Enshi is my second hometown.
Many of the leaders of the Enshi region at that time were named Wang; Wang Jue, Wang Baomin, Wang Zongtian, and Wang Kuanzhong; the main leader transferred later was named Wang Libin; the director of the Enshi Regional Science and Technology Commission where I worked was named Wang Guangyi, and the director of the regional broadcasting bureau was named Wang Guangyi.
Badong Yesanguan, 1,700 meters above sea level, is located in a mountainous area. Due to inconvenient transportation and the fact that the Japanese have never been here, the Japanese pirates only came to Yichang.
There was an airport at that time, and there were two Soviet-style Il-18 aircraft flying opposite each other, namely Wuhan to Enshi and Enshi to Wuhan. It was the early to mid-1970s, and the flight fare was 33 yuan, and there was only one flight a day. The plane can accommodate 30 people. All need to fly to Yichang to land and refuel before flying. It is said that this was Premier Zhou's special plane in the 1950s. To buy air tickets, you only need a letter of introduction from an organization above the regiment level and the official seal to queue up to buy a ticket. It is difficult to get a ticket. Although I am a worker at the Measurement Institute of a subordinate unit of the Science and Technology Commission, the Science and Technology Commission only has Wang Ke, Su Yonglin, and Xiao Jun. , Luo (someone), accountant Zhou, and several people. In addition, it was the scientific spring (1975), and there were many meetings to attend. I was often sent by the Science and Technology Committee to Wuhan for meetings, and I had to take a plane, otherwise I would not be able to catch up with the meeting. Of course, my monthly salary is 32 yuan, which is the salary of a first-level worker (it takes three years of service to become a first-level worker).
It takes three days to drive from Enshi to Wuhan. It takes nearly four days to get to Badong by boat; many older people are unwilling to fly, so I have the opportunity to take multiple flights to and from Wuhan to attend meetings.
In 1975, all the employees of the Measurement Institute under the Enshi Science and Technology Commission, the author is first on the right
The prosperous Wuyangba and Commercial Street 2nd Street in the urban area of Enshi are connected by a small Qingjiang Bridge. Wufeng Mountain is the largest mountain in the main urban area of Enshi. Martyr He Gongwei, secretary of the Hubei Provincial Special Committee, is buried on Wufeng Mountain. On the eve of liberation, the Hubei Provincial Special Working Committee was located in Enshi. Due to betrayal by a traitor, He Gongwei, secretary of the Provincial Special Committee, was captured. A heroic sacrifice...; the underground party organization was destroyed. At that time, there was a novel " Qingjiang Zhuangge", which described the touching deeds of the Hubei Provincial Secret Service Committee's battle of wits and courage with the enemy in Enshi and the revolutionary martyrs who welcomed the liberation. The author's name is Ma Shitu, who was the chairman of Chinese Writers Association , 106 years old this year. At that time, this book and many other books were classified as banned books. I managed to obtain this book under the guidance of Zhao Wei, the son of a local newspaper cadre.
The author (middle) and his comrades Li Chaoying and Chen Ping were near Wufeng Mountain before joining the army.
Wufeng Mountain also has the tomb of Zhang Guangcai, the founding general of the People's Republic of China. He was an old Red Army veteran and served as military commander, military political commissar, etc. during the Red Army period. In 1949, in the early days of national liberation, he served as the deputy political commissar of the Hubei Military Region, and Li Xiannian served as the political commissar. In 1955, the Wuhan Military Region was established, and the Hubei Military Region was abolished; he served as the first deputy political commissar of the Wuhan Military Region, and the political commissar was the king! In the late 1960s, he was transferred from the Wuhan Military Region to Enshi, where he was said to have served as the second political commissar of the military region; he died of illness in 1970 at the age of 70! Only a few years ago, the tomb was moved from Enshi Wufeng Mountain to the Wuhan Jiufeng Mountain Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery!
Deputy Political Commissar of the Wuhan Military Region Zhang Guangcai (first from right), and Deputy Commander Kong Qingde
I remember my father took me to stand at the entrance of a long row of bungalows in the Orange Forest Park at the foot of Wufeng Mountain in Enshi. I realized that this was General Zhang Guangcai’s house during his lifetime, with a yellow exterior The wall is so eye-catching that it can be clearly seen from the other side of the river! The reason why my father stood in the former residence of the general was not only because the old general had passed away five or six years ago, but also because the old general Zhang Guangcai had been his father's leader for many years; in the Hubei Military Region, his father was the security brigade captain, and in the Wuhan Military Region, his father was the security brigade captain. Captain, deputy section chief and section chief of the Security Section; responsible for the security generals! Of course, he is also responsible for guarding General Zhang Guangcai...!
