In March 1946, a few months after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, a middle-aged peasant woman in the countryside of Jialing, Guangdong Province, sold part of her land, packed her luggage, and came to Shantou with her four children, hoping to take a boat from here to Shanghai to see her husband's grave, because her military husband died in Shanghai in 1941. And she, originally a native of Shanghai, returned to her husband's hometown in Guangdong with her children because she didn't want to distract her husband.
After inquiring, the middle-aged woman knew that the money in her hand was not enough to buy five tickets. As a mother, she blames herself and is embarrassed, but she doesn't want to disappoint her children. She had to find the steamship company, explain the situation with some embarrassment, and report her husband's name.
The manager of the steamship company had apparently heard her husband's name, an anti-Japanese hero who made all Cantonese proud, and promised to exempt the family from their tickets and accommodation.
Soon after, the family finally came to Shanghai, and after ten years, she finally returned to the hometown where things are not human. After paying homage to her husband, she heard that many of her husband's old departments were still in Shanghai, and she also wanted to meet the deceased and learn about some of her husband's last years. So I found a reporter and published a message in the newspaper: "The widow of the anti-Japanese general Xie Jinyuan arrived in Shanghai yesterday and stayed at the Xinxin Hostel." ”
Yes, this peasant woman from Guangdong is the wife of Xie Jinyuan, the heroic regimental commander who commanded 800 brave soldiers to guard the Sihang Warehouse. Her name is Ling Weicheng.
Ling Weicheng
The news published in the newspaper was more like a summons order. It was the head of the regiment," the lady of the regiment, who was gathering her husband's lone army of the old ministry. The next day, a few veterans of the lone army camp came to the hostel to report, and in just a few days, dozens of Xie Jinyuan's old department scattered in all corners of Shanghai came to report one after another.
Only then did Ling Weicheng know that the old parts of these husbands were very miserable. After Xie Jinyuan was killed, they continued to be imprisoned in the concession, and later worked as coolies in the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, and finally looked forward to victory in the war after nine deaths, but no one cared about their lives, most of them lived on the streets, living alone.
Ling Weicheng, who seemed weak, made a decision, she said to the veterans: "Your regimental commander has sacrificed, but I am the regimental commander's wife, and I have an unshirkable responsibility, and I will pick up the burden he left behind." ”
Maybe Ling Weicheng didn't expect that such a decision would bind her to the old part of these husbands for the rest of her life.
After asking the National Government for help, she tried everything she could to entrust people to find jobs for skilled veterans, led her husband's old department to actively help herself, and organized the Four Elements Lone Army Industrial Service Society.
In order to survive, she even led people to snatch the docks from the Qing gang and the property left by the Japanese from the three Qing Tuan.
"The dead are easy, the living are difficult", after Xie Jinyuan's sacrifice, he was posthumously awarded the rank of major general of the army, when the people of the whole country were commemorating him, especially in Shanghai, and also set up Jinyuan Road, Jinyuan Middle School. But who would have thought that Xie Jinyuan's widow and old ministry would live alone in Pre-Liberation Shanghai and rely on themselves.
It was not until after the liberation of Shanghai that Ling Weicheng's family lived a normal life under the care of Mr. Chen. But her rescue and help to the veterans of the lone army camp still did not stop.
From today's point of view, the story of the lone army camp should actually be divided into two parts: the first part is the anti-Japanese war commanded by the regimental commander Xie Jinyuan, and the second part is the theme of "survival" led by the regimental commander's wife, Ling Weicheng.
Ling Weicheng and a veteran of the Lone Army Camp
Nowadays, most of the film and television dramas about the eight hundred heroes only focus on the first part, and the survival problem after Ling Weicheng and the old part of the lone army is rarely inked, and today we will tell you about it.
Xie Jinyuan was born in 1905 in the countryside of Jiaoling County, Guangdong Province, and after graduating from Guangdong University (now Sun Yat-sen University), under the influence of the revolutionary wave, he was admitted to the fourth phase of the Whampoa Military Academy. After that, he was promoted all the way in the nationalist army, and when he met Ling Weicheng, he was already a battalion commander.
Ling Weicheng, who was born in Shanghai in 1907 to a merchant family, can be described as a show for everyone, graduated from Shanghai Wuben Girls' High School and Southeast Sports College, and is good at piano, violin and singing.
