"Jinfeng Dashan Red Rhododendron"

"Source of this article: Learning Times"

Chen Kangrong (1915-1940), formerly known as Yue Rong, also known as Ya Ying, pen name Shengzi, a native of Xiashan Village (now Xiashan Village) in Qiling, was born in Burma in 1915. His father, Chen Ximei, followed Sun Yat-sen to the revolution and joined the League. After the defeat of the Xinhai Revolution, the expatriates lived in Burma to make a living doing business. In 1930, when Chen Kangrong was 15 years old, he was sent back to China by his father to receive education, and entered the Jimei Middle School founded by Chen Jiageng, an overseas Chinese leader, and received the baptism of advanced ideas in the school. In 1935, after graduating from high school, Chen Kangrong returned to Mandalay, Myanmar, with his father, engaged in teaching and educating people in local primary schools, and actively participated in the local overseas Chinese patriotic salvation movement. In 1936, when the anti-Japanese struggle in China was on the rise, Chen Kangrong returned to China again and entered Xiamen University to study, during which he secretly joined the Communist Party of China and participated in leading the propaganda and anti-Japanese salvation movement in Xiamen. Chen Kangrong is a beautiful woman, but also a talented woman and poet. She was good at singing and dancing, and was good at using her songs and self-written drama programs to propagate anti-Japanese national salvation to the masses; she wrote many good articles for the status of women and the anti-Japanese salvation of the country. During his stay at Xiamen University, Chen Kangrong participated in the anti-Japanese singing propaganda team, went deep among the people and women, taught them to sing, explained the meaning of the lyrics, and used the singing team to carry out anti-Japanese propaganda to save the dead. According to a memoir entitled "Kerry" published in September 1985 in the "Xiamen Women's Movement History Materials", Chen Yaying (Kang Rong's original name) believed that the anti-Japanese salvation movement was not only a man's share, but also a woman's responsibility. In the Xiamen Anti-Japanese Song Team, she and her team member Li Ying went deep into the masses to preach the tragic story of the people under the fall of northeast China with songs, calling on the people: "The War of Resistance requires everyone to have one heart, to have money to pay, to make a strong contribution, to support the front line..." Chen Kangrong loved poetry, and together with his friend Chen Ludao and the famous progressive poets Pu Feng and Tong Qinglan, he formed the "Xiamen Branch of the Chinese Poetry Society" and served as the general secretary, and then published the inaugural issue of "Xiamen Poetry". In the eyes of Xie Huaiqing, editor of Jiangsheng Bao at that time, Chen Kangrong was not only a poet, patriotic savior, and revolutionary, but also a pioneer of the Xiamen women's movement. In his 1984 article "Deeply Mourning Comrade Chen Yaying", he recalled the glory years of fighting with Chen Kangrong in Xiamen. At the beginning of 1937, on the eve of the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the revolutionary poet Pu Feng came to Xiamen and organized 6 poetry forums successively, and then Liu Liangmo came to Xiamen from Shanghai, where everyone taught and sang anti-Japanese songs to save the country, sang "Do not be a slave to the country", and mobilized women from all walks of life to participate in singing and publicizing the anti-Japanese resistance. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War in 1937, she suspended her studies, disregarded her safety, refused her father's arrangement to return to Burma to live a comfortable life, and devoted herself to the anti-Japanese salvation movement. In accordance with the instructions of the underground party "Xiamen Working Committee," Chen Yaying successively joined the Xiamen Branch of the General Association of Chinese Women's Consolation and Labor Of the Anti-Japanese War Veterans, the Xiamen Cultural Circles Anti-Enemy Support Association, and the Xiamen Anti-Enemy Support Association of All Walks of Life. Under the instructions of the party organization, he served as the head of the propaganda unit of the Xiamen Anti-Enemy Support Association for Consolation work, and used its open organizational form to mobilize women from all walks of life to publicize the War of Resistance. Subsequently, together with Huang Chuyun, Wang Xiaoguang, Xie Huaiqing, etc., a women's branch of the party was established and served as an executive member. She led the enthusiastic young people and women of the Anti-Enemy Support Association from all walks of life in Xiamen to take to the streets, teach and sing anti-Japanese songs, give anti-Japanese salvation speeches, perform anti-Japanese rescue dramas, go deep into society to run women's night schools, and encourage the masses to rise up and participate in the anti-Japanese salvation struggle. She often took to the streets to propagate patriotic ideas and teach the masses to sing songs of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the salvation of the country. When bombed by enemy planes, she went to rescue the wounded and comfort the victims. She also went to the Xiamen Women's Night School to encourage night school students to join the ranks of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and save the