Written by Yuan Guoxiang
In the summer of 2000, when I was collecting materials for the Military History Museum of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region, I went to Zhengzhou to visit Xu Xingzhi, former deputy commander, and Qiao Dengshi, former commander of the Ali Military Division. Sure enough, Zhang Zankun, who has been engaged in writing for many years and has served as secretary general of the Henan Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles and secretary of the party committee of the organ, donated more than 30 books and periodicals related to history that he had preserved to the Southern Xinjiang Military Region, which has become an important historical material in the Military History Museum. At the same time, he also gave me the books he wrote: the first and second volumes of "The Great Biography of Lao Tzu" and some of the short stories he wrote published in magazines such as "Ancient and Modern Legends".
I am very happy to see the progress of this young comrade-in-arms, because he has become a well-known writer in Henan, and he has not only gained a foothold in Henan's literary circle, where there are many literary talents and many veteran writers, but he has also done his work capably and has made achievements, which is impressive. But what surprised me even more was that from the corridor of his house to every corner of the room, there were piles of stones, some strange stones, some fossils, some stone tools left by prehistoric humans, and some jade made by modern people. This dazzled me and I couldn't see it for a while. I asked him, "Are you interested in collecting?" He replied: "Yes, as a Yellow River person, I am collecting evidence and studying the Yellow River culture". As he spoke, he took out some treasured things for me to see, not only the stone tools of primitive people, the stone molds of fertility worship, but also a few jade weighing stones, stone utensils, and even bone needles for sewing clothes of the soldiers of the advance heroes in Tibet, a smoking pot made of bullet shells, and a human skull bowl with silver trim under the Tibetan serfdom system. I asked, "Where did all this stuff come from?" He said: "The stones were picked up from the ancient Yellow River road, and the jade was bought from Uyghur farmers at the foot of the Kunlun Mountains." But he smiled at the few things that came up from the Ali Plateau and did not answer. I thought to myself, I have worked in Ali in Tibet for ten years, and I have seen these things in exhibition halls and temples, but I did not expect to collect these cultural relics, and Zhang Zankun is a person with a heart, he has been on Kunlun Mountain, to Ali Plateau, but he has got these things, which have been treasured cultural relics, which are commendable. I was embarrassed to open my mouth again and ask him to donate the relics of the advance company, because he had already donated a lot of materials to the Southern Xinjiang Military Region.
Zhang Zankun was a student soldier who enlisted in 1963 from Lingbao, Henan Province, and after a long journey by train and car, he arrived in Yecheng at the foot of the Kunlun Mountains in southern Xinjiang, where he served as a soldier in the 107th Heavy Artillery Company under the Sino-Indian Border Front Command. In 1964, when he was assigned to the artillery company of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region, he was ordered to go to the Pamirs, dressed in workers' clothes, and participated in the border survey and tree monument staking work after the demarcation of the border between China and the Kingdom of Afghanistan. In that harsh environment of high cold and lack of oxygen, his physical fitness was greatly tempered, and his political and ideological level was greatly improved. After returning from the mission, the company was assigned to the Independent Infantry Battalion of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region and stationed in an old barracks in the northern suburbs of Kashgar.
In 1966, I went to the battalion to help with the work, and participated in trekking training with the 2nd Company, and went to the Wucha Mountains for camping training. After returning, I learned that the artillery company had a document that could write manuscripts, and several of them had been published in the "Kashgar Daily" and the "Victory Daily" of the Xinjiang Military Region. Therefore, our working group also looked at this little reporter. At that time, his name was Zhang Xingwu, pen name Nanjunhong, not tall, sturdy, clear eyebrows, quick thinking, and a good soldier who was eclectic and daring to think hard. At that time, due to the need for propaganda of the Cultural Revolution, the Political Department also wanted to bring in young people with writing ability, so he was transferred to the secretariat and first joined the "Great Criticism Group". Soon, Zhang Xingwu changed his name to Zhang Zankun to show that he wanted to take root in the Kunlun Mountains and praise the determination of the border guards. Soon, Zhang Zankun was promoted to a cadre and worked in the organization department for three or four years, and because he often wrote, and some of his manuscripts were even published in the "Jiefangjun Bao", he was transferred to the propaganda department as an officer, responsible for news reporting.
