"Little Carrot Head" Song Zhenzhong's Short and Bright Eight-year Life
His name is Sensen, he was born in Xi'an, and his ancestral home is Pizhou, Jiangsu.
His father Song Qiyun and mother Xu Linxia were both cadres of the Pixian County Party Committee of the Communist Party of China.
After the "April 12" counter-revolutionary coup, Song Qiyun and Xu Linxia arrived in Xi'an to continue their revolutionary work as underground party members, propagating the idea of anti-Japanese and national salvation.
After participating in a series of activities such as the Xi'an Incident and drafting the "Eight Proposals for Anti-Japanese and Saving the Country" to force Jiang to resist Japan, Song Qiyun was arrested and imprisoned in 1941. In the winter of the same year, Xu Linxia and Song Zhenzhong, who was only 8 months old at the time, were also arrested.
After that, the family moved to prisons and concentration camps in Chongqing and Guizhou, and one prisoner lasted nearly 8 years.
On September 6, 1949, Song Zhenzhong and his parents were killed by Kuomintang agents on the Songlin slope under the Gele Mountain in Chongqing. He was only 8 years old and became the youngest martyr in New China.
On June 29th, Song Zhenhua took out photos of his parents and younger brother at his home in Zhengzhou and recalled the story of that year.
Song Zhenhua's collection of photos of his parents and young brother Sensen.
On July 6th, at the Hongyan Soul Exhibition Hall in Chongqing, a pupil salutes the Young Pioneers in front of the Little Carrot Head Statue.
Little Turnip was only eight and a half years old when he died in Geleshan, Chongqing. At that time, he had lived in prison for more than 7 years, only 24 days after the founding of New China.
Like his parents and many revolutionaries, he failed to see the founding of New China and the liberation of Chongqing.
In the dark and damp cell of the White Mansion in Geleshan, Chongqing, the little turnip once wrote "Brother, Sister" on the back of the home book while holding a half of a pencil. He also used his thin hands to hold the bars of the cell and stand on tiptoe. Looking at the mountains in the distance, news and intelligence of the CCP’s underground party organization have been passed on in each cell.
The eldest brother Song Zhenhua remembered their sacrifices in his heart and carried them on his back. He picked up photos of his parents and younger brother countless times, and told the stories he had heard from the elderly, and told them to future generations for decades.
On the eve of July 1 this year, at Song Zhenhua's home in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, he rubbed the photos of his parents and young brothers, and once again told the Beijing News reporter about this history.
September 6, 2021 is the 72nd anniversary of the sacrifice of Little Turnip Head.
More than 70 years have passed, and generations of people will remember that there was a youngest martyr in New China. He was named Xiaoluotou and his name was Song Zhenzhong.
The last reunion
The bomber with the "plaster flag" hovered overhead, the ear-piercing air defense sirens sounded, and people rushed towards the air-raid shelter with shouts.
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Xi'an was frequently bombarded by Japanese troops.
In the memory of Song Zhenhua’s son, Song Zhenhua, it was too late to bring too many things when he "ran the alarm". One person took something to eat and one or two pieces of clothing. It's three to five miles away.
When I came back, the streets were devastated, and people peeled away the rubble of the mud wall and called their loved ones' names over and over again...
Later, when he "ran the alarm", there was an extra baby in the mother's arms.
In the spring of 1941, Xiaoluotou was born in Xi'an with a small name of Sensen, with six siblings on it, the youngest child in the family.
Although the war was raging outside, it was also Song Zhenhua's most memorable family reunion day.
His father Song Qiyun was the president of Northwest Culture Daily, and he had guards with him and hired a nanny to take care of the children.
Song Zhenhua had meat in his life before the age of 7, "Even if the main ingredient is ordinary Chinese cabbage, there are at least two or three large pieces of meat on the plate, fat, with skin."
The young Song Zhenhua was not very clear about the identity of his parents, but he recalled that at that time he had already learned about his father's "revolution".
