"Doll Red Army" Li Yaoyu dictated the Long March: unforgettable Tibetan grandma and Commander-in-Chief Zhu De catching fish in the grassland

Unforgettable and kind Tibetan grandma

After negotiations between the Red Army and the Tibetan compatriots, the Tibetan compatriots got to know the Red Army, and they supported the Red Army.

After the health team arrived in Ganzi, they received barley from the headquarters, carried it to the station with yaks, borrowed small iron pots from Tibetan compatriots, and roasted barley grains pot by pot around the clock. With the help of Tibetan compatriots, the fried barley is put into a water mill, and the fried barley noodles are evenly distributed to each person in wooden bowls, bowl by bowl, as a ration through the water meadows.

The water mill in Tibet is different from the water mill in Sichuan, the river water impacts the water wheel, the water wheel drives the lower grinding disc to rotate, the upper grinding disc is chiseled out of four holes, four yak hair ropes are tied to the wooden pillars at the four corners of the mill through the holes, the stone grinding disc is suspended on the rotating grinding disc by the rope, and the tightness of the rope is adjusted to control the pressure of the upper grinding disc on the lower grinding disc, and the powder of different thicknesses can be ground according to the need.

The health team is stationed in a river valley, and the stone square watchtowers of Tibetan compatriots are located in twos and threes at the bottom of the valley, and on the low hill in the distance, there is a splendid temple. I live with two six-year-old friends in a Tibetan family of three. Every day, my Tibetan grandmother brought me hot milk tea and fragrant dregs in a wooden bowl, and she stood beside me, watching me gobble up my meal with loving eyes.

The stone watchtower of the Tibetan grandmother's house has three layers, the stone wall is more than a foot thick, and the stone wall is horizontally paved with thick logs, which is the ceiling of the first floor of the stone watchtower and the floor of the second floor. The ground floor of the watchtower is a place for sheep and horses, the middle floor is a place for food and living, and the upper floor is dedicated to a shrine to store food. The wooden ladder of the watchtower is very distinct, and a large log is placed diagonally on the edge of the square opening of the floor, and the slope of the log cuts out a zigzag step. My little girl and I ran around the grassland all day, and we went to the water mill to see the slow water wheel squeaking and spinning, and to see the sheepdogs chasing the sheep on the grassland. At dusk, I walked back to the stone room of my grandmother's house, leaned against the rough stone wall, tentatively stepped on the canoe ladder, and drilled through the skylight, the pine wood was burning in the fire pit on the second floor of the stone tower, and the black copper kettle was spewing steam.

My two young companions hardly ever went out, like little lambs, lying on their backs in the wool heap and curling up by the fire. On the stone slab next to the fire pit, covered with round barley cakes, the Tibetan grandmother mixed milk butter with barley fried noodles, stirred it repeatedly with her hands, and made it into a dregs dumpling, and handed it to me and my friends to eat.

One day, a Tibetan Abba came to Tusi, and Tusi said to me, "This family wants you to stay here." I followed the Red Army, I didn't eat, I didn't wear, at such a young age, I don't know where I died one day. "

I said, "I don't know how to speak here!"

Tusi consulted with the Tibetan Abba and Auntie in Tibetan, and said, "In the future, we will find someone who understands how to teach you." "Grandma kept bowing to me, expressing her wishes: Please, stay.

I lost my mother since I was a child, it was my grandfather who pulled me up, and the kind care of my Tibetan grandmother made me feel warm maternal love for the first time, I thought to myself, as long as there is someone who understands, I will stay. I held Grandma's arm and didn't let her bow.

The Tibetan grandmother only speaks one sentence in Chinese: "Before...... We're rich!"

Tusi talked to me several times in succession, persuading me to stay and not to go with the Red Army. At that time, comrades from the headquarters of the Red Army came to the team several times to speak: That Tibetan villager is willing for you to stay, you are members of their family, and you will become a family with them.

