"Doll Red Army" Li Yaoyu recalled: Walking on the Loess Plateau, the Long March is over

Walk on the Loess Plateau

A few days later, the troops came to Lazikou.

Lazikou is like a gap sawed in the steep mountains, it is an important pass at the northern end of the Minshan Mountain Range, and it is the main channel to communicate Sichuan and Gansu. The mountain road winds through the waist of the Lazikou cliff, with a cliff on one side and a black abyss on the other side. The mountain road is only allowed to pass by one person, and where the steep slope is curved, if one person guards it with a pole and a shuttle, thousands of troops will not want to pass. I really don't know that the Kuomintang army, with its sophisticated weapons, can't hold such a dangerous place as Lazikou?

Through the Minshan Gorge area, the world gradually opened up, the steep mountains covered with a layer of red weathered stones disappeared, and pieces of loess mountains appeared in front of you, the dirt roads were wide and crowded. We came to the Loess Plateau.

After two more days of walking from the small mountain village where the two brothers had died, a Red Army commander rode a large horse and two guards behind him to take away our last yak and tent.

"Little comrade, would you like to give us your yaks and tents?"

"Okay, you can take it. "

The food in the cooking class is cooked, and each class often borrows pots to cook and cook. That day, a young soldier saw a clay pot clasped to the earthen wall of a fellow villager. He took down the clay basin and shouted: "Auntie, borrow this basin from you!" The old lady chased out of the door and said, "Boss, that's my urinal basin!"

The little soldier couldn't hear the local dialect clearly, and misunderstood, he said, "I'm useless, you always want a pot." Holding the clay pot, we ran to the cooking class to put a pot of mutton and boiled cabbage, and when we ate it to the bottom of the pot, we all wondered: Why is there a smell? ! The person who borrowed the pot realized the words of the old lady, put down the dishes and chopsticks and stopped eating. It took him a few days before he told the origin of the smell of the pot, and everyone surrounded him for a long time.

Camped in a town near Minzhou. A road more than 200 meters long in the town bulged like a bowback, and the black and shiny road surface was extremely hard, and the heavy iron wheels ran over the road, but did not leave a rut mark. This strange road aroused our great interest, listening to the introduction of the villagers, this road is mixed with the dregs after oil extraction and yellow mud and white ash rock sugar water and then rolled and paved. The villagers also said that the magistrate of Zhangxian County in the north was from this town.

Our health team was stationed in Minzhou County with the army. Everyone happily walked the streets. In a courtyard, we tore off the plastered paper on the lattice, lit it with matches, and threw it into the well, and it happened that several guards from the headquarters also came to this courtyard, because they marched together and were familiar to everyone. They said, "Good guys, you guys are playing with fire here!" and run up and get people. The two of them hugged me, put my head down, hung over the well, and scared me, "You play with fire, throw me into the well!"

I looked into the well of the black hole, and there were still a few pieces of paper burning in a hole in the wall of the well, and I shouted, "Put me down, there's a hole in the well!"

Everyone connected the leggings to the waist, tied the waist of a small person, and slowly slipped down the wall of the well. He went into the hole and shouted, "Captain, there are so many things in it!" and then we took out large and small packets of vermicelli, brown sugar, kelp, fungus and bedding, leather goods, and enamel pots and bowls from the well. The headquarters of the Red Army, also alarmed by our discovery, sent people to carry these supplies. We ran through all the wells in Minzhou City, and found two cellars, and countless items were found. The liaison staff officers of the General Headquarters held a special plenary meeting to convey the commendation of the General Headquarters and gave each person a light green enamel bowl and a washbasin for each shift.

The Red Army marched north through Zhangxian County and crossed the Wei River, which was like a yellow mud soup.

The southern region of Gansu is rich in products, and the ripe rice in the terraced fields on the loess slopes is full of gold. The leaves of the pear trees on the side of the roadside fields were blown off by the autumn wind, and only brown pears were left hanging on the branches, and a layer of pears was laid under the pear trees.

From time to time, there was a good-natured joke from the marching procession:

"That turtle son, why did you fall behind?"

"He, I don't know what the hell he's doing!"

