Tibetan soldiers: guns in one hand and hoes in the other
He Xiaolin
In the 1950s and 1960s, the state's financial resources were limited, and the logistical support of the troops stationed in Tibet was very difficult. Therefore, the soldiers hold guns in one hand and hoes in the other. Self-reliance, reclamation of the edge.
In September 1963, I enlisted in the 16th Automobile Regiment, and like my predecessors, I picked up a hoe and formed an indissoluble relationship with "agricultural work". For an urban soldier like me, "also soldiers and farmers" is undoubtedly a rare life experience.
Now I look back on the bits and pieces of this period, and my heart is full of warmth.
One
It should be said that from the first day the Eighteenth Army entered Tibet, the issue of "taking a hoe" was put on the agenda of the whole army.
Due to the difficulties of the local government of Tibet at that time, the troops were often in danger of being cut off from food. I once heard Xie Tianbin, the deputy company commander of my company, say: "I am extremely hungry, not only eat wild vegetables, but also catch ground rats..."
In order to deliver supplies to the Eighteenth Army, the Central Military Commission once sent the only two US-made transport planes in the whole army that could fly to the plateau to ganzi to airdrop grain. Our 16th Automobile Regiment (then called the 1st Regiment of the Southwest Military Region) also followed the road construction troops, and the road led to there and the car drove there. Even so, the troops in the front were still short of food and clothing...
It was not until the sichuan-Tibet and Qinghai-Tibet highways were opened to traffic that the supply of staple foods such as rice, flour, oil, and salt for the troops stationed in Tibet was basically guaranteed, but fresh and sideline food was still in short supply. The logistics department sometimes brought in some dehydrated dried vegetables and egg yolk powder, which not only had a small number of poor tastes, but also cost a lot of money. A four-ton Jiefang brand car can only pull three tons of cargo on the plateau, transporting a truckload of supplies from Chengdu to Lhasa, burning more than a ton of gasoline in one round trip. Some veterans said that in our Tibet Military Region, all we eat and drink is real money and silver.
In order to take root in Tibet and stick to the border of the motherland, we can only do it ourselves and strive to achieve abundant food and clothing. Long before I joined the army, the military region had already set up the "Bayi Farm" on the bank of the Lhasa River next to the Sixteenth Regiment, and Lieutenant General Tan Guansan, who was the political commissar of the military region at the time, recommended himself as the first field commander, which may be the highest level of farm commander in the history of the whole army. Our 16th Automobile Regiment also reclaimed a large vegetable field on the river beach behind the station, basically realizing vegetable self-sufficiency. Except for a short period of time in the spring when you can eat verdant green vegetables, the rest of the time is the three kinds of storage-resistant dishes of radish, Chinese cabbage and lotus white (in May 2016, I drove into Tibet and revisited the old place, and our vegetable field has become "Jinzhu West Road", with high-rise buildings on the roadside and traffic on the road).
During the years when I was a soldier, I planted in the spring and harvested in the autumn, and almost every day after dinner, I had to go to the field to do one or two hours of farm work.
Growing vegetables in the fields is a new thing for me. The first time I followed the veteran to plant lotus white, the veteran left a nearly one-meter gap between two finger-thick vegetable seedlings, which made me wonder. Lotus white is a common dish in Chengdu, a tree the size of a basketball is quite good, do you need to leave such a big empty? The veteran smiled and said, you'll understand in a few days. Sure enough, the diameter of the solid part of the mature lotus white is thirty or forty centimeters large, the largest diameter is up to forty or fifty centimeters, I once stood on a lotus white tree that still grows in the ground, this dish can actually withstand my weight of 110 pounds, but unfortunately there was no camera at that time, if I take such a picture, I put on a pose, and then a smile on my face, this photo may be sent to the museum. Radishes and potatoes are also incredibly large, several times larger than those sold in Chengdu Vegetable Market. Later, I realized that Lhasa is full of sunshine, the temperature difference between day and night is large, the wasteland we have reclaimed is highly humused, and several factors add up to have such a large cabbage and radish. It is said that the vegetables in The Lhasa greenhouses are now the same as those in the mainland, probably because the humus is reduced and the fertilizer is used too much.
