Zhang Shantou, the 1343 Tomb of the Unknown Red Army
On the back mountain of Zhangshantou Village in Wuyi Mountain, Fujian, there are 1343 unnamed Red Army tombs in the depths of more than 200 acres of bamboo forests.
Three blue bricks, one number, and one red ribbon marked a tomb of the Red Army.
Photo by Li Tao
Three blue bricks, one serial number, and one red ribbon signify that a Red Army is resting here.
Zhang Shantou is surrounded by clouds and mist all year round, and weeds and moss have already infested the tombs.
The rustle of rain hitting the bamboo forest is like a song of tragic revolving forever.
The officers and men of the three major squads of the armed police on duty in Nanping Detachment took advantage of the opportunity of recruits to go to the company to organize officers and soldiers to sweep the tombs of the unknown Red Army in Zhangshantou.
Photo by Li Tao
Zhangshantou is located among the lofty mountains of the Wuyi Mountains.
On the eve of Ching Ming Festival, officers and men of the three major teams of the Nanping Detachment of the Fujian Armed Police Force came here to pay their respects.
In the depths of the dense forest, they recite "Lovely China" in unison to cherish the memory of the heroes.
The Nanping Detachment of the Fujian Armed Police Corps recited "Lovely China" in unison.
Photo by Long Tao
"We believe that China must have a glorious bright future... The joy of life will replace the sadness of death, and the bright garden will replace the desolate wasteland!" This is the Chinese revolutionary and military strategist Fang Zhimin in 1935 A fragment of the posthumous work "Lovely China" written in prison.
Zhang Shantou: Every private house is a hospital
Zhangshantou Natural Village, Xiaojiang Village, Yangzhuang Township, Wuyishan City, Nanping City, Fujian Province, is a small mountain village with a history of more than 300 years.
Fang Zhimin, the chairman of the Soviet government of Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi province and the founder of the Red Tenth Army, visited the wounded and the sick during his two visits to Fujian.
Zhao Jianping, a researcher of cultural relics and cultural heritage management of Wuyishan City, was the discoverer of this unnamed Red Army tomb.
According to textual research, in the 1930s, the Red Army Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in North Fujian in the Central Soviet Area existed in Zhangshantou Village for six years and admitted two to three hundred people at one time.
"There have been many battles here, and the people buried in the back mountain are the officers and soldiers of the Red Army and the staff of the Soviet government in the Fujian-Zhejiang-Jiangxi Soviet Area."
The ruins of the Red Army Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in northern Fujian.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Lin Chunyin
"Every house in Zhangshantou was a small hospital at the time; every woman in the house was a caregiver at that time." Zhao Jianping said.
The tombs of the Red Army hidden in the depths of the trees at the back of the village entrance even touched the mind of 66-year-old villager Yang Xuewen.
Yang Xuewen’s grandmother was a member of the Red Army’s laundry team, “I heard from my grandmother that the stretcher team would carry many wounded and sick every day, and their clothes were stained with river water. These Red Army soldiers were still alive in the morning, and they were gone by night. Weeping while wearing clothes; but when we return to the hospital, we have to comfort the wounded of the Red Army."
Zhao Jianping (left) and Yang Xuewen.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Lin Chunyin
"The old man said that in order to protect the family members who sacrificed the Red Army, they did not dare to erect a monument to mark the names of the martyrs." Yang Xuewen said that for 90 years, Zhangshantou villagers regarded the martyrs buried in the unknown tombs as relatives. Every Qingming and Zhongyuan Festival, They are all sacrificed and swept according to the local customs, and they are presented with a handful of rice, a handful of salt, and a stick of incense, "have been guarding the people for three generations."
Every year, according to the customs of the Qingming Festival, the villagers split the bamboo to take the "raw" bamboo slices and stand them in front of the tombs. The bamboo slices are marked with red lacquer numbers and tied with red ribbons.
Villagers patrolled the mountains.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Wu Shengwei
Zhao Jianping believes that these Red Army tombs were built in accordance with local customs, with tomb gates, small altars, and geomantic earth, just like a legion standing on the mountain.
It shows that the villagers’ love for the Red Army, as far as they can, gave the deceased the “dignity of being a human being” and also “the dignity of being a Red Army”.
The reporter went up the mountain twice and met villager Yang Chaolin to visit the tomb.
He and the two village women wrapped a sickle around their waists and held a bundle of "bamboo steles" on their shoulders, and the water mist that filled the mountains wetted their shoes and pants below their knees.
Yang Chaolin said that most of the villagers have moved out, and there are less than 20 permanent residents. "If you can walk, everyone can go up the mountain. This is the tomb of the Red Army."
Zhao Jianping said that there are thousands of tombs of the Red Army. Only Wang Rihua, the director of the Red Army Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Northern Fujian, has inscriptions. There are no other records. Most of them are from other provinces and are younger than the weak. "Family or looking for them for decades, I don’t know that they were buried. Here."
Pan Diyuan: These 1343 heroes are all my grandpas
Pan Diyuan, a native of Yugan in Jiangxi, is the only descendant of the Red Army martyr who has found his relatives in the tombs of the Unknown Soldiers in Zhangshantou.
