On New Year's Day 1945, White Blade took a photo while taking a photo in the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army in Shandong.
Portrait taken after white blade was awarded the title in 1963.
In Bai Dao's anthology, he denounces himself as a "village boy in the corner of the South Fujian Sea", but it is such a "naughty boy" who resolutely embarked on the road of revolution when he was young, broke through the Japanese Kou sweep of Yimeng Mountain, went to the battlefields of the Liaoshen and Pingjin battles, and recorded with an iron pen the fiery years of the Chinese soldiers who fought in blood.
Recently, Bai Andan, the daughter of the White Blade, recalled in an interview with this reporter that his father has been working in the military for decades, and his simple original intention has always remained unchanged. The following is what Andan Bai said.
Overseas Chinese youth set foot on Yan'an Road
“...... The motherland is fluctuating in the wind and rain, the three eastern provinces are being betrayed, the Japanese are invading North China with inches in advance, and the vast number of Chinese who are unwilling to become slaves to the country advocate resisting Japan.
I did not want to be an orphan overseas, and I made up my mind to leave Nanyang, leave my second hometown, bid farewell to my relatives, friends and classmates, and return to my motherland to throw myself into the arms of my suffering mother. ”
- WhiteBlade's novel "South Sea Crusoe"
In 1918, his father was born in Yongning Town, Jinjiang, Quanzhou City, Fujian Province. At that time, the locals mostly went to Nanyang to make a living, and my father followed the footsteps of his predecessors when he was 14 years old and set foot on the land of the Philippines, working as an apprentice in the local shop. My father attended private school for a few years when he was young, and he still longed to study when he came to a foreign country. Therefore, it did not take long for him to give up the road of doing business and came to Manila Central and Western Primary School to study, where he was taught by Mr. Yan Wenchu, an overseas Chinese educator, and gradually developed the idea of saving the country under his influence. After that, his father was admitted to The Overseas Chinese High School in Manila with excellent results and studied for free. In order to earn living expenses, he worked half-time and studied half-time, and got up every morning to sell newspapers. At that time, the newspaper he sold was the "National Salvation Times" founded by the CHINESE Communist Delegation to the Communist International, a progressive reading material advocating anti-Japanese national salvation and opposing the civil war, which gave his father a great influence. After that, his father worked in the Chinese newspaper "Overseas Chinese Business Daily" and accumulated initial experience in collecting, writing and running newspapers.
At Huaqiao Middle School, my father met Dong Hoping, an early member of the Communist Party of China, and under his words and deeds, my father began to embark on the revolutionary road. In 1935, the Japanese invaded northeast China. Dong Hoeping led the teachers and students of the Overseas Chinese Middle School to set up the "Everyone's Daily Anti-Japanese Salvation Congress", and his father participated in it and served as a propaganda worker, and together with the teachers and students, he published posters and distributed leaflets, calling on the vast number of overseas Chinese to rise up to save the country. After that, the "Everyone's Daily Anti-Japanese Salvation Congress" published the "Monthly Magazine of Salvation", and my father participated in the editing of the monthly magazine. At the same time, my father also joined the Philippine Branch of the Chinese National Armed Self-Defense Association, an anti-Japanese group led by the Communist Party of China, and participated in the Manila Overseas Chinese Amateur Theater Troupe, collecting donations for the country by performing anti-Japanese plays.
In December 1936, the "Xi'an Incident" broke out, and the Monthly Magazine of Salvation published an editorial in the January 1937 issue supporting the establishment of an anti-Japanese national united front. After learning that there was a glimmer of light in the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, his father no longer had the heart to stay in Nanyang, and only wanted to return to China to participate in the War of Resistance. In 1937, just as the anti-Japanese flames were burning all over Shenzhou, my father returned to the motherland where he thought about it day and night with the enthusiasm of defending his family and defending the country.
