Text/Mu Jinfeng
May 5, 2021, is the centenary of the birth of Mr. Du Pengcheng, a famous contemporary writer in China. Du Pengcheng (1921-1991), formerly known as Du Hongxi, was a native of Hancheng, Shaanxi. In 1939, the 18-year-old Du Pengcheng entered the literary world with the script "Counterattack". In his 52-year long creative career, Du Pengcheng has successively created the novel "Defending Yan'an", the novella "In the Days of Peace", the short story works "Young Friends", "Sketch Collection", "Du Pengcheng Novel Selection" and so on. Du Pengcheng's novels are mostly major themes, and he is good at describing the spiritual outlook of the characters from severe struggles and tests. Among them, the novel "Defending Yan'an" is the first large-scale positive depiction of the Liberation War in the history of contemporary Chinese literature, and its appearance is of landmark significance, and it is known as a "heroic epic" in the history of contemporary literature.
"Defending Yan'an" is Du Pengcheng's first novel and one of his important masterpieces. The novel comprehensively depicts several major battles in the northwest battlefield, such as the Qinghua Ambush Battle, the Yangma River, the Battle of Panlong Town, the Breakthrough Battle on the Great Wall Line, the Battle of Shajiadian Annihilation, and the Battle of Jiulishan After the Party Central Committee withdrew from Yan'an from March to July 1947, and the novel enthusiastically praises the majesty and revolutionary heroism of the commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army, vividly showing the whole picture of the historical development process of the People's Liberation Army from strategic defense to strategic counteroffensive in the Yan'an Defense War. It further profoundly reflects the drastic changes in China's political and military situation during the Third Civil Revolutionary War.
Du Pengcheng
At the end of 1949, Du Pengcheng began to create "Defending Yan'an". Initially, Du Pengcheng wanted to write a long reportage. He envisions writing from March 1947, when the Party Central Committee with Mao Zedong as the core voluntarily withdrew from Yan'an, until the end of 1949, when the Ichino And 1Stitude Corps marched into the Pamir Plateau, recounting the entire process of the Northwest Liberation War. Talking about the original intention of creation, Du Pengcheng wrote such a "opening sentence" in the manuscript of "Defending Yan'an".
manuscript
There are many people who tell stories of the People's Liberation Army's arduous struggle, bravery, and good fighting. Why should I tell this story? Long story:
In March 1947, when the troops were out of Jinzhong to cross the Yellow River to defend Chairman Mao, I went to the first company of the X Regiment of the X Brigade of the Second Column as a cultural instructor. Later, he was transferred to the battalion headquarters as a staff member. The troops from northern Shaanxi to Xi'an, from Xi'an to Gansu and Qinghai, through the Qilian Mountains, and later marched through the Gobi Desert in the Tarim Basin to the Pamir Plateau...) Defend the Pamir Plateau and participate in production in the Tarim Basin. Warriors often say, "Make up the things we fight!" It's full of flavor. The soldiers said this for two purposes: First, there are some new comrades in our unit who have listened to the stories of the hard struggles of the troops in the past and will be educated. Second, the veteran soldiers hope to compile this story, on the one hand, to recall the arduous wars of the past, which can increase the confidence in defending the country and building the motherland today; on the other hand, to record the names and events of the heroes of our troops who are alive and sacrificed. Everybody pushed me to make it up.
