On January 20, 1937, Dong Zhentang, commander of the Red Fifth Army, known as the "Iron Stream Rear Guard" of the Long March, was killed after leading the troops to fight fiercely with the Kuomintang Ma Bufang's troops for 9 days and nights. At the time, he was only 42 years old.
After Dong Zhentang was sacrificed, his heads were cut off along with other senior generals, and the horse bandits also hung their heads on the tower of the Gansu Gaotai City Gate for public display. Not long after, the horse bandits also sent the head of Commander Dong Jun, along with the photo, to receive a heavy reward...
At that time, Dong Zhentang's wife Jia Mingyu and three children were on their way to escape. Not long ago, they had heard that Dong Zhentang was leading troops in Xinjiang for a generation.
In that era of underdeveloped information, "fleeing" was almost equivalent to "losing contact."
In the year of Dong Zhentang's sacrifice, his eldest son, Dong Guangyao, was already 17 years old, and because of the deep influence of his father, he liked to read and write from an early age, and at a young age, he made a promise to serve the country.
Dong Zhentang's second son, Dong Yongwei, whose original name was Dong Guangzhen, was born in 1924 and was only 13 years old when his father died. But before that, he hadn't seen his father for seven or eight years.
Dong Yongwei's memory of his father remains from the winter of 1928 to the beginning of 1929, when Dong Zhentang was the commander of the 13th Division of the Northwest Army and the commander of the Luoyang Garrison. At that time, he went to Luoyang with his mother, brothers and sisters, grandparents and aunts to reunite with his father.
Dong Zhentang and Jia Mingyu
Although Dong Yongwei was only four or five years old at the time, he also had some memories, and he always remembered the food of their family when he was in Luoyang: two dishes and one soup. At that time, he was still very strange, wasn't his father an official? Why is the food at home still the same as ever?
Later, Dong Yongwei learned that the reason why his father Dong Zhentang had been living a simple life was because he had used his salary to help his soldiers.
Because the time spent with his father was too little, Dong Yongwei and his father were reunited in Luoyang for more than half a month, he had always been timid about his father, and he could not always connect the tall man in military uniform in front of him with his father in his mother's mouth.
Because he felt that his father was strange, Dong Yongwei was not willing to be intimate with his father, and Dong Zhentang came to "get close" to him several times, and he got a "cold reception". Seeing this scene, Dong Zhentang naturally felt a little lost in his heart. He felt to some extent that he was a good soldier, but not a good father.
Fortunately, the later Dong Yongwei slowly "mixed" with his father, and occasionally, the father who was the chief would put down the shelf and play some games with them.
Dong Zhentang's son and daughter-in-law
His time in Luoyang was the first time Dong Yongwei had left his hometown to make contact with the big world, so he would inevitably often look at his father and the world around him with curious eyes, which was a completely unfamiliar world to him.
Soon, Dong Yongwei found through observation that the officials and wives who interacted with his father were particularly well dressed, only his father and mother and their family were dressed very plainly, and his mother's clothes were even full of pudding.
Xu saw that Dong Yongwei's mother's clothes were too worn, and this time during his trip to Luoyang, Dong Zhentang bought his mother a cotton robe, a small cotton jacket and a pair of cotton pants, all of which were cloth. These clothes cost a total of 5 oceans, which sounds like a lot of money, but according to Dong Zhentang's salary of 200 oceans a month at that time, it can only be regarded as a small cost.
Dong Yongwei remembered that her mother liked this dress very much, and she washed it very carefully every time she went back.
Half a month later, with the tightening of the war in the army, Dong Yongwei, his grandparents, his mother, etc. had to be separated from his father again. Before leaving, his father Dong Zhentang said to his mother:
"Don't worry about me being out there alone, I won't smoke, drink, or visit the kiln in my lifetime." Even if I get bigger, I won't look for a little wife. ”
Dong Yongwei always remembered that when her mother heard her father's words, her eyes flashed.
Before parting, Dong Zhentang hugged several children, and little Dong Yongwei did not know how long this parting had been, so he did not show reluctance at that time, he did not know that the parting was their farewell to his father.
Two years after their separation, at 12:00 p.m. on December 13, 1931, Dong Zhentang led the Twenty-sixth Army to revolt because he was dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorship. After a short but fierce battle, the uprising was victorious.