After several twists and turns, my father traveled to Nanjing, Xiamen, Quanzhou, Guangzhou and other places, and finally arrived in Yan'an in October 1938, entered the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, and was incorporated into the fifth brigade of the fourth phase of the Kang Da, and went to Qingyang in Longdong; and then he was organized with the Northern Shaanxi Public School and the youth training class into the first branch of the Kang Da University and went to southeast Jindong. Soon, the Japanese besieged the base area in southeastern Jin, and kang da moved to the Taihang Mountains, and my father was transferred to work in the propaganda team, actively engaged in rural activities in the areas of Pingshun, Huguan, and Lingchuan, writing slogans, speaking allegro, pulling foreign films, performing live newspaper dramas, singing anti-Japanese songs, convening mass meetings, publicizing anti-Japanese salvation, mobilizing the masses to support the anti-Japanese resistance, and resisting the Japanese Kou sweep. Due to his outstanding performance, his father became a member of the Communist Party in 1939.
A year later, his father graduated from Kang University and was assigned to work in the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army in Shandong. During this period, the organization learned about his father's experience in Chinese newspapers in the Philippines, so he transferred his father from the headquarters to the political department and undertook the propaganda work such as running the newspaper "Soldier Newspaper". Since then, my father has officially picked up a pen and made a connection with war writing.
A pen honed in the battlefield
"This is a moving short poem!" He said to himself: "They have taught me a vivid lesson with bravery and wit, and I will write their heroic stories into poems!" ”
- WhiteBlade novel "Fight to Tomorrow"
In the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army in Shandong, his father fought with the troops. During this period, he wrote a large number of battlefield reports on the front line reflecting the bloody struggle between the Chinese military and the people and the Japanese invaders, and created many poems, lyrics, documentary literature and other works, recording the heroic stories of commanders and fighters and the moving deeds of the people behind enemy lines in supporting the Eighth Route Army.
His father's original name was Wang Parasitism, and the name white blade that is still in use today was born in the stage of the War of Resistance behind enemy lines. In February 1940, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army developed into the Tianbao Mountains of Shandong Province, and in one fell swoop conquered the town of Baiyan, a key place located between the Baoligu Mountains and the Tianbao Mountains, and completely annihilated the Japanese puppet army guarding the village. In order to control the Lunan Mountains, the Japanese army decided to retake the town of Baiyan. On March 12, 1940, the Japanese puppet army dispatched more than 700 people to counterattack the town of Baiyan in three ways. At that time, my father also came to Baiyan with the 686th Regiment, and witnessed the whole process of the heroic struggle of the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army in the observation post on the mountain valley. In the face of the enemy's attack, the 686th Regiment gave the enemy a head-on attack. After the Japanese puppet army suffered a heavy blow in the north of Baiyan Town, it joined the Japanese puppet army sent by Liangqiu to occupy Baiyan. That night, the 686th Regiment took advantage of the unstable foothold of the Japanese puppet army and launched a surprise attack, launching a fierce white-knife battle with the enemy. At dawn on March 13, the remnants of the Japanese puppet army fled northwest, and the defense of Bai Yan declared victory. After the battle, based on his own experience, his father wrote a field newsletter "In the Observatory" and signed it as "White Blade". Since then, the name of "White Blade" has become louder and louder, and it has gradually become a famous pen holder in the battlefield.
At that time, there were not many newspaper operators in the army, and my father held several positions at the same time, working as a reporter and editor, and also typeset and printed newspapers, and spent day and night on news work. At first, newspapers could only be mimeographed with iron engraving, but later there was a hand-cranked lead printing machine. As soon as the battle broke out, my father and the comrades of the newspaper would have to carry the printing machine and move with the troops. But even so, my father was willing to do so.
In 1943, after the "elite army and simplified administration", the "Warrior Newspaper" was discontinued. His father took the initiative to ask the company to exercise, and wanted to put down his pen, pick up the gun, and personally fight against the Japanese. During his time as an instructor in the company, my father fought several fierce battles with the Japanese army. After that, his father was transferred to the chief editor of the "Militia Newspaper" of the Coastal Military Region, and soon after he was transferred back to the "Shandong Pictorial" of the Shandong Military Region as deputy editor-in-chief.
