"Remembered and Forgotten"
40 degrees north latitude, Dandong, Liaoning.
The Yalu River Broken Bridge is the city's most famous historical site. In the early 1950s, during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the bridge connecting China and North Korea was blown up by the US military, and the bridge deck on the Dandong side is still there, while on the North Korean side, there are only a few lone piers left on the river.
Today, standing at the end of the broken bridge on the Dandong side, you can see the different shapes of the North Korean sinuiju on the other side, the occasional rotating Ferris wheel, and even passers-by walking along the river.
Double bridges on the Yalu River - the China-DPRK Friendship Bridge on the left and the Yalu River Broken Bridge on the right. Photo by Si Zhanwei
At the bridge, we met Ma Xiaochun, a local documentary filmmaker in Dandong. Observing bridges is his job and hobby. As a Native of Dandong, he was both kind and unfamiliar with the Yalu River Broken Bridge. It is kind because it is a bridge from my hometown and a bridge that I have seen countless times; it is strange because I only know that it is related to the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, but the rest is not known. How many honors and disgraces the broken bridge carried, for a long time, he always wanted to find out. Until one day, I saw an old man in tears at the end of the yalu River broken bridge.
"One year in October, around the anniversary of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, I saw an old man in his 60s standing in front of the statue of "For Peace" at the head of the bridge, crying, and at the same time calling, saying, 'Mom, I was standing on the yalu River broken bridge, and my father was the river that crossed from this bridge.' Ma Xiaochun said that from that moment on, he was determined to make a film that told the story of the broken bridge on the Yalu River and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
The war 70 years ago, the descendants of the volunteer army have not forgotten, Dandong has not forgotten, and the country has not forgotten. In 2020, the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission awarded the commemorative medal of "the 70th Anniversary of the Chinese Volunteer Army's War to Fight Abroad to the Veteran Comrades of the Volunteer Army who participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea and who are still alive.
In the famous photo "Chinese Volunteer Army Crosses the Yalu River", the volunteer army team entering the DPRK is passing through the Mashi Pontoon Bridge. Photo by Li Min
Chinese people have not forgotten either. According to a recent survey by the media, 96.2% of the respondents believe that the spirit of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea should still be inherited and carried forward in the new era. CCTV's recently launched TV drama "Crossing the Yalu River" on the theme of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea ranked first in the country in terms of television dramas of the same period, with a cumulative audience of more than 900 million people, becoming the hottest TV drama work since the beginning of the year.
Curiously, the same Korean War, on the other side of the war, the United States, became a "forgotten war." In the 1950s, when the U.S. military in South Korea returned to their homeland at the end of their service, the neighbors not only seemed indifferent to what they did, what they saw and heard in North Korea, but also quickly forgot about it, and those major events in the homeland, or real estate, new cars, etc. were the most concerned topics for Americans.
For Americans, the Korean War is neither a large-scale war to defend national security and motivate justice, as it was in World War II, nor is it like the Vietnam War that followed, dragging the United States into a quagmire and becoming a lingering nightmare. The Korean War was a difficult local war, and it was soon decided that this war was not only unnecessary to provoke, but also of no benefit to the United States.
Tourists visit the Dandong Memorial Hall for Resisting US Aggression and Aiding Korea after the expansion and reopening. Photo by Si Zhanwei
An American veteran who participated in the Korean War wrote bitterly: "2001 and 2002 were the 50th anniversary of several major battles in the Korean War, but of the three war-themed films released in the United States in the past two years ("Attack on Pearl Harbor", "The Whisperer", and "We Were Once Warriors"), two were about World War II, one was about the Vietnam War, and the Korean War was not noticed.
In 2004, American journalist David Haberstam visited the Key West Library in Florida while writing a book about the Korean War. He found that there were 88 books on the shelves about the Vietnam War, compared to only 4 books on the Korean War. It is no wonder that in English-speaking countries, this war is often referred to as the "forgotten war" or the "unknown war".
Remembering or forgetting, the two diametrically opposed attitudes on both sides decades later, are in themselves indicative of the significance of this war.
"Fight the mountains and rivers unharmed"
Starting from the Yalu River Broken Bridge, 50 kilometers up the river, it is another starting point for the Volunteer Army to cross the river - Hekou Village.
Haguchi Village is across the river from North Korea's Cheongseong County. The village is a small island located in the heart of the river, named Peach Blossom Island because of the peach trees planted everywhere.
Ran Qingchen, a 63-year-old village party secretary, said that there are more than 800 households in the village, and every family has planted peach trees, many thousands, and few hundreds. Seeing flowers in the spring and picking them in the autumn, Kawaguchi Village has been very popular in recent years. In the 2019 "Eleventh" long holiday, an average of 150,000 or 60,000 people went to the island every day. The Yalu River tour ticket of the farm "Lao Lang's family" sold 100,000 tickets in one day. Ran Qingchen proudly introduced that the income of farmers in their village ranked first in the county.
From Kawaguchi Village, you can see the Yalu River and North Korea on the other side of the river. Photo by Si Zhanwei
Aerial photography of Peach Blossom Island. Photo by Si Zhanwei
Maybe it's because of "The Tale of Peach Blossom Origin", or maybe it's because of the Peach Blossom Island in Jin Yong's martial arts, the imagery of the peach blossom always carries a quiet and distant charm, just like the peach blossom island in the hekou village in front of you , which is far away in the northeast corner of The Chinese territory, watching the Yalu River surrounded by water.
