Hello everyone, welcome to "Mountain and River Documentary". The story of the Canadian doctor Bethune helping China to resist Japan is well-known to us, and his deeds of saving lives and helping the injured, treating diseases and saving people have also been written into primary school textbooks, and there are many hospitals named after Bethune in Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and other places, which is our remembrance and commemoration of this great communist fighter.
He accidentally contracted sepsis in 1939, died in Tang County, Hebei Province, before his death, he entrusted Commander Nie Rongzhen to send a box back to Canada, and repeatedly stressed that the box was bound strong, and three ropes were tied on it, and what important things were contained in this box.
Bethune's life
In the small town of Gravenhurst in Ontario, Canada, there is a two-story beige building, which is the former home of the great communist fighter Bethune, and more than 500,000 tourists visit here every year, most of them from China, which shows that Chinese has not forgotten this old friend and has not forgotten this anti-fascist fighter who died in China.
Bethune joined the Communist Party of Canada in 1935, after the 1937 July Incident, at a doctor's gathering in the United States, he met the Chinese educator Tao Xingzhi, Mr. Tao Xingzhi introduced him to the Japanese invasion and atrocities in China and the cruel situation facing China, Bethune was touched by Tao Xingzhi's patriotic enthusiasm and Chinese spirit of resistance, and then organized a medical rescue team, with the support of the Canadian Communist Party and the American Communist Party, to China. Bethune's medical team was received by Song Meiling and prepared to arrange for them to work in the hospital in Wuhan, but Bethune strongly demanded to go to the anti-Japanese front line of the Eighth Route Army. Because he had read Snow's Journey to the West, and the foreign version was "Red Star Shines on China", he was more eager to help the Communist-led Eighth Route Army to resist japan together, and Zhou Enlai, who was in Wuhan at the time, planned and helped Bethune to reach Yan'an.
Mao Zedong met with Bethune in Yan'an and thanked Bethune for coming to China thousands of miles to help China fight against the Japanese invaders, and at the same time invited Bethune to take charge of the hospital work in Yan'an, but Bethune once again refused, saying that to come to China was to go to the front line of the anti-Japanese resistance, that is, to go to the Chinese people. He also explained to Mao Zedong that if the wounded could be treated in the first place, 80% of the lives of the wounded could be saved, and the training of medical personnel should be moved to the front line, which would be more practical and effective. Mao Zedong was persuaded by Bethune, and he arranged for Bethune's medical team to come to the front line of the anti-Japanese resistance, Wutai County, Shanxi Province. Since then, Bethune and his medical team have eaten and lived with the Eighth Route Army, performed countless operations in cave dwellings and under shacks, and treated a large number of wounded members of the Eighth Route Army.
In the process of leg surgery on a soldier, because the Japanese attack was very fierce, closer and closer to the village where the operation was performed, the soldier who served as a guard kept urging Bethune to evacuate quickly, Bethune accidentally cut his finger, he simply bandaged it and evacuated urgently, because it was not disinfected and treated in time, Bethune's fingers were infected, and he still insisted on operating on the wounded soldiers wrapped in thick gauze. The virus eventually infected Bethune's whole body, and on his deathbed, he commissioned Commander Nie Rongzhen to pack his diary and photographs, as well as a documentary film, back to Canada in a sturdy box, and repeatedly instructed him to wrap three ropes on the outside. These diaries were what Bethune valued most. Everyone knows that Bethune was a skilled doctor, but in fact, Bethune was also a photographer and writer, and his diaries that he commissioned Nie Rongzhen to send out were later published as four reportages.
reportage
The first reportage was "In Hankou". Bethune described their journey from Hong Kong by boat to Wuhan, where he saw the indiscriminate bombardment of Japanese planes, the streets full of wounded soldiers and civilians, the walls inlaid with shrapnel, and the broken limbs hanging from the branches, which made Bethune extremely indignant, and he was determined to record it with a pen and publish it in the world media.
He also wrote that they were a joint medical team of the United States and Canada, and after arriving in Wuhan, he had a disagreement with the American doctor Parsons, Who refused to aid the Eighth Route Army, seized the medical team's materials and funds, and under the mediation of Zhou Enlai, Bethune and nurse Evan went to Yan'an with some medical equipment and funds, and the American doctor Parsons was sent back to the United States due to alcoholism and mental problems, and later died drunk in New York. Bethune published this reportage, first, to tell the world the real situation of China, and second, to attract the attention of the international community and to fund China's War of Resistance.
The second piece of reportage is "to the yellow river" crossing the Yellow River. Published in full by The American Magazine Of Fighter. The magazine wrote a special editor's note, noting that this was from the most authentic Chinese battlefield. Bethune described their journey to Yan'an, the ferry in the cold night, the railway bombed by enemy aircraft, the weeping orphans on the side of the road, the wounded soldiers with purulent wounds, and the roadside food stalls. After the publication of this reportage, many media in the United States and Canada believed that Bethune may have died, and reported the news of Bethune's death in China.
The third is "Cave University: A Base for The Liberators of China," which was published in Canada's Clarion Daily. After Bethune arrived in Yan'an, from the perspective of a foreigner, introduced the situation of Yan'an Kang Da, he wrote curiously, there are millionaires, young students, actors, overseas Chinese, they study in the cave, full of beautiful vision of China's future, they respect and love each other, encourage each other and help each other, Bethune said, this is the hope of China's future.
The fourth and final manuscript, which he commissioned Nie Rongzhen to send back to Canada, was later published in an American magazine under the title "An Emergency Meeting of the County Committee." This manuscript shows Bethune's solid literary skills and writing skills. Because his mood at that time was extremely excited, with a strong sense of pride and honor, he had the honor to attend the emergency meeting of the county party committee and most truly understand how the government organs of the Eighth Route Army communicated and communicated with the people. In fact, commander Nie Rongzhen was able to attend this county party committee meeting. Because at that time, Bethune asked to wear makeup to go to Beiping and Tianjin to purchase drugs, the Eighth Route Army Headquarters thought that such an action was too dangerous after study, and did not want Bethune to go, but Bethune had a stubborn personality, and others were not easy to block, Nie Rongzhen told Bethune to perform an important task, that is, to participate in an emergency meeting of the county party committee, Bethune also attached great importance to this, and delayed the trip to buy medicine. At the end of the article, he deliberately described that it was late at night after the meeting, countless stars twinkled in the sky, and several large black words were written on the walls: "We have no way to survive except fighting."
The Bethune spirit
Although Bethune has only worked and lived in China for a short period of 99 days, his deeds are like a fire that warms the hearts of the Chinese people, and he is like a bell that awakens the determination of the people of the world to oppose fascism, and he is more like a torch that guides the development path of international humanitarianism. We will remember the name Bethune, the help he brought to Chinese, his role model for health workers, and his contribution to international humanitarianism.
Today's story is here, thank you for paying attention to the "Records of Mountains and Rivers".