Xie Jinyuan and Ling Weicheng met because of a friend's wedding in 1927. At that time, the two of them were groomsmen and bridesmaids, fell in love at first sight, and then fell in love. The following year, Xie Jinyuan was wounded in the battlefield, and after nearly a year of treatment and recuperation in Hankou, Ling Weicheng knew that Lang was injured and went to Hankou many times to take care of and accompany him.
After recovering from his injuries, in the face of Xie Jinyuan's marriage proposal, Ling Weicheng agreed to it despite his parents' objections. The two were married at the Majestic Hotel in Hankou in September 1929.
Xie Jinyuan and Ling Weicheng's wedding group photo
Shortly after the marriage, Ling Weicheng gave birth to his eldest daughter Xie Xuefen in Hankou. After that, Xie Jinyuan was transferred to Shanghai, and Ling Weicheng also returned to his hometown, and the two of them naturally settled their homes in Shanghai. In the apartment opposite Longhua Temple, they spent several good years, Xie Jinyuan was a majestic officer, and Ling Weicheng was an artistic young woman with outstanding temperament.
In his spare time, Ling Weicheng would give Xie Jinyuan music and play the piano, while Xie Jinyuan would often analyze the domestic situation for his wife. In a short period of good times, the second daughter Xie Lanfen and the eldest son Xie Youmin were born one after another.
In 1936, Xie Jinyuan, who was already the chief of staff of the lieutenant colonel of the 88th Division, had a premonition that the japanese invasion situation was grim and that the Shanghai War was imminent, so he decided to send his pregnant wife and three children back to his hometown in Jialing County, Guangdong.
Ling Weicheng disagreed at first, but Xie Jinyuan said, "If you are uneasy and good, I will not be able to kill the enemy with peace of mind." Although the conditions in my hometown are a little bitter, it is relatively safe, and my parents are old, you can do filial piety for me. ”
Ling Weicheng remembers that her husband's last words to her were: "When the day of victory comes, I will come to pick you up and take you back to Shanghai." ”
After sending away his wife and children, Xie Jinyuan threw himself into preparations. When the Battle of Songhu broke out in August 1937, he was the deputy commander of the 524th Regiment, and when the regimental commander died, he took over the position of regimental commander.
Xie Jinyuan
After more than two months of frontal resistance, the Nationalists suffered heavy losses and began to prepare for retreat. In order to cover the westward retreat of the 100,000-strong army, Xie Jinyuan was ordered to take a reinforcement battalion of more than 400 people to guard the Sihang warehouse, because it was hanging alone, there would be no more reinforcements, known as the lone army. In order to confuse the enemy, Xie Jinyuan declared that the army had 800 people, so it was also known as the Eight Hundred Heroes.
From October 27 to October 31, 1937, in just four days, 414 brave soldiers blocked dozens of Attacks by the Japanese Army at the cost of sacrificing 9 people and wounding more than 20 people, killing more than 200 enemy soldiers and fighting the blood of Chinese soldiers. Xie Jinyuan and the officers and soldiers all wrote a suicide note, determined to fight the Japanese to the death.
However, Chiang Kai-shek, seeing that the large army had retreated safely and that the purpose of the lone army had been achieved, ordered Xie Jinyuan to lead his troops to retreat to the public concession across the river, and then join the large troops retreating west. After a political maneuver, the British came forward to negotiate with the Japanese army to get the Chinese troops to evacuate the Sihang warehouse.
The Japanese army could not be attacked for a long time, and nearly 20,000 people were blocked in front of the Sihang warehouse, thinking that the Chinese defenders had thousands of people, so they agreed to the plan proposed by the public concession.
However, when it was learned that there were only more than 400 Lone Chinese troops guarding the Sihang Warehouse, the Japanese general could not hang on his face and asked the public concession to detain the lone soldiers and disarm them, otherwise "the Japanese army will drive into the public concession to pursue."
The four marches entered the public concession alone
Subsequently, the lone soldier was detained in a vacant lot enclosed in barbed wire in the public concession, which lasted for more than 4 years. After the Japanese army occupied Shanghai in an all-round way, because it did not declare war with Britain and the United States, it was inconvenient for the Japanese army to enter the public concession, but the people of the Wang puppet regime continued to lure Xie Jinyuan, the "anti-Japanese banner", and were strictly rejected.
Seeing xie Jinyuan's righteousness awe-inspiring, Wang's puppet agents made a murderous intention and bribed four of Xie Jinyuan's soldiers. On the morning of April 24, 1941, the four killed 37-year-old Xie Jinyuan with a dagger given by the agent. When the news of Xie Jinyuan's murder came out, nearly 300,000 Shanghai citizens spontaneously went to mourn Xie Jinyuan, and his funeral was comparable to a state funeral.
Ling Weicheng, in the countryside of Jiaoling County, could not wait for the news that her husband would pick him up and return to Shanghai, but what he waited for was bad news. She was only 34 years old. When she first heard the news, Ling Weicheng felt that the whole world had collapsed, although she was no longer the Shanghai girl she used to be.
In the past five years of living in the countryside of Guangdong, she has transformed from a well-respected officer's wife to a peasant woman who can go to the field to farm. Soon after returning to Jiaoling, she gave birth to her second son, Xie Jimin. At that time, the in-laws were old, the children were still young, and the burden of the family was on her head. Although Xie Jinyuan will send money back regularly, there are many people, and the money sent by her husband is far from enough.
As a result, Ling Weicheng could only start to learn to farm, and a famous Shanghai lady who had not dipped her fingers in the spring water had to take off her cheongsam and leather shoes and work in the fields. Sowing seeds, picking manure, fertilizing, and farming often put her mentally and physically to the limit, but she survived again and again.
What supported her was Xie Jinyuan's last words to her, "I will come to pick you up after victory." But the bad news came, cutting off her spiritual pillar.
However, after a few days of grief, she immediately packed up her emotions, after all, life will continue, and the elderly and children in the family still need to eat. Ling Weicheng could only continue to support the family with a weak body.
Ling Weicheng with four children
In the summer of 1941, Ling Weicheng took his children and traveled to Chongqing in 5 provinces to receive a 50,000 yuan pension from her husband. Because Xie Jinyuan's image of the anti-Japanese hero was too profound, Chiang Kai-shek and his wife received her. After listening to the living conditions of Ling Weicheng's family, Jiang said: "Now during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the country is in difficulty, and after the victory of the War of Resistance, the state will certainly take care of you!" ”
Another purpose of Ling Weicheng taking her children to Chongqing was to hope that the Nationalist government would remember her husband's exploits and arrange for her children to go to school and study, but Old Chiang's shirking made her dispel this idea.
Ling Weicheng could only return to Jiaoling County again, and she divided her husband's pension into two parts, one for her father-in-law (her mother-in-law had died at that time), and the other for buying three acres of land, cultivating her own land, raising four children, and personally teaching her children to read and write.
The somewhat squeamish Shanghai lady of that year has long since become a peasant mother with rough skin and black hands full of calluses. I used to never care about small money, but now every cent must be calculated.
After Japan announced its surrender in August 1945, Ling Weicheng wanted to return to Shanghai, first to worship her husband, and second, to go back to her hometown to find something to do so that the children could receive a good education.
Xie Jinyuan rode a white horse
But at that time, there were two problems that hindered her plan to return to her hometown, one was that her father-in-law was old, and they would be left alone, and the other was that the road to Shanghai was far away and not enough.
Perhaps the father-in-law also saw the daughter-in-law's thoughts, took the initiative to adopt a refugee girl who had fallen to Jiaoling as a granddaughter, so as to retire to the end, and also advised Ling Weicheng to sell the land in a seller and collect some money to return to Shanghai with the child.
In the end, Ling Weicheng, who had no other good way, followed his father-in-law's advice, sold some of the field property and made some entanglements, leaving most of the field property to his father-in-law and granddaughter, and returned to Shanghai with four children after a decade of absence in April 1946.
Many veterans of the lone army camp also returned to Shanghai after the victory of the War of Resistance. A few months after Xie Jinyuan's death, the Japanese army attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war on Japan. The Japanese army forcibly occupied the public concession, and the soldiers of the lone army camp were forced to become Japanese coolies, part of them were escorted to Anhui to transport coal, some were transported to Nanjing and Hangzhou as coolies, and the 50 people who resisted the most fiercely were sent to an island in Papua New Guinea to build an airport for the Japanese army. Fourteen people were killed, starved to death, or sick, and 36 people returned to China after the victory of the War of Resistance.
