He was familiar with every story in the history of Jin Sui, as well as the revolutionaries and their descendants who had fought in Lüliang from all over the world; he had left deep footprints on every beam on the Yellow River, and he had also left a heavy figure in the courtyards of private houses in many parts of the country; he had listened to his fellow villagers tell countless historical imprints that were about to be erased by time, and he had also heard the witnesses of the red Lüliang revolution tell about the glorious years...
He is Yang Xiaofeng, post-60s, director of the Documentary Production Center of Lvliang Television Station.
In order to turn the history of the Red Lüliang Revolution into a more vivid oral history, in the past 15 years, Yang Xiaofeng has traveled through dozens of cities across the country at his own expense, interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and witnesses, and filmed more than 20 documentaries in the form of oral records. His interviewees were all witnesses and witnesses of the history of Jinsui, including the founding generals and their descendants, the Jinsui military industry and their descendants, and many ordinary landlords, Lüliang grandmothers, grain delivery masses, and soldiers of the Eighth Route Army... Many of them died shortly after being interviewed by Yang Xiaofeng. Yang Xiaofeng's shooting has become the last image they left for the world, and it has also become a living footnote they left for this heroic land.
In June 2017, General Secretary Xi Jinping went to Shanxi to investigate and investigate, and the first stop was Luliang. The general secretary said: "During the revolutionary war years, the sons and daughters of Lüliang forged the great Spirit of Lüliang with their blood and lives. We must not forget our predecessors who threw their heads and spilled their blood for the success of the revolution. ”
On the eve of July 1st, Yang Xiaofeng sat across from me, dressed simply and not good at words. But once he entered the theme and talked about the red Lü Liang and Jin Sui predecessors, his words immediately became excited, and when he said that he was excited, he would give me a hand to compare the painting.
Yang Xiaofeng spent 15 years to do one thing, recording the history of the red Lüliang Revolution, he said: "If you don't shoot it, there will be no more!" "One sentence speaks for itself. His persistence, his hardships, his efforts melted in his eager expressions and simple words. He had only one purpose - to let future generations know and remember that Lüliang was a land of heroes!
Pursue, excavate, rescue and inherit red culture
Shanxi Evening News: What documentaries have been made about the history of the Red Lüliang Revolution in the past 15 years?
Yang Xiaofeng: More than 20 films have been filmed, and "The Central Logistics Committee is in Linxian County", "Red Lüliang", "The Founder of the Red Chinese Textbook - Xin Anting", "Shuishui Drama Society", and "The Quartermaster Who Walked Out of Lüliang" have been published as video works. He also filmed documentaries such as "He Long Middle School in Lüliang Mountain," "Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in Lüliang," "Lin Mike and Li Xiaoli," "Tracing the Northwest Peasant Bank," "The Crusade of the Red Army," "Advancing into the Great Southwest," "Memories of Jinsui Daily," "Memories of Jinsui Military Industry," "A Hundred Years of Easy Wind," and "The Story of Hu Lanban," some of which were broadcast on television and some were still in post-production.
Shanxi Evening News: So many works are from your lens?
Yang Xiaofeng: Yes, I am a self-written and self-directed self-taker, self-written and self-made.
Shanxi Evening News: So many types of work are done by one person?
Yang Xiaofeng: Yeah, (laughing modestly) I'm an all-rounder. I was the director of lvliang tv station management technology, worked for more than ten years, and then the tv station entered the digital age, the technology changed, I also wanted to make myself some changes, around 2000, I became the column producer of the elderly program "Sunset Is Redder", and then went to the news and commentary department, and later went to the documentary production center. I started from scratch, first engaged in technology, then art. Although I am not the best at a certain job, my many years of experience in tv stations have allowed me to work as both a writer and a director, both a cameraman and an editor. It is precisely because of this that I can embark on the road of pursuing the history of Jin Sui and recording the hero Lü Liang, or I can't shoot it.
Shanxi Evening News: Shoulder picking is an unimaginable hardship, why is it so persistent to record the red history of Lüliang?
