In 1959, a special group of guests from North Korea came from a family of ordinary people surnamed Zhang in Fusong, Jilin Province, who were commissioned by Kim Il Sung to find the bereaved family members of their deceased comrades-in-arms and convey greetings from North Korea.
In the eyes of outsiders, there is nothing special about this family, the man died more than 20 years ago, the previous generation has passed away, only the hostess raised a son and a daughter alone. The visit of the North Korean guests has resurfaced in front of the eyes of the world after a period of more than 20 years of war years, making the Zhang family and Fusong known.
It all started in 1917.
That year, Kim Il-sung's father, Kim Hyung-ji, was arrested several times by the Japanese army for organizing activities against Japanese aggression in Pyongyang. After his release from prison, Kim Hyung-ji moved to Fusong, Jilin to avoid disasters and continued to engage in the cause of anti-Japanese resistance.
Deeply influenced by Chinese culture, Kim Hyung Ji excels in Chinese calligraphy and medicine. However, due to his exile, the Fusong County government did not dare to let their family settle down. In Fusong, there is a family surnamed Zhang, and the owner, Zhang Wancheng, is a businessman, friendly and progressive. However, at this time, Zhang Wancheng was suffering from severe typhoid fever, and the doctors in the town did not get better. The kind-hearted Jin Hengji heard about this and took the initiative to come to the Zhang family to take the pulse for Zhang Wancheng and prescribe several herbs, and Zhang Wancheng took it and turned the crisis into safety, so he was grateful to Jin Hengji.
Zhang Wancheng admires Kim Hyung-ji's medical skills and also loves calligraphy. After recovering from his illness, he asked someone to lobby in Fusong County, and finally allowed Jin Hengji's family to settle down in Fusong, and after this exchange, Zhang Wancheng and Jin Hengji had become confidants.
In January 1925, at the age of 13, Kim Il Sung traveled thousands of miles from Pyongyang, North Korea, to Fusong, Jilin Province, to look for his father, Kim Hyung-ji, and then entered Fusong First Elementary School. Coincidentally, Zhang Wancheng's son Zhang Weihua also studied at this school, with the friendship of his father, and the two students soon became friends with the same window.
Long persecution and multiple jail sentences dragged down Kim Hyung-ji's body, and kim Il-sung died of illness at the age of 32, just a year after Kim Il-sung found his father. Before his death, he pinned his hopes for Korean independence on the next generation, saying to his wife: "You keep my two pistols and give them to your son when he grows up to do the revolution." ”
In the summer of 1927, Kim Il Sung finished his studies at Fusong Elementary School and was about to go to Jilin Yuwen Middle School to study. Under the arrangement of his family, Zhang Weihua will go to Shenyang to study at the National High School, and the two friends will soon be separated, and before leaving, they had a conversation that will last a lifetime.
Zhang Weihua was reluctant to be separated from his friend, and he said to Kim Il Sung: "I want to follow you to Jilin, I will also go to school when you go to school, and I will be a communist when you are a communist." Kim Il Sung said: "When the Communist Party must be mentally prepared, there is a possibility of squatting in prison and losing its head." Zhang Weihua replied firmly: "I am not afraid of this, as long as I can be with you, even if I squat in prison, I can also lose my head." ”
However, due to the actual situation, the two friends still had to separate, before leaving, Jang Wei-hwa sent Kim Il-sung all the way to the outside of Fusong City, and the two cherished each other reluctantly and agreed to see each other in the future.
The separation did not last long, and after coming to Jilin, Kim Il Sung inherited his father's will, joined the revolutionary organization, and came into contact with the underground organization of the Chinese Communist Party in the northeast, becoming a progressive youth. Zhang Weihua had visited him in Jilin before 1928 and offered to follow Kim Il Sung to the revolution and join the army. Jang Wei-hwa's courage touched Kim Il-sung, but for the sake of his studies and safety, Kim Il-sung did not agree to his stay in Jilin, but only developed him into a member of the Communist Youth League, hoping that he would organize a peripheral organization of the Communist Party in Fusong and cooperate with him in the underground struggle.
