On July 7, 1937, the "Lugou Bridge Incident" began, and the Chinese nation's all-out war of resistance began.
Tong Linge made a generous statement at the military conference:
"Sino-Japanese war is inevitable. When the Japanese invaded, our army bore the brunt of it. The dead of war are glorious, and those who steal the living are humiliated; honor and disgrace are lighter than those of one person, but those who are tied to the country and the nation are heavy. The country is in many difficulties, and soldiers should wrap their bodies in Ma Ge and repay the country with their deaths. ”
Since then, Tong Linge has never returned home.
Pictured| Chinese troops rushed to the battlefield of Lugou Bridge
In the early morning of July 28, the main Japanese army, under the cover of 21 aircraft and 40 cannons, suddenly besieged Nanyuan Township adjacent to the Lugou Bridge.
The defense of Nanyuan was fragile, Tong Linge and Zhao Dengyu's army had just met here, and the war did not last long, the Twenty-ninth Army suffered heavy casualties, Tong Linge was wounded in the leg, and only 1 of the 4 guards remained. At 2:00 p.m., the Nanyuan fortifications were destroyed, all the communication equipment was blown up, and the army was in chaos, and His Excellency Tong Lin ordered a retreat to preserve its strength.
The retreating troops crossed the Liangshui River and encountered the Japanese army, fighting fiercely with it. Japanese warplanes dropped dense bombs on them, and Tong Linge was injured in the head.
The soldiers all ran away, and Gao Hongxi, a guard who was lucky enough to survive, turned over and dismounted, carried Tong Linge away from the scene, and hid in the sorghum field.
It was the rainy season, and the sorghum fields were all quagmire, and Gao Hongxi walked hard in the muddy water with Tong Linge on his back.
Tong Linge was seriously injured, and he did not shout "pain", Gao Hongxi thought that he was not very seriously injured, and thought of finding a melon tent in front of him to bandage it before continuing to break through.
Picture | the Japanese army used the opportunity of bargaining with Song Zheyuan to transport troops to Kannai
In the process of backing out, Tong Linge said, "We were deceived!" Gao Hongxi did not understand what General Tong meant by this sentence, so he casually responded.
He walked for more than a mile carrying General Tong on his back, when he suddenly felt Tong Linge's head resting on his shoulder. Gao Hongxi called out to General Tong in a trembling voice, but he never heard his answer again.
Gao Hongxi slowly lowered Tong Linge and found that there was blood oozing from his abdomen and legs through his clothes.
A generation of Yingjie died so tragically, at the age of 45, he was the first senior general of the Chinese army to sacrifice his life for the country in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Gao Hongxi wiped his tears while using his hands in the mud, all the way out of the pit a foot deep, he put Tong Linge's body in the pit, got some sorghum leaves to cover Tong Linge's face, and then buried it with his hands holding the mud.
In the process, several hooligans from a nearby village came and snatched Tong Linge's pocket watch, and were reprimanded by Gao Hongxi and asked for the pocket watch back.
For the safety of the body, Gao Hongxi took off the valuable camera, gold chain and pocket watch on Tong Linge's body, hid it in his arms, and rushed to Beiping City alone to find Zhang Zizhong, asking him to quickly send someone to bring back the body of General Tong.
Zhang Zizhong sent more than a dozen of Tong Linge's old subordinates, with a Japanese translator, to drive a Red Cross car to search for Tong Linge's body.
Gao Hongxi came to the Tong family with the relics of Tong Linge.
The picture | the Japanese media's coverage of the nanyuan bloody war at that time
Tong's wife Peng Jingzhi was worried about her mother-in-law's health, and the eldest son was not at home when she joined the army, so she asked her second son Tong Rongfang and her third and fourth daughters to send her grandparents to the home of a friend of Tong Linge's court for refuge.
At that time, the rumbling of artillery could be heard in Peiping City, and Japanese planes flew over the Forbidden City from time to time. Peng Jingzhi had not eaten a good meal for two days, and had hardly said a word, and the children were terrified.
Hearing that General Tong's guards were coming, Peng Jingzhi hurried out to greet him.
