The guardian of the Garden of Eden, Chen Hui

Long Zeju

In the depths of winter, the cold wind is cold and frozen for thousands of miles. By the Juma River, a young man with a short gun at his waist wandered and pondered in a land soaked with the blood of the heroes, and the verses of grief and indignation came to mind:

Heroes are not without tears,

Do not sprinkle the enemy in front.

The boy's seven-foot body,

Willing to donate to the motherland.

Heroes throw blue blood,

Transform into a red cuckoo.

The husband dies in the ear,

Shame on the dog traitor.

This is one of his sacrificial poems and a self-portrait of himself. Soon after, he collapsed at the dawn of victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, but his image towered before thousands of young people with the help of the poetry collection "Song of October", "Jin-Cha-Ji Poetry Copy", and "Revolutionary Martyr Poetry Copy".

He is the revolutionary martyr and poet Chen Hui.

"Mother"

On a dark night in the late winter of 1942, Chen Hui wrote a poem "Mother" between the battles in the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area, fondly recalling his growth, his hometown, and his mother.

He was originally a Southern Boy Lang. He was born on June 20, 1920 to a merchant family in Shuangqiaoping Township, Changde County ,changde County (now Dingcheng District, Changde City), Hunan Province. Before he was born, his mother Zhong Meiqing had already given birth to two older sisters, Wu Shengfen and Wu Shengfang. His father, Wu Changquan, named him Wu Shenghui, and it was probably when he reached the anti-Japanese front that he changed his name to "Chen Hui".

He was a child who struggled with suffering. Just after turning two years old, the father, who only knew how to drink and did not care about his wife and son, went to Hades alone to have fun.

But what a wonderful mother he had:

Mother

You love your children with generous love.

You can starve yourself,

But we must have our three sisters and brothers to study,

You sold half of your father's land,

You borrow a lot of debt, you pay people back your socks in the middle of the night,

Yet you rejoice,

When you hear that your children are doing well,

You rejoice,

When you see us reading aloud,

You're busy cooking for us,

In order not to interrupt our brains,

You won't even let us go to the neighbors to buy two copper plates of vinegar

His mother was an unfortunate daughter who was given as an adopted daughter by her father as a child, and when she was 13 years old, she was sold by her father to a trader, who in turn sold her to a rich man in Changde City as a slave.

You are also a rebel of the old society,

You also went to a girls' vocational school.

You have also cut off contact with all your relatives,

You put the little foot into a half-big foot,

You let your daughter, my sister join the Youth League,

………………

In the autumn of 1932, Chen Hui was admitted to the fourteenth class of the junior high school of Changde Provincial No. 3 Middle School, and three years later, he was promoted to the seventh class of the general subject of the provincial Changde Middle School, which was renamed from the third middle school. These schools have successively been known as "Hunan West Road Public Normal School" and "Hunan Provincial Second Normal School", and they are also known as the birthplace of the revolution in the Yuanli River Basin and the cradle of the Communists. In 1934, a group of progressive students established secret societies , the Youth Mutual Aid Society " and the " Wuyuan Literary and Art Society " , and the following year launched a patriotic movement that openly supported the Beijing 12.9 school tide. Chen Hui enthusiastically participated in these struggles. Before the anti-Japanese smoke was ignited, the party's peripheral organization "Hunan Provincial Changde Middle School Detachment of the Chinese National Liberation Vanguard" was born here. Chen Hui is an active and hard-working team member.

In February 1938, a middle-aged woman dressed in plain clothes and under the pseudonym "Shuai Guang" came to the ancient city of Changde, who was the famous female revolutionary Shuai Mengqi. She created a secret organization nicknamed "Zhang Dezhi", the Changde Special Branch of the Communist Party of China, to recruit party members among primary school teachers and Changde Middle School, and Chen Hui was a student party member of Changde Middle School. At this time, he finally understood the blood of Changde 11 years ago (that is, the "Respect for the Sun Incident" in Changde in May 1927). Later, he wrote in his diary:

Marxism-Leninism, which rescued me, also told me that the present world is a bloody world of man-eaters; It also taught me that only by returning an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, can I fight back the cursed age in this curseable place.

The Party's education and the tempering of revolutionary practice enabled him to grow rapidly, and he felt strongly:

Ah, I grew up, I grew up, I grew up!

