Chi Yuhua, the widow of a Red Army general in the Soviet Union. Three days after the new marriage, the husband went to the front line. Parting, one of his words: Wait for me to come back. She waited 72 years.
From the green silk bun to the white hair, her unchanged posture for decades seems to have transformed into a "Wangfu Stone" on the red land.
She couldn't wait for her lover until the end of her life.
What a sad past it was, it was a woman's heartbroken life.
Chi Yuhua came to Li Cailian's house as a child bride
In 1911, Chi Yuhua was born in a small mountain village in Xingguo County, the famous General County in Jiangxi.
In the spring of 1920, 9-year-old Chi Yuhua was sold to Jiaofu Village, a tea garden township 15 kilometers away from home. She was given to the villager Li Lianghuai's family as a child bridesmaid.
After many years, she could still vaguely remember the scene of that day: "It was the prince of the clan who carried me on his back, walked for most of the day, and climbed many mountains before he got here." Taigong relieved me, took 6 silver dollars, sighed, and left. I cried all night that night.... ”
Chi Yuhua met Li Cailian, who was 3 years younger than her, for the first time. At that time, Li Cailian was in elementary school.
After school, Chi Yuhua was always with him left and right, and the two of them worked together to collect firewood, herd cattle, and pick wild vegetables.
The days of getting along day and night have filled the invisible gap in the hearts of a pair of young boys and girls. Suddenly, Chi Yuhua walked into the girl's generation, full of the simple and natural beauty of mountain girls.
Li Cailian read private school for several years, understood some truths, and was a little more bookish.
"Xianghua, medium-sized." Whenever Chi Yuhua mentioned it to people, he said, "He was young at that time!" A body of strength, the face is very delicate. ”
Li Cailian
Li Cailian and Chi Yuhua got married and separated 3 days after marriage
On December 20, 1928, Li Cailian, who was still studying, secretly participated in the Xingguo Rebellion under the leadership of her teacher Liu Yuexiang.
The "riot" was successful, and Li Cailian joined the party and became the secretary of the county party committee of the Shangrao Center of the Young Communist Party.
in Chinese New Year's Eve 1929, in the sound of firecrackers, I finished Chinese New Year's Eve meal. After the grandmother's arrangement, Li Cailian's bedding was moved to Chi Yuhua's bed, and the two officially became husband and wife.
At that time, Chi Yuhua was just a girl who had just opened her heart, and Li Cailian was shouldering the mission of a revolutionary.
On the third day after the marriage, the organization asked for an emergency return to the team, and under a large camphor tree next to a stone bridge, Chi Yuhua reluctantly separated from her husband...
"When I come back, I will produce and study at home."
After the newly married, Chi Yuhua often crossed the high threshold and looked at the village entrance. How she wished that in her countless gazes, there would be a time when her sweetheart could appear in her sight...
During the day, she went down to the field to cultivate the fields, went up the mountain to cut firewood, and at night, she rushed to make military shoes and expand the red branches.
Chi Yuhua, as her husband had instructed, guarded her home, read more, and did more for the Red Army, waiting for her husband to triumph.
On the hillside, on the beach, and in the fields, Chi Yuhua's crooked handwriting was left: "Li Xianghua Chi Yuhua, Chi Yuhua Li Xianghua."
These were the six words that Li Cailian had taught her when she was leaving, as if by writing these two names together, they could get closer.
Li Cailian, Chi Yuhua
After three years of separation, Li Cailian returned home to visit her family
Late March 1932. Li Cailian came to Tiancun in Ganxian County with the command organ, and not far from his hometown of Jiaofu Village, he took leave to go home to visit. It has been three years since he and his wife's newlywed parting.
At this time, the mother Liu Youfeng was seriously ill in bed, hoping that her son would stay by his side and wait. He leaned over the bed, his eyes tearful: "Mother, the child has a task at hand, this time only Yu Hua can wait for me." ”
The elderly Chi Yuhua said intermittently in his memories: "He only has three yuan a month, and he has no money to come back!" That time I came back for three days and left, he was only 19 years old! He came back and gave me this little square mirror, which I used for more than 70 years because he gave it to me. ”
Chi Yuhua picked up 90 quintals of firewood and sold them for 2 silver dollars to find her husband
The second reunion after marriage was in June 1933, after the victory of the fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression" war.
Chi Yuhua heard that Li Cailian had been transferred to the secretary of the Children's Bureau of the Central Soviet District and moved with the provincial party committee to Qiliping, Ningdu County, Ganzhou, Jiangxi.