Participating in agricultural and sideline production, I learned a lot of knowledge, but also let me experience some unforgettable things.
Around the beginning of the summer of 1965, lhasa was dry, and we had to use a water canal from the direction of the production department of the military region to divert water to the ground. The canal was built by the troops, but neighboring Tibetan farmers often released water in the canal, and the regimental commander instructed "not to fight with the people for water." Therefore, the canal was used by the people during the day and was only diverted by the troops at night. One night, it was my turn to release the water. After twelve o'clock in the night, I couldn't see my five fingers, the flashlight in my hand was dim, I was alone, very timid, for courage, I loaded the submachine gun bullets, closed the safety, and then lifted a shovel out of the door. When releasing water, first check along the canal to see if there is a gap, go to the main canal to open the branch canal sluice, and then follow the head, where the leakage plugs there. This branch canal flowing to our vegetable field somehow passed under the wall in the martyrs' cemetery in the western suburbs (perhaps the martyrs' cemetery expanded its area and enclosed the canal for a while), and I walked to the small door of the back wall of the cemetery, which was pitch black and silent around. At that time, I was not yet nineteen years old, and I had a lot of "chatting stories" in my heart, and when I thought that they were all graves, I was afraid, I didn't dare to go in, and I hesitated for a long time, and I finally found a reason for myself: the People's Liberation Army did not harm the People's Liberation Army, and only then did I have the courage to enter the martyrs' cemetery...
Later, our class dug a small pool in the low-lying area of the vegetable field, and the groundwater leached out, so we stopped releasing the canal water.
Although the variety of vegetables grown by the company is monotonous, it solves the big problem of eating fresh vegetables after all. In my mind, since about 1965, my repair company has basically not eaten "industrial products" such as dehydrated vegetables and egg yolk powder. Under the conditioning of the cooking class, the "old three" also conjured up many tricks, what fried cabbage, stewed cabbage, roasted cabbage, assorted cabbage, meat cabbage, sweet and sour cabbage, beef stewed radish, vegetarian stir-fried radish shredded, braised radish, salted radish, pickled cabbage... The recipes are getting richer and richer. I still don't forget to repair the steamed pork canned roast cabbage made of Sichuan cuisine "Lian Pot" at breakfast, that is, in a large pot of cabbage with more than a dozen canned pork, stewed together, the vegetable pot to the door of the canteen, the fresh sweetness of the cabbage and the scent of the canned pork blend, plus a pot of pickles marinated with radish cabbage, people have a great appetite.
Our company's canteen was a big empty house, no table and no chairs, there was food, each person found a place to squat, even the commander instructor was the same, holding a bowl, crouching by the wall, nothing special. When the meal is served, two cooks crouch at the door, everyone comes in turn in shifts, the bowl is rolled over, the cooker buries his head, looks at the bowl without looking at people, puts a large spoonful of vegetables into the bowl, luck may have a large piece of canned meat, bad luck may only have a few shreds of meat. Comrades in the same class held bowls to compare with each other, laughed, full of fun
Two
As with the problem of fresh vegetables, the supply of meat is also the focus of the company's logistical support. In the nearly six years of my service, the regimental logistics department could only distribute canned food at other times, except for the Spring Festival when some frozen pork was transported in cold and sent to the company.
Even so, there are times when there is a shortage of supply. It was about the winter of 1965, for some reason, the meat supply was not available, and after approval, the superior ordered our regiment to send vehicles and troops to the no-man's land in northern Tibet to fight a batch of wild horses (later learned that the real name should be called Tibetan wild donkeys), and a company got about a dozen horses. Wild horses are almost all lean meat, very tender, we are mostly cut into shredded meat fried to eat, in addition to the aftertaste there is a trace of sour taste that only very sensitive people can detect, there is no other fishy smell, it is not difficult to eat. Hunting in northern Tibet was only once, and then the supply improved, and the troops were strictly forbidden to kill wild horses.