After that, Dong Zhentang's Kuomintang Twenty-sixth Army, with a total of 17,000 people, all joined the Red Army, and these troops accounted for almost half of the total strength of the Red Army in the Central Soviet Region at that time, and Dong Zhentang brought more than 20,000 pieces of weapons and equipment, which greatly improved the Red Army in the difficult Soviet Area.
After the success of the uprising, Dong Zhentang was very happy, and when he was surrounded by countless cheering people, he felt in a trance: he would soon be able to realize his ideal of saving the country and saving the people.
After joining the Red Army, Dong Zhentang led his troops to participate in the battles of Ganzhou, Zhangzhou, and Nanxiong Shuikou and the fourth and fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" operations in the Central Soviet Region, and made many military achievements.
During this period, Dong Zhentang was also awarded a red flag medal symbolizing the highest honor of the revolution, which shows the outstanding contributions made by Dong Zhentang to the revolution.
In October 1934, the Fifth Anti-Encirclement and Suppression War was defeated, and the Red Army was forced to begin a strategic shift, that is, the Long March, and the Red Fifth Army led by Dong Zhentang served as the most arduous rearguard.
During the Long March, Dong Zhentang had made the entire corps extra for a pregnant woman, and the words he shouted at that time were still deafening, he said: "We have to fight to the death to give birth to a child." ”
In the Long March, the most dangerous is the rearguard, who is ready to face the encirclement and suppression of the enemy at any time. However, because of his superb tactics, Dong Zhentang successfully broke through again and again. However, only a few months after the end of the Long March, he and his generals were killed by Ma Bufang's troops for garrisoning Gaotai.
The news of his father's death was learned by the Dong Yongwei family five years later, in 1942.
After the news of Dong Zhentang's death was known to the Dong family, for several days, the Dong family was immersed in an atmosphere of grief, and Jia Mingyu cried like crazy. At night, the grief-stricken Jia Mingyu kept calling out Dong Zhentang's name over and over again in a hoarse voice.
During that time, Dong Yongweisheng's mother also followed his father, so that their three brothers and sisters would really become orphans.
Jia Mingyu waited in front of the statue of Dong Zhentang
Because he was afraid that his mother would seek short-sightedness, those days, Dong Yongwei paid special attention to his mother's movements. He found that his mother often held the pillow that she and her father had been sleeping on for more than ten years. Dong Yongwei was very impressed with that pillow, over the years, no matter where he fled, his mother would carry this pillow, he knew: that was his mother's thoughts, and that pillow contained their best memories.
Dong Yongwei did not know whether his mother knew the details of his father's death, and he hoped that she did not know the cruel fact that "her husband was cut off and shown to the public", which woman could bear it.
Shortly after the news of Dong Zhentang's death reached the Dong family, Dong Zhentang and Jia Mingyu's eldest son, Dong Guangyao, also secretly joined the CCP guerrillas. Because he was afraid that his mother would be stimulated, after participating in the revolution, he never told his mother the facts of his revolution, saying only that he was "looking for some small things" to do. Soon after, he, like his father, was killed on a mission.
Similarly, Jia Mingyu learned the news of his son's sacrifice, also after his son's sacrifice a long time later.
But this time, Jia Mingyu was not too sad, she was more relieved. While paying homage to her husband, she said to him in tears, "You know what? Our son is as good as you are, he read your books and was influenced by you as a soldier, I know. You are sure to meet now, and I will be relieved to have children to take care of you in the future. ”
What Jia Mingyu calls "your book" is actually the treasure she has always treasured: the books that Dong Zhentang has read and marked and sent home.
Former residence of Dong Zhentang
Jia Mingyu has no culture, but she wants to learn like her husband. In particular, when she saw her married husband get up every day before dawn to read, she was even more eager for knowledge.
After Dong Zhentang found that his wife was also eager to learn knowledge, he tentatively asked: "Do you also want to study?" In the face of her husband's question, Jia Mingyu did not answer. But Dong Zhentang already knew the truth from his wife's demeanor: she also wanted to learn knowledge.
This discovery made Dong Zhentang really happy for a long time, he has always felt that the common progress of husband and wife is more important than anything, and now his wife wants to learn knowledge, which is not the basis for common progress.
Therefore, when he had time, Dong Zhentang began to teach his wife to read by hand.
