Red Artifact Storytelling | Ma Benzhai Memorial: A trolley bears witness to awe-inspiring righteousness

A cart in which Ma Benzhai's mother, Bai Wenguan, was arrested in 1941. Photo courtesy of The Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall

"Comrade Ma Benzai is not dead!" This is an elegy inscribed by Comrade Mao Zedong after the death of the anti-Japanese national hero Ma Benzhai in 1944. In the long history of the Chinese nation, countless patriots have emerged, and heroes of the two generations of mother and son, such as Bai Wenguan and Ma Benzhai, shine with eternal brilliance like brilliant stars.

In the center of the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall Square in Xianxian County, Cangzhou City, on the shores of the Bohai Sea, the bronze statue of the martyr Ma Benzhai standing majestically with a large knife in his hand and a heroic posture across a warhorse stands majestically. Stop and look, the heroic spirit still lives on, inspiring people to forge ahead.

"A thousand miles galloping", "a bloody battle in Hebei", "a heroic mother"... In the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall, pictures of frozen historical moments and documents recording precious history one after another reproduce the heroic life of the Huimin detachment led by the national hero Ma Benzhai. In the quiet corner, a dilapidated cart attracts people's attention, it travels through the war-torn era, telling people the sound of ancient history.

"The wind and clouds are changeable, the mountains and rivers are sad, and the geese call frost days and autumn." There is a full belly of male ambition, and the endless waves are flowing in vain. After the "918" incident, dissatisfied with the reactionary policy of "taking care of the outside world must first be inside", Ma Benzhai resolutely abandoned his official position and returned to his hometown, and this seven-sentence poem before leaving expressed his dazed heart and desire to serve the country.

Back in his hometown, Ma Benzhai organized the youth of the whole village to conduct military training and take the initiative to join the Eighth Route Army. During the Zhengrong years, Ma Benzhai gloriously joined the Communist Party of China, and later served as the commander of the Third Sub-district of the Jiluyu Military Region of the Eighth Route Army and the commander of the Huimin Detachment. He led the "Huimin Detachment that won every battle and every victory" to gallop across the land of North China and became an "iron army that is invincible, indestructible, indestructible, unbroken, and unbroken" of the Jizhong Military Region.

When the enemy was beaten to the ground, the Japanese army used traitor tactics to force Bai Wenguan to write a letter of persuasion to Ma Benzhai. "Ma Mu was old and walked a short distance, so the Japanese puppet army found a single-wheeled hardwood cart and escorted Ma Mu to the gendarmerie." Walking to this ordinary cart, Ha Guangjie, curator of the Ma Benzhai Memorial Hall, stopped for a long time. The Japanese puppet army used this small cart to escort Ma Mu away, and this small cart was a testimony to Bai Wenguan's sacrifice to the country, and it was also a testimony to this old revolutionary mother's deep understanding of great righteousness and high wind and bright festivals.

"I am Chinese, and my son was the Eighth Route Army, and I let him go." Persuasion? That's delusional! "Don't save me!" This is the enemy's conspiracy and trickery..." Bai Wenguan in prison was stern: "When people live, they must live with faces and faces; when people die, they must die like a decent person!" ”

Since ancient times, loyalty and filial piety are difficult to complete, and filial piety in front of the loyal word is small. In the face of the overall situation, Ma Benzhai continued to fight in qingxian and Ayutthaya, which were far away from the river, and gave up the opportunity to save his mother. In order to let her son completely cut off the idea of saving herself, Ma Mu went on a hunger strike in prison for seven days and seven nights, and was martyred at the age of 68.

Iron bones, seeing death as a homecoming, Ma Mu inspires future generations to join hands and bravely move forward with full of enthusiasm. After Bai Wenguan's sacrifice, Ma Benzhai wrote down his vow with tears in his eyes: "Great mother, although she is still alive after death, her children inherit their mother's aspirations and continue to fight!" "Unswerving patriotism and unlimited loyalty to the party's cause are thus passed on between mother and child."

After that, Ma Benzhai remembered his oath, killed the enemy more courageously, and fought hundreds of battles with the Japanese on the Jiluyu Plain, making outstanding contributions to consolidating the anti-Japanese regime. Holding high the banner of anti-Japanese righteousness, leading the sons and daughters of the Han Dynasty to resist Japan, and marching south to the north under the leadership of the party... Ma Benzhai had a short life, the word "patriotic" ran through the whole process, and he died nine times without regret. Zhu De inscribed a bang after Ma Benzhai's death: "It is difficult to move the ambition to move the Han back to the model of all ethnic groups, and the heroes of the two generations of mother and son who do not die in the great festival." ”

As the years go by, the smoke is gone, and the blood of the heroes has blended with the hot Chinese land they fought for. The prosperity of the home country, Ben Gu Bangning, the small cart carrying the awe-inspiring righteousness, is still silently transmitting the great glory of the heroic mother. The breeze is blowing and the shadows of the trees are shaky. On the east and west sides of the memorial square, the mother and child lakes composed of Mamu Lake and Hongzai Lake are connected by a small bridge, symbolizing the connection between mother and child, and also symbolizing the patriotic song composed by the mother and son generations with their lives. (Hebei Daily reporter Shi Xiaoduo)