Tengchong, a place I have always longed for, is a small southwestern border town where you can watch the volcano and soak in hot springs at the same time. People call it "10,000-year-old volcanic hot sea, thousand-year-old road border pass". When I stepped into the land, I saw sleeping volcanic rocks and gushing hot springs under my feet, sulfur-smelling water vapor, and geothermal springs with various characteristics, such as the Atami Rolling Pot, gushing outwards at a temperature of more than 80 degrees.
Tengchong, located in the southwest of Yunnan, located in the west of Baoshan City, 606 kilometers away from Kunming, is known as the Atami area, and is quite rich in geothermal resources. This land is located in the southwestern border of the mainland, bordering Myanmar and only a few hundred kilometers from India, which has been a border defense area since ancient times. Tengchong is located in the Eurasian plate, where it collides with the Indian plate. There has been intense volcanic activity here, surrounded by volcanic formations. So far, there are 99 craters and 88 hot springs in Tengchong.
Of course, the purpose of my visit to Tengchong this time is not to soak in the hot spring, but to learn about a "national cemetery" here. It is precisely because of this cemetery that Tengchong is known as "the most spineless city in China".
Among the more than 28,000 counties on the mainland, it is known as the most backbone place and is a veritable "heroic city". This is Tengchong, the first city recovered by the Chinese army from the Japanese army during the Anti-Japanese War. The people here refused a billion Japanese investment and made the Japanese kneel in China for more than 80 years.
There is a national cemetery here, where tens of thousands of martyrs sleep, many soldiers are unrecognizable, they have no names, no signs, until now 2/3 of the martyrs cannot be identified, and the remains still cannot be returned to their hometowns. In addition to our martyrs, there are more than 6,000 Japanese remains in the cemetery. The people of Tengchong tied their hands behind their backs to the sinful Japanese officers, bowed their waist, knelt on their knees, bowed their heads to the martyrs' cemetery, confessed their sins and repented, and often punched and kicked Japanese statues.
After Japan found out, it couldn't sit still at all, negotiated and negotiated, demanded the return of the Japanese corpse, the removal of the statue of the Japanese army, and invested one billion yuan in Teng Chong's construction. However, the local government and people of Tengchong refused verbally, and said that even if the Japanese army invested ten times or a hundred times more in the project funds, they would never agree.
This is the soaring of our heroic city, the integrity of the people, and the backbone of the nation. In order to let the world remember this tragic history, let the Japanese people kneel before the martyrs for the rest of their lives to confess. The people of Tengchong County have always adhered to the principle of not providing all accommodation for the Japanese, not providing any food to the Japanese, not importing all Japanese goods, and forbidding the Japanese to set foot on this land. It may also be the only city in the country that rejects the Japanese.
The National Martyrs Cemetery is the only national martyr's cemetery in China. I think this is a place where every Chinese nation must come once in a lifetime to pay homage. I'm worth the trip.
(2023.9.24.in Tengchong Ancient Town, Yunnan)