But because the two couples always get together less and leave more, Jia Mingyu's study is also "three days of fishing and two days of drying nets". In order to let his wife learn when he is not there, Dong Zhentang "invented" the method of sending his wife a "marked book".
This "marked" book is the book that Dong Zhentang has marked with his wife, and some of the strange characters are intimately marked. After each reading, he put these marked books into a special box and stored them, and when the book box was full, he asked his hometown to bring the books back to his hometown.
Therefore, whenever a fellow villager brings the book back, Jia Mingyu knows that her husband has heard. So she would take the opportunity to ask the fellow about her husband, and after the fellow left, she would look through her husband's books one by one, looking for every word written by her husband.
Although she can't fully understand the contents of the book, every time she can see the marks her husband has made on the book, she will feel like his husband is reading in front of her.
Later, the "marked books" became Jia Mingyu's sustenance when he missed her husband. Later, the books arrived in the hands of the children.
Report on Dong Zhentang's sacrifice
Dong Zhentang could never have imagined that the books he arranged for his wife would unconsciously affect several of his children, and these books even directly led the life of the eldest son, Dong Guangyao, to a new life.
Because many of the books Dong Zhentang read were related to the progressive ideas of saving the country and saving the people, and even many of them involved books such as the Three People's Principles and "New Youth", Dong Guangyao slowly accepted the baptism of new ideas, and slowly, he naturally embarked on the road of saving the country and saving the people like his father.
Also influenced by the books sent home by Dong Zhentang were his second son Dong Yongwei and daughter Dong Guangtai, but compared with his brother's embarkation on the revolutionary road, the two of them established the ideal of "knowledge changing fate" through their father's books.
In 1946, shortly after Dong Guangyao's death, China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was victorious. At this time, Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping and other cousins who relied on Dong Zhentang found Jia Mingyu's family. At this time, they were living in Exile in Anhui.
After learning about the specific situation, Jia Mingyu and his son and daughter were quickly taken back to the Liberated Areas. In order to ensure their livelihood, Chairman Mao Zedong specially approved: the government of the border region allocated 50 mu of fertile land to Dong Zhentang's family, and later he also sent someone to send 600,000 yuan of border area coins.
With the care of the organization, the living conditions of Jia Mingyu's family have improved. It was also during this period that Dong Yongwei learned what Chairman Mao Zedong had said to his father:
"He is a good comrade, a resolute revolutionary comrade ... The road knows the horsepower, and the people's hearts and minds are seen over time, and our revolutionary contingent needs such comrades..."
This comment was later regarded as an honorable existence by the Dong Zhentang family.
It was also from this time that Jia Mingyu and the children finally had a complete understanding of Dong Zhentang's revolutionary road.
Dong Zhentang's house
When Jia Mingyu knew that her husband had been the iron guard of the Long March, her heart was full of pride, and when she listened to the comrades in the Liberated Areas tell about her husband, her eyes shone with a moving light.
At this time, Dong Yongwei also had more respect for his father, but he was also full of doubts about his father's final sacrifice.
Dong Yongwei found that when he was stationed at Gaotai in Gansu, he could obviously break through, but in the end he chose to fight to the death with Ma Bufang, who was very different in strength, which meant that this was a battle with the heart of death. Dong Yongwei did not understand, why was his father like this? He felt that if his father broke through, the Red Army would be able to sacrifice one less general.
It is no wonder that Dong Yongwei had such doubts, you know, Dong Zhentang at that time was one of the few generals in the Red Army who could command the large army to fight!
Ye Jianying, who had the same doubts as Dong Yongwei, could not understand that in November 1956, when Ye Jianying, who was already a marshal, inspected the Hexi Corridor, he looked up at the Gaotai County Town Tower where the head of the martyr Dong Zhentang had hung, and he could not help but write a poem for Dong Zhentang:
"The hero died on the wrong road, and today he cherished Dong Zhentang alone." The hanging eye city tower is amazing, and the high platform is glorious for you. ”
A "wrong" word explains Ye Jianying's regret that Dong Zhentang would rather die than break through.
Dong Yongwei and Ye Jianying had not been able to solve the doubts, and then they were solved by Jia Mingyu's words, she said: "He does not want to let go of the people of Gaotai County, if he does not use his life to fight, after the fall of Gaotai, even if he lives, he will not be at ease for a lifetime." ”
It was also since then that Dong Yongwei's understanding of his father has deepened.
