In 1951, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Party Central Committee prepared to convene a national congress of veterans and martyrs to commend and comfort those soldiers and their relatives who had made outstanding achievements on the battlefield.
The process of sending out invitations can be said to be a twist and turn, because many soldiers chose to return to their hometowns after the war and live in obscurity.
One of the most difficult to find is one of the survivors of the Five Heroes of Wolf Tooth Mountain, Song Xueyi.
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When the Party Central Committee sent the list to Song Xueyi's hometown, the officials of the Qinyang County government were astonished, because they had no idea that there was such a fighting hero in the local area.
Due to the underdevelopment of information technology, the Qinyang County government went to great lengths to find out where Song Xueyi's current residence was. However, they learned that Song Xueyi had stored his household registration in his wife's hometown of Yi County, so they came to Yi County to look for Song Xueyi's traces. Although there was still no result, he successfully found Song Xueyi's father-in-law.
With the help of Song Xueyi's father-in-law, the commissioner of Qinyang County finally successfully found Song Xueyi in a small village. However, when they met, the commissioner couldn't believe that the person with his back in front of him was actually Song Xueyi, who was only in his thirties.
So what exactly did Song Xueyi go through to become so vicissitudes? Why did he choose to remain anonymous after the war? Before getting into the main topic, new friends can pay a little attention, not only not miss the wonderful content of the future, but also review the past videos.
Cover the retreat and defend the Wolf's Tooth Mountain
In 1918, Song Xueyi was born in Qinyang County, Henan Province. Three generations of the Song family are poor peasants, grandfather and father have been working long-term jobs for landlords for many years to earn money, in order to subsidize the family, Song Xueyi has been working as a child laborer with his brother since he was a child.
The family worked day and night, and even so, the family conditions were still very poor, and sometimes even unable to make ends meet.
The family's only property was two acres of life-saving land, but in 1937, due to the usury of forty silver dollars, even the remaining two acres of land were taken away by the landlord.
The family's life was even more difficult, and they could not even eat, in this case, Song Xueyi had to leave his hometown and flee the famine to ask for food.
In July of the same year, the Japanese army launched a war of aggression against our country. Song Xueyi, who had fled the wilderness, was grieved to learn that his aunt and cousin had been killed by the Japanese army. Two years later, Song Xueyi, who had been from the economic source, happened to encounter the anti-Japanese guerrillas, and thinking of the misfortune brought by the invaders to his family and the country, he resolutely joined the army.
In 1940, Song Xueyi was assigned to the sixth squad of the seventh company, two platoons, one regiment of the first military sub-district of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region.
Although he did not have any combat experience before, after joining the army, Song Xueyi practiced his skills and skills diligently, and soon made great progress.
In the shooting competition held by the company, Song Xueyi won the second place.
After that, he followed the troops to participate in more than a dozen battles, large and small, each time outstanding performance, and once snatched a large gun from the Japanese army, and the comrades of the whole company felt envy and admiration for his wit and bravery.
In 1941, the Japanese army launched an encirclement and suppression of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, and tens of thousands of elite troops of the Japanese army were threatening. In order to ensure the safety of the party and government personnel and the main force from the enemy and the successful transfer, the regimental commander entrusted the task of containing the Japanese army to the sixth class of Song Xueyi.
The Japanese troops were not only well-equipped, but also in great contrast to the six squads, which was equivalent to each soldier of the six squads having to deal with hundreds of Japanese soldiers, and the task was quite arduous.
In order to make the Japanese mistakenly think that the main force of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region remained in Wolf's Tooth Mountain, all the mines and grenades in the company were left to six squads, and a machine gun group with three machine guns was deployed for them.
When the besieged masses and cadres successfully broke out of the encirclement and the other regiments withdrew from the battle, the sixth squad immediately took advantage of the night to begin a tense deployment. They planted mines on the roads that the Japanese might have passed, making the Japanese's way forward dangerous.
After doing a good job of ambush work, Song Xueyi and his comrade-in-arms Hu Fu took the initiative to apply to stand guard and monitor the enemy. In the early morning of the next day, Song Xueyi, who was experienced in reconnaissance, sensed that the Japanese troops had begun to move, and immediately reported the matter to the squad leader, waking up the comrades who were resting, and the battle began.
Complete the mission and jump off a cliff
Taking advantage of the bright sky, the soldiers of the sixth squad saw that the Japanese army had indeed attacked the hill they were holding.
According to the arrangement of the squad leader Ma Baoyu, Song Xueyi and the other three comrades pulled away and guarded different machine guns. At this time, many Japanese troops entered the mine net they had laid in advance, and the sound of explosions continued to be heard from down the mountain. Of course, there were still many Japanese troops who were not blown up by the mines and rushed up with bayonets.
