This essay is the last of the first edition of "Remembrance of the Watery Years", where Zhu Ziqing recounts a historical event he experienced, the March 18 Massacre. In order to find out the ins and outs of this incident, I deliberately consulted some historical materials.
On March 12, 1926, during the battle between Feng Yuxiang's Nationalist Army and the Feng Army, two Japanese warships escorted the Fengzhi warship into The Dagu Pass and shelled the Nationalist Army, killing and wounding more than ten defenders. The Nationalists returned fire in self-defense, driving the Japanese warships out of The Dagu Pass. Afterwards, Japan believed that the Nationalist Army had violated the "Xinugu Treaty", and on the 16th, together with the envoys of Britain, the United States, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain, issued an ultimatum to the beiyang warlord Duan Qirui's government, proposing to dismantle the dagukou national defense facilities, and ordered a reply within 48 hours, otherwise it would be resolved by force. At the same time, various countries sent warships to Dagukou to threaten the Beiyang government with force.
After the "Dagukou Incident," under the leadership of the CPC Northern Regional Committee and the Kuomintang Beijing Executive Committee, more than 5,000 Beijing students, led by Li Dazhao and others, gathered at Tiananmen Square on 18 July, and passed resolutions such as rejecting the ultimatum of the eight countries, expelling imperialist envoys, immediately withdrawing foreign warships stationed in Tianjin, and organizing a grand anti-imperialist alliance of Beijing citizens. After the meeting, the masses held a parade to petition, and were slaughtered by Duan Qirui's guards in front of the executive government, killing 47 people and wounding 199 people. The next day, the executive government ordered the closure of the Kuomintang Municipal Party Department and the Sino-Russian University, and wanted 50 people, including Li Dazhao and Xu Qian.
Zhu Ziqing also participated in the mass parade at that time, and witnessed with his own eyes how the executive government regarded the lives of the people as grass and mustard, not only firing wildly at the marching masses, but also beating and robbing people with large knives and wooden sticks, and even stripping the dead of their clothes regardless of men and women. Nine out of ten of the victims this time are students, and some of us may not be strangers, such as Liu Hezhen in Lu Xun's "Remembering Liu and Zhenjun" and Wei Jiesan in Zhu Ziqing's "Lamenting Wei Jie Sanjun".
Zhu Ziqing escaped from the massacre of the executive government after several life and death tribulations, and seeing that the records of many newspapers did not match the facts, he resolutely wrote this article in order to let more people know the truth of the tragedy. When I read the article, I seemed to be immersed in the scene, as if I had seen the tragic death of my compatriots who had been slaughtered, heard the sound of gunshots and groans of pain, and felt the horror of things even more. If it were not for so many patriotic young students and people of insight who were not afraid of sacrifice and would have succeeded each other, there would have been no new China of ours.
I believe that history and the people will never forget those brave warriors who shed blood and sacrificed for the country and the nation. Hats off to the warriors!
