Marshal Chen Yi wrote in his "Guerrilla Words of Southern Gansu":
It was almost noon, and the hungry bowels were beating like drums.
The food blockade has been three months,
The rice in the bag can be counted.
Wild herbs and boiled.
This was the dilemma that Chen Yi often faced during his three-year guerrilla war in the south, when the Red Army guerrillas on the border of Jiangxi and Guangdong were besieged by tens of thousands of enemy troops, the environment was very treacherous, and their life was very difficult. Especially living in the deep mountains and dense forests all year round, eating has become a big problem. However, our Party firmly believes that revolutionaries must rely on the masses of the people and regard the people as their parents.
The wisdom of the masses of the people is boundless, and the hearts of those who support the revolutionaries are also selfless.
In 1935, Comrade Chen Yi hid in a ravine on the west side of the main peak of Youshan in Dayu County, Jiangxi Province. The terrain here is treacherous, the trees are verdant, the thatch is uninhabited, and it is a good place to hide. Unfortunately, despite its seclusion, the deep mountains and dense forests do not produce food. The only way is to rely on the support of the masses.
In a nearby village, there is a middle-aged woman named Ximei, who is also a poor farmer. Whenever Chen Yi was "hungry like a drum", she would carry a bamboo basket and hurriedly walk to the dense forest where Chen Yi was hiding. ”
Every time she came to deliver food, she lowered her voice to the dense forest and said, "Brother comrade, it's time to eat......
Later, Chen Yi told her: "You don't need to shout next time, just knock on the bamboo!" ”
She understood. Since then, the sound of "bangbangbang" has become a signal for Chen Yi and them to start eating.
There are many, many people like Xi Meizi who support the guerrillas in the guerrilla areas, otherwise how could Chen Yi and them hold out in the south for three years?
In order to cut off the connection between the masses and the guerrillas, the enemy drove all the common people deep in the mountains to the plains. The life of the guerrillas was even more miserable, picking wild vegetables, picking wild fruits, catching field chickens, and digging hornets' nests...... To survive, eat everything. Chen Yi has a poem:
Eat bayberry in summer and peel bamboo shoots in winter,
Hunting wild boars is busy all over the mountains.
Snake Catch II is longer.
But the wisdom of the masses is endless. On the grounds that there was no firewood in the plains, they asked to go into the mountains to cut firewood. The people take food as their sky, and the Kuomintang army had to agree to allow the common people to collectively go into the mountains to cut firewood once in a while.
Whenever the common people went into the mountains to cut firewood, they would secretly bring more food, salt, and sometimes information, put it in bamboo tubes, and secretly leave it for the guerrillas in the mountains when chopping firewood.
Chen Yi said happily: "The masses really have a way, the masses are heroes!" ”
In fact, the common people live a tight life, and many times they eat the last meal but not the next. But whenever they have a bite to eat, they will still think of the guerrilla fighters first, what kind of fish and water love is this!
The enemy's blockade is tight, and the common people have a way. A fellow villager carried a load of millet under the noses of the enemy sentry, went to the small river outside the village to make rice from the water mill (primitive hydraulic rice stone tools), and returned a few hours later with the rice and chaff. It seems that everything is very normal and there is no flaw, how could the enemy have expected that he picked up more than 100 catties when he went, but only 70 or 80 catties when he returned.
He secretly gave the rest of the rice to the guerrillas and left them by the deserted river. In the middle of the night, naturally, guerrillas came down the mountain to fetch it.
There is a Pengkeng village in the northwest valley of Youshan, and there is a witty and brave middle-aged woman, her surname is Zhou, her milk name is Sandi, and her name is Zhou Basket. Her correct name was given to her by Chen Yi.
One day, a platoon of enemies lived in his house, Sandi sat in front of the stove to cook rice, and after cooking the meal, she took advantage of the enemy's inattention to stuff some food into a bamboo tube and put the bamboo tube in a bucket. It was covered with a few children's clothes to be washed, picked up the bucket and left. Sandi disguised herself in front of the enemy as if she was going to the river to wash her clothes.
