Author: Zhou Daxin
In the winter of 1970, I joined the army from my hometown of Deng County, Henan Province, to Shandong. Several famous battles took place in Shandong during the Liberation War. Once, when I went to investigate the site of the Battle of Laiwu, which annihilated 7 divisions of the Kuomintang army's Li Xianzhou Corps, I suddenly remembered the writer Wu Qiang's novel "Red Sun", and then I became excited: I actually came to the place where the story of the novel took place!
A landmark work in the history of new Chinese military literature
The novel "Red Sun" is comparable to "Red Rock", "Red Flag Spectrum", "History of Entrepreneurship", etc., and is a representative work of the red classics of the 1950s and 1960s. In July 1957, "Red Sun" was published before the August 1st Founding Day, and the first printing volume reached tens of thousands of copies, and since then it has been reprinted dozens of times, which shows the reader's enthusiasm for reading.
I read Red Sun in junior high school and had a long history of its storyline, and one of the big reasons why Red Sun was about military warfare was. As a teenager who plays war games with my friends all day, I am full of interest in combat life. But Red Sun's depiction of war is clearly far beyond the vision of a teenager. It takes the three battles of Lianshui, Laiwu and Menglianggu in the Shandong battlefield in 1947 as the main line, and tells the story of the east China Field Army's heroic annihilation of the reorganized 74th Division, one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang army, smashing the enemy's "key offensive" in one fell swoop, and reversing the situation in East China. This war is closely related to the fate of the country and the cause of the people's liberation, and its victory has brought great excitement and encouragement to the people.
Of the three battles, the Battle of MengLianggu is the most brilliantly written part of "Red Sun" and the climax of the whole book. The Battle of Menglianggu was a battle of large armies, in which both the enemy and us invested a large number of troops, plus the peripheral combat troops of both sides, totaling hundreds of thousands of people. To show this battle head-on, both clearly written and vividly and movingly, it is not easy for a writer, but Wu Qiang did it with his pen.
The first is a one-by-one writing style. The writer wrote about the state of our army before the war, writing that when the army crossed the river, it relied on wooden platoons, wrote that the commander Ofe Shen Zhenxin fell water due to wooden drainage when crossing the river, drank a yellow river water, and wrote that the commanders and fighters all relied on walking to approach the battlefield. To the enemy, it is written that they are idle, that they have aircraft support and equipment advantages. In particular, in the early morning before the battle began, Zhang Lingfu, commander of the reorganized 74th Division of the Kuomintang Army, ascended Menglianggu, "immediately Yimeng First Peak", won the victory, pointed to the surrounding hills with his cane, and said: "To realize the first plan, completely destroy them!" Solve the Shandong war situation! "One by one, one by one, improve the reader's reading expectations." The development of the war situation soon exceeded Zhang Lingfu's expectations and judgments, and the original depression was reversed. Zhang Lingfu never dreamed that Meng Lianggu was the end of his life. Soon, he, the victorious general, will be buried with his victorious division on this mountain that is not high!
Then there are the lifelike characters. Many characters in "Red Sun", such as Chen Yi and Su Yu, who commanded the East China Field Army, and Chen Cheng, a general of the Kuomintang Army, used real names and surnames, giving people a strong sense of documentary. Although the military commander Shen Zhenxin and the deputy commander Liang Bo are pseudonyms, they also have the basis for character archetypes. It can be said that before "Red Sun", there was not a long novel in contemporary literature with such a high-level commander as the protagonist. The novel creates a three-dimensional portrait of the army around the war, with the commander Shen Zhenxin, the regimental commander Liu Sheng, and the company commander Shi Donggen, all vivid and perceptible, and the character portrayal is particularly powerful.
With real and comprehensive historical scenes, thrilling war scenes, popular heroes, and a depressing narrative technique, "Red Sun" has become a landmark work in the history of new Chinese military literature.
