"The emperors are loyal to democracy, filial piety for the nation, and slaughtering themselves to seek liberation; celebrating the present dynasty saves the people from danger, saves the country from difficulties, and stains the bones of hibiscus with blood." On January 19, 1950, He Long, chairman of the Provisional Military and Political Committee of the Northwest Sichuan Of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, wang Weizhou, vice chairman of the People's Liberation Army, and Li Jingquan, led by various organs, groups, schools, and people from all walks of life in Chengdu to sacrifice the martyrs of the Twelve Bridges in Chengdu, the text of the union not only truly reflects the revolutionary spirit of the heroic martyrs of the Republic who heroically sacrificed their lives for the interests of the people and the birth of the People's Republic of China, but also expresses the feelings of the broad masses of the people for their incomparable reverence for them.
On January 4, 1950, at the excavation site of the remains of the twelve bridge martyrs, the remains of the martyr Zhang Dacheng were placed together with other martyrs, and the position of his right leg was empty, and his mouth and nose were bleeding, which showed the tragic situation of the martyrdom. "The public must struggle, the poor and remote areas must struggle, the court must fight, the prison must fight, and the shooting and burial must be fought!" Life goes on, the struggle is not stopped, Zhang Dacheng and other martyrs completed the last battle of their lives on the eve of sacrifice, casting the heroic soul of the famous Chuanxi by the Twelve Bridges.
Zhang Dacheng was born on August 8, 1920 in the lunar calendar, to a peasant family in Yilin Village, Deyuan Township, Pi County (now Pidu District), Sichuan Province, to a peasant family that has been mainly tenant farmers for generations. After graduating from primary school at Yilin Temple, Zhang Dacheng dropped out of school due to his family's poverty and returned to his home to work as a farmer, becoming one of the main laborers in the family.
▲Zhang Dacheng. Source: Sichuan Agricultural University Archives (Office of History)
Zhang Dacheng's ups and downs from a young age made zhang Dacheng jealous and hateful, and the relationship between his childhood experience and character conception was described in the "Selected Literature and History Materials of Chengdu (Liberation War Volume)":
Zhang Dacheng was influenced by his family's education since childhood, and developed a character of integrity, not afraid of violence, and jealousy and hatred. In the summer of 1935, the security team of the Wenjiang Special Bureau went to the "Qingxiang" area of Yilin Temple, seized the opportunity to loot the farmer's chickens and ducks and other property, and also called it "borrowing". Under their sword and gun threat, the peasants dared to be angry but did not dare to speak. One day, when Zhang Dacheng, who was 14 years old, met this gang of evil soldiers and murderers who robbed the peasants' belongings on the road, he immediately angrily rebuked them for misbehaving. Annoyed and angry, they immediately beat Zhang Dacheng alternately with their fists, feet, and rifle butts, beating him bloodied, scaly and bruised all over his body, his muscles, bones, waist and kidneys were damaged, and the pain was unbearable, until he passed out on the ground, and scolded him for "nosy" before giving up. After more than three years of treatment and recuperation, Zhang Dacheng did not recover, so that he could no longer bear a slightly heavier agricultural production labor, which made him hate the evil forces even more.
This experience made Zhang Dacheng sow the seeds of hatred for the dark old forces in his heart, and drove him to choose the revolutionary path of fighting for the cause of national liberation. But it was also this experience that made him basically lose his labor force, unable to farm or work, and his parents and brothers chose to save money and save tuition for him to continue his education. In 1938, at the age of 18, Zhang Dacheng went to Hejiachang Primary School to attend high school, and a year later he was admitted to Pixian Junior High School, and after graduating from junior high school, he was admitted to the provincial Chengdu Normal School at full public expense. In 1944, Zhang Dacheng was admitted to the Department of Plant Diseases and Pests of the College of Agriculture of The National Sichuan University as a teacher training student, and transferred to the Department of Agronomy the following year. Because of his excellent academic performance, he often received public subsidies and was able to complete his university studies.
