Zhang Baotong 2017.9.23

The song "Little Poplar" is from the Tusti outpost. It not only sings the demeanor of the people's soldiers taking root in the frontier and defending the motherland like poplars, but also tells the heroic stories of border soldiers and border soldiers defending the territory of the motherland with their lives during the history of the Sino-Soviet border conflict.

Before the collapse of the USSR, this was the Sino-Soviet border. This beautiful and rich summer pasture was originally in China, but due to the encroachment of the Soviet army, it was forcibly occupied by the Soviet army in 1969, and the Chinese herdsmen were not allowed to transfer in the summer. For this reason, in 1969 there was the 6.10 border incident here.

In the spring of 1983, when Chen Fusen, a Xibe warrior from Ili, returned home to visit his family, he told his mother these stories about what they had experienced at their outpost and border guards. After hearing this, his mother gave him ten small poplar saplings in order to support him in reassuring the border defense, and after returning to the army, he and the soldiers planted the saplings next to the post barracks. Due to the severe cold and sandstorms, the small saplings died one after another, and only the one closest to the outpost survived. In the same year, the poet Liang Shangquan came to the Tasti outpost to collect wind and compose this song. The following year, Yan Weiwen became famous for singing at the Spring Festival Gala. From then on, the Tasti post became famous as the Little Poplar Post.

Today, we walk at the foot of the beautiful Baruch Hill and can see the Little Poplar Outpost up close. The outpost was a small two-story tower that stood on a high slope next to the barracks. At the top of the tower is a five-star red flag. On the horizontal boards on the first and second floors, the words "The motherland is in my heart" make people feel solemn. On the lookout on the second floor, a soldier was looking into the distance with a gun. Next to the outpost, an aspen tree silently accompanies the soldiers. If you walk to the side of the outpost, you can see a mottled boulder that reads: Little Poplar Outpost. 100 meters from the post is the cemetery of Sun Longzhen, a female martyr who was shot and killed by the Soviet army in the June 10 incident. The huge word "watch" on the tombstone seems to be still telling the 6.10 incident of that year, and this story of "watch" is precisely the true embodiment of Xiaobaiyang's border defense. In order to let readers deeply understand the song "Little Poplar", I think we should tell the story of this "watch".

The beautiful and fertile Baruch Mountain is located in the south-central part of Yumin County in the Tacheng region of Xinjiang on the border between China and Kazakhstan, traversing the east and west, meaning "rich, rich, and all-encompassing". The western end of the mountain range is the dividing line between our country and Kazakhstan. It is between the Tianshan Mountains and the Altai Mountains, with grasslands, snow-capped mountains, pine forests, river valleys and other mountain landscapes, maintaining an almost complete primitive style, and the scenery of mountains, canyons, forests, meadows, and lakes has beautiful Kanas landform characteristics. The mountain range is of the medium and high mountain type, and due to the continuous improvement of the mountain, it forms an obvious vertical zone. In particular, the northern slope of the mountains is undulating, with abundant precipitation, shrubs and steppe vegetation growing luxuriantly, making it an excellent summer pasture. The slope of the low mountain zone is gentle, the wide valley and the hilly mountains are undulating, the soil is soft and fertile, the precipitation is relatively abundant, the grass and trees are luxuriant, and it is a high-quality natural pasture.

If the map of China is likened to a male, Erluke Mountain is a beautiful feather feather with the tip of the chicken bent downward.

And the Tasti post is the watchman of this beautiful land. It stands at the foot of the vast Baruch Mountain, like a border guard guarding this world of flowers, this paradise of wild plants and animals.

At that time, this was still the Sino-Soviet border, and the Soviet army invaded Chinese territory at Tierekti to a depth of 3 kilometers, building roads, constructing fortifications, and some of the frontier people's crops were under the barbed wire of the Soviet army. The Tusti pasture was also occupied by Soviet troops, and our herdsmen were not allowed to move to graze. For this reason, our border guards and herdsmen had many skirmishes with the Soviet troops.

On May 20, our soldier Ding Yusheng and three peasants and workers of the 163rd Regiment built a dam and released water to water the ground at Longkou in Akchok, a boundary river shared by both sides, in accordance with the border agreement, and the Soviet army dispatched three armored vehicles and more than 30 armed soldiers to arrest our personnel, and after being resisted, they were severely beaten with the butts of their guns, and then taken to the Semipalatinsk region of the Soviet border, where they were detained for 24 days.

On May 24th, our herders drove a large herd of cattle and sheep from other pastures to the Tusti pastures for grazing. More than a dozen Soviet troops were armed with live ammunition at the intersection and did not allow our herdsmen to pass. Our herdsmen, under the protection of several border guards, forcibly broke through. As a result, the soldiers of both sides fought against each other, and one of our fighters broke the head of a Soviet soldier with the butt of his rifle, and the blood flowed profusely. The herders took the opportunity to drive their cattle and sheep through the junction and into the summer pastures.

