Source: Learning Corps Chinese Military Horn
Author: Yang Mingyue Bi Liyuan
What were you doing when you were 9 years old?
In July last year, the entry "the youngest Red Army on the Long March Road" appeared on Weibo's hot search, causing heated discussion among netizens. The object of hot discussion was Xiang Xuan, an old Red Army soldier who embarked on the Long March road at the age of 9 in 1935.
A netizen's comment attracted the most likes ——
"The 9-year-old Long March... I'm 9 years old and still playing with mud. Salute! ”
Another netizen replied: "With these 9-year-old people who participated in the Long March, there are days when we can still play with mud at the age of 9." ”
At the General Hospital of the Western Theater, the reporter met Xiang Xuan, a 96-year-old veteran of the Red Army. Seeing the reporter coming, the old man slowly got up from the bed and insisted on sitting on the sofa to accept our interview. The old man's face was rosy and he looked good.
Xiang Lao's right eye had been wounded on the battlefield in his early years, almost blind, and could only see some silhouettes. He suffers from cataracts in his left eye and has had surgery more than a decade ago. Xiang Derong, a nurse who has taken care of Xiang Xuan for many years, told reporters that because of physical reasons, the old man has not gone downstairs for some days.
Therefore, the interview with Xiang Xuan was conducted when the reporter repeated "You take a break and talk about it later" and he repeated "You listen to me" over and over again.
Xiang De Jong said that the old man "thundered" at lunch time every day, at 11:40. But on the day of the interview, at 12:00 noon, even if the reporter and Xiang Derong repeatedly advised him to eat first, the old man had no intention of stopping to rest.
"Why am I talking to you?" What we did then, now fewer and fewer people know. I can't afford to eat. ”
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Using the marksmanship learned from "Mom", shoot the bullet at the enemy
"My mother is He Mangu, satisfied man, the girl's aunt." She is He Long's younger sister, the fifth oldest..."
During the interview, Xiang Xuan repeated this sentence to the reporter several times. "How forgetful is the old man", the conversation with the reporter half an hour ago, it is difficult to leave traces in Xiang Xuan's mind. But when it comes to her own revolutionary experience, He Mangu, the mother who dedicated her life to the revolutionary cause and guided her son to the revolution, is the undoubted beginning of every "repetition" of Xiang Xuan.
In the 1920s, the tide of revolution was in full swing. In Sangzhi, Hunan, He Long's eldest sister He Ying, after the death of her husband, and her sister He Mangu led the local masses to continue the tenacious struggle. In 1928, he Mangu was unfortunately arrested and imprisoned for being betrayed by traitors, and was imprisoned along with her 3 children. He Ying managed to bribe the prison guards and rescued the three Xiang Xuan brothers and sisters. Later, He Mangu, who was tortured in prison, was brutally murdered.
"They nailed my mother to a shelf, and my hands and feet were tied..." Xiang Xuan stood up from the sofa trembling, opened his arms, and described to reporters the tragic scene of his mother's sacrifice.
When her mother died, Xiang Xuan was only 2 years old. His whole "memory" of his mother comes from the narration of his aunt He Ying and uncle He Long. "They said that when my mother was young, she was more spicy, and she was a person who was not afraid of heaven. So do I. For his mother, who had almost no impression of herself, Xiang Xuan was very proud.
After that, Xiang Xuan lived with his aunt He Ying and had a second "mother". He Ying has no children, and treats Xiang Xuan as his own son, and often takes time to teach Xiang Xuan to shoot guns after fighting, "but my aunt usually puts away the gun, and only gives it to me when shooting targets, afraid that I will cause trouble when I am young."
In May 1933, due to the traitor's whistle-blowing, the guerrilla station was surrounded by heavy enemy troops, and He Ying was unfortunately wounded. She called Xiang Xuan, who was only 7 years old, to her side and handed him a pistol and a cloth bag containing 2 gold rings and 5 silver dollars, "The aunt told me to leave quickly, hurry up, find my uncle, and avenge the Red Army."