I became a rebellious person in the old society who was scolded;

…………

When the sacred torch of the War of Resistance,

When the fever was high in a corner of the country,

I'm going, I've chosen my own path,

I'm going to the land where the best laugh burns red.

This "land that laughs best and burns the reddest" is the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, which is Yan'an.

One night in May 1938, he and his classmates Zeng Zhizhong, Zeng Zhimin, Guan Ping, and Xia Gao left their dear hometown and dear mother.

That night,

The darkest night in the world,

You shed tears,

Stroking his son's face with the trembling of his aging fingers,

And he said to me in a trembling voice:

Go, boy,

Don't want to be a rich man,

Don't turn into a rogue either.

From Yan'an to Jin-Cha-Ji

In the summer of 1938, Chen Hui threw himself into the dream of revolutionary embrace, Yan'an. The party organization immediately sent him to Yan'an Union University to study revolutionary theory and receive military training. He felt novel and excited about every grass and tree in the red and free new world, and his poetry rushed like a stretch of water, and he wrote down many "light sauce-colored poems", singing About Yan'an, singing about the October Revolution, singing about the mother of the South, and expressing his desire to dedicate himself to the motherland:

afar

There is wind sand

Skimming the woods,

O my young blood,

It shouted:

Hui,

Be brave

Dedicated to the motherland,

Dedicated to – Mother!

After graduating from his studies at the United Nations General Assembly, he came to the Jin-Cha-Ji Anti-Japanese Base Area in May 1935 and served as a reporter for the Jin-Cha-Ji Daily. The fiery struggle life on the anti-Japanese front gave birth to his poetic thoughts, and he successively "raised the spear of poetry" in newspapers and magazines such as Jin-Cha-Ji Daily, Mass Culture, Poetry Construction, Children and Soldiers, and Drums.

He interviewed anti-Japanese fighters and the masses in a peculiar way. When he went out to interview, he always put on a coat with a notebook and pen in his pocket, and he took notes in his coat while talking to the interviewee. After the interview, the interviewee did not know that he had made a record, so when the soldiers and the masses talked to him, they were unrestrained and poured out their bags.

Under that amorous poem, how many heroic and heroic scenes appeared, how many brave and witty struggles appeared, and how new things never before appeared.

The main theme that reverberates in these poems is the poet's motherly love for his son in the Jincha wing anti-Japanese base area:

Plains, my mom...

O land of your vast and fertile motherland,

Take my living blood to wet you... Okay?......

Director of the Laizhuo County Youth Salvation Association

In May 1940, Chen Hui bid farewell to the Jin-Cha-Ji News Agency and came to Laizhuo County, Pingxi, to serve as a propaganda committee member of the Youth Salvation Congress.

The Jin-Cha-Ji base area was the first base area created by the Eighth Route Army behind enemy lines after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and it was a strong fortress for the War of Resistance Behind Enemy Lines in North China. The Laizhuo Plain leans on Beiping in the north, Baoding in the south, and runs through the Beijing-Hankou Railway in the middle, which is the outpost of the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area. By the time Chen Hui arrived, the Japanese had already destroyed the anti-Japanese organizations here, built strongholds, built watchtowers, organized special task forces, established a system of armor protection, and practiced a reign of terror. Now, the Laizhuo County CPC Committee has decided to rebuild the anti-Japanese organization here and win the victory in the struggle against "sweeping." Chen Hui volunteered to take part in this arduous struggle.

Dressed in the costumes of local peasants, he and the comrades of the county Youth Rescue Association went deep among the peasants on the banks of the Juma River, mobilized young people from village to village, district to district, and district to organize, and in more than two months, he established youth rescue associations in more than 60 villages. Later, he suggested that the county party committee hold a training class for young cadres in Shenjia'an, and more than 100 young cadres participated in the training. Chen Hui presided over the training class, wrote lecture notes, carved steel plates, talked about the situation, taught songs, and the young people received great education. The song "Following the Chinese Communist Party", which he wrote and composed, has long been circulated in the local area.

Japanese devils are like wolves,

Wolves come to eat the sheep of the common people,

The Eighth Route Army is a stick to fight wolves.

Oh folks,

We have to follow the Chinese Communist Party.

