History is the memory of things that have been said and done. —Carl Baker
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, countless heroic men paid an extremely tragic price in order to defend the motherland. At that time, due to the chaos of the war environment, many martyrs could not be buried after their deaths, and even some heroes could not even write down their names. In order to commemorate the heroic souls of these heroes, at that time, some living warriors would create their own tombstones, and after the end of the war, these tombstones were also scattered on various battlefields.
In the Anhui region, a teenager dug up a special Sichuan army tombstone, and he who wanted to use the tombstone to bury it in the pigsty to ward off evil spirits did not expect that on this tombstone, there was a condensation of the heroic souls of thousands of soldiers. So, behind this tombstone, what kind of story is there?
The Anhui teenager who dug up the tombstone of the Sichuan Army was Sun Zaixiang, who in the 1970s, when he was about 18 years old, often went to the nearby mountains to herd cattle. At that time, the Atsugishi area where he lived was once the rear of the Sichuan Army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, so on the mountain here, many Sichuan troops who died on the battlefield were also buried. Logically, this mountain, as a place to bury the martyrs, should not be destroyed, but based on the need to increase local grain production, it has also been newly renovated, and the tombstones of many Sichuan army soldiers have been taken to build a reservoir, and the remains have been gathered and buried at this time.
Soon after, Sun Zaixiang's family planned to build a pigsty, and when he heard that the tombstone of the Sichuan Army could ward off evil spirits, he came to the foot of the mountain and took out a tombstone that had not been taken away and put it in his pig pen. The owner of this tombstone is Chen Yanhe.
For many years thereafter, the Sichuan army buried here was left unattended, and it was not until 2015 that a heroic descendant, Guo Kaihui, came here to look for traces of these heroes. With the help of volunteers, Guo Kaihui found the tombstones of Chen Yongqin, Chen Yanhe, Wu Pingni and others, and at this time, the story behind these tombstones was also revealed.
It turned out that in April 1940, the Japanese army and the Sichuan army had a fierce war near Qingyang County, at that time, although our army stubbornly resisted the enemy's attack, but because the Japanese army was too strong, therefore, our army also suffered very heavy casualties. In the Battle of Baimatang, the Japanese army even used bomber strafing against the Sichuan army in the position, and in this case, the corpses of our army were everywhere, and countless revolutionary fighters were sacrificed on the front-line battlefield.
As the rear of the Sichuan Army at that time, the Atsugishi area received countless wounded. Due to the shortage of medical personnel, some lightly injured wounded learned to self-bandage at that time, and those who were seriously injured often died on the battlefield before they could go to the hospital. At that time, all the sacrificial soldiers were buried in the former mountain ridge, and according to statistics, there were more than a thousand Sichuan army soldiers buried here.
According to the recollections of some elderly people who experienced the Battle of Baimatang, at that time, the tombstones of the lower-ranking soldiers in the Sichuan Army were wooden, and the higher-ranking soldiers used stone tablets, and in order to prevent the Japanese army from destroying the tombstones of these deceased martyrs, only the names of the martyrs and the troops they belonged to were recorded on these tombstones, and their cause of death could only be written as "death of illness".
For these martyrs, they did not get the treatment they deserved after being buried in a centralized manner, and some people's tombstones were used for other places, fortunately, after 2015, the glorious history of the Sichuan Army was excavated, and at this time, the tombstones of Chen Yanhe and others were also invited into special ancestral halls to be enshrined. So far, these heroes have also received the respect they deserve.
For them, although the tombstones have been destroyed, under the efforts of the government, the Heroic Martyrs Memorial Park will eventually be built, and at that time, these wandering heroic souls can also get the final belonging.
For the whole Chinese, it is precisely because of the efforts of these heroes that we can have a happy and stable life today. In the days to come, we should also make greater efforts to protect the tombstones and cemeteries of these revolutionary martyrs. Only by remembering history and being grateful for the efforts of martyrs can we cherish the hard-won peaceful life in the days to come.