Wang Chunyan | Chen Yuanshen of Yanlou Village, the ordinary life of an anti-war veteran

Chen Yuanshen of Yanlou Village - the ordinary life of an anti-war veteran

Wang Chunyan

In 2015, China and the rest of the world solemnly commemorated the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War, with the aim of allowing the world to "remember history, remember the martyrs, cherish peace, and create the future." Seven years later, by chance, I listened to relatives and friends in my hometown tell me that Chen Yuanshen, the father of Chen Qingxia's classmate in my village, is 98 years old this year, and is the only surviving anti-war veteran in Lushan County and an honorary soldier who retired from the People's Liberation Army. After learning this information, I was very emotional that there were people in the village where I was born and raised that witnessed the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the Anti-Fascist War that shocked the world more than 70 years ago, and fought to the death with the Oriental devils. The old man now lives peacefully in Yanlou Village with his eldest son, Chen Duzhong, and the desire to visit the old man as soon as possible is born.

The most beautiful April day on earth, in the middle of April 2022, I was able to walk into the old man's home, his 71-year-old daughter Chen Fengxian was accompanying the old man, I saw the anti-Japanese medal hanging on the old man's chest, although I had not met with them for nearly thirty years, they still called out my nickname kindly. The old man immediately talked about my grandfather, Wang Dianchen. "Spring, your grandfather was born in 1922, 100 years old this year, two years older than me, I was born on the tenth day of the first month of the eleventh lunar calendar in 1924, your family moved to Yanlou from Nanshan Cuizhuang in the summer of 1937, your grandfather was kidnapped by bandits at that time, he was clever, and escaped from the chimney of the stove in the locked house. In order to avoid being killed again, your family went down the mountain and moved to Yanlou. After your grandfather was liberated, he joined the party and became a village cadre. After I was demobilized from the army, I followed him to make land reform, co-operation, and production teams until the 1980s." Apparently he had a clear memory and a sense of happiness about the years he had experienced with my grandfather. Naturally, I turned the conversation to the years of the War of Resistance more than seventy years ago.

Anti-Japanese War veteran Chen Yuanshen and his eldest daughter in April 2022

In 1943, in accordance with the regulations of the National Government, Chen Lao, as the eldest son in the family, became a strong man before the age of 20, became a soldier in the Kuomintang government troops, and left the village on September 24, when the old man's father had just died, he took the hot filial piety, endured the pain and drove to Hancheng, Shanxi, and became a carrier soldier in the 78th Army of Yan Xishan, transporting various military supplies for the front, how many times risked life and death, through the Japanese blockade to transport guns and ammunition for the front line, until the victory of the War of Resistance. In the nearly three years of war against Japan, he and his comrades-in-arms witnessed the brutality of Japanese devils, the displacement of ordinary people in Shanxi, and the tenacious will of Chinese soldiers and civilians to resist foreign invaders; At the same time, he also saw that in the face of the Japanese army's large-scale attack in Shanxi, the Kuomintang troops were defeated and retreated, while the Eighth Route Army, which was very poorly equipped, fought bravely against the foreign devils coming from the east. He learned from his comrades-in-arms that in September 1937, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army set up an ambush at Pingxingguan and annihilated more than 1,000 Japanese troops, thus defeating the myth of "the invincibility of the Japanese army", and the Chinese army won the first victory in the war against Japan... The old man still remembers that the commanders of the World War II area to which he belonged were Wei Lihuang and Yan Xishan; Yan Xishan himself "listened to the tune and did not listen to the election" to Chiang Kai-shek's government; the troops only fought in Shanxi and did not obey the election to fight in other provinces; the old man clearly remembered the warm and excited scene when the army and the people celebrated the victory when the anti-Japanese victory was won on August 15, 1945. To this day, the old people still remember that their military commander was Lai Ruxiong, regimental commander Xu Yingkui, Guo Baoshan, commander of the transportation brigade, and Guo Dequan, captain of the transportation brigade.

