Visiting the Ma Benzhai Mother and Child Martyrs Cemetery of Hebei Revolutionary Cultural Relics Series Report——
Mother and Child Heroes
A quiet and harmonious rural picture scroll slowly spreads out - small buildings are scattered, villagers sit together in twos and threes, enjoying the warm spring sun, children chasing and playing on the clean road, and bursts of laughter are heard from time to time; Ma Benzhai Anti-Japanese Story Cultural Wall, Ma Benzhai Mother and Child Martyrs Cemetery, Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall...... The whole village is like a big stage for the display of red culture.
A few days ago, the reporter walked into Benzhai East Village, Benzhai Hui Township, Xian County, Cangzhou City, and read through those thick historical materials to understand the heroic story of Ma Benzhai leading the Hui detachment to attack the Japanese invaders and Ma Benzhai's wisdom of winning more with less and repeatedly surprising soldiers, and was deeply moved by the patriotic feats written by Bai Wenguan and Ma Benzhai's mother and son with their lives. Looking back on the past, let's look back on those eventful years and listen to the moving story of Ma Benzhai together.
The Ma Honsai Memorial Hall photographed on January 9. Photo by Hebei Daily reporter Shi Xiaoduo
Win all battles
In the spring light, I walked into the solemn Ma Benzhai Mother and Child Martyrs Cemetery. I saw a white marble monument in the center of the cemetery, with an inscription written by Comrade Mao Zedong on the front "Comrade Ma Benzhai is immortal" on the front and an inscription on the back by Comrade Zhu De: "The ambition is difficult to move, the model of all ethnic groups in the Han and Hui; the heroes of the two generations of mother and son are immortal in the big festival". In the middle of the park is the tomb of the martyr of Ma Mu Bai Wenguan and the mound of Ma Benzhai.
On the square of the Ma Ben Zhai Memorial Hall across the road from the cemetery, the statue of Ma Ben Zhai wielding a knife to kill the enemy stands majestically. "Searching for the Truth to Save the Country and the People", "The Bloody War in Jizhong", "Heroic Mother", ...... Walking into the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall, there are more than 10 content plates, pictures of frozen historical moments, and precious documents that record history, reproducing the life of Ma Benzhai leading the Muslim detachment to fight bravely.
"Look at this black and white porcelain plate portrait, the photo was taken by the young Ma Benzhai when he was in the army in Jiangxi, and later fired into a porcelain plate statue in Jingdezhen, which has been preserved to this day. It is the only full-body statue of Ma Ben Zhai. Ma Benzhai in the porcelain plate statue is tall and heroic. Ha Guangjie, director of the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall, said that throughout Ma Benzhai's life, the word "patriotism" ran throughout, and the young Ma Benzhai saw the corruption of the Kuomintang army. After the "918" incident, Ma Benzhai decided to return to his hometown and organize a team to resist the Japanese on his own.
Cangzhou is the famous hometown of martial arts, after Ma Benzhai returned to his hometown, in the name of practicing martial arts, the whole village of Hui youth organized, preached the truth of resistance against Japan, and carried out military training. In August 1937, a 60-70 Hui anti-Japanese volunteer team was established.
At the beginning of 1938, the Communist Party of China led the Hebei guerrilla army to conquer the then Hejian county town and carried out anti-Japanese activities in the surrounding areas. At this time, Ma Benzhai was trying to find a real team to resist Japan and save the country, and wanted to understand the Communist Party's idea of resisting Japan and saving the country. At this time, Liu Wenzheng, a member of the Hui Teaching Team appointed by the Central Hebei Province of the Communist Party of China, contacted Ma Benzhai, and Liu Wenzheng introduced the party's program for resisting Japan and saving the country, the national policy, and the arduous efforts made to resist Japan and save the country. Through his contact with the Communists, Ma Benzhai saw in them a vigorous and upward spirit.
In the test of the flames of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Ma Benzhai's political consciousness was rapidly improved, he deeply felt the greatness of the party, and was determined to join the Communist Party of China to defeat the Japanese invaders and fight for the liberation of the nation. Before the painting "Ma Benzhai Honorably Joins the Communist Party of China", Ha Guangjie told reporters about the process of Ma Benzhai joining the Communist Party of China.