Gao Hongxi looked at Peng Jingzhi's expectant eyes, and did not dare to tell her the truth, only saying that General Tong was seriously injured and hospitalized.
He handed over the relics hidden on his body to Peng Jingzhi, and peng Jingzhi immediately had a premonition that her husband was already more fierce.
That pocket watch is very precious, it will do some timekeeping, Tong Linge cherished it, always carrying it with him. If it was just an injury, how could it bring all these things back?
Peng Jingzhi asked Gao Hongxi again and again, and Gao Hongxi could only tearfully tell the bad news.
At the same time, Tong Linge's old subordinates searched through the night for a whole night, and it was not until dawn on July 29 that they found General Tong with the help of the villagers. They and local farmers used a platoon car to carry Tong Linge's body to the avenue, and then the car to Beiping City.
The moment he saw Tong Linge's body, Peng Jingzhi could no longer support it and fainted from crying.
In the early morning of July 29, the three siblings who were accompanying their grandparents at their friends' homes were secretly shouted out by their families to hurry home, but not to tell their grandparents.
Tong Rongfang saw that the third sister took off the ring on the middle finger and forced herself not to shed tears, so he had an ominous premonition. When they arrived home, all they saw was the body of their father lying on a wooden bed.
Pictured| Tong Lin Pavilion
The daughter and daughter-in-law sorted out the remains of their father, and in July, Beiping was very hot, and Tong Linge's body had been completely unrecognizable, with several bullet holes in his head and his right forearm had been blown incomplete.
The family bought a large amount of ice cubes in the house, washed him with alcohol, dressed him in a temporary birthday coat, and buried him in the coffin prepared for Mr. Tong.
The Japanese were about to enter the city, and without the protection of Tong Linge, the Tong family compound would inevitably become the first target of the Japanese army. At that time, not only will it be impossible to protect the body of General Tong, but even the safety of the children's lives will not be guaranteed.
Peng Jingzhi thought twice and decided to temporarily place Tong Linge's body in the Berlin Temple on the east side of the Lama Temple, and the family moved away from the Tong family compound at No. 40 East Forty Articles.
Tong Linge's parents were deeply believers in Buddhism and often went to the Berlin Temple to burn incense, and the old abbot in the temple and Tong's family were familiar with it, and also respected Tong Linge's spirit of dedication to the country. He agreed to dig a pit in the east courtyard of the Berlin Temple, bury the coffin of Tong Linge, and temporarily build a flower platform to cover the newly renovated dirt.
The stele cannot write his real name, but can only use the surname of Tong Linge's mother, which reads "The Spiritual Seat of Mr. Junhu of the Ancestral House".
All of this was done urgently on the evening of the 29th.
Peiping fell.
Feng Zhi'an, Zhang Zizhong, and other senior generals of the Twenty-ninth Army cried after hearing the news of Tong Linge's death.
On July 31, the Nationalist government in Nanjing issued an order commending Tong Linge and posthumously awarding Tong Linge as a general in the army.
At this time, the children of Tong Linge had to change their surname to "Hu", and the whole family hid in the French Hospital in Dongjiaomin Lane.
A few days later, they secretly moved to an empty house in East Frame Alley.
Tong Rongfang and her sister once sneaked back to their original home, which had indeed been occupied by the Japanese army, and the alley was full of Japanese cars.
Picture | relevant media reports after the death of General Tong Linge.
Tong Linge has not heard from him for a long time, and his old parents are very worried and often ask Peng Jingzhi. Peng Jingzhi was bitter about concealment, falsely claiming that Tong Linge was fighting the Japanese in the south.
July 28, 1938, was the first death day after Tong Linge's death.
Peng Jingzhi bought wine and snacks early in the morning, and for safety, she and her children staggered the time and took different paths to the Berlin Temple.
There, they met Tong Linge's old subordinates.
They wept silently, and none of them mentioned Tong Linge's name, but just burned paper and incense in front of a pool.
In the years that followed, the Japanese army often came to the Berlin Temple to investigate, and the old abbot risked his life to deal with Japanese questions.
The monks of the Berlin Monastery silently guarded this secret until the end of the War of Resistance.
