Written by Wang Zhanfei
Wang Zhanfei spoke at the seminar
The third time I participated in the chief's work seminar, each time I had a different feeling, and every time I wanted to say a few words about the chief's work. Participating in this kind of work workshop is an encouragement to oneself, similar to hearing a collection of bugles. After retirement, the train that condensed our will, spirit, direction, and time rumbled past us, we were destined to be passengers to get off the train, the sound of the trumpet could no longer be heard, and we seemed to be suddenly alone, and it was up to us to decide where to go, what to do, and how to do it.
What do you do after retirement? I have hesitated, I have learned to paint, I have learned to sing in chorus, and I have found that it is not suitable for me. Later, I found out that many retired soldiers, including some generals, soon gathered under another banner, and worked hard to write a large number of excellent literary works. This was the case with my old chief, Deputy Political Commissar Qu.
Literature is a huge and generous station, which accepts and shelters a number of hearts with dreams or emotions about the world. At the Jinyuan Hotel, where today's meeting is taking place, I served as an editor and secretary of the Political Department of the Chengdu Military Region, and later as deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Political Department. Military writers, such as Lu Wenhu (later president of the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts) of the former General Political Art Bureau, Lu Ningsi (later director of the Chinese station of Phoenix Satellite TV and anchor of "Thought Discourse") of the former People's Liberation Army Literature and Art Publishing House, and Zhu Sujin (a famous novelist and screenwriter), former director of the creative office of the Nanjing Military Region, are all related to literature and the literary atmosphere of the Chengdu Military Region in those years.
In particular, I would like to mention two veteran military writers who once lived at the Jinyuan Hotel, and they had a deep influence on me like Deputy Political Commissar Qu.
One is Peng Jingfeng, a famous military writer who has lived to the old and written to the old. Born in Jiangxi in 1929, he served as deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Kunming Military Region, and after the merger of the two regions, he served as the director of the creation office of the Chengdu Military Region, and was a deputy to the Sixth National People's Congress. In 1952 (23 years old), he began to publish works, most of which described the fighting life in the frontier and the customs and customs of ethnic minorities, among which the short story "Post Road Pear Flower" was selected into middle school textbooks, and in 1957, he co-wrote with Lin Yu "Beacon Fire in the Border Village", and Chen Xiwu co-wrote "Lusheng Love Song" two film scripts were made into films, which were all the rage. Defeating the "Gang of Four", he was full of creative passion, and his novella "The Descendants of the Handsome Tribe", the short story "The Moonlight is Good Tonight", and the reportage "Cover and Cover" all won national awards. In 2010, Director Peng published "Liberation of the Southwest", which described the liberation war in the southwest region, and won the 5th Lu Xun Literature Award. Peng Jingfeng is very kind to us little editors and little officials, and we have a relationship of teacher and friend. In 2013, when I visited Kunming on a business trip, he talked about the hardships of writing "Liberation of the Great Southwest", saying that it had been brewing for 60 years, more than 20,000 days and nights, 12 years of writing, and the manuscript weighed 27 kilograms alone, and he died at the age of 89, and one-eighth of his human life was poured into this 550,000-word work. He said that writing historical works is a kind of test, because history is never just one line, but many lines, and history is never just one color, but many colors. I didn't understand it at the time, but then I gradually figured out the meaning of this sentence. Everyone has their own unique vision when looking at history and literature, which inevitably has the limitations of history and the perception of literature, and the narration of history can never have only one sound tone, so from the "Book of Shang", "Zuo Chuan", "Spring and Autumn", "Historical Records" generation after generation to rewrite history, each edition has its own unique value and significance, the important thing is to make literary works have the character of historiography, or let historiography have the endowment of literature, which is a serious attitude to writing, but also the heavy connotation that literature is endowed with.
The other was Zhu Zengquan, former director of the Political Department of the 27th Group Army, who later served as deputy political commissar of the General Armament Department. , I met him in 1986 on the Laoshan front line in Yunnan, at the 27th Group Army Sinkhole Headquarters that participated in the round battle. At that time, I was in the Political Department of the former commander, and I was responsible for coordinating the arrival and delivery of various literary and artistic condolence groups across the country, distributing cultural supplies and books sent to the front line from all over the country, and taking photographs of the activities of the Political Department of the former commander; second, I was also the editor of the "Southwest Military Literature" at that time, and I had to organize the literary works of the front. I first met Fu Jianren, the head of the propaganda department of the 27th Group Army, who wrote good articles, and there was a short reportage about front-line soldiers that was very beautiful, and later he served as the secretary of the Hebei Provincial Political and Legal Committee. After I went to the sinkhole, Director Fu took me to meet Zhu Zengquan, director of the Political Department, and my first impression was that the bones were clear, the jade tree was in the wind, the cigarettes in his hands were constant, and he spoke humorously. I still remember Director Zhu Zengquan's poem called "The Old Mountain is Popular Acacia Beans", which was written in a simple and smart way and had a thick historical observation, and it was soon published in the "Southwest Military Literature", and we became literary friends. Zhu Zengquan only had a primary school education before enlisting in the army, and read many Marxist-Leninist works and literary masterpieces in the army with hunger, and later became a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a first-class writer, and successively published a number of poetry and prose collections such as "Fantasy" and "National Style", won the Chinese Poet Award in 1999, won the August 1 Literary and Artistic Creation Award of the whole army in 2000, and published the five-volume "Notes on the History of War" in 2011.