1946 was also a life and death disaster for the elderly, although the war was temporarily stable, he suffered a "sweat disease" in the army and almost lost his life. He also did not want to participate in the ensuing civil war, in June 1946 when their troops were transferred from Shanxi into Luoyang, he found an opportunity to escape, ran all night, through Luoyang Longmen, Baisha, Ruyang, slept under the gate of a family for half a night, and then entered Lushan, the old man remembered that the day of arrival was the ninth day of the sixth lunar month in 1946.

At this time, the War of Liberation had already begun, and conscription activities were widely carried out in the Liberated Areas, and young people were actively conscripted into the army. Having just settled down, he replaced his younger brother (who had just been newly married) and once again signed up for enlistment in the Chinese People's Liberation Army. On September 20, 1947, Lushan was liberated for the first time. The Kuomintang troops counterattacked, and on October 6, Chen Xie's army again captured the county seat of Lushan, most of the Lushan area had been liberated, and several bandits and a few remnants of the Kuomintang forces were entrenched in the southwestern mountains and stubbornly resisted. After enlisting in the army, he was first incorporated into the Lushan County Brigade, and then, according to the orders of his superiors, rushed to Zhengzhou overnight to participate in the battle to support the liberation of Zhengzhou. The first night the troops were stationed in Third Street, and the next day they ran to Yu County, 180 miles from Zhengzhou, and the troops trotted all the way into Zhengzhou in the light rain all night. On the morning of September 20, 1948, the vanguard troops who liberated Zhengzhou had entered the urban area and had a fierce exchange of fire with the Kuomintang troops, basically ending the battle at about 11 o'clock. After entering Zhengzhou, their troops were incorporated into the Zhengzhou Garrison District and participated in the social security management and maintenance work in Zhengzhou. Because Chen Lao had studied private school for three years when he was a teenager and had a certain culture, he was assigned to the guard regiment for management work. Soon at the end of 1950, he remembered his mother at home, and he had the idea of discharge, and the leader said to him, why did you leave the army when you were active in your work, asked him where you wanted to go, he said I wanted to go back to Lushan's hometown, so he found a reason for "eye disease" to go through the discharge procedures. After returning to Lushan from Zhengzhou, he ended his second military life and began to return to his hometown to work as a farmer.

He has experienced the whole process of socialist revolution, construction, and reform and opening up in the rural areas of the mainland; the old man supports the party's leadership, is full of confidence in the future of the country, and hopes that the day of the reunification of the motherland will come as soon as possible. In the years of collectivization, he worked as an accountant, as a food manager at construction sites, from the construction of the Zhaotai Reservoir Dam to the barracks of the North and South Main Canals, and from the beginning of 1962 to the beginning of 1984, he served as the accountant of the Seventh Production Team. He has a strong and upright personality. The accounts and property in charge are clear and are good stewards of the collective. After contracting the rural land, he actively worked and produced, and later bought a bran-making machine. Despite his advanced age and chronic respiratory illness, he spares no effort to support his family. One of the old people's unfulfilled wishes is to return to Zhengzhou to see the changes and developments there. Because the old man has not been to Zhengzhou since he left in 1950. The old man had two daughters and two sons, and the children were upright, kind, industrious and respectful. After his wife died in 1993, he lived with the family of his eldest son and daughter-in-law. Over the years, due to the filial respect and considerate care of the children and grandchildren, coupled with the government's economic subsidies and the care of caring people for the veterans of the War of Resistance, the old man's life is very good, the spirit is cheerful and cheerful, the more energetic he feels, the health is safe and sound, the old man's ears are deaf, his memory and conversation are still clear, talking about the past more than seventy years ago, talking about the present night in Yanlou Village, talking about the family children, still relish and enjoy it. We are very happy to see the current health status of the old man, and wish him a long and healthy life.

Salute to history, pay tribute to the veterans of the War of Resistance.

(Wang Chunyan, a native of Yanlou Village, Malou Township, Lushan County, was admitted to the Department of Political Science of Zhengzhou University in September 1979 and retired from Henan Urban Construction College in 2018)