During the 8 years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, progressive teachers, soldiers, and underground Communists silently funded the Tong family to cover the safety of the orphans and widows, but Peng Jingzhi still had to find a way out for the livelihood of a large family of more than 20 people.
Peng Jingzhi was a "model lady" praised by everyone in the military, and she organized the families of the military to spin and weave cloth and make military uniforms. During the Northern Expedition, she once rode a war horse and carried her youngest son Tong Rongfang, who was not yet three years old, to pay the front line.
Now that the top beams and pillars of the family have fallen, Peng Jingzhi has sold several properties of the Tong family, and tried to buy a machine, weave the white thread into socks to sell on the street, and then buy back the stick noodles to ensure the family's rations, even so, the children often do not have enough to eat.
After the second daughter got married, the in-laws had good economic conditions and often sent money to support the Tong family.
One of the tong family's neighbors was a teacher who played the huqin, who was very respectful after learning the identity of the Tong family, and later as long as the family cooked meat and made a good dish, they would send a copy to the children of the Tong family.
For the 6 children, the mourning behind their father did not make their growth smooth, but made them have to face more injustices and hardships.
Pictured| a general of the Twenty-ninth Army
Tong Rongfang had just arrived at middle school and was dissuaded from school because of a fight. At that time, the students in Northeast Manchukuo in the school were discriminated against, and even ridiculed by their classmates as "international students".
After the students learned of Tong Rongfang's identity, not only did they not feel sympathy for Tong Rongfang's life, but they collectively isolated and bullied him.
After Tong Rongfang dropped out of school, she didn't want to go to school, she only wanted to resist Japan. Peng Jingzhi was reluctant to let his teenage son go to war, so he sent him to another middle school to study.
After Tong Rongfang was admitted to college, because he accidentally slipped his mouth and let his classmates know the identity of his father, some classmates found the Japanese pseudo-military police to report, Tong Rongfang was arrested and locked up by them for several days, and was also beaten.
Peng Jingzhi went everywhere to help the relationship to save his son, Zhang Zhidong's son Zhang Houlong is a classmate of Tong Rongfang, and he is willing to help the Tong family find a relationship to rescue Tong Rongfang. But looking for money, Peng Jingzhi took out a gold bracelet he treasured and sold it.
Every time this golden bracelet was mentioned, Tong Rongfang was full of remorse.
Tong Linge and Peng Jingzhi have a good relationship, and in the children's memory, they have never quarreled. On the 20th anniversary of the marriage, Tong Linge specially prepared a wedding anniversary gift for his wife - a pair of gold bracelets with engravings on it:
"Mrs. Ruiqing, after twenty years with me, I have been bumping and going through hardships. With hard work, wind and rain in the same boat. Respect the old and nurture the young, be diligent and thrifty. Engrave this number of words to never forget. LingGe. "
Note: Tong Linge's real name is "Tong Lingge", and "Tong Lingge" is the name that was mistakenly written in newspapers and commendations at that time.
At that time, there was only this valuable thing in the family, and for the sake of his son, Peng Jingzhi had to make up his mind and sell this only thought.
Before his death, Tong Linge often taught the children to have patriotic thoughts, taught them to sing "Man Jiang Hong" and "Zhengyi Song", and often talked to them about heroes such as Yue Fei and Shi Kefa, saying: "If there are more heroes like Yue Fei now, how dare Little Japan be so rampant?" "
At that time, there were very few cars in Beijing, as long as on Saturday, when you heard the horn of the car in the hutong, it was definitely Tong Linge going home.
The children would run out of the house, scrambling to get their father's purse and camera, holding his hand and holding his clothes.
Tong Linge is very concerned about the children's studies, even if the children are not around, he will let them regularly send homework and words to them, personally comment on them and then send them back.
On the day of Tong Linge's martyrdom, he had just asked Tong Rongfang to carry his homework.
Once upon a time, this big son was also happy, but now, the hero's children are living so desolately.
Tong Rongfang, who came out of prison, was disheartened, and he insisted on going to Chongqing to resist the Japanese, and he was no longer willing to stay in Beiping.