"I want to eat other people's rice and pears!"

"I still want to marry someone else's big girl, let's stay!"

In those days, when I was marching and camping, I really ate rice, white rice! It was fragrant and more fragrant than meat.

The troops crossed a road, and on the highway there was a black sedan, head-to-head, strange-looking, with a pair of headlights like dewed white eyes. We curiously surrounded the car, guessing what it was.

"What kind of car is this? The wheels are not made of iron or wood?"

"It must be a big official of the Kuomintang, and the ox pulling the cart didn't let our Red Army lead it away, and the cart was dropped!"

"This is the car where the prisoners are held, and if you put people in it, you can't escape!"

The Red Army, who was walking by, interjected: "This is a tank!"

"What are tanks for?"

"It's for war. "

This strange thing can fight? Before we could study it, someone yelled at us to leave quickly, not to be left behind!

We ran down the slope of the highway and into a valley, a mountain road and a river like a jute and a white hemp rope, tightly wound endlessly. The river is no deeper than knees, no shallow as the instep of the feet, and flakes of ice are piled up on the riverside, and the river water is so cold that the pain in the feet and legs is unbearable, and finally he loses consciousness. We walked this road for two days and two nights, and it took about twenty or thirty minutes to wade through the icy river. Ask the fellows on the side of the road, how far is this road to Huining. The fellow replied, "You have to tread water more than a hundred times after you have walked this way!" marching at night, without torches, the night sky is clear and clear, and the mountain roads can almost be distinguished.

Go west to the Banma grassland in Qinghai to pay military salaries

The troops left Minxian and returned to Zhangxian.

Walking out of the meadows and up to the Loess Plateau, before we could catch our breath, we suddenly marched west with the Red Army troops.

The sky was overcast, drizzling sleet and snow particles were endless, and everyone in the army was covered in wet clothes. The farther west, the grass grows smaller and yellower. The Red Army soldiers in the ranks also did not scruple and talked about it.

"What are we going to the west? Why don't we go north to resist the Japanese!" "If we go further west, we will all become monks who learn scriptures from the west!"

"I heard from the company commander that we are going to Xinjiang from here. "

"What are you doing in Xinjiang?"

"Xinjiang is close to the Soviet Union, and we are going to open up the international routes of the Soviet Union. "

"Then we're going abroad!"

"What are you afraid of going abroad, anyway, there is food to eat. "

"I heard that the USSR had only bread and no rice......"

"If you don't die of hunger, you can do it, and you still want to eat rice, hum!"

"This hellish place, if you want to desert, you can't run anywhere!"

"......"

Every day marching in the rain, not a single Tibetan compatriot was seen on the desolate grassland, and occasionally one or two lonely cow were seen, and the morale of the troops became more and more depressed, and they lost their laughter and speech. Everyone moved their heavy legs listlessly and walked forward step by step. The grassland became more and more rugged, and the ground was densely covered with raised turf the size of a pot lid, and under the turf was a two-inch thick ice cube, and the raised turf looked like a large mushroom. We have to work harder to raise our legs and feet and step over the "mushroom" in front of us.

Later, the troops stopped in a "big place", and there were one hundred and eighty earthen houses on the steppe. I ran to ask the year-old Red Army, and he said coldly: "We have arrived in Qinghai Province, and this is Banma County!"

The health team stayed in Banma for three days, and everyone crowded in front of the house, silently watching the rain and snow outside, and no one knew where the Red Army was going.

At dawn, the rain and snow did not stop, and someone outside the house shouted: "Comrades of the health team, assemble!" Everyone ran out and lined up. Several Red Army chiefs and a yak stood in the rain curtain.

The head of the Red Army said: "We can't stay in this place for a long time, it is very expensive to buy cattle and sheep with silver dollars, and now there are not many silver dollars." The superior instructed that the remaining silver dollars, the unit is not centralized, send everyone to bring a silver dollar, don't lose it, each unit everyone has a name, there are account books, in the future need to be concentrated, you take it out, collective use. Now, each soldier was given a silver dollar, and then we set off, headed back, back to Sichuan. Let's go north to resist Japan!"

