It's spring again, and the March sun can't live up to it, and I want to go and walk on the three-story road.
The three-story road is a strange name, simple and casual. However, in a mountain city like Chongqing, the name is normal. The three-story road is actually a winding road from Liziba on the side of the Jialing River to the Eling Ancestral Hall, because the road folds three folds on the cliff, each fold is one layer, and the three folds are naturally three layers, and this road gets its name.
What do I want to see on the third floor?
In the long history of Chongqing, the era of the capital was definitely the highlight of Chongqing, when Chongqing stood in the center of the world stage for the first time, gathered the elites of the whole country, grasped the lifeblood of the country, and the scenery was unparalleled for a while. It's a big time with ups and downs, and the three-story road is a microcosm of that big time.
In 1938, the Nationalist government moved the capital to Chongqing, and a large number of political officials, business tycoons, and cultural celebrities followed. In 1939, the Japanese army began to bomb Chongqing for four years, and in order to avoid the bombing, dignitaries built villas on the outskirts of the city. Liziba on the Jialing River, with sunny terrain and wide vision, is an ideal place to live. Moreover, it is not too far from the political center Shangqing Temple, and the road to Chengdu passes through here, connecting with Zhongqu Road and Nanqu Road, and the traffic is also extremely convenient. A large number of official residences and villas have sprung up on the slopes of Liziba, and the mansions of these big men who control China's destiny spread from the river beach to the top of the mountain along the three-story road.
Today's Liziba, because of a building called light rail Meilun and become a net celebrity, light rail line 2 through this building, this is a solution to Chongqing mountain construction rail transit, the result of unintentional move, cast a "light rail through the building" landscape, has become many foreign friends to Chongqing to check in. Not far from the light rail through the building, there is a bright yellow building, this is Juelu, a three-story road, which starts here.
One floor road
The small road next to Juelu that leads to the halfway up the mountain is the first layer of the road, and the starting point of the first floor road is not far from the Wu Tiecheng Mansion. Wu Tiecheng Mansion is a two-story building backed by a mountain wall, green bricks and gray tiles, hidden in the shade of tall yellow gum trees on the side of the road, both sunny and shady.
Wu Tiecheng was a veteran of the Kuomintang, and he was already the backbone of the Kuomintang during Sun Yat-sen's time. But when he entered Chiang Kai-shek's circle, he began with a black pot.
In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched a counter-revolutionary coup, and the cauldron of the Zhongshan Ship Incident was carried by Wu Tiecheng for President Chiang. In this confusing incident, Wu Tiecheng was arrested and imprisoned, and almost shot. However, the back-pot man was also rewarded, and he gained Chiang Kai-shek's trust because of this. During the Northern Expedition, Wu Tiecheng did another beautiful thing, with his three-inch tongue, well, of course, a large amount of gold and silver jewelry, he successfully persuaded Zhang Xueliang in the northeast to change the banner, without a shot, the national government completed the national unification, in the northeast change of banner, Wu Tiecheng made a great contribution.
After the 918 incident, Wu Tiecheng served as the mayor of Shanghai, which was not a good job, and during his term, the Battle of Songhu began, and Shanghai was in chaos. Soon after the start of the All-Out War of Resistance, Shanghai fell, and Wu Tiecheng came to Chongqing. "An inch of mountains and rivers, an inch of blood, 100,000 young people and 100,000 troops" was the slogan shouted by Wu Tiecheng during the Anti-Japanese War, and later this slogan spread throughout the north and south of the river, boosting the morale of many Chinese enthusiastic young people in the War of Resistance. Wu Tiecheng, who shouted this slogan, lived in this mansion on the third floor of the road at that time. During the Chongqing negotiations, the Wu Tiecheng Mansion was also one of the negotiating venues, where Mao Zedong received a banquet from the Kuomintang.
Judging from Wu Tiecheng's life, he was a die-hard fan of Chiang Kai-shek, but his ending was not too good. In 1949, Wu Tiecheng flew to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek, and 4 years later, he was scolded by Chiang Kai-shek in a dispute with Chiang Kai-shek for "still having a face to live"! This is reminiscent of the famous saying that Qin Mugong scolded Uncle Jiao: "Zhongshou, the wood of the tomb arches!" "Wu Tiecheng is not Uncle Ji after all, and he did not wait for Chiang Kai-shek's apology. That night, Wu Tiecheng took an overdose of sleeping pills and never woke up. Wu Tiecheng can also be regarded as a talent with great means and ability in the Kuomintang, but no matter how capable he is, what about being a high-ranking official? In the final analysis, he is still a mortal man, and the troubles and pains that ordinary people should encounter are still encountered a lot, and the official career is like the Jialing River in front of the Wu Mansion, rising and falling, and the tide comes and goes.
Wu Tiecheng's neighbor is General Stilwell.
