At the time of the country's crisis and survival, countless benevolent people have stood up and dedicated their youth and even their lives to the motherland.
Today we are going to talk about a 96-year-old Taiwanese veteran who has been away for 70 years, looking forward to returning to China every moment, and asked when contacting his nephew:
I'll go back and you'll still raise me, I don't have any money. To put it in good conscience, I will go back and die a little more steadily.
This sentence is very sad to say, joining the army to defend the country, but can not return home.
A time of war
In that war-torn era, life was already very difficult, and it was not easy to support a family. In order to survive, in 1948, the 22-year-old Deng Xuegui joined the army, in order to be able to eat enough, but also to defend the country and honor the ancestors.
After joining the army, although he could not be rich and wealthy, it was better than the previous days of starvation, and just when he thought he could support his family, bad news came.
Because Deng Xuegui joined the Kuomintang army, in 1948, the Kuomintang had already been defeated. So he inexplicably followed him to Taiwan.
It is estimated that none of the Kuomintang soldiers at that time expected that the early days of the War of Liberation were so fierce that they collapsed overnight, so under these circumstances, Chiang Kai-shek ordered a large army to retreat to Taiwan, and Deng Xuegui was among them.
Deng Xuegui never thought that he would one day leave his hometown to give birth to himself and go to that place where he was not familiar with life, and even lived here for many years later, nor did he expect how difficult it would be on the way back to his hometown in the future.
Among these people fleeing to Taiwan, many middle- and lower-level soldiers did not know it at all, and were completely tricked into coming to Taiwan by the upper-level commanders, which also left a foreshadowing for the difficulty of seeing each other on both sides of the strait in the future.
Hometown wanderer
In 1923, with a loud cry, a baby boy descended on a small mountain village northwest of Changning in Hengyang City, which was the first child of the Deng family, and his parents, who were not highly educated, gave him the name "Xuegui".
He is the eldest son in the family, and he has a younger brother and two younger sisters below. The Deng family's parents were ordinary peasants, and in that era, not only bandits came to the village from time to time to plunder supplies, but also looted from the national army.
So in order to reduce the burden on the family, but also to subsidize the family, Deng Xuegui had no choice but to join the army and joined the Kuomintang army, hoping to find a way to live.
Deng Joined the army at the age of 22 and did not return home once until he was 24, after which he was never heard from again, and everyone thought he had died in the war.
In fact, Deng Xuegui, who joined the army, was not able to eat enough to eat and wear as warm as he thought, and in the outdated Kuomintang troops, he could only eat some food that could be fed, and there was no military salary and welfare at all, and ordinary people did not think of the opportunity to emerge.
In 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident broke out, opening the prelude to the japanese army's all-out invasion of China, and under the overwhelming firepower superiority of the Japanese army, the Kuomintang was defeated one after another. A large number of Kuomintang troops poured into Changsha, Hengyang, and other places in a short period of time, and this group of Kuomintang could not fight a war, but it was a good hand to loot the people's fat and people's paste.
However, he did not collude with other national troops and never did anything to oppress the people. After Surviving Those Difficult Days, Deng Xuegui ushered in the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, and Deng Xuegui, who was relieved, wanted to return to his hometown and hoped to live a good life.
However, the Kuomintang arbitrarily tore up the "Double Tenth Agreement" and launched a civil war, and Deng Xuegui was forced to stay in the barracks. However, the Kuomintang army was not popular with the people, and the soldiers did not want to continue fighting.
The defeated Chiang Kai-shek was not willing to do so, and he mobilized a large number of aircraft and ships, transported 100,000 veterans from the mainland, and brought them to the other side of the strait.
At this time, Deng Xuegui's younger brother joined the People's Liberation Army, and fortunately, the two suffering brothers did not meet each other on the battlefield.
However, at that time, cross-strait relations were very tense, and Deng Xuegui could not see a trace of hope of returning home, and felt that all thoughts were gray. As it is, cross-strait relations have not been eased, and the two sides are very sensitive in their swords.
In such an environment, Deng Xuegui could not go home to see his relatives and the old mother who missed each other, and every time he thought of these things, Deng Xuegui could not help but cry of sadness.
"She has never had a good life in her life, I don't know how she is living now, I have dreamed many times of my mother because she misses me and can't eat." 」
However, the fact is also as Deng Xuegui said, with the passage of time, his family will also burn paper for Deng Xuegui when they sacrifice their ancestral graves, and through this method to send mourning.
However, no matter what others say, Deng Xuegui's mother always believes that her son is still alive, no matter the wind and rain, the old mother insists on waiting for her eldest son under the small tree at the mouth of the village every day.
But until the small saplings at the mouth of the village grew into towering trees, the old mother did not wait for Deng Xuegui to return, the old mother washed her face with tears every day, her eyes were blind, and she also insisted on groping under the tree at the mouth of the village every day, waiting for her son from afar to return.
"Oh my son, where are you?" Mother misses you so much! Even if you let me know if I'm dead or alive! ”
This tragedy of the separation of the two sides of the strait, in that era, caused countless families to live and die, and some veterans did not even set foot on their hometown until their deaths.
His mother had worked for most of her life for the family, and although it was hard, she was content with her children and daughters around, but she did not expect that her son, who had not returned home after leaving, did not wait no matter how much she thought about it day and night.
But why is this not the case with Deng Xuegui on the other side of the mainland?
The wanderer is finally gone
In 1987, at the Kuomintang Central Committee Standing Meeting, Chiang Ching-kuo announced that he would open up the mainland to visit his relatives, and at this point, Taiwan veterans who had been separated from the mainland for nearly 40 years finally embarked on a journey home.