When Song Zhenhua was six or seven years old, Song Zhenhua was arranged to "release the wind" outside the restaurant opened at home. His father told him that if he saw strangers wandering around repeatedly, he should immediately go back and tell the adults.
"Once I saw a person wearing sunglasses and a long gown approaching, it felt wrong. I ran back and told my father that there was a'bad guy', but it didn't take long for the person to be in front of my father. The adults laughed and told me That is the'owner'."
This restaurant is the party’s underground liaison station and a "communication line" covering the connection between Yang Hucheng and the Red Army.
In June 1933, the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army and the Seventeenth Route Army led by Yang Hucheng formally signed a secret agreement on "Bashan as a boundary, non-aggression against each other, uniting the Communist Party against Chiang, and jointly resisting Japan".
As a result, a "red line of communication" was opened up. In the following two years, medicines, newspapers, weapons and other materials needed by the Red Army were continuously transported to the base area through this line of communication, and it was never exposed.
After the Eighth Route Army established an office in Xi'an, this dark line is still in operation.
The Fourth Red Army was able to take this opportunity to develop and grow, from 10,000 people when entering Sichuan to 80,000 people, becoming an important armed force to ensure the victory of the Red Army’s Long March and the War of Resistance against Japan and the War of Liberation.
One of the people who contributed to Yang Hucheng's signing of this alliance with the Communist Party was Song Qiyun.
He is a graduate of Huangpu Sixth Term. He was the secretary of the Pixian County Party Committee of the Communist Party of China in Jiangsu Province. He was also a "united front worker" who joined Yang Hucheng as an organization.
"Every time my father goes home, it won't take long for a lot of people to come to the house to gather together for a meeting and talk about something secretly." Several people use mahjong as a cover. Once a stranger approaches, the mahjong table will snap. Song Zhenhua didn't know why, but stood in front of him and learned a lot of card-playing skills.
Until now, the 88-year-old can still imitate the actions of his father and uncles rubbing cards at the time, "knock it down," he said with a smile, "when he was just taller than the table, he knew this kind of authentic play. Law."
The national salvation event is planned at this poker table.
But the undercurrent surged, and the invisible danger approached quietly.
Arrest and separation
On December 12, 1936, the Xi'an Incident broke out.
The newspapers of Xi'an City ceased publication. Only the "Northwest Culture Daily" was out of the issue. As the president, Song Qiyun led all employees to the streets and distributed newspapers.
In fact, Song Qiyun was also the drafter of the "Eight Proposals for Anti-Japanese and National Salvation," and his party status was a member of the Northwest Special Branch of the Communist Party of China.
After the Xi'an Incident was settled peacefully, the incident temporarily subsided on the surface, but Song Qiyun has been in peril.
Song Zhenhua later heard that at that time, Yang Hucheng suggested that his father study abroad, but he did not leave.
At the beginning of 1937, Yang Hucheng was forced to go abroad. The Seventeenth Route Army was reorganized into the Fourth Army. Song Qiyun became a major general and held cadre training classes in the army to promote anti-Japanese and national salvation ideas and policies.
Song Zhenhua remembered that his father went home less and less since then until he was arrested in September 1941.
That day, Song Qiyun was tricked into returning home from the front line in Shanxi by a telegram stating that there was an urgent matter at home. After arriving home, she noticed that something was wrong and immediately wanted to leave.
"Father did not eat or drink until he got home for a day and a night. My mother said,'I will cook you a meal, and you will leave after eating.' He hugged Sensen and went out." Then, Song Zhenhua watched two strange men enter. Own courtyard gate.
This is a scene that still makes Song Zhenhua feel painful in retrospect. "Father is not like seeing off guests in the past. He has a serious expression and his arms seem to be sandwiched between two people. When I see, why is he still wearing slippers on his feet? Run into the room and slip the shoes out for him to change them."
When the father was taken out of the hospital, the mother came back with Sensen in his arms. She did not speak and watched Song Qiyun being taken in the carriage and leaving.
The Song family began to become "turbulent".
