After Tan Qinglin returned to Yan'an, he worked as a correspondent in the headquarters communications company. He went to the cave outside the north gate to deliver the letter, and came across a tall, thin chief. The chief heard that he had a Sichuan accent, and seeing that he was not tall and obviously very young, he asked him which unit he had in the past.
Tan Qinglin told the chief that he was in the Western Route Army before. Hearing about the Western Route Army, the chief quickly moved a stool for him to sit down, and poured a cup of tea and handed it to him. Tan Qinglin looked at the chief wearing the same clothes as himself, with a kind and kind smile on his face, so he no longer restrained himself and sat down.
"It's a coincidence that I also came back from the Western Route Army." The chief said kindly.
Tan Qinglin suddenly seemed to have met an old friend, and told the chief about the bumps and ups and downs along the way. The tall, thin chief always looked at him lovingly and listened to him.
"Do you know who the commander-in-chief of the Western Route Army is?" The chief asked him with a smile.
"Xu Xiangqian!" Tan Qinglin replied without hesitation.
"Do you know?"
"I've met, I can't remember!"
At this time, the chief smiled like a child and said, "Do you look like me?" ”
"Ah!" Tan Qinglin stood up violently, and immediately saw clearly, "It's really you!" ”
"Yes, I am Xu Xiangqian!"
Tan Qinglin had some regrets, and he shouldn't have said so much about his suffering. Xu Zong also stood up, smiled and patted his shoulder and said, "Go east, this road is the right way!" ”
Perhaps, Mr. Xu said it to the little soldiers in front of him, but also to himself, to the soldiers of the Western Route Army who fought bloodily! But going east is not a smooth road, but a road of nine deaths!
A 17-year-old soldier of the Western Route Army talks about Qinglin's life and death on the way back to the east
The Western Route Army was defeated and retreated to Qilian Mountain, and the 17-year-old Tan Qinglin was a soldier in the logistics organs of the Red Thirty Army. After being scattered by the enemy, Tan Qinglin and three other comrades-in-arms walked out of the Qilian Mountains together, they knew that the main force of the Red Army was in Yan'an, northern Shaanxi, but how did Yan'an go? No one knows.
They felt that if they went east, they would walk to Yan'an. So during the day, after watching the sun rise to confirm the direction, he hid in the grass nest and ravine, and rushed to the road at night when no one was there.
On the way, we encountered the scattered Red Army in pairs, and the team suddenly had twenty or thirty people. While crossing the road from Zhangye to Xining, it was met with cavalry of the Majia Army. Tan Qinglin fell behind slowly because of the wound, and when the enemy attacked, he hid behind a stone and escaped the disaster.
The others were caught, scattered, and he was the only one left. There was no one around, there was no one to rely on, and Tan Qinglin couldn't help but cry. There was no use crying, and he took advantage of the darkness to cross the road and walked east alone.
On the way, Tan Qinglin met a little ghost younger than himself, a small actor in the new troupe. This lively little ghost who loves to sing and dance is now skinny and bone-skinned, his eyes are very deeply sunken, and he stands there with a wooden stick and looks at Tan Qinglin.
Tan Qinglin's tears couldn't help but fall again, and asked, "Little brother, where are you going?" ”
As soon as the little devil heard the Sichuan accent, he plunged into Tan Qinglin's arms and cried loudly, and Tan Qinglin took the little devil and went east with him.
In the desolate and desolate Hexi Corridor, a 17-year-old little Red Army soldier pulling a child younger than him and faltering to the east for his life is a poignant picture.
When the two men walked to the vicinity of Ganquanzi, they came across Ma Jiajun's checkpoint and were arrested because they had a Sichuan accent. Two children with no social experience did not dare to take the deep mountain path, and may not have thought that the road had enemy sentries.
Tan Qinglin was sent to the Yongdeng area to build roads by a supplementary regiment, while the little ghost was imprisoned in Liangzhou, and the two were separated from each other. Tan Qinglin, because of his young age and lack of strength, could not lift large stones, and was often beaten by the overseers, and the scars on his body did not get better.
In September, a friend from Henan in his 30s saw that he was young and pitiful, and escaped with him and four other people at night. In order to narrow the target, everyone decided to disperse and escape alone.
Tan Qinglin walked alone from Yongdeng to Lanzhou City, but was blocked by the Yellow River. There were enemy sentries guarding the Yellow River Iron Bridge, and there was no way, he had to stay in the north of the bridge to find an opportunity.
Tan Qinglin went to a small restaurant nearby every day to buy two bowls of porridge to eat, the owner of the restaurant is a small old man, seeing that he is still wearing a single dress and single pants at the end of September, only eating porridge every day, guessing his identity.
The old man coaxed the world-involved Tan Qinglin, followed one of his friends across the iron bridge, and arranged for him to be sent from Lanzhou to Xi'an on a truck. Tan Qinglin didn't know who they were, but when he heard that he could go to Xi'an, he followed. In his opinion, Xi'an is going east, close to Yan'an.
In this way, Tan Qinglin got into a truck to Xi'an, and this truck drove directly to the door of the Xi'an office of the Eighth Route Army. But Tan Qinglin did not believe that the office was the place of the Red Army, and he did not dare to bring a hat for him.
A cadre talked to him and told him that the Eighth Route Army was the Red Army of the past... Tan Qinglin's heart suddenly relaxed. With the help of the Xi'an office of the Eighth Route Army, Tan Qinglin returned to Yan'an.
Tan Qinglin later kept wondering what the identity of the old man of the hotel and his friend was. They are actually comrades of the Party working underground.