Yang Xiaofeng: In 2006, I went out to pass by the Northwest Military Industry Martyrs' Tower in Linjiaping Village, Linxian County, and took advantage of the parking break to look at the tower carefully, and I couldn't walk when I saw it. On the stone stele directly in front of the Martyrs' Pagoda, the inscription of the Jinsui Branch of the CPC is inscribed: "The Chinese people under semi-colonial and semi-feudal oppression stood up under the leadership of the Communist Party to fight for the survival of the nation, for their own liberation, and glorious sacrifice in the struggle against the enemy." These comrades who have made glorious sacrifices, no matter how big or small their deeds are, must be collected and circulated, so as to praise the past and inspire the future. "This sacrifice cannot be forgotten! History cannot be forgotten! In addition, I have been running programs for so many years, walking through the ditches and beams of the Lüliang Mountains, and coming into contact with many old comrades before liberation, I gradually came up with an idea: to record the words of these old people who have experienced the War of Resistance. Since then, I have really done only one thing, that is, to pursue, excavate, rescue and inherit the red culture of Lvliang. At that time, I positioned myself: first, to rescue and interview the revolutionary elderly who had fought in Lüliang Mountain, and second, to pursue the cadres who went south from Lüliang.
Shanxi Evening News: So your red shooting began with the northwest military industry?
Yang Xiaofeng: Yes, but this front is also the longest. Because at the beginning, people are not easy to find, and then there are more and more clues, and they always can't end. Due to the shortage of manpower and almost no funds, I could only shoot, edit, and contact the publication at the same time. I did this alone, I had to run all over the country, spend time, until this year's five-episode "Jinsui Military Industry Memory" is over, interviewed more than one hundred and thirty veteran military workers and their children, each episode is fifty minutes, just dubbed, ready to enter the post-editing.
Shanxi Evening News: How did you find these people?
Yang Xiaofeng: The difficulty lies in the pursuit, at the beginning, people are really difficult to find, and it is particularly difficult to find in the vast sea. The initial search was limited to five villages around Linjiaping, which were once the arsenal of the Jinsui Military Region, interviewed some elderly people in the villages, and photographed the ruins of the arsenal, the old landlords, witnesses, and witnesses. In November 2015, I got a clue, so I went south to Chengdu, found an old military engineer who had gone to Chengdu from Lüliang, and through this old man interviewed more than a dozen old military engineers and children of Jinsui, and from here, the number of people pursuing them increased.
Get access to many precious pictures and materials
Shanxi Evening News: Did you make red documentaries on other themes while looking for the Jinsui Military Industry?
Yang Xiaofeng: In the process of searching, there are other clues, so I will shoot first. I have set up more than twenty framework themes, such as "Advancing into the Great Southwest", "Cai Jiaya, Little Yan'an", "The Birth of the First Party Organization in Lüliang", "Shanxi's First Workers' and Peasants' Armed Forces", "The Ancient Song Bred by the Red Army's Crusade", "Liu Zhidan's Blood Spilled on Lüliang Mountain", and other themes. Although the horizons have been broadened and the themes have been expanded, I have a standard, and I only shoot the content of the Jinsui Revolutionary Base Area with Lüliang Mountain as the core.
Shanxi Evening News: This also needs a lot of historical materials to support it.
Yang Xiaofeng: So my family has a few cabinets of related historical books, I bought a lot of them, and I kept reading them. Sometimes when I go to interviews, some old people will send me some memoirs and brief history materials. I also go to the archives and libraries to check it out, and I have also visited the archives of the Central Party History Research Office twice.
Shanxi Evening News: Who have you interviewed?
Yang Xiaofeng: I have interviewed more than a thousand people since I started doing this. No matter where I am, as long as I meet an old man over the age of eighty, I will seriously inquire about the Jinsui Border Area in that year, and I often have a lot of gains, because this is a land of heroes, and every old man has a "biography of the heroes of Lüliang" that he has experienced in his head. The people I interviewed included not only the founding generals and their descendants, the veterans of the 120th Division and their descendants, but also many ordinary witnesses. I often participated in some of the search and public welfare activities held by the children of Jinsui, such as the collection and relocation of the remains of martyrs, the 359 brigade's search for Yang Jiahui Bayi Primary School, the daughter of Jinsui to find a grandmother, through the former jinsui branch secretary Li Jingquan's daughter Li Liqing's eldest sister, I also met Marshal He Long's daughter He Xiaoming, and interviewed three times. Liu Zhidan's daughter Liu Lizhen, Xie Jueya's wife Wang Dingguo, Gan Xifen, Ji Xichen, and five other editors and reporters of the Jinsui Daily, whom Chairman Mao met with in 1948, as well as Chairman Mao's guards Gao Fu and Shi Guorui, were also interviewed.
