Two days have passed since the long-awaited October 1st. It has become an unforgettable page in the history of the Republic. Since the morning of October 1st, my heart has always been in excitement. As a veteran , what I am most looking forward to is the military parade in front of Tiananmen Square, because the rows of square formations, which are like steel poured into iron, best represent the style of Chinese soldiers, and can also show the world the spiritual outlook of Chinese soldiers.
Under the gaze of hundreds of millions of pairs of eyes, their sonorous and powerful steps and tall and straight heroic posture only marched in front of Tiananmen for a few minutes, but I know that each of them has made sacrifices for these few minutes that are unimaginable to ordinary people. persistent efforts.
These comrades marching past Tiananmen with their heads held high reminded me once again of what I saw and heard during the interview at the Parade Village twenty years ago before the 50th anniversary of the National Day.
The military parade village that time was located in Shahe, north of the capital. This is a military airport with a wide view. Since the beginning of March, its flat concrete runway has no longer been seen taking off and landing aircraft. Instead, it has been occupied by rows of teams practicing goose-stepping. This became the somewhat mysterious Daqing military parade village for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
There are more than a dozen parade formations from more than a dozen military services stationed in the parade village. They wear military uniforms of different colors, but they march in the same size; they hold weapons of different performance, but they live in the same standard of low-rise uniforms. Tin houses; they eat meals of different standards, but are thinking about the same goal: striving for first place and creating the best.
However, it is very difficult for anyone to take the first place here, because they are all equally outstanding, equally flawless, and are all strictly selected from the cream of the crop. If we say No. 1, they can all be regarded as veritable No. 1. They all represent their respective arms, and no one can replace the other.
Why is the parade village called a village? No one has ever answered my question, which is not a problem. Maybe it’s because there are Olympic Village and Asian Games Village. In the parade village, I also felt a high-spirited fighting spirit. The strong sense of honor to win glory for the country, the troops, and relatives permeates every corner of the parade village all the time.
Before October 1, 1999, this place was always a military restricted area, making it difficult for ordinary people to set foot. However, after October 1st, the village ceased to exist, and there was no secret to keep. As a reporter who had been granted early access to interviews, I wrote many inspiring reports on the training in the Parade Village. Those were undoubtedly from the Parade Village. Main theme. During the two days of limited interview time, while reporting on the topic, I also recorded some short stories outside of the topic. These stories can be regarded as another valuable gain from my visit to the military parade village.
Eating in the Parade Village
In the Parade Village, there are many taboos about eating and drinking. These taboos are different from ordinary rural customs, but are written in the books as strict discipline. For example, they are not allowed to eat cold vegetables, leftovers, raw water, colored drinks, fruits that cannot be peeled, etc.
In addition to the regulations prohibiting eating and drinking, it also stipulates that not everyone can eat and drink casually. Each team has a detailed recipe every day and every week, and the meal arrangement will not be the same within a week. After the recipe is determined, it must be reviewed by the team leader, the military doctor accompanying the team, and the cadre in charge of logistics, and then reported to the headquarters for record.
Wang Min, the director of the parade team, told me that each team has three directors and 24 cooks, most of whom have professional cooking certificates. The soldiers in the formation are mainly new recruits, with the oldest being second-year soldiers. The cooks who provide service support are mainly professional police officers, with the youngest being more than three years old.
The logistics team is very strong because the leaders of the headquarters know how intense the training of soldiers participating in the military parade is, and they know that people are like iron rice or steel. If you don't eat well, all other efforts will have another effect.
Each formation in the parade village is from a different military branch, and the requirements for food expenses are not uniform. The highest is for the Marine Corps and Reserve formations, which cost 25 yuan per person per day; the lowest is for the special police and guard formations, which costs 15 yuan per person per day.
The earliest soldier to get up every day is the cook. They have to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to start cooking, and ensure that 4 meals are cooked on time every day. Three of the meals are eaten by the officers and soldiers in the canteen, and the extra meal in the morning is sent to the training ground by the cook. When delivering meals, a logistics cadre should accompany them so that they can use this time to see the intensity of the troops' training, the officers and soldiers' appetite for meals, and listen to their reactions to the quality and taste of the meals. Then plan the next week's recipes based on what you know first-hand. Yang Wenxing, the cooking squad leader of
, told me that when he first entered the village, the food arrangement basically consisted of big fish and meat. Later, as the training intensity gradually increased and the weather became hotter, the officers and soldiers' appetite for meat gradually decreased. The cooking class developed light recipes that suit the tastes of officers and soldiers based on their experience through seeing, hearing and participating in training.
