In the past few days, an accident occurred at a gold mine in Yantai, Shandong Province, and 22 workers were trapped underground, uncertain of life and death, hoping to complete the rescue work as soon as possible.
Yantai, Shandong is the hometown of apples and an important gold producing area, and today I will introduce a story of our party transporting huge amounts of gold from Yantai gold mines to Yan'an during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which is very touching.
During the period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, although the Kuomintang and the Communists cooperated in resisting Japan, Chiang Kai-shek did not change the long-term blockade policy against our army, especially with regard to the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, not only did not issue funds, but also strictly ordered that not a foot of cloth or a grain of rice should be allowed to enter the border area.
To this end, Chairman Mao issued the call for "self-reliance and abundant food and clothing" and launched a vigorous "large-scale production campaign" to break Chiang Kai-shek's economic blockade.
However, this relatively rudimentary mode of production can only solve the basic food supply, and the weapons, ammunition, strategic materials, etc., which are necessary for the cause of the War of Resistance, still need to be imported from the national unified areas through trade.
Moreover, at that time, the currency issued by the various base areas of our army could not be recognized in areas other than the base areas, so in order to obtain the necessary material trade, our army still needed "hard currency", such as legal tender, silver dollars, gold, etc., especially gold, which has been hard currency since ancient times, as long as there is gold in hand, it is not afraid of Chiang Kai-shek's "blockade", so the desire for gold in the border areas is very urgent.
In 1939, Chairman Mao sent Li Fuchun to the Shandong base area to raise funds, and before leaving, Chairman Mao specifically instructed Li Fuchun: "If you only get tickets to come to the border areas and you can't buy anything at all, it is better to try your best to get gold." ”
So, why did Chairman Mao send Li Fuchun to Shandong to raise funds?
At that time, under the auspices of Luo Ronghuan, Chen Guang, and others, Shandong had become an important base area for our army, and more importantly, the Zhaoyuan area of Yantai, Shandong Province, was a famous gold producing area, known as the "Golden Capital," and there was also a gold mine that had been developed for more than two thousand years, the Linglong Gold Mine.
This gold mine has been mined as early as the Warring States period, but due to the primitive mining technology, the mining intensity is not large, and the ore vein of the gold mine has not been damaged too much, so although it has been mined for more than two thousand years, it is still endless.
The Japanese Kou also had their sights on the gold mine for a long time, and in 1939, they sent heavy troops to occupy the gold mine and forcibly recruit miners to carry out "blood-sucking" mining.
At the same time, the Japanese Kou strictly controlled the circulation of gold, set up a gold arrest brigade, no one is allowed to buy and sell gold, violators are punished as economic criminals, caught buying and selling gold privately, all gold is confiscated, and personnel are thrown into prison, and those who have anti-Japanese consciousness and the suspicion of the underground party of the Eighth Route Army are all shot and killed!
Shandong is an important strategic area of the Eighth Route Army, where all kinds of large and small base areas have been opened, and the special importance of the Zhaoyuan area has also been valued by our party, and in 1938, the Jiaodong Special Committee set up a special agency- the Zhaoyuan Gold Mining Management Committee (soon changed to the Linglong Gold Mining Bureau), which was responsible for raising gold and supporting the War of Resistance.
What does the Gold Mining Bureau do? There is still a certain wide area in the Zhaoyuan mining area, and it is impossible for the Japanese Kou to control all the areas without leaks, in fact, there are still a large number of small gold mines mined by private mining, and as for the stalls where a few people use rudimentary tools to pan for gold, there are even more numerous, which are also beyond the reach of the Japanese Kou whip.
Therefore, the first step of the Gold Mining Bureau is to set up a mine protection brigade in view of these places that the Japanese and Kosovars cannot control, because even if the Japanese cannot control such a small mine, the bandits who are as many as cattle hair are also very harmful to them, and with the protection of the mine protection brigade, the mine owners are no longer afraid of those bandits, so these mine owners are very supportive of the mine protection brigade organized by the Eighth Route Army.
The mine protection brigade also carried out patriotic propaganda and education for the mine owners, encouraging the mine owners to contribute to the national war of resistance, and the mine owners also gladly supported and actively responded to the gold purchases of the gold mining bureau, and sometimes even took the initiative to donate gold and donate gold.
Of course, these private small mines or small gold mining points, the amount of gold mined is very small, so the focus of the gold mining bureau is still to compete with the Japanese Kou "tiger mouth gold".
