In 1999, in Kunlao Village, Mengdong Township, Malipo County, Yunnan Province, surrounded by relatives, a kind-looking old man closed his eyes forever.
Around him, there were local leaders and villagers from the same village, and everyone mourned the old man's departure.
The old man is full of regrets that he has not been able to see the coming of the new century, but he knows that the upcoming 21st century is after all a more peaceful era.
The old man has a legendary history, and during his 49-year militia career, he has always insisted on guarding the border and led the militia fighters in his family and villages to fight against stubborn invaders.
His story has touched countless people, and this old hero is Bao Chaoyuan, who is known as "Bianzhai Old Huang Zhong".
Bao Chaoyuan's award
Growing up in the midst of dangers and dangers
In 1933, the white terror at home became more and more serious, and at the same time, foreign invaders were also eyeing the tiger. Bao Chaoyuan was born in this year.
Bao Chaoyuan, who came from the war years, knew from an early age to defend the motherland and persist in fighting, and in his heart he always hoped to have the opportunity to serve the country.
So in 1952, shortly after becoming an adult, Bao Chaoyuan became a militia fighter. Bao Chaoyuan, who lived in the border village, did not expect such a big change in Sino-Vietnamese relations after that.
When he was young, the border area between China and Vietnam was still peaceful, and many border villages were located at the junction of China and Vietnam, in such an environment, there were many ethnic groups living here, everyone was like brothers, with a similar ethnic and cultural background, living together in this land.
In addition to the daily trade in goods, there are also many Chinese and Vietnamese families, Bao Chaoyuan and his wife Wang Jinlan from Vietnam come together in such a harmonious environment.
Bao Chaoyuan thought that he could live a peaceful life with his wife forever, but he did not expect that the gunshots of the French invaders would soon be clearly audible, shocking the entire border area.
Bao Chaoyuan's wife Wang Jinlan
At that time, China and Vietnam were cold in each other, and Bao Chaoyuan and his villagers living in the Border Village area could deeply feel this stake, so they spared no effort to support the Vietnamese people.
Later, when the war was won, when Bao Chaoyuan and the villagers thought that peace had finally returned, the huge differences between China and Vietnam not only made the two countries go farther and farther, but also greatly affected the villagers living in the border villages.
Border village at the junction of China and Vietnam
The once "brothers" turned their knives at those who had helped them, and the shadow of war once again covered the land.
As a person who has grown up in this land for generations, Bao Chaoyuan has always firmly believed in defending his family and defending the country.
Whoever wants to destroy their stable life and encroach on their land will be beaten out. Under the single-minded struggle of the military and the people, the war was won. But the undead Viet Cong continued to harass.
Honest and old, still able to eat or not
At that time, Bao Chaoyuan, who was more than half a hundred years old at that time, took on a heavy responsibility in times of crisis, and the old Ji Futuo, who was determined to be a thousand miles away, became the commander of the joint defense film of the nine village militias.
Although the enemy was cunning and the battle situation was grim, Bao Chaoyuan never thought of retreating, taking a gun when he had a gun, using a hoe when he did not have a gun, and doing everything he could to drive the enemy out of his homeland.
Bao Chaoyuan not only served as the commander of the joint defense film himself, he also led his family into battle.
A family of 9 with 5 militia fighters.
Bao Chaoyuan (first from the right)
In order to better deal with the enemy, Bao Chaoyuan formulated a variety of battle plans in view of the enemy situation at that time and the actual situation in the local area, and also formulated countermeasures according to the mode of action of vietnamese agents.
At that time, the agents of the Vietnamese army often adopted multiple and scattered means to disperse the entire special task force team and reduce the target and infiltrate. Bao Chaoyuan, who has been working with Vietnamese agents for many years, is also very familiar with their methods.
After each battle, he reviews the battle and takes the other fighters along with him to analyze the enemy's strategy and gain lessons.
He even made a detailed analysis of the enemy's appearance, clothing, demeanor, language, and other characteristics, and was even more familiar with the enemy's activity laws.
In the battle against Vietnamese agents, not only a wealth of experience is required, but also a keen ability to observe, not to let go of any clues, a seemingly inconspicuous trace may provide very important information.
And Bao Chaoyuan also repeatedly explored the environment, thus finding traces of the enemy.
Vietnamese Army
Astute probing, unique sharp eyes
On July 1, 1980, the early morning village had not yet fully awakened, revealing a hint of unusualness in a quiet atmosphere.