"I am willing to dedicate everything I have to the great Communist Party of China and to the cause of fighting for the liberation of the Hui nationality and the liberation of the entire Chinese nation. In the application for joining the party written by Ma Benzhai in 1938, he revealed his love for the party and the country. Since then, Ma Benzhai has thrown himself into the rolling torrent of revolution without hesitation. In the long years of ups and downs, no matter good times or bad, even in the case of losing relatives, he has always remained true to his original intention and firm in his beliefs. Later, Ma Benzhai served as the commander of the Third Division of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region of the Eighth Route Army and the commander of the Huimin Detachment. Under his leadership, the Muslim detachment won victory after battle.
In the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall, behind the classic battle pictures, there are stories about his heroic battles.
In 1943, the Muslim detachment participated in the first battle of the anti-"encroachment" struggle organized by the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region, and conquered the Bagong Bridge of Sun Liangcheng's headquarters of the Second Front Army of the puppet army. Ma Benzhai, who organized and led this campaign, put forward the tactic of "drilling the heart with a bull knife", concentrating superior forces, digging up the Bagong Bridge of the enemy's headquarters, and then turning back and cleaning up the outlying strongholds. In this battle, hundreds of enemies were killed and wounded, and more than 1,000 officers and men below the chief of staff and the head of the special service regiment of the puppet Second Front Army were captured. After the war, Huang Jing, secretary of the party committee of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region, praised Ma Benzhai as a "talented military strategist who rose up." Yang Dezhi, commander of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region, pointed out: "The surprise attack on the Bagong Bridge is a good move to get rid of passivity, strive to take the initiative, break through one point, and affect the overall situation!"
In the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall, in front of the sound and light installation and half-scene model of "Conquering the Bagong Bridge", Ha Guangjie excitedly introduced that from 1937 to 1944, Ma Benzhai led the Muslim detachment to gallop to Hebei, Shandong, and Henan, using the "cattle knife drilling tactics" and "pushing and grinding tactics", etc., more than 870 battles in 7 years, annihilating more than 36,000 Japanese puppet troops. Among them, the Kangzhuang ambush adopted the tactic of "leading the snake out of the hole to encircle the point to send reinforcements", completely annihilating the enemy, and there was no casualty on its own side, which was included in the teaching case of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University at that time.
The Hui detachment led by Ma Benzhai dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese invading army, and was known as "an iron army that could not be attacked, invincible, defeated, or dragged down", and Mao Zedong called it "a Hui detachment that won a hundred battles".
Photographed on January 9, the Japanese army escorted Ma Benzhai's mother's car. Photo by Hebei Daily reporter Shi Xiaoduo
Mother and Child Heroes
On the east and west sides of the Ma Ben Jae Memorial Hall Square, there are two lakes, namely "Ma Mu Lake" and "Honsai Lake". Also known as the "Mother and Child Lakes", a small river flows out of the "Honsai Lake" and circles the square before finally flowing into the "Mamu Lake", and a small bridge connects the two lakes together. Such a scene is like a child who does not want to leave his mother, snuggling up to his mother's side. Li Fan, the docent of the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall, introduced that the two lakes symbolize the connection between mother and son, and also symbolize the patriotic song composed by the two generations of heroes of mother and son with their lives.
In 1941, Ma Benzhai led the Muslim detachment to wage a fierce struggle against the Japanese army. After repeated failures in the Japanese army's attempts to destroy the Hui detachment by force, it was decided to carry out a trick to lure Ma Benzai to surrender. The Japanese army heard that Ma Benzhai was the most filial to his mother, so they decided to arrest Ma Benzhai's mother Bai Wenguan and force Ma Benzhai to surrender. The Japanese army gathered the crowd and tortured her, asking her about her whereabouts. The villagers covered up with death, and three people gave their lives one after another. Bai Wenguan witnessed this scene and stepped forward.
After Bai Wenguan was captured by the Japanese army, the Japanese army set up a feast, pretending to be shocked for her. Bai Wenguan said in a fierce voice: "I am Chinese, I don't eat Japanese food!" When the interrogators of the Japanese gendarmerie asked Bai Wenguan how many sons he had and what their names were, she replied with her head held high: "They are all called 'anti-Japanese'." Seeing that Ma Benzhai's mother was resolute and unyielding, the Japanese army sent Sun Rongtu, the pseudo-governor of Hejian County, to force Ma's mother to submit, but the old man, who knew the righteousness, would rather die than give in, and she righteously refused the enemy: "I am Chinese, and I let my son go when he became the Eighth Route Army." That's delusional!"