She picked up 90 quintals of firewood and sold them for 2 silver dollars, brought Li Cailian's favorite dried vegetables and bacon, and walked for five or six days to Qiliping.
Chi Yuhua saw her husband, who had not been seen for more than a year, and she was happy, but Li Cailian, who returned from, had a serious face.
He said to the bystander, "This is one of my fellow countrymen. Li Cailian's words made Chi Yuhua assigned to the collective dormitory.
The matter of the couple was known to Comrade Cai Chang, director of the organization department of the provincial party committee. Sister Cai severely criticized Li Cailian and took Chi Yuhua to the provincial party committee office to reunite the couple.
Li Cailian said apologetically: "Yu Hua, now that the war is tight ahead, how many comrades have abandoned their families and children, but as a party cadre, I have brought my family members with me, what will others think?" ”
"I understand, you said, don't be willing to spoil your wife, call it a good man, I won't drag you down!" No more words are needed, and the two interconnected hearts are close together.
Li Cailian lived in a fortified earthen house with a light bed made of wooden benches in addition to a dilapidated desk.
This time, the couple had more than a month of reunion time, which was also the sweetest and warmest time in the depths of Chi Yuhua's memory.
During this period, Chi Yuhua and Cai Chang's eldest sister became acquainted. Comrade Cai Chang asked her: "Would you like to come to the provincial party committee to work and make a revolution with Comrade Li Cailian?" ”
Seeing that the husband and wife were about to revolutionize together, Chi Yuhua couldn't help but blush on her face, and she couldn't help but nod her head happily.
I saw Minister Cai Chang write on a note signed "Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China":
Xingguo County CPC Committee: After studying and deciding, Comrade Chi Yuhua of your county was transferred to work in the Land Department of the Jiangxi Provincial CPC Committee.
Cai Chang, director of the Organization Department of the Jiangxi Provincial CPC Committee
1933.7.19
Before parting, Li Cailian gave everything she had to buy a close-fitting white cloth undershirt for her wife.
Chi Yuhua returned to her hometown in Xingguo County with Comrade Cai Chang's handwritten letter full of joy, and she looked forward to the next meeting with her husband.
This time it was husband and wife who said goodbye
July is the harvest season, and as soon as Chi Yuhua returns to Xingguo, he goes down to the field and throws himself into the rice harvest non-stop in the fields of the hilly mountains.
On the morning of the third day, an unexpected pouring rain soaked her as she worked in the fields. At this time, people can't take care of themselves, first of all, they must grab the rice harvest.
She was stubborn, draped in wet clothes, and kept busy until the moon hung on the east mountain.
When she took the last load of rice home, she had no strength left, and the person fell to the ground with the rice...
Then, a vomited "plague" suddenly spread in Xingguo County, and one person after another fell ill or even died.
Chi Yuhua was also unfortunately hit by the disease, and for more than ten days in a row, he vomited and vomited, and his whole body was thinned into a handful of bones.
Her eyes were still stubbornly wide open, and an invisible belief was supporting her thin body. She also wants to go back to her lover....
When Chi Yuhua went to the district and county to handle the transfer procedures with the transfer order issued by Comrade Cai Chang, Xingguo County had just been divided from one county into two counties, namely Xingguo County and Yangyin County.
Due to the shortage of manpower, the county asked her to temporarily assist in the work, to Yangyin County Party Committee as an inspector, she obeyed the organizational arrangement, at this time Chi Yuhua found out that she was pregnant.
In July 1934, on the eve of the Long March of the Red Army, Li Cailian was commissioned at a time of crisis. Together with Comrades Chen Yi, Qu Qiubai, Mao Zeqin, and others, he was appointed as twelve members of the Central Sub-Bureau of the Soviet District and remained in the Central Soviet Region to fight guerrillas.
In September, he went to Xingguo County to recruit new recruits to supplement the team, but because he was too busy with work, he did not have time to visit his home, which had not returned for two years.
He wrote a letter asking his wife to rush to the county seat to meet, in which he explained: It is estimated that the reactionaries will occupy the county seat of Xingguo within a week, and if she does not arrive at the county seat of Xingguo within a week, she must not go again.
The letter also said: In wartime, the news is very uncertain, and if one day someone says that I have died, you must not believe it. The revolution will succeed! Wait for me to come back!
When the letter was handed over to Chi Yuhua, the meeting time agreed on the letter had already passed.
In the years that followed, Chi Yuhua engraved her husband's words in his heart as a promise word by word.
