The beacon of youth

This morning, the sightlines were very good. A heavy snowfall brought all the dust and suspended particles in the air to the ground. The sky after the snow looked particularly blue, and the air was very fresh. I took a deep breath with my nose and felt a cool breath. Straight to the heart, comfortable.

At this time, there were bursts of buzzing and roaring sounds from the distant sky, and a black spot emerged from between several white clouds. As the roaring sound approached, the black spot became bigger and bigger. It was a twin-engine pot-bellied propeller plane flying over.

The plane was not flying fast or high, but it must have been out of the range of infantry light weapons. It circled over Yichuan, Wazi Street and Chakou Mountain, circle after circle, and circled again and again. After several laps, the engine of the plane hummed, as if crying for his dead father, but when the smoke cleared, there was a deathly silence on the battlefield.

A middle-aged man wearing the uniform of a Kuomintang general sat on the seat near the door of the plane. The muscles on this man's face convulsed from time to time. I didn't say a word for a long time.

After the plane kept circling several times, the man turned his head and said softly to the entourage around him: "Tell the crew, let's go back to Xi'an."

After the man finished speaking, he slowly sat up straight with his body that had been leaning all the time, leaned his head on the back of the chair, and slowly closed his eyes after staring at the ground under the wing for a long time.

The plane turned around, turned its head and flew away towards the sky. The roar of the engine became smaller and smaller, and gradually nothing could be heard.

This man wearing the uniform of a Kuomintang general and flying to inspect the battlefield is none other than the Northwest King of the Kuomintang, the commander who attacked Yan'an last year, a good student of Chairman Jiang, a graduate of the first phase of Whampoa, and an army general. Hu Zongnan Commander Hu.

In the Battle of Yichuan, Boss Peng and Political Commissar Xi commanded the Northwest Field Army to fight bravely. With inferior weapons and equipment, they wiped out seven reorganized divisions and one brigade of the Kuomintang in one fell swoop, with a total of more than [-] people. The first big victory laid a solid foundation for reversing the Northwest War. [

After a big battle, the mountains and rivers around Wazi Street and Chakou were full of enemy corpses, weapons and luggage were thrown all over the mountains, and the mountains, rivers and ravines were in a mess.

When cleaning the battlefield, an obese, small body was found near the 29th Army Headquarters and Corps Headquarters. A senior military officer of the Kuomintang.

After receiving the report, Boss Peng brought some people to the scene and asked the doctor to wipe off the blood and mud on the corpse, and then sewed up the face with needles and threads.

Boss Peng looked at it carefully for a while, and then asked a few prisoners who knew Liu Kan to come over to identify him, and finally confirmed that this was Lieutenant General Liu Kan, the commander and regiment commander of the No. 20 Ninth Army reorganized by the Kuomintang.

The dignified commander of the lieutenant general corps died in this big ravine where there is no human habitation for dozens of miles. It is pitiful enough to say that, and then the soldiers found the body of the lieutenant general Yan Ming who reorganized the No.90 division. The two brothers could not live together but died together, that's fine, and it's not in vain for the two of them to have a friendship.

Seeing the bodies of the two, Boss Peng excitedly said to the field army headquarters: "In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, I dealt with this Liu Kan and Yan Ming, and I didn't expect to meet here again ten years later. It's not easy to be a lieutenant general, so let Hu Zongnan from Xi'an hold a memorial service for them. No matter what, these two men also beat up little devils. Although Liu Kan and Yan Ming are reactionary, they still have meritorious service in resisting Japan. Take good care of the corpse and don't dispose of it hastily."

Following the orders of Boss Peng, the troops wrapped the corpses of Liu Kan and Yan Ming, the lieutenant generals and division commanders of the Kuomintang, with home-woven homemade white cloth measuring one foot and eight feet, and bought two high-quality coffins from fellow villagers' homes to put the corpses in. .

In the past in rural areas, older people had the habit of building coffins for themselves, but these two boards are both palm-thick and good-quality coffins are cheaper than Liu Kan and Yan Ming.

After the Kuomintang troops invaded the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, because of the inconvenient transportation, it was very difficult to supply the troops. Everywhere they went, they looted wantonly. What's more, they not only robbed all the food, but also demolished the doors of the cave dwellings in the villagers' homes. Come down as firewood, pigs, horses, cattle and sheep will grab whatever they see.

And because they were not familiar with the geographical situation in northern Shaanxi, they looked for local people to be their guides everywhere. However, the local people had been educated by the Communist Party for many years, and in their early years they fought against the Red Army with two generals Liu Zhidan and Xie Zichang. From head to foot, the Communist Party has been completely reddened. No one is willing to help them, let alone lead the way.

This time, the Kuomintang soldiers beat, scolded and even shot the local people. This is in stark contrast to the iron-like discipline and behavior of the Eighth Route Army.

Therefore, the local people hated these Kuomintang troops to the bone, calling them the White Army, the White Bandit, the Stubborn Army, and the Suffering Army.

