Marshal Chen Yi, who was handling official business in his office, received a letter, which was already in 1949 and had been decided. The founding of New China has entered the preparatory stage, and Marshal Chen Yi is now the mayor of Shanghai, taking care of every opportunity every day. Marshal Chen Yi sighed that he was busier than when he was fighting.
On this day, Marshal Chen Yi received a letter. At that time, Chen Yi had other matters in his hands to deal with, so he asked the guards next to him to read out the contents of the letter. Before he could read it, Marshal Chen Yi's expression changed, and it was a letter written by a "peasant woman" mentioning the eight hundred heroes of the Four-Line Warehouse. Why did this peasant woman write? What did the eight hundred brave men go through after the battle?
1. Letter from a peasant woman
It is not unusual for a peasant woman to be able to write in this day and age. However, more than 80 years ago, reading was a relative luxury, let alone a woman, and the idea that a woman is talentless is moral is deeply rooted. This "peasant woman" who wrote the letter not only had a good hand, but also revealed a very high cultural knowledge between the lines.
It turned out that this was not an ordinary peasant woman, she was Ling Weicheng, the wife of Xie Jinyuan, the leader of the Eight Hundred Heroes of the Sixing Warehouse. Ling Weicheng was no ordinary peasant woman. In addition to being the widow of a martyr, she is also a talented woman from a well-off family, and she can get her hands on all kinds of piano, chess, calligraphy and painting.
After marrying Xie Jinyuan, the pregnant Ling Weicheng took her three underage children from Shanghai to live in the countryside. She put away her cheongsam and delicate makeup, and became a peasant woman every day to live in the fields. Although her life is not particularly rich, she is still full of hope, because Xie Jinyuan promised to wait until the victory of the War of Resistance, and she will be reunited with her children.
Ling Weicheng believed that her husband would not deceive himself, but day after day passed, Ling Weicheng never saw her husband to pick him up. Finally, Ling Weicheng had the news of her husband, but was told that her husband had died. She confirmed the news when she arrived in Chongqing with her four children. At this time, Ling Weicheng also knew the feat of her husband leading eight hundred brave soldiers to resist the Japanese army.
Second, fight alone
On July 7, 1937, Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China, and the war soon spread to Shanghai. Under the fierce artillery attack, in order to avoid the total annihilation of the Nationalist army, it was decided to retreat to retain strength, and in order to make this retreat successful, it was necessary to leave some people to defend The north of Shanghai Zhabei and divert the attention of the Japanese army.
Xie Jinyuan, who was already the deputy of the regiment at the time, expressed his willingness to take on this arduous and important task. Xie Jinyuan led a total of more than 450 people to form a reinforcement battalion. In order to confuse the enemy's line of sight and increase the momentum, 800 people were announced to the outside world.
After an on-site inspection, Xie Jinyuan decided to use the Shanghai Sixing Warehouse as a base to cover the retreat of the large troops. After the soldiers arrived at the warehouse, Xie Jinyuan again boosted morale, but also told his comrades that this was their last position or maybe their grave. These warriors swore to coexist and die with the Four Rows.
Although the four-row warehouse is called a warehouse, it is still very strong with six floors high and built of reinforced concrete. The building was surrounded by Japanese troops, and Sihangcang became an isolated island. There were no reinforcements or supplies for this battle, and only a few hundred warriors fought alone.
The battle finally began, the Japanese launched a fierce attack, and more than 450 brave men held their positions and engaged in five weeks of long maneuvers with the Japanese army, which bought valuable time for the retreat of the large troops. Because the British near Sihangcang were worried about being affected, they sent people to put pressure on Chiang Kai-shek to make the sihangcang heroes retreat!
No one expected that this was nothing more than a British ploy. The brave men were taken by the British to a dark and damp basement, and in the name of custody, they asked the soldiers to hand over their weapons, Xie Jinyuan naturally disagreed, and the British said that they could make an IOU. Who knew that after the British had lost their weapons, they would take the heroes to an abandoned camp and let them fend for themselves.
Third, it is difficult to survive
At that time, the abandoned camp only had tents, and Xie Jinyuan only owned four bungalows at his insistence. By this time they had been here for a year, and the camp was also known as the Lone Camp. Despite being captured, Xie Jinyuan still strictly demanded all soldiers with militarized management.
These people eat only two meals a day, go to bed at 9 p.m. every day, and get up at 4:30 a.m. In addition to daily training, they insisted on learning culture every day, and many illiterate warriors learned to write. As a result of the betrayal of Xie Jinyuan by the traitors, the soldiers were sent by the Japanese to many places to do hard labor, and even some were escorted overseas and eventually died in foreign lands.
Fourth, Ling Weicheng stepped forward
The news of Xie Jinyuan's sacrifice was known to his wife Ling Weicheng. The strong woman, who wanted to learn about her husband's life in the lone army camp in her last years, came to Shanghai with her children and found a reporter who published a message in the newspaper indicating her identity and the hotel where she was staying at the time. The message is like a rally number.
Some of the soldiers who were still surviving in Shanghai saw the news and went to the regimental commander's wife, and it was only then that Ling Weicheng learned that they were not doing well. Some were left unheard of, while others suffered in prisoner-of-war camps. Although liberated by this time, these people still lived a life of loneliness and loneliness.
Ling Weicheng decided to help the soldiers, her original idea was to find the Nationalist government, Song Meiling only said a grandiose word and then did not take substantive action. On the one hand, Ling Weicheng entrusted skilled veterans to find jobs to organize industrial service agencies to help themselves, and on the other hand, he asked Marshal Chen Yi, who was the mayor of Shanghai at the time, to seek help.
For writing this letter, Ling Weicheng was not sure that Marshal Chen Yi would definitely help himself, but just held the mentality of trying. After Chen Yi received this letter, even though he was very busy at the time, he attached great importance to the content of the letter.
At that time, Ling Weicheng proposed in the letter that he wanted to leave a small three-story building on Wusong Road in Shanghai for himself to house the soldiers. Marshal Chen Yi not only met this requirement, but also properly placed all the surviving veterans, while also exempting the rent of renting a three-story building, which relieved Ling Weicheng and the surviving soldiers of a great burden.
summary:
For 12 years from 1937 to 1949, after the Battle of Sihangcang, these veterans lived a life of displacement, they were mistreated by the Japanese in prisoner-of-war camps, and some were sent overseas to bury their bones. Even those who survived were not properly arranged by the National Government.
These veterans were also lucky, and with the efforts of the regimental commander's wife Ling Weicheng and the help of Marshal Chen Yi, they were able to enjoy a happy and stable life without having to live a precarious life. In the attitude towards veterans, we can see why Chiang Kai-shek failed. The story of Xie Jinyuan and the eight hundred heroes will also go down in history.