My companions also advised me, "Just stay, aren't all living people everywhere?" "

Seeing that I had no intention of staying, my Tibetan grandmother began to prepare for my trip. She killed a little lamb, and without disemboweling it, she carefully peeled off the whole sheepskin tube, tanned it with nitrate, and then tied the four legs of lamb with two leather ropes, and braided them into two straps, and made a golden sheepskin rucksack.

On the morning of our departure, my Tibetan grandmother was crying as she took out six or seven barley cakes from her robe and put them in my pocket. The Tibetan Abba kept chanting in his mouth, holding a small golden Buddha in both hands and holding it up in front of my eyes. Little Sister leaned tightly beside the two old men, staring at me with big eyes. I remembered what my grandfather said: "Little grandson, if someone is kind to you and cries to you, you have to kowtow to him!" I knelt on the grass and kowtowed to my grandmother and father three times. They whimpered and cried, and rushed forward and took me in their arms.

I carried a sheepskin bag full of barley fried noodles on my back and ran to catch up with the team with tears in my eyes. In the most arduous grassland march, the Tibetan grandmother's bag of barley fried noodles saved the lives of me and many of my friends.

Northwest Swamps Meadow

After He Long's Red Second Front Army arrived in Ganzi, the Red Army embarked on the Long March. The wounded and sick of the Red Army hospital could not be taken away, and they were left in Ganzi, and the cries of five or six hundred people were earth-shattering! Later, I heard that these wounded Red Army soldiers were slaughtered by the Kuomintang pursuers.

The day before leaving Ganzi, the organs directly under the Red Army General Headquarters held a meeting, which was attended by all the members of the health team, and the Red Army cadre who presided over the meeting said: "Comrade Yu Hongyuan is invited to make a speech on marching mobilization." "At that time, I didn't know how old an official Yu Hongyuan was, but later he marched with us across the meadow, and a guard followed him. Yu Hongyuan had a sick throat and often lay on horseback and asked the hygienist to spray potion into his mouth. Listening to others, the "little tongue" in his throat festered.

Yu Hongyuan's speech was very agitatory: "Comrades, we will set off tomorrow and march north together with the Red Second Front Army to resist Japan! In the first few days of the march, we will climb several large mountains, cross the grassland again, and cross two big rivers in the grassland. The road is long, it is not easy to walk, there are many difficulties, and there are few rations. Everyone remembers the marching discipline announced by Commander-in-Chief Zhu De at the meeting, when crossing the meadow, if someone falls, don't pull him, whoever pulls will also fall together. Comrades should help each other and love each other, and if we walk through the meadow, we will be victorious!"

"Every comrade must carry three catties of firewood or cow dung, and must boil water in the grass to drink, and cannot drink raw water, which is easy to get sick after drinking raw water, then he will not be able to walk out of the grassland. "

The headquarters of the Red Army equipped the sanitary team with three yaks, three tents, a large bundle of dry firewood. He also sent a Tibetan Tusi with two horses, two horse rifles, 100 rounds of ammunition, and 40 catties of barley fried noodles. Toast is in his thirties, dark-skinned, and strong like a yak. He was dressed in a Tibetan robe and had a Tibetan knife hanging from his waist. The liaison staff officer of the Red Army Headquarters said that if you send a Tibetan compatriot Tusi to act with you, you will be lost and left behind, and you can act independently.

The health team walked through the Ganzi grassland and soon entered the primeval forest of Liangge Mountain. The light in the forest is dim, and the giant trees that can only be closed by a few people stand up to the sky and the earth, covering the sky and the sun. Fallen trees block pedestrians, and rotten trees are covered with piles of white fungus. At night, I lay on the thick forest leaves, warm and soft, very comfortable. When the night rain came, the water roared overhead, but there was no rain dropping.

Walking out of the forest, the vast grassland is in front of you. The Red Army again came to Aba. The Tibetan compatriots on the Aba grassland calmly looked at the Red Army's brigade and took care of their own grazing without panic.

