One day in 1974, several staff members of the Civil Affairs Bureau of Muping County, Shandong Province, came to The Village of Shengxiahe to look for an old farmer named Yang Zongfu, who wanted Yang Zongfu to identify a few photos so that he could find a clue to his brother Yang Zonggui.
As soon as he heard that he was looking for his brother who had been missing for many years, Yang Zongfu was very excited, the staff showed him seven or eight old photos of soldiers at that time, and when he turned to the third one, Yang Zongfu immediately recognized his brother Yang Zonggui, and he choked up and said: This is my brother Yang Zonggui, he has been gone for nearly 30 years.
Seeing that Yang Zongfu recognized his brother, the staff came forward and solemnly said: "Brother, I want to solemnly tell you now that your brother Yang Zonggui used a pseudonym when he joined the army, and he is the combat hero Yang Zirong.
"Yang Zirong?" Yang Zongfu felt a little unfamiliar with this name, but he seemed to have heard it somewhere.
The staff reminded him that it was the Yang Zirong in "Wise Tiger Mountain", at this time Yang Zongfu reacted, he had mixed feelings, squeezed the photo in his hand, and suddenly fell to his knees and cried bitterly: Mother! Finally there was news of Zonggui.
At this time, Yang Zonggui's mother had been dead for 7 years, the hero's mother, until death, did not know where her son was, the local rumor once spread that Yang Zonggui became a bandit, they were also mistaken for bandits, in the village for several years can not look up.
So how did Yang Zonggui become Yang Zirong? Why did he, a Native of Shandong, speak an authentic Northeastern dialect, and why did his family learn about him after 27 years of sacrifice? Don't worry, the author will reveal the answer to you one by one.
Yang Zonggui was born in 1917, his father was an ancestral mason, his mother was a typical peasant woman, in that era, most of the land was in the hands of the landlord, the Yang family had no land, only to work for the landlord, when Yang Zonggui was 4 years old, the village began to break into the Guandong, and later their family was no exception, the family migrated to Andong Province, Liaoning Province.
In the northeast, Yang Zonggui's father found that life outside Guanwai was not as beautiful as imagined, and even less than his hometown in Shandong, Yang's father could barely rely on the mason's craftsmanship to earn some money, but Yang's mother could only pick up scraps everywhere to subsidize a little family.
After spending some time in the northeast, Yang's father and wife discussed and decided to continue to live in Anton with their eldest daughter, while Yang's mother took Yang Zongfu and Yang Zonggui back to their hometown.
In her hometown, Yang Mother had to do several jobs a day, relying on thrift and thrift, and pulling the two babies together with hard work, but after a few years of calm days, a warlord melee broke out in Jiaodong, and the people at the bottom were miserable, and Yang Mother had no choice but to take Yang Zonggui to her husband.
In this way, 12-year-old Yang Zonggui came to Andong, Liaoning Province, again, and at first his father let him study in private school for two years, until the family could not make ends meet, Yang's father let his son go to work in the flour mill.
But with the outbreak of the September 18 Incident, the Japanese occupied the three eastern provinces, under the extreme turmoil, Yang Zonggui was directly laid off by the factory, after losing his job, Yang Zonggui could only do odd jobs everywhere, he carried a large bag at the dock, worked as a boatman, and even had a rich man as a nursing home, in short, what can earn money, he will do what work.
In 1938, Yang Zonggui became a miner, and although his income was a little higher than before, the job was dangerous, and in addition to this, he often had to endure the beatings and insults of Japanese overseers and traitorous lackeys.
Working in this humiliating environment made Yang Zonggui hate the Japanese so much that he once saw his co-workers being beaten by Japanese overseers, and he did not have patience for a while and directly clashed with the Japanese.
Under the cover of his co-workers, he fled the mining area and eventually returned to his hometown in Shandong in 1943.
After more than ten years of groping and fighting at the bottom of northeast society, Yang Zonggui has long learned an authentic northeast dialect, and even the various black words of bandits, he is proficient in a lot, as if he has become a jack-of-all-trades.
At this time, Yang Zonggui was 26 years old, had reached the age of marrying a wife, his mother specially entrusted him with a family affair, this girl was a girl from a neighboring village, after the two became relatives, Yang Zonggui rented the landlord's land and worked in the family farm for a period of time.
Because he had been repeatedly bullied by the Japanese in the northeast before, Yang Zonggui, who returned to his hometown, could still see the various atrocities committed by the Japanese, which made him hate the Japanese with itchy teeth, so he was very active in all anti-Japanese activities, so he joined the militia organization to deliver grain to the Chinese army.
