The unsolved mystery of Wei Baqun's true appearance

Author: Huang Xianpan

Look for the skull of Webbant

After Wei Baqun's sacrifice, the traitors gave Wei Baqun's head to Liao Lei. The Kuomintang reactionaries placed Wei Baqun's head in a glass goldfish jar, soaked it in preservatives, and then "showed it to the public" in Donglan, Baise, Nanning, Liuzhou, Wuzhou, and other places. Wei Baqun's head disappeared three days after he was "shown to the public" in Wuzhou.

In 1950, the Guangxi Provincial CPC Committee and the Provincial People's Government instructed the relevant departments to conduct an in-depth investigation in order to find out the whereabouts of the head of the martyr Wei Baqun. In accordance with the notice from the higher authorities, the Wuzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture organized manpower and carried out extensive publicity and careful inspection work. In order to obtain clues, they also consulted a large number of historical materials and held a symposium for literary and historical workers and old workers. From this, preliminary clues were obtained, which confirmed the conclusive fact that "Wei Baqun's head was finally transferred to Wuzhou and buried in the park of Wuzhou" compiled during the Kuomintang period. But the scope of Wuzhou Zhongshan Park is so large, where it is buried is still a mystery. After ten years of investigation, the leaders of the relevant departments in Wuzhou City finally found the insider in December 1961- Zhou Wu, a retired worker of the Wuzhou Municipal Garden Department. Friday recalled: "One day in the spring of 1933, I saw with my own eyes the heads of people in the great competition. The head is covered with a black beard, and it is placed in a glass goldfish tank, soaked in potion, and the glass goldfish tank is placed on a vertical ladder. At that time, many people were watching, and because they could not read, I did not know whose head it was, but only listened to the onlookers saying that it was the big leader of the Communist Party. On a morning after a heavy storm, one of my old uncles, Li Long, who was working as a handyman in Zhongshan Park in Wuzhou, was picking up dead branches blown down by the wind in the park. In the hazy morning light, he saw several figures in the distance, coming up from the path down the hill west of the park. The two men in front carried the glass goldfish tank with a dustpan, followed by an official. When the official saw Li Long, he shouted loudly: 'What are you?' Get me out of here! Fuck off! Li Long said: "I am a worker in the park, sweeping the floor." The official stared at Li Long up and down, then ignored Li Long and went to do their own thing. After seeing the gang digging a pit on the side of the road, Li Long looked over and said to the official: 'Boss, it is not good to be buried here, and it is the side of the road, and people come and go.' When the official heard this, he immediately ordered the two workers to backfill the pit that was to be dug and pile it into a fake grave. They packed up their tools and moved to the place below to dig another pit, and hastily buried the glass goldfish tank. Li Long quietly told me what he had witnessed. One day at noon two months later, when Li Long and I walked to the edge of the west slope pool of the park, Li Long pointed to the side of the mountain more than a dozen steps away and said: 'The human head is buried there.' I walked to the place alone and looked at it, and found that it was a pothole, and the loose soil had sunk more than two inches deep due to the long rain. I hoeed a basket or two of mud nearby and filled in the potholes. I remember that at that time, next to the pothole, I saw a camphor tree and a few dan bamboo trees. ”

On December 13, 1961, the leaders of the Wuzhou Municipal Party Committee of the Communist Party of China, the working group of the Autonomous Regional Party Committee and the wuzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, under the guidance of Zhou 15, came to the place where the head of Wei Baqun was buried in Mingxiu Garden, Zhongshan Park, Wuzhou, and began excavation work. On the first day, only some eucalyptus roots were dug up, and there was no trace of the skull. The next day, I moved a meter to the right and continued digging, digging nearly a meter deep, finding that the soil was looser, and a small hole appeared, followed by some glass fragments. The people present then tensed up and dug carefully. When I dug more than a meter deep, I finally found a basin-sized glass goldfish tank containing a skull. The staff of the Guangxi Film Studio who accompanied the trip made this unforgettable moment into a documentary, recording this precious historical footage.

