Jiang Youyou | I was the squad leader for Li Shuangjiang

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【About the Author】

Jiang Youyou, a native of Xi'an, Shaanxi. Born in August 1941, he was a member of the Communist Party of China Chinese the first time. He joined the army in July 1962 and served as a soldier, deputy squad leader, squad leader, platoon leader, deputy instructor and instructor of the second company of the 10th Infantry Regiment. In August 1972, he returned to Xi'an.

1. Supernumerary soldiers

In July 1962, I signed up for the army from the Shaanxi Heavy Machinery Factory in the northern suburbs of Xi'an, and was assigned to the second company of the machine gun company of the second battalion of the 10th Infantry Regiment in Yache County, Xinjiang. When the troops moved to Hejing County, I was already the leader of the eighth squad of the third platoon. One day in the early spring of 1965, the instructor called me to the company headquarters and said: "I will give you a task, the Xinjiang Military Region Art Troupe wants to come down to experience life as a literary and artistic soldier for two years, and the company has decided to arrange him to your class, and you must ask him to be a real soldier according to the standard of a real soldier, his name is Li Shuangjiang." "

At that time, our Second Machine Gun Company was a pacesetter company in the military region that studied "Mao's work," and the No. 8 squad I led was also a pacesetter squad of the whole company. But when I learned that it was the famous singer Chong Li Shuangjiang who was going to come down, I couldn't help but be a little nervous.

Li Shuangjiang was born in Northeast China, 25 years old at the time, two years older than me, graduated from a music school, and had been awarded the rank of lieutenant. Will he look down on us, the workers, peasants and soldiers of the Northwest?

Still worried, in the afternoon, the company commander led a young man to the eighth class. I only listened to the young man "snap" and salute, followed by a series of standard military reporting terms, I immediately returned the salute, and the two pairs of big hands were tightly clasped together. I looked at Li Shuangjiang, and a slightly square face was full of youthful smiles! Shuangjiang soon had a conversation with me, and my nervous heart was relieved at once. I opened the backpack for Shuangjiang, arranged the bunks, and met my comrades. After everything was straightened out, he had a whim and asked me to teach him a few words of Shaanxi Qin dialect, which was easy-going and energetic, and he didn't have any artist's frame at all, but taught me to be ashamed of my previous thoughts.

2. Exchange of military quilts

Li Shuangjiang's company was the head of the army, and he encountered two obstacles: sorting out internal affairs and going out for morning exercises. At that time we slept in bunks, and he and I were in bunks. As soon as the trumpet blew in the early morning, the soldiers of our class folded the quilt after dividing it by two, and the whole class formed a line. However, the military quilt brought down by Li Shuangjiang from the art troupe was thick and non-standard, and it was much more difficult to fold, and the atmosphere was tense, and his bloated quilt was always out of place with everyone. He was also distressed by this.

One day Shuangjiang simply asked me to change the quilt with him, and I agreed. After years of "training", my bed army has become very "tame", which has enabled him to keep up with everyone's speed. Shuangjiang's quilt was painstakingly played by me, and soon it also took off its "wildness". In 1972, I changed jobs and brought Shuangjiang's quilt back to Shaanxi Heavy Machinery Factory, which has been preserved to this day.

On the third day of morning drills after leaving the company, Li Shuangjiang encountered a 20-kilometer fully armed cross-country exercise of the whole company. When he fell behind, I ran with him and kept encouraging him to keep up. On the return trip, Li Shuangjiang was physically exhausted, and he was about to fall, so Duan Yuxian, a soldier from Sanyuan, and I picked him up and ran. When he came back, he felt guilty and hated himself for not being angry. But after several cross-country exercises, Li Shuangjiang's rapid march quickly passed. Shuangjiang was not only hardworking but also intelligent, and after a year, he had mastered all the training subjects with blood and sweat, and became a qualified machine gunner.