However, this tranquility is not innate. Seventy years ago, many units of the Chinese Volunteer Army set out from Hekou Village, crossed the Yalu River, and advanced into the Korean battlefield. U.S. planes traveled over the Yalu River to bomb the Cheongseong Bridge, which connects Taohua Island to North Korea. Ran Qingchen said: Listening to the memories of the old people, the US military plane first flew along the Yalu River and dropped bombs perpendicular to the Qingcheng Bridge, which was thrown for several days without breaking it. Later, it bombed in the direction of the bridge, and eventually broke the bridge. 70 years later, this bullet-riddled broken bridge still exists on the Yalu River, but the name has changed from Qingcheng Bridge to Estuary Broken Bridge.
Today's estuarine broken bridge. Photo by Si Zhanwei
At the end of 2020, on a cold morning, Ran Qingchen stood at the end of the broken bridge at the mouth of the river, looking at North Korea on the other side, behind several mountains, was the old battlefield where the volunteer army and the AMERICAN army fought. That year, also in such a cold season, his father and grandfather sent off the volunteer soldiers by the bridge.
Ran Qingchen said that his father was a militia company commander in Hekou Village, who had led the way into North Korea for the volunteer army and had also assisted the troops in transporting the remains of martyrs back to the village. He said: "Eight of the ten families in the village participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. ”
He turned from the end of the broken bridge at the mouth of the river and looked back at the peach groves on the island, looking forward to the next autumn harvest. The main road in the middle of the island divides the peach forest into two parts, north and south, and this day is the day of the market, on both sides of the road, selling clothes, shoes, meat, snacks, one stall after another.
Hekou Village is the place where Mao Anying left his last footprints in the motherland when he entered the DPRK, and today a Mao Anying Primary School was built here. Photo by Si Zhanwei
Heading north along the road, there is a clearing at the end of Taolin, where a T34 tank transported back from the Korean battlefield is parked, which seems to remind the world that without the battle of crossing the river 70 years ago, there would be no peach blossom quietly open today.
The victory in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea not only brought long-term tranquility to this small border village, but also swore an oath that all the Chinese people stood up and stood in the east of the world. In this battle, the mountains and rivers were unharmed, and the home and country were peaceful.
Gong Shaoshan, deputy director of the Memorial Hall of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, said: "The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea can be called a war of founding and founding of a country. Its great historical achievements will always be remembered by the Chinese people. ”
"Transformed into a National Spirit"
In December 2020, the temperature in Dandong on the banks of the Yalu River approached minus 20 degrees Celsius, and the shadow of the new crown epidemic was still there, so there were few foreign tourists and it was difficult for locals to go out, but the Memorial Hall for Resisting US Aggression and Aiding Korea on Yinghua Mountain in the urban area was particularly lively.
The crowded Memorial Hall of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. Photo by Si Zhanwei
Deputy Curator Gong Shaoshan led several journalists to explain and walk as they walked, and the audience around him gathered more and more, and his explanation was often overshadowed by other speaker-holding docents. Gong Shaoshan said that after the expansion and reopening of the Memorial Hall of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea in September 2020, it received 3,000 people a day, almost every day.
These visitors may not know the beginning and end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, but they must know "who is the most lovely person", must have heard of Huang Jiguang and Qiu Shaoyun, and must miss the heroes who stepped forward to defend their homes and defend the country at a time of crisis. Over the past 70 years, the national spirit condensed by the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea has been infiltrated into the blood of Chinese, influencing generations of people's views on life and the world.
Enamel cups used by volunteer soldiers. Photo by Si Zhanwei
Looking back at the history of human wars, the change of hands of a city and the annihilation of an enemy army may not have a realistic impact on people today, but the great qualities that burst out in the great war have been integrated into the spiritual genealogy of the nation and turned into red genes passed down from generation to generation.
70 years later, we still remember the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, precisely because it, like the spirit of the Long March and the spirit of the War of Resistance, laid the cornerstone of the spirit of the Chinese nation today: it is the national wind and bone that is not afraid of violence and resists the powerful, it is the national strength of all people who are united in one heart and one mind, it is the national bloodiness of giving up life and forgetting death and living toward death, and it is the national wisdom of keeping right and innovating and forging ahead courageously.
A precious image of a certain unit of the Volunteer Army encircling and annihilating the enemy after crossing the Han River. Profile picture
In Dandong, the national spirit flows on the Yalu River and is inscribed on the broken bridge. Since encountering the descendant of the volunteer army who wept at the head of the broken bridge, Dandong documentary director Ma Xiaochun has begun to trace the history of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea with the lens.
He said: "A city without a documentary is like a family without a photo album. After more than two years of traveling all the bridges in the Yalu River Basin, in 2020 he finally completed the humanistic history documentary "Distant Bridge" that Made Dandong proud. Like the vast majority of people, Ma Xiaochun and his ancestors did not participate in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, but they were undoubtedly the inheritors of the spirit of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Zai Fei Text Editor: Zai Fei Title Map Source: Yalu River Broken Bridge. Photo by Si Zhanwei
Source: Author: Zai Fei Lei Zhiyuan Li Chuyue Hu Xingyang