In 1947, an underground party brought members of the New Fourth Army to the villagers' homes.
The mistress of the house, a taciturn peasant woman, looked at the group and felt that one of them was very familiar, and she did not know where she had seen it.
After a moment, it occurred to her that the man seemed to be a member of the homecoming group.
Seeing that another member of the underground party was about to arrive, the peasant woman was anxious, gritted her teeth, and shouted loudly: "Be careful, the person next to you is a member of the homecoming group, he is a spy!"
The peasant woman's cry reached the ears of the underground party members outside the door, and he hurried away from the place, narrowly escaping.
How did this village woman know the members of the homecoming group, and what happened to her?
People's Hero
In 1946, Chen Zhongzhang, the former director of the Seventh District Office, betrayed the revolution and colluded with the local homecoming group.
Before the revolution began, there were landlords and gentry in every region, who took the land into their own hands, leased it to the peasants at high rents, and recovered a portion of the grain after the autumn harvest, leaving only the peasants' rations and seeds for the following year.
In this model, a dead end is formed in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
No matter how hard the peasants worked, they could not change the status quo of poverty, while the landlords could sit back and enjoy the fruits of their work, and the more money they hoarded.
Moreover, there was an unequal relationship between the landlords and the peasants. Most of the landlords had the backing of the Kuomintang, and they did not regard the peasants as human beings and oppressed the people to the extreme.
In this case, a contingent called the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army arose.
It was a contingent created by mass groups such as peasants and workers, who drove out all the landlords and gentry wherever they went, and distributed the land to every peasant.
The people were very grateful and affectionately called them "people's heroes".
The landlords who had been driven out of their hometowns fled to the Kuomintang-ruled areas for refuge, and the Kuomintang gathered them together and provided them with equipment and weapons to form an armed force and return to their hometowns to continue their evil work.
These people gave themselves a high-sounding name, called the "Homecoming Group".
The returnees from different regions would collude with each other, and they would do many evils, which would bring great resistance to the revolutionary cause.
After Chen Zhong and Zhang Tong colluded with the local returnee regiments, they repeatedly launched attacks on local cadres and the masses who were carrying out revolutionary causes. As a result, the revolutionary cause of the seven districts fell into a period of slump and could not progress for a long time.
In order to change the situation, the revolutionary organizations of the 7th district went underground and began to look for the masses who could help them.
After many investigations, they selected a farmer named Xing Chaofu.
Although Xing Chaofu was just an ordinary peasant, his son had died at the gunpoint of the Returning Township Regiment, and he was full of hatred for the Returning Hometown Regiment in his heart, and had repeatedly covered for the members of the organization.
In this way, Comrade Liu Zhizhou, captain of the militia of Shanan Township, took the initiative to find the husband and wife and explained to them their intentions.
Upon learning that the organization intends to develop their home into a secret contact point for the underground party, the husband and wife are overjoyed.
They have always hoped to have the opportunity to join the organization and contribute their modest strength to the revolutionary cause. However, there is no power in the heart, and there is nowhere to repay.
This opportunity was very rare for them, and Xing Chaofu responded to it and began to accept the members of the underground party.
conclave
Before each secret meeting, Liu Zhizhou would inform them one night in advance, so that the husband and wife could prepare everything a day in advance to avoid mistakes.
During meetings, the husband and wife will help stand guard outside. Xing Chaofu's wife, Shen Cuixian, specially bought a lot of bamboo chips and came back, so that she and her husband would sit in the yard and weave bamboo baskets, which would not look so abrupt.
On January 7, 1947, Liu Zhizhou informed the couple that he would meet with another underground party at their house tonight for a secret meeting.
Xing Chaofu responded: "No problem, the two of us will be sentry outside, you just have to have a meeting in the house." ”
It has been snowing heavily these days, and in order to make it easier for the members to come at night, the couple has cleared the snow in front of the door.
Shen Cuixian swept out a clean place in the yard, piled up the prepared bamboo chips, and began to make a fire to cook.
The husband counted: "Every time you do it, everyone has no time to eat." ”
Shen Cuixian ignored him, silently added firewood to the fire, and said after a while: "On such a cold day, even if you don't eat, you have to drink some hot water, you have the kung fu to grind your mouth, it is better to dig two more shovels of tunnels." ”
The husband and wife have been arguing and shouting for a lifetime, and this level of bickering is almost habitual.
By the time the two of them finished their work, it was already close to evening. At this time, Liu Zhizhou should have arrived, but today until nightfall, the husband and wife couldn't see his figure.
Liu Zhizhou stood at the door and kept looking out, muttering in his mouth: "Why haven't you come yet? Isn't there something delayed on the road?"
Shen Cuixian said with relief: "Wait a minute, Captain Liu has always been trustworthy, and he will inform us of anything." ”
"Also, it's getting colder and colder, so let's go inside and wait. ”
The husband and wife returned to the house and set up a fire.
After a while, Xing Chaofu heard a rustling sound outside the door, and he stood up and looked out of the window.
There were a few people standing at the gate of the courtyard, except for the militia Mao Fengming who was the leader, the rest were all eye-catching people.