During his several years of studying at normal school and university, Zhang Dacheng's ideological and political consciousness continued to rise, and he described it in the "Selected Materials of Chengdu Literature and History (Volume of the Liberation War)":
From 1943 to 1945, my eldest brother Zhang da or my second brother often mailed home the Xinhua Daily and the Masses weekly magazine from Chongqing for circulation by Dacheng and his eldest brother and the masses they had contacted. On this basis, from 1945 to 1946, we organized a reading club with more than 30 young people in Pixian County, and actively studied the "Seven Major Documents of the Communist Party of China" and some articles and works on philosophy, political economy, and social development history written from the viewpoints of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, so that everyone had a more correct understanding of the social phenomena and political situation at that time. Dentons is an active member of the book club and has made rapid progress.
In particular, when Dacheng graduated from Sichuan University (1944-1948), when the Kuomintang government was wantonly betraying state sovereignty abroad and actively opposing communism and the people at home, he became more and more indignant about these reactionary acts, and became more and more involved in the revolutionary student movement led by the underground party of the COMMUNIST Party, such as supporting the Kunming Blood Case, opposing sino-US commercial treaties, opposing the atrocities committed by the US military, supporting the Shen Chong incident, fighting against hunger, persecution, and civil war, and so on. The education, tempering and enlightenment of progressive students in the revolutionary movement gradually established Dacheng's revolutionary ideas and realized that there would be no bright future for China without overthrowing the Kuomintang government. Thus his will to fight became very resolute, and his actions were very positive.
At that time, Sichuan University had many progressive academic groups, which were places for progressive students to exchange academics, discuss current affairs and politics, and carry out democratic movements. Dentons participated in the Natural Science Research Society and the Current Affairs Research And Research Agency, and from 1947 to the summer of 1948, he also served as the president of the Current Affairs Research And Research Agency. The "Shi yan society" actively participated in the student movement initiated and led by the underground student federation (a secret joint organization of all progressive academic groups on the university), participated in the election of the student self-government association, and occupied the party's leading position in the student movement; organized current affairs forums and set up wall newspapers and periodicals to awaken the masses; and exposed and criticized the Kuomintang's crimes of betraying the sovereignty of the motherland, slaughtering the people, and carrying out civil war. He was a high-profile activist whenever he held debates, put up signs, distributed leaflets, etc.
In the summer of 1946, Dacheng was introduced by Zhang Wanlu and Liu Guangshu to join the China Democratic League. On June 1, 1947, his second brother (i.e., I) was arrested and imprisoned by Kuomintang agents for participating in the Democratic League and the Democracy Movement; instead of being intimidated, he went several times with his eldest brother Zhang Wenshu to report and ask for instructions from Zhang Zhihe and Zhang Wanlu, the responsible persons of the Sichuan Province and Chengdu City of the Democratic League, and continued to promote the development of the activities of the Democratic League group and the reading club that I organized and developed in Pi County.
In the winter of 1947, Zhen Yu, a senator of the Chengdu Municipal Senate and a member of the Kuomintang Party, and Xu Zichang, the leader of the bully robes, participated in the so-called national congress. In order to pull votes, the "official cannon" made some accusations against the local government of the Kuomintang in his campaign speech. The Sichuan provincial government immediately arrested him and imprisoned him in the Yamen Detention Center of the provincial special committee general on charges of "inciting the masses" and "slandering the official government." Although this is a dog-eating incident, it pierces the essence of the KMT's fake democratic elections. In order to expose this election scandal in broad daylight and educate the masses in the middle, the CCP's Chengdu underground organization decided to launch a campaign to "protect human rights and support the officials." On the day when college students in Chengdu held a demonstration, Dacheng and his classmates He Xinmin and Jia Guinan separately formed a surprise propaganda team to give speeches and distribute leaflets in major film theaters, theaters, Huahua Tea Halls, and other places where the masses gathered in the city. They knew that leaving the parade in this way to carry out group activities was aimed at a prominent goal and weak, and it was easiest for them to be arrested by secret agents, but Dacheng and others took it without regard for safety, reflecting the heroic courage of putting their lives and deaths on the revolution.
