Reporters Dong Xiang and Guan Pengfei
Located in the north of Nanjing, the mouth of the Sanfen River, where the qinhuai river joins the Yangtze River. At the mouth of the river is the 2009 cross-river victory memorial hall.
On the main square, a group of towering "Thousand Sails Racing" group sculptures stand out: 49 red columns are arranged and combined into the shape of sails and masts, with a maximum height of 49.423 meters. The wooden trestle leading to the pavilion is called the "Bridge of Victory", and it is also 49.423 meters from the head of the bridge to the gate of the pavilion. All the numbers point to that special day, April 23, 1949.
Row out the victory with a small boat
In the protective shed on the memorial square, the 96-year-old "Jingdian" small steamer quietly moored inside, it was originally built by Shanghai Shen Baoji Shipyard, and later known as the "first boat to cross the river" for its outstanding contributions in the Battle of the River Crossing. The restoration, which lasted more than a year, passed the acceptance of the Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau at the beginning of this year and will meet with citizens and tourists again this month.
The mottled side of the ship and the cracked portholes suddenly pull people back to the decisive battle of 72 years ago.
In February 1949, the three major battles ended, the whole territory of northeast China, most of North China and the area north of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were liberated, and the 1.2 million troops of the People's Liberation Army assembled on the north bank of the Yangtze River, from the mouth of Jiangxi Lake in the west to Jiangyin in Jiangsu in the east.
On April 22, the counties of Jiangpu, Puzhen and Pukou, known as the "Bridgehead of Jiangbei", were liberated, and the gateway to Nanjing City on the south bank was opened. The Kuomintang had destroyed all the ships on the north bank when it had previously "sealed the river," and the Yangtze River graben that had blocked countless soldiers for thousands of years was standing in front of the Platon.
At the crucial moment, the scene that happened on the Battlefield of Huaihai 3 months ago was once again staged. Along the river, the people pulled out all kinds of boats hidden in the reeds, as small as 3 to 5 people, as large as being able to hold more than 100 people, and the shipwrights temporarily invented and created bundles of wood into wooden rows, and even their own door panels were donated by the people to build ships.
According to later statistics, during the Battle of the River Crossing, the People's Liberation Army raised more than 9,400 ships on various fronts. When General Secretary Xi Jinping visited the Memorial Hall of the Battle of the Crossing River in Hefei, Anhui Province, last year, he pointed out: "The victory of the Battle of the Crossing River was drawn by the people with small boats. ”
On the eve of the crossing, PLA reconnaissance personnel secretly crossed the river to "borrow ships" from the Xiaguan Power Plant on the south bank of the river, and Han Deju, director of the plant, immediately decided to dispatch the "Jingdian." At about 9:00 p.m. on April 23, the "Jingdian", which had made great contributions to Nanjing's power generation, turned the bow of the ship, left the Kuomintang position, and sailed toward the north shore. When it returned, it brought with it 120 commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army, the first troops to board the south bank and enter the city of Nanjing.
During the Battle of Crossing the River, the "Jingdian" kept going back and forth between Pukou and Xiaguan, transporting a total of more than 1,400 PLA commanders and fighters.
"Nanjing is liberated"
On April 23, 1949, Reuters published the following message: "The entire defense line of the Kuomintang in Nanjing and the Yangtze River collapsed dramatically overnight. "At this time, it is only 3 days before the battle of the river crossing began." I didn't expect that the capital of the national government would be so easy to fight. A war veteran recalled years later.
The kuomintang's rout was internal and outward. Chen Yuguang, then president of Jinling University, tore off the passport and ticket to Taiwan that the Ministry of Education of the Nationalist Government had issued for him. Song Meiling called Wu Yifang, president of Jinling Women's University, to go to Taiwan with her, but Wu Yifang refused, and she had to "quietly and uneasily wait for the arrival of the light." Of the 81 academicians of the Academia Sinica, only 9 eventually went to Taiwan.
Compared with these people, 29-year-old Cai Meixian's identity is much more ordinary. She is an announcer for "Central Radio". In early 1949, the Kuomintang began to evacuate the relevant public officials, and the staff of the "Central Radio Station" were required to fill in the volunteer routes, most of whom chose to dismiss and transfer to the mainland radio station, and only 6 announcers remained in Nanjing. Cai Meixian is one of them. In 1948, on her way from Jinan to Nanjing, she crossed paths with the People's Liberation Army and witnessed this army mingling with the common people, in stark contrast to the Kuomintang army that "chickens fly and dogs jump". The sound of the People's Liberation Army's artillery was getting closer and closer to the city of Nanjing, and she persuaded her younger brother Cai Jun, who was the head of the sound department, to stay with her.
