In the northwest of the county seat of Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County in Wuwei City, Gansu Province, there is a vast and boundless grassland where mountains and skies meet, which is pleasant and forgets the mortal dust, and it is the Xiding Grassland. More than eighty years ago, there was a story here that transcended religious belief, transcended class, and transcended national love, and this love is an unparalleled love on earth.
One
A day in the winter of 1938.
The empty and lonely west-topped savannah is covered in snow, and the cold wind whistles viciously, constantly raising the snow on the ground, as if to proclaim that it is now the master of this place.
A thin, thinly dressed woman with a gaunt face clung to a baby who had only been born a few months ago, staggered one foot deep and one foot shallow and trekked hard in the snow, and soon fainted in the snow due to lack of physical strength.
At this moment, a Tibetan woman on horseback who was looking around for cattle on the grassland passed by here, saw the mother and son who had fainted on the snow and were dying, and did not have time to think much about it, so they quickly dismounted, carried them to their horses, and drove them back to their homes.
It turned out that the woman with the child in her arms was none other than Yang Wenju, the commander of the women's engineering battalion of the Hongxi Road Army, Yang Wenju, the wife of Zheng Yizhai, a senior general of the Hongxi Road Army, a member of the Military and Political Committee, and the director of the General Supply Department. After the defeat of the Red West Road Army in Hexi, after the Shiwo meeting, in order to send all the funds of the Red Army to the headquarters, Zheng Yizhai pulled all his shirts into strips of cloth, wrapped the gold and silver of the Red Army, and asked his wife Yang Wenju to sew them with needles and threads. Halfway along, they encountered murderous horse bandits. Zheng Yizhai handed the package to the soldiers to break through, and he stayed behind to cover his comrades-in-arms and died heroically, and Yang Wenju, who was 8 months pregnant, was captured by Ma Jiajun. The enemy tied her hair, tied her to a ponytail, dragged her for miles, and finally imprisoned her in Zhangye Prison. In prison, Yang Wenju survived the torture with superhuman perseverance and gave birth to a child. A year later, she looked for an opportunity to escape from prison, holding her child hungry and displaced, and on this day came to the West Top Grassland, because of hunger and cold, she was physically exhausted and fainted.
The mother and son of Yang Wenju were saved by Li Jiancaoji, the young grandmother of the local Tibetan toast Mei Luosang but zeng's family. On the way to search for the cattle, Li Jiancaoji accidentally found Yang Wenju mother and son who had fainted and died in the snow.
Two
The warm stove, the boiling hot butter tea, the child's crying, Yang Wenju finally woke up, she struggled to sit up and saw that the son next to her was unharmed, hugged tightly in her arms, and then raised her head alertly. A kind-looking Tibetan woman in front of her looked at her with a smile and asked her kindly where she had come from and where she was going.
Yang Wenju did not dare to speak, she knew that she was a native of Daxian County, Sichuan, and a thick Sichuan accent exposed the identity of the Red Army. So she pretended to be dumb, shook her head, said nothing, and pointed to the baby in her arms, her dry eyes full of anticipation.
Li Jiancaoji understood what she meant, nodded her head in agreement, and comforted her to rest well. In this way, in the days that followed, Li Jiancaoji took care of Yang Wenju's mother and son like his own relatives. Coincidentally, Li Jiancaoji's son and Yang Wenju's son Zheng Menghai were born in the same year, and the two looked exactly like each other and were generally tall. Li Jiancaoji dressed them in the same Tibetan costume and pretended to be his twin sons, escaping repeated searches by horse bandits. Seeing Mei Wanhai and Zheng Menghai playing and making a conflict, always blaming their children, which made Yang Wenju moved to tears countless times. Yang Wenju embraced a feeling of gratitude, consciously undertook the Needle and Thread Tea And Rice of the Mei Family, did it meticulously, and kept the Mei family in good order inside and out.
Time flies, and three years pass in the blink of an eye. In the process of living together, Li Jiancaoji and Yang Wenju formed a deep sisterhood. Yang Wenju finally revealed his identity to Li Jiancaoji. When Li Jiancaoji learned that Yang Wenju was a Communist Party member and a female Red Army, he respected her even more and never let her work in the fields again. She taught Yang Wenju to mix butter and rice dumplings hand in hand, and Yang Wenju taught her to sing Red Army songs and Sichuan folk songs sentence by sentence. On this day, the kind Li Jiancaoji made a request to Yang Wenju to marry her as a sister, and Yang Wenju gladly agreed.