At the end of March and the beginning of April 1948, more than a dozen student food groups of Sichuan University jointly formed the "Food Group Federation", elected Zhang Dacheng and 10 other people as representatives, and went to the Sichuan Provincial Government to petition the acting chairman Deng Hanxiang (at that time, the former provincial chairman Deng Xihou had resigned), asking for the sale of affordable rice, but failed. After returning to the school, Liu Guangshu, chairman of the delegation, reported the petition at the meeting of the managers of the whole school food group, and proposed to reject Chiang Kai-shek's proposal to send Wang Lingji to succeed him as chairman of the provincial government. Zhang Dacheng shouted, "Wang Lingguan is the culprit of the 'March 31' massacre in Chongqing, bring down Wang Lingguan!" On the afternoon of April 9, under the leadership of the Chengdu underground party organization, more than 5,000 students from colleges and universities in the city marched on the streets and rushed to the provincial government to petition for the immediate allocation of affordable rice. This demonstration of "anti-hunger, anti-civil war, and anti-persecution" gave Wang Lingji, who had just been on the stage for 3 hours, a blow to the head and beat him down. The "Wang Lingguan" went so far as to order the brutal suppression and arrest of the unarmed students, causing the "April 9" bloody case that shocked the whole country. He actively organized and agitated in this movement and bravely participated in the demonstration.
Zhang Dacheng was very concerned about the revolutionary comrades. After graduating from Sichuan University in the autumn of 1948 and returning to his home in Pixian County, he learned that the agents were arresting people at Sichuan University, and estimated that some comrades were in danger in Chengdu, so he immediately rushed to Chengdu regardless of his personal safety and took Chen Guangming and Jiang Guoji from the Democratic Association and the Democratic League to live in his home and avoided that period of time.
When Zhang Dacheng studied at the College of Agriculture of National Sichuan University, it was the time when the student movement in Chengdu was booming. During the four years of college, Zhang Dacheng continued to improve his ideological and political quality, and gradually emerged in the fiery student movement. In the summer of 1948, when Zhang Dacheng graduated from university, he chose to go to the new battlefield of life, came to Guanxian to carry out new revolutionary activities, and joined the Communist Party of China in May 1949, describing his experience in the "Selected Materials of Chengdu Literature and History (Liberation War Volume)":
In early 1949, Zhang Dacheng was introduced by underground party members Ma Xilu and Ma Suting to know Li Weishi, the person in charge of the CPC Yale Work Committee who had been assigned to Guanxian County. After understanding, Li Weishi, together with Ma Xilu and Ma Suting, went to Zhangjia in Deyuan Township, Pi County, on March 1 of the same year, and was introduced by Erma to recruit Zhang Dacheng to join the Communist Party of China, and on the next or third day, Li Weishi presided over the oath of joining the party. Li Weishi then agreed that he would take advantage of the relationship between Dong Jiefan, the father of his fiancée Dong Daiyun (who soon became married to Dong), to accompany Dong Daiyun to teach at the Guanzhong County Boys' and Girls' Middle School, and instructed him to set up a party contact point at the Guanxian Middle School to pick up underground workers who came and went on the Chengguan Line. He also united with the teachers of Guancheng Middle School, founded English periodicals and oil newspapers (two issues) to report the victory news of the Liberation War, encourage teachers and students to actively participate in the struggle against hunger, persecution, and civil war, and expose all kinds of perverse actions of the Kuomintang's reactionary rule.
He also assisted Li Weishi to go to his hometown of Pi County, and recruited some qualified people among the members of the Democratic League into the party, and the eldest brother Zhang Wenzhu was also absorbed into the party. Under the specific leadership of Li Weishi, they actively prepared underground armed forces in the three townships of Deyuan, Qinglong, and Yilong in Pi County, and developed 600 guns, and about 800 guns in Longxing and Yongquan townships in Wenjiang. In the winter of 1949, when the CPC's West Sichuan Border Provisional Working Committee formed the "Chuankangbian People's Guerrilla Column," the "Minjiang Detachment" headed by Li Weishi was set up to command the underground armed forces in Wenjiang, Pixian, Chongning, and Guanxian counties. Later, this mass armed force played a certain role in stabilizing social order, welcoming liberation, assisting the People's Liberation Army in quelling bandit riots, collecting grain, and publicizing the policies of the Party and the people's government.
