In Taichung City, Taiwan Province, there is a Guanglong Bridge, cross the bridge, and you will see a wide and desolate cemetery, and at the end of the cemetery is the Tianshui Zen Temple.
From a distance, this cemetery is no different from other places, but the pine cypress is lush and the atmosphere is solemn, but if you come closer, you will find its special feature, that is, the coffin of the owner of the tomb, not buried deep in the thick mound, but standing on the ground. This burial method is called temporary in funeral customs, so that he can be buried on another day.
However, this coffin, which is lonely and isolated by the Guanglong Bridge, has been temporarily located here since 1990, and more than thirty years have quietly passed, but it still stands here indifferently, and it is not known what year it was reburied.
The owner of this tomb, during the War of Resistance Against Japan, led his troops to kill tens of thousands of Japanese troops, and in the Battle of Ren'anqiang, he even relieved the siege of Burma by 7,000 British troops in one fell swoop, and he was a famous general of the Kuomintang, Sun Liren.
Born in 1900 in Lujiang County, Anhui Province, Sun Liren was admitted to the Beijing Tsinghua School with the first place at the age of 13, promoted to the Tsinghua Higher Department at the age of 20, graduated with honors from the Department of Civil Engineering of Tsinghua University at the age of 24, and successfully passed the examination to obtain the qualification of studying in the United States at public expense.
In the United States, he abandoned engineering and enrolled in the Virginia Military Academy to study military science. After returning from his studies three years later, he served as a lieutenant and military training captain at the Central Party Affairs School, and later served in the General Headquarters of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the Taxation and Police Corps of the Ministry of Finance.
As a member of the Kuomintang, Sun Liren's iron-blooded general Wei Ming made his first appearance in the Battle of Songhu after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
In September 1937, Sun Liren's Tax Police Corps rushed to the front line of the Battle of Songhu. During the garrison of the suzhou river, at dawn one day, the Japanese army stolen the Suzhou River on a large scale, and Sun Liren immediately led his troops to meet the battle after hearing the news. He took the lead and successfully drove the Japanese back to the outside of Suzhou Creek after 8 hours of fierce fighting.
In order to draw salaries from the bottom of the cauldron, on this night, Sun Liren took advantage of the thick night, and then led the night raiders to secretly infiltrate the Japanese garrison and try to destroy the enemy's pontoon bridge, unfortunately, he was discovered on the spot, and was soon attacked by the enemy's artillery.
In the rain of artillery, Sun Liren was injured 13 times in the whole body, his lungs were almost pierced, and after three days of coma, he was finally rescued because of the timely blood donation of a young student. He was 37 years old.
In February of the following year, after the wounds healed, Sun Liren led his troops to participate in the Wuhan Defense War, made military achievements again, and was promoted to the head of the Tax police regiment.
In 1941, the Japanese army marched into Burma in an attempt to cut off the only external life channel for our military and civilians to resist the war. In April 1942, Sun Liren was ordered to lead the new 38th Division to Burma and became an important main force of the expeditionary force on the burma.
At that time, China had signed the "Sino-British Agreement on Joint Defense of the Burma Road" with britain, and the Sino-British military alliance was formally established.
On the 17th, the 1st Infantry Division and the 7th Armored Brigade of the British Army on the Western Front were surrounded by the Japanese army in Ren'anqiang, and they were short of food and ammunition, and fell into a desperate situation.
In the early morning of the 18th, Sun Liren personally commanded the 113th Regiment to launch a fierce attack on the Japanese army, and by noon he had conquered the position and relieved the siege of 7,000 British troops.
The Battle of Ren'anQiang was the first victory fought by the Chinese Expeditionary Force after entering Burma, and Sun Liren repelled several times the Japanese army with less than 1,000 troops at that time, and successfully rescued more than 7,000 British troops.
In this battle, not only did it fight the national prestige and military prestige, but also caused a sensation in the world because of the rescue of seven thousand British troops, and Sun Liren was also awarded the Imperial Hero Medal by the United Kingdom and the Medal of Meritorious Service awarded by the United States. Later, when the Japanese army talked about the Battle of Ren'anqiang, it even honored him as the "Chinese military god", which was really famous in the world.
After the war, from the end of 1944 to March 1945, the New 38th Division and the New 1st Army led by Sun Liren made many achievements in the expedition to Burma and the battle with the Allies against the Japanese invaders.