My father always believed that in order to write something, it is necessary to have a life as an accumulation and to accumulate a large amount of first-hand materials. These can only be obtained by going to the front line company to personally participate in the battle. Therefore, he always focused on going deep into the battlefield, interviewing soldiers on the front line, and writing based on first-hand information. Because of this, my father's pen can always convey the most real and moving battle voice.
To the front line record era sound
"I dare not take this collection as a repercussion of this great stormy era, but only as an echo of the dripping water on the eaves, and perhaps the reader can hear a little of the voice of the times from here."
- The White Blade Anthology
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, his father went to the northeast with the army and was ordered to take over the Japanese pseudo-broadcasting bureau in Andong (present-day Dandong) and serve as the director of the radio station. After that, he also served as the chief of the propaganda section and the editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the Western Manchuria Military Region and the Northeast Logistics Department. During this period, my father came into contact with many Soviet novels and films depicting the Great Patriotic War, and came up with the idea of creating literary and artistic works for the Chinese Revolution. He said: Since the Nanchang Uprising, the Communist Party of China has experienced ten years of civil revolutionary war, eight years of war of resistance, and war of liberation, and countless heroes and stories that can be sung and wept have emerged, but what has been reflected through literature and art is very limited. I have worked in war journalism and fought on the front line, so I can try it in literary and artistic creation.
So my father interviewed the "liberation fighters" who joined the People's Liberation Army after being captured, and spent one night writing a 10,000-word short story "Who is the Enemy", which was published in the Northeast Daily. Since then, he has successively published many novels such as "Xiao Zhou must also be a hero" and "The Revenge of the Three Bald", all of which have received good responses.
At that time, during the Liaoshen Campaign, my father once again took the initiative to ask for help, asking to be a reporter on the front line, and soon got the consent of the Propaganda Department of the Political Department of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army. In order to prove that he "can write", my father raced against the clock to go deep into the company, conceived on the horseback of the marching army, and created in the gap between battles. In the two major battles of Liaoshen and Pingjin, my father accompanied the field troops, collected a large number of news reports and field communications, and also created many poems and novels, while constantly conceiving long works reflecting the revolutionary war. At the beginning of the founding of New China, my father completed the novel "Fight to Tomorrow". Realizing that the cultural level of the workers and peasants at that time was difficult to read novels, if they could perform through rapping, it would be easier for them to accept, so my father began to try to write multi-act dramas.
In the summer of 1951, his father's play "Sugar-Coated Shells" was a great success and was staged in the military literary troupe and theater troupes across the country. Since then, his father has successively created dramas such as "Egret" and "War Is Raging". In 1959, at the invitation of the Shenyang Repertory Theatre, his father wrote a drama about the Changchun Uprising, "Soldiers Under the City". To this end, he visited the insurrectionary officers and soldiers and underground party members at that time many times, went through a large number of relevant documents, and synthesized the materials of the previous enemy uprisings to create. This drama has since been adapted into a film by his father's hand, and is still a classic reflecting the Liberation War.
My father used to say that writing must continue to go deep into life and absorb new nourishment. In addition to writing on the basis of past experiences in participating in revolutions and wars, it is also necessary to record the vigorous construction of socialism, and the "inventory" in the head needs to be constantly enriched. Therefore, in his prime, he had to go out to practice for a few months almost every year, going to the army, factories, reservoirs, rural areas and construction sites, communicating with laborers in depth, and when he had inspiration, he immediately wrote a pen, thus writing many newsletters, poems, and brewing many novels and scripts.
His work does not work on rhetoric, only real feelings and simple language. Wen ruqi, his father was proud to be a hard-working and simple Communist Party member all his life. Going to Nanyang, going to Yan'an, going to the battlefield, after several ups and downs, he has always worked hard, his original intention has not changed, and he has truthfully recorded the fiery era with his pen. This spirit of diligent pursuit is worthy of being a strong literary and artistic warrior. (Reporter Lin Zihan)
People's Daily Overseas Edition ( December 21, 2021, 10th Edition)
Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition