The Tashan heroes return
At 5:30 a.m. on March 24, 1998, villagers from Houshan Village in Gaoqiao Town, Huludao City, and Linden Cong Village in Laoguanbao Township rushed to the martyrs' cemetery in the village. No one organized or launched, but they braved the cold winds of early spring to come, wearing white flowers on their chests and wreaths in their hands to send off the heroes who had been silently with them for fifty years.
On this morning, 743 martyrs will return to Tashan, their fiercely fought position, to sleep.
I. There are monuments and no tombs in the Tashan Martyrs' Cemetery, the martyrs are scattered everywhere, the people's hearts are uneasy, and it has become a major event to bury the martyrs in a concentrated manner
The basswood bushes in Houshan Village of Gaoqiao Town and Laoguanbao Township were the locations of the rear hospital of our army in the Tashan Battlefield, and the martyrs who were brought down from the battlefield were buried in these two villages.
An old woman in her eighties told reporters: "At that time, the war was tense, and the body was carried down and put into the cabinet and buried, and a small wooden plaque was set up in front of the grave with its name written on it. The more I think about it today, the more I feel sorry for the martyr, but there was no way to do it then. ”
The Battle of Tashan was fought on October 10, 1948, and "October 10" became an immortal mark in the hearts of some veterans. Since 1992, every year on October 10 at 3 a.m. (that is, the moment the battle began), a septuagenarian in military uniform has appeared at the Tashan Revolutionary Martyrs' Cemetery, he took off his military hat, bowed three times to the Martyrs' Memorial Tower, and tearfully chanted: "Old comrades-in-arms, where are you buried?" He was a heavy machine gunner of the year, named Ni Kesheng, who lived in Jinzhou City and came every year to pay tribute to his comrades-in-arms, but every year he left a regret in his heart.
At the end of 1952, in order to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the victory of the Tashan Resistance, the Tashan Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Tower was built on the West Tower of Tashan Mountain. In 1962, some of the heroes who participated in the war came to Tashan for a field visit and found that the location of the memorial tower was not the position of our army, and the heroes reflected this problem to the Jinzhou Municipal Government, so the memorial tower was demolished. On October 15, 1963, under the planning of the former Jinxi County Civil Affairs Bureau, the Tashan Resistance Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Tower was rebuilt in the forward position of the 34th Regiment of the Fourth Column (Tashan Hero Regiment) of the former Northeast Democratic Coalition Army. However, the two times the pagoda did not consider the issue of relocating the bones of the martyrs, so that when the "Tashan Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Tower" was renamed the "Tashan Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery", the cemetery turned out to be a cemetery with a monument and no mausoleum.
This year, on the 50th anniversary of the victory of the Tashan resistance, the Huludao Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government decided to build a large mausoleum behind the Tashan Martyrs Memorial Tower, and on March 24, the remains of the 743 martyrs whose names were found were relocated here for centralized burial.
The last wish of the five generals: after death, they will be with their comrades who died that year
Wu Kehua, Hu Qicai, Li Fuze, Jiang Xieyuan, and Jiao Yushan were all five generals of the Hundred Battles, but what they had experienced in hundreds of battles was the Tashan Blockade Battle, which was condensed in it.
General Wu Kehua was the commander of the Fourth Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army, personally commanded the Tashan Blockade Battle, and was awarded the rank of Lieutenant General Deng in 1955; General Hu Qicai was the deputy commander of the Fourth Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army that year, and was awarded the rank of lieutenant general in 1955; General Li Fuze was the chief of staff of the Fourth Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army, and was awarded the rank of major general in 1955; Jiang Xieyuan would be the leader of the Tashan Hero Regiment that year, and promoted to the rank of major general in 1964. The five generals left a will before they died, and they all hoped to bury their ashes in the Ta'a Revolutionary Martyrs' Cemetery and be with their comrades-in-arms. General Hu Qicai came to Tashan four times before his death, and he said to his relatives: "I am a survivor of the Tashan Blockade War, I can't forget my comrades-in-arms, and I must go back to Tashan and my bones after I die, so that my heart can be at peace." ”
Now, with the exception of General Li Fuze's ashes to be delivered on April 5, the ashes of the other four generals have been placed in the cemetery. On the Qingming Festival, after all the ashes of the five generals are laid down, a grand commemorative event will be held here in the city, and Zhang Wannian, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, wrote an inscription: "Tashan Heroic Martyrs Flow through the Ages."
3. Solemn burial: the villagers sent each other with affection, and the soldiers solemnly moved the tomb
The elderly Yang Deqing of Houshan Village in Gaoqiao Town got up in the dark, and he took a broom to clean up the graves of the village and 383 martyrs, and then together with the villagers, he put a wreath of flowers on the grave. The reporter asked: "Was it the village cadres who sent you?" The old man said, "No, this matter does not need to be sent, I will come and send them when I hear the letter." When I was only a teenager, I knew that the People's Liberation Army was angry for our poor people, and after liberation, we were really angry and lived a good life. Thanks to them! The 74-year-old Tang Yulan was facing a cemetery, his expression was silent, and the reporter asked: "You have lived next to this cemetery all your life, are you not afraid?" The old man said, "What are you afraid of?" They are all our own people. At that time, they were all living in our house, and I gave them sugar noodles, and they picked them up and went up the mountain, and many people jumped around alive when they went up, and they didn't say a word when they carried them down. My wife Wang Jinshan went door to door to find cabinets for the martyrs, and every family was scrambling to give it to them. Our family took the lead in donating two cabinets, and I remember that an old man also donated his own Shou village. I sewed the clothes torn by bullets for the martyrs, and I shed tears while sewing, all of them were little brothers in their twenties! Fifty years have passed, and we don't move, that is, to add soil and pull grass to their cemetery..."
At 7:00 a.m., 600 soldiers from a certain unit stationed in Jin came to Houshan Village in Gaoqiao Town, where they erected a military flag in front of the cemetery and lined up to swear to the martyrs: "Carry forward the revolutionary tradition and inherit the legacy of the martyrs..." After that, they gently opened the grave soil and used red silk cloth bags to hold up the bones of the martyrs.
At the same time, more than 700 naval officers and men marched into the village of Linden Grove in Laoguanbao Township, and the officers and men lined up to mourn the martyrs, and then walked into the cemetery, carefully opened the tombs, and picked up the bones of the martyrs one by one and put them into red silk cloth bags. The children of the school rushed to the roadside to set up water bowls and kettles for the uncle of the People's Liberation Army, and then lined up in a row in the cold wind.
Nine hearses loaded the remains of 743 martyrs and slowly headed for Tashan to the old man Tang Yulan stood on the slope and waved to the hearse, and the villagers paid attention to the hearse...
4. At noon, Tashan greets the undead of the warriors with great hospitality
Tower Hill, in fact, is just a hill with an altitude of only 40 meters, with neither a tower nor a mountain, and an undulating area of more than 10 kilometers wide before and after. Therefore, it is called a pagoda, perhaps because a beacon tower was built during the Ming Dynasty's Apocalypse; so it is called a mountain, perhaps because it is slightly higher than the surrounding area, it is bordered by Hongluo Mountain in the east, located between Jinxi Jinzhou, forming a throat to control the "two Jin", which has always been a place of contention between soldiers and families. However, what makes Tashan stand out in world military history is the successful example of our army's blockade of 110,000 enemies with 10,000 troops (that is, the Tashan Blockade Battle) from October 10 to 15, 1948. Former ASSISTANT SECRETARY of Defense of the United States once lamented: "Tower Hill has no danger to defend, just 8 kilometers of front, tanks can be driven up directly, not to mention aircraft, warships?" The 1-11 victory was a mystery, and Chiang Kai-shek was not at war at this time. ”
Tashan, which has now become a famous scenic spot, has become extremely magnificent, and the bloody battle of 6 days and nights of that year gave her extraordinary momentum. 20,000 square meters of cang pine surrounds the "Tashan Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery", and in the center of the cemetery stands a 12.5-meter memorial tower, on which chen Yun, a proletarian revolutionary of the older generation, inscribed thirteen large golden characters - "The revolutionary martyrs of the Tashan Resistance War are immortal"
At 10:30 a.m. on March 24, 9 hearse drove into the martyrs' cemetery, 100 armed police soldiers stood solemnly on both sides of the Yongdao leading to the tomb, and 36 armed police soldiers carried 6 huge crimson paper coffins containing the bones of martyrs slowly walked on the Yongdao Road, and mourning music sounded...
At 11:25, the remains of 743 martyrs were all moved to the joint tomb in the "Tashan Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery", and 743 brave soldiers returned to their former positions, where they would stay with their generals forever.
At this point, a major leader of Huludao City presented six huge wreaths to the martyrs on behalf of the 2.72 million people of the city, and the 1,500 officers and men of the People's Liberation Army and the broad masses of the people who participated in the funeral ceremony paid their respects to the martyrs in silence.
The four blows of the cemetery and the pine cypress set off a gentle wave, like the narration of the old man of history, more like the praise of hundreds of millions of people... This article is excerpted from "Behind the Scenes News" published by China Federation of Literature and Literature Publishing House