When the party committee and people's government of the Guangxi Autonomous Region learned of the news, they attached great importance to it and immediately set up a working group composed of the Guangxi District Public Security Department, museums, film studios, and other units, and rushed to Wuzhou that evening. The Wuzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau and 3 surgeons participated in the appraisal work. Wei Baqun's former comrades-in-arms Huang Juping and Xie Fumin provided Wei Baqun's age, appearance, and characteristics, as well as the fact that there was a gold tooth inlaid with the upper left tooth in his mouth and a gunshot wound on his forehead. Later, when Guangxi Medical College re-examined the skull of Wei Baqun, it found that there were two bullet holes above the left forehead, one bullet went straight through the back of the left ear, one bullet was still in the bone gap, and there was a gold tooth in the skull gum bed. After scientific identification, it was confirmed that this skull was the skull of the martyr Wei Baqun.

After the skull of the martyr Wei Baqun was unearthed in Wuzhou, the CPC Wuzhou Municipal Committee appointed someone to escort Wei Baqun's skull to Nanning, the capital of Guangxi, and then to the capital Beijing. Wuzhou City built a memorial in Zhongshan Park.

The mystery of Wei Baqun's buried head was finally solved under the vigorous concern of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Party Committee and the people's government, but another mystery left by Wei Baqun after his sacrifice has not yet been solved, that is, how Wei Baqun looked before his death is still unsolved.

Identify Wei Baqun's appearance

On the Founding Day of the People's Army in 2002, the State Post Bureau issued a set of five stamps entitled "Early Generals of the People's Army (I)", namely Huang Gongluo, Xu Jishen, Cai Shengxi, Wei Baqun and Liu Zhidan, outstanding generals of the Red Army period. The news reached Youjiang, and the people of the old area rushed to tell each other. However, the reason for this portrait is quite different from the recognized portrait of Wei Baqun, and many people in the old district cannot identify the martyr Wei Baqun from it. Where did this portrait come from? According to reports, this portrait was commissioned by the State Post Bureau to be created based on a combination of the original portrait of the martyr Wei Baqun and the severed head after he was killed.

After the founding of New China, in order to commemorate Wei Baqun's great achievements, the relevant departments of the party, government, and army have repeatedly mobilized the masses to collect photos of Wei Baqun's life, but for a long time none of them have been found. In 1958, when Guangxi was preparing to establish an autonomous region, the Guangxi Museum invited painters to create a portrait of Wei Baqun based on people's impressions and legends of Wei Baqun's image. Later, due to people's different views on the portrait that the Guangxi Museum asked someone to paint, they repainted the portrait several times, but all efforts were not satisfactory.

After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, the management of revolutionary cultural relics and the collection and research of party history materials were listed as one of the important tasks of the party and the government. Donglan County once again extensively collected revolutionary cultural relics and party history materials from the broad masses of the people, and obtained many little-known revolutionary cultural relics and materials, but still did not collect photos of Wei Baqun before his death. On July 5, 1984, the Yongning County Archives wrote to the Party History Office of the Donglan County Party Committee, saying that they had collected a photograph taken by Huang Xiaopeng of Baekje Commune when he was the governor of Longzhou In 1929. Of the two people in the photo, it is unclear who the tall man is. After investigation, it was learned that at that time, Huang Xiaopeng and Yu Zuobai, Yu Zuoyu, Wei Baqun and others were very friendly and had close ties, and the photo was likely to be a group photo of Huang Xiaopeng and Wei Baqun. When I sent the letter, I attached a photo, and asked the Party History Office of the Donglan County Party Committee to identify it.