Seminar venue
The protagonist of today's seminar, Deputy Political Commissar Qu Quansheng, like the two of them, is in a high position, has rich experience, is well-informed, and his writing is unique and charming.
Around 2005, I read some of the author's poems, but what gave me a new understanding of the author's literary character was the documentary literature "Love Through the Smoke of Gunpowder", which wrote about the love experience between General Tan Youlin, the former political commissar of the Lanzhou Military Region, and Ms. Qiu Yun, published in "Chinese Writers" On the one hand, I sighed for the struggle and sacrifice of my predecessors, and at the same time sighed for the ups and downs of love, which deepened the spiritual and emotional cognition of the ancestors who struggled with blood.
Later, I carefully read the author's novel "Goose Head Ridge" with more than 500,000 words, writing about the ups and downs of a generation of soldiers who enlisted in the army in the sixties of the last century for decades, reflecting the history of the Chinese army after the founding of the People's Republic of China. When he wrote about the ups and downs of several soldiers who had struggled for decades, he went deep into their spiritual world, the internal motivation of their struggle and sacrifice, their family, friendship, and love, and also wrote about their ups and downs, glory and transformation, with a large time span, many character settings, and a wide range of fields, Wu Bingzhi, Nanmu, Bai Luming, Wang Xiaoyue, each character is lifelike and has a distinct personality. The second half of the book coincides with my own experience in the army, so I have a strong interest in the characters, scenes, and events in the book, and because of this, I trigger memories and think about it for a long time. The author integrates his understanding of life, life, human nature, and family affection into specific objects, and the sum constitutes a complete history of the author's military and spiritual history. More importantly, his works have a rare historiographical character, which is both literary and historical. I believe that these works, including "Goose Head Ridge", will be among the outstanding military literary works of China in the new era with their unique quality.
For various reasons, the chief's two new books "Danshi Soul" and "Tiancang" have not been read, but as far as the chapters I have read are concerned, they are all ambitious, from a group of people to a country, from the Qing Dynasty's county officialdom to see the officialdom of the whole of China, wrote why the country from prosperity to decline, and finally to change the internal contradictions and historical development laws, including Yu Youren, Yang Hucheng, Gao Boren, Lan Liangyu and other characters are vivid, distinctive, the personal fate and the rise and fall of the group in the context of national turmoil, the theme is heavy, the plot twists and turns, The content is full, which can be read not only as a literary taste, but also as a historical perception of the past ups and downs, and the social background.
Personally, I have two major hobbies in reading, one is to read memoirs, and through these memories, I can enter the scene of history. Stefan Zweig's "When the Stars of Mankind Shine" and William Manchester's "Glory and Dreams" have become works that have influenced my view of history and writing, and there are many details that have become our unique ways of understanding characters. There is a veteran in Taiwan, Ye Bangzong, who once served as Chiang Kai-shek's chief of guard, and he wrote many small details that are particularly vivid. During the Anti-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek lived in a villa in Huangshan on the south bank of Chongqing, and one day he inspected the guard station and found a slogan: "The base areas for attacking Japan are Chongqing and Alaska." Chiang Kai-shek stared at the slogan for five or six minutes, and did not understand why he did not directly write "Chongqing and Alaska are base areas for attacking Japan." When he learned that this sentence came from a magazine of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang, he immediately summoned the president of the magazine and ordered it to be changed strictly, and it was not allowed to use similar inverted sentences to make people seem to understand it. This small detail deepens the reader's understanding of Chiang Kai-shek.
The second is that I like to read the works of acquaintances. Understand the inner nature of acquaintances through words, and understand their cognition and aesthetic orientation of the world. For example, when I read Zhou Tao's "History and Mountains and Rivers", Xiang Xiaomi's "Heroes Are Speechless", Jiang Qitao's "The Sound of Horseshoe Breaks", and Xiao Ke's "Bloody Luo Xiao" (in 1997, he accompanied Xiao Lao Yi to shoot "The General's Century Tour" for a whole year, he talked with me about many topics and answered many questions, including talking about his original intention of writing the novel "Bloody Luo Xiao" to write a book similar to "Iron Flow" by the Soviet writer Serafimovich The first draft was created in the Pingxi base area during the Liberation War, and after studying the battle plan in the dim light of a horse lamp, he spread out the rough paper and began to write a novel. After several twists and turns, this novel, originally titled "Luo Xiaojun", was published decades later and won the honorary award of the Mao Dun Literature Award), Zhu Sujin's "Trigger but Not Triggered" and "Artillery Array", as well as the author's "Love Through the Smoke of Gunpowder", "Goose Head Ridge", "Full Moon Kunlun", etc., every time you turn the pages of the book, you enter the past years, and integrate with those military life that has disappeared or is on the move. The best and most energetic 33 years of my life were spent in the army, and the biggest advantage of reading military-themed works is that you can experience a life that is both familiar and completely different, singing or crying with the author, or sad or happy, from which you can often see yourself, and experience that there are still people in the world who have had the same experience with you, have had similar suffering or happiness.
The chief has two more thick masterpieces, which are both surprising and surprising. Literature and the existence of life do not need any reason, literature is a special form of life existence, is the sublimation of life, for some people life is the purpose of the existence of literature, is the noble embodiment of life, literature often unconsciously expands the thickness and breadth of life, we create a literary image at the same time to create a spiritual temple, so that the original ordinary life has a certain divinity and spirituality. Deputy Political Commissar Qu has been setting an example for us, passionately leading us to continue to charge forward on the high ground of literature, so I sincerely salute the old chief!
April 16, 2024