With He Ying's dying instructions, Xiang Xuan, who was shot in the calf, limped to the back mountain and found a large stone to hide.
"After all, I was a child, and I didn't notice it at first, but then I looked down and saw the blood on my legs and cried." It was not until the receiving guerrillas arrived and drove away the enemy that they found Xiang Xuan on the back hill and carried him down the mountain.
This time he was injured, leaving an indelible scar on Xiang Xuan's body - Xiang Xuan pulled up the hem of his right leg pants, and due to the lack of motor muscles, there was still an egg-sized "pit" on his calf.
For Xiang Xuan, the greater pain came from witnessing the sacrifice of his "mother" with his own eyes. In the days to come, this little Red Army used the marksmanship taught to him by "mother" to shoot bullets at the enemy one by one.
In November 2015, Deng Yuping, a descendant of the Red Army, visited Xiangxuan. She told the old man that she had gone to the place where He Ying had sacrificed, which was well protected and the bullet holes in the walls were clearly visible.
Xiang Xuan blushed, "I really miss them, and I want to go back and have a look." ”
"There has always been a belief, a belief that we have to go anyway."
"It's not quite like me."
In front of Xiang Xuan's eyes was a photograph of a small Red Army sculpture. A seven- or eight-year-old child wearing an octagonal hat and a Red Army uniform, his thin shoulders were somewhat bent by three guns, and his left foot stepped firmly in the mud, looking back sideways, his eyes shining.
Xiang Xuan's bluntness made everyone present laugh. On May 14, Pang Bohe, a researcher of the Kunming Municipal Cppcc Committee in Yunnan Province, and Li Zhengxing, director of the village committee of Shiwang Village in Shangjiang Township, Shangri-La City, brought this photo to the hospital to visit Xiangxuan.
In April 1936, after the Red Second and Sixth Armies crossed the Jinsha River in the north, they rested in Shiwang Village and other places. In recent years, Shiwang Village has vigorously developed red tourism, built a red school, and planned to build a Red Army cultural square and place a small Red Army sculpture based on Xiang Xuan. They came deliberately to get the old man to give some opinion on the creation of the sculpture.
"This is based on the image of your 'little red devil' in the Long March, showing the firm ideals and beliefs of you and the soldiers of the Red Army." Everyone explained.
After He Ying's sacrifice, Xiang Xuan traveled all the way to find the Red Army, found his uncle He Long, and stayed in the team to become a Red Army soldier. In November 1935, more than 17,000 people of the Red Second and Sixth Armies began the Long March from Sangzhi, Hunan Province, under the leadership of He Long. At the age of 9, Xiang Xuan became the youngest warrior on the Long March.
Xiang Xuan's communication class had more than a dozen "little red devils". "On the long march, the biggest difficulty is the lack of food. The person in front eats the grass on top of the head, and the person in the back eats the root. We were little kids back then, taken care of everywhere, a little better than everyone else. I will never forget the kindness of my comrades-in-arms. ”
Even if you are always taken care of, it is a long march known for its hardships, and you have to move forward step by step on your own feet. Xiang Xuan, who was still a child, always followed He Long's wife Jian Xianren. Jian Xianren often carried his daughter, who could not walk, holding Xiang Xuan in his hand, and moved forward step by step.
"Although the Long March is very bitter and there are many people who have sacrificed, everyone always has a belief, a belief that they must go on no matter what. So do I. Xiang Xuan said that at that time, there were always enemy attacks along the way, and sometimes enemy planes flew over at six or seven o'clock in the morning, "Later, we summed up our experience, didn't those planes always fly on the main road?" We just walked the trail and they flew theirs. ”
"Right here, I was slapped by my uncle He Long." During the Long March, Shiwang Village, who had passed by, came to visit, which made Xiang Xuan very emotional and remembered a past event.
