In the Taihang Taiyue Cemetery in Changzhi City, a senior Kuomintang general is buried. In September 1941, the martyrdom of the general shook the whole country, and the two parties of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China shared the same grief. However, it was not until the 1980s that the general's remains were reburied in the Martyrs' Cemetery. Who is this general? What are the twists and turns of this process of searching for the general's remains? In this issue, we tell you about -
Walk into the Taihang Taiyue Martyrs Cemetery and visit the tomb of General Wu Shimin.
The Tomb of the General in the Cemetery
March 21, 2019, the vernal equinox. Although the branches are green, the weather in early spring is still a little chilly. On this day, we walked into the Taihang Taiyue Martyrs Cemetery and visited the tomb of General Wu Shimin.
This was not the first time I had been to the cemetery, but before I was selected by General Samurai Min, I had never paid attention to the tall black tombstone standing on the east side of the mausoleum, let alone carefully looked at the inscription behind the tombstone. At this time, a group of elderly people and children are sitting comfortably around the side, chatting and playing games, which is the daily life of their lives. Most of them, like me, knew very little about the general who was buried here, and there was no solemnity and coldness imagined here, but harmony and serenity.
From the inscription, we know that in 1984, the remains of General Wu Shimin were reburied here, and the former commander of the 98th Army of the National Revolutionary Army made great achievements in the history of the War of Resistance Against Japan, which made the Japanese army feel frightened. But these words are too stylized for us, we are eager to know a more three-dimensional, real samurai general, we hope to enter the node of history, solve the mysteries that haunt our minds...
The family of General Samurai Min. (Infographic)
The anti-Japanese generals are unyielding and loyal
General Wu Tie, the youngest son of General Wu Shimin, has a real-name blog on the Internet, and the content of the blog is almost entirely reminiscent of the general's life. General Samurai Min was only 49 years old when he died, and Taketetsu had just entered elementary school that year. General Wu spent his life with his wife and children, but in Mr. Wu Tie's heart, his father never went far away.
On September 23, 1941, the Japanese army divided into two ways to encircle and garrison the 98th Army in the Dongxiyu area of Qinshui. Previously, the Japanese army gathered 100,000 heavy troops to launch the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain, more than 200,000 Kuomintang defenders were defeated, and only the 98th Army remained to persist in the war of resistance, becoming the last regular Kuomintang army to stick to the north bank of the Yellow River. Commander Samurai Min led his troops to various places and fought against the Japanese army with the Eighth Route Army.
After nearly 5 months of fighting, the 98th Army, which was isolated from the enemy, was besieged by the Japanese army. Under the pressure of the enemy, Samurai Min still commanded his troops to fight with the enemy to the death, but he was outnumbered and failed to highlight the encirclement of the Japanese army. During this period, the Japanese army sent a traitor to persuade him to surrender, and appointed Samurai Min as the commander-in-chief of the "White Jin Line Self-Defense Army", but the general categorically refused. The Japanese army then carried out the "grate comb tactic" to attack separately and jointly, and the positions of the 98th Army changed hands several times, and the soldiers fought in bloody battles and ran out of ammunition. On September 28, the 98th Army was completely surrounded at Matou Ridge in Dongyu Village, and the samurai Toshimi saw that there was no support and ran out of ammunition, and decided to break through in seven ways.
It was the general's last night.
In 2015, Ms. Jiang Xue, a writer from Changzhi City, published the reportage "Quiet QinHe", which described the night in detail: "... Wu Zhaoyuan was the last person to be with General Wu Shimin before his death... Wu Zhaoyuan carried Wu Shimin on his back in the mountain stream, looking for the weak point of the fire blockade net... But the dense artillery fire fell like hail... A bullet roared in... The bullet went through Samurai Min's right ear, came out of his mandible, and hit the left side of Wu Zhaoyuan's head... Wu Shimin was bleeding profusely, and Wu Zhaoyuan's heart was like a sword, watching the general's last drop of blood spilled on the Taiyue Mountains, and closing his eyes forever..."
The general's remains must eventually be buried
On October 1, 1941, a Japanese military vehicle carrying a white coffin slowly entered the south of Changzhi City from Qinshui and stopped in a wasteland. On the wasteland, there was a pile of freshly dug soil, next to a newly dug tomb. The autumn of This year of Changzhi was particularly cold. Lying in the white coffin was General Samurai Min, a funeral held for him by the Japanese.