After the Party History Office of the Donglan County CPC Committee received the double photo sent by the Yongning County Archives, in order to verify whether the tall man wearing the black veil was Wei Baqun, a series of identification and verification work was carried out since the same month. The first was to send this double photo to the relatives of the martyrs of Wei Baqun one by one, and more than 30 old comrades who had worked with and met Wei Baqun in the past to identify them. Wei Wuyue and Wei Wuding, the sisters of the martyrs of Wei Baqun, and Wei Zhongwen, the guards of the martyrs of Wei Baqun, and 13 other people thought that the tall man wearing the black veil was completely like Brother Bao, of whom Wei Wuyue and Wei Wuding, two elderly people, burst into tears after seeing them; the other 14 all thought that some of them looked like Wei Baqun; Wu Delin, who had been the secretary of the Twenty-first Division of the Seventh Red Army, thought that they were completely different. Second, they used this double photo to compare it with the photograph of the head of the martyr Wei Baqun for solicitation of opinions; they found the head photo taken by the enemy after Wei Baqun was killed by the relevant departments, and successively held a forum in Donglan County and Wuzhuo to ask the revolutionary elderly and the relatives of the martyrs to make a comparison. In order to expand the scope of identification and verification, the Party History Office of the Donglan County CPC Committee sent letters to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Guiyang, Nanning, and other places to learn about the situation from Wei Baqun's former old comrade-in-arms, Huang Songjian, deputy commander of the Twenty-first Division of the Red Seventh Army, Huang Zhaomin, instructor of the Red Seventh Army Battalion, and other relevant insiders, and received enthusiastic support from the veteran comrades. Chen Lisong of the Memorial Hall of the Former Site of the Guangzhou Peasant Movement Training Institute has repeatedly written letters to the Party History Office of the Donglan County CPC Committee to provide information on the investigation.

In addition, while continuing its investigation into the photograph, the Yongning County Archives wrote to Deng Xiaoping on August 23, 1984, regarding the photographs of the martyrs of Wei Baqun. On September 20, the General Office of the Central Military Commission replied to the Yongning County Archives, replying to a question about whether the person wearing the black veil on the photo was Comrade Wei Baqun. Comrade Deng Xiaoping said: "The people in the photos are a bit like Wei Baqun, but they don't recognize it clearly, and Wei Baqun has never been to Longzhou, but it is certainly not Yu Zuobai or Yu Zuoyu." On September 4 and October 10 of the same year, Fang Sunzhen, a retired veteran cadre of the United Front Work Department of Yongning County and engaged in the study of county history, wrote to the Party History Office of the Donglan County CPC Committee, saying that when he recently visited Huang Xiaopeng's hometown in Baekje Commune, he learned that the two people who followed Huang Xiaopeng and were still alive said that Huang Xiaopeng had close contacts with Wei Baqun in July 1929; at the same time, he also learned that one of Huang Xiaopeng's nephews had told his relatives many times before his death that he had seen Huang Xiaopeng and Wei Baqun interacting with each other.

Since it has been more than fifty years since Wei Baqun was killed and sacrificed, it seems very difficult for the hero's appearance to be preserved intact in people's minds. On October 23, 1984, the Party History Office of the Donglan County CPC Committee made a report to the county party committee under the circumstance that it was difficult to obtain a completely unified opinion on the identification and verification of multiple parties, suggesting that the county party committee request the party committee of the autonomous region to submit to the relevant departments for technical appraisal of the photos sent by the Yongning County Archives in order to make an accurate and unmistakable conclusion. On October 25, the Donglan County Party Committee reported to the Autonomous Regional Party Committee the "Request for Technical Appraisal of Comrade Wei Baqun's Posthumous Photograph (Undecided)" to the Party Committee of the Autonomous Region in the form of Lan Bao [1984] No. 31. The Guangxi Party History Office attaches great importance to this work and promptly entrusts relevant photos and materials to the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for technical appraisal. After the appraisal, the institute concluded: "It is difficult to exclude that the suspicious enlarged head is not the head of the martyr." For the sake of prudence, the experts of the institute suggested that the Guangxi District Party History Office submit this appraisal opinion to the Technical Department of the Anhui Provincial Public Security Department and the forensic department of the Guangxi Public Security Department for review. On January 13, 1985, the Guangxi Party History Office sent a letter to the Anhui Provincial Public Security Department requesting help in the technical appraisal of the photograph. On March 30, 1985, the Fourth Department of Public Security of Anhui Province sent forensic doctor Xu Wenlong's March 29 appraisal letter to the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Party History Office, to the effect that: According to the three photographs received, including the severed head of the martyr Wei Baqun after his murder, the tall portrait in the group photo of the two people, and the enlarged photo of the tall bust in the group photo, using morphological observation, according to anthropological methods, the relevant measurement points of the head were transferred to two transparent pieces of paper for analysis, and the conclusion was: "The two photographs studied are very close in appearance. ”