After the cooking team prepares the meals, the military doctors accompanying the team will take samples for testing. The samples must be stored at a constant temperature for three days. The officers and soldiers ate on a meal-sharing basis. Before sitting down at the table, the cook had already poured the food into special stainless steel plates and placed them on the table. After eating, they do not need to wash the dishes. The cooks will wash them with dish soap, soak them in disinfectant for 15 minutes, and then put them in the disinfection cabinet for disinfection. If anyone is found not washing his hands before eating, he will definitely be severely criticized. Because in the parade village, eating has been elevated to a political level.
That summer, the weather in Beijing was extremely hot, with the highest temperature reaching 40 degrees Celsius, and the temperature on the concrete floor once reached 60 degrees Celsius. In order to clear away the heat, the formation team had to eat a stir-fried bitter melon dish at noon every day. Some soldiers did not like to eat it. Therefore, the team leader conducted a political education on why they should eat bitter melon. Finally, everyone finally understood that this meal was not for themselves. Food, but food for the whole team, food for the entire army, food for the 50th anniversary of the Republic of China. In this way, as a major political task to be completed, the officers and soldiers ate the bitter melon under the supervision of the leaders.
Parade Village Parade
The Tiananmen Square military parade on October 1st was about the performance of the formations. The distance of 96 meters from Tiananmen Donghua table to Xihua table is 128 forward steps, and the time is 1 minute and 2 seconds. This is an extremely short time, so short that it can be measured in seconds. At such a time, it is impossible for everyone to be the focus of hundreds of millions of people, but every team is undoubtedly the focus of everyone's attention. What walked through Tiananmen was a steel-like collective, and the training formation in the parade village was the assembly stage of this steel-like whole. Since the parade team walked through Tiananmen Square, this combination training can only be done by walking. As a result, walking-related shots can be seen everywhere in the parade village.
Shot 1: I found that there was no time for a single person to walk in the parade village. No matter on the way to the toilet or on the way to the canteen, whether it is training in class or free walking after class, I see at least two people walking side by side. When more than 4 people walk together, they will consciously form two columns.
I felt very strange at first, thinking it was a rule stipulated by the leader. After quietly tracking and observing behind the scenes, I discovered that this was purely a conscious act. For example, when going to the toilet, two people walk in side by side. No matter who comes out first, they will naturally wait outside the toilet, and then walk side by side when their partner comes out.
According to Li Zhongfu, the captain of the guard formation, this way of walking side by side is mainly to train the officers and soldiers of the formation to cooperate, making them feel that they are walking in the formation no matter where and when, and they are conscious in every move. Be consistent with the left and right standards to develop standardized behavior. It was indeed a request at first, but later it became a conscious action by the officers and soldiers.
Shot 2: Walking without taking a step for 15 days. This sounds like a fantasy way of walking, and every officer and soldier in the parade has experienced it. It’s not that I didn’t take a step, but that during the 15 days of training, I only trained one movement, abdominal clasping and kicking. That is, the palms of both hands should be placed flat on the left and right sides of the lower abdomen, and the body should be in an upright posture. When the commander calls "one", kick out the feet and retract them when calling "two". Just kicking in place, not moving forward.Anyone might say it’s easy. If you practice a movement for 5, 10, or 15 days, it’s not just stride training, it’s also a mental, physical, and will training.
It is this kind of training method that only kicks without moving forward. It has allowed the square team to kick out 25 centimeters off the ground without losing shape. It has also allowed the square team to kick forward with a smoothness that is as steady as a mountain and cannot be shaken by a Category 12 typhoon. Heroic.
Shot 3: The secret of walking. The more than a dozen formations training in the parade village are all aiming for a common goal - to demonstrate national and military prestige in front of Tiananmen Square. However, the gathering of various arms and services on the same training ground inherently involves competition, not to mention that the headquarters often carries out evaluation activities among the formations. Therefore, in order to win by surprise, each team had to find secret recipes, use earthwork, and create strange methods, and they thought of many new tricks in terms of walking. For example, the backbone of cadres takes one step first, and the teachers take one step before the team members, and then these people are allowed to teach, help, and lead in the square team.
The guard warrior team has not finished in the top three in several competitions. In the words of Shi Kexun, the training team leader of the team, they have a secret recipe. After my repeated requests, he only revealed part of the secret recipe, namely kicking. The legs are fast, the heels are fast, the ground is fast, and the kick is stable. In order to master these three fast and one steady steps, pull up the line and practice kicking in place. The heel and foot are fast, and it takes three months to practice. They practiced the one-step two-movement kick, the one-step kick with abdominal extension, the slow one-step kick, the fast one-step kick, the one-step two-movement swinging arm kick, the one-step two-movement kick without swinging the arm, the one-step two-movement marching kick, and the one-step kick. Kick in place twice. All kicks have two key points, one is to land quickly with the leg, and the other is to not bend the knee. These two points are secrets that the whole team has not mastered when practicing goose step, and they are also an important reason why their team has always been in the lead.