The friends walked to the yak rider in turn and took a silver dollar. There are three types of silver dollars, sailboats, Sun Yat-sen's head and "Yuan Datou", and the partners exchange their favorite silver dollars with each other.

The Long March is over

I did not participate in the Huining Division, which marked the end of the Long March, and the health team walked outside Huining.

That day the troops entered a village with many brick houses, and the sun was still high, so we camped. I was going to rest here for a few days, but I heard that my superiors didn't allow it, so I let him go north. There was not a single villager in a huge village, I was scurrying around alone, a two-story brick house caught my attention, pushed the door into the courtyard, the yard was full of walnuts, climbed to the second floor, and the smashed walnut kernels were piled up to the roof. I lay down on the pile of walnuts, didn't hold them in my hands, twisted my face and opened my mouth to eat walnuts, and when I was full, I fell asleep before I knew it.

In the morning, the assembly horn made me wake up suddenly, I rushed to the meeting place with a rolling belt, the friends looked panicked, talked a lot, saw me running, and asked: "Captain, where did you run, it is easy for us to find!"

"We don't think you're going to be a deserter!"

"I'm worried that you've let the bad guys hurt you!"

I said, "I slept all night in a pile of walnut kernels, and there were a lot of walnuts there!" Everyone became interested, and ran to ask the commander of the march, but they did not set off immediately, so I took more than 20 people back to the "Walnut Building", filled the bags and pockets of rice, and the whole team of walnuts that they brought back was shared.

We had just finished dividing the walnuts, and the liaison staff officer came, and he pointed to my ear and asked, "What's in your ear?" Reaching out and pulling out a piece of walnut kernel, "Why is there a walnut petal?" He listened to my explanation and criticized me: "Where are you running alone? Think about it, how dangerous!" He knows and will send us back. "Three disciplines, eight attentions" Each of us remembers it clearly, but the Long March came out, and it is not as strict as Sichuan. We "big dolls" have been taking care of us all the way, and we often do things that violate discipline.

In the town of Helianwan, our health team once again transferred more than 20 people. A cadre from the headquarters, who was not very familiar with it, asked: "Who is the captain, where is Li Yaoyu?" He said, transfer more than 20 people to go, and go with the headquarters first. He didn't have a letter of introduction, he didn't sign for it, so I casually gestured with my hand, took out more than 20 people, and let the person take it away. These two dozen people are not very familiar with me, and most of them have come in one after another. Unexpectedly, with a casual wave of my hand, the fate of more than 20 people was very different from ours, and they crossed the Yellow River west with the headquarters of the front army, and died nine times for life!

After staying in Helianwan for five or six days, there were only about 20 people left in our health team, and we set off with the Red Army brigade, and the troops were clamoring to cross the Yellow River to the west and open up the international route. The mood of the fighters was calmer. Before seeing the Yellow River, he suddenly began a rapid march and made his way north. For five days and five nights in a row, I didn't stop taking one breath at a time. The team passed the word to each other, and if we didn't run quickly, the "two horses and one hu" would surround us. During the march, when he was hungry, he grabbed a handful of fried noodles from a bag of dry food and stuffed it into his mouth, eating as he went. Our group of little dolls in the health team couldn't find water to drink for three days in a row, and they asked the villagers for water, but the villagers didn't tell them. Later, I met a kind fellow who said, "Water! It is under your feet, and you can't find it...... You have to buy it with money!" Finally, we in our twenties and thirties, drinking water and cooking every day, gave him 10 silver dollars.

We followed the Red Army Brigade all the way north, to the county seat of Yanchi in Ningxia, and saw the high wall of the county town from afar. More than 20 of us "little ghosts" chose a piece of loess ridge, back to back, shoulder to shoulder, and sat on the loess and slept all night.

After that, he began to march in the desert from the salt pond, and the sand dunes were boundless, walking for a hundred and eighty miles, occasionally meeting two or three families. There is no water in the desert, so we follow the guide's idea, before each departure, the basin is filled with half a basin of water, and on the march, several people take turns to carry this half basin of water, and until noon, drink a little water to moisten the throat. It wasn't until it was almost time to camp and there was a water source that I dared to drink all the water in the basin.