After this incident, the Soviets began to retaliate. On June 10, 1969, Zhang Chengshan, a herdsman from the 5th Company of the 12th Regiment of the Ninth Agricultural Division, drove his sheep to graze in the morning, and walked to a triangle with fat and tender grass. Zhang Chengshan knew that this was a 'disputed area' unilaterally recognized by the Soviet army, so he hurriedly stepped forward to drive the sheep out, but a group of Soviet border patrol soldiers rode over and tied him up without saying a word.

A herdsman saw that Zhang Chengshan had been kidnapped by the Soviet army and hurried back to the company to report. The men of the Reclamation Company took up their shovels and clubs, and shouted and rushed to the triangle. Zhang Chengshan's wife, Sun Longzhen, is only 29 years old, a mother of two children, and is 6 months pregnant. She also picked up the shovel and came with everyone to rescue Zhang Chengshan.

At this time, the Tielekti Frontier Battalion Headquarters, which was stationed 40 kilometers away, had already sensed the movement of the Soviet army and sent platoon commander Li Yongqiang to lead the chief and deputy squad leaders of three squads and three shooting experts to rush there on horseback. After they had arrived there on horseback for two hours, they hid their horses behind a grove of woods, prepared for battle, and then walked to the place of the incident, ready to negotiate with the Soviets.

The Soviet troops, numbering more than 40 people, kidnapped Zhang Chengshan, a Chinese herdsman, and dragged a four-year-old child by the arm toward the Soviet side. At this time, when they saw the Chinese border guards coming, they immediately turned around and let go of the child, but pressed Zhang Chengshan, who was tied up with five flowers, to the ground and pressed hard. When the boy saw the Chinese soldiers, he ran towards them. But the Soviet machine gunners immediately lay down and pointed their guns at them. The Soviet soldiers brazenly crossed several hundred meters of the border and entered our border, and they also wantonly arrested our herdsmen and children, which made the border guards indignant. They used to rescue Zhang Chengshan, but the Soviet army, relying on the large number of people, surrounded them, used three or four people to flank one of them, punched and kicked them, and even hit them with the butt of a gun. Our border guards also returned fire with the butts of their rifles. I don't know who threw the butt of the gun at the Soviet soldier, and the magazine cut the neck of a Soviet soldier, and the blood flowed, making him scream in pain.

At this time, Zhang Chengshan's wife, Sun Longzhen, and other herdsmen rushed with shovels to rescue Zhang Chengshan, who was being tied up. However, the Soviet commander immediately opened fire, killing Sun Longzhen, and then began to fire signal flares into the sky. Originally, the two sides only fists and kicks, or hit with the butts of their guns, and avoided firing the first shot. Now, however, the Soviets have fired the first shot. This is a sign that the situation has changed radically.

Watching the invaders invade our borders, shoot my unarmed herders, and now fire the first shot at us. This made the border guards unbearable any longer, and the soldiers turned their eyes to Platoon Commander Li and asked him to give orders. However, in order to shoot back at the enemy, it is necessary to consult the leadership first. This made Platoon Commander Li a little embarrassed. At this moment, he saw that after the flare was lifted into the air, a large group of Soviet cavalry was speeding towards this direction from the right front, and there were also tanks and armored vehicles from the left and front of the river coming towards them at full speed, and two helicopters were already flying above them. In this extremely urgent situation, Platoon Commander Li had no choice but to say to everyone, '-for-tat, not an inch of land.' Open the insurance and get ready for battle. Then he led the group backwards and occupied a small dirt bag behind him. The Soviets, thinking they were retreating, stood there, waving their guns and cheering and laughing.

Retreating to a distance of 50 meters from the Soviet troops, Platoon Commander Li asked for a soldier's semi-automatic rifle, aimed it at the Soviet troops and began to shoot. Platoon Commander Li is a top marksman in the Tacheng Military Division, and his shots have always been 100 shots. Only two gunshots were heard, and two Soviet soldiers immediately fell to the ground. When the fighters saw that the platoon commander had fired, they also shot along with him, throwing grenades. Platoon Commander Li ordered the first and second squad leaders to retreat with two combat groups while fighting. Before the battle had been fought for a while, suddenly lightning and thunder roared, and heavy rain poured down. It's starting to get dark, too. Seeing that the Soviet army had already left with Zhang Chengshan, they carried Sun Longzhen's body back. In this conflict, they killed six Soviet soldiers and wounded many others, while none of our fighters suffered any casualties.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became a frontier between China and Kazakhstan. The two sides have always maintained friendship and tranquility on the frontiers. However, the moving deeds of the border guards guarding the borders of the motherland have been recited to this day through the singing of "Little Poplar".