Dragon Gate Array, which means two or three people get together to talk about the world.
In their leisure time, chongqing people's favorite thing is that three or five friends get together and "swing the dragon gate array".
On the evening of yesterday (6), the CCTV hit documentary "The City Gate Is Several Feet High" broadcast the last episode - "Dragon Gate Array".
This episode tells the story of the period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, when people from all over the world gathered in Chongqing, experienced hardships together, fought side by side, and put up an epic "Dragon Gate Array" in Chongqing.
In the Second World War, three cities symbolizing the anti-fascist spirit of the people of the world stood tall.
They were London, the capital of the United Kingdom, Moscow, the capital of the former Soviet Union, and Chongqing, the capital of China's wartime capital.
In 1937, under the pressure of the Japanese Kou, people from all over the world began to gather in Chongqing, the capital of the country. Chen Kewen, then counselor of the Executive Yuan of the National Government, was one of them.
Here, Chen Kewen witnessed the tragic years when Chongqing became stronger and stronger in the inhumane bombardment of the Japanese army, until the rebirth of "Nirvana".
Soon after becoming the wartime capital, Chongqing's population quickly grew from 470,000 to more than 1 million. The small city became the heart of China overnight. Faced with the mission of home country that suddenly weighed on its shoulders, Chongqing was unprepared at first, and could not be in line with the functions of the capital in many aspects such as material supply and urban space use.
When he first arrived in Chongqing, Chen Kewen wrote in his diary: "What kind of place is Chongqing? There is no clear concept yet. (From) friend conversations, I know that the first is the difficulty of transportation ... The second is that there is no house to live in. ”
The influx of people has led to a shortage of housing in Chongqing, housing prices have climbed all the way, and it has become the norm for people who have no room to rent in Chongqing.
What to do?
Most people choose to live in "national hardship houses".
This kind of house is made of bamboo, painted with yellow mud, and covered with weeds, which is extremely simple. The writer Zhang Hexhui's family once lived in a "national difficult house".
For a time, a large number of simple residences turned out, and the density of houses increased, extending up the slope from the riverside, giving Chongqing, which was already known as "Little Shanghai" at that time, a sudden and shabby coat.
Such houses could not withstand the bombing of the Japanese army.
For several years, the Japanese carried out continuous, high-density indiscriminate bombardment of Chongqing. After each bombing, the streets were lit up, houses were burning, and people were weeping. The wind blowing by seems to be the city's sad and indomitable cry.
Fighting fires requires a lot of water, but Chongqing, which guards the Yangtze river and Jialing River, has no water to pump water to extinguish the fire. Because before the Chongqing waterworks began to supply water in 1932, most people used human resources from the river to draw water.
In the air raid shelter of Chongqing University, the painter Xu Beihong once painted "The Map of the Ba People Drawing Water". He inscribed a poem on the painting: "Bear with the People of Ba used to shoulder the burden, and the road of climbing and climbing hundreds of miles is winding; the grains in the plate are hard, and the hard work also adds blood and sweat." ”
To this end, Chongqing decided to open fire alleys and use wide roads to separate houses.
At the same time, deep in the strata of Chongqing, there is another huge world - air raid shelters.
Under today's peaceful sky, Chongqing's air raid shelters have become a place for citizens to escape the heat and cool off.
But during the War of Resistance, it was a refuge to avoid air raids and save lives.
Whenever the alarm sounds, people flock to the bomb shelters, and daily life moves from above ground to underground. Here, people can swing the dragon gate array, play cards, and weave cloth.
In 1940, the eldest daughter of the writer Lin Yutang, 17-year-old Lin Rusi, came to Chongqing in the midst of war. In the dark air raid shelter of Beibei, she found the light of strength and hope: "I feel firm and happy to know that so many compatriots are with me... In the darkness, there is a light in everyone's heart. ”
According to Statistics in November 1943, there were 1,823 air defense fortifications in Chongqing at that time, which could accommodate 445,000 people – which meant that the bomb shelters could only shelter a few people.
In addition to opening fire alleys and building air raid shelters, the Nationalist government began to take the urban area as the center, guided the population to spread around, and successively set up Jiangbei, Ba County, Hechuan, Bishan, Qijiang and other places as evacuation areas.
In such a constant struggle, Chongqing stood still under the frenzied bombardment, in the blazing flames of war, and in the blood and tears overflowing the two rivers.
On August 10, 1945, the news of Japan's surrender came.
People were boiling, firecrackers were everywhere, and they stayed up all night.
At that moment, Chongqing's mission as the capital of wartime came to a successful end. In the following two years, 270,000 people left Chongqing one after another, and the "Dragon Gate Array" with more than 1 million people participating also entered the end.
In October 1946, Chen Kewen's family returned to Nanjing. At the moment of leaving Yu, he was very reluctant to leave the city with which he fought side by side.
War can destroy the human body, but it cannot conquer the human spirit. Those who lived in Chongqing for 8 years have profoundly changed the city.
In the past 8 years, Chongqing has been able to be quickly reborn after each heavy blow, and has always stood firm under the cruel test of war. The people who live and stick to the city also interpret with their own actions what is "getting stronger and stronger" and what is "indomitable".
To this day, such qualities still influence the city.
Well, the "City Gate Is High" series of film reviews planned by Hualong Network-New Chongqing Client has come to an end. In the past five days, I hope that the words and images in the film review can help you better appreciate this excellent documentary, and I hope that people can better understand the culture of Chongqing and its formation.
Because looking back at the past is to better go to the future. (Wu Sijia)