The next day, when the soldiers were about to have lunch, even the political instructor Li Qiming returned. Li Qiming is a man in his thirties in the prime of life, with broad shoulders, a dark and red face, not tall but very stocky.

Seeing that his old partner was back, Cui Fengming greeted him with a smile and asked, "Did you hear that the company's food is delicious these days?" You're just coming back at this juncture? ”

Li Qiming said: "I want to be in the company!" He exaggeratedly said, "Oops! After three days of training, it's like leaving for three years, old Cui, I want to die as your partner! ”

"Really? Let's raise the bar all day long, can you still miss me? ”

"No one raises the bar with me, and my uncomfortable food tastes bad!"

The two talked when they met, and after they finished speaking, they both shook their shoulders and laughed at each other. Wang Hongju looked at the side and thought: This is really a pair of happy enemies. At this time, Cui Fengming pulled Wang Hongju in front of Li Qiming and introduced: "This is Comrade Wang Hongju, a member of the political propaganda team assigned to work in the company by the military department. Then he pointed to Li Mingqi and said to Wang Hongju: "Xiao Wang, this is our instructor Comrade Li Qiming." ”

Wang Hongju hurriedly saluted Li Mingqi: "Report instructor, Wang Hongju, a member of the political propaganda team, report to you!" ”

Li Qiming stepped forward and held Wang Hongju's hand tightly and said enthusiastically: "Welcome to you, Comrade Wang Hongju!" On the eve of the big war, we have to do a lot of pre-war mobilization work, so comrades like you are especially needed. Well done! It's very timely! He shook Wang Hong's hand a few times.

Li Qiming pointed at Cui Fengming and ridiculed and said: "Company Commander Cui, you usually praise yourself for being handsome, saying that I am a black charcoal bar, this time Comrade Wang can compare you to you!" Ha ha! Cheer me up! ”

Cui Fengming shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

Wang Hongju was very moved by the enthusiasm of the instructor, and when they met for the first time, Li Qiming gave Wang Hongju the impression of being a straightforward and simple man.

After several days of hard work, Wang Hongju and the fighters quickly got together. Wang Hongju was easy-going and polite, and he was clear and eloquent in his propaganda speeches; he compiled many political propaganda theses into easy-to-understand allegro books and limerick poems to educate and inspire the fighters; sometimes he also told the soldiers the stories of some revolutionary heroes he had read, and sometimes he also taught them to sing some songs that were sung in the liberated areas. The fighters loved him. However, some fighters reported to Li Qiming that Wang Hongju often talked about Marxism-Leninism, philosophy, social system, and other things that he did not understand.

When the battle to attack Tianjin was about to begin, Li Qiming led the soldiers of the whole company to hold a meeting to remember the bitterness, and Wang Hongju asked him a little puzzled why he wanted to hold the meeting, and Li Qiming told him that the meeting was a means of ideological work commonly used by the troops before the advent of the big war, so as to increase the fighters' strong class hatred of the reactionaries and arouse their determination to fight to the death against the enemy. Wang Hongju assured Li Qiming that the task would be successfully completed.

At this meeting, the soldiers complained bitterly, some hated and said hate, and the enthusiasm for fighting was extremely high. At the end of the meeting, in order to mobilize the confidence and courage of the soldiers to dare to fight a decisive battle before the battle, Wang Hongju walked up to the stage and performed a self-written allegro for the soldiers, and then recited a prose "Haiyan" by the Soviet revolutionary writer Gorky with emotion. The petrel spreads its wings in the waves and storms, symbolizing the warrior's unrelenting struggle against a powerful enemy. Cui Fengming listened with a smile, but Li Qiming frowned after hearing this.

After the meeting, Li Qiming found Wang Hongju, he frowned and asked, "Wang Hongju, what kind of thing did you read at the Remembrance Meeting?" It's not in tune with the bitterness of the memory! Wang Hongju replied that it was the prose poem "Haiyan" by the Soviet writer Gorky, and Li Qiming criticized it unhappily: "I don't care about any chicken or duck poems, I know that you should not recite these inconsequential things at a serious meeting of remembrance." ”

Wang Hongju didn't think there was any contradiction between remembering bitterness and reciting Gorky's poems, and Li Qiming asked dissatisfiedly: "Xiao Wang, if the storm represents the enemy, then why did you let the storm come more violently?" Do you still think that the Kuomintang reactionaries are not strong enough? Why don't you compare our people's army to a raging storm that blows away that reactionary bird? ”

Li Qiming's words stunned Wang Hongju's question, and he didn't know how to answer, so Wang Hongju had to explain that Gorky's works were written in this way.

