The novel "Lake Chosin" was created in the spring and summer of 2011. 10 years later, looking back at the series of novels written in the 10 years of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, "Chosin Lake" not only belongs to the opening work, but also the most clumsy and decent work in terms of writing, which appears to be insufficient "technology". However, it is such a conservative and honestly written work, which not only won many awards such as the "Five Ones Project" Award of the Central Propaganda Department and the Special Award of the All-Army Literary and Art Outstanding Works Award, but also is still loved by many readers today 10 years later.
The Battle of Chosin Lake, which has a great turning significance, was a major battle on the Eastern Front of Korea, the second battle of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, and was called the Battle of Chosin Lake in military history circles. In the Wolf forest mountains of the Korean Peninsula, where the natural environment is extremely harsh, in the face of the extreme cold weather once in 50 years, more than 100,000 officers and men of the Ninth Corps of the Volunteer Army fought and died with more than 40,000 casualties, including more than 30,000 people who froze to death and frostbite, and smashed the so-called "United Nations Army" led by the United States in one fell swoop to end the general offensive plan of the Korean War before Christmas in December 1950, forcing the US Army's 10th Army and its main force, the US Marine First Division, to suffer the farthest defeat. The Battle of Chosin Lake not only won a strategic victory, but also fundamentally reversed the war situation on the Korean Peninsula and became a historical inflection point for the great victory in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. In the Battle of Chosin Lake, a large number of heroic models represented by yang Gensi, a special combat hero, emerged in the volunteer army, and the heroic group of heroes who wept in the world was born, the "Ice Sculpture Company". With the spirit of revolutionary heroism of preferring to freeze to death and never abandon their positions, the officers and men of the volunteer army have erected the monument of ideals, spirit, and belief high on the shore of Chosin Lake on the Gaima Plateau of the Korean Peninsula, becoming an inexhaustible source of spiritual resources for generations of soldiers. One day, when I suddenly realized the great significance of the Battle of Chosin Lake, I decided to write it in a literary way, and to present it with the power of literature in an epic way, so as to comfort our glorious ancestors and tell us about the present and the future.
So why is it a novel and not documentary literature, reportage or other texts and vehicles? Obviously, the specialty of a novel is that it has a story and characters, can accommodate more things, can provide a wider space, and is easier to approach the reader. However, time has changed, when I was brewing and writing, more than 60 years have passed, and under the circumstance that the Battle of Chosin Lake was still little known at that time, how to restore the whole picture of this great war, how to let the image of a distant volunteer army cross history from the icy chosin Lake to come to us, that is to say, what story to tell and how to tell this story well was the most intuitive problem in front of me at that time.
In fact, before writing, I had studied and understood the history of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea for more than ten years, and I had also visited a large number of participants and witnesses of the Battle of Chosin Lake and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. Those surviving veterans, when they loosened the empty trouser tubes of the frozen and amputated limbs, when they exposed their scarred thin chests to my eyes, when they recalled their comrades who had been buried in a foreign country, the feelings of regret, regret and guilt overflowed into words, and when they burst into tears because of longing and reluctance, every time I, a latecomer, was strongly shocked. I wonder, what other means can present the original appearance of this great war than to tell a real Chosin Lake? What "technology" can get closer to the emotional world of the ancestors than the method of real restoration? The unforgettable cold, the indestructible will, the warm emotions of the heart, are the most real yesterdays of the ancestors, without these, the place of Chosin Lake, they may not be able to stay for a day, let alone fight against the modern US imperialist army armed to the teeth. After deliberation, I decided to use the most traditional method to honestly tell the story of Chosin Lake. To this end, I wrote that "faith is like a guiding light, illuminating our way back home." This sentence was later printed on the title page of Chosin Lake.
Title page of Chosin Lake
When the car arrived in Tianjin, Wu Tie hammered the vanguard battalion of eight hundred people to really figure out where they were going. Instead of going to the southeast coast to fight Taiwan, this unit is going to fight against the American devils in North Korea in the northeast. This is the opening text of "Chosin Lake", which can be said to set the tone of this novel. The Ninth Corps secretly rushed north into Korea, braved the wind and snow for ten days and nights to the battle assembly area, and launched the Battle of Chosin Lake under the conditions of lack of clothing, food, food and ammunition, and extremely serious frostbite and attrition. From the beginning to the end, from the macro to the part, the background, time, node, evolution, and ending of the campaign, as well as the characters of both sides of the battle, from high-level commanders to grass-roots officers and soldiers, are faithfully reproduced in the novel. The Battle of Chosin Lake is a real existence, and the novel "Chosin Lake" must first let readers understand and know the real Battle of Chosin Lake. At the same time, as a novel, its characters and stories are fictional. How do you make fictional stories and characters grow and thrive in real contexts? I found an entry point: pay attention to and focus on portraying the emotions of the characters.