Just diagonally opposite the Wu Mansion, the gray brick courtyard enclosed is the Stilwell Mansion. When I arrived, the gates were closed and it was difficult to get a glimpse of them. But I've been to Stilwell's mansion many times, and there's nothing to regret. It is a building built on the mountain, and when you open the window, you can see the wide Jialing River. Originally a mansion of Song Ziwen, Stilwell became his official residence when he came to Chongqing, and it was also the headquarters of the Allied China Theater Staff during wartime.
During World War II, a large area of China's land was lost, most of the lost land was China's manufacturing powerhouse, and the shortage of war materials became an important factor restricting China's War of Resistance. At this time, US aid materials to China became an important source of replenishment of China's anti-war materials. The main channel for transporting aid materials to China is the Burma Road from Kunming to Larong in Myanmar. Speaking of this road, it is also a miracle in the history of transportation, when American engineers predicted that the 1,300-kilometer road would take at least 3 years to build, but in the hands of Chinese laborers, after only 280 days, the passage was actually fully completed. Sometimes, I really can't help but admire the tenacity of Chinese, and they can always create miracles in silence.
Of course, the Japanese are not stupid, and cutting off the Burma Road is naturally their strategic goal. As the Japanese army invaded Burma step by step, the Burma Road was in danger. In 1942, it was General Stilwell who commanded the Chinese Expeditionary Force into Burma, and his mission was to defend the Burma Road and protect the artery of China's material transportation. However, General Shi encountered unprecedented difficulties in Burma, the first of which was the question of military command. He had a serious conflict with the Chinese commander Luo Zhuoying, who told him that the Chinese army only obeyed the orders of Chairman Chiang! The military orders were not unified, and the final outcome can be imagined, the Chinese expeditionary force was defeated to Ramgar, India, and the Burma section of the Burma Road was completely cut off.
After all, Stilwell was an invincible soldier, and three years later, his troops expelled the Japanese entrenched in northern Burma and rebuilt the road from Lido in India to the town of Burma, allowing the Burma Road to be re-opened, which was the famous "Stilwell Highway" in World War II.
Relying on this Stilwell Highway, large amounts of American aid gathered from Calcutta, India, and poured back into China, but Stilwell did not see the final victory in the Burma campaign. In 1944, Stilwell, who was far away on the Burmese front, was recalled to the United States, and what he did not expect was that the aid materials he had worked hard to maintain were the reason for the turn of his fate in China.
One of Stilwell's important tasks in China was to distribute U.S. aid to China, which inevitably clashed with Chiang Kai-shek. Stilwell believed that the Chinese Communist Party in the far northwest was the hope of postwar China, so he planned to equip the Communist army with American supplies. This was a taboo for Chiang Kai-shek, and the contradiction between Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek finally developed to the point of irreconcilability. Chiang Kai-shek telegraphed to Roosevelt, strongly demanding that Stilwell be be replaced, and even threatened to pick a pick. In this way, Stilwell returned to the United States reluctantly, and of course, he was also awarded the rank of four-star general for his outstanding achievements in the Burma campaign, but Stilwell could not let go after all. In 1946, two years after being recalled to the country, Stilwell died.
Half a century later, in China, there are still many people who remember Stilwell. Chongqing's famous Dragon Ball school is divided into Tea Garden No. 8 Middle School, its predecessor was called "Stilwell Middle School". My history teacher in middle school was a key researcher at the Chongqing Stilwell Research Association. So, I remembered this big-nosed American sour Joe Stilwell a long time ago.
Directly opposite the Stilwell Mansion is the Flying Tigers Memorial. The Flying Tigers were a volunteer army organized by General Chennault to support the Chinese Air Force, whose main task was also to protect the Burma Road. The Flying Tigers got their name from the winged tiger drawn on the nose of their plane. Most of the Flying Tigers are stationed in Myanmar, and the rest are stationed in Kunming, protecting the smooth flow of the Burma Road, a major artery of materials. The Flying Tigers did not exist for a long time, they were established in August 1941 and disbanded in July 1942, and in just one year, the Flying Tigers also made indelible contributions to the victory of China's War of Resistance.
The differences between people are sometimes unimaginable, and Chennault and Stilwell are two completely different characters. Chennault had a good relationship with Chiang Kai-shek, and he later served as Chiang Kai-shek's military adviser and firmly supported Chiang Kai-shek's regime in the Liberation War. In November 1949, more than 2,000 employees of China Airlines and China Central Airlines, far away in Hong Kong, revolted and prepared to fly north to return to the mainland. But it was Chennault and his civil airlines who, in the uprising of the "two airlines" personnel, tried their best to prevent more than 70 planes from returning to the mainland, so for a long time, in the Chinese mainland, the Flying Tigers were hardly mentioned. Twenty-two years after General Chennault's death, his wife Chen Xiangmei visited China as a special presidential envoy, and the Flying Tigers gradually reappeared in people's sight, and only in a few huts under the cliffs of Goose Ridge did such a memorial of the Flying Tigers appear.
In the smoke cloud of history, everyone is a small speck of dust, swimming with the wind, flickering west and east, and finally falling there, who can control their own destiny?