There are still some twists and turns in the story of Deng Xuegui's return to his hometown, because Deng Xuegui did not catch up with the list of the first batch of returnees to visit his relatives, so he entrusted his fellow villagers to visit his home and help explain his recent situation, especially his mother.
After anxiously waiting for half a year, the comrades-in-arms of the same village brought a letter to Deng Xuegui, saying that the younger brother had set up a family, the two younger sisters had married out, and the mother was still alive.
Hearing that his mother was still alive, Deng Xuegui could not resist the joy in his heart, and kept sorting out his belongings to prepare to go back, after making many efforts, Deng Xuegui was finally able to step on the soil of his hometown, look at the beauty of his hometown again, and see his relatives who he thought about day and night.
Millions of Taiwan veterans also launched a homecoming visit sports event in Taiwan, holding a rally in the name of "Mother's Day Remote Wishes mother", veterans wearing white shirts and bright red words printed on their backs: "Homesick" and "Mother I miss you so much".
The relatives on the mainland were very anxious to reunite with Deng Xuegui, but at that time, it was in the early stage of reform and opening up, and the family conditions of the younger brothers and sisters were not favorable, and they could not go to Taiwan to see their brothers, so they had to write a letter to let their brother come back.
But when I returned home longingly, I didn't find my mother's figure after pushing open the door, I searched all over the house and the back yard, none, was it to go to the field to work, this is impossible, I came back, this is a big thing, my mother will definitely wait at home.
Under Deng Xuegui's continuous questioning, the younger brother had to say that his mother had passed away a year ago, after hearing this news, Deng Xuegui's mood instantly fell to the bottom, years of backup and suppression had nowhere to vent, he could only run to the old mother's grave and cry and kowtow to the old mother.
The younger brother explained to him that the reason why he was panicking was that he didn't have any bad thoughts, and he also wanted you to be less sad when you came. Time has passed so long, they are no longer young, and if they do not seize the opportunity to see each other again.
After Deng Xuegui heard this, while telling the old mother about the feelings of missing these years, he desperately kowtowed to the old mother to make amends, because the bump was too hard, the forehead was broken, and finally the family could only forcibly pull Deng Xuegui away, who was covered in blood.
The younger brother and Deng Xuegui talked about their mother's missing of him: "My mother has been thinking about you for 40 years, and she has been watching the way you left home at the entrance of the village, and then her eyes are blind. ”
This reminds me of the "nostalgia" I learned when I was a child: later, nostalgia is a short grave, I am outside, and my mother is inside.
Veterans feed back
Although he was unable to see his mother, Deng Xuegui remained at home for a long time. While eating with his younger siblings, Deng Xuegui found that there were almost no meat dishes on the table, and for the mainland people in the 80s, meat was still a luxury.
So he had the idea of supporting his family, and his sister asked why his sister-in-law hadn't come with him. Deng Xuegui said embarrassedly:
"With this Hunan accent, how can you find a daughter-in-law, and after retiring from the army, you can rely on dozens of military salaries, let alone set up a family, and it is not enough to support yourself, but the Taiwan side has allocated a 90-square-meter house, and I live with several comrades-in-arms in Hunan, and I am not lonely at all."
The younger siblings listened to the feelings in their hearts and thought of letting their brother live with them, but Deng Xuegui refused the kindness of his younger siblings on the grounds that he was "used to living in Taiwan", but he promised to go home once every four years.
After the "1992 Consensus" was reached in 1992, cross-strait family visits ushered in a climax, and Deng Xuegui also came to his hometown on the mainland in this year.
He decided to repair the village school, and the last time he came, he saw that the roof was still leaking. Deng Xuegui knew that because of his family's poverty, he had not read a book, so he thought that the children in this mountain could go out of the mountain and have a better life in the future.
At that time, Deng Xuegui saw that the villagers were very poor, so he took out his own money to share it with everyone, in addition to the money for repairing the school, each family was divided into dozens of yuan, don't look at this money is not much, at that time it was not a small amount, at least to solve the daily expenses of many people.
Many years later, when the reporter randomly interviewed those villagers, everyone was grateful to Deng Xuegui and read Deng Xuegui's goodness, Deng Xuegui came back four times in total, and every time he came back, he gave everything to help everyone.
So has Deng Xuegui made any fortune in recent years? In fact, he was just an ordinary veteran who could no longer be ordinary. He has always been frugal, and all this money has been saved by him.
When asked about Deng Xuegui, he said:
After coming to Taiwan, it was not as good as expected, and those who were not familiar with life and had such a meager salary could not afford to spend it in Taiwan, an outrageous place with high prices. He often couldn't afford even a toothpaste, or 5 cents for a pack of cigarettes.
In this way, after Deng Xuegui left his hometown for the fourth time, due to his growing age, it was not convenient to run back and forth, and he gradually lost contact with his family.
Unexpectedly, one day in 2019, I actually called my nephew Deng You'ai and asked him: Do you still raise me when I don't have money?
Due to his age, he could not take better care of his daily life, and with the death of his comrade-in-arms, no one could understand his Hunan dialect, so there were no friends in the local area.
His brothers and sisters have also died one after another, and who else can take care of him, thinking of his nephew Deng You'ai.
Deng You'ai said that when he received the call, he was very ate, and he found that his uncle's ears were a little back, but what he said, uncle did not hear, only said to himself.
Deng You'ai hurriedly said: You wait, I will go to pick you up immediately. After saying it loudly several times in a row, Deng Xuegui was relieved.
As for why I was nervous, it was because I had been wandering outside for so long, and if my nephew didn't want himself again, he would really become a homeless person.
Finally, Deng Xuegui was in his nephew's
The family lived down and is now enjoying their old age.
epilogue.
For a person who has been away from home for decades, the significance of hometown is very important, especially in our country, the word home is particularly valued, that is not a place to stay, but a way home.