In the second year, our whole battalion began to march into the Tianshan Mountains to help the third battalion with construction. The arduous tasks of transporting bricks and tiles, moving timber, laying foundations, and building barracks, coupled with the particularly harsh climate, Li Shuangjiang underwent an extremely arduous tempering of physical strength and ideological will. The other person is dark, the body is strong, the hands have a layer of calluses, and the whole person has changed, but the only thing that has not changed is his genius singing voice that everyone admires.

3. Warm pig baby

In addition to training, laboring, standing guard, and sentry with his comrades-in-arms in the class, Li Shuangjiang also poured deep affection into every plant and tree in the troops. In the middle of winter 1965, on a snowy day, our eighth class was ordered to carry wheat straw on our backs and rush to the company's breeding farm a few miles away to rescue the pig baby who was dying of freezing by the sudden cold snap. Everyone put wheat straw on a group of pig babies, but the improvement was not great, and the pig babies could freeze to death in the pigsty at any time. Seeing this, Li Shuangjiang did not hesitate in a hurry, picked up a pig baby and opened his clothes to warm it in his arms, and his comrades-in-arms also rushed to warm one person when they saw it. Warm and warm, these pig babies began to hum, Shuangjiang happily danced the Xinjiang dance, and sang in the feedlot. The comrades-in-arms were infected, and jumped up with him, so happy that the pig baby in his arms also squeaked and squeaked happily, and I was even more happy with the simplicity of Shuangjiang.

In order to accumulate fertilizer for the company's vegetable fields, I led the whole squad to brave the freezing cold of more than minus 20 degrees Celsius to collect cow dung in the Gobi Desert in winter. I remember that when the tools were insufficient, Li Shuangjiang stretched out his hands to pick up cow dung. Seeing this, the comrades-in-arms felt that picking up cow dung by hand was faster than tools, and they followed suit, and as a result, our class accumulated a lot of fat and quickly.

At that time, the regimental headquarters showed movies for the soldiers twice a week, and each company went to the regimental headquarters three miles away to watch it. Our company commander was anxious for the vegetable field to accumulate fertilizer, and said downward, "Fertilizer and water do not flow into the fields of outsiders." Before watching the movie, the officers and men of the second company had to solve the problem in the urinal tank in the corner of the back of the barracks. When you return from watching a movie, you must also go back to the barracks to urinate in the tank. Li Shuangjiang was not used to it when he first came, he didn't "face-to-face" with the tank before watching the movie, and he wanted to be convenient on the way back to the company after the movie, I reiterated the "discipline" of the company commander's fat, Shuangjiang smiled bitterly and said: "Squad leader, I can't stand it, what should I do if my little stomach hurts?" I ordered to hold back, and the whole class ran to speed up and return to the camp, which relieved Shuangjiang's "pain of seppuku".

Fourth, it is fun to help others

Li Shuangjiang often does not rest at noon and on Sundays, not washing clothes, bed sheets and dismantling quilts for his comrades; is to learn needlework with me, and then quietly sew and repair the broken socks on the rope for my comrades; and then cut grass and firewood for Uncle Qiao and the cooking squad of the garrison army; Or it's the arrival class to help pick vegetables and cook. I have calculated a detailed account, Li Shuangjiang sacrificed nearly 1,000 hours of rest time in the past two years to do good deeds, and in 1965 alone, he won more than 10,000 catties of firewood and pigweed, so he was rated by the army as the annual squad, platoon, and company "Model Soldier Who Learns from Lei Feng".

I remember that once Shuangjiang stood guard at night, and after arriving at the point, he did not ask his comrades to change the guard, but was worried about the training and labor of his comrades-in-arms, and Shuangjiang stood two more shifts for his comrades-in-arms. At that time, the company was short of food, and the meal was divided, and Shuangjiang was on duty at night, and his stomach was so hungry that he was rumbling, so he went into the cooking class to look for steamed buns. The bun was not found, but he saw a pot of lard on the board, so he hungrily dug up and ate half a bowl. The next day, the cooks found that the lard had been stolen and reported it to the company commander, who immediately summoned the guards to line up and ask: "Who sentry stole a lot of oil last night?" Li Shuangjiang wept guiltily in the queue. Seeing this, the company commander understood seven or eight points in his heart, no longer pursued it, and announced his disbandment. The company commander talked to Shuangjiang individually and arranged for him to have dinner at the company headquarters. Shuangjiang replied gratefully: "The company department only has one more Mazha stool than the squad platoon, and the meals are all rationed, and I can't eat enough, so I won't go!" "