In 1929, Kim Il Sung participated in the armed struggle in northeast China, was arrested after defeat, and after being rescued the following year, he secretly returned to Jilin to organize underground anti-Japanese armed forces. But by this time, Jilin was under a white terror, and the warlords and military and police agents of the Japanese consulate in Jilin imposed strict military martial law.
Seeing that there was no chance, Kim Il Sung planned to go to the mountains to restore the organization. However, it is easy to come to Jilin and it is difficult to get out of Jilin; the various city gates, intersections, railway stations, and other traffic arteries in Jilin are full of sentries, and a large number of plainclothes agents sent by the Japanese consulate are mixed in to strictly search and arrest young people engaged in the communist movement, and Korean youth are the targets of their strict investigation.
Under the cover of his comrades, Kim Il Sung managed to board the train at a small station 10 miles away from Jilin Province. Unexpectedly, there were also military police and Ritter in the carriage, who searched the passengers one by one, and the North Koreans were searched very carefully.
Kim Il Sung was momentarily in a dilemma, carrying the organization's confidential documents with him, and once seized, the consequences would be unimaginable.
At this critical juncture of ten thousand crises, a familiar figure appeared in front of Kim Il Sung's eyes, and he fixed his eyes on it, and this person was Zhang Weihua, who had been separated for more than two years.
It turned out that after Zhang Weihua and Kim Il-sung were separated, they had been paying close attention to the news of Kim Il-sung. He knew that Kim Il Sung had organized revolutionary forces and that he had been arrested and imprisoned. Hearing that he had been rescued and then went to the Jilin area for activities, Zhang Weihua was planning to go to Shenyang, so he came to Jilin pan for a few days to inquire about Kim Il-sung everywhere. But there was no harvest for several days, when he boarded the train and was preparing to return to Shenyang School. Unexpectedly, it was such a coincidence that on the train, at kim Il-sung's most critical moment, he was discovered by Jang Wei-hwa.
Zhang Weihua hurriedly pulled Kim Il-sung to his first-class box, where the passengers were either rich or expensive, and the military and police did not dare to make a mistake, nor did they have much doubt that the first-class box would contain revolutionary youths, and the ticket check was relatively relaxed. Kim Il Sung sat next to Jang Wei-hwa, with Jang-woo's cover, and he escaped the disaster.
Zhang Weihua was not at ease, he accompanied Kim Il Sung to get off at Haelong Station, and personally hired a carriage to send Kim Il Sung safely to the Dunhua Forest Area before leaving.
This time, Zhang Weihua opened a photo studio in his hometown while engaging in the anti-Japanese underground struggle, while Kim Il Sung pulled up the troops and embarked on the road of armed struggle, and the two met again 7 years later.
In the summer of 1937, Kim Il Sung, already the commander of the Korean People's Army, sent people into the city to find Jang Wei-hwa when he led the army through Fusong City. The two met outside the city, and after seven years of separation, the two friends had a long talk, said a lot of confidants, and exchanged experience in the struggle over the years.
When Jang Wei-hwa heard that Kim Il-sung's team lacked supplies, he immediately said that he would try to solve it. Within ten days, Zhang Weihua secretly raised a sum of money and military supplies, personally escorted them to the mountains, and sent much-needed replenishment to Kim Il Sung's army, and Kim Il Sung also used the three thousand yuan provided by Zhang Weihua to replace a set of cotton clothes for the soldiers that could survive the winter.
After Kim Il Sung and Jang Wei-hwa met again, the two maintained close contact, and Jang Wei-hwa used his funds and connections to provide selfless help to Kim Il-sung and his team in Fusong. But after a while, the news from Zhang Weihua disappeared, and Kim Il Sung couldn't help but be a little anxious, he was afraid that Zhang Weihua would have an accident, and sent a traffic officer to Fusong City to inquire about the news. The traffic officers brought back a sad and unfortunate news: Japanese gendarmes discovered Jang Wei-hwa's secret connection with Kim Il-sung and arrested him and imprisoned him.
