Text/Yu Quancheng
I love animals and raised chickens, rabbits and dogs as a child. In 1978, he was transferred from Xinwen Mining Bureau to Longkou Mining District with his father. When I first came, I lived in the single dormitory of the North Soap Coal Mine, went to school in Longkou Hongqi Lian, at that time I could not ride a bicycle, there was no bus, and I walked more than 10 miles to school every day. On the way out of school, it is often seen that the horse-drawn carriage of the north soap village to the port to deliver sand back. Sometimes when I meet a kind master, he will take me for a ride, and I am grateful to the master who drives the car from the bottom of my heart, and I have also developed a strong interest in the mule and horse pulling the car. Once, my father and I met my master on the side of the road, and my father thanked him and gave him a box of "front door" cigarettes that he had brought with him. After the people left, my father said that the mule pulling the cart was really like the mule in his hometown.
In a word, aroused my curiosity, and at my pleading, my father opened the topic.
It turned out that before liberation, my great-grandfather Yu Guangji and my second great-grandfather Yu Bingnan lived in their hometown of Penglai'an Xiangyu. My grandfather and brothers, who were doing business in the northeast, had no male laborers at home, had to hire people to take care of the farmland for many years, and in order to reduce the intensity of labor, my great-grandfather bought mules and horse-drawn carriages. The family was very fond of the mule, as if it were their own, and used the two east wing rooms in their front yard as a living room for the cattle; because the family took good care of them, the mule was handsome and powerful.
The hometown mules are brownish red and are horse mules. Although it cannot have children, it has many advantages, it is large, endurance, has the weight-bearing ability of donkeys, has the flexibility and running ability of horses, especially in rural farmland to make more mules, is a kind of cattle that save food and ability.
Father and mule have a deep affection. When my father was a child, there were mules in the family, and it can be said that mules accompanied my father's growth. It is the nature of boys to like animals, and fathers are no exception, when they were young, they went to the fields with adults to work, and always loved to let adults sit on the back of mules for a while. At home, the father fed the mules water and grass whenever he had free time. Mules are also emotional, although they can't speak, but when they see their father, they always like to sniff at their fathers with their noses, rub them on their fathers with their wide foreheads, pick up their hooves and step on the ground a few times, and their ears move to show friendship.
At that time, there were not many families in the village with mules and carriages. My great-grandfather was kind and had a good reputation. When neighbors and their families sometimes need to borrow a carriage to pull grass and grain and marry relatives, the great-grandfather is responsive and cheerfully agrees. Although the mule has exerted some strength, the neighbors are also so grateful to it that they often send some grain and grass to the mule.
My father told me that my hometown, Anxiang Yujia, was the early revolutionary base of Penglai. In the red land, a number of patriotic young people have emerged, more than 200 households and more than 800 people in the village, and during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, more than 130 people joined the revolutionary contingent or participated in revolutionary work. Their patriotic actions also integrated my mule into the revolutionary ranks, and from then on embarked on the red road and contributed to the revolutionary cause.
In August 1937, the Penglai County Committee of the Communist Party of China was established in Anxiang Yujia. At the beginning of 1938, Yu Mei, the first secretary of the county party committee, together with his second brother Yu Zhongshu and the fourth brother Yu Jiyu, organized an anti-Japanese armed uprising and established the second road of the Third Army of the Shandong People's Anti-Japanese Salvation Army, firing the first shot of the Penglai Anti-Japanese War. The rebel contingent moved to the Aigu Mountains in the southern mountains of Penglai and established the Aigu Mountains Anti-Japanese Base Area. Located at the junction of Penglai, Qixia and Huangxian Counties, the Aigu Mountains are far away from the county seat, surrounded by mountains, the terrain is dangerous, difficult to attack and easy to defend, the room for maneuver is large, and the masses have a good foundation, which is convenient for carrying out revolutionary work. The second great-grandfather, Yu Bingnan, was publicly the village chief, actually engaged in underground work for the party, and in 1944, he served as the first secretary of the village's party branch, and in order to support the revolutionary work, Yu Bingnan actively collected grain for the troops. Although my great-grandfather was not a party member, he had high patriotic enthusiasm and was also an active member of the revolution, and in cooperation with Yu Bingnan to cover up the revolutionary comrades, he supported his youngest daughter Yu Linying, who was only 16 years old, to join the revolution when his three sons were in other places, and became a militiaman and stood guard; in the later stages of the Liberation War, he also let my father, Yu Mingqin, who was also his most beloved eldest grandson, join the children's regiment and serve as the leader of the children's regiment. Every time the public grain was handed over, the great-grandfather took the lead in responding, taking out the best grain and paying enough public grain as required. In his opinion, only when the comrades of the army have enough to eat can they have the strength to destroy the enemy.