Wu Tie hammer, commander of the avant-garde battalion, and Ouyang Yunyi, the instructor, are the main characters of "Changjin Lake". Unlike the scene we usually know of the majestic crossing of the Yalu River, the crossing of the Yalu River by the Avant-Garde Battalion has a different scene: on the Yalu River on the Chinese side, Ouyang Yunyi, who is about to cross the river, wrapped a bag of riverside dirt in a canvas satchel with a handkerchief, and the soil of the motherland will accompany him to the battlefield of a foreign country. On the other side, Sun Youzhuang, the big machine gun squad leader, led the soldiers in the squad to lie on the riverside and drink cold water, because the water on this side was Chinese water, and when they crossed the river to the Korean side, they could not drink the water of their hometown and the motherland, and as a result, they were criticized by Ouyang Yunyi. What Ouyang Yunyi was worried about was that the cold river water would drink bad stomach and cause non-combat attrition, not a joke. At this moment, the old king of Mavban drove his mules and horses to pee by the river. The elderly old king has a word, the cat remembers a thousand dogs, no matter how far and wide, follow the urine traces scattered all the way, and the mules and horses can find their way home. Wu Tie Hammer also spread urine by the river when he saw this, and Wu Tie Hammer said that even if his body could not come back, his soul could still touch it back when he smelled this urine. As a result, the battalion commander took the lead, except for Ouyang Yunyi, an instructor who was an intellectual, and the whole camp spilled urine on the Yalu River... In the dark night behind him, China in the wind and snow is a peaceful place. In this way, the vanguard battalion of Wu Tie Hammer Ouyang Yunyi crossed the Yalu River and embarked on the treacherous Korean battlefield. In the brutal and fierce battle, before attacking the Xiayuli airport, Sun Youzhuang bid farewell to his compatriot Li Guilan and took off his newly captured coat to his Fellow Yimeng as his last thought. He knew that in the face of the artillery fire and bombardment of the extremely fierce American devils, many people would not come back, the cold of minus 40 degrees, a coat was a person's life, and he wanted to let his Yimeng Mountain comrades survive. Lan Xiaoping, a member of the literary team, is determined to knit a sky blue sweater for Ouyang Yunyi, and she imagines that when the beloved Ouyang Yunyi wears this sweater, it must be very handsome. But because of the cold, her fingers were completely frozen, and she could only warm up a few stitches, weaving very slowly, and when she finally finished knitting this sweater and entrusted Wu Tie Hammer to bring it to Ouyang Yunyi, Ouyang Yunyi and his warriors had collectively frozen to death on the last blocking position, turning into eternal ice sculptures. Lan Xiaoping felt guilty for this for a lifetime, and also knitted a lifetime of sweaters, filling the boxes and cabinets at home. Sun Youzhuang and Li Guilan, a nurse of the treatment team of the division hospital, are both fellow villagers in Yimeng Mountain, Shandong, and Sun Youzhuang once risked the strafing of the US military's "oil picker" fighter to rescue Li Guilan, which is equivalent to Li Guilan's savior. In the brutal battle, because of severe frostbite, Sun Youzhuang lost a leg, and Sun Youzhuang was sad and discouraged. Because one leg is gone and crippled, not only can he no longer charge with a Czech-style light machine gun, but he can't go back to his hometown and plant the ground, and it will be a burden everywhere in the future. Li Guilan not only gave him 300cc of blood to repay him for saving his life, but also sang the Yimeng Mountain minor tune of his hometown for him. Li Guilan said to Sun Youzhuang, "I don't want you to farm, you follow me, if you eat, you will eat, I will eat dry, I will not let you drink thin, I will be a cow and a horse all my life, I don't hate you." ”
Stills from the TV series "Crossing the Yalu River"
In the cold and frozen Chosin Lake, Li Guilan's song seems to flow through the clouds, graceful and bright, full of charm, as if it is not just a sound from her body, but like the wind on the shore of Changjin Lake, it is the opening of morning glory flowers in Yimeng Mountain. The song crossed the cold and windy Chosin Lake, brought Sun Youzhuang back to the distant and intimate Yimeng Mountain, and made the heart of the big machine gun squad leader who had frozen off one leg light up and feel better. Sun Youzhuang never knew that Li Guilan could hum such and such a small tune of Yimeng Mountain.
