。共产党
1949
年
10
月取得政权后，那些挺了过来、并在同日本与国民党的战斗中幸存的少数人，在政府中都担任了显要官职。
Anyone who outlived the subsequent purges of Mao and his acolytes must have thought themselves endowed with heaven-sent stamina. Mr Yang spent 12 years in prison accused of counter-revolution.
随后便发生了毛及其追随者发动的清洗运动，任何挺过了这场运动的人肯定会认为自己得到了上天赋予的毅力。杨尚昆当时因反革命的罪名在狱度过了
12
年。
The survivors bounced back with Deng, who took power in late 1978. He set out to restore the party’s reputation by urging economic development and rehabilitating senior victims of the purges. From then on, the Immortals, by now ancient, made up for lost time. They poked their noses into everything. Mr Yang was a staunch ally of Deng the reformer, first in Guangdong, where economic experiments began, and then in charge of the modernisation of the People’s Liberation Army. As secretary-general of the Central Military Commission (a post he had first held three decades earlier), he forced the military to abandon its archaic role as a politicised revolutionary force, to become a modern fighting body. He cut the army by 1m, and in the process dismissed many political commissars (and their dancing girls).
随着
1978
年末邓小平的上台，这些幸存者重新受到重用。邓小平当时采取措施，通过刺激经济发展和为清洗运动中遭迫害的高级官员平反的方式，为共产党恢复名誉。自此，这些如今看来是老一辈的不朽者们，对失去的时光作出了弥补。他们在各个方面都进行了改革。杨尚昆就是坚定支持邓小平改革的同盟者，起先是在经济试验开始的广东，接着就负责人民解放军的现代化建设。作为中央军委秘书长（
30
年前他首次担任了这一职务），他强力推进军队转变角色，从以前的政治化革命武装，变成了一支现代的作战军队。他裁军一百万，其间还解散了很多政委（及其舞女）。
But in pursuing their divine right to meddle in China’s future, the elders clashed with a younger generation of technocrats. They did not trust the youngsters (in their 60s and 70s) to push through economic reforms without destroying the authority of the party. The elders became the guardians not just of economic reforms, but of the party’s absolute power.
干预中国的未来似乎是他们神授的权利，可在追求这一权利的过程中，老一辈人与新一代的技术官僚间发生了不合。六七十岁时他们认为那些年轻人在推行经济改革的同时一定会摧毁党的权威。老一辈不仅成为了经济改革的保护者，还是党绝对权力的守卫者。
Deng was aware of the problem. After 1987 he set out to kick the Immortals upstairs. In 1988 Mr Yang was made state president. For an ambitious geriatric, the largely ceremonial job might have seemed a humiliation. But he still sat on the military commission. During the student demonstrations in favour of democracy in Tiananmen Square in the summer of 1989, he persuaded China’s dithering leaders to use force against the protesters. Mr Yang told them that, unless they did, “the last stone in the dam” would collapse. The army moved against the students, and the party’s hold on power remained unthreatened. Deng was deeply grateful.
邓小平意识到了这一问题。
1987
年后他着手处理了处于高层的“神仙”们。
1988
年杨尚昆被任命为国家主席。对一位雄心勃勃的老人来说，这近似于摆设的职位就像一种羞辱。但他仍然是军事委员会的成员。面对学生的
那场风波，他劝说当时举棋不定的领导人对这些示威者使用武力。杨尚昆告诉他们：如果不采取行动，“堤坝上的最后一块石块”也会瓦解。随后军队就向学生开进，党对政权的控制没有受到威胁。邓小平对此深表感激。
In the Tiananmen crackdown Mr Yang was supported by Yang Baibing, his younger half-brother (or adopted relation, no one is quite sure), who had risen in the army as a result of family influence. After the crackdown, and stuffed with a sense of righteousness, the “Yang family generals”, as they came to be known, conducted something of a witch-hunt, ousting officers suspected of questioning the use of force. They packed the top echelons of the military with their own men. It became clear that Yang Shangkun, in vigorous health for his age, fancied the idea of becoming China’s paramount leader after Deng’s death.
在镇压时，杨尚昆得到了他同父异母的弟弟杨白冰（或者是收养关系，没人能够肯定）的支持，后者因家族的背景在军队中获得了提拔。在满腔正气地处理镇压等事件之后，
“杨家将”（这一称呼渐渐为人所熟悉）进行了一场清洗异己的政治迫害，驱逐了那些他们怀疑的对队使用权表示质疑的官员，并在军队高层中安插了自己的手下。个中意图已经很明显：年事已高却精力充沛的杨尚昆很希望邓小平死后自己能成为中国的最高领导人。
All this was too much for Jiang Zemin, the rising star in the party, and eventually for Deng himself. In 1992 the Yangs were sacked from their military posts. Mr Yang retired from the state presidency the following year.