"When a person lives, he must live with a face and face, and when he dies, he must die decently! Victory or defeat is not about life and death, but about whose backbone is stronger. Bai Wenguan knew about the enemy's plots, and after being caught, she tried all kinds of ways to send a message to Ma Benzhai: "Don't save me! This is the enemy's conspiracy." If you come to my rescue, the enemy will surround the Muslim detachment, and the Muslim detachment will be in a desperate situation!"
In order to completely cut off his son's desire to rescue himself, Bai Wenguan began a hunger strike from the third day he was arrested into the gendarmerie. She went on a hunger strike for seven days and seven nights in prison and died a heroic martyrdom at the age of 68. In the face of the overall situation, Ma Benzhai's first thought was to be loyal to the country, and he continued to fight in Qingxian and Dacheng, which were far away from the river, and gave up the opportunity to rescue his mother.
At the age of 21, Bai Wenguan married Ma Yongchang, a farmer in Dongxinzhuang (now Benzhai East Village) in Xian County, and the two had three sons, Ma Benzhai was the second. The children of the Ma family listened to their mother's stories of defending the country from an early age, laying the foundation for embarking on the road of revolution in the future. Bai Wenguan is knowledgeable, kind and virtuous, and is deeply respected by the villagers. Today, in the "Heroic Mother" exhibition hall of the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall, there are not only treasured wardrobes, beds, tables, pots, spinning wheels, looms, scales, buckets, flat poles, etc., but also many precious pictures and texts showing the noble spirit of the revolutionary mother.
"People who come to visit the memorial hall often stop in front of this old object to mourn...... "In a quiet corner of the memorial hall, there is a small dilapidated cart. Li Fan introduced that the Japanese puppet army used this small cart to escort Bai Wenguan away. Because she was old and inconvenient to walk, the Japanese puppet army found a small cart, pushed her to Hejian County, and escorted her to the gendarmerie. This small cart is a testimony of Bai Wenguan's sacrifice to serve the country, and it is also a testimony of this revolutionary old mother's deep understanding of righteousness and high spirits.
After the death of Ma Benzhai's mother Bai Wenguan, all walks of life in the party, government and military groups in central Hebei held a grand memorial meeting for her, and all walks of life in Yan'an also organized mourning activities. Zhu De, commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, and Peng Dehuai, deputy commander-in-chief, sent a telegram to the Jizhong Military Region, saying: "The fact that the Chinese people have such a mother is not only the glory of the Chinese people and the glory of the Chinese women, but also a concrete example that the Chinese nation will not perish." ”
When Ma Benzhai got his mother's relic, a jade bracelet that had been broken into two pieces, he wept bitterly. The soldiers of the Muslim detachment expressed their desire to avenge Ma's mother, and Ma Benzhai painfully persuaded his comrades-in-arms: "Focus on the overall situation and don't fall into the enemy's trap." He made an oath to his mother: "Great mother, although she is still alive in death, her son inherits his mother's will and continues to fight!" After that, Ma Benzhai remembered his oath, took the two jade bracelets with him, killed the enemy more bravely, and fought hundreds of battles with the Japanese invaders on the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Plain, making outstanding contributions to the consolidation of the anti-Japanese regime.
Ha Guangjie said that during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Dongxinzhuang Village staged a moving scene of "mothers calling their sons to fight the Oriental, and wives sending their husbands to the battlefields" everywhere, with a total of more than 200 young people joining the army and participating in the war, and nearly 100 outstanding sons and daughters sacrificed in the land of North China. The unity of the army and the people laid the foundation for the final victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan. The successive victories won by the Muslim detachment are also victories of national unity.