At that time, when delivering military food to the troops in the mountainous areas, because there were still enemy sentries along the road, they could not be transported by horse-drawn carriage, and for safety reasons, they often set off in the middle of the night, and the troops came to lead the way, and Yu Bingnan organized more than ten livestock to carry grain and walk around the trail. Before each departure, my great-grandfather fed the mules with hay early and personally went to deliver military food.
There are more than 50 kilometers from Anxiang Yujia to the Aigu Mountains, basically delivered on the first day and returned the next day. Once, on the way back, when approaching the village of Lianhuapo in Chunyu Township, it suddenly rained heavily, and seeing that the rain was falling non-stop, my great-grandfather was very anxious, and suddenly remembered that Yu Bingnan once said that there was a friend in the village named Yu Leyun, and there was something to turn to on the road. So my great-grandfather came to his house to take shelter from the rain. After the mule was placed, the great-grandfather chatted with people while baking clothes, and this conversation also talked about family affection, it turned out that our two ancestors were of the same clan, from Wenden Dashui, which could open the conversation box and talk until late at night to rest. After my great-grandfather returned to the village, he told his descendants that there were relatives of the same clan in Lotus Po. After liberation, his great-grandfather learned that Yu Leyun was a veteran party member who joined the party in 1938, and his family was a secret liaison station for the party organization. From 1953 to 1955, when my father was studying in the fourth class of the sixth grade of Penglai No. 1 Middle School, the classmate and class leader Yu Huiying was Yu Leyun's younger daughter, my father and Yu Huiying's contemporaries, my father also walked more than 30 kilometers back and forth to Lianhuapo Village after graduating from middle school to visit Yu Huiying and her parents, and their family was very enthusiastic about my father. At that time, my father learned that Yu Huiying's second brother, Yu Yaoguang, had served as the director of the Public Security Bureau of Zhaoyuan County and Huang County during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and in 1947 he was served as the deputy county magistrate and director of the Public Security Bureau of Huang County, and was a famous revolutionary martyr in Jiaodong during the Liberation War.
My father told me that after liberation, according to the policy of the time, the mules were collectively owned by the village. Although the mule was old at this time, because the villagers all had feelings for the mule and treated it with special kindness, the mule also worked hard and quietly contributed the rest of his life to the cause of socialist construction.
Regrettably, in the autumn and winter of 1955, shortly after the death of my great-grandfather, the beloved mule also went with its owner, and since then, the land of my hometown has never seen its healthy figure again.
When my father's story was finished, I was still immersed in this unforgettable story, imagining the appearance of the mule, imagining the scene of the father riding on the mule, imagining the scene of the mule running and working for revolution and construction. To tell you the truth, I am so proud that I had this mule in my family.
Many years have passed, and sometimes I wonder how good it would be if this mule had the privilege of surviving to the present, and when it saw the development and changes of New China and its prosperity and strength, it would proudly shake its head and tail and jump with its belts up, as if to tell people that it had also contributed to and sweated for the revolutionary cause. If there is such a day, I will surely tie a large red silk flower around its neck and take a picture with it, so as to praise it for all that it has done for the revolutionary cause.
(Image from the Internet)
【About the author】Yu Quancheng, pen name Yutian, born in Jinan in 1964, born in a family of scholars, his ancestral home is Penglai District, Yantai City. Former director and chief editor of Shandong Energy Longkou Mining Group Shizhi Office. He is currently a member of the China Essay Literature Association, a director of the China Coal Mine Writers Association, a member of the Shandong Writers Association, and a member of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association. He has published nearly 50 essays in Guangming Daily and provincial and municipal newspapers and periodicals. He has won the second prize of the provincial coal system reportage, and the 30,000-word documentary article is included in the 10th volume of the Yantai Reform and Opening Up Record. The essay "Memories of the Telephone" was selected by the Central Propaganda Department, the Central Civilization Office, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the China Writers Association, etc. to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China, and was published in Guangming Daily (Article 71) on September 23, 2019, and was reprinted by the People's Network, Guangming Network, Learning to Strengthen the Country, China Literature and Art Network, China Writers Network and other media. The essay "Speaking of the Telephone" won the second prize in the prose category of the Shandong Provincial Staff Literature Original Works Essay Campaign. A number of essays were selected for the theme essay campaign of "Learning to Strengthen the Country", and were adopted by the learning platform of Yantai City and Shandong Province. The essay "My Family's Communist Party Members" won the second prize in the "Centennial Pioneer" Yantai City Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China.
Sponsored by the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Society, Contemporary Prose is a bimonthly prose journal, which mainly publishes the works of members of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association, and welcomes Shandong prose writers to apply to join the Shandong Provincial Prose Association. The Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association holds various prose activities throughout the year to provide book publishing services for writers. Submission email: [email protected], [email protected]
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