The newlywed couple, who spent no more than two months together after marriage, had already given birth to a daughter that the husband could not know.
This brief struggle of the morning star was like a sharp blade, warmly engraved in the corner of her memory. In the stormy decades, it is still like yesterday!
Chi Yuhua went from village to village to find her husband's whereabouts
After the main force of the Red Army left the Long March of the Central Soviet Zone, the reactionaries began a frenzied counterattack.
Li Cailian's uncle Li Wenlan and brother Li Caiwan died before and after. Chi Yuhua was even more worried about her husband's safety.
Every day, she went up to the mountains to collect firewood, taking the opportunity to inquire about the whereabouts of the Red Army. Someone quietly told her that there was Red Army and guerrilla activity in the area of Ruijin Tongbao Mountain.
She entrusted her daughter to her family, smeared a pot of ash on her face, hung a chai knife around her waist and walked out of the small mountain village, And Chi Yuhua cut firewood all the way to find it, begging all the way and asking all the way.
She traveled all over the Mountainous Region of Fujian and Gansu, searching from village to village for more than half a year, but she did not find a trace of her husband.
The vast mountain road at the end of the world is rugged, how many times she shouted in her heart: There are so many roads in front of her, how come there is no road to my husband who I miss!
Xingguo General County
One day, she saw a Kuomintang proclamation in a tea booth on a mountain pass: A reward of 5,000 oceans and the capture of Li Cailian.
"The heavens have eyes, thank god, isn't this clearly conveying the news that her husband is not dead and Li Cailian is still alive?"
She stopped looking, afraid that if her husband would not find herself when she returned home, Chi Yuhua returned to Jiaofu Village.
How many months of starless nights, she crossed the threshold, looked at the winding path opposite the Lixi River, how she hoped to come over to a figure that she was looking forward to day and night...
How many times, in her sleep, she dreamed that Li Cailian was dressed in a military uniform, and she galloped back to Jiaofu Village on horseback.
Whenever I woke up, I only heard the cold wind whistling outside the window, and when I saw the dark and broken walls, the tears instantly moistened my eyes.
Chi Yuhua's daughter died prematurely, and her in-laws asked her to remarry
In 1936, Chi Yuhua's daughter, who was not yet 3 years old, fell ill with measles. A little life that was bouncing around inexorably died.
She threw herself in front of her daughter's grave and cried out, "Xianghua, I didn't take good care of my daughter, I can't help you!" ”
Chi Yuhua, who lost his daughter, almost broke down mentally and did not say a word all day.
Li Cailian's father and stepmother (Li Cailian's mother Liu Youfeng died in 1932) believed that their sons and granddaughters were gone, and there was no need to let their daughter-in-law stay in the Li family, so they asked Chi Yuhua to remarry.
Li Cailian's nephew Li Zuogao later recalled: "My grandfather threw away her quilt and pot and asked her to remarry. If she didn't go, she would have to wait and say he wasn't dead. ”
In the end, a loyal elder of the clan really couldn't see it and came forward to administer justice. At the same time, he helped her to find a cooking messenger in the village border area office.
The revolution has triumphed! Where is her husband?
On a sunny day in August 1949, the 48th Army of the Fourth Field Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army marched into the county seat of Xingguo County.
Chi Yuhua hurriedly brushed his hair and washed his face, a pair of small feet, and ran to the county seat with a walking belt.
She seemed to see That Li Cailian was among them, and she couldn't contain her inner excitement.
"Comrade of the People's Liberation Army, have you seen Li Cailian?" Chi Yuhua asked the same question to all passing troops.
Asking again and again, disappointed again and again, the team is finished, where is Li Cailian's figure? Once again, her body and mind were in relentless pain.
A well-meaning person gave her an idea: "Since Li Cailian met Comrade Cai Chang when she was working in the Central Soviet District, why don't you write a letter and ask?" Chi Yuhua did ask someone to ghostwrite a letter.
Cai Chang, chairman of the All-China Women's Federation, saw Chi Yuhua's letter looking for Li Cailian and attached great importance to it.
Comrade Cai Chang immediately asked the Service Department of the All-China Women's Federation to immediately assist in finding Li Cailian.
On May 5, 1952, the Service Department of the All-China Women's Federation replied to Chi Yuhua.