In the battles of Bamo, Nankan, Laolongshan, Nambaka, Xinwei, Lashio, and Qiaomei, he led his troops to kill more than 33,000 Japanese troops, becoming the military general who annihilated the Japanese army the most in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
In the large and small battles of the expedition to Burma, because of his clever military quality and excellent command ability, Sun Liren was fully affirmed and highly praised by all parties at home and abroad, and was praised by the domestic public opinion circles at that time as "the fox of the jungle" and "Rommel of the East".
Figure | General Sun Liren's straight military posture
In May 1945, he was also invited by the Supreme Commander of the European Allied Forces, Eisenhower, to visit the European battlefield.
After returning to China, Sun Liren reorganized and expanded the New 1st Army, equipped with a large number of US-made weapons, and was known as the "First Army under heaven". However, later, when the New 1st Army and the New 6th Army were transferred to the northeast to carry out civil war, because of discord with Du Yuming, the commander of the security of the nine northeastern provinces, Sun Liren was later transferred back to the Ministry of National Defense in Nanjing, so he stayed away from the battlefield of the civil war.
In August 1947, Sun Liren became the commander of the Army Training Department, and in November, the Army Training Department was moved to Taiwan. Since then, he has officially left the mainland and has been trapped in Taiwan for the rest of his life.
After Chiang Kai-shek withdrew to Taiwan, because the United States always valued Sun Liren and others, in order to gain the support and assistance of the United States, Chiang Kai-shek threw in his favor and soon appointed Sun Liren as "commander-in-chief of the Taiwan Defense General Command" and soon promoted to "commander-in-chief of the army."
However, behind the great glory and brilliance that seems to have been entrusted with a heavy responsibility, there are also great dangers and disasters hidden.
In 1955, Chiang Kai-shek was preparing for a military parade in Pingtung, Tainan, in early June, but suddenly on May 28, on the eve of the parade, he received information that Sun Liren wanted to use the parade to launch a mutiny.
Taiwan's security agencies then arrested more than 100 officers and men, including Sun Liren's subordinate Guo Tingliang, and Sun Liren was also interrogated by supervision, so as many as 336 people were implicated in the incident.
In June 1956, Sun Liren was expelled from the official residence of Nanchang Road in Taipei City and moved to his residence at No. 18 Shangshang Road in Taichung City, thus beginning his 33-year house arrest.
Figure | Sun Liren and his wife
In the old, dilapidated and desolate bungalows in Taichung, 6 plainclothes men from the Kuomintang began all-weather surveillance of Sun Liren, and any activities he carried out privately required the approval of his superiors.
Because he had two sons and two daughters who needed to be raised and educated, and could not be supported by the meager living expenses issued by his superiors and the soft selling, the general who used to fight on the battlefield was forced to start his flower selling career.
Asking american relatives and friends to bring rose seeds, in the wasteland outside the bungalow, he carefully leveled the land with a pickaxe and a hoe, carefully sowing and stenciling the flower seedlings. Soon after, the streets of Taichung were full of roses with fragrant aromas, bright colors and excellent appearances that had never been seen before by locals. Once such a very good rose is launched, the market is in short supply.
When it was learned that it was planted by General Sun Liren himself, people affectionately called it "General Rose".
Relying on the proceeds from selling flowers, Sun Liren took matters into his own hands, not only supporting his family without worry, but also allowing all four children to receive higher education in their entirety.
The eldest daughter Sun Zhongping graduated from the Department of Nuclear Engineering of Tsinghua University in Hsinchu and later received a doctorate from Cornell University in the United States; the second daughter, Sun Taiping, graduated from the Department of Chemistry of Tsinghua University in Hsinchu; the eldest son, Sun Anping, holds a master's degree in physics from Tsinghua University; and the second son, Tianping, graduated from the Department of Mathematics of Fu Jen University.
Idle, he likes to talk to his children about the conquest of Burma, and when it comes to emotional places, he looks rosy, radiant, and laughs. At that moment, the young general who had fought on the battlefield in the past was back. However, he never mentioned the unjust case in Taimeng, and the reason why the rabbit died and the dog cooked was not unknown, but he did not want to mention it.