Zhang Zankun has done his favorite industry, and he has even gone deep into the army, going to the border defense, making friends with the soldiers, and grasping the advanced models of the troops. In addition to writing news reports, he also wrote some documentary essays such as "Snow Mountain Tiger", "Snow Pine", "Reflecting Snow Red", and some were listed in "People's Liberation Army Literature and Art". This attracted the attention of Lin Peng, editor-in-chief of the Xinjiang Publishing House, who wrote a letter suggesting that the head of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region let Zhang Zankun try to write about the deeds of the Tibetan Heroic Company. However, at that time, Yan Keqin of the Ali Military Sub-district had already finished writing "The Triumphant Song of Northern Tibet" and was preparing to publish it, so the chief asked Zhang Zankun to live in a single room in a guest house to write a novel about guarding the Pamir Plateau. Just as he was going deep into the army to collect materials and immerse himself in creation, the army was reorganized again, and a group of cadres were needed to change jobs. In the fall of 1979, Zhang Zankun left the army with tears in his eyes. But his heart has not left the people of the frontier and the Kunlun frontier. After returning to Henan, while immersing himself in his current job, he still wrote literary works such as "Pamir Outpost", "The First Mushroom Cloud" and "Mysterious National Border", and appeared in some magazines of documentary reportage and thrilling detective novels, among which "The Female Corpse of the Ice Coffin" won the "Public Security Literature Award". I think he will continue on the path of a legendary writer and maybe create better works.
Ten years have passed, and although we have written letters, made phone calls, and sent books, we have never met again. At the end of 2009, I went to Beijing 301 Hospital to see a doctor, but I didn't expect that Zhang Zankun had already moved from Zhengzhou to live with his son in Beijing after retirement. In retrospect, I remember vividly the time when he married someone in Kashgar, when his two sons were born one after another, and he and my youngest son Yuan Gang used to play together. Unexpectedly, his sons have graduated from college and become talents, and the eldest son Zhang Guanying has also created a small world in Beijing, and I am of course very happy to be able to take his parents to support the elderly. I got on the phone, and Zhang Zankun not only came to the guest house to gather with many old comrades-in-arms of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region, but he also brought fruit to the hospital to see me. When I asked the couple, "Do you still have a collection of stones?" Their answer surprised me again: "We can't fit the things we have in Zhengzhou, and now it's enough to open an exhibition hall." I asked, "Where did you get all this stuff?" The couple hurriedly replied: "A few years ago, after we retired, we traveled together along the Yellow River to find the relics left by the Yellow River people 5,000 years ago." Later, he traveled a long distance to the poor mountains and remote places, visited ancient temples, and even went to the tombs to pick up stone tools, pottery shards and other objects thrown by farmers. At one time, the two sons also participated, working tirelessly, not avoiding the cold and heat, so the whole family was obsessed and collected a batch of "treasures". Some archaeologists were surprised when they saw it, and invited him to Shenzhen to attend a collectors' seminar.
At this point, I asked, "Why don't you write these things out and introduce them?" Zhang Zankun said: "I have this plan, and I plan to write 5 novels in the Yellow River Collection series, with millions of words. Combining our treasure hunting, collecting physical objects, archaeological results and folklore, etc., coupled with the physical picture album, it will take about ten years to get it out. At that time, I will run a museum of the prehistory of the Yellow River people, which can be compared with any private collection exhibition hall in the world. However, this matter is difficult to a certain extent, and it is not appropriate to make it public at present, and I still need to continue to work hard to achieve it as soon as possible. ”
Of course I was very excited, because I didn't see more of his collection, and I didn't dare to say that his grand plan would be successful. But I believe that with Zhang Zankun's perseverance, he will become a great collector in the future. It's like a piece of new jade rolling down from Kunlun Mountain, which will shine as long as it is polished. Zhang Zankun is also a soldier trained from the Kunlun Mountain wind and snow border line, and he has the quality of not being afraid of any difficulties, I hope his efforts will bear fruit, and I will congratulate him when the time comes!