Watching them get closer and closer, Ma Baoyu gave an order, and the warriors began to throw grenades at the enemy and fire machine guns.
The Japanese troops on the winding mountain road were thus stuck in the middle, unable to go up or down. Only a few lucky ones ran back to convey a message to the Japanese commander under the cliff.
When the Japanese commander heard about the situation, he immediately concluded that the main force of our army remaining on Wolf's Tooth Mountain was half successful.
Immediately afterward, the Japanese bombarded dozens of mountain artillery pieces together towards the hill and began a wild and indiscriminate bombardment. However, what they did not know was that long before this, Ma Baoyu had led the whole class of soldiers to hide in the crevices of the rock, and Song Xueyi also played chess with the deputy squad leader, and was not affected by the Japanese artillery fire at all.
After the shelling stopped, Ma Baoyu immediately commanded everyone to find cover, because the Japanese army was about to start a second round of attack on the mountain.
They stared intently in the direction of the enemy's advance, and when they were twenty meters away, they immediately opened fire, one shot at a time, without any false shots. When the Japanese threw grenades at them, they immediately picked them up and threw them down the hill, hitting the Japanese troops in and out of the ocean.
After repelling five Japanese attacks, Ma Baoyu estimated the time, believing that the main forces and organ personnel and the masses should have been successfully evacuated at this time, so he was also ready to retreat with six squads of fighters.
The group walked to the back hill, and when they reached the three forks of the road, Ma Baoyu was ready to lead everyone north, at this time Song Xueyi reminded that this was the direction of the main force and the masses, in case they caught up with them, there were Japanese troops trailing behind, which would bring a threat.
Hearing this, Ma Baoyu led his warriors to the south, which was more complicated. After bidding farewell to the machine gun group, the entire unit was left with only five people, including Ma Baoyu and Song Xueyi, who were quickly caught up by the Japanese army, and the two sides engaged in a firefight, and the soldiers were unfortunately wounded.
They continued to lead the Japanese troops to the top of the mountain, and gradually they had no ammunition in their hands, so they had to lift the stones next to them as weapons.
By the end, there was not a single stone on the top of the mountain that could be lifted. The Japanese commanders constantly clamored to capture them alive, but Song Xueyi and others were resolutely unwilling to be taken prisoners, and even a little weapon was not willing to be captured by the Japanese army.
They broke their guns, threw them off the cliff, shouted the slogan "Down with Japanese imperialism", and jumped off the cliff together.
Lucky survived, anonymous
The five warriors all felt as if they were dying when they jumped off the cliff, but fortunately, Song Xueyi and his comrade-in-arms Ge Zhenlin were tripped by a branch halfway up the mountain. Subsequently, the director of the Youth Anti-Japanese Salvation Congress in Yixian County, Hebei Province, found and rescued them, and the two survived. The next day, the two returned to the unit and were rewarded by Commander Nie Rongzhen.
When everyone invited Song Xueyi to give a report, he simply told everyone about the experience of the battle on Wolf's Tooth Mountain and the situation after jumping off the cliff. Song Xueyi said that he was able to survive because of luck.
Compared with the other three comrades who sacrificed, he was undoubtedly lucky, but it also made him feel very ashamed, because the five made a vow to live and die together, but they survived.
It was precisely because of this psychological burden that when the organization proposed to apply for battle merit for him, Song Xueyi strongly refused. Although he personally insisted on not being honored by battle, the company still reported the deeds of the five heroes of Wolf's Tooth Mountain to his superiors, and reported them to the Party Central Committee layer by layer.
The Party Central Committee attaches great importance to this matter, and has also compiled the deeds of the Battle of Wolf-Tooth Mountain into a pamphlet for everyone to study.
After recovering from his injuries, the organization arranged for Song Xueyi to study at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, but he had not received education since he was a child and felt that he was incompatible with the surrounding environment. Soon after, Song Xueyi requested to return to the army to continue fighting, and considering his physical condition, the Party Central Committee repeatedly rejected his request.
Song Xueyi knew very well that this was because he was too badly injured in the waist, it was impossible to go to the battlefield again, and he was unwilling to add trouble and burden to the organization, so he chose to take off his military uniform and leave the army.
In 1943, Song Xueyi applied to the organization for a job transfer, the chiefs really could not help him, after several times without results, agreed to let him return to Yi County, Hebei Province as a demobilized soldier, and settled here. Song Xueyi, who worked as a farmer in Yi County, met his wife, formed a new family, and returned to his hometown, Beikong Village, Qinyang County, four years later.
