Reading Yang Shuo's "Wangnan Mountain" and Luo Jiuping's "Gunshots on the Huliu River" has a feeling

This article is a reading impression written by the author during the Spring Festival in 2020, which was published on the Edelweiss Literature Public Account. The novels "Wangnan Mountain" and "The Sound of Gunfire on the Huliu River" both take the tragic case that occurred in Xida Yunxuan during the Liberation War as the main line, and record the arduous struggle of the peasants in Cha'nan under the leadership of the party to protect the land. Both novels vividly depict the people of Weixian County, especially the broad masses of people in Xidayun village, who acquired land after the first liberation in November 1945, and made great sacrifices to defend the fruits of the victory of land reform after the Kuomintang army occupied Weixian again in October 1946. This reflection writes the inner context and profound connotation of the two novels, and is a good article to guide people when they read the two novels intensively!

- Editor

Text/Reef

It is the Spring Festival, should have been a string of relatives and friends, warm hospitality, mutual complaints, lively, blessings for the New Year, but the weather is unpredictable, no one can predict what will happen tomorrow, but this year and encountered the Wuhan new coronavirus pneumonia spread, had to stay at home.

Or, usually busy and busy, biased towards socializing, mobile phones, all kinds of useful and useless information occupies my time, for a long time I have no intention of reading, think carefully because I can't calm down.

These days, in response to the call, I just try to have to be less closed and hold back at home. After the first day of the Chinese New Year, I was a little bored, so I remembered that at a small party at the beginning of the waxing moon, I had received a long novel written by Comrade Luo Jiuping, a well-known writer in Wei County, who wrote the novel "The Sound of Gunfire on the Huliu River".

Yes, hard heart, put down the phone. Moreover, this novel is the history of the tragic incident that occurred in the village of Xidayun in my hometown, no, more precisely, the story of the thrilling and magnificent Cha'nan Protectors who took place in Weixian during the Liberation War and persisted in their struggle against the enemy.

Earlier, shortly after the beginning of winter last year, I accompanied Comrades He Fengshan, Liu Guoquan, Zhao Jinchuan, and other well-known figures in the literary, historical, and artistic circles of this county to the village of Xida Yunxuan.

Xiao Yanjun, the secretary of the village party committee, warmly received everyone, and he also showed me the novella "Wangnan Mountain" that Yang Shuo, a famous mainland writer, had collected in 1950, which was published by the Tianxia Book Company.

I have been blessed with this book because I had heard of this book when I was very young, let alone read it, so I always had a wish: I could read this book. Learn how the great writers describe and narrate the stories of my hometown that I thought I was familiar with since I was a child, and this time I finally got my wish.

And Comrade Luo Jiuping's "Gunshots on the Huliu River", I also heard about it in the 1990s, and I have also seen this book written by him. To tell the truth, it did not attract my attention at that time: first, because the title of the book was to write the story of the struggle that occurred in Weixian County, it did not feel wonderful; second, because he was not very familiar with the writer Luo Jiuping, and he thought that he was a native writer of Weixian County, so he was not interested, so he did not read it.

This time, I am somewhat "grateful" for the epidemic. Staying at home is fine, and finally I can calm down and spend a lot of time to read this book "Gunshots on the Huliu River", which is also a rare time in recent years, and I can't let go of reading it.

It turns out that the book describes exactly what I often heard and told incompletely when I was a child, those images that were indifferent and unclear, the cold-faced cruel and somewhat dull and fragmented character fragments that happened in my hometown and my hometown, but in the writer Luo Jiuping's pen, one by one, they became tall, muscular, vivid, strong, plot twists, and heroes, and these stories suddenly became an epic, and there was a feeling that people would not be addicted without reading it in one breath.

The book creates the image of a group of farmers, who are the scum of the soil, and they can't read a basket in big characters. However, after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Weixian was liberated for the first time, and more than a year after the land reform was carried out in the countryside, the Kuomintang troops attacked the liberated areas on a large scale, occupying Zhangjiakou in October 1946, and in November the troops and local armed forces under the Weiluo River took the initiative to retreat to the Dananshan base area. With Xizhuang Fort (西大云疃) as the main line, he portrays and describes a group of singable and weeping characters who insisted on fighting against the enemy, were not afraid of sacrifice, and defended the fruits of victory.