Japanese devils are like a dog,

The dogs come to nibble on the flesh of the Chinese people,

The Eighth Route Army is a big stone to beat dogs.

We must follow the Chinese Communist Party forward.

The following summer, Chen Hui was promoted to director of the county Youth Rescue Association, and he presided over two consecutive training courses for young cadres, training more than 200 backbone anti-Japanese youths, and turning the Youth Rescue Association into an important anti-Japanese force.

Chen Hui himself is also a hero of the Youth Salvation Society and the Youth Resistance. In August 1942, the Japanese devils carried out another crazy "sweep" of the Laizhuo Plain. Chen Hui led a guerrilla force of more than 60 anti-pioneers and was ordered to contain the enemy in Shiting Town to cooperate with the main force. Shiting is a market town connecting yamazato, with a Japanese squad and a squadron of special agents stationed in the town, a total of more than 300 people, more than five times the strength of the guerrillas. In the face of a strong enemy, Chen Hui led the guerrillas to rely on the advantages of familiar roads and maneuverability, sometimes dispersed, sometimes concentrated, held the enemy's nose for five days, and dragged the enemy breathlessly. At this time, one of the members of the guerrilla group defected to the Japanese Kou and guided the Japanese to surround the guerrillas at Qinglongquan, and the guerrillas had a difficult breakthrough, and Shi Wen kam, director of the Third District Youth Rescue Association, died heroically. Chen Hui led the soldiers in a bloody battle for more than four hours, and finally broke through the siege. After the war, he recuperated in a mountain village less than five kilometers from the Japanese stronghold. He wrote with respect a long poem of more than 2,000 lines, "Red Sorghum", which described the Battle of Shiting and praised the 19-year-old Shi Wen Cambodian martyr.

The fierce and arduous Great Patriotic War gave birth to and forged Chen Hui's more lofty passion, refining the best narrative poems in Chen Hui's short artistic career:

In response to the argument that "the North is sad", he retorted in the poem:

No! O my Jin-Cha-Ji,

Your humble idyllic,

Your rustic countryside,

Your land of burning war,

It's better than

The Garden of Eden in heaven

And beautiful!

Comparing the anti-Japanese base area to the new Garden of Eden is an aesthetic that only Chinese Communists have. In order to defend the new Garden of Eden, to defend the motherland, he was ready to give his life at any time:

O Motherland,

On the loess pile where my bones are buried,

There will also be flowers of love growing!

Chen Hui also wrote many poems praising the anti-Japanese struggle of the military and people in the base areas. "The General" depicts the heroic posture of Nie Rongzhen, commander of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, riding a horse and galloping, and the character of exemplary discipline; "Eve and Adam" tells the story of a young girl who, in order to protect the district chief who is being hunted down by the Japanese, breaks free from the feudal etiquette, falsely claims that the district chief is her husband, and kisses him on the lips.

The guardian in front of the Gate of the Garden of Eden

After being dealt a heavy blow by the Great Battle of the Hundred Regiments of the Eighth Route Army, the Japanese Kou changed its tactic of despising the Communist Party, mobilized its main forces to target the anti-Japanese base areas, and carried out a "great sweep of the iron wall" and a large-scale "solemn operation" against Jin-Cha-Ji. In order to preserve their strength, the laizhuo united county government and armed forces had to retreat to the western mountains. In November 1942, just after the "great purge," the Laizhuo County CPC Committee selected more than 20 cadres and fighters to form an armed task force, led by Xiao Binglin, Dong Yihuan, Chen Hui, and others, crossed the blockade line and infiltrated the Ma Ta Camp and Guqiu area on the banks of the Juma River to carry out the restoration work of the anti-Japanese base area. Chen Hui excitedly wrote the poem "Dreams on Wheat Grass" in order to bear this arduous burden. On the banks of the Juma River, the armed workers killed traitors and eliminated spies, which boosted the morale of the common people. Within half a year, the armed workers rekindled the anti-Japanese torch in more than 30 villages on the plain.

Chen Hui served as a member of the People's Movement of the Armed Workers' Brigade (that is, a member in charge of united front work) and brilliantly carried out a series of united front work and counter-offensive work. One day in the spring of 1943, Chen Hui and Zhao Yushi of the enemy engineering group came to the Qigou Guard Tower where Li Chunfang of the Kuomintang Laizhuo County Garrison Squadron was in charge. Li Chunfang is a native of the northeast, and after the fall of his hometown, he defected to Yang Kaimin, the county magistrate of Zhuo County. In the past six months, he has received many educations from the guerrilla enemy work group.