"Remember yesterday's combat life, for me, forever"
In the 1980s, on a business trip to Mengyin, Shandong Province, I went to see the site of the Battle of Menglianggu. Standing at the top of Menglianggu Peak and looking at the distant peak of Yimeng Mountain, the scene of the final fierce battle of Menglianggu in "Red Sun" seems to be in front of you. I quietly searched in my heart for the various battle positions of our army's officers and men who had been attacked in the novel, and looked for the place where Liu Sheng's regimental commander had sacrificed. Finally, I stood at the mouth of the cave where Zhang Lingfu was killed and fell into contemplation. Zhang Lingfu was able to fight, and in the War of Resistance Against Japan, he led his troops to fight against Japan and won many victories, and his prestige within the Kuomintang army also came from this. Later, he died in Menglianggu, and the more than 30,000 troops equipped with American equipment were completely defeated, not because his campaign command ability and tactical level declined, but because the government he fought for was corrupt, lost the people's hearts, and was abandoned by the people; because his army was corrupt, there was no longer concerted efforts between subordinates and units, the hearts of officers and men had been invisibly dispersed, and the entire unit had lost cohesion.
Truly powerful war writing often allows people to see content outside the battlefield. The reading experience brought to us by "Red Sun" is not only on the battlefield, but also the people's hearts and minds, the ideals and beliefs of the People's Liberation Army, and the sacrificial spirit of revolutionary heroes who charge forward without hesitation.
There is even no shortage of depictions of love in "Red Sun". Just like the love depiction of Shao Jianbo and Bai Ru read in "Lin Hai Snow Field", li Qing, the wife of the military commander Shen Zhenxin, in "Red Sun", understands and cares for her husband, she carries the moving long letter to her husband from the rear, and Hua Jing has a crush on the deputy military commander Liang Bo, these chapters make my young heart feel sweet and intoxicated. These emotions express people's yearning for peaceful life during the war years, express the eternal call for a beautiful humanity, and also give us a richer understanding of the emotional support of officers and soldiers who bravely fight.
Wu Qiang himself was a witness to the battles of Lianshui, Laiwu and Meng Lianggu. On May 17, 1947, the day after the battle of Menglianggu, Wu Qiang, as the head of the Mission department of the Sixth Column, had the idea of writing about the battle.
But one battle after another made it impossible for him to think calmly about literary creation, whether it was collecting materials or composing the outline of the novel, he could only use the time between marches and battles. It was not until the spring of 1956 that Wu Qiang was finally able to sit down and write a long novel one by one, with his perseverance and hard work, to remember and tell the memory of war life.
"I have lived in the army for more than ten years, and the arduous struggle of blood and fire, the struggle step by step toward victory, the struggle that is getting bigger and bigger, and the victory is more and more brilliant, feeding me, educating me, and moving me." This is the reason why Wu Qiang picked up the pen, and it is also the reason why many military writers later embarked on the road of creation. Thankfully, that includes myself. Although I once lacked systematic literary education, nor did I have solid literary knowledge and theoretical reserves, I could only write after military training and life, but the unforgettable revolutionary history, the precious fighting spirit, and the deeds of the military writers of the predecessors gave me inexhaustible inspiration and courage.
Wu Qiang previously named his novel "The Highest Peak", but he always felt that it was not ideal and lacked artistry. When he woke up one morning, he opened his eyes and saw that the room was sprinkled with sunlight, and when he looked out the window, a round of red sun shone with gold. Wu Qiang immediately thought that when the East China Field Army launched a general attack on the 74th Division, it was also the moment when the sun was rising. Under the red sun, the warriors climbed the top of Menglianggu Mountain and planted the red flag of victory. The title of the book, "Red Sun," is derived from this.
It was the dawn after the long night, and it was the victory of countless battles. Under the glow of the red sun, there are too many spiritual strengths worth absorbing, as Wu Qiang said in the preface to the publication of the novel: "Remembering yesterday's combat life is eternal for me; as long as I am still alive, it is necessary." Because it has given me and will give me the strength to move forward. ”
(The author is a military writer)
Source: People's Daily