Reconnect the two ends of the "eternal airwaves" of 73 years ago

73 years ago, Li Kang, a radio operator at the CIA, would receive a telegram from The Peak Terrace in Shanghai that ended with "Goodbye." It was a long time before she learned that it was the last telegram sent by Li Bai, the protagonist of the movie "The Eternal Wave".

73 years later, Li Lili, the grandson of the martyr Li Bai, saw a 4K color restored version of the movie "The Eternal Wave" on the big screen. Every time he watched the movie, he felt closer to his grandfather's inner world.

On the eve of the National Day, the reporter searched in Beijing and Shanghai to try to reconnect the two ends of the radio wave 73 years ago.

"Wait a minute... See you soon"

In the 1940s, when 17-year-old Li Kang would come to Yan'an, "Uncle Li" arranged for her to study newspaper service. "Uncle Li" refers to Li Kenong, one of the famous leaders of the CCP's hidden front.

The training session lasted for several months, the cave was dimly lit, and Li Kang and the other trainees could only take turns sitting by the window and studying in a small patch of daylight. After two or three years of internship at the Third Bureau of the Central Military Commission, Li Kang will be sent to the main station to be responsible for liaison with telegraph operations on the hidden front. The "Peak Station" that Li Kang will dock with is one of the main secret radio stations in Shanghai for The Pan Hannian intelligence system, and Li Bai is the operator of this station.

Compared with other newspaper work, contacting underground intelligence workers requires extreme caution and efficiency. Underground Party members who are in danger must be destroyed in a timely manner and cannot be consulted, and the content of the report must not be wrong. "Must be very accurate!" Speaking of the work requirements at the main desk, Li Kang will have a glint in his eyes.

The most thrilling moment occurred on December 29, 1948. On that day, as night fell, Li Kang would sit down in front of xibaipo's telegraph machine and start work.

At first, everything was calm. Li Kang will, as usual, look for frequencies near the agreed band. She had never seen her comrades on the other side of the radio, but through the contact of the radio waves, she was already very familiar with its method of sending news, even if it did not appear at the specified frequency, as long as it was near the frequency, Li Kang would be able to find it.

The time passed through zero, and there was something unusual on the other end of the radio wave. In order to allow the Central Radio Station to copy accurately at one time, the "Peak Station" is very slow every time it sends a report. But that night, the other party suddenly picked up the speed, and then hurriedly shot a "wait a minute" signal.

Li Kang will wait for a long time, and the other party shot a "goodbye" at 1:50 a.m.

Eve of dawn

The "goodbye" that Li Kang received that night was li Bai's last pen left in the airwaves. More than 1,000 kilometers away, on Huangdu Road in Shanghai, Li Bai was arrested in the early morning, and the "peak platform" was broken.

In the autumn of 1937, after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Li Bai was sent to Shanghai by the organization. He knew the extent of the danger of the environment at that time, but he did not care about his own safety, but put the work of the party first. Li Lili was shocked by Li Bai's choice that year.

In the treacherous environment under close surveillance by Japanese and Wang puppet military and police agents, Li Bai overcame many difficulties and set up the first secret radio station in the early spring of the following year. This vital radio station has built a bridge of radio communication between Shanghai and the Party Central Committee.

"Knowing the weight of the burden." Li Lili said. He felt that today's words could still interpret his grandfather's choices, which were the courage of communists who knew that they could not do it, and the light that shone when an ordinary person went to herohood.

On the eve of his arrest, Li Bai was sending information to the Party Central Committee about the deployment of the Kuomintang troops on the Yangtze River. He chose to put life and death aside and risk the birth of a new regime.

Li Lili heard his grandmother say that at that time, there were already signs of danger. The Kuomintang used radio telegraph vehicles to monitor surveys day and night. In order to quickly determine the exact location, a zonal power outage had already begun. Until the early morning of December 30, 1948, when military and police agents broke into his home, Li Bai was still working in front of the radio.

Love and faith

Li Lili grew up with his grandmother Qiu Huiying. Grandma said that after getting married, her grandfather once renamed her "Hui Zhong", which is the exclusive name of her lover. This "loyalty" word is not only a promise of loyalty between husband and wife to each other, but also the meaning of the two of them fighting side by side and always being loyal to the party.

In the spring of 1939, the situation became more and more tense, and Li Bai, who was alone, faced more challenges. In order to assist Li Bai in her work, the organization found Qiu Huiying, who worked in a silk factory in Shanghai, and arranged for her and Li Bai to pretend to be husband and wife and work under the cover of family.

Since then, Qiu Huiying has become "Mrs. Li", working and living with Li Bai, who is pseudonym Li Jing'an. Li Lili remembered that there was a line in the movie "The Eternal Airwaves": "I believe that this old Red Army will definitely be able to bring this new recruit well." The "old Red Army" refers to Grandpa, and the "recruit" is Grandma who has just entered the work of the hidden front.

Love sprouts in the revolution. In 1940, with the approval of the organization, Li Bai and Qiu Huiying were officially married.

Unyielding

After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Li Bai and his wife, who were once transferred to Zhejiang, returned to Shanghai, and their son Li Hengsheng was born, which was a precious and short-lived peaceful life of a family of three. At that time, Li Bai had written a family letter to his father in his hometown in Hunan. The letter expressed the joy of victory and looked forward to stepping up domestic unity and realizing the dream of building a new China at an early date, and the day of returning home was not far away.

But his promise to return home never again was kept. In the early morning of December 30, 1948, Li Bai was arrested after sending a "goodbye" to Xibaipo. Under the forced confession of dozens of hours and dozens of tortures, and under the temptation of the high-ranking official Houlu, he has always been unyielding.

May 7, 1949, was Li Bai's 39th birthday. He said to Qiu Huiying, who came to visit the prison, that you will live a free and happy life like the people of the whole country. On the night, Li Bai, Qin Hongjun, Zhang Qianzhai and 12 other comrades were taken to a prison cart and shot and killed at the Yang Siqi Family Temple in Pudong.

"Then he never showed up again." Li Kang will slowly recall.

Because of strict confidentiality requirements, Li Kang did not know who he was contacting at that time, nor could he know what happened to the "peak platform", and could only truthfully record the other party's disappearance on the day.

After that, according to the instructions of the Central Intelligence Department, Li Kang would insist on looking for news of the "peak platform" in the radio waves every day, but there was no news. After writing more than 20 "unheard" in a row, the record of the "peak platform" stopped on January 23, 1949, and the last record left on the archives was "stop listening".

In the years that followed, Li Kang would always be engaged in newspaper work, and she often thought of this comrade-in-arms whom she had never met. It was a long time before she learned the story of the other end of the radio wave that night and the meaning of the "goodbye." Li Kang will say: "If I have the opportunity to meet him, I will shake hands and hug him cordially and pay tribute to him." But ah, there is no possibility..."