Pictured| Tong Rongfang
Peng Jingzhi could not resist his son and agreed to let him go to the anti-Japanese resistance. This time, Zhang Houlong also came forward to help, he specially invited Tong Rongfang to eat a meal to send him off, and also sent him a lot of money.
Tong Rongfang walked all the way to Hehan Shangqiu, but he was trapped there due to traffic blockages, and it was at this time that the news of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War came.
A few days later, Tong Rongfang received a letter from his mother, asking him to hurry home and the government to hold a state funeral for Tong Linge.
On July 28, 1946, on the ninth anniversary of the martyrdom of Tong Linge and Zhao Dengyu, the Nationalist government held a solemn state funeral and soul transfer for the two generals, with Li Zongren as the chief priest.
For so many years, the Tong family could only sneak up on the day of their death every year, and they could only sneak up on the yellow paper to burn, and at this moment, they dared to help the coffin and cry.
The next day was Zhao Dengyu's spiritual transfer day, and after Zhao Dengyu's sacrifice, his wife could not bear the blow of insanity, and the children and their mother left the sad place of Beiping.
Because the Zhao family could not be contacted, two sons and daughters of Tong Linge laid the banner for General Zhao Dengyu.
Tens of thousands of ordinary people in Beiping took the initiative to come to the streets to send one to two generals.
In order to commemorate the martyrs of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, General Feng Yuxiang sent a letter to Xiong Bin, the then mayor of Beiping City, proposing to change the name of the city gate street to show loyalty.
The Beiping municipal government made a decision to change the three hutongs to Zhangzizhong Road, Tong Linge Road and Zhao Dengyu Road respectively to permanently commemorate the three anti-Japanese generals.
Picture | Tong Linge Road
Picture | Zhao Dengyu Road
In the streets and alleys of Beiping, there are not many names named after official positions, titles, and celebrities, but only these three places are named after the names of modern and modern figures, all three of whom are old subordinates of General Feng Yuxiang.
In the Tong family, Tong Linge's old parents still did not know, and they repeatedly asked their daughter-in-law why the War of Resistance had been won, and Tong Linge had not returned. Peng Jingzhi had to take out a fake letter and read it to them to reassure them.
Later, the two old people seemed to be able to guess that the family did not want to break it, and they did not say, so after liberation, the two old people died one after another.
The children of the Tong family also searched for the merciful abbot of the Berlin Temple, but unfortunately they never found it, nor did they know the name of the abbot.
Peng Jingzhi has always respected Feng Yuxiang and deeply resented the corruption of the Kuomintang.
After the Tong family moved back to No. 40 East Forty-Tiao, Peng Jingzhi had been secretly helping underground CCP members in Beijing, and three fighters, Zhang Fengqi, Shi Zhi, and Liu Sanyang, had been hiding in the Tong family until liberation, saying that they were the drivers and servants of the Tong family.
Once, they were anxious to deliver medicine to the "old home", and Peng Jingzhi took the opportunity to visit Tong Linge's tomb and drove the car of Sun Lianzhong, commander of the Eleventh Theater, to Xiangshan and connect with the Communists.
In 1949, after the peaceful liberation of Peiping, Zhang Zhizhong and a peace talks delegation arrived in Beiping on April 1, and the captain of the aircraft, Jia Shiliang, was the righteous son of Tong Linge. Jia Shiliang found Tong's family and proposed that Peng Jingzhi return to Nanjing with his family.
Peng Jingzhi already hated the Kuomintang and did not agree.
Tong Linge's eldest daughter Tong Fenghua and her younger daughter Tong Fengzhou had to say goodbye to her mother in tears because her husband's family had retreated south, and left Beiping by plane, and later went to Taiwan.
Tong Rongxuan, the eldest son of the Tong family, graduated from the officer school of Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army, stayed in the army after the victory of the War of Resistance, and served as an aide-de-camp to Sun Lianzhong, commander of the Eleventh Theater of Operations stationed in Beiping, and chose to return to his hometown to work as a farmer after liberation.
The second son, Tong Rongfang, was lively and active at an early age, and Tong Linge liked to call his nickname "Xiao Bing", and he also used the name "Tong Bing" all the time.
