After the two got engaged, Zhou Yongju naturally moved into the Shi family as her fiancée to take care of her elderly parents-in-law and her frail and sick brother-in-law. Shi Qingcai was grateful for Zhou Yongju's efforts. Before returning to the army, he repeatedly assured his fiancée: "I will retire from the army as soon as possible, and then come back to live our little life together."
But who would have thought that this was the last sentence Shi Qingcai left to his fiancée. 36 years later, in 2014, when Zhou Yongju "meeted" Shi Qingcai again, he lay quietly in the Martyrs Cemetery of Pingbian, Yunnan. At that moment, Zhou Yongju threw herself in front of her fiancé's tombstone. In an instant, tears fell like rain. Grief and grievance gushed out, crying at the top of his lungs: "Qingcai, Qingcai..."
The 3,500 PLA officers and soldiers present were moved by this scene. They raised their arms and saluted the paramilitary military wife in unison, paying their highest respect!
childhood sweethearts, and have been determined to live for the rest of their lives. Shi Qingcai and Zhou Yongju are childhood sweethearts. Both are from Dazu County, Chongqing. The two families are not only in the same production team, but also neighbors less than 100 meters apart.
When I was young, the two children often played together. Zhou Yongju followed Shi Qingcai and said "Brother Qingcai" one by one. She had already secretly agreed to Shi Qingcai and fantasized about marrying him when she grew up.
Shi Qingcai also likes this young girl with a stingy personality and gentle and virtuous inner self, but when she thinks of her family, her courage becomes three points weaker.
Shi Qingcai's family is very poor, his father is in poor health, his mother is blind, and there is a weak and sick brother in the family that needs care. His family has no surplus food and is empty-handed. How dare he delay the beauty? He had to bury this love in his heart, thinking that he would make a name for himself in the future and marry him again.
In 1971, Shi Qingcai waited for the opportunity he had been dreaming of for a long time. The country recruited a large-scale military recruitment. He also enlisted in the army and joined the 446th Regiment of the 149th Division of the former 50th Army, becoming a glorious People's Liberation Army soldier.
Shi Qingcai
In the 7 years in the army, Shi Qingcai had the belief of serving the motherland and giving Zhou Yongju a better life. He worked hard to serve in the army, honed his extremely excellent military skills, and became the squad leader. Although the position of squad leader of
is not big, it is enough to make Shi Qingcai proud. In the spring of 1978, he specially asked the army for a few days off, went back to his hometown to persuade his parents, and went to the Zhou family to propose marriage for him.
The parents of the Zhou family grew up watching Shi Qing. They thought that the child was down-to-earth and hardworking, and did not care about the Shi family's family background, so they readily agreed to the marriage. Shi Qingcai's family vacation was short. The two families got together to hold a simple engagement ceremony for Shi Qingcai and Zhou Yongju.
Zhou Yongju is kind-hearted. During the years when Brother Qingcai was in the army, she has been busy taking care of the Shi family. Now that she has a reputation, she naturally moved into her future in-laws' house to help with housework, and has decided that she has been a member of the Shi family for the rest of her life.
At this time, Shi Qingcai had already served overtime and was able to retire. Therefore, before leaving, he promised his fiancée that he would retire as soon as possible, come back to stay in the family and live a happy life.
counterattacked against Vietnam and sacrificed heroically to return to the army, Shi Qing immediately submitted an application for retirement to his superiors. Taking into account his family situation, the superior also decided to go through the retirement procedures for him.
But during this period, Vietnam has been provoking troubles on our southwest border and attacking the military and civilians on our border. The situation is getting more and more tense and the war is about to break out. Under such circumstances, Shi Qingcai's troops, as a unit of our Western Front Group, went to the border of Yunnan to stand by. After the troops arrived in Yunnan, their superiors considered that Shi Qing was the backbone of the army and this critical moment was inseparable from him, so they proposed to him to postpone the discharge of the army and lead the new soldiers for another year.
As a passionate man, Shi Qing realized that the army needed him just when he was needed, so he resolutely withdrew his application for retirement. In order to give his eager fiancée an explanation, he sent a letter back, which read: Jumei, you have to take care of my parents before you even cross the door.I can understand your difficulties, and wait for me for only one year!
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 She is a kind and simple girl with great love and supports her fiancé's decision very much. In the next six months, she wrote three letters to Shi Qingcai and asked someone to send them. The contents of the three letters are roughly the same, and they all instructed Shi Qingcai to do well in the army. Although the two did not go through the marriage procedures, she had long determined that she was the Shi family's daughter-in-law and would definitely take good care of her parents-in-law so that Shi Qingcai had no worries. It took not a year to go, she waited for him to come back!
Unfortunately, Zhou Yongju can no longer wait for her fiance to return. On February 17, 1979, on the Sino-Vietnam border, our army launched 10,000 artillery pieces at the same time. After several rounds of artillery attacks, our army's east-west and west-line troops advanced together and marched into Vietnam.
In the previous few battles, Shi Qingcai led the entire class of soldiers to charge forward and won several major battles in succession. Shi Qingcai himself was also commended by his superiors.
