Chapter 12 Fire Fighting and Food Saving

When the squadron leader saw that all three of us had returned, he was very happy and said with a lot of heartache: "Well done! "I hurriedly called for someone to get dry clothes to change into, and a big fire was lit for us to bake the clothes. After roasting for a while, my body became warm, and I didn't feel cold anymore. The instructor came back from inspecting the work, looked at us in amazement and said;

"I'm afraid you've been captured."

"I can't be captured, but I still have the determination in mind!"

"That's good! Glory to our squadron, kind! ”

After drying the wet clothes, we saluted the leader and returned to the class.

On August 19th, I stayed in an ancestral hall in Yangjiafang Village, Brick Gate, because I was too sleepy to care about the dry and wet on the ground, I fell asleep on the straw shop, and I couldn't think about it: how my mother, sister and other relatives worried and sad about me. My lovely old mother, I must have stayed up all night, but I was determined to follow the revolution.

God is sunny, everyone takes out the quilt and clothes to bask in the sun. The brigade assembled in a flat wood, and the political commissar said that the reason why the brigade did not live in Wenshan County yesterday was to let the follow-up large troops live, so they walked a few more miles, and we rested here for a few days, and the main task was to sum up the situation of the march from Hongdu to Wenshan, and the requirements were: to affirm the achievements, overcome the shortcomings, and improve morale.

The next day, a commendation meeting was held, and I was commended for my performance of "passing through the door and not entering the house", awarded the third class, and awarded a snow-white velvet towel. This was the highest prize at the time, and this towel accompanied me to Spring City.

At the conference venue, I met my cousin's son Zhang Dunchi, and I was surprised and delighted, how could he also join the army? He used to work as a doctor at Xu Shoumin Hospital, a large private hospital in Hongdu. He studied medicine with his father when he was a child, and he has a deep knowledge of the truth, which can be said to be self-taught.

I went to him when I joined the army and told him that I was in the army, and I asked him if he would like to go to the army. He said he wanted to study medicine and was reluctant to join the army. At that time, I also gave me two oceans, and I didn't expect to meet my uncle and nephew in Wenshan! We shook hands and embraced each other, recounting the ...... of separation.

We followed the army all the way to Chuncheng, where he first went down to work in the local area, and then became a doctor in the First People's Hospital of Chuncheng, a specialist in pediatrics and gynecology, and later served as the vice president. He died of cancer in 1981 at the age of 40.

"Don't enter the house when you pass the house" and "Uncle and nephew join the army" have become good stories of our brigade. Through the summing-up, the morale of the troops was raised and everyone's determination to carry out the revolution to the end.

On August 26, the troops set off for Canton Province. The troops marched forward all the way, and the "March of the Great Army" became the best "catalyst" to inspire the fighting spirit of every soldier. In passing through Tianyuan Yongshu Road (named in honor of Ouyang Xiu. Ouyang Xiu, the word Yongshu, is a native of Yongfeng County. At that time, we all held our heads high, marched forward, and sang the song "Three Disciplines and Eight Points of Attention", showing that the army is a civilized and mighty army. The citizens of Amahara stopped to watch, looking at this army with admiration.

The troops stayed at Tianyuan Heqiao for two days and held a meeting to welcome Tianyuan new students, and our brigade increased to more than 2,000 people. Heqiao is a town with a large population in Tianyuan City, and a back river divides it into two parts, the farmhouse village in the west, and the commercial area in the east, and a wooden bridge connects the east and west, and the bridge has long been blown up by the reactionary army. During the Anti-Japanese War, Tianyuan Jianguo Middle School, Luzhou Middle School, National 13th Middle School, and Tianyuan Middle School.

On August 29, the troops waded across the river and marched towards Tai County, arriving at Zao Village in Tai County that night, where some of them lived in civilian houses and most of them slept in the wild.

On August 30, he passed through the county seat of Tai. The streets of the county town are narrow, but there are more shops than in Wenshan County. The first floor of each building has a corridor to make it easy for pedestrians to shelter from the rain. There were bits and pieces of things for sale in the market, and the troops did not stop and continued on their way, and when they left the city, they saw many houses along the road, all of which had been destroyed by the reactionary army, and there was no one in the houses. When it was almost dark, I went to a larger village, Ouyang Village, to camp. Due to the lack of rice, the cooking class bought some sweet potatoes from the common people and cooked them together in rice, plus a little green onion, which tasted fragrant and delicious.

In the middle of the night, the military horn protruded, and everyone did not know what was happening, and immediately put on their clothes and hats. I saw a fire in the distance! The captain ordered: immediately rush to the fire area to fight the fire!

When I got closer, I saw that a warehouse was on fire, the fire was fierce, it was full of grain, and the nearby troops also came, and the fire was extinguished only after everyone worked hard to put it out. Fortunately, only one transept and some miscellaneous items were burned.

When the troops returned to their quarters, it was already dawn, and they hurriedly ate breakfast and set out. Since there were too many troops along the way, the roads were not smooth, so we had to take a detour and go the extra mile. On August 31, he lived in Shicun Village, Tai County.

The further south you go, the more mountains there are, and the fewer people you have. Due to the temporary shortage of food, the cooking team had to prepare some porridge for everyone to deal with. Later, the troops went to the place where there was a military supply center and bought some rice, dried sweet potatoes, and so on in case of a "food shortage."

Today, 1 September, the journey was 80 miles, and at 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon they arrived at Shantian in Sui County, which was still far from the county seat, and the troops had no choice but to camp here. There was a large playground in Shantian, which was said to be used for the training of the reactionary army, and there was a military camp nearby, and some barracks, but they were in tatters.

Sui County is a county with a glorious revolutionary history. During the Great Revolution, many young and middle-aged people went to the Red Army for the revolution, experienced five baptisms of blood and fire against encirclement, and the people of Sui County paid great sacrifices, and some seriously wounded soldiers could not follow the main Red Army's Long March, so they left to organize the Red Guards to continue to persist in the struggle and made contributions to the revolution.

On September 2, he arrived in Sui County. After settling in, the superiors arranged for the military university to have a party with the old Red Guards. There were many widows of martyrs sitting on the rostrum of the meeting, and the meeting invited an old man in his 60s to give a report, in which he gave a briefing on how the Red Guards had grown and grown under the leadership of their superiors and how they had waged a resolute struggle against the "white dogs." During the Revolution, many families of the Red Army were killed by reactionaries. He said sadly and indignantly: "Sui County is now more women than men, and some are 'widows' villages and 'martyrs' villages, all of which are bloody crimes committed by reactionaries, and this blood debt must be repaid with blood!" Angry slogans rang out in the room. Everyone's hearts were greatly shaken.

Some people in the vicinity also rushed to attend the meeting, and most of them were elderly, especially women, and very few were young and middle-aged. The villagers were dressed in thin and tattered clothes, with yellow and thin faces and unkempt hair, and when we saw it, our hearts swelled with bitterness. After the meeting, the troops launched an action to donate money and materials, and everyone donated their surplus clothes and money, especially the newly recruited students in Tianyuan, Taixian and other places, who donated the most money and materials.

On September 3, the Japanese Army and the 13th Army of the Corps had a party. First of all, I listened to the situation report made by Political Commissar Liu. He said: The situation in the War of Liberation has developed rapidly, and great victories have been won in the Northwest, East, South, and Southwest Battlefields, and the whole country will soon be liberated, and a new country will be born! Everyone was very excited to hear it.