The Overseas Chinese Batch on display at the Dongxing Overseas Chinese Batch Museum. Photographed by Zhai Liqiang
"A hundred years of overseas Chinese approved through Fujian, Guangdong and South Asia dream of breaking the smoke of gunfire, three years of letters to spread the Feihong Road to save the homeland in Dongxing" -- this is a pair of yanglian on the archway of Qiao Pi Road In Dongxing City, Guangxi Province, a border city of China and Vietnam, which quietly tells the dusty past of overseas Chinese and Chinese people who were concerned about their homeland in the smoke of war more than 70 years ago.
Dongxing QiaoPu Road is located on the edge of Dongxing Port, which was once the most prosperous neighborhood in dongxing modern trade. An old house with French architectural characteristics in the street is the Dongxing Qiao Hall. At the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, it was a secret channel for overseas Chinese and ethnic Chinese to transmit letters and pin their affection on their relatives at home.
In December 1941, Japan launched the Pacific War, and Hong Kong and Southeast Asia fell one after another, and the overseas Chinese industry connecting overseas Chinese and domestic overseas Chinese dependants came to a standstill. At the risk of their lives, overseas Chinese workers opened the "Dongxinghui Road" in the spring of 1942, building an important "lifeline" between overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese dependents.
"A large number of materials to support the War of Resistance were also transported to China through this road." Lin Huijiang, president of the Dongxing Qiao Hui Road Cultural Research Association, said that at that time, the number of handover points for overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese had grown to 30 or 40 in Dongxing, and the anti-war materials delivered to China reached 175 tons.
"Foreign paid light silver one yuan", "foreign ocean silver pick up yuan", "foreign payment of foreign national tickets million yuan", "do not think about peace outside"... Walking into the Dongxing Overseas Chinese Approval Hall, through a letter of old yellowed overseas Chinese approval, people can truly feel the fiery affection of overseas Chinese who are concerned about their homeland and country from the words and lines.
Lin Huijiang's ancestral home is Jieyang, Guangdong, and his grandfather and father and other relatives are all Thai overseas Chinese. Lin Huijiang, who is in his seventies, has been a beneficiary of overseas Chinese remittances since childhood. The last time the family received remittances was in 1973. Later, as China's economy improved, remittances were no longer the basis for their family's economic income.
The house opposite Lin Huijiang's house is the former Guangdong Clubhouse, and it is also one of the many places where Dongxing handed over overseas Chinese approval in the late anti-Japanese War. In 2013, Lin Huijiang rented this place to build the Overseas Chinese Approval Hall, and since then, in order to collect and sort out the overseas Chinese approval materials sent to Guangdong and Fujian through the "Dongxinghui Road" from 1942 to 1945, he has traveled to and from the three provinces (regions) of Guangdong, Guangdong and Fujian and Southeast Asian countries countless times.
In the process of collecting information on overseas Chinese approvals, Lin Huijiang was most impressed by Zhao Kaijian, the "person who sent the batch."
Zhao Kaitong is one of the pioneers of "Dongxinghui Road", a Native of Chaoshan, Guangdong, who left his hometown at the age of 28 to make a living in Hanoi, Vietnam, and later ran business such as batch bureau and silver trumpet. Out of the need to open the "Dongxinghui Road", Zhao Kaijian opened a batch bureau in Dongxing and handed it over to his wife Wu Ruying to manage.
On a voyage to escort overseas Chinese and anti-war materials, Zhao Kaijian and his party were shot by Japanese planes, and his wife Wu Ruying fell into the sea in a panic and almost disappeared. During this period, his infant daughter Zhao Yongfeng cried incessantly, and Zhao Kaitong, fearing exposure, wanted to throw her into the sea, but was dissuaded by his wife's sister Wu Qinglian.
After the surrender of Japan, the "Dong Hing Hui Road" gradually faded out of the historical stage, and Zhao Kai and his wife revived their family business in Hanoi. In 1978, the elderly Zhao Kaijian returned to Guangdong.
Zhao Yongfeng, now 70 years old, told reporters that after escaping the sea, she has never been able to reunite with her father in her life, and her impression of her father is only in her mother's few stories and her brother's writings. In recent years, with the spread of the "Dongxinghui Road" overseas Chinese culture, she really understood her father.
In 2016, Dongxing City allocated funds to repair the Overseas Chinese Approval Hall, and the overseas Chinese approval materials of "Dongxinghui Road" have since had a home. From time to time, there will be descendants of overseas Chinese who go to "Dongxinghui Road" to explore the footprints of their ancestors, which makes Lin Huijiang feel very pleased.
Although "Dongxinghui Road" has only existed for 3 and a half years, the spirit of integrity carried by overseas Chinese and the spirit of patriotism and love for the family of the older generation of overseas Chinese are still being inherited. At the beginning of 2020, after the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the epidemic prevention materials in some parts of the country were tight, overseas students and overseas Chinese spontaneously organized the collection of epidemic prevention materials to donate to China, and Lin Huijiang also used his pension to purchase a batch of epidemic prevention materials to personally distribute them. Lin Huijiang said: This is the embodiment of the spirit of overseas Chinese.
(According to China News Network)