After crossing the Gaqu River, the grassland gradually changed color. Patches of aquatic weeds crisscross the grassland, with grass mounds the size of futons in the east and west in the west. The grass mounds were full of muddy sewage. A flock of big white and gray birds with long legs and pointed beaks looked at us baby soldiers.

In front of us, the vanguard left a trail of looming footprints, giving us a hint of the way forward. However, you can't walk through many people in one trip, otherwise you will break through the turf and fall into the mud, which will lead to destruction. More than 100 members of the health team opened up in the grass, greeted each other and spread out in all directions, stepping on the grass mounds in the muddy water. When the grass mounds were far away, we had to tredge through knee-deep sewage sludge, one foot deep and one foot shallow. It wasn't until I stepped on the hard grass that I breathed a sigh of relief. Entering the meadow hinterland, the thatch is more than one person tall, and the broad leaf edges are wavy.

The climate in the water meadows is even more unpredictable, the scorching sun is scorching, sweating is like rain, and the stinky water everywhere cannot quench thirst; Tibetan Tusi said that drinking this stinky water makes the belly swell, and the person dies of swelling.

The sun was blazing, dark clouds rolled in an instant, and torrential rain and egg-sized hail poured down. According to the method of the Tibetan Tusi professor, we stretched out our arms to bring the thatch around us together, tied the tips of the grass into a knot, and the thatch became a cone, and then opened a hole at the bottom of the "cone", and people got into the "grass hole", only to hear the sound of hail hitting the "grass cone" and "poof". When the hail stopped, everyone hurriedly drilled out of the "grass hole", picked up the hail in the muddy water, and bit the hail to quench their thirst. After the hailstorm, the sun had just appeared, and the wind swept again, and the rain began to pour down. The gentle drizzle turned into a snowstorm of white flowers, and then into an overwhelming snow of goose feathers.

Thankfully, the headquarters of the Front Army provided us with tents, so that we, the child soldiers, were spared the cold of sleeping in the grass at night. The camp was chosen on the gentle slope of the dry meadow, and the Tibetan Tusi and the big brothers and sisters of the cooking class were responsible for setting up the tents. They erected three wooden stakes more than one person high carried by yaks on the grass, and used these three wooden stakes to erect three tents each. The tent is not big, and if it is high, it will not cover many people. Everyone got into the tent, huddled in a heap, and warmed each other's bodies with their body heat. The grass was slippery, and when I got up at dawn, a puddle of clear water had oozed from the nest under my body. Through the cracks in the tents, bonfires raged in the meadows, and the vast majority of Red Army soldiers did not have tents, but sat by the campfires and survived the long cold nights.

Commander-in-Chief Zhu De catches fish in the meadow

The health team followed the march of the Front headquarters. In the grassland at night, the bonfires are endless. There was a horse lantern in front, and the figure of Commander-in-Chief Zhu De swayed in front of the horse lantern, and his Sichuan accent was heard from time to time.

Stepping on the dry meadow, there is a gentle river in the gentle hills, and schools of gray-black round and slender fish swim in the river.

Commander-in-Chief Zhu De led the guards to carry a mosquito net and go down to the river to fish. Commander-in-Chief Zhu stood on the bank of the river, wielding wooden sticks to drive away the fish in the water, and when he saw the fish swimming to the mosquito nets, he urgently ordered to "raise the nets." Unexpectedly, the mesh of the "fishing nets" was too small, and the fish fled without a trace along with the river water flowing on the mosquito nets. Our group of onlookers laughed loudly. Zhu De was so anxious that he circled around the river, and shouted: "How are you guys doing the 'hammer on your back'!" Later, he heeded the advice of others and instructed the guards to drag the mosquito nets to drive the fish to a small fork of the river, pile them up with mud to form a dam, and then drain the water, and the fresh fish struggled and jumped at the bottom of the river. If we go down this road tomorrow, we'll catch fish!"

At dinner, we had a few more fish in the wild vegetable soup, and our partners understood that this fish was sent by Commander-in-Chief Zhu De.