“...... With an order, the Japanese army raised a brush to salute the officer who had frightened them. Several Japanese monks stood on either side of the tomb, bowing their heads and reciting the scriptures, overdoing the dead. ——Excerpt from "Quiet Qin River"
However, all this is not known to General Samurai Min's family, and they do not even know where the general died and was buried. However, the aftermath of General Samurai Min was a pain in the hearts of the whole family, and the general's wife did not forget it until her death.
Fast forward to the 1980s, and the general's family finally saw hope. In March 1984, at the request of The Samurai Min's family and the concern of the central leadership, the CPPCC Changzhi Municipal Committee took over the task of searching for the remains of General Wu Shimin, 43 years after the martyrdom of the Shogun!
In the process of this search, yan Jingyi, secretary general of the sixth and seventh committees of the CPPCC Changzhi City, Yu Chengtai, then vice chairman of the CPPCC, and Tian Zhihai, then deputy director of the CULTURAL Office of the CPPCC. However, after the founding of New China, Changzhi underwent earth-shaking changes, and General Wu Shimin's sacrifice and burial at that time left very few clues, how should the work of thousands of tasks be carried out? They looked through the historical materials over and over again, and finally found one of the most important people, Wu Zhaoyuan, who was the only witness to General Wu Shimin who had been with the general from his sacrifice to burial.
History has not given the general's family any more regrets of missing out, and Mr. Wu Zhaoyuan is still alive! The news surprised the search team! Ms. Jiang Xue described the search in her article "The Quiet Qin River": "... According to the old man Wu Zhaoyuan recalled... After the sealing of the soil, a rectangular wooden tombstone was erected in front of the tomb, and the tombstone read: 'Tomb of General Wu Shimin'", but "the appearance of Changzhi City has long been different from before, and the old man Wu Zhaoyuan is on the site of the southwest city wall... Grass after grass is pulled apart, looking for clues in memory. However, the wooden tombstone has long gone; the old man vaguely remembers that there was a small brick tower near the cemetery, and now there is no trace. ”
Too much time has passed, and even the deepest memory will be biased, and despite exhausting all manpower to search for nearly 2,000 square meters of open space in the southwest city wall, nothing has been found. Later, during the visit, the search team met an old man named Wang Yongqing, who recalled that the tomb of General Wu Shimin was near the Liufu Pagoda. However, Wu Zhaoyuan had almost no impression of the building of the Six Houses Pagoda, and according to historical records, the Six Houses Tower in the Japanese and pseudo-japanese periods was surrounded by Japanese barracks, and it could not be an empty wasteland, which obviously had no basis.
Just when everyone was depressed, an important person appeared. Zhou Jianzhong, then the manager of the Changzhi Hotel, accidentally learned that the guests staying here were looking for the tomb of a general, which immediately recalled the past more than 40 years ago. At that time, Zhou Jianzhong was still a child, but he clearly remembered that the Japanese monk had done a ritual for a funeral, and the probability of this happening was extremely low, so he would not be mistaken. Moreover, he clearly remembers the location of the cemetery, the area near the dairy farm of the former East China Vegetable Farm.
Good news one after another, a villager named Pei Guimi also appeared at this time, he recalled in more detail the burial of General Shimin Min, and dragged the half-paralyzed body to the scene to identify the location of the cemetery.
On May 19, 1984, exciting news came that a decaying coffin and bones were intact! However, how can we be sure that this is the remains of General Wu? Although the location of the cemetery coincides with the memories of the witnesses and some historical materials, it is not possible to fully conclude on this, and there was no such scientific and technological means as genetic testing at that time, how to complete the most important confirmation work?
The three anastomosis finally confirmed the identity of the remains-
"The general's coffin is made of elm, white and three inches thick, which coincides with this; the excavated tomb is an earthen burial, which also coincides with this; the general was shot by a bullet, and the bullet passed forward from the upper side behind the right ear, and also injured one of the general's teeth... The skull of the skeleton did indeed have gun holes and missing teeth that matched Wu Zhaoyuan's description... There are also two uncorrupted bakelite clasps and a metal trouser band shovel! Wu Zhaoyuan recognized at a glance that it was the belt buckle that the general wore when he was martyred! ——Excerpt from "Quiet Qin River"
Yes, it can't be wrong, this is the remains of General Wu, and finally found it! We can't understand the mood at that moment, we only know that the elderly Wu Zhaoyuan burst into tears and cried bitterly! This parting, 43 years, see each other again, but there is no word!
On November 29, 1985, the burial ceremony of the remains of General Wu Shimin was solemnly held in the Taihang Taiyue Martyrs Cemetery in our city, and the famous anti-Japanese generals finally rested in peace.
Yes, history will not forget, and history will eventually give the fairest answer. (Source: Shangdang Evening News Yang Yajuan)
(Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Wenwei)