The only way to solve the problem of fresh meat supply is to rely on self-reliance. According to the veterans, soon after the Sixteenth Regiment entered Tibet, it successively imported some piglets from Sichuan and distributed them to each company for breeding, and we repaired the company and divided several of them. There are many soldiers in the countryside in the company, and it is easy to find soldiers with pig breeding experience, but what surprises everyone is that these piglets often die inexplicably, and this is the case in each company. After looking for a long time, I finally found that pigs, like people, will also be "high-resilient", and once they catch a cold, they are easy to lose their lives. The cause of death is found, and the means of protection are available.
When we arrived at the company, the pigs raised in the company had been breeding for several generations and had long been adapted to the plateau environment. Sometimes, the cooking class opened the pigsty and let the pigs let the wind blow, and the pigs were fat and ran around humming and running around, not breathless at all.
Once, I noticed a strange thing, a pig had a bloody hole in its back. One veteran scolded: "Fuck it was done by crows again." The crows in Tibet are much larger than in the interior, and they often visit the heavenly burial platform and have the habit of "eating meat". When the crow had a chance, it flew to the pig and began to gently scratch the pig's back with its beak. The pig stood there dumbfounded, enjoying himself. When the pig was numb, it pecked hard twice, and the pig screamed and ran back. If infected, the pig had to be killed. It was around the summer of 1968, and I actually saw crows pecking pigs. When I went to the military service agency that day, I saw a black pig standing by the dry wall of the barracks, with a crow on its back, more than a foot tall, and its feathers were shiny black, looking left and right on the pig's back, pecking at the pig's back from time to time. I found it interesting, remembering a Sichuan post-break saying: "Crows are black like pigs - I don't think I think it", so I watched from a distance. As soon as he found that the crow pecking was increasing, he suddenly remembered what the veteran said about the crow eating pork a few years ago, so he shouted loudly to drive the crow away. The pig who didn't bite just now actually hummed and laughed, as if he was very dissatisfied.
The repair company raised several pigs, and the cooking class did not have enough swill leftovers to feed, and the company assigned each class the task of beating pig grass. The pig grass that the veteran took us to fight was a plant about a foot tall, with a straight main pole and very lush foliage, and I still don't know what its name is. The cut grass had a strange smell at the break, and the pigs seemed to like the smell, and the fresh pig grass was poured into the pen, and a group of pigs nibbled and ate it very fragrantly. Later, when it was my turn to hit the pig grass, I looked for this smell to identify, usually eight or nine.
At the end of the year, the repair company, like the countryside, had to kill pigs for the New Year. I grew up in Chengdu, my family lives in the southern section of Chunxi in the city center, and I have never seen a pig killed. In the Spring Festival of 1964, Lianli killed pigs, and I watched from the sidelines and found that the pigs would also "qigong" and "knives and guns cannot enter". Everyone held the pig down with seven hands and eight feet, and stabbed it into the throat of the pig, and the sharp knife could not stab it, and the comrade who killed the pig let the pig howl and breathe before stabbing in again, resulting in the pig's life. A comrade-in-arms from the countryside told me that when the pig was pressed down, he was very frightened, and he would howl with all his body, as if people who knew martial arts were lucky, and at this time, with a knife, they could not hurt it. Only when it inhales loosely can it be stabbed to death. He spoke understatedly, and I listened to it with great novelty and added new knowledge.
Two or three hundred pounds of big fat pigs, they couldn't finish eating at once, so they left some for bacon. There are many soldiers in the rural areas of lianli, and there are all kinds of talents. The cooking class built a one-meter square hut out of tin sheets for bacon. It seems that one night before the Spring Festival in 1967, the bacon lavender house located on the outside wall of the kitchen suddenly burst into flames because the temperature was too high, and the lard dripped down and ignited an open flame. When everyone woke up and found out, dozens of pounds of meat had been scorched black.