Shanxi Evening News: The old people are not young, physical strength, listening, expression ability have declined, interviews should be difficult.
Yang Xiaofeng: Most of them are more than 90 years old, and they have to rest for half an hour and twenty minutes, and if they are excited, they have to stop, and they will pick up about the next day, and I will let my family accompany me when I interview, so as to ensure the health of the elderly. The most troublesome thing about this kind of interview is editing, you can't ask the old man to say anything, you have to let them spread out, so the amount of content is huge. However, because of this way of telling, I have obtained many precious pictures and materials.
Shanxi Evening News: After photographing so many people, does it evoke the memories of many people?
Yang Xiaofeng: Many of the old people I interviewed have become my good friends, and they often ask me to see the grandmother, the neighbors, and the villagers on their behalf. I went to Sichuan several times to interview the cadres who went south, and each time I went, I brought some "Lüliang oil cakes" that they wanted to eat to the old people, which they called "oil hoe pieces". There are still dozens of elderly people and I add WeChat, often video! I also invited James Lindsay, the son of International Friend Lin Mike during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, to return to Lishi to explore his parents' footprints, and also helped the children of 17 military engineers to come to Luliang, because they also wanted to explore the revolutionary footprints of their parents and see where they had lived when they were children. A child of the military industry found his 96-year-old grandmother, who cried uncontrollably. Later, every New Year's Day, he would send a thousand yuan to his grandmother. I recorded this with images.
Finally someone listened to them tell Lü Liang's story
Shanxi Evening News: Over the years, what places have you been to?
Yang Xiaofeng: I went to Chengdu alone five times. There are also Beijing, Guangzhou, Qinghai, Xichang, Xi'an, Wuhan, Yan'an, Hunan, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Xinjiang, Lanzhou and other places, there are dozens of cities in more than a dozen provinces.
Shanxi Evening News: Dozens of pounds of video cameras, tripods, computer notebooks running around.
Yang Xiaofeng: Get used to it. Because I already had a lot of weight on my body, I didn't dare to bring a glass of water for every interview.
Shanxi Evening News: How many people can usually be interviewed in one place?
Yang Xiaofeng: I usually don't go to a place to interview a person, so I have to make reasonable arrangements, because the interview time of the elderly cannot be controlled. I go somewhere to interview and usually take the train at night, save a day of accommodation, and never book a room in advance. Get off the train in the morning, take the bus or subway straight to your destination, finish the day's interview, and then find the cheapest hotel near the address you want to interview the next day. One summer, I went to Chengdu, stayed in a hotel for 100 yuan a day for half a month, and interviewed 57 people, all of whom were cadres from the south, and were the material for my film "Advancing into the Great Southwest". Another time in Beijing, the interviewee couldn't find a cheap hotel around his home, and stayed in a room for 600 yuan a night, which hurt me.
Shanxi Evening News: Is there a time when you have made an appointment for an interview but thrown up the air?
Yang Xiaofeng: Yes, many times, they are old people, it is inevitable that there is discomfort, there are occasionally other things at a high level, Beijing and Chengdu have gone but there is no way to interview, I have to go back to the house (laughs).
Shanxi Evening News: Are you still optimistic, don't you feel tired?
Yang Xiaofeng: Also tired. After more than ten years of running, I have used up hundreds of tapes, memory cards, and replaced several generations of cameras. You look at my two eyes, the eye bags are the size of peaches, and I often work from the early morning to the late night. Look at my hands again, a piece of white and a piece of yellow, all of which have been there after doing this, and there is an indescribable bitterness.
Shanxi Evening News: Is it worth it to suffer and suffer and paste money?
Yang Xiaofeng: I've already climbed this bridge, so I have to go down. See those old people who have experienced the wind and rain and loved that period of history until death, and listened to them tell every past and every detail, it is wealth, of course, it is worth it. In Chengdu, I interviewed a soldier named Yaxin from the Jinsui Revolutionary Base Wenlian who collected many Jinsui folk songs from the 1940s. The 95-year-old man wept with excitement when he saw me, saying that he had been fighting in Lüliang Mountain for 12 years, and finally someone had listened to his story in Lüliang, and if he didn't tell it, he would let him take it away. You see, this is rescuing ah! Of the more than a thousand people I interviewed, eighty percent died.
