There is a narrow path on the river side of Laohankou called Hao Mengling Road. 83 years ago, Hao Mengling, who was shot twice, lay quietly in the coffin and returned to the starting point of his war of resistance and killing the enemy - Wuhan Dazhimen Railway Station. On that day, all the people sacrificed, and the whole city mourned.
After a lifetime of fighting horses and making the whole world home, this first senior general who died heroically on the battlefield of the Anti-Japanese War made Wuhan the hometown of his soul.
△ In 2014, Hao Huiying, who was 93 years old at the time, leaned on the "Hao Mengling Road" sign to remember her father Hao Mengling (Source: Yangtze River Daily)
This is an old street along the Hankou River, and even many People in Wuhan are unaware of its existence. On its left is Chen Huaimin Road and Zhang Zizhong Road, and on the right is the Eighth Route Army Office. Bustling crowds pass by here every day, but not many people know how the names of these street signs once stained the now peaceful land red.
Hao Mengling, a native of Gaocheng County, Hebei Province, was born during China's most important period of political change. At that time, the pace of changing the law was approaching step by step, and the call for saving the nation from peril was getting higher and higher. After growing up, Hao Mengling entered the Baoding Army Officer School with the help of his neighbors, and then joined the Nationalist Army.
Hao Mengling's daughter Hao Huiying: "When I was fourteen or fifteen years old, what kind of soldier could I be when I was a soldier, I could only be a service soldier, that is, sweeping the floor, fetching water, just doing these things, I couldn't do anything else." But then the relative of our family thought that this child was still quite shrewd, so he was a soldier and wasted it, so he sent him to Baoding. When he came out of elementary school there, he was admitted to the officer school, from the lowest level, platoon commander, company commander, slowly and little by little, he either came out or became a soldier, and he later had this little culture that he had to learn. ”
△ Hao Mengling, hero of the War of Resistance
Perhaps having suffered enough from no culture, Hao Mengling attaches special importance to the education of her children. Hao Huiying recalled that in the few times she spent with her father, Hao Mengling talked about it the most to study and go to school. Even until his heroic sacrifice, people read his ardent hope in his pocket suicide note: as long as the country exists, the education of the children will certainly not be a problem, and there is nothing else to think about...
Hao Huiying: "My father is very kind to the children, but he is also very serious, and he is very strict with our learning requirements." He said, you are now relying on me to eat, you should rely on yourself, in the future you will rely on yourself to study on your own, you will not be able to learn in the future. ”
After a lifetime of fighting horses and making home from all over the world, Hao Mengling and her family gathered less and left more, and when she first met her eldest daughter Hao Huiying, Huiying was already three years old. In China at that time, warlords were fighting, the people were not happy, and in the long military career, as the ranks became higher and higher, Hao Mengling's heart became more and more painful.
Hao Huiying: "He didn't like civil war, so he quit his job several times and wanted to go home to farm." He said what the point of this war was, Chinese kill his own people. ”
△ In 2015, Hao Huiying, who was 94 years old at the time, told her father's story when she participated in the hubei voice's special live broadcast of "Wuhan Anti-Japanese War, Memory has Sound"
In May 1937, Hao Mengling's second resignation application was rejected again, and he was transferred to the General Officer Class of Sichuan Army University. On this way, the Lugou Bridge Incident, which shocked China and foreign countries, occurred. North China is in a hurry! Hao Mengling turned his horse back to the troops and immediately requested to go north to resist the Japanese.
The young Hao Huiying did not understand what kind of nightmare the incident had opened for China, and she was still immersed in the joy of a rare reunion with her father. Before that, Hao Mengling had been ordered to build a highway in Guiyang for a period of time, and Hao Huiying went with him for a total of twelve days. In 2015, Hao Huiying, who was 94 years old at the time, repeatedly mentioned the 12 days in Guizhou when recalling the past. Perhaps, this final reunion was like a dream for her that she would never wake up.
Hao Huiying: I didn't have many days with my father, but the longer ones were the few days when I went to Guizhou.
Reporter: Where were you in 1937 when your father went north?
Hao Huiying: I was in Guizhou at that time. I came back from Guizhou with me, and I came back after only twelve days in Guizhou.