Comrade Chi Yuhua:
With regard to your search for your lover, Li Cailian, we have forwarded the brief history you wrote to the Political Department of the Military and Political Commission and asked them to try to inquire into it. However, you have been isolated from Comrade Li Cailian for so long, and all you know is his position 18 years ago, so the investigation must be relatively long, and I hope that you will wait patiently and work with peace of mind.
"Wait patiently, work with peace of mind" Eight words mean that Li Cailian will come back, there is an organizational decision, Li Cailian will definitely come back!
"Wait patiently and work with peace of mind", she once promised Li Cailian: develop production in the rear and strive to be a model.
In the small dark wooden box in her home, she carefully treasured the nineteen awards she won: land reform activists, activists who subscribed to national bonds, activists in centralized purchasing and marketing, pig breeding models, and March 8 red flag bearers...
Although the paper color is old, she regards it as a treasure, and how she hopes that her husband will come back and share with her the honors she has won...
Chi Yuhua firmly believes that her husband is still alive and waits until he is old
Chi Yuhua adopted his nephew Li Zuogao as Li Cailian's adopted son.
10, 20 years passed, and she brought up her adopted son. Later, there were grandchildren and granddaughters. 30 years later, she died for her husband's father.
How many times, Chi Yuhua hugged the firewood and grass to cook rice on the fire, but she involuntarily stood up straight, and walked to the gate with some concern, expectantly rising and falling....
The threshold at the door of the house, which was originally more than two inches thick and more than a foot high, experienced time polishing, and was slowly stepped on by Chi Yuhua.
Chi Yuhua and the threshold next to her are in the shape of a "crescent moon"
At the other end of the long time and space, is Li Cailian, who Chi Yuhua has been waiting for all his life, really an unknown situation and an unknown life and death?
Li Cailian was one of the important leading figures in the Central Soviet Region, but left a strange blank
On the list of martyrs of Xingguo, there were 12,038 people who filled in the "no news from the north".
It was not until the 1980s that the relevant departments were able to determine that Li Cailian died in the Ruijin Tongbao Mountain District in 1935.
One day in May 1935, Li Cailian led a part of his fighters to pin down the attacking enemy and cover the breakthrough of his comrades-in-arms.
When the enemy was about to climb the hill, Li Cailian waved his shell gun in his hand and shouted: "Comrades, resolutely do not surrender, fight!" ”
The warriors jumped up, shouting and rushing toward the enemy. At this moment, the deputy squad leader of the guard squad showed the face of a traitor who was greedy for life and afraid of death, aimed at Li Cailian from behind, and fired a criminal bullet.
Li Cailian, who was only 22 years old, spilled blood on the Copper Bowl Mountain.
When the comrades of the Party History Office told Chi Yuhua the news, her reaction was to deny it one after another: "Wrong, you are all wrong!" Li Cailian did not sacrifice, he is still alive! ”
She took out Comrade Cai Chang's letter: "The letter did not say that he had sacrificed, but only that it would take time to find it, so why do you say that he sacrificed?"
Chi Yuhua stubbornly took the monthly martyr's pension issued to her by the civil affairs department as living expenses sent back by Li Cailian.
The years of history have turned to the twenty-first century, and the elderly Chi Yuhua has entered the old age.
The grind of the years had made her short and dark, thin and small, and she looked like a very ordinary rural old man.
She was still sitting in front of her door, in that gesture, like a sculpture.
Her face was gritty, the kind of fortitude that was full of vicissitudes.
Her hair was silvery white, like the grass of the mountains.
The most memorable thing was her eyes, as if all the spirits were gathered there.
When he was in his nineties, the elderly Chi Yuhua came to the county town where he had not set foot in more than 30 years. Visiting the Martyrs' Monument with the Old Red Army, Li Cailian's name is impressively listed, which is so shocking!
She knew in her heart that her husband would never come back, but she was unwilling to give up that watch. How could she believe that her husband had become a name? How could she want her husband, who was alive in her heart, to die?
At 8:30 a.m. on April 24, 2005, in Jiaofu Village, Tea Garden Township, Xingguo County, 95-year-old Chi Yuhua died alone.
Her tombstone faces the mountain, looking out at the country road into the village.
She had been waiting for seventy-two years since the couple separated in Qiliping on July 19, 1933.
More than twenty-six thousand days and nights, her love, her love, were faithfully melted in the endless watch and waiting...
A threshold that has been tenaciously stepped out of the "half moon" shaped opening.... Cast a song called "Guinness of Love".
A Red Army wife has been watching over the storm for more than seventy years. Composed a long song when crying love song!
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The text is written by the author's subjective thoughts + historical objective facts.
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