At that time, they had moved their family to Puyang Village, twenty to thirty kilometers away from Xi’an. Among the seven children, Song Zhenhua’s eldest sister and third sister were sent back to their hometown in Jiangsu before, leaving only the second sister and a pair of younger siblings, and Sensen who hasn't been weaned yet.
Xu Linxia hugged Sensen to inquire about her husband in Xi'an almost every day.
She and Song Qiyun met in 1928 and moved to Jiangsu and Shaanxi in the following 13 years. They are the closest couples and "comrades" fighting side by side.
For this reason, when someone said two months later that "President Song is going to Chongqing and he wants you to bring some clothes to him", Xu Linxia knew that it might be a trap, or he went there without hesitation.
"I have to save your dad." Song Zhenhua couldn't understand the decisiveness in her mother's eyes at the time, but only remembered her saying, "Even if it's a fire pit, I have to jump."
When they parted, the children took turns hugging the 8-month-old Sensen, watching their mother hug their younger brother farther and farther.
"At that time, I vaguely knew that my mother would probably be away a bit longer this time."
A group of children who were no more than 12 years old then parted with their parents one after another.
From then on, the various experiences of parents and young brothers can only be pieced together from the scattered narratives of others.
Home Letters and Messages of Condolence
"When I first met at Xifeng Concentration Camp in Guizhou, Sensen and his mother were kept together in a damp dark room with no sunlight. He grew up in such an environment." This is "Hongyan" Zhonghua Ziliang. The prototype of Han Zidong wrote in his memoirs.
Han Zidong was an underground party member who broke into the KMT spy organization in the early days. In 1936, he was secretly arrested for betrayal by a traitor. In August 1947, he escaped from the White Mansion and became the only revolution who successfully escaped from Chongqing in August 1947. By.
With the publication of "Red Rock", "Little Carrot Head" appeared in the public eye together with the names of Jiang Jie, Xu Yunfeng, Hua Ziliang and other underground revolutionaries of the CCP.
Li Bitao, 86 years old this year, is the only one who is still alive among the witnesses of the little carrot head in the Chongqing White Mansion.
She recalled that the first time she saw Sensen was in October 1947.
She was only 12 years old at the time and was arrested with her parents. Sensen took the initiative to talk to her and comfort her, "Sister, don't be sad."
In the same female cell, there are five pairs of mother and child (female), including her and her mother, Sensen and Xu Linxia. The cell is dark and closed, with a musty smell and a smell of urine, making it difficult to breathe.
The food is moldy and smelly. "There is rice mixed with mouse feces. I will give some pickles in the morning, a small amount of vegetable leaves at noon, and nothing at night." Li Bitao described, "It will definitely not starve you to death, but I must not be full."
Sensen grew up from 8 months to 8 years old in a similar environment.
Because of chronic malnutrition, he was short and thin, and his small limbs made his head look extraordinarily large, so he was called "little turnip head."
In the few years that Song Qiyun and Xu Linxia took them to Chongqing Baigongguan, Zhazidong and Xifeng Concentration Camp in Guizhou, the remaining 6 children were also living in their own hardships.
Song Zhenhua first learned that his parents and younger brother were still alive for the first time in 1947.
It was a handwritten letter from my father from Ciqikou, Chongqing. In the letter, my father asked, "Are you all okay?"
"I'm so excited." Song Zhenhua said, the whole family surrounded the second sister, and she wrote to her father in reply.
In addition, the 4 siblings, cousin and cousin also went to the photo studio to take a photo.
"The original version of this photo is four inches in size and small." Now, looking at the group photo, Song Zhenhua vaguely remembered the scene at the time. "Don't look at the photos of us who were neatly and decently dressed. In fact, the lower body was not captured by the camera. The pants were so bad that they were all patches. I really didn’t have the money to buy full-length clothes, but I wanted my parents to look at the photos and know that we were doing well.”
According to the father’s letter, they sent the letter and photos to a person surnamed Huang in Ciqikou at the foot of Gele Mountain in Chongqing.