In 1945, Yang Zonggui joined the Eighth Route Army in the reconquest of Muping as a logistics grain transporter.
After coming into contact with the Eighth Route Army, he believed that this army was completely different from the Kuomintang army, which was a team that truly supported the common people, and after the victory of the War of Resistance, as soon as he heard that the Eighth Route Army was going to be expanded, Yang Zonggui immediately signed up to join the army.
When registering, Yang Zonggui left a heart eye, he was afraid of tiring his family, so he did not use his real name, but wrote down the pseudonym of Yang Zirong on the registration form.
After entering the unit, Yang Zirong was incorporated into the Jiaodong Naval Detachment and became a cook, and in October 1945, Yang Zirong went with the detachment to the Mudanjiang area to suppress bandits, and after the reorganization of the unit, he was incorporated into a platoon under the military sub-district.
In the course of participating in the operation against bandits, the leaders of the unit carefully discovered that this unassuming man turned out to be a northeastern communicator, and that all kinds of black language and local dialects in the northeast were all hand-picked, and Yang Zirong also had considerable command ability.
When liberating Hailin Town, Yang Zirong only took more than 30 people disguised as bandits, and mixed into the camp of the landlords' armed forces by relying on black words and fabricated identities, relying on ingenuity to directly persuade the leaders of the other side to surrender their weapons.
The success of this operation made him famous in the army, and then in the battle to pursue Li Kaijiang's troops, Yang Zirong persuaded 400 enemies to lay down their weapons and surrender with three inches of uncorrupted tongue, and twice made meritorious contributions, which earned him the title of model of combat.
Of course, Yang Zirong is most well known for his wisdom at Weihu Mountain, when after more than a year of fighting bandits in the Mudanjiang area, the bandits in the Mudanjiang area have been almost eliminated, but the bandits led by the mountain eagle are still missing.
This mountain sculpture is the bandit number of the big bandit Zhang Leshan, he became a bandit at the age of 15, is a fierce stubble, and is very cunning, in the decades of bandit career, he has experienced the siege of the Qing army, Zhang Zuolin's Fengjun siege, and even the Japanese puppet army has not been able to eliminate him, after each encirclement and suppression, he can always make a comeback.
Zhang Leshan has stood firm for so many years, relying on his cunning and alertness, and his people and horses have always been mysterious, almost scattered in the vast mountains and forests, nowhere to be found.
After Chiang Kai-shek was driven to Taiwan, Zashandiao accepted the Kuomintang's appointment and became the local security brigade commander, while the Peony Military Sub-district also received orders to eliminate this bandit force hidden in the mountains.
In the end, the task of going deep into the snowy plains of LinHai and looking for a mountain eagle fell on the shoulders of Yang Zirong, the leader of the reconnaissance platoon, who only took five soldiers into the mountains to reconnoiter the enemy.'
In February 1947, after discovering the whereabouts of the mountain eagle, Yang Zirong relied on a fluent black language to break into the enemy's interior, and joined forces with the outside large troops to capture the mountain eagle alive, so that yang Zi won the third class merit and was awarded the title of special reconnaissance hero by the Northeast Military Region.
Unexpectedly, after 17 days, a bad news followed, Yang Zirong and the reconnaissance platoon were chasing a collapsed bandit, the gun was too cold due to the cold weather, it was frozen and could not be fired, and Yang Zirong, who rushed to the front, faced the enemy's bullets, there was no room to dodge, and he was hit in the chest and died heroically, only 30 years old.
After Yang Zirong's death, the regimental headquarters held a solemn memorial service for him, and the reconnaissance platoon he was in was also named Yang Zirong platoon.
During the period when Yang Zirong joined the army, because of the frequent wars, he did not have time to write letters to his family, and everyone in the village knew that Yang Zonggui followed the Eighth Route Army, so the local government still took good care of his family.
However, things changed in 1947, according to a person who returned from breaking into the Kanto Region, he met Yang Zonggui in Mudanjiang, when Yang Zonggui was wearing a black leather jacket and a gun pinned to his waist, as if he were a bandit.
The village cadres were greatly nervous and called Yang Zonggui's mother and wife to the village office for interrogation, but after Yang Zonggui left home, there was no news, and the family could not prove that he had left the army as a bandit.
In the face of the finger-pointing of the villagers, Yang Mu was ten thousand people who did not believe that her son would do such a thing, she knew that her son was a soldier who wanted to fight for the poor, how could he become a bandit?