This time, Chen Hui put a letter from The Smuggler Li Chunfang informing him of "smuggling the Eighth Way" on the table, "Captain Li, someone is plotting against you!"

Li Chunfang was stunned.

"Rest assured, this spy has fallen into our hands and we have taken him away. However, since Captain Li is a patriotic gentleman and the country is in trouble, why is he not rational and bold and throw himself into the ranks of the anti-Japanese resistance?"

"I... I...... Okay?"

"Why not? For people like Captain Li, we in the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army welcome it. ”

"Then I will only have to make meritorious atonement for my sins in the future."

"Welcome! Welcome!" Chen Hui warmly shook hands with him, and left Zhao Yushi as Li's aide-de-camp before leaving.

Soon, Chen Hui let out a wind noise to attack the Qigou stronghold, and every night he sent people to the guard tower and shouted: "Abandon the dark and throw in the light, turn back to the shore!" In order to "defend the stronghold," Li Chunfang concentrated the scattered weapons, and at the same time sent people into the city to "request" the county garrison brigade to "support" the weapons. Within days, he had gathered more than 100 large guns, 4 crooked machine guns and 3 small steel guns.

Just as Li Chunfang was preparing for the uprising, Yang Kaiming really sent more than 100 gunners to reinforce. When they were only five miles away from Qigou, the armed engineering team learned the information. Chen Hui immediately led his troops to Qigou and ordered Li Chunfang to immediately lead his troops into the mountains and declare an uprising. When the reinforcements arrived at the edge of Qigou Village, only the burning flames of the watchtower and the billowing smoke remained.

In the winter of 1943, Chen Hui served as the party secretary of the fourth district of Laizhuo County and the political commissar of the armed workers' brigade, and he led cadres and fighters to crack down on traitors and control the two-sided regime, so that the base areas could be restored relatively quickly. The following summer, the Eighth Route Army needed to expropriate a batch of public grain from the rich through two-sided regimes, but many rich families resisted the expropriation. Zuo Baochang of the Pine Forest Shop patted his chest and said, "If my surname 'Zuo' were to hand over wheat to someone surnamed 'Eight', it would not be raised by my mother!" Zu Wufu, the squadron leader of Xia Xin Shop, also roared with a box cannon: "I this guy promised, and I will give the wheat to those 'Wang Eight' to eat!"

Chen Hui decided to educate them.

At noon one day after the Songlin store was rushed to the market, Zuo Baochang walked into the door with two bodyguards in a daze, and suddenly, the "box" in his waist disappeared. Three ordinary people with turbans stood majestically in front of him, and one in the middle, Chen Hui, put his pistol against the door of his head and asked, "I heard that the one with the surname 'Zuo' is not willing to hand wheat to the person surnamed 'Eight'?" Zuo Baochang only understood who was coming, and while punching himself in the mouth, he cursed himself: "It's me who farts!" Damn me! Damn me!" Finally, he obediently promised to deliver the wheat within three days. After leaving the Pine Forest shop, they were converted into farmers who collected manure in baskets and waited until they were on the side of the road in the Xia Xin shop. Zu Wu whistled and walked in, and the two warriors suddenly jumped up and threw him to the ground, and then put him in front of Chen Hui with both hands. Chen Hui picked up his pistol and asked, "Didn't you guy promise to give wheat to someone with the surname 'Eight'?" Zu Wufu hurriedly begged for forgiveness: "Chief, chief, the little one does not dare, the small one does not dare!"

Within three days, the two "hard-mouthed" families in two villages were indeed mobilized to hand over the wheat, and the rich households in other villages waiting to see also handed in.

Soon, Chen Hui was promoted to executive member of the Cpc Laizhuo County Committee, and continued to serve as the secretary of the four districts. At this time, the War of Resistance Against Japan had entered the stage of counter-offensive. Chen Hui led the armed forces of the whole region to cooperate with the county brigade in fighting the Japanese and killing the traitors. There were more and more Eighth Route Army troops on the plains, and the number of guard towers for Japanese traitors was constantly decreasing. The dawn of victory is already faintly visible. In Chen Hui's heart, the ardent desire to dedicate himself to the motherland and the base area burned even more vigorously. He wrote in "Song for the Motherland":

Under the butcher's knife of the enemy,

I don't shed a tear,

I'm happy,

Because ah,

I --

Your big-footed son,

Your Guardian,

His life,

Left you with a song

An incomparably sublime "word of praise".