In order to practice hard walking, they practiced walking on foot, walking with bare hands, and marching with a gun. In order to achieve a stride length of 75 centimeters, they drew lines on the ground and wore blindfolds to practice. The headquarters requires the formation to march 375 meters with an error of no more than 90 centimeters. They have made several assessments with an error of about 1 centimeter.
Walking skills are indeed acquired through walking. The most expensive equipment in the parade village is shoes. After training every day, broken shoe soles and spikes can be seen everywhere on the airport runway. Yang Weimin, the leader of the special police team, gave me a rough estimate. By October 1, the shoe soles and spikes alone would be enough to load 6 trucks. To this end, the team must give each person a new pair of leather shoes every month.
Disease in the Parade Village
The Parade Village was established in April 1999. In fact, before entering the Parade Village, all teams had conducted intensive training for several months. By the time they walked through Tiananmen on October 1, they had spent spring, summer, autumn and winter on the training ground.
The team members are all flesh and blood, and it is impossible not to get sick. However, the officers and soldiers in the parade village never take the initiative to see a doctor when they are sick. Because they know that if their illness is registered with a military doctor, they will not be far from the "village outside the village".
The so-called "village outside the village" specializes in training substitute players. If anyone in the formation is sick and leaves the parade village, they will have substitute players to take over immediately. Since being able to participate in the military parade marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China is an opportunity that cannot be repeated twice in everyone's life, no one wants to lose it. This caused the soldiers in the parade village to be afraid of getting sick, and the soldiers in the villages outside the village hoped that the soldiers in the parade village would have some minor health problems so that they could get a chance to participate in the military parade.
When members of the square team had headaches and fever, they took care of themselves. Only when they couldn't take it anymore did they go to the doctor. They downplayed, covered up, and talked about their illness lightly. After many times, the doctor has figured out the patient's psychology. No matter how much you say it doesn't hurt or itches, he will check you carefully and only release you to the training ground when he is sure that it will not hinder your training.
In order to ensure that the training is foolproof, for a period of time, the political instructors simply became sick scouts, specifically observing whether there were any sick trainees, and if they were found, they would do detailed ideological work and have them treated in time. These instructors who are good at ideological work all lamented: The most difficult job in the parade village is to persuade the sick soldiers to rest.
Yu Ruijin, a member of the Special Police Team, was not treated in time for a cold and developed pneumonia. He was helplessly admitted to the People's Liberation Army 261 Hospital opposite the parade village.One morning when the doctor was doing rounds on the ward, he discovered that Yu was missing and hurriedly called the team leader to report it. It turns out that Yu Yu sneaked back to the training ground early in the morning. Incidents like this have happened many times in 261 Hospital. The angry doctors shook their heads and had no choice but to pack the medicine they took and send it to the parade village.
In addition to patients like Xiao Yu who wanted to escape from the hospital, there was another type of patients who bid farewell to the Parade Village in tears. I once met a soldier named Zhang Qiang, who was 1.78 meters tall and had always been a top performer in training. Only because he found 2 centimeters of gastroptosis during an examination, he missed the opportunity to participate in the military parade at the end of the century.
Each team currently trains 400 people, but only 352 people were actually inspected on October 1. For these outstanding warriors who are selected from the best, no one can bear to choose anyone, but they must choose. This almost cruel rule makes every officer and soldier strive to be the most impeccable in their own conduct.
In the Parade Village, some diseases are called diseases, but diseases that everyone has are no longer treated as diseases. For example, crotch rot, almost everyone has had a crotch rot. So it’s not called a disease, it’s called “crotch rot phenomenon.” Another example is rotten feet. Wear big leather shoes every day to go forward. Sweat, stuffy heat and lack of ventilation make everyone suffer from severe beriberi. This is not called a disease, it is called "athlete's foot." Another example is blood in the urine. When you land on your legs while practicing goose-stepping, the vibration when your legs land on the ground causes the symptoms of blood in the urine that everyone has experienced. This is not called a disease, but is called a "red symptom." Veterans say that only soldiers who have peed blood can find the feeling of going forward.
When I said goodbye to the military parade village, there was still less than a month before the exciting day of October 1. On the day of the military parade, hundreds of millions of spectators would witness the majestic appearance of each formation passing in front of Tiananmen Square. But I feel that behind this majestic figure, the stories condensed with blood and sweat are more unforgettable and touching, and they are also worth remembering for a lifetime.
Author: Zhang Guoling
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Producer: Liu Fengqiao
Executive producer: Zhang Jinling
Editors in chief: Zhang Yu, Wang Wen
Duty editors: Wang Huawei, Wang Yinghao
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