Shanxi Evening News: You are recording history. But running like this, the family must not be able to take care of it, does the family understand you?
Yang Xiaofeng: Without the understanding of my family, I can't go to today, I almost don't care about everything in the family, and the money I posted is still my family and sisters and brothers to help me, thirty-fifty thousand. Occasionally, I have friends who support me with funding.
All I can do is keep shooting
Shanxi Evening News: After more than ten years of rescue interviews, are there any people who make you unforgettable?
Yang Xiaofeng: Hou Di. The reason why I can insist on doing this, and want to do it to the end, until I am old, is also because of the old man's touch on me. Hou Di was a female soldier who had lived in the Lüliang War for 12 years, and was the first female principal of Lan County. When I went to Beijing in December 2013 to interview her, she gave me a memoir, "Looking Back on the Years," and a copy of "A Brief History of the Jinsui Qinggan School." In particular, this "Brief History of the Jinsui Qinggan School" is very precious, not only from the value of historical materials, but also from the process of its birth.
This "Brief History of the Jinsui Qinggan School" was recalled by hou Di when he was nearly ninety years old and organized by the teachers and students of the living Jinsui Qinggan School in Beijing, when Hou Di's eyesight was only 0.01, and there were only five or six people living in the Qinggan School in Beijing, all of whom were eighty or ninety years old, and they met in Beijing Ditan Park at intervals of three to five years, and all the family members or nannies pushed on the wheelchair to get together, reminisce together, tell together, and find someone to record, and only then did this "Brief History of the Jinsui Qinggan School" come to life. They really don't want people to forget this history! This spirit moves me and makes me admire, what reason do I have not to insist, not to quickly dig and record? This old man strengthened my determination to pursue the red history of Lüliang, and I wanted to do it when I couldn't walk.
Shanxi Evening News: After so many years of pursuit and shooting, you have also gained a lot.
Yang Xiaofeng: I can tell a lot of the details of the unknown red history, and my oral history and documentary documentary have not only won awards, but also become a script for many revolutionary descendants to cherish their memories and search for history. There is also the Gaojiagou Village that I have been to countless times, and the first time I went to the courtyard full of barren grass and the collapse of the caves, and later I found out from the historical materials that this dilapidated courtyard was actually the place where the Northwest High Military Conference was held in 1946, and it was an important revolutionary site. After many appeals from me, this place is now a "memorial hall of the High Military Conference". Very relieved.
Shanxi Evening News: I see that you still have the "Tianyang Story" public number and video number.
Yang Xiaofeng: They are not only my memos and notepads, but also a red business card of Lüliang Mountain, where I spread my photographic history of Lüliang red. "Tianyang" is "Heavenly Reward for Diligence and Spread Good Name". Many people praised me through this public account and video number, which is a great encouragement to me, and more people know that I am doing this, which is the strongest pillar of my spirit. Duan Xiaofei, vice president of the Jinsui Cultural and Educational Foundation, also contacted me specifically to publish articles and videos on my public account by Li Liqing, daughter of Li Jingquan, the founding father, Yang Xiaozhe, son of founding lieutenant general Yang Xiushan, and Li Yingxuan, secretary of founding lieutenant general Liao Hansheng, who specialize in the history of the Jinsui revolution, to my public account, indicating that they approve of the "Tianyang Story."
Shanxi Evening News: What are your next shooting plans?
Yang Xiaofeng: Promoted the publication of the documentaries "The Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in Lüliang" and "The Ramblings of Jinsui Daily", and completed the filming and production of "Helong Middle School in LüliangShan", "Qingtang First Field Military Hospital", "Tracing the Northwest Peasant Bank", and "The Crusade of the Red Army". I have now learned aerial photography, and the pictures I have taken before are more beautiful and more confident, haha!
Shanxi Evening News: There are so many more films! Maintaining such a spirit for more than ten years, have you summed up why?
Yang Xiaofeng: First, because the land of Lüliang is not simple, has a rich red culture, or an ocean of folk art; second, there are few people doing this; third, the excited appearance, tearful appearance, and emotional narration of the old people interviewed are all printed in my heart. Thinking about this makes me feel energetic. Moreover, there are fewer and fewer old people to interview, and many vivid historical details are about to be taken to another world. All I can do is keep shooting (laughing). I hope to build a small red Lvliang Oral History Museum in the future.
Shanxi Evening News reporter Bai Jie
(Editor-in-charge: Candy)