The power of human nature is undoubtedly beautiful and shining. Because of the feelings of home and country, the power of human nature injects more nutrients and nourishes more powerful motivation. After many years, when we stand on the longitude and latitude line of the new era and look back and forth and write about this war 70 years ago, what is presented between the lines is of course not only the memory of the battlefield of Chosin Lake, but also the watchful eye of our national spirit, national culture and national strength. I think this may be the source of strength for our volunteer ancestors to stand on the shores of the icy Chosin Lake and defeat powerful opponents.
Documentary "Hot Snow -- The Great War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea"
On October 19, 2020, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Chinese Volunteer Army's going abroad to fight, the Creation and Research Department of the China Writers Association, the Military Literature Committee of the China Writers Association and the Beijing Publishing Group held the "Wang Jun's Seminar on Novel Creation in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea" in Beijing. Tenon style, completely handmade, slow kung fu. Handmade has the durability and tenacity of handmade, machine production has the efficiency and convenience of machine production, can not say which is better and which is not good. But as far as the writing of "Chosin Lake" is concerned, perhaps the "mortise and mortise style" is more appropriate.
Stills from the movie "Lake Chosin"
In fact, whether it is a novel or a movie, what moves people most is human emotions and the fate of the characters. In the vast temple of literature, those classics that can be passed down to future generations are not in what novel forms they adopt, but whether they accurately depict human emotions and destiny. The form is a function service. All the ways that fit the characters, the story, the theme, and the capacity and space should grow should be the best way to do it. Of course, literature needs to be constantly innovated and discovered, but this kind of innovation and discovery cannot be ingenious and routines for the sake of attracting people's attention, and innovative discoveries should also conform to the objective laws of literary creation. The best trick should be no skill. What are the tips for wearing water drop stones? Honestly telling a story, telling the emotions of human beings, and telling the feelings of the volunteer army's home and country is the proper meaning of "Chosin Lake".
In October this year, beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House republished the novel "Changjin Lake", which was warmly sought after as soon as it was listed, and appeared on a number of best-selling lists and list lists. The list critic, literary critic Ma Ji, wrote the following text for this purpose:
"Time is the most powerful witness of a literary work, and the words that can penetrate the iron wall of time must have an admirable soul hidden in it."
I think this should be my goal and direction.
correlation
Books
《Chosin Lake》
Wang Jun/ing
Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House
October 2021
"Faith is like a guiding light that illuminates our way back home."
In the late winter of 1950, under harsh conditions, the 9th Corps of the Chinese Volunteer Army divided and surrounded the U.S. army in the Chosin Lake area, annihilated more than 13,000 enemy troops, and recovered a vast area in the east north of the 38th Parallel, turning the tide of the war in one fell swoop and laying the foundation for victory in the korean war armistice negotiations that followed.
This battle of disparity in equipment seems to have gone beyond the scope of conventional warfare and is more like a desperate contest of willpower. Narrow roads meet the brave to win! The Chinese soldiers were thinly dressed, poorly equipped, and hungry, but braved the cold of minus thirty or forty degrees to bravely march forward, charged bravely, and solidified into a solemn statue on the cold position... Under the pen of writer Wang Jun, one after another vivid volunteer soldiers have returned to us from the ice and snow, they have flesh and blood, sorrow and joy, their stories are tear-jerking and touching, and they have forged the soul of our nation to stand up with a fearless revolutionary spirit!
author
Brief introduction
Wang Jun
Famous writer, graduated from the Literature Department of the former People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts, and is a member of the Chinese Writers Association. He is the author of the long-form novel series of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, such as "Chosin Lake", "Symphony", and "Arirang".
"Changjin Lake" won the 12th "Five Ones Project" Award of the Central Propaganda Department, the Special Award of the 12th All-Army Literary and Art Outstanding Works Award, the Special Award for Large-scale Literary Creation of the Former Jinan Military Region, the "Five Ones Project" Award of Hunan Province, and the Special Award of the Hunan Publishing Government Award. It was selected as one of the top ten military books of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television to recommend 10 excellent publications to young people across the country and the "People's Liberation Army Daily" (2012).
Some of the diagrams come from the network
Edit: Xu VV