Originally, according to the wishes of the common people, the bodies of these Kuomintang officers and soldiers who were killed by the People's Liberation Army can be thrown directly into the ditch, and let the hungry dogs and wolves eat them, so as to save them from coming out to harm people in the next life. Want a coffin?There are no doors.

But the local people still sold two coffins for the sake of the chief of the Eighth Route Army, and filled the two Kuomintang generals. Not only were they buried in tombs, but they also put up signs.

Soon, the Xinhua People’s Broadcasting Station in northern Shaanxi, entrusted by the front-line commander of the field army, broadcast the news of the deaths of Liu Kan and Yan Ming, and notified their families and relatives: “The bodies have been buried by our army in Yangdao Village, west of Yichuan City. In the mountains three miles south of the village, if family members, relatives and friends come to transport corpses, the soldiers and civilians in the Liberated Area will definitely provide convenience and great assistance.” [

A few days later, Liu Kan and Yan Ming's family sent a letter through the county government of the Yichuan Liberated Area, saying that the People's Liberation Army is the army of benevolence and righteousness and civilization.

This incident made Hu Zongnan very uncomfortable. Although Hu Zongnan was very embarrassed, in order to appease his subordinates and the family of the deceased, he still had to send someone to take Liu Kan and Yan Ming's corpses away.

Hu Zongnan sent people to Yichuan to pick up the bodies of Liu Kan and Yan Ming, and he personally presided over a grand memorial meeting. At the memorial meeting, Hu Zongnan called on the soldiers of the three armies to learn from Liu Kan and Yan Ming, and from the heroes of the party and the country. , Learned from the role model of the national army, sacrificed his life for benevolence, sacrificed his life for righteousness, and then petitioned Chairman Jiang in Nanjing to posthumously award the two with the rank of general of the army.

Hu Zongnan suffered a big defeat. Not only did he lose seven divisions and a brigade of more than 8 people, he also lost the strategically important Yichuan, and he also lost Liu Kan and Yan Ming, two generals who were very capable of fighting. A general trained in the anti-Japanese battlefield.

From the perspective of the Anti-Japanese War, the two of them did have meritorious service. Even the head of the Northwest Field Army under the leadership of the Communist Party, Mr. Peng and Political Commissar Xi, admitted that when Hu Zongnan was still in shock, a plane flew from Nanjing. come over.

The airport in Xi'an and the surrounding roads were all under martial law before the plane arrived. Groups of high-ranking officials and army officers were neatly dressed, with neat military uniforms, shiny black leather shoes, and snow-white gloves, and they drove to the airport to welcome them.

The plane circled over the airport, then lowered its nose, and landed slowly on the airport runway. As soon as the plane stopped, a group of heavily armed guards immediately surrounded the plane, and then the staff put A red carpet was spread under the spiral staircase of the plane, and then the cabin door opened, and several people in Chinese tunic suits walked out.

Immediately behind these several people in Chinese tunic suits came out a man wearing a blue-gray robe, leaning on a civilized stick, and with a shiny head.

who?Who else, in China at that time, there was only one person who could make the military and political officials in Xi'an make such a big move, the President of the Nationalist Government, the Generalissimo of the Army, Navy and Air Force, who claimed to be Mr. Sun Yat-sen's follower and successor, the War of Resistance Against Japan The commander-in-chief of the Chinese battlefield during the period, Mr. Chiang Kai-shek.

But these are all the names of the Kuomintang. The officers and soldiers of the People's Liberation Army still call him Jiang Guishi, Jiang Bald, Jiang Bald, Jiang stubborn, um, and another name is "Transportation Captain".

The soldiers often joked, don't keep saying that Chiang Kai-shek is not good. If he hadn't bought so many weapons and medicines from the United States, what would our People's Liberation Army do?No matter how powerful you are, you can't beat the world with your bare hands.

Chiang Kai-shek has been completely enraged by Hu Zongnan. The Yichuan battle has put him in a difficult situation in the northern Shaanxi battlefield where he was confident before. Mao Zedong said that the door for the People's Liberation Army to march to Weibei and Yuannan has been opened. This is not false at all. Yichuan After the news of being occupied by the People's Liberation Army, Chiang Kai-shek's entire face changed.

Chiang Kai-shek, who got off the plane with a gloomy face, didn't even look at Hu Zongnan, who was standing beside the spiral staircase with his head down, and then got into a black car with a civilized stick in his hand. Surrounded by several small black cars, they drove away quickly.

They didn't say a word when they met, which has never happened in Hu Zongnan and his principal's decades of relationship between the principal and the students.

Hu Zongnan was stunned for a while, then walked over quickly as if remembering something, grabbed a man in a Chinese tunic suit who got off the plane with Chiang Kai-shek, and said in a low voice: "Brother, the principal didn't know anything before he came." Did you say something? Tell me the truth, my brother, I will be grateful in the future."

The man in the Chinese tunic looked around, and saw that the people around him turned their heads knowingly, or walked a few steps away from the two of them. v! ~!