Yan Guoying, a soldier in Gansu, received a telegram from home, saying that his mother was sick, the family was in difficulty, there was no money to see a doctor, the soldier received a monthly allowance of 6 yuan and 5, and Guoying had no savings and was depressed all day long. Li Shuangjiang knew about this and secretly sent 50 yuan to the Yan family. Later, Yan Guoying received a letter from his father, and the monk Ergao couldn't figure it out, so he asked around who had sent money to his family. As soon as I guessed, I knew that Li Shuangjiang did it! Shuangjiang also secretly sent money to the Sanyuan soldier Duan Yuxian's family.

I call on all my classmates to learn from Shuangjiang. Shuangjiang said: "Comrades-in-arms are like brothers, and it should be so." "In 1996, Shuangjiang came to Shaanxi to perform, and my original clerk Shi Chongcai served in the provincial military region, and invited Shuangjiang and old comrades-in-arms in Shaanxi to have dinner. During the dinner, Shuangjiang asked me how my life was. I said that the unit was in a recession. The speaker had no intention, but the listener was careful, and he sent me 5,000 yuan as soon as he returned to Beijing. In 1999, when we reunited in Beijing on the National Day, he gave me another 10,000 yuan when he parted, and told me to get the lost teeth set as soon as possible, so that the tears of my tough Guanzhong man rolled in his eyes. No matter how disparity in status is, the comradeship-in-arms is still more important to Li Shuangjiang than Mount Tai! That's for later.

5. Ground wrestling

In the summer of 1965, the whole class worked in a vegetable field two miles away from the barracks. During the break, Yan Guoying, a soldier from Gansu, offered to wrestle with Li Shuangjiang. Yan Guoying is tall and powerful, and he will win every battle when wrestling with others, and he is very famous in the whole company, so I can't help but sweat for Shuangjiang, who is relatively thin. Who knew that Li Shuangjiang immediately agreed, and he was not timid at all when he went on the court. But seeing Shuangjiang pull out of the stance, staring at Guoying in a circle to seek an opportunity, he suddenly stuck a leg between Yan's legs, and at lightning speed, his shoulder was against the opponent's lower abdomen, and a Erlang Danshan carried Yan up, and with a loud shout, he turned half a circle and threw Yan to the ground. Then Shuangjiang made a clever effort to knock down the other two attackers, replacing Guoying's "wrestling" hegemony in one fell swoop, and the audience all applauded! Shuangjiang was willing to use his brains, defeated the strong with the weak, and used his tactics properly, which impressed Guoying and his classmates. Li Shuangjiang is not only good at singing "martial arts", but also extremely sharp in writing, and is one of the most talented people in the class, and the "Summary Materials for the Spirit of the Eight Classes and Three Houses" written by him on behalf of my class has become a speech for me to go to my brother unit to pass on the scriptures and send treasures. At the end of the year, our class once again won the honor of the company's "pacesetter class", which is really permeated with Li Shuangjiang's sweat and hard work!

6. Secretly singing forbidden songs

As a soldier in the frontier, his spare time life is relatively monotonous, and suddenly "Li Shuangjiang fell from the sky", how could the soldiers easily let go of the singer who was sent to the door. Every time, during training or labor breaks, the whole class gathers around him, and it is necessary to ask him to "sing one", and sometimes shout in unison: "Li Shuangjiang, come one!" And Li Shuangjiang was able to make his comrades-in-arms get their wish every time. But sometimes the comrades-in-arms also "have to inch in", let Shuangjiang sing one after another, and ten or eight did not let him step down. I remember that on the last holiday, when the army held a concert in the military club, Li Shuangjiang must lead the grassroots military singing group to write, direct and perform small programs, including chorus, allegro, three and a half sentences, or something; And his tenor solo is of course a super finale, and he can't get out of the curtain again and again.