Li Qiming said: "I don't know how he wrote it, I know it's wrong for you to say this!" ”

Wang Hongju couldn't help but smile and said: "You don't understand, this is a metaphorical technique in literary creation. ”

Wang Hongju's laughter made Li Qiming very angry, he pointed at Wang Hongju and said, "Is it that I don't understand or are you arrogant?" Relying on the fact that he has studied for a few years, he looks down on us workers and peasant cadres! ”

"Instructor, I respect you very much, and I don't mean to look down on people."

"That's it, I still have a job, and I'll talk about it tomorrow when I'm free!" Li Qiming didn't want to argue with Wang Hongju anymore, so he shook his hands and left after speaking.

Wang Hongju looked at his departing back at a loss, he didn't know what he was wrong with, and he couldn't understand why the instructor was angry.

The next day, Li Qiming found Wang Hongju and said with a serious expression: "Comrade Xiao Wang, I misunderstood you yesterday, and Company Commander Cui told me about Gorky's poem, I understood the meaning of this poem, and I apologize to you!" However, I still have a problem with you, do you feel that your working methods are not quite right? Some fighters reported that you either tell stories and sing songs all day long, or talk about Marx, Lenin, and "Capital", and the fighters are big guys, and they can't understand it! They are fighters, not politicians. They only know how to destroy the enemy with the guns in their hands! Also, yesterday you read Gorky's poems to the fighters too far from reality! Don't you say? Now is not the time to inculcate revolutionary theory and cultural knowledge in the soldiers, but the most important task now is to arouse the soldiers' enthusiasm for war before the war! It's a tough battle in a few days, and you'll have to change your way of working! Work in the most popular and straightforward way. Li Qiming waved his arms vigorously as he spoke: "The slogan we often mention is "Class revenge!" "Many of our fighters joined the revolutionary ranks with a deep hatred for the landlords and capitalists, and the purpose of taking up their guns was to take revenge on the landlords and old fortunes who had brutally exploited and oppressed them. The purpose of your pre-war mobilization is to stir up strong class hatred among the broad masses of fighters! You have to give up all the gimmick. ”

Li Qiming took out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Wang Hongju and said: "Here are a few battle slogans I wrote last night, and you wrote them into slogans and pasted them around our station to create an atmosphere before the war." In addition, when the company held meetings, the soldiers were often led to shout slogans. ”

Wang Hongju felt that what the instructor said made some sense, but it was not entirely true. Straightforward, he expressed his different views to Li Qiming: "Instructor, I may have some things that are out of touch with reality, but I don't completely agree with your statement. Because ideological and political work is a kind of learning, it is not just to make the fighters hate the landlords and capitalists by remembering their hardships, nor is it to raise the ideological consciousness and fighting passion of the fighters by shouting some slogans to defeat this and defeat that, still less can they simply think that they have been bullied by the landlords and capitalists, and to take up a gun to take revenge is to do revolution. We must use the Marxist viewpoint to explain to everyone that the reason for the emergence of landlords, bullies, and black-hearted capitalists is this decadent social system, and only by overthrowing this reactionary and decadent social system can the proletarian masses truly turn over and become the masters. Let our fighters know that we have picked up guns to destroy the enemy, not for our own personal revenge, nor for the defeat of one or two landlords and capitalists, but to overthrow the old system of cannibalism and build a new China in which the people are the masters of the country! Only in this way can our fighters consciously and voluntarily devote themselves to the great cause of liberation. That's what the head of the unit told us when we were training at the military headquarters! I feel that the political and ideological work of our company must be raised to a new theoretical level. ”

Wang Hongju gestured as he spoke, like a debate in a university, and he forgot that he was speaking to his superiors in the army. Li Qiming's face became ugly, and he couldn't suppress the anger in his heart and said loudly: "Comrade Wang Hongju, I want to remind you that this is a revolutionary army dominated by the masses of workers and peasants, not your university classroom. To be honest, it's really uncomfortable for me to hear your full of big truths and full of student voices! What else would you do but talk about it? ”