Although the history before and after the tragedy is expressed in the form of a novel, the place name, village name, and personal name are different, can not be seated on the right number, and the plot and story are also somewhat fictional, but the outline of the tragic event has not changed, basically following the historical context in the process of the tragedy, the narrative is free, the language is vivid, and it is fascinating.

It can be seen that Comrade Luo Jiuping used enough effort when writing this book, first of all, he has a heart that loves the hot land of his hometown of Wei County, so he has a deep affection for the red story that happened in this hot land. Not forgetting his original intention, consciously assuming the responsibility of telling these red stories, and inheriting the red gene is a powerful driving force for him to write this book.

Second, he went deep into the old revolutionary areas such as Xida Yunxuan to visit the participants and survivors of the tragic incidents in that year; personally interviewed the old leaders who worked in Wei County, especially in the third district of Daiwangcheng, and the witnesses of the Chanan Protectorate Team, mastered a large number of detailed first-hand information, and gave full play to the function of literature on the basis of respecting history;

Third, the writing is good, when I did not read the book, to be honest, I read it with the attitude of understanding a rough line; in the process of reading, I had a further like for the book. In the novel, not only is the story line clear, the characters are full, the emotions are realistic, and the characters are like standing in front of you; and the words are beautiful, the language is simple, the feelings are delicate, the plot is tortuous, the ups and downs are ups and downs, and there is a strong readability and affinity.

Although the novel "Wangnan mountain" is relatively short, in the context of the liberation war, it vividly describes the struggle experience of the Cha Nan Land Protection Team in the area of Dawang Yan (West Da Yun Yan), and praises the deeds of the peasants who have obtained land looking at the Nanshan base area from afar and hoping for the second liberation and persisting in the struggle. Under the leadership of the Party, in order to defend the fruits of victory, the Cha Nan Protectorate Team fought with the enemy to the death, and the story was touching, and it was lamentable to read but could not be calm.

The two novels, from different sides, describe the causes and experiences before and after the Xida Yunxuan Massacre, although they describe the same event, but the emphasis is different, after mutual confirmation, the context of the event is more full, and "The Gunshot on the Huliu River" is a long novel, compared with "Wangnan Mountain" The information capacity is larger.

After reading these two books, I have a clearer understanding of the heroic stories that took place in my hometown during the Liberation War. I am proud to be born in a hometown with heroes, and I am also proud to have two writers who write the stories of heroes in my hometown, Yang Shuo and Luo Jiuping, and I am fortunate to have these two books! It is precisely because of these two books that the story of the Xida Yunyun Massacre will not be forgotten by history because of its age and the passage of time.

Of course, a novel must be a novel. From today's point of view, the process of describing the events is still unsatisfactory, and many stories are not written in them, such as the indomitable struggle between the arrested district squad soldiers and the members of the land protection team in prison and the indomitable struggle with the enemy, and in fact, a group of peasants, tortured, without a single traitor, can imagine what a great group this is? The battle to liberate Wei County is also less described, which may be due to space limitations or the author's choice of historical materials.

Wei County, known as Wei Prefecture in ancient times, is the seat of the ancient capital daiwangcheng, with a long history, and is a thousand-year-old county. In the long history, we not only have a splendid and unique local history and culture of Ulju, but also have a rich and unique red history and culture of Ulju, which requires the large poles living in the hot land of Ulju to make contributions and produce more excellent cultural works to achieve the purpose of establishing a cultural county.

Today, we should cherish the red vein of our county, strive to excavate the red history and culture of our county, and let the red gene carry forward. Do not forget the original heart, keep in mind the mission, inherit the legacy of the revolutionary predecessors, build our hometown, although the years have passed by the stars, but time has not made us forget those martyrs who once shed red blood for the people of the motherland, may their blood sprinkled on this hot land become a beautiful flower blooming in our beautiful life!

About the Author

Fan Yuanting, pen name: Haijiao, a retired person from West Dayun, Wei County. Write a little text once in a while and be more self-congratulatory.