Although Yang's mother repeatedly emphasized her son's personality, the township still took away the military family honor plaque hanging at the door of Yang's house, and also canceled the Yang family's military subsidy, and the family could not directly raise their heads in the village, and they were often poked in the spine.
The Yang family had found the troops to inquire about Yang Zonggui's situation, but at that time the liberation war was in a critical period, and the local troops could not verify the specific situation in the northeast, so they could only tell the Yang family and let them go home and wait for the news.
After the founding of New China, the Yang family did not know the whereabouts of Yang Zonggui, which also confirmed Yang Zonggui's suspicion of being a bandit, if he sacrificed, the army would definitely notify the family, if he was still in the army, how could he write a letter to go home.
But Yang Zonggui as if the world evaporated, and the identity of the Yang family's bandit relatives was basically confirmed, at this time Yang Zonggui's daughter died of illness, his wife was overwhelmed, also sick, and finally died in 1952, this bitter woman, to death did not believe, her husband went to become a bandit.
The son's life and death are uncertain, the granddaughter and daughter-in-law have died one after another, so that Yang Mother suffered a huge mental blow, she very much wanted to go away, but thinking that her son has not yet fallen, she has always been at ease, she repeatedly instructed her eldest son to go to the county to reflect the situation, in a few years, they ran the county government hundreds of times, and finally the county government, after understanding the details, thought that only a few words from a villager judged a revolutionary fighter as a bandit, which is really insufficient evidence, and there is no news of a military defection in the northeast troops.
The county judged Yang Zonggui to be a missing soldier, Yang's mother also received a notice of missing soldiers, and the following year she received a glorious certificate from the family of the sacrificed soldier, and it took a whole decade for this strong mother to completely wash away her son's notoriety of "bandit".
In 1957, the novel "Lin Hai Xueyuan", adapted from Yang Zirong's deeds, caused a huge response throughout the country, and since then, the people of the whole country have known that there is a hero, his name is Yang Zirong.
Although the Yang family has seen this model play, they have never associated Yang Zonggui with the battle hero, and in 1966, with endless thoughts about her son, Yang's mother finally passed away.
As Yang Zirong's heroic image continues to penetrate the hearts of the people, the local government also hopes to dig up more of the hero's life materials, but after checking the archives, it is found that Yang Zirong's information is very simple, and even the place of origin is not clear.
In 1969, the central government issued instructions to find Yang Zirong's life, and also set up a special investigation team, according to the description of Yang Zirong's comrades-in-arms, he should be a person in the Jiaodong area.
The investigation team came to Jiaodong, went through the files of more than 3,000 missing soldiers, and published search notices in newspapers and radio, but there has been no clue.
After the investigation team withdrew, the investigation of this matter was not yet completed, and when a staff member of the Civil Affairs Bureau of Muping County, Shandong Province, inquired about the registration of the county's martyrs' pension, he found that Yang Zonggui and Yang Zirong's photos had a very high degree of similarity.
He reflected the situation to his superiors, so the relevant departments contacted the Jiaodong Naval Detachment that Yang Zirong had participated in in his early years, and based on the important clues provided by the veterans, it was confirmed that Yang Zirong was Yang Zonggui.
After confirming the news of his brother, Yang Zongfu ran to the graves of his mother and sister-in-law and cried loudly, and he said the grief that had accumulated in his heart for many years: Mother, sister-in-law! There is news from Zong Gui, he is not a bandit, he is a great hero!
Yang Zirong's wife and daughter died early, for Yang Zirong to have, Yang Mother passed on her nephew Yang Kewu to her son, and later Yang Kewu also became a soldier, he chose to go home to farm after he retired from the army, and his son was sent to the army by him, three generations of people joined the army, and they were the only ones in their village.
For many years, Yang Kewu has been living in the old house where Yang Zirong lived before joining the army, there were once merchants who wanted to rent the house, renovate it as a red tourist attraction, rely on tourism to earn income, Yang Kewu, who is more than 70 years old, rejected this proposal, he wanted to pass on the spirit of Yang Zirong, and did not want to make money with the name of his ancestors.
In 2019, Yang Kewu participated in a program on publicizing Yang Zirong's deeds, the program group invited all the officers and men of Yang Zirong's reconnaissance company to connect with the scene, and as the officers and soldiers shouted the exit number and saluted with great momentum, Yang Kewu also stood up and saluted a military salute, which touched everyone present.
Today, the name Yang Zirong has been remembered by future generations, and his spirit will be passed down from generation to generation.