In order to smoothly liberate the city of Nanjing, the underground party organization in Nanjing has been working hard to carry out the work of plotting rebellion. On March 22, Wang Yanqing, commander of the Nationalist 97th Division stationed in Nanjing, led an uprising. On April 23, Lin Zun, commander of the Kuomintang Second Fleet, led 9 captains, 2 captains, 25 ships, and all officers and men to revolt at Yanziji in Nanjing, and the Kuomintang lost its ability to defend the river. On the same day, the Shimonoseki Lion Mountain Fort in Nanjing, under the leadership of hu Niangong, an underground party member and station commander, did not fire a single shot when the People's Liberation Army crossed the river.
The first troops to land in Nanjing went straight to the presidential palace, and as soon as they reached the door, the people inside cooperated to open the gate. The blue sky and white sun flag were torn down, and the bright red flag flew high. At 11:00 a.m. the next morning, Cai Meixian's voice spread through the city of Nanjing through the airwaves: "Nanjing Radio, all the listeners, Nanjing has been vacuumed for less than 24 hours, this morning, the Chinese People's Liberation Army has entered the city, and Nanjing, an ancient city ruled by the Kuomintang government for 22 years, has gained a new life." Nanjing is liberated! ”
A few days later, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yi and others walked into the presidential palace. Inside the office, there was a calendar on a glass countertop table, still stuck on April 22, and Deng Xiaoping joked: "Chairman Jiang has offered a reward for arresting us for many years, and today we came to the door." ”
A great victory after the liberation of Nanjing
After the liberation of Nanjing, the General Front Committee of the Battle of Crossing the River sent a telegram to the Central Military Commission on the situation: The damage to Nanjing this time was not large, the houses were generally intact, the protection of various organs was still good, and the order had not yet been in chaos. For a large city with a population of nearly one million at the time, such a smooth liberation was not easy.
On the surface, the wind and waves are calm, but in fact, the undercurrent is surging. On the afternoon of 22 April, seeing that the city of Nanjing was in a precarious situation, Tang Enbo, commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou garrison, ordered a retreat and demanded that the ports, railway stations, airports, and important warehouses be blown up in an attempt to destroy the city.
In order to cope with this situation, the Nanjing Municipal CPC Committee fully mobilized the masses of schools, factories, shops, and organs to protect schools and shops, "response committees," "maintenance committees," "self-encouragement meetings," "pickets," and "patrols." Organizations of various names continued to emerge to fight against the Kuomintang authorities and defend the city.
The "Far East's Largest Factory" in Jiangbei, The Yongli Factory, set up a "Douren Mutual Aid Association", which reinforced doors and windows, sent people to stand guard, installed power grids on the walls, and even bought grain pickles for 3 months in preparation for a protracted war. The Central Shopping Center Fandom Self-Encouragement Association put forward the slogan of "people are in the commodity", prevented capitalists from transporting goods before the liberation of Nanjing, and after the battle of crossing the river began, it actively mobilized manufacturers and capitalists to join the ranks of guarding shops, and also got more than a dozen guns from the pseudo-police to deter saboteurs. In the end, with the joint efforts of people from all walks of life, the city of Nanjing did not cut off water, electricity, or communications during the entire liberation period, and there was no major chaos or major damage.
In order to smoothly take over Nanjing, long before liberation, our party dispatched a number of cadres from Jiluyu, Jizhong, Yuwansu, and other places to go south, set up a "Jinling detachment, and conducted short-term intensive training to study the rules for entering the city, straighten out ideological style, and master urban policies. Later, Chen Shiyu, then commander of the Eighth Corps, commented on the takeover of Nanjing: "This is a big victory after the liberation of Nanjing. ”
72 years later, today's Nanjing is striding into a new era with a new attitude of embracing the development of the river. The rolling Yangtze River is no longer a graben. But the reliefs along the river, the preserved power plants, are still telling the passing vehicles and people what happened here 72 years ago.
"For us, this history is alive." Gao Xiaoya, a docent at the Victory Memorial Hall across the river, said. She has been engaged in this work for 12 years since she came to the newly established museum as a volunteer in her senior year, and the content of the explanatory words has been continuously enriched, and has been updated to the third edition - when interviewing veteran generals and veterans who have experienced the battle, she and her colleagues quietly listen to the dictation on the side, and when they return, they write the explanatory words. When experts and scholars who understand history come to visit, the audience is sometimes Gao Xiaoya himself and his colleagues. Today, it receives about 900,000 visitors a year.
"Zhongshan is yellow in the wind and rain, and a million heroes have crossed the river..." The city will not forget, the people will not forget, and history will not forget.