Every day at mealtime, each class sits together, and each person takes out a handful of barley noodles from the dry food bag, which is actually a barley gnocchi, and the dry food bag has been soaked in rainwater and has already formed a hard stick. Break off a piece of barley gnocchi for the people around to see, and then soak it in the wild vegetable soup. In this way, mutual supervision is carried out to limit the consumption of dry food and prevent food rations from running out before leaving the meadow. Almost out of the meadow, the grassland is full of piles of bones, guns, saddles and lanterns, which are terrifying, these are the bones and relics of martyrs who died of starvation through the meadow in the rush of the Central Red Army last year.

After crossing a big yellow river, the companions were extremely tired and hungry, and the bags of dry food had dried up, what were they going to eat? There were piles of white bones all around, and flocks of birds in the sky. The wild grass and white bones on the ground can't be eaten, and the birds in the sky can't eat them, so the eldest brother and sister in the cooking class said to me: "Captain Li, we have to kill yaks to save the lives of our comrades!"

Under the guidance of the Tibetan Tusi, the yak's hooves were tied with ropes, and the toast held a dagger in his hand and quickly pierced the yak's neck, and bright red blood spurted out. Tusi skillfully peeled off the yak skin, cut off the cow's head and pulled out the belly. A marching pot was set up here, and the water was boiled with dry wood transported by yaks, and the yak meat was boiled in boiling water for a few boils, and the toast said that it was ready to eat. Each person was given a fist-sized piece of yak meat. Yak meat is crispy and fragrant in the mouth. This life-saving yak meat is hard to buy!

Everyone drank the soup of boiling meat again, and felt that they had strength, and the rest of the raw beef belly sausage cow head was transported away, and the yak skin was taken away by a group of Red Army soldiers who had been waiting for a long time.

A yak, the whole team ate for a day and walked dozens of miles. The next day, we slaughtered another yak. Before leaving, the tent was not dismantled, and there was no yak to carry it. Walking up a high slope, I looked back and saw two tents alone on the grassland.

Two more friends were sacrificed

When they finally walked out of the meadow, not a single person in the team starved to death, but everyone was so hungry that their eyes turned green. I saw shallow ruts on the grassland, smoke rising from the hills in the distance, a few bundles of firewood and grass placed beside the dirt road, and two or three houses on the hillside in the distance. The partners exchanged excited eyes with each other's feelings, and a feeling of returning to the world rose from the bottom of our hearts, and at this time, we no longer had the strength to cheer. In the evening, we camped in a village scattered with dozens of mud houses. Wheat grains were bought with silver dollars, and the villagers worked all night grinding flour for the Red Army. For dinner, we ate wheat gnocchi soup, one bowl per person, not much to drink.

It's been a long time since I've seen a common Chinese speaker, so everyone gathered around the villager to talk to him, asking what kind of place this is, how many people there are in the village, asking him how old he is, asking if there are any local tyrants in the village, and asking questions and talking non-stop. The fellows didn't seem to understand when they heard it, and they agreed hesitantly, they probably felt that there was something wrong with our group of dolls.

Walking out of the meadow, the liaison staff officer of the Red Army Headquarters repeatedly gave orders to us not to eat and drink violently, only one bowl of millet porridge, and only one steamed bun.

For dinner on this day, one person had a small steamed bun and a bowl of mutton stewed with amaranth. After the meal, they slept on the villagers' clay kangs. The next morning, the whole team was marching, and a squad leader came to report to me that two people had died in their class. These two babies were thirteen or fourteen years old, young, disobedient, they didn't eat enough steamed buns and mutton during the day, and secretly ran to the kitchen of the cooking class at night to eat again. After days of marching, everyone was very tired and slept very hard, and the two dolls were silently swelled to death.

I led the whole team to say goodbye, and they were lying on the door panel, their tattered clothes could not cover their bulging bellies, and their bellies were round and glowing blue. Everyone looked sad. I said: "The two of them followed us to the snowy mountains and meadows, and they didn't listen to the orders of their superiors here, and they were swollen to death after eating more, and they died unjustly!"

[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。 】