After the militiaman Wang Kailin went out, he found that there was a footprint on the ground, and his rich combat experience made him immediately realize that this footprint was definitely not from the villagers.
So he immediately found his squad leader Wang Kaiming, who came to the place where Wang Kailin found the footprint and looked at it, and he also felt that the footprint was very suspicious. So he led several militia fighters to follow the footprints quietly.
footprints
When I walked to one place, I found that the clear footprints just now overlapped, which meant that the enemy may have had a brief meeting here, which meant that there was not only one enemy in the village now.
The situation immediately became serious, and Wang Kaiming let the other militia fighters quickly occupy the favorable terrain, hide and monitor the enemy's tracks, but could not fight the grass and snakes, and he hurried to find Bao Chaoyuan.
After Bao Chaoyuan heard the report, he immediately gathered more militia fighters, and while first going to deliver news to the troops, he took his two sons and other militia fighters to support the militia fighters who were monitoring the vanguard.
Militia fighters
After locking the scope, Bao Chaoyuan observed the footprints in detail, and after discussion with Wang Kaiming and others, he determined that these were indeed the footprints of the enemy.
Because the shoe pattern left by the enemy agents at that time was quite special, similar to the shoe pattern of the large-scalp shoes produced in our country before, but the villagers in the surrounding villages had to engage in heavy physical labor every day, who would wear such shoes to work.
And this kind of shoe has long been discontinued in China, and it is too strange to appear in such a border village.
Big scalp shoes
Sure enough, their analysis was justified, because three hidden enemies were found in a bush, and in the engagement with the enemy, although the enemy was well trained, our militia fighters were not bad, brave and strategic, and had rich combat experience.
One enemy was soon killed, and two wounded enemies tried to escape and fell into the prearranged encirclement of the militia fighters, at which point another enemy was killed.
The sound of gunfire awakened the other villagers in the village, and when they heard the gunshots, they were not afraid at all, picked up the farm tools at home and rushed out to support the militia, at this time the border troops who received the news also arrived, and the remaining agent naturally could not escape with his wings.
Experienced, courageous and decisive
Such incidents can be said to be numerous in Bao Chaoyuan's combat career, because Vietnamese agents are extremely stealthy, so in many cases, Bao Chaoyuan will get clues from the footprints left by the enemy.
Once Bao Chaoyuan's wife Wang Jinlan returned from labor, it was originally an ordinary evening, but bao Chaoyuan returned home to find that although his wife had returned, the little black dog who accompanied his wife out had not returned home for a long time.
Although the little black dog is usually a bit playful, at night, the little black dog will return home without calling. Moreover, the mountain forest not far away that night was not very peaceful, and there were several gunshots.
Wang Jinlan
At this time, Bao Chaoyuan was a little anxious, because the little black dog was very clever, in the battle with the enemy, the little black dog also helped a lot, Bao Chaoyuan was worried about whether the little black dog met the enemy and was killed by the enemy.
With such concerns, Bao Chaoyuan had been waiting for the little black dog to return, but it was almost dawn and there was still no movement.
At this time, Bao Chaoyuan thought that he could not wait any longer, the terrain of the mountains and forests was complicated, and it was even more dangerous after dark, and it was not easy to go in to investigate.
But it was different at dawn, so Bao Chaoyuan immediately woke up his son and went with him to find the little black dog. Sure enough, the enemy was hidden in the mountains and forests.
After dark, Vietnamese agents entered the forest, where they had fired the gunshots of the previous night. This time, the enemy's tracks were also found through footprints.
Because when Bao Chaoyuan walked through a dry valley, he saw the footprints of someone in the field. How can a good road go from here, and the dew on the grass is gone.
Vietnamese agents entered the mountains
Bao Chaoyuan found that although the enemy was deliberately destroying the footprints he had walked, with his meticulous observation ability, Bao Chaoyuan quickly concluded that the enemy had walked by at dawn.
Because at this time, moving forward can hide the figure, and it is not as difficult as late at night. However, because they had walked through, there was no more dew on the grass, and their footprints were different from normal villagers.
With these two points, Bao Chaoyuan tracked down the enemy.
Bao Chaoyuan
Because he destroyed the enemy's plot several times, the enemy also hated Bao Chaoyuan to the bone, and even took out 30,000 yuan as a reward.
At that time, 30,000 yuan was a huge amount of money, but no one in the border village was willing to betray Bao Chaoyuan.