"Isn't that coming. ”
Xing Chaofu hurriedly put on his coat and planned to go out to open the door for them.
As soon as he grasped the doorknob, he felt someone behind him pull him hard, almost pulling him down.
"What are you doing here? Comrade Xiaomao is still waiting for us to open the door, what's the matter with people freezing outside on a cold day. ”
Shen Cuixian didn't speak, her eyebrows were twisted, and she stared at the group of people outside the door.
Xing Chaofu had never seen his wife like this, and he was startled by her, so he didn't dare to make a sound, and looked in the direction where her line of sight was.
"What's wrong? Who did you see?"
Shen Cuixian's expression became more and more solemn, and the wind and snow were mixed, making the faces of several people outside the house very blurred. She couldn't be sure if she recognized the wrong person, and said in a low voice: "Do you see the one standing behind Xiao Mao, does it look like Ji Chenglai?"
Heroic righteousness
Hearing this name, Xing Chaofu's fists instantly clenched.
When their son died tragically at the gunpoint of the homecoming group, he wrote down everyone's faces and names, just to take revenge one day.
Originally, Xing Chaofu hadn't paid attention to it, but after being reminded by his wife, he also felt that the person looked like a member of the homecoming group.
"Old torturer! Hurry up and open the door for us! It's so cold that people can't stand it. ”
Mao Fengming shouted outside the hospital. Seeing this, Shen Cuixian pushed her husband: "Maybe we are mistaken, let's go open the door for them first, and act later when the opportunity comes." ”
Xing Chaofu nodded, and hurriedly ran to open the door: "I'm sorry Comrade Xiaomao, it's too warm in the house, I accidentally fell asleep." ”
Mao Fengming led people into the courtyard, looked for a sheltered place, patted the snow on his body, pointed to a few people behind him and said: "These are the soldiers of our New Fourth Army, have you heard of the New Fourth Army? ”
Hearing this, suspicion rose in Xing Chaofu's heart. He didn't say anything about Liu Zhizhou not coming, how did Mao Fengming know?
Could it be that Captain Liu is delayed on the road because of them?
In Xing Chaofu's mind, many thoughts flashed in an instant. It's almost certain that there's something wrong with the guy in front of you. He invited everyone to wait for someone to come to the house while the fire was cooking, but they refused without thinking, and they all waited for them, staring nervously at the gate of the courtyard.
Xing Chaofu was suspicious in his heart, and he glanced at his wife. has been a husband and wife for many years, and there is still a tacit understanding of this, Shen Cuixian immediately understood, and went to the kitchen to bring out a few bowls of hot soup.
"Comrades braved the snow to come, everyone has worked hard, drink a bowl of hot soup to warm up. ”
Several "soldiers of the New Fourth Army" You look at me, I look at you, and no one answered.
Seeing this, Shen Cuixian forcibly stuffed the soup bowl into Mao Fengming's hand: "This is chicken soup that has been simmering for several hours, and it will be wasted if you don't drink it, I know that you have strict military discipline and can't take the things of the common people." Comrade Xiaomao, can you give everyone a head and help your sister-in-law taste this soup?"
At this point, Mao Fengming couldn't refuse, so he could only accept the bowl of chicken soup.
Seeing this, the rest of the people no longer shirked, and Shen Cuixian just took the opportunity to hand over the chicken soup to carefully look at the appearance of the person in front of her.
When she saw the scar under this person's eyes, she was almost immediately sure that this person was Ji Chenglai. She resisted the urge to scream and shuddered back the soup bowl.
It's a pity that her actions fell in Ji Chenglai's eyes, and the other party knew that she was recognized, and a fierce look flashed in her eyes.
"Wait a minute, sister-in-law, have we met somewhere?"
Hearing this, Shen Cuixian knew that she was exposed, and in an instant, she had already made a choice. She threw the bowl on the ground, pointed at Ji Chenglai and exclaimed: "Xiao Mao, this person is not a soldier of the New Fourth Army, he is a member of the Returning Home Regiment!"
At this time, Liu Zhizhou hurried over, and happened to hear this exclamation outside the hospital, so he hurriedly stopped and quickly evacuated the scene.
Seeing that the matter was revealed, Mao Fengming no longer disguised himself, revealing his fierce side. He grabbed the husband and wife and tied them together, tortured them to extract confessions, and tried to ask Liu Zhizhou's whereabouts.
No matter how they were treated, the couple always gritted their teeth and did not disclose any news.
The night passed, seeing that he couldn't ask anything, Liu Zhizhou didn't go to the appointment, presumably because he leaked the news. Mao Fengming was so angry that he dragged the scarred husband and wife to the yard.
A little blood splashed on the snow, and the husband and wife bravely took up justice and covered the members of the underground party with their lives.
In that era, there were many grassroots heroes like Xing Chaofu and Shen Cuixian, who came from ordinary backgrounds and were unknown little people, and some even failed to leave their names in the long river of history.
However, it is such a small person who has written a great revolutionary chapter with their ordinary lives.