Figure | Sun Liren and his wife Zhang Jingying
After Chiang Kai-shek's death in Taiwan in 1975, Chiang Ching-kuo chose to continue to place Sun Liren under house arrest.
In 1988, after Chiang Ching-kuo's death, Lee Teng-hui, in order to gain the support of veteran Kuomintang generals, succeeded Lee Teng-hui, on March 20 and 27 of that year, sent "Defense Minister" Zheng Weiyuan to Taichung twice to visit General Sun Liren, officially announcing that he had since gained complete freedom and promising to repair his old leaky bungalow.
This year, Sun Liren was already an 88-year-old elderly man.
Thirty-three years of abandonment, and now he has finally regained his freedom, but he is already old and decayed.
Sun Liren, who is old and homesick, in one dream after another of getting up early in the morning and going to bed early, misses and dreams countless times about his mainland hometown that he has not set foot on for forty years.
In order to alleviate the pain of homesickness and send patriotic feelings, he named his four children Sun Zhongping, Sun Anping, Sun Tianping, and Sun Taiping, which means "China is stable and the world is peaceful." Unable to attend Tsinghua University in Beijing, he let his children go to Tsinghua University in Taiwan, and made a family rule that the children of the Sun family would not be allowed to enter the United States and intermarry with Americans.
In April 1988, Sun Liren's old subordinate Liu Wenmei returned to his hometown to visit his relatives, and specially brought him a photo of his hometown's former residence, and looked at the old childhood house in the photo, wiped and wiped, and the old tear murmured: "Although the old dream is revisited, it is a sigh of emotion." ”
In 1990, when he heard that Sun Liren had regained his freedom, his former old friend Bing Xin sent a letter from his distant homeland inviting him to return to the mainland of his motherland to visit his relatives. After receiving the letter, Sun Liren was full of emotions and homesickness, but he also knew very well that with the political situation in Taiwan at that time and his special status, his way back to his hometown was still obstructed and long.
Therefore, in his reply to Bingxin, he was eager to return to his hometown:
"At the end of the day, when can the old man visit, talk freely, it is inevitable, and the final wish is also fulfilled."
On October 5 of this year, coinciding with Bingxin's 90th birthday, Sun Liren, who was in a distant Taiwan, specially sent a congratulatory message to wish his old friend a happy birthday, but at that time, he even needed help from others to walk.
Figure | Ice Heart Grandma
On November 19, 1990, a generation of famous generals Sun Liren died in Taichung at the age of 90. Because until his death, he was not able to return to the continent where he thought about it day and night, so his last words were, "If you don't bury the continent, the coffin will not go into the ground."
In this life, since he could not return to the mainland alive, he could only hope that after death, he could return to his hometown, be buried in the Guangzhou New 1st Army Fallen Soldier Cemetery, and with his former subordinates and comrades-in-arms, he could return to the same place after death and talk about wine in his previous life.
This cemetery of the new First Army's conquest of Burma was built to commemorate the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, when the new First Army of the Kuomintang Former Army went to India and Burma to resist the Japanese invading army.
It was built in 1947 by Sun Liren, then commander of the New First Army, and built with 3,000 Japanese prisoners of war. After completion, the remains of 17,000 soldiers who will be recovered from the Indo-Burmese battlefield are buried here.
However, due to the obstruction of some people on the island, the general's wish to be buried in Guangzhou has not been realized, so we see that thirty-one years later, his coffin is still temporarily in Taichung.
However, after the death of Sun Liren, his eldest son, Sun Anping, continued to file a grievance for his father for many years, and asked the Taiwan Control Yuan to re-investigate the case and restore the truth.
Figure | Sun Liren and military dogs
In 2001, eleven years after Sun Liren's death, Taiwan's Control Yuan finally passed a resolution identifying Sun Liren's case as a "false case that was conspired against the situation." Although he was eleven years late and the person concerned had passed away for many years, it was the most powerful proof from Taiwan that the official gave the general a lifetime of innocence, and the general should be infinitely relieved that he had a spirit in heaven.
However, the coffin of the general who stood silently by the Guanglong Bridge in Taichung and has not yet been buried is a pain that has lasted too long in the hearts of the descendants of the Sun family and the descendants of Yan Huang.
I believe that the general's soul returns to his hometown, and his last wish is fulfilled, and this waiting day will certainly not be too long.
Text | Lord of the Afternoon Dream Hall