In the period of revolutionary war, the vast majority of the soldiers trained by our army were high-spirited and uncompromising in the face of the enemy and unmoved by money.
Today, I will introduce a hero in the Red Army, who once guarded 60,000 silver dollars alone, and did not disclose the whereabouts of these revolutionary treasures until his death, which made people very admired and moved.
This hero's name is Qiao Mingzeng.
Qiao Mingzeng, a native of Feicheng, Shandong, joined Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army in his early years, and later followed Dong Zhentang to participate in the Ningdu Uprising and became a member of the Red Army.
In 1934, when the Central Red Army began the Long March, the 34th Division of the Red 5th Army, to which Qiao Mingzeng belonged, served as a cover behind the palace, and in the fierce Battle of the Xiangjiang River, the Red Army suddenly fell from 80,000 to 30,000 people, most of whom were killed, and some of the wounded and sick were displaced along the Xiangjiang River and in the northern Guizhou region.
The sacrifices of the 34th Division were particularly enormous, almost the entire army was destroyed, the division commander Chen Shuxiang was seriously wounded and captured, heroic suicide, Qiao Mingzeng, as a small number of survivors, was assigned an important task: to protect the remaining valuable materials and confidential documents of the troops, and to shelter the lost soldiers.
This is a very dangerous and isolated task that requires a high sense of responsibility and firm conviction to complete!
At that time, Qiao Mingzeng was responsible for transferring a batch of valuable revolutionary property, totaling 6 quintals of silver dollars and 3 quintals of guns.
6 quintals of silver dollars, about 60,000 pieces, which was a huge fortune like an "astronomical" amount at that time! In Shanghai, for example, an ordinary textile worker's salary in 1934 was about 20 yuan per month, which was 60,000 silver dollars, which was equivalent to a Shanghai worker's salary for 250 years!
If you convert to today, the average salary in Shanghai is 6378 yuan, and the total salary in 250 years is 19.13 million yuan!
At this time, Qiao Mingzeng had been separated from the organization, so how to deal with these huge funds was entirely up to him, as long as he had a little greed, he could completely take this huge amount of money for himself, find a place at will, and live the life of a local tycoon.
However, Qiao Mingzeng did not do this, but found a secret place, buried the silver dollars and guns, and then continued to search for the lost warriors.
After Qiao Mingzeng buried the silver dollar, he took up residence in a nearby village, and his landlord was named Wen Yongsui, a sympathetic person to the Red Army.
Qiao Mingzeng may have inadvertently revealed some information in his interactions with Wen Yongsui, so when the local area suffered a severe drought, some villagers helped the elderly and children to come to Qiao Mingzeng and asked Qiao Mingzeng to come up with some money to help everyone.
Qiao Mingzeng realized that something was wrong, this will definitely alarm the local landlord armed forces, they will definitely fight the idea of this wealth, in order to keep this secret, Qiao Mingzeng decided to leave immediately.
Before leaving, Wen Yongsui's wife made him two pounds of fried rice and used it as dry food on the road.
Qiao Mingzeng had been away from home for many years, missing his mother, and thought that it would be better to go home and slowly look for troops later.
After returning to his hometown, Qiao Mingzeng still did not trust the silver dollars, so he wrote to Wen Yongsui and told him: "These silver dollars are used for the revolutionary cause, and we personally cannot take them. When you get the silver dollar, you will buy land, you will become a new landlord, you will become the object of revolution. Therefore, these silver dollars cannot be dug up. Our revolutionary cause will certainly succeed, and when the revolution is successful, we will jointly hand over these silver dollars to the organization. ”
After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the Eighth Route Army entered Shandong, and Qiao Mingzeng was very happy, immediately found the organization, and rejoined the Eighth Route Army.
Qiao Mingzeng found the leader and reported the silver dollars, but at that time, the communication conditions were too backward, and the place where the treasure was hidden was the territory of the Kuomintang, even if these silver dollars were found, they might not be able to bring them, so the matter was shelved.
Unfortunately, in 1940, Qiao Mingzeng died heroically in a battle, and the location of the treasure became a mystery.
Until after the founding of the People's Republic of China, according to the information provided by Qiao Mingzeng before his death, the superior went to Wenshi Town, Guanyang County, Guangxi Province, to look for it, but because the terrain was too complicated, it was never found. Of course, there is also a possibility that it has been taken away.
However, the story of Qiao Mingzeng's lifelong protection of revolutionary property spread locally, and Qiao Mingzeng also became a hero admired by everyone.