At that time, Kim Il Sung did not know that things were going to be more serious, Zhang Weihua was severely tortured in prison, and the Japanese forced him to tell him the whereabouts of Kim Il Sung, but Zhang Weihua was unyielding and never let go. Under the heavy punishment, Zhang Weihua, who was already weak in physique, had been tortured to the point of not looking like a human being, and his father Zhang Wancheng was active outside, using heavy money to rescue him in the name of medical parole and bring him home to recuperate.
However, the intention of the Japanese and the hypocrites was very obvious, and this was their strategy of "wanting to capture the old man"; they took advantage of Zhang Weihua's release from prison for medical treatment and sent many plainclothes agents to lurk near the Zhang family, waiting for Kim Il Sung or his subordinates to come and contact him, so as to reach the point of shundo and find kim Il Sung's headquarters of the Korean Revolutionary Army, and gather and annihilate him.
Kim Il Sung was always anxiously waiting for news from Jang Wei-hwa in the deep mountains and dense forests, and he looked at Fusong City on the mountain every day, but in the end what awaited was bad news: Jang Wei-hwa had committed suicide by taking poison.
When Kim Il Sung heard the bad news of his best friend's suicide, his heart was full of sorrow and tears flowed down. A few days later, the Zhang family secretly sent accurate information, and also brought a suicide note written by Jang Weihua to Kim Il Sung before committing suicide, which contained only a few words: Sung Joo (Kim Il Sung's name), the enemy is sending agents to secretly reconnoiter the location of the headquarters of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, please move the headquarters quickly! Zhang Weihua is brilliant.
The messenger also informed Jang Wei-hwa of the details of his suicide, who had been tortured to the point of weakness, but he was always worried about Kim Il-sung's safety and feared that his comrades would be arrested by Riko when they came to contact him. Thinking about it, Zhang Weihua felt that only by dying could he not endanger the safety of his comrades.
After making up his mind, he said to his wife:
I can only exchange the death of one person for the safety of my comrades, and repay General Jin's trust and friendship, which is worth it!
Immediately, he drank the developer for photography and died.
Kim Il Sung knew that Jang Wei-hwa died for him, and he was even more grief-stricken, and he made up his mind that one day he would erect a monument to the martyr's sacrifice.
In 1959, the DPRK sent a delegation of anti-Japanese armed struggles headed by Park Yong-cun to northeast China to search for the traces of the war. Before leaving, Kim Il Sung specially instructed Park Yong-cun: "Do you remember the photo studio director Zhang Weihua who sent us cloth and money when we were freezing and starving in the Fusong area during the War of Resistance?" He has been sacrificing for more than 20 years, but I still haven't had the opportunity to greet his parents and wife well, and when you arrive in Fusong, you must visit Zhang Weihua's widow for me and convey my greetings! ”
After the delegation came to the northeast, with the cooperation of the local government, it quickly found the whereabouts of Zhang Weihua's family. It turned out that after Zhang Weihua's sacrifice, his father Zhang Wancheng died of illness in 1954, and his wife and a son and daughter are still living in Fusong County, living a simple life.
When Park Yong-sung found Jang Wei-hwa's wife and conveyed Kim Il-sung's greetings, she couldn't help but cry out in pain, and Jang-woo took out a photo, which was a photo that had been preserved for many years, which was taken by Jang Wei-hwa and Kim Il-sung's brother Kim Chul-joo in Fusong before he died, and this was the only photo left by Jang Wei-hwa and kim's family in the Zhang family. In order to thank Kim Il Sung, Zhang Weihua's wife returned with this photo that had been treasured for many years and entrusted a delegation to bring it to Kim Il Sung.
Jang Wei-hwa (left) poses with Kim Il Sung's younger brother Kim Chul-joo
Seeing the photo, Zhang Weihua's voice and smile appeared in front of Kim Il Sung's eyes, and he found that he had never forgotten this close friend, even after decades, Zhang Weihua was still deeply engraved in his memory, and this photo was preserved in the newly built National Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, becoming a witness of history.