The creek is low, and when people crouch down, the enemy can't see what she's doing. She tied the bamboo tube to a long vine hanging down from the opposite mountain, and then gently shook the long vine, and the guerrillas hiding in the mountain knew that the meal was coming. In this way, in a few minutes, the partisans were ready for a hot meal.
When Chen Yi heard the story of this sister-in-law delivering food to the guerrillas under the noses of the enemy, he laughed heartily and appreciated it very much. Later, the guerrillas built a thatched hut on the hill behind Sandi's sister-in-law's house, and Chen Yi would sometimes come to live here.
Sandi's sister-in-law carried a basket to the back mountain every day, pretending to beat pigweed, but in fact she was delivering food to Chen Yi and others. The wind and rain never stopped, and the comrades were very moved when they saw that their sister-in-law regarded the Red Army guerrillas as relatives.
One day, Chen Yi said to her: "Sister-in-law, how can we thank you?" ”
Sandi's sister-in-law smiled and said: "Look at what you said, you can't eat, you can't sleep well, and you are fighting guerrillas in the mountains, not for us." ”
Chen Yi asked, "Sister-in-law, what's your tuba called?" ”
She replied with a smile: "Women's family, what other big names are there, I have been called Sandi since I was a child." ”
Chen Yi said wittily: "If you make a revolution, men and women are equal, you should also have a name." ”
She said, "It's good, it's just that I'm illiterate." Give me a name, comrades! ”
Chen Yi thought for a while and said: "You carry a basket to bring us food every day, as soon as we see the basket, we remember that you have done many good things for the guerrillas, I think we will take this name, call it Zhou Basket!" ”
Everyone agrees with the name and thinks it is very memorable. Sister-in-law Zhou nodded with a smile, and was also very satisfied. Since then, Zhou Basket has become the proper name of Sandi's sister-in-law, and the guerrillas affectionately call her Zhou Basket's sister-in-law.
This week's sister-in-law not only delivered food to the guerrillas, but also sent intelligence, bought things, took care of the wounded, and even transported bullets to the guerrillas. She was born and died to support the revolution and did many things that could be sung and cried.
In the decades since the guerrillas left, she has always kept her promise of "absolute secrecy" and never mentioned to anyone that she had supported the guerrillas, but Chen Yi has never forgotten her contributions to the revolution and the meritorious deeds she has made. In 1962, when a meeting of 7,000 people was held in Beijing, Chen Yi asked the secretary of the Dayu County Party Committee about the whereabouts of Zhou Basket's sister-in-law and told her moving deeds.
The secretary of the Dayu County Party Committee went back to look for Zhou Basket's sister-in-law, only to learn that she had already been wrongly classified as a "rich peasant". Dayu County hurriedly went through the formalities for her and "took off her hat"; allocated funds to repair her family's house (Chen Yi, Chen Pixian and other comrades had lived in her house); She was elected as a people's representative and sent to Beijing to attend the National Day ceremony.
At the end of the seventies, before Zhou Basket's sister-in-law died, she left a will: "Bury me in the place where the guerrillas built a shed!" "The local custom is that most of the graves are at the foot of the mountain, but Zhou Basket's sister-in-law lies high on the mountainside, where she once brought food to the guerrillas' "comrade brother".
Chen Yi wrote deeply in his "Guerrilla Words in Southern Gansu":
Rely on the people, support will never be forgotten.
He is a born-again parent,
I'm a good fighter.
The revolution is strong in the strong.
It was by virtue of this flesh-and-blood connection with the masses of the people that the guerrillas, who were like sparks in the dense jungles of the south, were able to survive and fight the enemy in an indomitable battle.
References: "Selected Notes on Chen Yi's Poems", "Chen Yi's Footprints"