The hero throws blue blood and turns into a red cuckoo

In the winter of 1944, the Japanese and Traitor armies gritted their teeth at the ever-expanding base areas and concentrated their forces to carry out bloody "encirclement and suppression" of the anti-Japanese forces that remained in the Laizhuo Plain. On November 11, Chen Lin, the governor of the fourth district, and more than 30 other anti-Japanese fighters were "encircled and suppressed" by a strong enemy at Ma Ta Ying Hetao, and all of them died heroically.

When Chen Hui heard the bad news, he was extremely sad and indignant, and his grief condensed into the altar poem quoted at the beginning of this article. But who would have expected that three months later, the poem "The hero threw out his blood and turned into a red cuckoo" became his last portrayal.

In February 1945, the county party committee prepared to convene a meeting of county and district heads. Chen Hui decided to go to each village before the meeting to inspect and arrange work. Zhou Yongwang, a staff member of the fourth district, abandoned his national integrity and the interests of the party for the enemy's reward of Chen Hui's thousand oceans. On the evening of February 7, when the snow was blowing, Zhou Yongwang followed Chen Hui to Huanglougang Village with the traitors, pounced, and the next morning arrested Fan Yongkun, the landlord who escorted Chen Hui, at the entrance of the village. Fan Yongkun could not withstand the severe torture and confessed Chen Hui's whereabouts. Matsubayashi's Japanese special agent captain Arakogawa and deputy captain Sun Yuanpei immediately led the Japanese secret agents to round up the enemy at the Matsubayashi store police station to Han village.

The enemy rushed to the village of Han and surrounded the fortress of Wang Decheng's family. It turned out that Chen Hui had returned to the Wang family to recuperate because of his illness. On the morning of February 8, Chen Hui was eating noodle soup when Japanese agents Wei Qinglin and Zhang Jieying sneaked in, pointed their guns at Chen Hui, and threatened: "You can't run!" Chen Hui's mind was fast, and he grabbed the pistol on the edge of the kang with a "rattling" sound, piercing Through Wei Qinglin's wrist. The two agents hurriedly exited the room, and Chen Hui and the accompanying small warrior Wang Houxiang shot out one after another.

More than 100 enemies surrounded the small courtyard of the Wang family and shot inward for more than an hour, but no one dared to enter.

A grenade flew in and injured Chen Hui's left leg, and he hurriedly said to Wang Houxiang: "Waiting in the house is not the way to go, we must rush out!" Saying that, two grenades were thrown in a row, and with the smoke rushed out of the house and into the courtyard. But the enemy was surrounded by layers and could not cross the courtyard wall, so they had to retreat into the west single room of this house and the east single room.

"It was Chen Hui who took the grenade in the east!" Several agents shouted. Seeing that they could not enter, they knocked on the roof and threw one burning corn stalk after another into it. The inside of the hut suddenly became a fire pit, and Chen Hui's whole body was entangled with the fire dragon.

Chen Hui saw that he could not get out of the tiger's mouth, so he made up his mind to take his last breath. He broke the pistol that had run out of bullets on the stone in the doorway, and then dragged his injured leg out of the west single room with difficulty. The traitors Wei Qingchang and Gao Qing, who were guarding on both sides of the door, sneaked up and hugged Chen Hui by the waist. Chen Hui did his best, punched the agent twice, and then pulled the last grenade, and suddenly Chen Hui and the two agents fell in a pool of blood, on the eve of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan.

In this way, Chen Hui condensed his youth at the age of only 24 into an incomparably magnificent poem.

You with the milk of love,

Raised me;

And I,

And with My Flesh and Blood,

Guard you!

(The author is a member of the China Television Artists Association, a director of the Hunan Film Critics Association, and the dean of the School of Arts of Hunan Information University)

[Editor-in-Charge: Liao Huiwen]

[Source: Hunan Daily· New Hunan Client]