The young and vigorous Wang Hongju immediately retorted: "We are not heroes of the green forest, we are revolutionary soldiers!" To carry out a revolution, we must have a goal, and if we have a goal, we must have doctrine, and if we have a theory, we must have knowledge. If the revolutionaries have no culture, they can only be a rabble who only know how to fight and kill! ”

Hearing this, Li Qiming could no longer control the anger in his heart, and he shouted sternly: "A petty bourgeois tone!" Is our glorious revolutionary army a rabble that only knows how to fight and kill? You have a little culture, so you look down on the soldiers from the workers and peasants? ”

After asking a few reasons in a row, Li Qiming pointed at Wang Hongju's nose and said: "I think there is a problem with your class stand, and this has something to do with your family background. ”

Wang Hong raised his neck and said: "This is not my personal opinion, Comrade Chairman Mao said when he was in Yan'an: 'An army without culture is a stupid army, and a stupid army cannot defeat the enemy.'" 'This is the teaching of the revolutionary leader, haven't you heard it?' ”

Li Qiming was asked by Wang Hongju like this, he suddenly got stuck, and held back for a while before he said angrily: "I am a big boss and I have no culture!" I'm stupid! I can't say that you are a college student who chews words. ”

In this conversation, the two broke up unhappily.

That night, Li Qiming took advantage of the opportunity of a meeting of cadres at and above the squad leader level of the whole company to make a good-natured criticism to Wang Hongju, and he said earnestly: "Comrade Wang Hongju, most of us here are from workers and peasants and do not have much education, but most of us have been oppressed by landlords and capitalists, so we have a simple class consciousness, a bitter hatred for the exploiting class, and an incomparable loyalty to the party and the army!" This is an important reason why we dare to fight hard and be invincible in the face of the enemy! The suffering of the masses of workers and peasants is beyond the comprehension of you, the student soldiers of bourgeois families, whose revolutionary will is much higher than yours. Since you have thrown yourself into the ranks of the revolution, you must seriously transform yourselves in this melting pot of revolution, learn from the fighters of the workers and peasants, and strive to erase the traces of the petty bourgeoisie from yourself. Specifically, I think there are some deficiencies in your work, such as the lack of focus and detachment from reality in the pre-war mobilization of soldiers, and some soldiers said that they did not understand and were not interested in listening. Everyone listened quietly.

Li Qiming paused for a moment and then continued: "Although I am a big boss, I have learned some culture in the army, I remember Chairman Mao once said what is called revolution, I can't remember the original words, it probably means: revolution is a violent action of one class to overthrow another class. So I think that this petty-bourgeois work style of yours does not correspond to the tense atmosphere before the war, and does not meet the requirements of political mobilization before the war! ”

Wang Hongju couldn't sit still when he heard this, he stood up from the edge of the kang where he was sitting: "Instructor, in fact, I don't think there is anything wrong with this working method, but my working methods and focus are different from yours, and our purpose is the same." ”

"If you do not accept criticism with an open mind, it means that there is a petty-bourgeois ideology of conceit and arrogance in you, and you must seriously examine yourself and seriously carry out ideological transformation in the revolutionary melting pot of the army, so that it will be conducive to the enhancement of your class consciousness!" Li Mingqi said very sternly.

Wang Hongju was not convinced and wanted to defend something, but the company commander Cui Fengming waved his hand to stop him. Cui Fengming said: "Xiao Wang, the instructor's criticism of you is good for your growth, because he criticizes you for your concern and love, criticism and self-criticism are the fine tradition of our army for many years, we must follow the principle of correcting if there is something and encouraging you if there is none, and take the criticism of others as the driving force for doing a good job in our own work. As the saying goes, 'Go to what mountain, sing what song, watch what wine, and what food.' Most of our fighters are uneducated, and some of them can't even write their own names well, so when they give lectures, they have to talk about the things around them, the language must be plain, and the theories must be simple and easy to understand, otherwise they will not achieve good mobilization results. You still lack experience in doing political propaganda, and it is indeed a bit out of reality. You should be humble and accept the guidance of the instructor! ”

"Yes, the company commander is right!" Some people said it, and Li Qiming also nodded in approval.

