Serial 丨Tracing the Footsteps of Martyrs (1) Monument without a Name / Ai Xiaolin

Monument without a name

Ai Xiaolin

On the afternoon of December 9, 2021, our group went to the tomb of the Red Army Martyrs in the Stone Trench of Qijiang River in Chongqing City. There is warm sunshine along the way, which is very pleasant. At the end of the AnwenZhen Expressway, the car continues on the winding mountain road. Looking around, the mountains roll over. Despite the winter, the mountain is still full of greenery and lush trees. After about 40 minutes, arrive at the town of Stone Trench.

After passing through an old street in the town, you will come to the tomb of the Red Army martyr in the stone trench. The martyr's tomb is at the foot of Miao'er Mountain, which was built to commemorate the heroic sacrifice of five Red Army soldiers who died heroically in January 1935 when the Red First Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army passed through the stone trenches.

On the stone gates on both sides of the gate of the Red Army Martyrs Cemetery is a couplet: "The martyrs have stayed in the high wind for thousands of years, and the great achievements of the Long March have spread to Kyushu." Entering the park, dozens of stone steps were built along the hillside, and cypresses were planted on both sides, which was solemn and solemn. In the square in front of the tomb stands a monument to the martyrs of the Red Army, on which are engraved the inscriptions of Marshal Nie Rongzhen, General Yang Chengwu, General Zhang Aiping, General Li Wenqing, Hao Qian, Yang Chao and other proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation.

Behind the tomb of the Red Army martyrs, there are bronze statues of 5 Red Army martyrs: one carrying a large knife with a gun and a serious look; one carrying a gun and staring into the distance; one wearing a bucket hat on his back and bending down to tie his shoelaces; the other two supporting him forward. The bronze statue shows the revolutionary spirit of strict discipline, fraternity, unity and mutual assistance during the Long March of the Red Army, reflects their firm belief in communism and confidence in victory, and highlights the heroism of the soldiers of the Red Army. We couldn't help but be in awe.

In front of the bronze statue of the martyr, the remains of 5 Red Army martyrs are quietly buried. Of these 5 martyrs, only one of them is the chief secretary, one surnamed Liu, one surnamed Xian, and 2 did not leave their names. They were previously buried by the local people in the sacrificial land of Yangcha Maobaping (now Maobaping, Changzheng Village, Shi trench town), cypress fruit tree (now Liyuan Village, Shi trench town) and Xinglong village (now Shihe Town, Shiquan Village Tianba), in 1979, by the then city and county civil affairs department allocated funds for construction, the Shi trench district party committee and district office chose to build the Red Army martyrs' tomb on Miao'er Mountain west of the stone trench field, and then moved here for centralized burial.

Dan Junchun, director of the Chongqing Qijiang District Martyrs' Memorial Facilities Protection Center, told me the story of the five Red Army martyrs with deep affection.

At the beginning of 1935, after the Central Red Army captured Zunyi, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to convene an enlarged meeting of the Politburo, which is known as the Zunyi Conference. In order to ensure the smooth convening of the Zunyi Conference, on January 10, the Red First Army of the Central Red Army captured Tongzi, Guizhou, and the vanguard troops continued to advance in the direction of Xinzhan, Songkan, and Qijiang. The Second Regiment of the First Division of the Red First Army, under the leadership of regimental commander Long Zhenwen and political commissar Deng Hua, on the 15th crushed the Salt Defense Army stationed in Songkan and stationed itself in the area of Giethoorn Township (present-day Yangjiao Village, Anwen Town, Qijiang District), guarding the hotel Ya pass at the junction of YaolongShan and Qian, and monitoring the Sichuan Army and the Guizhou Salt Defense Army stationed around Jiupanzi.

Jiang Jinquan, commander of the Salt Defense Army, led more than 40 remnants of his army to flee to YaolongShan Village in Yaolongshan Town, Tongzi County, Guizhou Province. On 21 January, on the orders of the Red I Corps, the Red II Regiment marched towards the stone trench. When the Red Army team passed through Yaolong Mountain, Jiang Jinquan placed a secret gun under the cave headquarters in a vain attempt to stop the Red Army from advancing. The Red Army immediately climbed to the cave opposite Niu Qingshan to return fire, and Jiang Jinquan led the team to escape. The Red Army continued to advance, and Jiang Jinquan sneaked behind the Red Army team to follow. At noon, some of the Red Army soldiers rested at the arrow ya in Yaolongshan Town, and after lunch, continued to march in the direction of the stone trench. At this time, some people reported to the red army chief that there were paper money and the belongings of ordinary people in the ArrowHead Ya that had not yet been returned. The Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army and two Red Army soldiers stayed behind, inspecting and counting the return of the borrowed goods, and exchanging silver dollars for the Soviet banknotes paid to the masses when the soldiers purchased the goods. The director general of the Red Army led two Red Army soldiers to the Zhao family on the street, preparing to return the borrowed basket. Jiang Jinquan saw that there were only 3 Red Soldiers, and immediately surrounded them, so he ordered the long gun squad to surround the town, and the short gun squad entered the town and shot at them. The director general of the Red Army and two soldiers fought back bravely and fought bloodily. One soldier was killed on the spot and another was wounded. In order to cover the breakthrough of the wounded soldiers, the red army commander himself was seriously wounded and fell into the hands of the enemy. Jiang Jinquan immediately searched the director's satchel, lunch box, chopsticks, silver dollars, and Soviet banknotes, and asked the red army secretary to explain the organization, marching route, combat deployment, name and position of the red army secretary, but the red army secretary refused to answer. The enemy tortured him brutally and was beaten to the ground. The Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army has always been unyielding and unyielding, treating death as a homecoming. That night, the Salt Defense Army bundled the Red Army commander to the tip of the cow horn in Maobaping, Nongmen Village, Yangcha Township, Shicheng District, Qijiang County, and hung it on a mulberry tree next to the farmer Zhao Xingwu's family dam, only letting his toes touch the ground and hang him for a whole night.