In Leap July 1949, the CCP's Yale Workers sent Zhu Liang'an, an underground party member from Renshou County, and Liao Weizheng, a backbone peasant, to work at the Xiang'e Coal Mine in Guanxian County. When they passed through Guanxian County, they went to the county women's middle school to meet Ma Xilu, and the horse was not there, and zhang Dacheng received them. After Zhu and Liao arrived at the mine, they met many workers in the way of worshiping their brothers. At the beginning of the eighth lunar month, the two invited a soldier stationed in the mine to drink, and through the chat, they inspired the soldier to understand the benefits of the Communist Party and the situation of the imminent liberation of the whole country. After drinking, the soldier shouted in his bedroom: "The Kuomintang is going to die, the Communist Party is coming, I want to join the Communist Party, and so on." When the director of the mine police learned of this, he immediately telegraphed the Kuomintang Wenjiang Special District Security Command to arrest the soldier for interrogation and confessed to Liao and Zhu. Liao and Zhu were arrested, and they also confessed to Zhang Dacheng and Ma Xilu (on their way to irrigation, they stayed at the UNDERGROUND LIAISON STATION of the COMMUNIST Party in Shuangliu Ruber Township, where Xu Haidong, an underground party member who worked at the station, and Xu Maosen, a cover officer at the station, were also arrested for the defection of Liao and Zhu), and the underground party organization decided to immediately evacuate the relevant personnel, but Zhang Dacheng believed that he had no organizational relationship with Liao and Zhu, nor did he talk about the issue of party organization, and even if they confessed contact with him, it had little to do with him, so they did not withdraw. Just at this time, Feng Junyi, commissioner of the Wenjiang Special Bureau, sent a telegram to Cheng Wenwei, the county magistrate, believing that the uprising of the FengleChang and Guihuachang Democratic Coalition Forces in Chongning County was instigated by Ma Xilu, Zhang Dacheng, and others, and ordered an immediate arrest. For internal reasons, the county authorities did not act immediately. On the fourth day (october 18, the 27th day of the eighth lunar month), Wang Renjie, the secretary of the Wenjiang Special District Special Committee, led agents to Guanxian County and arrested Zhang Dacheng at noon, but was immediately released on bail by his father-in-law, Dong Jiefan. Formally released, but targeted by agents. Dacheng was unusually calm about this, he thought, the agent did not grasp the evidence, if he left, it would be exposed, which would cause greater damage to the organization. So he remained calm that day and continued to attend classes in the afternoon and evening. In the evening, Ma Suting took advantage of the twilight to go to the bedroom to look for him, and in his absence, he left a note suggesting that he should move quickly. At this time, Wang Renjie, secretary of the Wenjiang Special Committee, and Xiao Xiang, secretary of the Guanxian Special Committee, found Peng Yuyuan, the principal of the boys' middle school, go to the student study room to deceive Zhang Dacheng, who was taking a tutoring class, and immediately escorted him away.
After Zhang Dacheng was arrested, he was imprisoned in the Guanxian Self-Defense Corps. He did not reveal his identity or party organization during the interrogation of the enemy. When his lover went to see him, he quietly asked, "Is there nothing wrong with the pony (Ma Xilu)?" When she said it was all safe, he smiled triumphantly. In such a dangerous environment, he still cares about the safety of other comrades!
Zhang Dacheng was immediately escorted from Guan County to Wenjiang by the enemy, and half a month later he was transferred to the General Yamen Detention Center of the Sichuan Provincial Special Committee in Chengdu for imprisonment. In prison, he was tortured: first his hands were tied upside down on the beam; then his hands and the thumbs of his feet were tied, his abdomen was down, and he was hung up, and all four of his thumbs were broken, and he passed out in blood. When he woke up, he still did not yield, fought heroically, did not reveal a single material, and protected the organizations and comrades of the Party and the NLD.
On the eve of the collapse, the murderous Kuomintang agents kidnapped a group of indomitable revolutionary volunteers in prison to the Twelve Bridges outside the Tonghui Gate for collective massacre, and Zhang Dacheng was sacrificed at the age of 29. His life was short, but his ardent struggle for the revolution and his unswerving spirit of loyalty to the cause of the party and the people were forever engraved on the banks of the Twelve Bridges and in the hearts of the people. (Source| "Danxin Spectrum Khan Qing: Sichuan Agricultural Red Archives", Pan Kun et al.|, editor-in-chief, Sichuan People's Publishing House, |)