On the Long March, the Red Army greatly respected the religious beliefs and customs of the ethnic minorities along the way. On that day, He Long went to The Kadan Songzanlin Monastery in Zhongdian County (present-day Shangri-La City) to give gifts. Xiang Xuan was He Long's guard at the time, and after following him into the temple, he was curious for a moment, touched the Buddha statue in the temple, was slapped by He Long, and cried on the spot.
Li Zhengxing told Xiang Xuan that the people of Shiwang Village have not forgotten the Red Army for decades, and now vigorously develop the red cultural industry and let the red gene be passed on from generation to generation. Xiang Xuan happily picked up a pen and wrote "Long live the Red Army" as a gift to Shiwang Village.
"Don't be afraid of death when fighting, the more you are afraid of death, the more you will die."
In addition to the scar on his right calf, the 26 wounds on his body also left several shrapnel in Xiang Xuan's body. It was a "memorial" left to him by the beacon years.
In October 1936, the 10-year-old Xiang Xuan followed the team to end the Long March, and later stayed in Yan'an to study culture classes.
Li Hai, the son of founding major general Li Wenqing, told reporters that his father had told him that in 1938, when he was chief of staff of the 715th Regiment of the 358th Brigade of the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army, he led his troops into the Daqingshan anti-Japanese base area. At that time, the division commander He Long wanted to put Xiang Xuan in the 715 Regiment and follow the team to participate in the anti-Japanese resistance.
"My father thought Xiang Xuan was too young, only 12 years old, and there were frequent wars in the base area. However, Boss He insisted that Xiang Xuan should be placed in the front-line troops, and Xiang Xuan himself would also go. Later, after several communications, he was afraid that Xiang Xuan would 'cause trouble' to the troops, so he gave up. ”
Two years later, the 14-year-old Xiang Xuan still went to the front line of the anti-Japanese resistance as he wished, and served as a deputy company commander in the 358 Brigade Guard Company. In the smoke of gunfire, he fought all the way and participated in the battles of Yichuan and Baoji.
"Don't be afraid of death when fighting a war, the more you are afraid of death, the more you will die." This is the experience that Xiang Xuan has summed up from years of gunfire and bullets. In the summer of 1948, in the Battle of Libei in Dali, Shaanxi, due to the lack of heavy weapons in the troops, Xiang Xuan, then the commander of the engineer company of the 358th Brigade of the Northwest Field Army, blasted open the enemy's bunker with modified earthen artillery. However, the enemy stubbornly resisted, and Xiang Xuan was wounded in many places in the artillery fire, almost blind in his right eye, and there is still shrapnel left in his body.
"Since I was a child, my father likes to tell us about the hardships they have suffered and the stories of the battles of that year." The second son recalled to Guorong that when he was a child, he did not understand some things, nor did he pay attention to them, and when he grew up, he slowly understood that his father wanted his descendants to understand the "bitterness" of the past, so that he could cherish today's "sweetness" more.
Xiang Guorong served in the Beijing Garrison District and worked for Sichuan Television after retiring from the military. After retiring in 2014, he and several colleagues visited a number of living veteran Red Army soldiers, leaving behind many precious video records. His original intention was to replace his elderly father to see his old comrades-in-arms. The old Red Army was very happy to see them come to the door. Some of the old Red Army performed assassinations on them, "as if back to when they were young." More old Reds, because of physical reasons have difficulty communicating, but they still want to try to express something.
Xiang Guorong tried to tell his 6-year-old grandson the story of his father. He didn't have much hope at first, but after a while, he found that his grandson "listened" to it.
In March this year, Xiang Xuan celebrated his 96th birthday. The great-grandson gave Xiang Xuan a painting with the bright red party emblem he had painted.
This birthday gift, Xiang Xuan liked very much.
(Produced by Learning Corps and Chinese Military)
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