In 1967, my father (first from the left) and the secretaries of the military region chief.
There is a Houshan Bay not far from Enshi Second Street. It is said that General Ye Ting once imprisoned Houshan Bay, and then moved to the suburbs, and then transferred out of Enshi. I remember I had seen the cave cell where General Ye Ting was imprisoned. It looked similar to the cave dwellings in Shaanxi, with an iron door locked, but the difference was that it was very dark and damp.The brutal crimes committed by the Kuomintang agents are extremely abhorrent!
The Enshi Military Division has an independent battalion. Several hundred people in this battalion ensure and maintain regional security. That year, there were gun snatching incidents and several criminal cases of killing cadres of the commune's armed department; the independent battalion rushed to Jianshi County in Jianshi County at night, and with the cooperation of the local militia and armed forces, after several days of searching the mountain, they eliminated this group of seven or eight people. Gun gang organization. I remember that everyone was very nervous at the time, calling these gun-wielding murderers bandits, and it was said that they were the last few people who fled deep into the mountains of Lichuan, , under the leadership of the Kuomintang Song Xilian. I just remember the people on the bank of Qingjiang and the Second Street lined the streets to welcome the independent battalion troops who returned in victory! I remember that the battalion commander’s surname was Li, and the deputy battalion commander’s name was Lian Dacheng.
My father wore military uniforms and some of them in civilian clothes were from the independent battalion.
I still remember that the largest factory in Enshi was called "Guangxing Factory". The factory was relocated from Wuhan. Many people were from Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang; I studied in this factory. After a while, my master's name was Xiao Daoqiu, who was also from Wuhan. Master Xiao knew that my chess level was good, so he specially introduced Master Chen Ji from Guangxing Factory to play chess with me. He was from Ningbo .
Discussing with comrades
I went to the countryside twice, once in Xuan'en County Representative Regional Office (the old name of the regional government) for disease prevention and treatment, focusing on syphilis and other infectious diseases. Another time I went to a rural area in the deep mountains and old forests at the junction of Jianshi County and Badong County. We were one of hundreds of work teams jointly dispatched by the regional prefectural committee. Our work team consisted of three people. The leader’s surname was Zhang. , joined the army in 1955 and was one of the first batch of demobilized cadres in 1975; a native of Henan, he was placed as section chief in the regional urban construction and planning bureau; the other person, surnamed Feng, was the captain of the regional geological and mining bureau, a native of Shanghai, and lost one eye in an accident . The three-person working group took a half-day bus to the junction of Badong and Jianshi counties, and then walked for half a day on the mountain road to reach the mountain village. The landlord enthusiastically arranged food and accommodation, wooden houses and ventilation; The children have almost no clothes to wear. Whoever goes to plow the fields wears trousers. They are so poor that it is heartbreaking! There are two meals a day, porridge made with rice flour at nine o'clock in the morning, and potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice flour and rice in the afternoon. According to the landlord, he had never been to the county town. He would go to the town (called a commune at the time) every month to exchange some salt, noodles and other food, and then put them on his back and carry them home. I walked many times along the narrow paths leading to my landlord’s house. Many of the easier paths were paved with stone monuments. I wore the fashionable “Beijing cloth shoes” with plastic soles at the time, and I made a gentle sound when walking alone on the stone monuments. Echoing among the orchids in the empty valley, I always think of the footsteps of someone behind me and keep looking back, and I better understand the meaning of Wang Anshi's words "There are monuments to pave the way."
The junction of Badong County and Jianshi County
In the blink of an eye, the Enshi area was changed to Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture more than 30 years ago; it is a development area of the national western development strategy. The wealthy Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture has two high-speed railway lines and many highways. The winding mountain roads in the past have been replaced by direct tunnels, and one flat road after another appears in the eight counties of Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture. Life in many places makes it hard to imagine being without clothes, or being unable to enter the county town for generations. That kind of scene will be gone forever!
A corner of the main road in Yesanguan, a small town in Badong County
Good mountains and rivers, good people are even better, beautiful mountains and rivers and beautiful people are even more beautiful. It should be very appropriate to describe Enshi, my second hometown!
People in small towns
There are many such hospitality restaurants in small towns