His grandfather, Pan Ji, may have slept here, and there is no trace to be found.
During the Qingming Festival of 2019, Pan Diyuan came to Zhangshantou and brought back a piece of loess that had been soaked in the blood of his grandfather back to his hometown in Jiangxi.
Armed police officers and soldiers, along with Pan Diyuan, descendant of the Red Army, paid homage to the Red Army martyrs buried in Zhangshantou.
Photo by Li Tao
In the "Revolutionary Martyrs List of Chong'an County, Fujian Province" compiled and printed in 1983, there were only 15 martyrs with surnames, and Pan Ji was one of them.
In 1926, Pan Ji went home for the last time, and there was no news for decades after that.
Until 1998, Pan Diyuan and his father Pan Jiafu read from Fang Zhimin's "Lovely China": "The commander, Comrade Pan Ji, was attacked by an enemy bomb and broke his mouth. He was carried back and died after three days."
Pan Ji became the only one found by relatives among these 1343 unknown martyrs.
However, the "Suotuo Yang" where Pan Ji was sacrificed by Fang Zhimin is different from the Wuyishan dialect. The father and son traveled to Leping and Yushan counties in Jiangxi, Jianyang and Wuyishan in Fujian, seeking relatives for more than 20 years without success.
On the eve of Qingming Festival, Fujian Armed Police officers and soldiers came to visit the grave.
Photo by Long Tao
The father, Pan Jiafu, extinguished his lamp. Before he died, he asked his son to take his grandfather home.
Pan Diyuan "used all possible useful means", participated in the outdoor sports group, and also participated in the blue sky rescue team.
His journey to find relatives once attracted the attention of millions of fellow travellers.
Someone provided clues that "Suotuo Yang" is the "Shaquyang" village not far from Zhangshantou Village.
Accompanied by the officers and soldiers of the three major squads of the Nanping Detachment of the Armed Police, Pan Diyuan came to the Red Army tombs in Zhangshantou. There is no name and no tombstone for the person who slept here. He took a smack of loess and brought it home.
Pan Diyuan, the descendant of the Red Army Pan Ji, went through decades of searching, and finally took a piece of soil back to Jiangxi as the remains of his grandfather.
Photo by Long Tao
"In the vast green mountains, my grandfather's tomb is nowhere to be found." Pan Diyuan said, "These 1343 heroes are my grandfather."
Two tombstones: China today is "Lovely China"
In May 2012, the site of the Red Army Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in northern Fujian was included in the National Revolutionary Site Survey by the Party History Research Office of the CPC Central Committee.
In 2019, Zhangshantou Red Army tombs were included in the eighth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
An 80-centimeter-high stone stele on the mountain is inscribed with "Red Army Tomb", and the lower right corner is marked "Thirty-one Years Standing". The stele has been severely weathered. If it weren't for the villagers to draw red every year, the handwriting is almost difficult to distinguish.
The stone stele of "Red Army Tomb, Trinity Standing" has become an important symbol for determining the tombs of the Red Army Unknown Soldiers in Zhangshantou.
Photo by Long Tao
But at the entrance of the village, a new granite stele has been erected, solemnly, to comfort the heroes of the martyrs.
"Choose a stone that won't be weathered, and choose the most conspicuous place." Zhao Jianping said, to alert the world, "What made the young people back then to throw their heads and shed blood? What made the suffering villagers of the year give their last sacrifice A bowl of rice and a handful of salt?"
Knowing that the armed police officers and soldiers are coming, the villagers waited at the village gate early.
Photo by Long Tao
Since 2016, officers and men of the three major squads of the Nanping Detachment of the Fujian Armed Police Force have guarded these unnamed Red Army tombs and built a Red Army cultural corridor and a party history memorial in the village.
The officers and soldiers forged a deep connection with the villagers, helped to build the Panshan Highway, helped the left-behind children in schools, and made rounds for the villagers.
Lin Yimin, a 30-year-old military doctor, made regular visits and wrote a thick medical file for the villagers.
Worried that the villagers would not be able to read the instructions on the pill box, he specially made a "medical order sheet" with larger fonts for each old man.
The officers and soldiers of the Nanping Detachment of the Armed Police regularly visit the needy people in Zhangshantou every year. The picture shows the military doctor Lin Yimin taking blood pressure.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Lin Chunyin
The picture shows military doctors and hygienists delivering medicines to people in need.
Photo by Long Tao
Shi Maomao, the instructor of the third squadron of the Nanping Detachment of the Fujian Armed Police Force, said that he will follow the footsteps of revolutionary martyrs, inherit the red tradition, and defend today's China.
The officers and soldiers of the Nanping Detachment of the Armed Police paid a visit to the tomb of the unknown Red Army at Zhangshantou. The picture shows the special forces members organizing a revisiting the party oath ceremony in front of the monument.
Photo by Luo Wu
Today’s China is just like what Fang Zhimin expected when he wrote "Lovely China":
"There are active creations everywhere, and progress with each passing day..."
Those unknown tombs in the dense forest,
Become a memory that can never be forgotten.
We don't know who they are, but we know who they are for.
Author: Lin Chun Zhang Lijun Yinwushengwei
Photo Support: Nanping Detachment, Fujian Armed Police Corps