In 1939, the Jiaodong District Committee of the Communist Party of China gave Su Jiguang, director of the Jiaodong District Workers' Anti-Japanese National Salvation Federation, a task: "Drill deep into the gold mine like a nail, take root, and ensure the completion of the gold mining task." ”
Su Jiguang risked being arrested and sacrificed, disguised as a gold miner, entered a large gold mine controlled by the Japanese Kou, set up an organization among the miners, led the miners to skillfully fight against the enemy, and used many ingenious ways to smuggle out gold ore and mineral powder, such as stealing gold ore with highly similar ordinary stones, handing over the stones to the Japanese Kou overseers, and the real gold ore was disguised as "slag" to be transported out of the mine, such as smearing gold powder into hair, stuffing it into cotton jackets, and even stuffing it into the special cracks on the soles of shoes. Or stuff a very high gold content of mercury paste into a vegetable cake and smuggle out the gold mine...
These means, in fact, are also the "old-fashioned style" of gold mine miners who have been fighting against greedy mine owners for thousands of years, and the miners are handy to do, and the methods are also various, it can be said that only the unthinkable, not impossible, so that the Japanese Kou supervisors can not be defended.
Although the miners used many methods of struggle, the gold mines controlled by the Japanese Kou used advanced technology and tools and equipment, and the gold mined was still very impressive, and seeing that the Japanese Kou drove out one car loaded with gold in a big way, the Eighth Route Army was very distressed, and it had to find a way to intercept the gold mined and smelted by the Japanese Kou!
To this end, the Gold Mining Bureau cooperated with the anti-Japanese guerrillas in the base areas, like other battlefield ambushes, set up ambushes on the only way for the Japanese to transport gold, and ambushed the Japanese gold transport vehicles, often with far greater achievements than the harvest of smuggled ore, for example, once, more than 30 kilograms of gold bars were captured at once!
The Gold Mining Bureau also sent a working group to go deep into the villages and towns near the gold mine to secretly carry out anti-Japanese propaganda and encourage the people to support the anti-Japanese Eighth Route Army.
The mobilization of the masses of the people has always been an important way to win victories in the work of our Party, and the same is true for gold mining.
However, it is difficult to raise funds, and it is even more difficult to transport these hard-won gold to Yan'an, thousands of miles away!
From Zhaoyuan to Yan'an, the Japanese and the Kuomintang set up hundreds of blockade lines, and thousands of Japanese and pseudo-strongholds of various sizes were distributed in a staggered manner, as well as areas controlled by the Kuomintang, which would obstruct and strangle our party's transportation work, so you can imagine what kind of arduous and dangerous road this is!
The Jiaodong District CPC Committee formulated two routes, "Bohai Sea" and "Binhai", first transporting the gold from Zhaoyuan to the Lunan and Luzhong base areas where our party's forces are relatively concentrated, and then departing from the Lunan base area, passing through Weishan Lake to the Huxi base area, then transporting it to the Jiluyu Border Area, and then transporting it to the Taihang Mountain area where the Eighth Route Army's strength is strong, it will be much safer here, and then it will be transported to Yan'an.
It can be seen that this is a "baton-type" transportation at the first level, and it requires our party to mobilize the anti-Japanese contingent and the masses in many areas to cooperate with each other.
According to Meng Ying, who was a supervisor of the Luzhong Industrial and Commercial Bureau, he once led three battalions plus a company of the Eighth Route Army to form a gold protection team to escort a batch of gold to the western base area of the Jinpu Railway and then transport it to the Taihang Mountain area.
In 1942, Liu Shaoqi returned to Yan'an from the base area of northern Jiangsu for a meeting, passing through Shandong, entrusted by the Shandong branch bureau, carrying 10,000 taels of gold back to Yan'an, Liu Shaoqi and his team, all the way through difficulties and twists, broke through the enemy's 103 blockade lines, walked for a full 9 months, and finally arrived at Yan'an safely!
With powerful troops escorting many patriots in the Zhaoyuan area, with patriotic enthusiasm, they spontaneously organized themselves and, with their meager strength, set out directly from Zhaoyuan to Yan'an, and the danger was even greater.
In 1943, the Zhaoyuan Gold Mining Bureau organized a 26-person gold protection team to transport a batch of gold to Yan'an, all the way to the bloody rain, and when they arrived in Yan'an, only 6 people were left, and most of the comrades died on the road!
There are many similar transportations, they have made great sacrifices, but there has not been a single case of fleeing with gold, which has attracted the sincere heart of the masses and touched the heavens and the earth!
According to statistics, from 1937 to 1945, the Zhaoyuan District Committee and the Linglong Gold Mine raised a total of 130,000 taels of gold to transport to Yan'an, which was equivalent to 7 times the annual income of our party at that time!
This is true of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Same is true of the War of Liberation, and the Zhaoyuan region has contributed another 220,000 taels of gold to the cause of liberation, and these historical contributions they have made need to be remembered and praised by us forever.