Mu Guiying believes that everyone is familiar with her, she is a character in the Ming Dynasty Xiong Damu novel "The Biography of the Northern Song Dynasty" and Ji Zhenlun's novel "Yang Jiafu Yanyi", and later the Yang family adapted the related novels into dramas and TV series, and Mu Guiying became a household name.
Mu Guiying is a commander, hating the country and also hating the family, and legend has it that there are goddesses who teach the art of divine arrows and flying knives. She is brave and good at war, and she does not let her eyebrows be shaved, and she is one of the typical female heroes in Chinese culture. Such beautiful heroines are not in the minority abroad, for example: during the First World War in Russia, a "female Zhang Fei" who galloped on the battlefield and made great achievements in battle was born - Bochikareva.
Speaking of Bochkareva, she was an advocate for the establishment of a "women's death camp" in Russia and the leader of a female combat team that was active on the battlefield during World War I. Of course, she was also an ordinary village woman and a widow who had lost her husband because of the war. She grew up in the Russian countryside because her family was not very wealthy and her family was not very well off.
From the age of five, she took up the burden of housework, carrying water and chopping wood. Therefore, she has developed a "big waist and round waist" physique, with broad arms like a man. It is said that she is also a good hand at lifting heavy objects, and even one person can lift more than two hundred pounds of things. As a woman, her power is amazing.
Legend has it that when Bochkareva was 16 years old, she married her husband, Afanassi Bochkarev. He is also an ordinary local farmer, and he also opens a small storefront to make a living, and although his life is plain, it is comfortable and stable. Just when Bochkareva's family was gradually on the right track and life was getting better and better, in 1914, the war of the First World War began.
So her husband was recruited and went to the front to fight. As a result, within a year, Bochkareva received the news that her husband had died in battle. This made her grief-stricken and decided to go to the front to avenge her husband. In order to be able to enlist as soon as possible, she also sent a telegram directly to the Tsar, explaining her desire to join the army, and later, with the approval of the Tsar at that time.
Moreover, the Tsar asked the commander of the Reserve Battalion of Tomsk to include Bochkareva in the ranks of cadets in the reserve army and to organize him into a company.
Because her heart was full of anger at the death of her husband, it made Bochkareva put her own life and death behind in the first two years of the war, and like all the male soldiers on the front line, she charged forward and fought to kill the enemy without fear. In one battle, all the commanders of Bochkareva's army were killed, and the remaining soldiers were leaderless and did not dare to attack.
At this time, Bochkareva took the initiative to stand up and lead the soldiers as a forward to attack the enemy. As a woman so brave, the remaining male soldiers were even more riveted forward. So, under her leadership, the Russians won the battle. Bochkareva also received the Tsar's Medal of Honor for this battle, and suddenly became famous.
As the war progressed, the war continued to prolong, the anti-war sentiment in the Russian army was also increasing, and the soldiers were also tired of the war. However, As a brave and good warrior, Bochkareva is very anxious about this, because she believes that such a passive response to the war is not good for the country, and only by bravely moving forward and fighting to kill the enemy can we finally exchange peace and stability for the country.
Based on this idea, she wrote a letter to kerensky, the prime minister of the Provisional Government at the time, proposing to establish a "women's death camp" to follow the example of women and establish a new image of Russian soldiers on the battlefield in order to stimulate the overall enthusiasm for fighting. Indeed, at that time, the Russian army was very much in need of such a needle of "chicken blood" to dispel the disgust of soldiers and the general public for war.
So Bochkareva's proposal was quickly approved by the government, and her first conscription deployment began in the same year. At the scene of the conscription, Bochkareva said passionately: "As women, we want to make those men feel blushing and ashamed, and we want to set an example of a russian army as a whole through the image of excellent female soldiers!" ”
In the end, under the call of Bochkareva, the number of first conscripts for the "women's death camp" reached 2,000, of which the main age level was between 18 and 30 years old, including students, nobles, peasants, and housewives, and they joined the army for many purposes, such as: for honor, to get rid of family shackles, etc., and more women with national hatred and family hatred.
These women are in a hurry to go to the battlefield and avenge the death of their loved ones. In order to make this team of women quickly become well-trained soldiers, Bochkareva personally trained it. The women shaved their heads, dressed in men's clothing and carrying specially equipped carbines, began 13 hours of overload training a day, the purpose of which was to kill the enemy earlier.
Moreover, each of them swore an oath to "not surrender" and defended themselves with highly poisonous pills in case they were defeated and killed by taking medicine.
Women have to go to the battlefield like men, which feels like a "joke" in a military camp full of men, so the every move of these women has been continuously "concerned" by the male soldiers of the Russian army. However, the prejudice of the outside world did not affect Bochkareva's enthusiasm for leading her female corps to fight bravely.
In June 1917, Bochkareva's troops were awarded the flag of "Bochkareva's First Death Battalion" and a few days later marched to the front. In the many battles that followed, the "Women's Death Camp" performed well, won many battle achievements, and for a time blocked the mouths of the male soldiers who had laughed at them. However, fighting a war is not a momentary courage, nor can it be a victory in every battle.
In July 1917, the women's contingent was severely damaged after encountering the Germans, although, with the help of fraternal units, the Germans were later repulsed. However, they suffered heavy casualties and had to return to Russia to recuperate. In August of the same year, the "Women's Death Camp" completed the second conscription, this time 1200 people.
Although Bochkareva and these women fought bravely regardless of life and death, in fact, they were just pawns of the authority government, and the real purpose of forming them was to be able to brag about their achievements in the media in order to whitewash their achievements. Then, just as the "red makeup" fighters were sent to the front for the second time, the "October Revolution" began.
At that time, Smolny Palace was the command center of the October Revolution led by Lenin.
At this time, they were stationed in St. Petersburg as a garrison. In November of the same year, the women's team was officially disbanded, and all the female soldiers returned to their original places of life. From the beginning to the dissolution, this group of "women's death camps" only existed for more than half a year. As the leader of the team, Bochkareva refused to cooperate with the new regime, and she eventually fled to the United States and Britain.
However, because of the outbreak of civil war in Russia, Bochkareva carried out propaganda activities between the two countries to obtain financial assistance from both countries. Soon, Bochkareva returned to the country and organized a medical team, who were still women, working for Kolchak. After kolchak's regime collapsed, Bochkareva completely returned home and returned home to take care of her parents.
However, this "Joan of Arc" of Tsarist Russia, although he returned to his hometown, did not have a few days of freedom.
In the end, she was even targeted for purging, but she did not escape the fate of being executed by the existing regime. In 1920, the "Joan of Arc" waited for a brief directive from the new government: "Shoot." Years later, the declassified archives show that the instruction was given by Pavlunovsky, then deputy director of the Special Bureau of the All-Russian Council for the Suppression of The Soviet Union.
She was unknown in China, because China had not introduced her; she was also unknown in the later Soviet Union, because she had died before the establishment of the Soviet Union. Because the Bolsheviks would not pass on a "witch" who had been executed by herself, she was a victim of an era whose full name was Maria Leontievna Bochkareva.
Resources:
["Northern Song Dynasty Chronicles", "Founder of the "Women's Death Camp" in World War I", "Chivalrous Girl" Bochikareva", "Declassified Documents of World War I"]