Donglan County saw hope from the conclusions of scientific and technological appraisal, so it organized forces to carry out more extensive and in-depth investigation and verification work. In 1985, Lu Xiuxiang, Huang Yulu, and Huang Dalun of the Party History Office of the Donglan County CPC Committee, in addition to conducting specific investigations in Donglan, Bama, and Fengshan, also went to Nanning, Yongning, Longzhou, Guangzhou, Hefei, and other places to investigate. In Yongning County, Lu Xiuxiang and Huang Yulu went through several places in Baekje and Nalou, staying for half a month. The Memorial Hall of the Former Site of the Guangzhou Peasant Movement Training Institute and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Archives and Exhibition Halls cooperated closely at the same time, and the relevant staff members tirelessly went through the archives, but in the end they did not find exact evidence.

The significance of identifying and confirming the photographs of Wei Baqun, an influential figure in the history of the Party, is extraordinary. Although the clues mastered have been investigated and verified, modern scientific and technological means have also been used, and the results of morphological observation and technical identification seem to clarify Wei Baqun's appearance before his death. However, in view of the failure to confirm that the tall man wearing the black veil on the photo was Wei Baqun, as well as the evidence such as when and where the double photo was taken, the historical background of the photo, etc., the relevant departments believe that the original and recognized portrait of Wei Baqun is still the standard, which will not affect his glorious image, so the true appearance of Wei Baqun before his death is still an unsolved mystery.

In the 1970s and 1990s, film and television dramas such as "The Story of Bago" and "Wei Baqun" were only selected according to people's general impressions and legends of Wei Baqun's image.

Wei Wuding, the sister of the martyr Wei Baqun, said before his death that Brother Ba had been to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Guizhou, Nanning, Guilin and other places in the past, and it was reasonable to say that he should have taken pictures at that time, but when he went south and north during the revolution, the struggle was so cruel, and besides, our family was burned and plundered by reactionaries, and 13 people were killed before and after, so how can we keep his photos? It is true that although the image of the martyr Wei Baqun on the commemorative stamp of "Early Generals of the People's Army (I)" is only a portrait, it can fully reflect the admiration and remembrance of the party, the government and the people for the revolutionary martyrs.

The leaders' remembrance of Wei Baqun

Wei Baqun, a revolutionary general who was in the limelight during the period of the new-democratic revolution, created a great achievement that shocked the world and wept ghosts. For him, the People's Republic has never forgotten. In particular, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping, the leaders of the first and second generations of the People's Republic of China, have always cherished Wei Baqun's thoughts and made deep remembrance and high appraisals.

In January 1934, the Second Congress of the Chinese Soviet Republic was held in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province, at which Chairman Mao Zedong proposed to pay tribute to the sacrifices of comrades Wei Baqun, Yun Daiying, Cai Hesen, Deng Zhongxia, Chen Yuandao, and other comrades, and remain silent for three minutes.

After the founding of New China, Mao Zedong always remembered the martyr Wei Baqun very much, and almost every time he saw the people of Guangxi, he would talk deeply about Wei Baqun and praise Wei Baqun: "After reading half of Marxism-Leninism, I am half red in China." In 1955, Qin Yingji, Zhang Yunyi and Xie Fumin waited in Guangzhou to see Mao Zedong, and Mao Zedong said to them affectionately: "Wei Baqun is the best student of the Guangzhou Agricultural Science Institute!" In August 1956, Huang Juping, deputy director of the Guangxi Nationalities Commission, led a delegation of ethnic minorities in Guangxi to visit Beijing and other places, and when Mao Zedong received the delegation at HuairenTang, he shook the hand of The Leader of Huang Juping and asked, "Where are you from?" Huang Juping replied, "I am from Donglan County. Chairman Mao asked again, "Donglan has a Wei Baqun!" Huang Juping nodded and replied, "Yes." We all call him Brother Bao, he has a high prestige in the Youjiang area, and the people of all ethnic groups are deeply impressed by him! Chairman Mao said with deep emotion: "Yes, the masses love him very much, but it is a pity that he sacrificed!" ”