After returning to Shanghai, the veterans gathered again because of the captain's wife. Within a few days, dozens of lone veterans came, watching many people living on the streets, Ling Weicheng was very indignant and uncomfortable, as the wife of the regimental commander, she felt obliged to let her husband's old department live with dignity.
When she heard that there was a three-story building left by the Japanese at No. 466 Wusong Road, she consulted with several lone officers and immediately let Li Chunlin, who had been a platoon leader under Xie Jinyuan, take dozens of people to occupy it.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the major members of all sides rushed to receive the enemy property, and whoever grabbed it first would have it, this building was originally favored by the Three Youth League, and had already moved into some furniture, but the name of the eight hundred heroes in Shanghai was too loud, dozens of people went out, and there was also the regimental commander's wife "sitting in town", and the Three Youth League could not afford to provoke it, so it had to withdraw.
As a result, Ling Weicheng's family and lone army veterans finally had a safe place in Shanghai. Everyone decided to give the second floor to the captain's wife and children, the third floor was divided into multiple cubicles for the veterans who had no place to stay, and the first floor was rented as a paving.
Although there is a place to live, life is still not settled. At this time, Ling Weicheng remembered what Old Chiang had said before, "The state will take care of you after victory", so in June 1946, with his two sons and the expectations of the old lone army, he went to Nanjing to ask for Chiang.
The promise of "after the victory of the War of Resistance" was once again disappointed. Ling Weicheng didn't even see Jiang in Nanjing, only a sentence from Song Meiling: "You go back first, and the Shanghai Municipal Government will arrange for the Shanghai Municipal Government to take care of you." ”
The Shanghai municipal government pushed them to the Social Bureau, and the parties kicked each other with leather balls. After Hearing this, Tang Enbo proposed that the lone army veterans join his troops, all of whom were promoted one level higher than the original officers, and went to the battlefield of the civil war with the army.
Tombaugh
After this proposal was rejected by the lone soldiers, no one would care about their lives or deaths. Ling Weicheng has thoroughly seen the face of the Kuomintang, and only self-help is the only way out.
Ling Weicheng began to ask for people everywhere, and arranged for the educated and skilled veterans to go out to work one by one. Wang Zhaohuai, director of the Shanghai Railway Bureau, an old classmate of Xie Jinyuan, arranged eight veterans to become railway policemen at one time. I can drive, I can be a driver, I can write, I can go to work at a shipping company.
Although more than twenty veterans were arranged to work before and after, there are still many lone veterans who have no source of livelihood.
So Ling Weicheng began to recall his father's "business experience" and learned to use what he had heard since childhood. Under the pressure of the environment, the peasant women who were still working diligently and earnestly in Guangdong a few months ago have become strong female treasurers full of business and ideas. Ling Weicheng led the veterans to form the Four-Line Lone Army Industrial Service Society, actively looking for a way out for the old department of hundreds of husbands.
She and the lone soldier tried to open a bus line from the original lone army camp to the Waibaidu Bridge, and the cars were all found, but on the first day, they were blocked by the police. She also sent people to take over the Dada pier left by the Japanese army, and for this reason, she also fought with the Green Gang, more than 30 lone soldiers were arrested and taken into the police station, and finally in order to let the veterans out, she could only agree to withdraw from the dock.
Buses in old Shanghai
Later, the service agency generated and operated "lone soldier brand" towels, socks, soap and other daily necessities. This time they seem to have found the right business direction, the people of Shanghai have a deep affection for the eight hundred heroes, they are very buying of the daily necessities of the lone army brand, and the business of the service agency has gradually improved.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, and in less than a year, the lone veteran who handled the money ran away. This made Ling Weicheng fall into a desperate situation again, and the veterans also began to be scattered, coupled with the tight war ahead, Shanghai inflation was serious, prices were one price a day, and doing small business seemed to be no longer feasible.