This bacon caused a lot of trouble for the cooking class. Starting around 1964, the repair company was equipped with a new pressure cooker. This pressure cooker used in the first stage is made of special aluminum, with a diameter of about 40 to 50 centimeters, a height of about 60 to 70 centimeters, and the lid is fixed with 12 gong wires. In order to prevent accidents, LianLi built a new hut outside the kitchen of the cooking class as a pressure cooker room. One day, the director arranged to eat bacon the next day, and the cooker in charge of cooking the meat threw nearly twenty pounds of bacon into the pressure cooker the night before, stuffed a large pile of firewood into the stove, and then spit on it. The next morning, when I opened the lid of the pot and looked at it, I was dumbfounded, and the ghost made God send it, just in time for the fire, and the bacon became a meat paste, and the skin did not see the skin, and the meat did not see the meat. After I heard the news, I secretly dug a spoon with a small spoon, which was very sticky and fragrant, and the taste was quite good. It just can't be served.
I now think that if the famous chef modified and improved the "bacon meat paste", it might become a famous dish suitable for all ages.
Three
To say that the experience of "farming", can not avoid the "five. Seven instructions" on this topic.
On May 7, 1966, after reading the "Report on Further Improving Agricultural and Sideline Production" submitted by the General Administration, Chairman Mao wrote a letter to Lin Biao, instructing the Platon Army to also study engineering and agriculture, and to do a good job in agricultural and sideline production. This is the famous "five. Seven Instructions".
The reasons that triggered the General Report and made Chairman Mao give instructions are tearful even now.
For three years in the early 1960s, China was in the midst of a great famine. The common people do not have enough to eat, the troops are also short of food, and some places cannot buy meat and oil, or even vegetables. Qiu Huizuo, then director of the General Logistics Department, gave three examples when reporting to the Central Military Commission on the situation of the troops: In the summer of 1961, many grass-roots troops stationed in Shandong ate dried sweet potatoes, and most of the dried sweet potatoes were saved in 1958 and 1959 to prepare for pig feed, and many of them had mildew spots. In the autumn of 1961, more than 20 percent of the flour eaten by the troops stationed in Zhoukou, Henan Province, was mixed with leaves, grass knots, wheat straw, etc.; in 1961, the rice eaten by the troops stationed in Mianyang, Sichuan Province, contained rice husks, silt, and so on. Qiu Huizuo said: This is what I personally saw in the army, and I have eaten with the soldiers a meal made of this grain. The grain ration of the troops is one and a half pounds per person per day, except for the things that cannot be eaten, the real grain in the stomach every day is a little more than one pound, the soldiers are young people of about twenty years old, the intensity of military training is large, can it be okay to eat this kind of meal every day? There is not enough grain, melon vegetable generation, of course, is the way out, but where do the troops have melon vegetables? Vegetables, meat, or oil were not available, and most troops could not taste meat several times a year. If you can't get something with a ticket, this kind of life can't last long.
In order to change the current situation of military food shortage, the General Logistics Department instructed all units of the whole army to set up farms on a large scale, and achieved very good results. Hence the report, which summarizes experience and plans for the future.
Chairman Mao's instructions on "the People's Liberation Army must also learn to be a farmer" in response to the General Logistics Report not only pointed out the direction for the development and construction of the troops of the whole army, but also gave a great encouragement to the troops stationed in Tibet who have been "holding a gun in one hand and a hoe in the other" for a long time.
"V. After the "Seven Directives" were publicly conveyed, the military region planned to make a big move: to transform the tens of thousands of acres of swampland in the western suburbs of Lhasa, the "Laru Wetland", which is now known as the pearl of the plateau, into fertile land.
The renovation plan began in early August 1966. The military district drew personnel from various units stationed in Lhasa and prepared to dig a canal in the Laru wetland to drain the accumulated water. The repair company was ordered to form a reclamation team of more than 30 people, and I was also included.
