Xinhua News Agency, Nanchang, April 9 (Reporter Yao Ziyun and Li Meijuan) At the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Museum, 67-year-old Li Qiude often led his grandson to visit a brown clay pot containing salt that had turned black and crystallized.
"This jar of salt is our family's heirloom." Li Qiude said.
During the Jinggangshan struggle, in order to trap the Red Army on the mountain, the enemy set up jams at various main roads in an attempt to block the exchange of materials between Jinggangshan and the outside world, especially salt and medicine.
Mao Zedong wrote in "Why China's Red Government Can Exist": "Salt, cloth, medicinal materials and other daily necessities are always in short supply and very expensive." The daily life of soldiers and civilians is "sometimes extremely difficult."
"There is salt and salty, and no salt is weaker."
In the winter of 1928, the Red Army distributed the salt captured by the local tyrants to the villagers.
Li Qiude's grandfather, Li Shangfa, was reluctant to eat the salt and secretly preserved the salt in case the Red Army needed it from time to time.
In order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy, Li Shangfa quietly buried the salt in a tree hole at the back of his house.
"It wasn't until 1959 when the museum was built that my grandfather took out the salt and donated it to the museum." Li Qiude said.
Li Qiude introduced the salt tank donated by his grandfather at the Jinggangshan Revolution Museum (photo by Zhang Huan)
Looking back at that period of history full of suffering, "bringing salt" for the Red Army is not an isolated case.
On January 30, 1929, shortly after the main force of the Fourth Red Army descended to Jinggang Mountain, the Fifth Red Army and the 32nd Regiment of the Fourth Red Army guarding the Jinggangshan base were outnumbered. The five major outposts of the base fell one after another. The Kuomintang army occupied the Jinggangshan base.
After the main force of the Red Army broke through, a small number of the Red Army remained hidden in the mountains, and many of them were wounded and sick.
The Kuomintang army guarded every entrance into the mountain closely.
They rigorously interrogated people who were going to and from the mountains, and imposed capital punishment on all suspects who funded the Red Army, regardless of whether they were men, women, or children.
In an instant, white terror enveloped the entire Jinggangshan area.
In order to solve the problem of the Red Army’s lack of salt, the local people did everything possible to send salt up the mountain—hidden salt in bamboo tubes, baskets, double bucket bottoms, etc., but it is often seen through. The enemy is investigating more and more stringently. The Red Army secretly "brought salt" and was brutally killed.
Nie Huaizhuang, a member of the Women’s Committee of Maoping Township, Jinggangshan, thought of a good way to deliver salt to the Red Army: turn the salt into salt water, and then put a new cotton jacket with very good water absorption in the salt water, and wait until the clothes are fully wet. After it was thoroughly dried, Nie Huaizhuang wore the dried clothes, put on a new coat, and went up the mountain with a bamboo basket containing mountain products, as if she was dressed as a rural woman who went out to walk to her relatives. Passed the inspection and successfully delivered the salt to the Red Army.
However, within a month, Nie Huaizhuang caused the enemy's suspicion by going up the mountain many times. The enemy tortured her and asked the Red Army hideout, but she was unwavering, tight-lipped, and was shot to death by the enemy at the time of sacrifice. She was only 21 years old.
In the movie "Sparkling Red Star", Pan Dongzi soaked his cotton-padded clothes in salt water and cleverly avoided the "Jing Guardian" search.
This plot is created from the deeds of Nie Huai makeup.
The commentator Long Yan in the Jinggangshan Revolution Museum is introducing the story of the ancestors "bringing salt" for the Red Army to the visitors.
(Photo by Zhang Huan)
In the era of war and smoke, there was a lack of medical treatment and medicine. Salt water has also become a disinfectant for the wounded of the Red Army's wounded and sick, which is very precious.
Due to the large-scale siege of Jinggangshan by the Hunan and Jiangxi Kuomintang forces, in January 1929, the main force of the Fourth Red Army attacked southern Jiangxi.
At the time when the mountain was covered by heavy snow, traffic was cut off, and the food was exhausted, Zhang Ziqing was dying of hunger. In addition, the reactionary blockade and the lack of medicine. The bullet embedded in the ankle could not be taken out, causing inflammation of the left leg to the lower abdomen.
In the face of such severe injuries, he still cared about others and gave all the salt allocated to him for food and wound washing on the tissues to the other wounded.
In May 1930, Zhang Ziqing passed away at the Jiaolin Temple in Dongli Village, Yongxin County, at the age of 29.
"In 1978, when several comrades studying party history struggled to find his wife in Hunan, she was still waiting for her husband who had left her for more than 50 years. Looking at the gray-haired widow of the Red Army, everyone present could not cry. "Said Duan Chaoren, the commentator of the Sanwan Adaptation Memorial Hall in Yongxin County.
These stories of "bringing salt" for the Red Army are impressive.
These "salt-carrying" people "speak up" for the truth and the happy life of the people, like the unyielding spring grass, laying the foundation stone for the new China.
(Video reporter: Yu Gang, Liu Bin)