Four-line Lone Army Industrial Service Agency Dock Staff Roster
During this period, Ling Weicheng regretted the most, Zhu Shengzhong, Shi Hongmo and other four lone veterans, because of the soaring prices, had no money to eat, and could only desperately take risks and kill and rob many times. Before the accident, Zhu Shengzhong had come to ling Weicheng, and he said, "Mrs. Xie, the four of us in Shaanxi are ready to leave everyone." ”
Ling Weicheng asked, "What are you going to do?" ”
"I don't know yet, take one step at a time, I didn't die in the Sihang warehouse and the prisoner of war camp, I think we are going to die!" This coat was given to you when you returned to Shanghai, and you took it as a way to buy some food for your children. Zhu Shengzhong then said something that others did not understand, expressing his shame for the cultivation of the regimental commander, and then said that others introduced a business, maybe they could get rich, and they would come to repay everyone when the time came.
At that time, Ling Weicheng did not realize the meaning of Zhu Shengzhong's words, and it was too late to react after the incident. In the end, four lone soldiers were sentenced to death. Ling Weicheng organized several veterans and buried the bodies of the four people with tears.
In the movie "Eight Hundred", the role of Zhu Shengzhong was played by Wei Chen
In 1948, Ling Weicheng organized veterans to surround her husband's cemetery and more than 60 acres of land near the former lonely military camp, renting them to people who fled to Shanghai to escape the war, and collecting a small amount of rent. Except for a small portion of the money for a few children to go to school, the rest is allocated to veterans who are living alone. At its peak, more than 110 people come a month to receive a living allowance.
After liberation, the real estate in Shanghai was registered and redistributed, and Ling Weicheng, with the attitude of trying it out, wrote a letter to Mr. Chen, explaining the history of the three-story building at No. 466 Wusong Road and the open space around Xie Jinyuan's cemetery, as well as the current situation of veterans of the lone army camp. After reading it, Mayor Chen immediately gave instructions:
Xie Jinyuan participated in the War of Resistance against Japan and sacrificed his life for the country, and his bereaved family members should be taken care of. A section of the house and cemetery at No. 466 Wusong Road belongs to Xie Jinyuan's widow, and all fees are reduced.
Under the care of the people's government, Ling Weicheng and the children finally had a stable living environment. The children were able to go to school with peace of mind, and Ling Weicheng also worked as deputy director and nursery at a nearby nursery, before moving to a garment factory until his retirement in 1973.
Lone veterans, who failed to settle in Shanghai, most of them returned to their hometowns in the early 50s, and many people would come to say goodbye to the captain's wife when they left, and Ling Weicheng always gave them a lump sum of money.
Before leaving, several veterans knelt in front of Xie Jinyuan's tomb and cried: "We are sorry for you, Commander Xie, you sacrificed your life for the country, we are incompetent, and we have come to harass your family." ”
Ling Weicheng said kindly and comfortingly: "Although my husband died, the people of the whole country know his name. And you, how many living people have suffered, nine deaths and one life, but you still have to face a more cruel life, every living lone soldier, is a great hero. Although others don't know your name, your regimental commander knows it, and so do I! ”
After the veterans returned home one after another, the rescue of the husband's old department did not end. In the difficult period, Guo Xingfa, a lone soldier living in Baoshan, could not open the pot at home, found Ling Weicheng, and she herself was also very difficult, or divided half of her own rations to Guo Xingfa.
Ling Weicheng still maintains correspondence with many lone veterans, and she remembers the names of more than 100 veterans. In the decades that followed, whenever news of the death of a veteran came, she would cross out the corresponding name in her notebook.
Elderly Ling Weicheng with his family
On January 6, 1991, Ling Weicheng died of illness in Shanghai at the age of 84. Before dying, she handed her yellowed notebook to her children and said to them, "The names on them are the uncles you have seen." They and your father once wrote a suicide note together in the Sihang Warehouse, determined to live and die together, and these people suffered far more sins than your father. For so many years, I have tried my best to help them, and you must do the same, otherwise your father will be uneasy in the spirit of heaven. ”
The regimental commander led the soldiers to fight, and the regimental commander's wife led the soldiers to "live". The Xie family's entanglement with the lone army of the Four Elements came to an end after more than 70 years of relay, with the death of Yang Deyu, the last warrior of the Eight Hundred Heroes, in 2010.
In 2005, Yang Deyu went to xie jinyuan's tomb to pay tribute
Since then, there have been no more eight hundred strong men in the world. All that remains is their legend.
The world is mourning the regimental commander Xie Jinyuan, in fact, the regimental commander's wife, Ling Weicheng, should also be the protagonist in this legend.