A few months later, in the second letter, my father wrote, "Mom shed tears after reading it." Song Zhenhua recalled. What surprised them even more was that there were four words written in pencil on the back of the second letter. Brother, sister".
The communication went on and off for more than a year, and the last one was around the Spring Festival in 1949.
That time it was my mother Xu Linxia who wrote the letter. She said, "Your father and Uncle Yang (Yang Hucheng) have already taken a plane to Guiyang, and we have to leave tomorrow. I am writing this letter, and our communication has been temporarily interrupted. "The letter was skewed and overlapped, and Xu Linxia explained that "has bad eyes."
Song Zhenhua later learned that the long-term prison life coupled with the inquiries and torture of the secret agents had made her mother seriously ill. Not only was her eyes blind, her legs were swollen and she could barely walk.
After this letter, they disconnected again.
Song Zhenhua didn't think about it, and then learned the news of his parents and Sensen through a telegram of condolences.
On December 16, 1949, a message of condolence from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to the family of General Yang Hucheng was published in a newspaper. The content read: "Surprised to learn that General Yang Hucheng was secretly killed by KMT gangsters in Chongqing Prison. General Yang’s wife and second son Yang Zhengzhong, secretary Song Qiyun The couple and others were also brutally murdered one after another, and they were extremely angry."
"It can be said that my world has collapsed." Song Zhenhua cried loudly. The 16-year-old is studying at Northwest Military and Political University. "The purpose of entering the military academy is to rescue his parents and Sensen one day and avenge them. The news of their murder made my hopes completely. Failed."
Song Qiyun, Xu Linxia and his youngest son Song Zhenzhong were secretly killed on the pine forest slope of Gele Mountain in Chongqing.
It was September 6, 1949, 24 days before the founding of New China.
Little trafficman in the underground party in prison
The prison cells and concentration camps failed to completely seal off underground work.
When Song Qiyun was in the Xifeng concentration camp, she was absorbed into the "secret branch of the CCP in prison" and carried out secret instigation of rebellion and internal Party ideological dissemination in prisons and concentration camps.
The Hongyan Soul Exhibition Hall in Chongqing contains a long letter of more than 1,400 words called "Preface to Send Hanzhang to Jinling" by Song Qiyun.
Wang Hao, deputy research librarian of the Cultural Development and Management Center of Chongqing Hongyan Lianxian Cultural Development Management Center, said that the letter was written in 1947. The Hanzhang classmate mentioned in the letter was Song Qiyun’s friend in Baigongguan Prison, Mei Hanzhang, and he was also Huangpu. A graduate of the military academy was arrested for organizing the "Young Generals and School Corps" against Chiang and detained in a room diagonally opposite Song Qiyun in the White Mansion.
Wang Hao said that according to the recollections of the released personnel, Song Qiyun believed that the six “young generals” involved in the case, including Mei Hanzhang, would be released sooner or later and might return to the battlefield of the KMT-CPC confrontation. This article was written to encourage Mei Hanzhang to follow the Communist Party's revolutionary road after he was released from prison.
"After Mei Hanzhang and others were released from prison, they really fulfilled their vows on that day." Wang Hao said. Mei Hanzhang helped instigate the Jiangyin Fortress artillery uprising and made contributions to the smooth crossing of the river by the People's Liberation Army. Served as a counselor of the People's Government of Jiangsu Province.
Mei Hanzhang mentioned in his memoirs that the little turnip head, who was only 6 years old at the time, played an important role in delivering "Preface to Send Hanzhang to Jinling". "On the morning of late March (1947), Song Martyrs took advantage of the secret agent When he was away, he sent his son Zhenzhong to my cell... He took out this preface from his waistband and handed it to me..."
As one of the few people in the White Mansion who can walk around freely, Xiaoluotou became a traffic officer for the party organization in prison.
According to historical records, shortly after he moved from Xifeng concentration camp to Bai Mansion, he helped Chen Ran, the special branch secretary of the "Advance News" of the Chongqing Underground Party of the CCP who was imprisoned here, to get in touch with the party organization and extracted the news from the patriotic general Huang Xiansheng. They were provided to Chen Ran, and after a simple compilation and distribution by him, the small pieces of paper with the news were sent to each cell.