The Laru Wetland in the western suburbs of Lhasa was originally very large, and I had the impression that the east-west direction extended from the west side of the Potala Palace to the foot of the mountain less than one kilometer away from the Drepung Monastery in the western suburbs, and the north-south direction gradually formed a small river connecting with the Lhasa River from the district party committee (now called the Administrative College) at the foot of the mountain in the north. The original Qinghai-Tibet Highway began at the foot of Drepung Monastery and widened the path to the Potala Palace (this section is now called Beijing West Road). The road passes through the swamp, and the water surface on both sides is covered with thick plateau reeds, and the water quality is clear and transparent. In October 1963, before our recruit company first arrived in Lhasa and was ready to enter the gate of the regimental headquarters to be welcomed, we stopped at the side of the road to rest and tidy up the military style, I was really thirsty, and I scooped a bowl of water from the roadside swamp to drink, the taste was sweet and very good. The reason why we wanted to fight this swamp was that there was basically no wasteland suitable for cultivation in the suburbs of Lhasa, and in addition, the "Cultural Revolution" was in full swing at that time, and many things were difficult to understand. The Seven Directives "can avoid many sensitive issues that are difficult to deal with, and are undoubtedly the wisest "revolutionary action.".
Digging aqueducts is a hard job. Before the start of construction, we went to the depths of the swamp with waist-length water to inspect, and the source of the water was a group of springs in the north, and the large strands of money were yearning to rise, and the cold was compelling. It is estimated that the rain and snow came from the north mountains of Lhasa City. The spring water continues for many years, and the swamp does not dry all year round. During the inspection, a group of small fish swam past our eyes, and several "buzzards" (a kind of water bird, the name of the people of Sichuan) flew up from the depths of the reeds.
The swamp is not known to be thousands of years old, and the old roots of the reeds are coiled together, and in some places they are even more than a meter thick. In order to get these reed roots up, we use grinding wheels to sharpen the spade mouth like a knife edge, insert it down like cutting tofu, and then dive into the water to pick up the reed roots. Sometimes, only one head is exposed on the surface of the water. When digging the roots of the reeds, the old silt at the bottom of the water turned over, and the black water soaked there and itched there, and after a few days, even the neck was covered with small red dots.
At that time, the troops did not have any special equipment, we were all young, we did not care much about the body, and we wore a single suit when we went into the water. Every morning, when I first went into the water, the ice water stirred up, my whole body trembled, and it took a while to adapt. I was wet all day, I didn't even take off my lunch, and I threw my rice bowl and jumped into the water. When I came back from work in the evening, I dried my wet clothes on the rope, and the climate in Lhasa was dry, and when I got up the next day, I dried up, changed my clothes and went into the water. Later, my right leg and knee joint often had soreness when it came to cold, and this condition has persisted until now, I don't know if it is because I have been soaking in cold water for more than a month.
Self-praise must be made here, and although I am politically naïve and occasionally say strange things, I am never lazy in my work. At that time, two slogans were popular, one was called "One is not afraid of suffering, the other is not afraid of death" (it is said that Commander Zhang Guohua said it when he reported to Chairman Mao on the situation of the Sino-Indian border self-defense and counterattack war, and Chairman Mao was very happy to say: I agree with such a slogan); the other slogan is "proud of suffering, take pleasure in suffering." To be honest, "not afraid of death" I may not be able to do, but "proud of suffering" is really not bragging. From the beginning of August to the end of the work in mid-September, for more than a month, I received a battalion award and a continuous award. There is no special ceremony for awarding commendations, the whole company is lined up, the company commander issues an order, reads it, and disbands. At that time, the soldiers saw that meritorious service was very heavy, and when they carried out dangerous tasks, the political mobilization before the trip had a sentence: The time has come to make meritorious contributions to the people. In the more than a month I was digging the canal, I first won a continuous commendation, and once I received the award, I had more motivation, so I got a higher level of camp commendation. This battalion commendation, along with the other eight company commendations I received during my service, was recorded on my demobilization certificate. Many years later, a comrade in the cadre department told me that the 9 commendations you received in the army are recorded in the archives.
However, although young people have enthusiasm, they are not sophisticated after all, and they inevitably make some low-level mistakes that are ridiculous.
Soaked in water every day, young, in good health, not afraid; physical exertion is large, food is good, and some are energy. The damn thing is that dozing off doesn't sleep enough. After a tiring day, I fell back into bed at night, and when the wake-up call sounded the next morning, I didn't even dream. In the meantime, the most painful thing is to be woken up in the middle of a heavy sleep and go to stand guard outside the tent.