Bao Chaoyuan himself was also indifferent to such a reward, he just smiled slightly. Although sometimes his family was worried that he was getting older and afraid that he would have an accident.
But Bao Chaoyuan was determined to guard the village and was unwilling to leave the land where the family had lived for generations.
village
Discern right from wrong, and pull out adultery
However, this reward still caused Bao Chaoyuan to reflect, for the enemy, understanding the situation of the border village is a basic lesson, and Bao Chaoyuan often fights on the front line and fights with the enemy many times.
It's not surprising that the enemy knows him, but why do they know his identity so thoroughly?
What Bao Chaoyuan wondered was that in the time before and after the release of the bounty, the enemy seemed to have installed an internal response in the border village, not only to know more about the situation in the village, but also to predict Bao Chaoyuan's actions.
After much thought, Bao Chaoyuan thought that there might be infighting in the border village, and not only passed on various information, but also revealed each action to the enemy.
As a leader, Bao Chaoyuan knew that he should not easily suspect his brothers and villagers who fought side by side, but the current situation forced him to determine a specific goal.
In Bao Chaoyuan's view, many villagers have lived here for generations, and many people have never left here in their lives and have deep feelings for this land.
Villagers
They are already deeply affected by the intrusion of the enemy, and they should not do such a thing for a little money. So Bao Chaoyuan shifted his suspicious gaze to the immigrants.
After several days of observation and analysis, Bao Chaoyuan locked on to the target, and Bao Chaoyuan did not expect that this person was his brother-in-law Huang Tiantian.
Huang Tiantian also came from Vietnam and has been living in the village since marrying his sister.
Although Huang Tiantian is Vietnamese, he cannot be suspected of this suspicion because of his identity.
Bao Chaoyuan was finally convinced that it was Huang Tiantian, because he had previously acted likely to collude with the enemy and his recent increasingly abnormal behavior.
During the period of changes in the relations between the two countries, Huang Tiantian secretly communicated with the Vietnamese side and distributed some political propaganda leaflets for the other side.
At that time, he was only warned, and Huang Tiantian became cautious later, never catching conclusive evidence.
This time, Bao Chaoyuan felt that he could not let Huang Tiantian go any longer, so he arranged for militia fighters to secretly monitor Huang Tiantian's every move, and at the same time informed the local police station of the information.
While the public security organs and militia organizations such as Bao Chaoyuan were preparing to carry out an operation to arrest Huang Tiantian, Huang Tiantian heard the wind and fled to Vietnam with the help of Vietnamese agents.
Not catching Huang Tiantian with his own hands has also become a major regret for Bao Chaoyuan.
Where fate is bound, the heart is bound
Since then, Vietnam has not given up the reward for Bao Chaoyuan, but Bao Chaoyuan has never been afraid, and he has led three generations of his family to guard the border area by example.
In the eyes of the enemy, Bao Chaoyuan may be a god of war, but in the eyes of the villagers in the border village, he is a protective god.
He not only guards the tranquility of his homeland, but also leads the villagers on the road to get rid of poverty and get rich. When he was invited to the symposium of old heroic models of the militia, he once said that even as an old hero, he could not always lie on the merit book.
Bao Chaoyuan, who has been fighting all his life, is like the veteran general Huang Zhong, who values his duties more than his life. He never used his merits to ask for anything, when the division gave each old militia hero a set of military uniforms.
Bao Chaoyuan, who received the military uniform, cherished it very much and would never take it out until a special occasion, because he knew that this military uniform represented his identity and reminded him of the mission and task he shouldered.
Honors received by Bao Chaoyuan
In the last days of Bao Chaoyuan's life, when Bao Chaoyuan had been diagnosed with advanced liver cancer, he insisted on returning to his home, and just after the New Year, the local leaders came to visit him and gave him a brand new military uniform.
Bao Chaoyuan touched the military uniform and shed tears, he knew that he could no longer wear this military uniform, and he could no longer return to the "battlefield" he was worried about, but he still said that his life was worth living.
Although Bao Chaoyuan died at the age of 65, his fighting spirit still remains in the hearts of the people of Bianzhai, and his story is still recited to this day. This old man, who made the Vietnamese agents feel frightened, was a "militia hero" without compromise!
bibliography:
[1] Gu Weiming and Luo Fang, eternal heroes, written in the last days of the life journey of the old militia hero Bao Chaoyuan.
[2] Zhang Deyuan and Lu Weidong, Bao Chaoyuan, "hero of the border militia".