In 1943, the Kuomintang Air Force sent several pilots to the United States for professional training. The pilots who stayed in a foreign land for about two years were always concerned about the internal situation of the motherland and often read the "Overseas Chinese Daily" to understand the progress of the anti-Japanese resistance and liberation.
Among them, a pilot named Liu Shanben wrote a family letter to his sister at home, repeatedly stressing his desire to return to the motherland and to join the ranks of resisting the enemy and serving the motherland.
Two years later, in May, the Chinese pilots who had completed their training flew brand new aircraft and prepared to detour through India and return to China. They raise a glass to celebrate in Karachi and imagine each other's hot future.
Who knows, the Kuomintang authorities gave them a strange order, telling them to suspend the gates of the motherland and wait for the next instructions.
The pilots who were bent on participating in the war were very puzzled, why did their superiors not allow them to return to China to participate in the war? During this period, Liu Shanben read books such as "History of the Chinese Revolutionary Movement" and gradually awakened a deeper sense of revolution.
At the end of the War of Resistance at home and the surrender of Japan, the pilots who were staying outside received orders to return to China, and they landed in Shanghai to witness the still turbulent situation in China.
Liu Shanben personally heard the director of the Aviation Committee say to them: "As long as there are combat aircraft provided by the United States, we can guarantee the elimination of the Communists within 3 to 6 months." ”
Liu Shanben suddenly realized that his superiors had forced them to stay abroad to preserve their own strength, but he really did not want to meet with his compatriots, so he made a decision that would affect the second half of his life.
01, the feat of a hot-blooded youth: He said that he told me to fly an airplane to bomb my compatriots against my conscience
Liu Shanben was born in 1915 in Shandong province to an ordinary peasant family. When I was in middle school, the "918" incident happened, and It was Because Liu Shanben hated the Japanese invaders very much.
In 1932, Liu Shanben was admitted to the Affiliated Middle School of Peking University and had initial contact with ccp propaganda and progressive ideas. The following year, Liu Shanben, who returned to his hometown to visit his relatives, personally experienced his father's plight of innocent imprisonment because he was implicated by relatives, and gained a deeper understanding of the darkness of the old society.
In 1935, Liu Shanben, who graduated from school, joined the Air Force Training Camp of Nanjing Army School with a heart of serving the country. After more than a year, he was assigned to the Luoyang National Air Force Junior Aviation School to learn flying skills.
In 1937, Liu Shanben and his classmates, who had mastered the preliminary technology, went to Hangzhou to receive advanced flight training. Four months later, he witnessed his predecessors resist japanese aggression, shoot down 3 hostile aircraft, and strengthen the ideal of serving the country through aviation.
In the autumn of 1938, Liu Shanben, who had trained his skills and mastered the driving skills of fighters and bombers, moved to Kunming with the school. During this period, he privately drove a new plane to the sky to attack the enemy, but he had no choice but to give up because he did not have ammunition, and afterwards he was reprimanded by the school authorities, but fortunately he was not punished.
After graduating at the end of the same year, he was assigned to the Chengdu Bombing Corps. In 1940, he joined the newly formed Aviation 8 Group as a lieutenant pilot and trained as a bomber.
In 1941, in order to preserve his combat strength, Liu Benshan withdrew with his troops to Lanzhou, Xinjiang and other places, and was deeply depressed that he could not realize his wish to serve the country.
In 1942, Liu Shanben married Zhou Shuhuan. In 1943, Liu Shanben went abroad to study. Returning to China, unable to stop the civil war in China, he was very bored, and often went to the bookstore to find magazines to ease his mood.
One day, Liu Shanben received a letter from his second sister, who encouraged him to fly to Yan'an. Liu Shanben, who had read "On New People's Principles," slowly developed the idea of defecting to the CCP organization.
In mid-1946, Liu Shanben, who had been ordered to fly an airplane to Tokyo, once again witnessed the embarrassment of the Chinese representatives relying on the Americans, and he sat silently by the radio, listening to news from Yan'an, and became more determined to switch to the CCP.
A few days later, Liu Shanben, an elite pilot, unexpectedly received a task: flying an airplane to Kunming to transport radio equipment to Chengdu. He gladly agreed, but due to weather problems, he was forced to interrupt the original plan to turn to Yan'an.
