This article is reprinted from: People’s Liberation Army Daily
Since ancient times, whenever the country and nation are in danger, there will always be countless heroes and sons and daughters to stand up. During the Anti-Japanese War, there were also such a group of people who came and went in Baiyangdian like the wind, making the Japanese invaders terrified. There are countless legendary stories left behind.
“Baiyangdian Chronicle” (People’s Literature Publishing House) is a collection of short stories written by the famous writer Sun Li. The story of aggressors and reactionaries fighting their wits and bravery. Sun Li’s works are based on realism, take romanticism and optimism as the keynote, combine narrative and lyricism, do not focus on laying out grand war scenes, but start from writing people and create vivid and vivid images. Some of these characters are bright and lively, some are brave and generous, and some are straightforward and open-minded.
Sun Li’s works focus on the growth and progress of human beings during the war, and is especially good at depicting the transformation of rural youth from childishness to maturity. Ermei, the women’s minister in “Wheat Harvest”, is proficient in all aspects of production and labor, leading the women in the village to dig trenches and transport the wounded, all on the front line. She was bold and careful, and mingled with the women around her, laughing and cursing. But who would have thought that such an optimistic and cheerful woman would also have a tragic experience. Ermei “killed her mother when she was young. She picked wild vegetables in spring, harvested crops in autumn, and cut firewood in winter. She grew to fifteen years old in the wild with the wind and rain.” Like thousands of poor peasants, she has low self-esteem and cowardice, “dare not to walk past the gate of the landlord, afraid that the ladies in the boudoir will laugh at her for being ragged and shabby.” Later, Ermei “met the Eighth Route Army at the right age.” Since then, her life has changed. She can walk with her head held high, raise her head to be a human being, and spread out a completely different life in front of her eyes.
The Shuisheng in “Lotus Lake” was worried about her lover after her husband joined the army, so she decided to go with a few women from the same village to visit her husband in the team. On the way, she encountered a big ship of Japanese devils. Frightened, they relied on their skillful rowing skills, like a barracuda in the water, and swayed the boat into the lotus lake, helping the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army who had long been ambushed here to fight a beautiful ambush. The dense lotus leaves are like a bulwark, protecting them from the invaders; at the same time, it is a melting pot in which they are tempered and grown. “We don’t have guns. If we have guns, we won’t run into the lotus lake. We’ll fight the devils in the big lake!” I’m not afraid either!” Sister Shuisheng and the anti-subordinates in the same village expressed their determination one by one, and after they returned, they set up a women’s militia team. In that year, they learned how to shoot and how to stand guard and sentry. When the enemy came to “encircle and suppress”, they were able to skillfully cooperate with their children to fight and travel through the sea of reeds.
“Ermei” or “Shuishengsao” is a microcosm of the people of the anti-Japanese revolutionary base area. Under the leadership of the party, in the torrent of the times of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the industrious and brave Chinese people stood up with their chests up. They broke the shackles on their bodies, turned over, and became the masters of their new lives. It is this liberation and rebirth that endows the revolutionary base with vigor and vitality. Behind the base areas, there are countless revolutionary masses like “Ermei” and “Shuishengsao”. No matter men, women or children, after they see the hope of a new life in front of them, in order to defend this hope, they have the necessary Victorious revolutionary belief and fearless revolutionary enthusiasm. From these masses, we see a bright future for the Chinese nation.
The 14-year Anti-Japanese War is a big school. Countless people fought and grew up here. Their bodies, blood, bones, and souls will always stay here, nourishing the land and the place under their feet. the people. It was in the great practice of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression that our people showed the national character of not being afraid of sacrifice, the national strength that gathered all the people, inspired the national bloodliness of life to death, and interpreted the national character that would rather bend than bend. It is precisely because of these that the Communists dare to teach the sun and the moon to change the sky, and dare to compete for freedom in China.
When we open this work and let the story of Baiyangdian flow quietly around us, we seem to be back in those turbulent years, looking at the picturesque ten thousand acres of reed ponds. Where the water and the sky meet, we will see a familiar figure in our eyes, they laugh and laugh, go boating and pick lings, compose their own stories into ballads, and sing them to everyone who passes by.