Wang Hongju lowered his head and thought about it, he felt that what the company commander said made sense, and he was convinced.

Cui Fengming saw that the atmosphere at the scene was a little stiff, so he grinned and pointed to the people around him and said to Wang Hongju: "Comrade Xiao Wang, don't look at me as a company commander who leads them every day, but they criticize me fiercely!" Don't give any affection, don't you say? ”

"Yes!" Everyone replied in unison, and then burst into laughter.

After Cui Fengming finished speaking, he sat cross-legged back at the head of the bed, lit a cigarette and reveled in the clouds, the smell of cigarettes hooked up the smoke addiction of the three rows long. Zhao Xicai, the commander of the third platoon, was a liberation soldier captured from the Kuomintang army, and he was a smoke-loving guy. Zhao Xicai slowly stood up and shook Cui Fengming to stretch out a hand and said, "Company commander, as long as you give me a cigarette to smoke, I have no problem with you!" ”

Cui Fengming pretended to be angry and pointed at his nose and scolded: "You hate it the most, you will shoot at me as soon as the meeting starts, I gave you a box of cigarettes the day before yesterday, why do you care about me today?" ”

"Company commander, I have an opinion about you because you don't pay attention to the third platoon, in fact, our third platoon is very combative!" As he spoke, he touched his hand into Cui Fengming's cigarette pocket. Cui Fengming opened Zhao Xicai's hand with a snap, then took out the cigarette case and handed it to him and said, "There are a few left, take them all!" Next time you're going to have to pay me back a whole box. But you have to remember, you will give me random opinions in the future, be careful not to smoke! ”

Zhao Xicai, the third platoon commander, took the cigarette with a smile, squinted his eyes, smoked it with taste, and after smoking a few puffs of cigarette, he said to Wang Hongju: "Xiao Wang, our army is a big family, cadres and soldiers are equal, we often carry out criticism and self-criticism, and slowly you will get used to it." Let's take our instructors and company commanders, I have not been polite enough to criticize them no less than seven or eight times! Once, I made the company commander angry and scolded him, but he was really wrong, and in the end he still had to admit his mistake to me. This matter must be put on the Kuomintang army, and my mouth must not be swollen by the commander! ”

"Don't stop your mouth being swollen, fortunately you were liberated into the revolutionary ranks, otherwise your life would have been lost!" Li Qiming then teased Zhao Xicai and said.

Everyone, you and I said it one by one, and the atmosphere that was very serious just now became lively. Wang Hongju felt that he should show his modest demeanor at this time, he walked up to Li Qiming and saluted and said: "Comrade instructor, thank you for your concern and help to me, and I want to seriously think about your criticism and suggestions for me. ”

Li Qiming patted Wang Hongju's shoulder vigorously and said in an encouraging tone: "It can be seen that you are a promising young man." I criticize you because I value you! He shook the other man's hand a few times.

Although Wang Hongju accepted the instructor's advice and improved his work methods, he couldn't figure out Li Qiming's statement that he needed to undergo ideological reform. For a few days, his mood was not very high. Am I not a qualified revolutionary fighter? Is it true that his ideological consciousness is not as high as that of a soldier from a worker's and peasants' background? He expressed his doubts to Cui Fengming. After training, company commander Cui Fengming had a long talk with him, and he first told Wang Hongju about Li Qiming's life experience:

Li Qiming is a native of Yangquan, Shanxi, and his original name was Li Tudan. In the past, there were many poor families who named their children cats, dogs, and eggs, which meant that it was easy to feed, and Li Qiming changed his name after he joined the army. Li Qiming's family has been working for the mine owner for generations, and has lived a poor life. He has a family of six, with an older sister, an older brother and a younger brother in addition to his parents. In another coal kiln collapse accident, his father and brother were killed, and even the bodies were not found. The family lost its pillars and had no land to plant, so my mother had to take her sisters and brothers to beg along the street. His sister was tricked into working as a prostitute in a kiln by bad people, and later hanged herself in disgrace. The poor and sick mother couldn't stand the blows again and again, and died of hatred on a cold night. Li Qiming took his younger brother to work and beg for food, wandering for many years, and suffered a lot of suffering. In the end, with a full hatred for society and a strong sense of resistance, Li Qiming took his younger brother to the Northeast to join the People's Liberation Army, and he wanted to use the gun in his hand to take revenge on the society that had made him suffer so much. Unfortunately, his younger brother died in a battle, and he lost all his loved ones. Li Qiming suffered a lot of bitterness and hatred, took a firm revolutionary stand, and fought bravely on the battlefield with a brave style, and was commended by his superiors many times. In the arduous battle, he gradually grew from an ordinary soldier to a party cadre and an instructor of the company. His greatest characteristics are that he is simple and courageous, has a clear distinction between love and hate, and is 100 percent loyal to the party.