In 1955, Tong Rongfang graduated from the Department of Pharmacy of Beijing Medical College, and was later assigned to Beijing Second Hospital, retiring in 1988 and serving as vice chairman of the CppcC Committee of Xicheng District of Beijing and member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
The second daughter, Tong Fengqin, studied painting from Xu Beihong at the Beiping Art College, and later married the son of the owner of the Beiping Linji Soda Company. The husband's family is well-off, in the most difficult time of the Tong family, they gave the Tong family great help, Tong Fengqin has no children in her life, And Tong Rongfang has inherited one of her daughters to her.
The third daughter, Tong Fengming, graduated from the History Department of Beiping Furen University, and her husband Xiong Xianyu served as a staff officer of the New Eighth Division of the Kuomintang in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, revolted in Guizhou during the Liberation War, and settled in Chongqing after liberation.
Life has finally returned to calm, but there is still one thing that cannot be determined, where Tong Linge's martyrdom is, and the Tong family has always wanted to get answers.
In 2005, researchers at the Beijing Municipal Archives consulted a large number of anti-war materials and archives, and finally got a clue in an archive in the museum's collection that Tong Linge's sacrifice site was in Shicun.
Based on this clue, the researchers entered the village to investigate deeply and were fortunate to find three historical witnesses in their 70s. They saw the body of General Tong Linge who was guarded by Gao Hongxi and took off pocket watches, watches, necklaces and other relics.
Pictured | Tong Linge Memorial Sculpture
The visitors went to Tong Rongfang with the video materials, because the relics can be compared one by one, and Tong Rongfang fully affirmed the authenticity and reliability of the investigation.
On the occasion of commemorating the 60th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, researchers also found the burial site of the fallen soldiers of the 29th Army.
On July 5, the Beijing Municipal Archives announced the exact location of General Tong's death.
On the same day, Tong Rongfang walked into Shi Village for the first time.
For 68 years, he had never gone to the battlefield where his father had sacrificed, and he could not bear to see the place where the Twenty-ninth Army had shed blood and sacrificed. At this moment, he is 80 years old, and he has finally determined the place where his father was martyred, and many historical details have been restored, which can also be regarded as the wish of the Tong family for many years.
According to the memories of the old villagers of Shi Village, who experienced the fierce battle, they buried one or two hundred bodies just the remains of the students in the training class.
One of the survivors, Wang Yanzhou, came to Tong Rongfang many years later and told him, "I was training in Nanyuan at the time, and I stood guard for your father." Your father patted me on the shoulder and said, train well and defend your country. "
After this battle, Wang Yanzhou was wounded and retreated to the rear, but he always remembered This sentence from General Tong. With the desire to avenge the martyrs, he was admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy and the Central Air Force Officer School, and then went to the United States for training, became a pilot of the Flying Tigers, and shot down 5 Japanese fighters during the War of Resistance.
He looked for Tong Rongfang to tell General Tong's descendants that the hero died, but his spirit never fell.
In 2009, the descendants of the Tong family saw the name of Tong Linge in the "Double Hundred People" and were very excited.
In September 2015, Tong Rongfang, as the son of a famous anti-Japanese hero, was awarded the 70th Anniversary Medal for the Victory of the Anti-Japanese War.
Picture | 1933, Tong Linge with his wife Peng Jingzhi and son Tong Bing.
Tong Rongfang has always kept a photograph of Tong Linge in 1933, 41 years old, who had just been inaugurated in Zhangjiakou as the commander of the First Army of the Anti-Japanese Allied Army organized by Feng Yuxiang and the acting chairman of Chahar Province.
Because among the 6 children, Tong Linge liked this naughty son the most, and Peng Jingzhi took him to Zhangjiakou to visit his father. The three took a photo in the photo studio, Tong Linge was wearing a robe and a horse coat, and Peng Jingzhi looked happy and idyllic.
This is the last photo taken by Tong Linge and his family.
Tong Rongfang said: "Over the years, we have only hoped to be our father's eyes, to see the historical memory of our nation, to see the historical memory of the Japanese nation, and to see Japan's reflection on the war of aggression. "