On the way north to resist the Japanese, Hao Mengling returned to Wuhan to see his wife and children, old mother, and grandmother who lived together, all of whom followed the pace of Hao Mengling's conquest and moved all the way from Hebei to the south, and were temporarily living in Wuhan at this time. Once again, leaving behind the old and young women and children, once again taking up the war gun and rushing to the battlefield, this time the enemy is the devil who invaded our rivers and mountains and killed my compatriots, and this time the expedition is determined to die. Hao Huiying: "My father wrote a will when he left. The next day my mother told me that your dad sat at the table last night and wrote it, tearing it up, and now it's in a drawer. She didn't recognize it, she called me, you see what was written. Later I took it out and looked at it, and I was very sad, why? Because he wrote a will. He said: I have been fighting civil wars for half my life, and I have not made any contribution to the country and the people; this time I am fighting against the enemy, which has a bearing on the life and death of our Chinese nation, so this time I went out to fight and made up my mind that success does not have to be in me. ”
Hao Huiying recalled that she took the letter and asked her father why she wrote these words. Hao Mengling did not explain, and tore up the letter on the spot.
Hao Huiying: "Because only I am a little older, my younger brothers and sisters are small, so I asked him, and he tore up the letter when he took it." So there was no original, he tore it, and after tearing it up we put it together and put it together on the table. After reading the letter, our whole family was very sad. Then he was gone. He told us to study hard and rely on ourselves in the future, and the other was to honor my grandmother, my grandfather is no longer there, honor my grandmother. ”
At this time, the situation in North China was precarious. Before Hao Mengling arrived in Hebei, his hometown fell. The Japanese army advanced westward step by step, and in September, the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi successfully launched the Pingxingguan Victory and won the first victory in the War of Resistance.
Hao Mengling's granddaughter Hao Mei: "After arriving, Hebei fell at once, and he supported Shanxi, and Shanxi defended the Central Plains. Later, my grandfather's brother said that in the first few days of your grandfather's departure, he wore a white dress, rode a horse, and ran wildly along the river in our hometown. He said that as a soldier, he had a premonition that he was going to die. ”
Historical photos of the Battle of Xinkou
At that time, the youngest son was still in his infancy, and the youngest daughter Hao Huilan would not call out to her father. We don't know what Hao Mengling was thinking on the way to the battlefield, let alone whether he had a second of fear in the fierce Battle of Xinkou, who insisted on commanding at the forefront, afraid that the cruel bullet would penetrate the flesh. There is no way to know, because all the officers and soldiers who fought with him at that time were martyred. Blood stained the high slopes of the loess red, and their insistence bought precious time to protect Taiyuan, the last barrier in northern China.
Hao Huiying: "His going to the front line is equivalent to catching fire on the first of October, officially fighting on the fifteenth, and dying at dawn on the sixteenth, a total of a few days." I heard that he went to the forefront, and Liu Jiaqi followed him, and they rushed to the front and rushed all the way to the enemy's camp, where they were killed by machine gun fire. The machine guns didn't have much range, so they were all belly in this place with a big hole.
Battle of Xinkou
Although the Battles of Xinkou and Taiyuan ended in defeat, they set the latest record for annihilating the enemy in the North China Battlefield and also disrupted the Japanese aggressors' conspiracy to quickly destroy China in a quick battle.
The mountains are undulating, the grass is full of mountains, and the bullet holes in the war-ready caves in Xinkou Village are still silently telling the crimes of war. How many people have fought back in ancient times? For Hao Mengling's family, they can only look for his traces from these sites.
Hao Mei: "Those villagers all ran out and said, your grandfather lived in our house, your grandfather is really a good person, he can't stop him, he rushed up, he hit too scary." Now it's raining, and there are bones all underneath, and if you think about twenty thousand people, you'll line up all the rows from here. ”
Hao Mengling was the first general of the highest rank who died on the anti-Japanese battlefield. Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek spoke highly of this. Hankou's "Ta Kung Pao" reported: Since the Republic of China, the commander of the army who died on the battlefield because of the supervision of the battle, general Hao was actually the first person.
The general's loyal bones were buried in the Fuhushan Martyrs Cemetery in Wuhan, where the green mountains stood majestic, and his name was recorded in the history of Wuhan along with his story. On August 4, 2015, a volunteer who cared for the Anti-Japanese War veterans named Zheng Xinzhong rode bicycle to Fuhu Mountain in Wuhan, and he set off from his hometown in Baoding, Hebei Province, all the way south from Lugou Bridge, to trace the footprints of the Anti-Japanese War, and to mourn and meditate in front of the tomb of his hometown hero. Zheng Xinzhong: "It is a kind of remembrance, because history needs to be remembered, which is a kind of remembrance that has a long way to go. Only when the common people embody the revolutionary spirit, the national spirit, and this spirit embodied through the War of Resistance Against Japan can the country be truly strong. ”
(The original title is "The First General of the Battlefield Martyrdom| Echo Loud")
Source: WeChat public account Hubei Voice