The statue of Ma Honsai was photographed on January 9. Photo by Hebei Daily reporter Shi Xiaoduo
The spirit lives on
At the beginning of 1944, the Huimin detachment received an order to go to the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo border region to undertake the glorious task of defending the Party Central Committee, Chairman Mao, and Yan'an, the holy land of the revolution. Ma Benzhai was so excited that he couldn't sleep all night, and his greatest wish in life was to see Chairman Mao and Commander-in-Chief Zhu. However, just as the troops were about to leave, Ma Benzhai waved goodbye to his teammates: "You guys go first, I'll follow you...... When I meet Chairman Mao and Commander-in-Chief Zhu, I must convey my greetings. ”
It's not that Ma Benzhai doesn't want to go with the team, but he has a poisonous sore in his cervical spine. Due to the lack of medical treatment and medicine, his condition deteriorated rapidly and he was transferred to the rear hospital of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region in Xiaotun Village, Puyang. Later, he contracted acute pneumonia, with a body temperature of up to 40 degrees Celsius, and was often in a coma. Even so, Ma Benzhai has always been concerned about Yan'an, and before the troops set off, he also made the last mobilization with illness, and told his comrades-in-arms: "Follow the party, follow Chairman Mao, and fight to the end!"
During his serious illness, Ma Benzhai's family rushed to the rear hospital of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region to visit him. Before dying, he laboriously unscrewed the pen, wrote the word "China" on the paper, and told his children to be like the soldiers of the Muslim detachment, "dedicate their whole lives to China!" With regret and yearning, in February 1944, Ma Benzhai died of illness in the rear hospital of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region at the age of 42.
On March 17, 1944, all walks of life in Yan'an held a grand memorial meeting for Ma Benzhai. Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai and other central leaders sent elegiac couplets. Mao Zedong's inscription of the elegy is: "Comrade Ma Benzhai is immortal". Zhu De's inscription is: "The ambition is difficult to move, the Han Hui are models of all ethnic groups, and the heroes of the two generations of mothers and sons are immortal in the big festival." The elegy inscribed by Zhou Enlai is: "National Heroes, Fighters of Our Party."
In order to commemorate the anti-Japanese national hero Ma Benzhai, Dongxinzhuang was officially named Benzhai Village, and the township government was also located in the village, which was renamed Benzhai Hui Township. In 1954, Ma Benzhai's body was moved to the North China Military Region Martyrs Cemetery in Shijiazhuang City for burial. On September 1, 2014, with the approval of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, Ma Benzhai was selected into the first batch of 300 famous anti-Japanese martyrs and heroes announced by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
"The heroes of the two generations of mothers and sons, the national integrity and the spirit of the anti-Japanese war that focuses on the overall situation, have been shining through the ages. Ha Guangjie said that although the martyr Ma Benzhai has left us, his patriotic thoughts and spirit of resistance will never be wiped out, and he has always inspired future generations and inspired generation after generation to strive for building a civilized, harmonious and strong country.
Today, the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall has become a famous "check-in place" for national patriotism education, national defense education and national unity and progress education, and a large number of cadres and masses come to pay their respects and receive spiritual baptism every year. In addition, Benzhai Hui Township vigorously excavates red resources, leads rural revitalization with red spirit, and carefully outlines a harmonious rural picture intertwined with red culture and the style of the times. In 2020, Benzhai East Village, the birthplace of Ma Benzhai, became the first batch of pilot villages for the construction of red beautiful villages in the country.
Walking in the hometown of the hero, you will see factories lined up along the street, and Benzhai Hui Township successfully passed the acceptance of the provincial food production concentration area in 2020. At the same time, the township's wire and cable, craft embroidery, glass craft products and other industries have developed rapidly, forming a diversified development pattern. Benzhai Hui Township also takes red tradition, ethnic customs, and charming villages as the theme, relying on the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall, Ma Benzhai Mother and Child Martyrs Cemetery, etc., to build a red tourism area with comprehensive functions such as patriotic education, sightseeing, ecological leisure, and Hui Township customs experience.
Today, the village is clean and tidy, with square dances, basketball games, opera performances and other activities, and people live a prosperous and harmonious life. "Next, we will fully explore the spiritual connotation of Ma Benzhai, inherit the red gene, continue the spiritual bloodline, activate the red kinetic energy, empower high-quality development, and strive to develop the hero's hometown into a harmonious village integrating red education, visiting and researching, industrial tourism, shopping and entertainment. Xu Fuxin, Secretary of the Party Committee of Benzhai Hui Township, said. (Hebei Daily reporter Shi Xiaoduo)
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