These small pieces of paper later became known as the "Prison Advance".
Huang Xiansheng, one of the founders of the Northeast Volunteer Army, is the teacher of Xiaoluotou.
As early as in the Xifeng concentration camp, the secret party organization exchanged hunger strikes and strikes for Sensen to get an education in prison.
"Uncle Huang taught him to study geography and read maps. Although he had never been out, he knew Sichuan Province, Chongqing City, and the place where we stayed called Bai Mansion." Li Bitao recalled.
Li Bitao remembered that Little Carrot usually took a pencil and straw paper to class with Huang Xiansheng in the morning, and used nails to write homework on the ground in the afternoon. After finishing writing, he copied it onto the straw paper with a pencil and handed it to Huang Xiansheng the next day.
The Chinese textbook "My Brother "Little Carrot Head"" tells this story. The author is the second sister of Little Carrot Head, Song Zhensu. She also wrote an article about her parents.
In 1964, after reading the newspaper article, Mei Hanzhang contacted Song Zhensu and handed over to the children of the Song family the "Preface to Send Hanzhang to Jinling" handwritten by Song Qiyun.
Mei Hanzhang once commented on Song Qiyun as “the temperament is calm and courageous, he is humble and enthusiastic towards others, and has the honest and honest style of the elderly”.
On November 30, 1949, Chongqing was liberated.
Song Qiyun, Xu Linxia and Song Zhenzhong were regarded as revolutionary martyrs.
The 8-year-old "Little Turnip Head" became the youngest martyr in New China.
"Little carrot head is worthy of being a child trained by the party. At such a young age, he knows to help adults pass information and knows to keep it secret." Han Zidong called this child his "old comrade".
Find and miss
Song Zhenhua could not outline the specific appearance of the youngest brother, and for a long time, he could not understand how his younger brother grew from 8 months to 8 years old in a dark cell.
He only knew that the 8-year-old, just like their parents, "has made dedication for the sake of a stable country for future generations."
He carried this dedication to himself.
After graduating from Northwest Military and Political University in 1950, Song Zhenhua volunteered to join the army to guard the border and was assigned to the Xinjiang Military Region as a interpreter.
He always carried a gun, a bottle of gasoline and a box of matches with him. “In the event of an accident, burn the codebook first, and he will never give himself a chance to be captured.” A few years later, he decided again. In rural areas, Yutian and Pishan counties in the Hotan area, and Moshan Mountain in the Korla area have left his footprints.
"It's better to go wherever you suffer. You have to give something in your life." Song Zhenhua explained his behavior in this way.
In 1963, Song Zhenhua, as an outstanding representative of Southern Xinjiang Construction, was invited to Beijing to watch the National Day military parade.
Recalling that day, standing on the Tiananmen Gate, he held his head high and proud, thinking in his heart, "This must be what my parents want to see."
On the National Day that year, the six children of the Song family were finally reunited in Beijing.
They separated since childhood, scattered around the world, and some have never even met.
When the second brother Song Zhenyong recalled the meeting, he said, "Everyone, like freshmen enrolling in school, first report their names and introduce their experiences over the years."
Since then, the six brothers and sisters began to look for old friends of their parents, prison survivors, and even the KMT spies who were instigated. They pieced together the 8-year prison life of their parents and young brothers bit by bit.
On this tracing trail, they listened to the old man, and at the same time told the story of the heroes to future generations.
Nowadays, the deeds of "Little Carrot Head" have long been well-known. The Gele Mountain Pine Forest Slope where he was killed has become a red education base, where statues of Song Qiyun, Xu Linxia and his wife and Little Carrot Head stand.
On the neck of the little radish head, there are layers of bright or faded red scarves.
(For some information, please refer to "Hongyan Spring and Autumn", "Magic Cave", "Recalling My Brother "Little Carrot Head")
A12-A13 edition writing, photography/Beijing News reporter Zhang Jingshu