Three
In the Spring Festival of 1941, the Xiding Grassland Plum Toast Family was full of lights, joy and excitement. Li Jiancaoji wanted to formally marry Yang Wenju, who pretended to be deaf and dumb for more than 3 years, as a dry sister, and the family was very happy. After the ceremony, the Mei family honored Li Jiancaoji as the "housewife" and Yang Wenju as the "second treasurer". At the celebration banquet, Li Jiancaoji sincerely asked Yang Wenju for advice on what plans he had for his future life. Yang Wenju boldly put forward two suggestions: First, continue to continue the "cow baby rice" inherited from the Western Xia by the Mei family for disaster relief and relief. Originally, the so-called "cow baby rice" is a large pot of rice made of beef, sheep, pork as the main ingredient and various special "cow-shaped" noodle caviar and seasonal vegetables. The method of "cow baby rice" is very exquisite, and the noodle master pulls the reconciled noodles into the size of peas, and then puts them on a washed comb to make a combed noodle roll, like a "flower calf" with two small heads in the middle. The prepared pasta is braised with vegetables, meat, etc., which is a big pot of "cow baby rice". Yang Wenju said: "After eating 'cow baby rice', I look forward to a good year with smooth wind and rain, great luck and abundant grain. "The second is to ask a cultured gentleman to teach the children to learn about culture. These two suggestions of Yang Wenju deeply touched Mei Luosang but increased the number of old people, and they immediately agreed and asked Yang Wenju to handle them personally.
In June of that year, under the operation of Yang Wen Bureau, meijia private school was opened, which was one of the earliest private schools established by enlightened and wise Tibetans in Tianzhu County in their hometowns, and it was also the only private boarding school in Tianzhu County that was free of food and accommodation, no clothing, no medical care, free of textbook fees, and free of all expenses before liberation, and it was also a private school in agricultural and pastoral areas rich in red genes, which trained 169 students of Tibetan, Tu, Han and other nationalities in the short period of 6 years. After liberation, it played an important role in all walks of life in Tianzhu County. This private school ignited the spark of enlightenment education in the remote agricultural and pastoral areas of Tianzhu and was a model for inheriting the red gene of the Red Army on the West Road and carrying forward the great unity of all nationalities.
Since 1942, under the personal leadership and operation of Yang Wenju, the "Cow Baby Rice" of Meishi in Xiding Grassland has been held as scheduled, and the rice is served for three days on the second and eleventh of June and the "winter solstice" of the lunar calendar every year. During the meal, whether it is a guest or a passerby, the visitors are all guests, leaving a smooth slip of "ghee fried noodles hand grabbed meat, steak oil and fruit mountain wild vegetables, yogurt shochu beef baby rice, full of food and drink to go home". Yang Wenju has been respected by the people for relieving the poor through the method of "cow and baby rice" and propagating revolutionary ideas.
On the winter solstice of 1946, the Mei family's "cow baby rice" rice scene was extremely lively. According to the memories of the local elderly Ma Deqing, Li Jincai, Guo Caien, Cai Quanxue, Lu Quancai, Guo Huadan, Jia Renqian and others, this year was another year of bad harvests. On the day of the winter solstice, the Mei family's "cow baby meal" was held as scheduled. The younger Mei Zhaomacao, Mei Wanhai, and Zheng Menghai (Yang Wenju's son) siblings scrambled to deliver soup to diners. On this day, the visitors, young and old, whether young or weak, add a pot steamed bun to take home after the meal, and more than 100 diners every day...
In the late autumn of 1949, when Wuwei was liberated, Yang Wenju's mother and son were escorted to Wuwei City by li jiancaoji, a lifesaver, on horseback, and finally returned to the embrace of the party organization as they wished.
Four
In August 1994, the 82-year-old Yang Wenju repeatedly instructed Zheng Menghai, the son of the principal of the Shaanxi Provincial Police Academy, to travel thousands of miles to the Xiding Grassland area of Tianzhu to search for the Tibetan elderly who had saved their mother and son. On September 2, 2020, The descendants of Mei Luosang were entrusted by Zheng Menghai, the son of the old Red Army Yang Wen Bureau, to donate a piece of weaving blanket used by Yang Wen Bureau to the collection of the Tianzhu County Museum.
General Qin Tian, a descendant of the Western Route Army, said emotionally after learning of this touching story: "The Li Jiancaoji family selflessly rescued the mother and son of the Red Army, and this kind of love, which transcends religious belief, transcends class, and transcends the nation, is an unparalleled love on earth." It is also a testimony of the Tibetan and Han families, a portrayal of the water conditions of the military and the people, and a song of great national unity through the ages!"