In the Tibetan plateau, standing guard is very difficult, especially in the middle of winter, when a shift comes down, often two or three hours of feet have not warmed up. It is an iron law that troops must be stationed at the sentry when they are camped. During the training of recruits, the platoon leader with the soldiers said that as long as there were three people camping, one person should put up a guard. We were stationed in a platoon in the field, and we had to set up sentries in accordance with the provisions of the "Regulations". More than thirty people were crammed into a large tent, with bunks on the ground, and the guards were arranged in order of bunks at night, each taking turns about once every three days. Almost everyone regards standing guard at night as a heavy burden, but they have to stand. Finally, one day there was a strange thing, one night there were only six shifts, this night actually turned fourteen or five people, and then checked, actually these ten people did not get up, in their sleep they stood guard. Among the more than ten people who slept "standing guard" in bed was me.
I remembered the situation at night: my last shift was a brother in the left bunk (name forgotten), and when he woke me up, I was confused to find him lying in the bed, not getting up at all. He muttered, "It's time for you to go to work," and closed his eyes and went to sleep. At that time, I was not awake, confused "um" and turned over and fell asleep. I don't know how much time I slept, maybe an hour, maybe ten minutes (the possibility of ten minutes is more likely), I was suddenly shocked, remembered "I am still standing guard", quickly woke up the laid-off who slept in the right bunk, and informed him to go to work. As a result, the brother who was on duty saw that I was in the bed and did not get up... When people ask each other, this is the case. This is no small matter! Think about it, a platoon of soldiers sleeping soundly in a tent, unguarded all night, blind and deaf, what if something happens? If you don't get it right, you're going to lose your life. Fortunately, there were brother troops stationed around the area who came to reclaim the land at the same time, and it was safe and no situation occurred. On this day, everyone was very nervous, and I was also worried, waiting for my superiors to investigate. For some reason, it ended up going to end. It may be that a leader at a certain level has a compassionate heart, seeing that everyone is really hard and has not caused consequences, so he raises his noble hand.
However, such a thing never happened again, and when it was my turn to go to work, no matter how tired I was, I obediently got up and dressed and carried a gun...
At the beginning of September, the weather turned cool, and the plateau at an altitude of more than 3,600 meters continued to work in the bone-chilling cold water in the wild, which was no longer appropriate, and the regiment informed the reclamation team to withdraw and return to construction. I don't know why, this wetland did not eventually become a "good field", when I drove to Lhasa in 2016, I saw that the east, south and west sides of the wetland had been surrounded by high-rise buildings, the area had shrunk a lot, and the rest had been listed as an "ecological protection area".
Using the current perspective to evaluate the measures to transform wetlands in that year is indeed contrary to ecological protection. However, judging from the high plane of the historical process, the spirit of the troops stationed in Tibet in order to lighten the people's burdens and to cultivate the barren frontiers with food and drink can be immortalized throughout the ages!
Compared with other units of the military region, especially the border defense regiments on the front line, our Sixteenth Regiment is permanently stationed in Lhasa, and the living environment should be said to be quite good, and those comrades-in-arms who eat in the wind and snow and stick to the snowy mountain checkpoint all year round are the models of Tibetan soldiers!
(The illustrations in this article are all from the Internet)
About the Author:
He Xiaolin: Born in June 1946, he joined the army from Chengdu in September 1963. Soldier of the Repair Company of the 16th Automobile Regiment of the Tibet Military Region. In March 1969, he was demobilized and went to Chengdu Cable Factory as a worker. In 1976, he was transferred to the Sichuan Branch of Xinhua News Agency, serving as a reporter, the director of the Chengdu Reporter Station of Xinhua News Agency, a member of the party group and general manager of the Sichuan Branch; later transferred to Shanghai, where he served as a member of the party group and deputy editor-in-chief of the Shanghai Securities News Agency of xinhua news agency. Senior reporter of Xinhua News Agency. He retired in 2006.
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