Early life of Mao Zedong

The early life of Chinese revolutionary and politician Mao Zedong covered the firstyears of his life, from 1893 to 1919. Born in Shaoshanchong, Shaoshan in Hunan province, Mao grew up as the son of Mao Yichang, a wealthy farmer and landowner. Sent to the local Shaoshan Primary School, Mao was brought up in an environment of Confucianism, but reacted against this from an early age, developing political ideas from prowestern literature. Agedhis father organised a marriage for him with Luo Yigu, the daughter of another landowning family, but Mao denounced the marriage and moved away from home.

Mao was born on December 26, 1893 in his familiar home in the rural village of Shaoshanchong in Xiangtan county, Hunan Province, part of southcentral China. Typical of many Hunanese villages, Shaoshanchong was situated in a narrow valley surrounded by mountains. Both the village and the nearest town, Shaoshan, were named for the local Shaoshan Mountain , a prominent feature in the local landscape with sacred associations for the regions Buddhists. The village was inhabited by many individuals with the surname of Mao the Mao clan traced their lineage back to Mao Taihua, a warrior from Jiangxi Province who had moved to Xiangtan county in the midfourteenth century after fighting for Zhu Yuanzhangs military campaign to overthrow the Mongolgoverned Yuan dynasty.

Source: Wikipedia