At the same time, the Zhang family also restored contact with the North Korean side, and Jang Jin-cheon, the son of Jang Wei-hwa, wrote a long letter from Fusong to Kim Il-sung recounting the family's life after his father's sacrifice and thanking Kim Il-sung again.
Kim Il Sung also has a wish, which he made outside Fusong City after Zhang Weihua's sacrifice that year. But as a leader, he was busy with official duties, and he couldn't help himself, and he never had the opportunity or time to achieve it.
In his memoirs, he described Zhang Weihua as an ordinary member of the Chinese Communist Party:
I have long expressed my desire to visit Fusong, and this wish has not changed to this day. I would love to visit The Tomb of Zhang Weihua, located in Nandianzi. If you can't get your wish, I hope to be able to go to the side of my old comrade-in-arms in my dream.
More than 20 years passed, in May 1984, Kim Il Sung visited the Soviet Union, when his train passed through the Jilin territory, he touched the scene, he immediately thought of one thing, he immediately found the head of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the same car, emotionally expressed: I hope to see Zhang Weihua's descendants.
This wish was soon fulfilled, and in the spring of 1985, upon receiving a formal invitation from the Dprk Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jang Kim-wah's descendants Jang Kim-geun and Jang Kim-rok's brothers and sisters came to Pyongyang, where Kim Il-sung met them at the chamber, along with Jang Kim-geun's son.
As a national leader, Kim Il Sung had used his Chinese to talk to his guests on diplomatic occasions, but he made an exception and said to the descendants of the Zhang family with Chinese: "Welcome! "And talk to them in Chinese.
Kim Il Sung, who never drank in public, drank a lot of wine at the banquet for the Jang siblings and recalled to them more details of his interactions with Mr. Jang. The past is like smoke, although decades have passed, but when it comes to emotion, everyone is moved.
Even more surprising for The Brothers and Sisters of Zhang Jinquan and Zhang Jinlu was that during their few days in North Korea, they discovered that their father, Zhang Weihua, was almost universally known as a famous international communist hero.
Unbeknownst to the Zhang family, in order to thank Zhang Weihua for his contribution to the anti-Japanese cause, Kim Il Sung personally wrote instructions to publicize Zhang Weihua's deeds. Soon, Zhang Weihua's name spread throughout North Korea, becoming a well-known hero in North Korea like Luo Shengjiao, Huang Jiguang and other martyrs.
The Zhang family brothers and sisters understood what a great hero their father was. Near the end of the trip, the brothers and sisters mentioned that on October 27 of that year, which coincided with the 55th anniversary of Zhang Weihua's sacrifice, the family planned to erect a new monument for Zhang Weihua's grave in Fusong, Jilin Province, hoping that Kim Il Sung would write an inscription for the tombstone. This coincides with the oath made by Kim Il in that year, and he immediately said, I will erect a monument to your father in my name, how about it?
On October 27, 1992, a monument from North Korea stood in front of Jang Wei-hwa's tomb as promised, with Kim Il Sung's inscription engraved on it:
The revolutionary deeds of martyr Zhang Weihua are a shining example of friendship between the dprk and The Chinese people. The lofty revolutionary spirit and revolutionary achievements of the martyrs will always live in the hearts of the people.
Since then, Jang Wei-hwa's bereaved family has been invited to visit The DPRK several times and has been warmly received, even after Kim Il-sung's death in 1994, the contact between them has not been interrupted. On the occasion of Zhang Jinquan's seventieth birthday in 2002, comrades from the DPRK Consulate General in Shenyang also took people to Fusong to wish Zhang Jinquan a happy birthday and bring blessings from the DPRK.
Kim Il Sung with the Zhang family brothers and sisters
As Kim Il Sung recalls in his memoirs:
The living must not forget those who sacrificed. Only when the living do not forget the dead can their friendship be consolidated, sincere and eternal.