country. In addition, under the pseudonym "Shengzi", she also published articles on anti-Japanese national salvation in the "Stars" and "Practical Arts" columns of the supplement of "Starlight Daily" and "Jiangsheng Bao" and "Chenguang Bao". On September 26, 1937, Chen Kangrong published an article entitled "Xiamen Women Roared Up" in the inaugural issue of the Anti-Enemy Herald of the Propaganda Department of the Xiamen Branch of the Fujian Provincial Anti-Enemy Support Association, which highly affirmed the role and importance of women in the Anti-Japanese Salvation Movement and believed that awakening forgotten women was an important foundation for establishing the work of saving women from their lives. From November 1937 to before his death, Chen Kangrong returned to Longyan Baitu Town to participate in the first training class for anti-Japanese rescue cadres under the arrangement of the party organization, and then returned to his hometown yongding Qiling area to carry out anti-Japanese rescue work. According to an interview article published in the first issue of the Yongding Party Newsletter in 1986, Chen Kangrong's husband Huang Kang (formerly known as Huang Huizhai): In November 1937, the party organization of Xiamen University sent Chen Kangrong to Longyan Baitu Town with Xie Yucai, then second secretary of the Southwest Fujian Special Committee, to attend the first training class for anti-Japanese and rescue cadres held by the Fujian-Guangdong-Gansu Border Provincial Committee of the CPC, during which she fell in love with and married Comrade Huang Huizhai, then deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Southwest Fujian Special Committee. In May 1938, Chen Kangrong was assigned by the party organization to return to her hometown of Qiling Township, Yongding County, to work. Through the introduction of Chen Rongsong, secretary of the Qiling branch of the CPC, he served as a member of the branch's propaganda committee and openly carried out activities as a teacher of Peiwenguan Primary School in Qiling Xiashan Village. Since then, Chen Kangrong has taken the Peiwenguan as his front to establish the Qiling Young Comrades' Association for Resisting the Enemy and the Qiling Anti-Enemy Support Association; founded a women's school, set up a propaganda team, compiled his own anti-Japanese propaganda songs, and launched a vigorous anti-Japanese salvation movement. After 1939, the Kuomintang diehards continued to create anti-communist friction and undermine the anti-Japanese national united front. In southwestern Fujian, the Kuomintang created incidents, sabotaged underground party organizations in Yongding, hunted down communist party members, and persecuted the families of party members and anti-Japanese people. It was against this background of white terror that Comrade Chen Kangrong was arrested and sacrificed by the Kuomintang diehards. Hu Guanzhong, director of the Party History Office of the Xiamen Municipal CPC Committee, in his article "Chen Kangrong, a Heroic Martyr of Returned Overseas Chinese," used literary techniques to describe in detail the process of Chen Kangrong's indomitable and heroic righteousness after his arrest: At the end of 1938, Chen Kangrong returned from Meixian County to Qiling after giving birth, and the situation of struggle in Yongding became more and more dangerous. In 1939, Chen Rongsong, the secretary of the Qiling branch of the Communist Party of China, was exposed as a member of the Communist Party of China and had to withdraw into Jinfeng Dashan to carry out guerrilla struggle. The work of the Qiling Party organization fell to Chen Kangrong, a member of the branch propaganda committee. As the struggle between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party became more and more acute, in order to ensure Chen Kangrong's safety, her superiors told her to go up the mountain to avoid the limelight, but Chen Kangrong could not give up her newborn child. On the evening of August 18, 1940, Chen Kangrong was arrested, and the security regiment, fearing that Chen Kangrong would be abducted by guerrillas, escorted her overnight to Fushi (present-day Fushi Town, Yongding District, Longyan City) 20 kilometers away. In prison, the enemy was soft and hard, torturing her in every way, asking her to tell the situation of the communist underground organization, Chen Kangrong sternly refused, and finally wrote in the confession book: "The price of youth is incomparable, and reunion should not be mentioned." For the sake of justice, be afraid to peel off the skin! "Show the fearless spirit of not being afraid of sacrifice for the sake of justice and revolution." On September 17, 1940, Chen Kangrong was brutally murdered by the Fujian Provincial Security Corps on a hill in Fushi. Before her execution, she also shouted: "Long live the Chinese Communist Party!" "Down with the traitors and traitors!" He was only 25 years old when he was righteous. After Chen Kangrong's heroic righteousness, the Fujian-Guangdong Border Region set up the "Kangrong Detachment" to commemorate this strong and indomitable female warrior. Chen Kangrong used his own actions to treat the party and the revolutionary cause with unparalleled loyalty, composed a heroic song of praise; with 25 short and brilliant years, paved a great and brilliant life, and was affectionately praised by the locals as "Jinfeng Dashan Red Cuckoo". (From Fujian Daily, November 2, 2021)