On June 26, Liu Shanben, who flew the plane back to Kunming again, seized the opportunity after the plane took off and used clever words to deceive the six passengers in the rear cabin and make them believe that there were pilots in the front cabin thinking of Yan'an.
Then, Liu Shanben returned to the front cabin, took away the guns of the co-pilot and the signal soldiers in advance, and while adjusting the course, he pretended to be panicked and whispered: "Oops, the passengers in the back are from the CCP organization, they are holding guns to force us to fly to Yan'an..."
The front cabin was momentarily chaotic, and everyone was arguing endlessly, liu Shanben took this opportunity to "persuade" the co-pilot and the rest of the personnel to agree to the plan of "temporarily turning around" Yan'an, and with the help of the correspondent, confused the Kuomintang ground radio and successfully arrived at Yan'an Airport.
His arrival was warmly welcomed by Chairman Mao and others. After that, Liu Shanben issued a speech calling for opposition to the civil war, saying: "My reason for coming to Yan'an is simple, because I do not want to fly an airplane against my conscience to bomb my compatriots." ”
Under his influence, more than 70 aircraft and more than 100 people revolted one after another, and Premier Zhou praised Liu Shanben as "the leader of the Uprising of the National Air Force."
However, Liu Shanben, who already had a wife and daughter, was not alone, and his wife Zhou Shuhuan and her daughter remained in Shanghai under the control of the Nationalist government, and the safety was particularly worrying.
02, the dilemma of the sons and daughters of the family and the country: his wife and children are still trapped in Shanghai, and they cannot be "liberated"
Before implementing the plan to defect to Yan'an, Liu Shanben already knew that he was about to face a dilemma: leaving his wife and daughter in Shanghai and flying to Yan'an according to the original plan; abandoning the plan for his wife and daughter and going to war against his conscience against his compatriots. He struggled to choose the former.
On the day he left home, Liu Shanben quietly took his daughter's photo and hesitated to pack his luggage. When he reached the door, he suddenly turned his head and called out to his wife Zhou Shuhuan to throw down his raincoat, and inexplicably said goodbye to her.
Zhou Shuhuan, who did not know why, did not know what kind of feat her husband had done until the day of Liu Shanben's speech. Sleeping until midnight, she was woken up by a stranger dressed as a cleaner, who hurriedly said to Zhou Shuhuan, "Your husband has arrived in Yan'an" and left.
The next day, Zhou Shuhuan saw the "cleaner" outside his kitchen again, and he told Zhou Shuhuan quickly that he would wait for Zhou Shuhuan and her daughter at the old bazi intersection at 10 o'clock.
Zhou Shuhuan did not dare to be vague, and hurriedly called her daughter to take a vegetable basket and pretend to buy vegetables to leave the house, but because she noticed that someone was following behind her, she had no choice but to give up contacting the "cleaner" and return home.
Sure enough, the secret agents had raided the Liu family, and several times they forced Zhou Shuhuan to fail, and all the Liu family members were "put under house arrest." Due to the loss of Liu Shanben's salary income, the economic situation of Zhou Shuhuan's family fell into crisis. She had to sort out old things and make ends meet by selling household goods.
Soon, the CCP underground organization in Shanghai learned of this and quickly rescued and secretly helped the Liu family. However, due to the fact that the enemy was so strictly guarded, several operations were unsuccessful.
Mao Dun had pretended that the reporter was preparing to contact Zhou Shuhuan, but the enemy was very sensitive and saw through his plan, causing him to fail.
Premier Zhou, who was in Nanjing at the time, heard the news and once again organized rescue activities for Zhou Shuhuan and others. He sent a Jeep of the Commander of the Kuomintang Air Force and a lady who looked like a noblewoman.
After reprimanding the guards at the door of Liu's house, the lady successfully entered the house, stuffed a large amount of money to Liu Shanben's mother, and then found Zhou Shuhuan and quietly handed over a letter written by Liu Shanben and several gold bars and banknotes.
She asked Zhou Shuhuan, who had been pregnant for several months, when she would give birth, and promised to visit them again. A long time later, Zhou Shuhuan learned that the woman was Shi Jianqiao, a "rescue soldier" specially invited by Premier Zhou.