Dingbian County in northern Shaanxi was in sight, and we rushed into the arms of northern Shaanxi with half a basin of clear water.

Dingbian was the first county seat I entered in northern Shaanxi. Dingbian is located on the western border of northern Shaanxi, and the desert of Inner Mongolia is just outside the Great Wall to the north. The square city is about seven or eight miles in circumference. The earthen walls were made of adobe two feet long, and there were solid battlements for the gates. Ninety-nine out of ten houses in the city are adobe thatched houses, and the thatch on the roofs of the houses is called "hard straw grass" by the common people, which is the kind of grass that we use to prevent hail on the grassland.

The natural environment in Dingbian is harsh, there is no water source, the land is barren, and the city is full of poor people without clothing.

Our health team stayed in Dingbian for three or five days, and our companions were still transferred one after another, and when we set off again, there were only eight people left in the whole team, including me. We left Dingbian City with a semi-enamel basin of clear water and began to march again. The soft yellow sand poured into the straw sandals, rubbing the soles of the feet and insteps, it was very painful, so I simply took off the straw sandals and walked barefoot in the desert.

Everyone took turns to march with a basin of water, which was awkward.

From Dingbian to Wuqi security all the way, only to see a well, there is a fellow on the side of the road shaking the wheel on the derrick, the well rope coiled a big lump, a few of us waited at the well, want to drink a sip of water, the fellow did not say a word, only buried his head in swinging the wheel. After waiting for a long time, we got impatient and said, "Don't be left behind, let's go!" Walking up the loess slope, turning back as we went, we walked more than two miles of road, and we reached the top of the slope, where the fellow was still shaking his wheel.

Compared with Sichuan, the villages of northern Shaanxi have no temples and stages in the villages, and there are only low land temples at the head of the village and on the roadside. In the land temple that is more than half a person high, there are few stone carvings of the earth lord and stone carving incense burners, most of them are placed with two bricks, a pile of sand, and incense can be burned. The four walls of the land temple are covered with red paper, and the words such as prayer and blessing are written on the red paper.

Once, when we were resting next to the Land Temple, we grabbed incense ashes and played with each other.

"Do you burn incense at home?"

"I've never seen anything like it at home!"

"I have a table in my house, I set up an incense burner, burn candles, and make offerings......"

"That's a shrine!"

A few people were talking and playing, and the water basin was knocked over during the fight, and the clear water suddenly seeped into the loess without a trace.

As a result, I was thirsty and had no water to drink all day.

The guide raised the wooden crutch in his hand and pointed to a mountain peak in the distance: "Under that mountain is the security guard!"

My Long March has finally come to an end, and I am about to start living in northern Shaanxi for ten years.

[Li Yaoyu, a native of Bazhong County, Sichuan Province. In 1933, he joined the Red Army and served as an inspector of the Sichuan-Shaanxi Political Security Bureau; in 1935, he followed the Long March of the Red Fourth Front Army; in 1936, he arrived in northern Shaanxi and successively served as an orderly of Huang Zuyan, Liu Xiwu, Zhang Su, Wang De and others; in 1939, he joined the Communist Party of China; in 1941, he went to Chen Yun, Li Fuchun, Cai Chang worked beside him; in 1942, he served as the administrative administrator of the Central Propaganda Department; in 1943, he went to Zaoyuan to work; in 1944, he served as the administrator of the Yan'an US Army Observation Group; after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he worked in the Jichareliao Central Branch; in 1949, he was responsible for the reception work in the Service Section of the Tianjin Military Management Commission; in August of the same year, he followed Huang Kecheng to Hunan and served as the chief of the administrative section of the Provincial Party Committee; in 1950, he served as the representative of the Hengyang Railway Bureau's material procurement group in Shanghai; in 1958, he served as the deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Hengyang Railway Locomotive Depot; in 1963, he served as the chief of the storage and transportation section of the Tianjin Material Office of the Ministry of Railways; in 1981, he was elected as a director of the China Railway Veterans Association; and retired in 1982。 】