Du Pengcheng's creation is indeed a unique condition. In March 1947, Du Pengcheng joined the Sixth Company of the Second Battalion of the 10th Regiment of the Independent Fourth Brigade of the Second Column of the Northwest Field Army as a reporter for the Field Bureau of the Xinhua News Agency, and the famous combat hero of the Northwest Field Army, Wang Laohu, was in the Sixth Company. In the army, Du Pengcheng ate and lived with the soldiers, gave them political lessons, taught them to read, and wrote a letter of determination and family letters for them. Gradually, Du Pengcheng formed a deep friendship with the cadres and fighters of the Sixth Company, and gradually became familiar with their lineage, personality, living habits, and combat performance. At the same time, Du Pengcheng also often had contact with commanders at all levels of the Northwest Field Army. When Wang Zhen, commander of the Second Column, learned that Du Pengcheng was a journalist, he also made a special point of talking to him, encouraging him to withstand the test of war and strive to write good works that reflected the heroic battles of the vast number of commanders and fighters. Soon, the "Yan'an Defense War" broke out. With the cooperation of dozens of aircraft, more than 200,000 elite troops of the Kuomintang Hu Zongnan dispatched from Luochuan and Yichuan respectively, claiming to capture Yan'an within three days. Under the command of Peng Dehuai, the Northwest Field Army, with more than 30,000 people whose equipment was far inferior to that of its opponents, fought with Hu Zongnan in northern Shaanxi and launched a deadly struggle to defend Yan'an and defend the Party Central Committee. The war was carried out very cruelly, and a few months later, du Pengcheng's Northwest Field Army was reduced by more than half, and the sixth company he belonged to was sharply reduced from more than 90 people to more than ten people; Wang Laohu, who had lived with him for a long time, and Huang Peishu, the battalion commander who gave him a new towel at the first meeting, all died heroically in the battle of Yulin Sancha bend; before the soldier Xu Bailing went to the battlefield, he left Du Pengcheng two letters, one to the party branch and the other to his widowed mother, but Xu Bailing did not return in the end Lie Kan, the regimental chief of staff who had given Du Pengcheng a lot of help and encouragement, gave his life heroically and fearlessly to save thousands of comrades in the ravine from danger and some soldiers... These touching heroic deeds inspired Du Pengcheng and made him fight selflessly. Du Pengcheng seized every available time to record one unforgettable battle scene after another in his diary. Sometimes he put the burden of his diary on his knees, sometimes he wrote on the pot table of his fellow countrymen after camping, even in the smoke-filled and bullet-filled positions. Within a few years, Du Pengcheng wrote nearly two million words of diaries and materials. In July 1949, Du Pengcheng was appointed editor-in-chief of the First Field Army Branch of Xinhua News Agency. In October of the same year, Xinjiang was peacefully liberated, and Du Pengcheng flew from Gansu to Dihua with the headquarters of the Yiye Andi Corps. Subsequently, Du Pengcheng followed the troops to participate in many battles in Xinjiang, crossing the desert, crossing the grassland, crossing the Gobi, higher mountains, and wading rivers until the end of 1949, when they marched to the Pamir Plateau. The arduous struggle for the liberation of the northwest that lasted for more than 2 years and the spirit of self-sacrifice displayed by countless heroes had a huge impact on Du Pengcheng, and he had a strong impulse to appeal to the great people's liberation war in the northwest battlefield and show future generations.
After full preparation, at the end of 1949, Du Pengcheng officially began to write this reportage. At that time, he could rely on the following creative materials: a mimeographed copy of Chairman Mao's "Strategic Issues in China's Revolutionary War", the commentaries and editorials published by Xinhua News Agency on the war situation in various periods, the news, newsletters, essay features, reportages and scripts he wrote in the Liberation War, as well as the nearly two million-word diaries he wrote during the war, as well as mimeographed tabloids in the army, and summaries of previous battles and battles. Bundles of materials were piled up on the ground of his narrow writing room, and to enter the house, Du Pengcheng had to jump "over the mountains and mountains." During that period, Du Pengcheng had to go out on horseback during the day to conduct interviews, send messages, and write newsletters to reflect on the situation of our army's war and production and construction. Only in the dead of night, after all the work of the day, could he sit down and write this work. For 2 months, Du Pengcheng "couldn't sleep at night, he couldn't eat well, and the timing was staggered,......" I don't know how many all-nighters he stayed up, Du Pengcheng recorded what he saw, heard, and felt in chronological order.
In February 1950, the first draft of nearly two million words of reportage was completed, all of which were real people and real events. Soon after the completion of the first draft, Du Pengcheng began to make the first revision of this reportage. In February 1951, Du Pengcheng completed the first revision in Kashgar, Xinjiang. In late March, he received a telegram from his hometown that his mother was critically ill, and Du Pengcheng, who was impatient, took the telegram and hurried to find his regiment commander Wang Zhen. Wang Zhen immediately gave Du Pengcheng a special approval to rush back to Shaanxi on the only military plane in the northwest at that time. Du Pengcheng got off the plane in Xi'an, walked for several days in the cold and snow, and finally returned to his hometown. At that time, he carried only a large bundle of manuscripts of the reportage "Defending Yan'an" that he had just completed, and a pistol. By the time she arrived home at midnight, my mother was out of breath. Du Pengcheng sat on the bundle of manuscripts he had carried with him, stretched out his arms, picked up his mother, who could never answer him again, and cried bitterly. After the funeral for his mother, Du Pengcheng moved to the Hancheng County People's Government, where he planned to make a second revision of the manuscript. The manuscript is called reportage, but in fact it is a long compilation of the materials initially compiled by Du Pengcheng's own "battlefield diary", and the text is simple and unpretentious, and it has a great sense of reality. Du Pengcheng "spent more than a month working day and night to revise this manuscript." When revising, Du Pengcheng's eyes often appeared in front of his mother's face, as well as the blood-stained mountains, rivers, and Gobi Desert. From his mother, Du Pengcheng saw the tragic past of the Chinese people; from the soldiers, Du Pengcheng saw the overwhelming force of the Chinese people who had been oppressed and bullied for a hundred years.
