ABSTRACT
Members of the older generation are all familiar with the name of Liu Erh-lao Yu. In fact, his real name was Liu Yu-yuan, nicknamed Liu Kou. Liu Erh-lao Yuan was from T'eng county, Shantung. When he was eight years old, his father died in prison, where he had been placed as a result of a dispute with a landlord. Liu's family had no landholdings. He and his brother were too young to help out, so food and clothing all depended on their mother. In 1846, a serious famine gripped T'eng County. The rich lay off their workers in order to save food; the poor sold their property and fled from the disaster. Liu Kou's family lived in Ho-wan-li, yet nobody seemed to care enough to find out anything about them. Upon reaching eighteen years of age, at his mother's insistence Liu was hired as a part-time worker for a rich man, Chang Cheng.
