In December 1927, after the failure of the Guangzhou Uprising, Nie Rongzhen came to Hong Kong. One day in early 1928, he saw a message in the newspaper and was mournful. The newspaper published a report that three Communists had gone to the execution ground after the Guangzhou uprising, and attached a group photo of one of the young men and women before their execution. The young man was Zhou Wenyong, then the workers' minister of the Cpc Guangdong Provincial Committee, and the young woman was Chen Tiejun, an underground member of the COMMUNIST Party.
Nie Rongzhen told Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao the news, and Deng Yingchao burst into tears on the spot. They were very familiar with Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun.
After the founding of New China, Premier Zhou Enlai mentioned this love many times, calling it "the purest and noblest love." ”
What kind of feelings did Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun, young people assigned by the organization to pretend to be husband and wife, form in the more than one hundred days of acquaintance and encounter, life and death?
In the spring of 1925, Zhou Wenyong, who was already the secretary of the branch of the "Jia Workers" Regiment, joined the Communist Party of China, and he was determined to completely change China with his blood and life.
Photo: Zhou Wenyong
In the spring of 1927, Chiang Kai-shek brazenly launched the April 12 counter-revolutionary coup, brandishing a butcher's knife and frantically hunting and killing communists and revolutionary masses. Guangzhou also occurred the April 15 Incident, and blood stained both sides of the Pearl River red.
Pictured: Guangzhou April 15 Incident
The leading organs of the CPC Guangdong District Committee and trade unions have been destroyed, and the party's work has been forced to move from open to secret. At this time, Zhou Wenyong was also wanted. Under the growing white terror in Guangzhou, Zhou Wenyong put his personal safety at risk and still alertly insisted on fighting. He was appointed as the director of the Organization Department of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, responsible for contacting the party branches of various trade unions in Guangzhou.
In order to accumulate revolutionary forces, Zhou Wenyong was trying to find ways to prepare for the establishment of a secret organ of the party. However, renting a house has become a difficult problem for him.
The young Communist, in desperate need of a revolutionary "wife", lurked with him, covering the party's secret organs in the form of a family.
At this time, a young woman entered the sight of the party organization, she was 23-year-old Chen Tiejun.
In August 1927, on Gongri Road in Guangzhou, a young overseas Chinese "husband and wife" moved in. This is Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun. Beside them, there was a little girl who was a maid. The little girl is Chen Tie'er, the sister of Chen Tiejun, and also lives with them in the "new home".
Pictured: Chen Tiejun and his sister Chen Tie'er
It was in this elaborately disguised family that Chen Tiejun assisted Zhou Wenyong in bringing the scattered revolutionary comrades back together, resuming their organization, and carrying out activities, and the party's secret contact points and communication lines were soon established.
On November 1, 1927, more than 30 new prisoners were held in a prison in Guangzhou, all of whom were workers who held demonstrations that day, including Zhou Wenyong, who was the leader.
On this day, in the fried rice sent to Zhou Wenyong, Chen Tiejun added a large amount of peppers, and after sending him to prison, he also told him not to drink water after eating.
Zhou Yanhong
Associate researcher of the Party History Research Office of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China
Cantonese people ate this kind of food that is easy to catch fire, gave it to Zhou Wenyong, Zhou Wenyong did not drink water after eating, and then the humid heat of Guangzhou forced himself to a high fever.
Zhou Wenyong, who had a high fever, took the opportunity to moan loudly and even frantically, saying nonsense.
The prison doctor, who had long been bought off by Chen Tiejun, proved that Zhou Wenyong did suffer from a serious infectious disease and must be hospitalized immediately. The prison director, forced by public indignation and fearing that the spread of infectious diseases would be difficult to be responsible, had to agree to send Zhou Wenyong to the Guangzhou Municipal Public Hospital for treatment.
The party organization had already formulated a plan to save people, and taking advantage of the opportunity of the change of guards, zhou Wenyong wrapped his back in a white cloth and left the hospital, sat on the unlicensed car prepared in advance, and left.
Under the careful care of Chen Tiejun, Zhou Wenyong's body quickly recovered, and looking at Chen Tiejun's busy figure day and night, Zhou Wenyong was deeply moved.
In August 1927, the Eighty-Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of China was urgently held in Wuhan and decided to use an armed uprising to resist the Kuomintang reactionaries.
According to the instructions of the central government, the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the COMMUNIST Party of China made the decision of the Guangzhou Uprising. Zhou Wenyong was the commander-in-chief of the Workers' Red Guards.
Zhou Wenyong quickly unified the scattered workers' secret armed organizations in Guangzhou and reorganized them into the Workers' Red Guards. Chen Tiejun also threw himself into the preparations before the Guangzhou uprising with full enthusiasm.
At 3:30 a.m. on December 11, the uprising broke out. Two hours later, most of Guangzhou was occupied by rebels. After dawn, the general headquarters of the uprising moved into the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau.
In the morning light, Zhou Wenyong personally wrote the 7 characters of "Guangzhou Soviet Government", which hung high on the main gate.
The first urban Soviet power established by the Communist Party of China was born.
On the same day, the first meeting of the Guangzhou Soviet Government elected 16 government members. Zhou Wenyong served as a member of the People's Labor Commission and Minister of Education.
The next day, the insurgents, still basking in the joy of victory, did not know that a great crisis was rapidly hitting them.
The Kuomintang forces around Guangzhou, including the navies and armies of Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and other countries, colluded and began to fight back against the nascent Soviet regime.
Zhou Wenyong led the Workers' Red Guards, in order to defend the seat of the Soviet government in Guangzhou, engaged the enemy more than ten times larger than himself, fought tenaciously, and finally killed a bloody road and withdrew from Guangzhou.
Chen Tiejun and his sister Chen Tie'er quickly hid, transferred, and burned documents and items related to the uprising, leaving Guangzhou in disguise and retreating to Hong Kong.
After the failure of the uprising in Guangzhou, the revolutionary organization was seriously damaged, and the party organization decided to send Zhou Wenyong back to Guangzhou to resume the party's organizational work.
On January 27, 1928, due to the traitor's informant, Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun's secret strongholds were exposed, and both were arrested in the room at the same time. Chen Tie'er, the younger sister who lives with Chen Tiejun, escaped from the balcony by flipping into a neighbor's house to hide.
The enemy was extremely cruel, and Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun were arrested and tortured in prison.
In the face of the enemy's severe torture, Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun remained unyielding and unwavering, and did not reveal the slightest secret of the party. The reactionaries had nothing to do and sentenced them to death.
Before his execution, Zhou Wenyong made a request to the enemy, hoping to take a group photo with Chen Tiejun. Faced with death, with a body full of pain, they left behind this most precious photo.
Gunshots rang out, and their lives were forever frozen in 1928.
That year, Zhou Wenyong was 23 years old and Chen Tiejun was 24 years old.
Source: CCTV National Memory