After getting to know his father more and more, Dong Yongwei, as a descendant, had the idea of retrieving his father's head. Dong Yongwei felt that if he could really find the whereabouts of the head, his mother might be relieved for the rest of her life.
After many understandings, Dong Yongwei knew that there were many people who wanted to retrieve his father's head like himself. After the search began, he also slowly learned some details about the whereabouts of his father's head after his sacrifice.
Dong Zhentang's head was cut off by Ma Bufang's subordinate Ma Yuanhai and soaked in a wine tank, after which, the head was taken to Ma Bufang for inspection. Ma Bufang was excited at the moment he saw the head of the commander of the Fifth Red Army, and he went to Nanjing with his head to ask for merit.
After Ma Bufang arrived in Nanjing with Dong Zhentang's head, he was once again paraded in Nanjing, and after the demonstration, this head was preserved as a result of the battle. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Dong Zhentang's head was taken to Chongqing, after which it was brought back to Nanjing again.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Dong Zhentang's head was thrown by the enemy into a ditch in Nanjing Yuhuatai, and since then, this head has not been found again.
Regarding the news about the head of his father Dong Zhentang, Dong Yongwei learned about it through his father's comrade-in-arms He Jifeng.
In April 1949, after He Jifeng, then the commander of the 34th Army, entered the city of Nanjing, he went to Yuhuatai for the first time to find the whereabouts of Dong Zhentang's head. Unfortunately, after many searches, He Jifeng could not find the whereabouts of the head of Dong Zhentang's army commander.
After years of searching for He Jifeng's clues, Dong Yongwei began to question: "Is the news about the whereabouts of his father's head provided by the captured agents on that day true?" ”
With this doubt, Dong Yongwei expanded the search from the original Nanjing to the whole country. Since then, whenever there is news about the martyrs of the Long March, he will pay special attention.
Perhaps kung fu has paid off after all, in 2015, the exact news about the whereabouts of Dong Zhentang's head was finally waited for by Dong Yongwei.
According to many research reports, Dong Yongwei's father's head was actually buried in Xining City, Qinghai Province.
It turned out that after Dong Zhentang was sacrificed at that time, his head was hung on a high platform for public display. After that, the enemy sent his head to Hexi Hospital and soaked it in alcohol made with shochu. Later, Dong Zhentang's head was soaked in a tin bucket full of alcohol for three months.
Three months later, Dong Zhentang's head was sent to Xining and handed over to Ma Bufang. Ma Bufang did not take it to Nanjing to receive the reward, but only placed the head in Zhongshan Hospital for preservation.
Ma Bufang and Chiang Kai-shek, etc
Later, Dong Zhentang's head was unfortunately decayed due to improper preservation, so they had no choice but to bury this head in the open space outside the western wall of Zhongshan Hospital. Along with Dong Zhentang's head, who was buried at the root of the Western Wall at the same time, there was Yang Keming, director of the Political Department of the Fifth Red Army, and Sun Yuqing, the commander of the Red Ninth Army.
Unfortunately, when the whereabouts of dong Zhentang's martyr's head were found, Dong Yongwei's mother, Jia Mingyu, had been dead for decades. At this time, because of his advanced age, Dong Yongwei's desire to go to Xining to pay tribute to his father could only be repeatedly shelved.
Regrettably, because he did not know the exact whereabouts of her husband's head until his death, Jia Mingyu still had regrets when he died. Fortunately, before Jia Mingyu died, Dong Yongwei's son Dong Naihuang specially gave his grandmother the two pieces of soil he had returned from Gaotai's grandfather in Gansu Province. This is probably a kind of comfort.
Dong Zhentang's grandson Dong Naihuang and his descendants are in front of the grandfather's memorial statue
After Jia Mingyu's death, Dong Yongwei specially buried the two pieces of earth and the only photo of his father with his mother.
After finding his father Dong Zhentang's head, Dong Yongwei, who felt that he had no regrets, finally felt at ease. In honor of his father, he murmured, "My son and I have not lost your face, we have not contributed much, but we have passed on your spirit well." ”
The "spirit" that Dong Yongwei refers to here is actually: patriotism and love for the people, kindness, simplicity, and so on.
Privately, I think that such a lineage is the most willing to see the martyrs!