In May 1951, Du Pengcheng completed the second revision of this reportage. However, after the revision, for the long reportage in front of him, Du Pengcheng believes that "although there are also shining fragments, it is far from satisfying my inner wishes." Taken as a whole, it is lengthy, cluttered and boring. So Du Pengcheng pondered bitterly and finally made up his mind: to re-engage on this basis, he must write a work of art worthy of the dead and the living. ”
It was this return to his hometown that made Du Pengcheng decide to re-edit and revise his original more than 1 million manuscripts, and the genre also changed from reportage to long novels. At the turn of the spring and summer of 1951, Du Pengcheng returned to his job in Xinjiang with a manuscript. Since then, Du Pengcheng has begun to continuously revise this work in addition to his busy work. In July, September, November 1951, and February 1952, Du Pengcheng made the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh revisions of "Defending Yan'an" in Dihua to complete The completion of The Defense of Yan'an. In May 1952, the eighth revision of "Defending Yan'an" was completed in Beijing. In the spring of 1953, Du Pengcheng was seconded to the General Political Department of the Beijing Military Commission. It was during this period that Du Pengcheng made the most concentrated revision of the manuscript, and in addition, he also sent a printed draft to Feng Xuefeng, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, president and editor-in-chief of the People's Literature Publishing House, and a famous literary and art theorist, for review, and asked for correction. Feng Xuefeng was a good friend of Du Pengcheng's mentor Ke Zhongping, and Ke had previously written a letter of recommendation to Feng Xuefeng, asking him to give more comments on Du Pengcheng's "Defending Yan'an". After Feng Xuefeng received the manuscript, he carefully read the novel in his busy schedule, and later he asked Du Pengcheng to come to his home several times and talked about some of his specific views and opinions in person. According to Feng Xuefeng's opinion, Du Pengcheng made serious revisions to the manuscript, and finally the novel successfully passed the final review. After nearly five years of creation, Du Pengcheng "changed the reportage of one million words into a novel of more than 600,000 words, and turned more than 600,000 words into 170,000 words, 170,000 words into 400,000 words, and 400,000 words into more than 300,000 words... Over the long years, nine drafts have been changed, and hundreds of deletions have been added and deleted repeatedly. Soon, the novel "Defending Yan'an" was included in the "PLA Literature and Art Series" by the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army. In June 1954, "Defending Yan'an" was officially published by the People's Literature Publishing House.
Du Pengcheng regarded the manuscript of "Defending Yan'an" as a life, and for decades, he treasured it around him. After his death, in order to find the best home for these manuscripts, his wife Zhang Wenbin personally went to the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature at the Wanshou Temple in the West Third Ring Road in the 1990s to offer a donation to Shu Yi, the person in charge at the time. Soon, the Literature Museum sent two comrades to Du Pengcheng's home in Xi'an to retrieve manuscripts such as "Defending Yan'an". The two comrades soon returned two large bundles of manuscripts. Among them, "Defending Yan'an" has the largest number of manuscripts, including the writing outline and character list of "Defending Yan'an", and the first and second drafts of the reportage edition of "Defending Yan'an". (Among them, the first draft has a total of 3514 pages and more than 1 million words.) The second draft is 1451 pages long. The novel edition consists of four manuscripts (270 pages in the third draft, 306 pages in the fourth draft, 428 pages in the fifth draft, and 228 pages in the seventh draft).
In each draft, Du Pengcheng made major revisions, and there were countless changes in the dense number. It is these revisions that allow us to see how much hard Work Du Pengcheng has paid for this literary work.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Mr. Du Pengcheng's birth. With this article, I would like to pay the highest respect to this writer who created the immortal red classic novel "Defending Yan'an".
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