That year, he entered the Tianshan Baluntai to help the three battalions build barracks, went in the spring, and worked until winter. To build a barracks there, we need to make adobe, that is, fill the wooden frame with soil and step on the mud, and then lift the mud frame weighing more than 10 kilograms and put it on the drying field, and each person has to beat four or five hundred yuan a day. But Shuangjiang's body is thin after all, and when I can't finish it, I ask Shuangjiang to sing to the soldiers to boost morale, and everyone can help him share a dozen yuan each, and he can make up for his task. Shuangjiang also worked really hard, let go of his singing voice, sang one song after another, and sang 20 songs in a row, without drinking water or stopping his voice. The more he sang, the higher the morale of his comrades-in-arms, and the labor scene was in full swing. After the evening statistics, Shuangjiang also exceeded the task.

Just after that wrestling, his comrades-in-arms surrounded Li Shuangjiang and shouted for him to sing a nice lyrical song to relieve fatigue. Shuangjiang thought for a while and said, "I'll sing "Prairie Night" to everyone. He cleared his throat, looked at the snowy Tianshan Mountains and the vast wilderness in the distance, stretched his genius vocal voice, which was known for its lyricism and unique trills, and released that deep and melodious melody from the heart of a Chinese literary soldier in a specific environment where the song regulations and the actual situation were strikingly consistent. The song ripples in the wind, euphemistic and elegant, the listener's heartstrings resonate, completely immersed in the beautiful artistic reverie, and now thinking about it, it still has an endless aftertaste. We were really blessed at that time, as early as the 60s, we were already addicted to China's top vocal art! The singing stopped for a long time, and the crowd was still silent, and no one wanted to break the wonderful atmosphere that was contaminated by the genius and the singing. Or did I speak first: "Shuangjiang Shuangjiang, why is this song so good?" It's just impressive. Shuangjiang said with a smile: "Squad leader Jiang, you don't know, this song is a yellow song!" I am not allowed to sing on stage, it is popular in a small range, I ate leopard gall today! "Who would have thought that 25 years later, at the Shaanxi Gymnasium, Li Shuangjiang was able to publicly and formally dedicate this beautiful and moving "Prairie Night" to his old comrades-in-arms and the people of the ancient city. In this situation, how can I not be emotional?!

7. Farewell to comrades-in-arms

On January 4, 1967, singer Li Shuangjiang had a successful end to his experience and was about to return to the troupe. Lianli killed a pig, and Lianli also held a military meeting for him that night, and I, as his squad leader, made a concluding speech at the meeting. I saw the comrades-in-arms in the audience rolling their throats, obviously reluctant to return to the team. Recalling the deep friendship he had established with his comrades-in-arms in the past two years, he was a seven-foot man, and he even had a handful of snot and tears. When he was extremely forgetful, Li Shuangjiang suddenly blurted out the sentence "Long live the comrades", and suddenly there were tears on and off the stage, and his voice whimpered, pushing the feelings of attachment and regret between revolutionary comrades-in-arms to a climax!

Li Shuangjiang and I arrived in Urumqi in the same car. In the dormitory of the Shuangjiang Art Troupe of the Military Region, I stayed for a week. Li Shuangjiang accompanied me on a tour of the streets of Urumqi, and then I went back to Shaanxi to visit my family, and he sent me to the train station. At this moment, the more than 700 days and nights we spent in the barracks are another scene. "It is difficult to say goodbye when we meet", the comrades-in-arms are separated, and the singer and his squad leader understand that although their encounter is a historical accident, the comradeship of the Chinese People's Liberation Army is destined to be inevitable in their lives. I'm sure we'll see each other again in this life.

(Ghostwriting by Li Xiaopeng)

(To be continued)