At this time, most of Song Xueyi's relatives were gone, and there were only three broken houses in the family that did not even have tiles. With the help of his fellow villagers, he repaired the house and started a new life with his wife.
After returning home, he never mentioned to the people around him the story of being the "Five Heroes of Wolf Tooth Mountain", and even the children did not know anything about it.
The only source of income for the family is farming, and Song Xueyi's waist injury is very serious, but he still insists on working in the field every day. Such heavy physical labor caused great pressure on his body, and every night when he came home, he would have such pain in his back that he could not even eat.
In order to solve this problem, he put on a special waistband steel card and did not complain a single word. Even the government's offer to give him a subsidy was rejected by him, and the family lived in great poverty.
The Chairman received and changed his hometown
In 1951, the Party Central Committee invited Song Xueyi, one of the five survivors of the Wolf-Tooth Mountain, to attend the congress, and after many twists and turns, he finally found him living in a small mountain village in Qinyang County. When the Commissioner of Qinyang County came to Song Xueyi's house, he couldn't believe that the face in front of him was full of wrinkles, and the person with his back was actually Song Xueyi, because according to the data, he was only in his thirties.
Years of hard work and repeated injuries tortured him like an old man.
When the county vigorously publicized Song Xueyi's deeds of fighting on the Wolf's Tooth Mountain, the village knew that there was such a great battle hero hidden around him. The villagers all admired him and came to visit the house with eggs and grain, but Song Xueyi politely refused all of these wishes.
In his view, he was not a hero, but just fulfilled his duties and obligations as a soldier.
In 1959, Chairman Mao also invited Song Xueyi to Beijing to participate in the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the National Day. Chairman Mao personally received Song Xueyi and invited him to a meal, although the staple food was only the common roast cake and millet porridge, but this meeting impressed Song Xueyi.
After his identity was confirmed, Song Xueyi began to frequently participate in various activities, such as the National Labor Model Conference and the National Militia Congress, and was invited to give reports and speeches, but he himself did not make any requests to the organization.
When he was appointed secretary of the Beikong village branch, he also thought about how to improve the living conditions of the villagers.
At that time, the biggest problem in the village was that the natural conditions were too poor. When the summer and autumn flood season arrives, the land in the village will be flooded by water, and after the flood recedes, the ground will be flooded with white salinity, and even the water in the well will be bitter at this time.
In order to solve this problem once and for all, Song Xueyi decided to implement salinity transformation in Beikong Village.
When the start of construction was winter, Song Xueyi took the lead in jumping into the frozen river to dig mud. At that time, his physical condition was not optimistic, and when it rained on a cloudy day, his waist hurt so much that he couldn't straighten up at all.
Every time he led the villagers to dig the river during the day to drain the water, when he came home at night, he would secretly hide in the house and moan in pain.
But the next day, he would bring a special waist steel card and appear in the ground on time.
In order to change the appearance of his hometown and let the villagers live a good life, Song Xueyi worked hard to overcome the pain caused by the waist injury, and stubbornly stood up his waist, which was obviously not straight.
Whether it is digging rivers to drain water, digging wells, adjusting water channels, planning roads or leveling land, Song Xueyi will always be at the forefront.
After three years of hard work, Song Xueyi led the villagers to drill more than 30 machine wells for the whole village, and successfully built six or seven ditches to ensure that nearly 200 acres of cultivated land in the village can be irrigated with well water. The saline alkali land in Beikong Village has thus become a fertile field, and the output has increased from less than 100 catties in the past to more than 700 catties.
As a village cadre, Song Xueyi not only took the lead in the work, but also took the initiative to take out his military disability allowance to help the poor villagers, and visited the homes of these villagers every New Year's Festival.
In the eyes of everyone, Song Xueyi is a combat hero, but he only regards himself as a farmer. Before being confirmed, he lived in anonymity and worked in the field with back pain. After being discovered, he devoted all his energy to improving the lives of the villagers and changing the face of his hometown.
The long-term revolutionary struggle and hard work made Song Xueyi's body bear more and more burdens and pressures, and eventually suffered from liver cancer. In June 1971, Song Xueyi died of ineffective liver cancer treatment.
Under the influence of his father, Song Xueyi's six children joined the army successively, and five republican soldiers also came out of his grandchildren' generation.
The hero is gone, but the spirit lives on. In the wolf's tooth mountain square surrounded by mountains, the statues of the five warriors stand majestically, and whenever they see them, people will recall the pictures of the mighty mountains and rivers of eighty years ago. Song Xueyi left to the times not only a heroic and tenacious spirit of struggle, but also an obscure, arduous and simple spirit of dedication and struggle.