A few months later, Zhou Shuhuan, who was about to give birth, did indeed welcome Shi Jianqiao for the second time, and Shi Jianqiao reassured her not to worry and arranged for someone to send her to the hospital. The day after giving birth, Shi Jianqiao came to visit Zhou Shuhuan again and sent him hospitalization expenses and living expenses.
Zhou Shuhuan said: "Since the arrival of Shan ben in Yan'an, the comrades of the underground organization have never given up on the rescue of us. ”
Once, Zhou Shuhuan took her young daughter to the vegetable market to buy vegetables and found that a woman had been following her. She was afraid of attracting the attention of the secret service, and forced herself to go home as usual.
When they got to the kitchen and poured out the vegetables, they found that there was a stack of banknotes stuffed under the basket, and the woman was the comrade of the underground organization who sent them money.
Over time, the strange situation of the Economically Strapped Liu family failing to "cut off the fire" attracted the attention of the enemy, and they often came to "interrogate" Zhou Shuhuan's economic source, and Zhou Shuhuan pretended to be stupid and said that it was all the proceeds of selling old things, and the enemy did not believe it, but there was nothing he could do about her.
Once, the enemy who had taken a different path suddenly pointed a gun at Zhou Shuhuan's eldest daughter and asked her where the money in her family came from.
Zhou Shuhuan, who had always taken her daughter to the comrades of the underground organization, was very afraid of her daughter telling the truth, but fortunately, although the young girl was scared to cry, she still remembered the words her mother taught her and fooled the enemy.
Zhou Shuhuan's family lived in such a tense and dangerous situation for several months, until the kuomintang-communist peace talks broke down, and she waited for the opportunity to leave Shanghai.
03, fortunate to have the protection of heaven: after many years of absence, the family was finally reunited in Harbin
Premier Zhou, who had been worried about Zhou Shuhuan, sent someone to find her before the evacuation, persuaded her to help the Liu family return to her hometown in Shandong first, and offered to take her eldest daughter to Yan'an, but the little girl said that she would not leave her mother at all, so she proposed to give up.
Subsequently, the comrades of the underground organization advised Zhou Shuhuan to take the children back to her hometown of Sichuan, and Zhou Shuhuan gladly agreed.
She first, with the help of the organization comrades and Liu Shanben's classmate Wu Yu, successfully raised the travel expenses and sent away her mother-in-law and others, and then, with the assistance of Liu Shanben's other friends, she exchanged the House in Shanghai for two plane tickets and returned to Chongqing in the "escort" of the secret agents.
They stayed in the inn opened by Zhou Shuhuan's father and friend for a period of time, and were vaguely driven back to their hometown of Fengdu by the shop owner.
After getting off the boat and "reporting" to the county government, Zhou Shuhuan was again "placed under house arrest." Her brother-in-law took the opportunity to see a doctor to dredge up the "county grandfather" and got the method of "if you want to exchange for Zhou Shuhuan's mother and daughter, you must pay a large ransom and find a ten-person joint guarantee", Zhou Shuhuang's parents hurriedly sought help from relatives and friends, and successfully took the three daughters home.
Subsequently, Zhou Shuhuan entered the hospital where his brother-in-law was located and was regularly "investigated" by secret agents. On October 1, 1949, Zhou Shuhuan, who was transferred to the school, heard the news of the founding of New China from the radio and shed tears of excitement.
In November of the same year, the "Southwest Campaign" began. The comrades of the underground organization sought help from Zhou Shuhuan, who did not hesitate to take out his father's old clothes and gold ornaments and handed them to help them escape from Fengdu.
Subsequently, under the reminder of the comrades of the underground organization, Zhou Shuhuan informed his relatives and friends in advance to hide, and fled to the tenant's home with his daughter and nanny.
After the liberation of Fengdu City and zhou Shuhuan, who returned home, was informed of "freedom", she took Liu Shanben's current information, bought a ticket to Chongqing, and after many twists and turns and hardships, finally with the help of Wang Bingzhang, successfully left Shanhaiguan, arrived safely at Harbin Railway Station, and reunited with her husband who had been separated for many years.
However, they did not know that the ordeal of fate did not end there. In 1968, at the age of 53, Liu Shanben died in a secret interrogation.
In May 1975, his unjust case was revealed, and his remains were buried in the Babaoshan Martyrs' Cemetery. In 2009, zhou Shuhuan, who was over 90 years old, still in good spirits, slowly told the visitors about that special past in the company of his daughters.