That night, the wind was cold and the snow was falling. Zhao Xingwu saw that the Red Army Secretary was scarred, bloodied, hungry and cold, and took advantage of the salt defense army to drink around the stove in the house and secretly delivered food to the Red Army Secretary. The director general of the Red Army was afraid that he would be affected, so he said to Zhao Xingwu in a weak voice: "Fellow countrymen, we are the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, a contingent dedicated to fighting the poor and poor in the world. Zhao Xingwu saw that the director of the Red Army insisted on refusing to eat, and he was worried about being discovered by the bandits in the house, so he had to bring the meal back with tears. The next day, Jiang Jinquan sent his minions Zhao Hanyang, Yang Anzhou, Zhang Mazi, and others to tie up the Red Army's secretary with a brown rope and escort him to Maobaping, where he shouted revolutionary slogans such as "Long live the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" and "Down with the warlords" while being bound by the enemy. Yang Anzhou cut off the tongue of the Red Army chief with a dagger, and another bandit shot and shot, and the Red Army chief died heroically.

After the Salt Defense Army left, local people Yang Guihua, Yang Xianzhou, Zhang Hai, Yang Zizhou, and others buried the body of the Director General of the Red Army on the spot with tears in their eyes.

But the director also told me: On January 21, 1935, more than 8,000 people directly under the Red First Army and the First and Second Divisions set out from Songkan, Guizhou, through Yaolongshan and ArrowYachang in Guizhou, into the Qijiang Stone Trench, and camped in the area of Shi Trench Street, Qiu Shi Dam and Liyuan Dam. The Red Army health team lived in the home of Li Shuqing, a farmer in LiHanba (present-day Liyuan Village, Shishe). When the health team withdrew, due to insufficient stretchers, four seriously wounded Red Army soldiers from Jiangxi, Liu, Qia, Xia (all names unknown) and Yang Tinghe (from Ruijin County), were left behind, and Li Shuqing was entrusted to help nurse the wounded. Li Shuqing was afraid that the warlord troops who were chasing after them would come to search, and moved them to the Yau Gangzui Cave (later known as the Red Army Cave) at the foot of the hill in front of the house to hide, and he and his mother took turns to deliver food and water, and personally collected herbs to help them heal their wounds. Soon, Liu and Qia, two wounded members of the Red Army, died one after another due to their serious injuries. Li Shuqing and Tang Mingxing of the same village buried the remains of Red Army soldiers outside the cave. In April, a Red Army soldier surnamed Xia was wounded and left. After Yang Tinghe recovered from his injuries, he assisted in the work at Li Shuqing's house, and two years later, because he went to rush to sell vegetables in the water, he was pulled away by the Kuomintang army as a strong man at the Jinzhu Mountain.

When the Red Army marched through the stone trenches, two other soldiers died of their wounds. A sacrifice at Zhoujiadian (now known as Xindianzi) in Lihanba was buried on the spot by the masses Wang Changpei and others. One sacrificed at Xinglong Tianba, surrounded by the masses Yang Yulin and others, wrapped the military blanket he brought with him before his death and buried it in the mountain knot. None of the 2 Red Army soldiers were named when they died. In 1972, the People's Armed Forces Department of Shi trench district organized the masses to relocate the remains of 2 Red Army soldiers to the Tomb of the Red Army Martyrs of the Baiguo Brigade.

According to incomplete statistics, for the sake of national independence, people's liberation, national prosperity and strength, and people's happiness, more than 20 million revolutionary ancestors have heroically sacrificed, leaving only more than 1.9 million names, and only more than 800,000 tombs.

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: We must remember all the heroes who have contributed to the Chinese nation and the Chinese people, advocate heroes, defend heroes, learn from heroes, care for heroes, and work hard to achieve the "two hundred years" goal and realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation!

Heroic martyrdom is the backbone and soul of our country and nation, and it is our common historical memory. The loyal souls of heroes coexist with heaven and earth and shine with the sun and the moon. The heroic deeds and lofty spirit of the heroes and martyrs are a powerful spiritual driving force that encourages us to realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The martyrs' cemeteries, martyrs' tombs, martyrs' columbariums, martyrs' wall of honor, memorial halls, monument pavilions, memorial towers, memorial statues, and memorial squares specially built to commemorate heroes and martyrs are engraved with red memories, all over the motherland's great rivers and north, mountains and mountains, urban villages, and frontier fortresses, and are the historical witnesses of the Communist Party of China's blue wisps on the road, cutting through thorns, forging ahead, and sacrificing and dedicating themselves, just like immortal spiritual monuments, a string of notes "The republic is red" The symbol is strong, and a reminder is a reminder." Don't forget where you came from and where you went" The light of the heart.

Standing in front of the tomb of the Red Army martyrs in the stone trench, I was overwhelmed with emotion. Although these 5 Red Army soldiers did not leave their names when they died, and they do not know where their home is, their heroic deeds have been passed down from generation to generation and we will always remember. This monument, this bronze statue, is clearly a monument that will always stand in our hearts.

(The author works for the Chongqing Municipal Veterans Affairs Bureau)