In the 1950s, Comrade Lan Baohua, a Soldier of the Yao Nationality from Du'an who worked as a guard at Mao Zedong's side, wrote an investigation report and submitted it to Mao Zedong at Mao Zedong's request after returning home to visit his relatives. The soldier replied, "I have heard of the report Chairman Mao." Mao Zedong then said to him: "Donglan is a revolutionary base area, and comrade Wei Baqun used to lead the people to make a revolution there. Wei Puqun heroically sacrificed himself for the revolution. He is a good son of the Zhuang people, a peasant leader, and a good cadre of our party. We must carry forward the glorious tradition, inherit the legacy of the martyrs, and carry the revolution through to the end. ”

In January 1958, Mao Zedong presided over the Central Work Conference in Nanning, during which he said to Wei Guoqing: "Wei Baqun is a good comrade, I used to engage in the agricultural movement, and some things were learned from Wei Baqun. ”

In the early 1960s, a literary and art worker in He County (present-day Hezhou City) in Guangxi often met Chairman Mao because of his work relationship. When Mao Zedong learned that she was a native of Guangxi, he asked her if she knew Wei Baqun and said to her: "Wei Baqun is very good at doing agricultural work and is a good comrade." ”

From July 20 to August 6, 1957, the Nationalities Committee of the National People's Congress held a national forum on ethnic work in Qingdao, which was attended by a total of 105 representatives of 29 ethnic groups across the country. During the meeting, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai received the delegates. On August 4, Zhou Enlai made an important speech entitled "Several Issues Concerning China's Ethnic Policy" at the meeting. Since my book A Brief History of the Guangxi Servants was published in June of that year, I was encouraged by Premier Zhou Enlai when I wrote it. To this end, during the Qingdao conference, the author presented the just-published "A Brief History of the Servants in Guangxi" to Premier Zhou Enlai. After receiving the letter, Premier Zhou Enlai said to this writer: "The servants have produced a Wei Baqun, who is a hero of the people and a good son and daughter of the Chinese nation. You are a historian and a servant, you can write about Wei Baqun well. The author replied: "I have been collecting revolutionary historical materials of the martyrs of Wei Baqun, and I have completed the first draft of a volume, further sorted them out and handed them over for publication before giving them to the prime minister." ”

As the outstanding leader of the Red Seventh Army, the Red Eighth Army, and the Revolutionary Base Area of the Left and Right Rivers, Deng Xiaoping deeply missed Wei Baqun even more.

In December 1962, Deng Xiaoping wrote an inscription to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Wei Baqun's sacrifice:

Comrade Wei Baqun dedicated his life to the cause of liberation of the party and the people, and finally gave his life.

In the struggle against the enemy, he has always been heroic, tenacious, and indomitable. He is worthy of being a hero of the proletariat and the working people.

He is the best at connecting with the masses, showing concern for their well-being, and having a lofty feeling of infinite loyalty to the cause of the people's liberation. He is worthy of the name of the leader of the masses of the people.

He has always scrupulously abided by the posts assigned to him by the Party, accurately implemented the Party's principles and policies, and strictly observed the Party's discipline. He was a model Communist.

Comrade Wei Baqun will always live in our hearts, he will always be an example for us and our children and grandchildren to learn from, and we will always commemorate him!

On December 10, 1981, Deng Xiaoping wrote in an inscription commemorating the 52nd anniversary of the Baise Uprising: "Commemorating the revolutionary martyrs of the Baise Uprising such as Li Mingrui and Wei Baqun will never die!" In January 1999, the Li Mingrui and Wei Baqun Martyrs Memorial Hall, located on the south bank of nanhu Park in Nanning City, Guangxi Province, was named the patriotic education base of the autonomous region by the decision of the autonomous regional party committee and the autonomous regional people's government. On September 30, 2006, the Li Mingrui and Wei Baqun Martyrs Memorial Hall was named by the State Nationalities Commission as one of the first 27 National Ethnic Unity and Progress Education Bases (the only venues in Guangxi to be named). (Excerpted from Huang Xianpan's Commentary on Wei Baqun, Guangxi Normal University Press)

Source: Guangxi Television Network