Wang Hongju interrupted Cui Fengming's words and asked unconvinced: "Could it be that he is a staunch revolutionary, and I am a petty bourgeoisie?" As early as when I was in college, I participated in various activities organized by the party, I supported **, I risked my life to assassinate spies, I abandoned my superior family environment and threw myself into the revolutionary ranks without fear of personal life and death, am I not a revolutionary? I am loyal to the party, why should I undergo ideological reform? He asked a series of whys.

Cui Fengming did not give a positive answer, he continued: "The masses of workers and peasants like Instructor Li are the organizational foundation of our party and army, the backbone of our cadres, and the new force of the Chinese revolution. Of course, their origins determine the limitations of their thinking, they simply think that revolution is to smash the old world to pieces by violent means, and they think that overthrowing the old world and building a new world is as simple as building a house and tearing it down and rebuilding one. They are proud of their poor background, proud of being old and coarse, and have a natural resistance and rejection of intellectuals from bourgeois families. However, we, the students from the big cities, threw ourselves into the revolutionary ranks with the grand ambition of revolutionary ideals and the responsibility of the rise and fall of the world, and covered the intricate revolutionary struggle with a layer of idealistic romanticism, but only in our actual work did we realize that there was a big gap between the ideal and the reality. The huge contrast between the ideal and the reality made their arrogance reflect, and then they fell into a depression; Some of the weak-willed even fled from the ranks of the revolution, and I have had such people close to me. Take my experience as an example, I came from a big city, went to a private school, completed elementary school and junior high school, and am considered an intellectual. When I first joined the revolution, I was a little uncomfortable with you, I didn't have a common language with the fighters around me, I couldn't communicate, and I was even uncomfortable with some things. And our troops are not as perfect as imagined, we have landless peasants, unemployed workers, bankrupt small owners, some **, co-opted bandits, captive soldiers of the Kuomintang army, and a few people who are soldiers just to eat; The composition of the team is complex, and there are many bad habits. However, I naively believed that the revolutionary ranks should be as pure as a blank sheet of paper, and that everyone should be a perfect and noble revolutionary who fought for his ideals. After years of tempering and beating in war, I have seen that under the strong leadership of the party, the troops have constantly corrected themselves and matured and become stronger, and many ordinary soldiers with various shortcomings have become proletarian fighters with a high degree of revolutionary consciousness. Comrade Wang Hongju, I hope that you will be able to adapt to the environment, abandon your sense of superiority, stop idealistic rhetoric, and have to stand up to tempering and beating, and there needs to be a process for truly integrating yourself into the revolutionary ranks. Remember: it's gold that always shines!"

Cui Fengming saw that Wang Hongju was still sullen, so he said angrily: "I said so many words bitterly, don't you understand the meaning of this?" Comrade Wang Hongju! Listen to me: you are not alone, everyone in our revolutionary ranks must carry out ideological transformation and transformation in the course of continuous revolutionary practice, and it is good that in the process of learning and progressing, do not throw away the original shining things in themselves. You cheer me up, quickly melt into the company, and in the battle it is the mule or the horse that pulls it out and sees! ”

Cui Fengming's words seemed to open a gap in the dark clouds in the sky, and a ray of warm and bright sunlight instantly shone into Wang Hongju's heart. He felt that Cui Fengming was much more mature and wise than himself, and he was not only his company commander but also his teacher.

A week later, the higher-level leaders approved Wang Hongju's request to be sent to the combat company as a soldier. Cui Fengming arranged for him to be a soldier in the second squad of the third platoon.