On March 2, 1979, according to the combat deployment, Shi Qingcai's 446th Regiment, where he was located, advanced from the front along the No. 4 Bridge of Highway 10, Vietnam. The 445th Regiment and the 447th Regiment of the 149th Division were covering the rushing route on both left and right.
However, when the 2nd Battalion of the 446th Regiment marched to the northeast side of Bridge No. 4, it was suddenly ambushed by the Vietnamese army. For a moment, the sound of gunfire resounded throughout the position and smoke rose everywhere. Although
was caught off guard, the 2nd Battalion responded quickly and immediately organized a counterattack. After two days of tragic battle, the 2nd Battalion finally took the nameless highland on the northeast side and won the "counter-ambush battle" of the tiger's teeth pulling.
However, the 2nd Battalion also paid an extremely heavy price. 76 soldiers in the battalion were injured, and Shi Qingcai was one of them! At that time, Shi Qingcai was hit by the enemy's shells on the way to charge and died heroically at the age of 22!
After Shi Qingcai died, his comrades found three letters written by Zhou Yongju to him, one cent and three cents, and a stub for sending medicine to his father, all of which were covered in blood.
After the war, Shi Qingcai's body was buried in the Pingbian Martyrs Cemetery, Yunnan, where other martyrs who died were buried.
The fiancee became a sister-in-law and stayed at home for 35 years. In 2000, Shi Qingcai's old comrades made an appointment to visit the martyrs' families together in Dazu County, Chongqing. But when they came to the door of Shi Qingcai's ancestral house, they were shocked by the scene in front of them: Although the main structure of the house is still there, it looks broken, the walls collapsed, and the house is full of spider webs, and no one has lived in it for a long time.
The old comrades inquired from each other and finally found the grave of Shi Qingcai’s parents, but there were neither tombstones nor tombs on the cemetery, and it was overgrown with weeds, which was very desolate.
Seeing this scene in front of him, the veterans shed tears on the spot. They agreed with tears that they must erect a monument for the martyrs' parents, and at the same time, they found the surviving martyrs' relatives, especially Zhou Yongju, who sent letters to the martyrs three times.
So, in the next 14 years, the veterans began to spontaneously search for Zhou Yongju's traces. In early 2014, everyone finally found her in a rental house in a city. When Zhou Yongju revealed his experience in the past 35 years, the veterans sighed. It turned out that this woman, who was over fifty years old and had a haggard face, married her martyr's brother after her fiancé passed away, and supported this broken home alone!
1979, the bad news of Shi Qingcai's death was passed back to the village. Zhou Yongju was heartbroken and heart-wrenching cry spread throughout the village. Shi Qingcai's father could not withstand the blow when he heard his son's death and could not afford to suffer any illness.
Shi's father fell ill, Shi's mother was blind, Shi's younger brother was weak and sickly, and he was underage, so the family was about to part. At that moment, Zhou Yongju woke up and her fiancé died. She was the only pillar in the family. Not only did she not collapse, she also had to cheer up and support this family and protect the promise that she had made to "take care of the Shi family for the rest of her life."
But after all, she is just a girl in her early 20s, and the difficulty she will be incredible in the future.The neighbors around her advised her: "You have not married Qingcai. If you are not a member of the Shi family, you should get married early and get rid of this burden." Even the parents of the Shi family were unwilling to drag her down, and persuaded her to leave her in-laws' house with great sincerity.
But Zhou Yongju had long identified herself as a member of the Shi family. Although she had never had a family and had no identity as a martyr, she still stayed and took on the heavy responsibility of the family with her weak shoulders. While respecting the parents of the Shi family who were lying on the bed, she pulled her underage brother-in-law to grow up, and she tasted all the hardships and bitterness.
A few years later, Shi's father passed away in pain. Before his death, his biggest regret was that he did not see Zhou Yongju passing by and did not hold his grandson with his own hands. In order to satisfy Shi’s father’s last wish, Zhou Yongju made a heart and resolutely married Shi Qingcai’s younger brother despite the rumors from the outside world.
From that day on, Zhou Yongju changed her identity and changed from a martyr's fiancée to a sister-in-law. After having this title, she felt at ease and gave birth to two children one after another. According to her mother-in-law's wish, she "adopted" her second child to Shi Qingcai, which was considered to continue her bloodline for the martyrs.
However, because of giving birth to a second child, Zhou Yongju and his family were fined by the local family planning office. Because the family was too poor and could not afford the fine, the Family Planning Office took away the only pig in her pigpen.
Seeing that even the only remaining hope was deprived, the blind mother-in-law was so angry that she asked Zhou Yongju to carry her to the village to reason. After much persuasion, the staff reduced the fine to 1,400 yuan. But even this little money was borrowed by Zhou Yongju.
In 1998, Zhou Yongju's mother-in-law died of poverty and illness, and her husband also passed away soon after. In order to survive, she left her hometown in Dazu County with her two children and worked everywhere to spend her days. In early 2014, when Shi Qingcai's comrades found her, she was working in the city. The house she rented was extremely simple and her life was very difficult.
went to Yunnan to sweep the tombs. 3,500 soldiers saluted collectively
In 2014, on the 35th anniversary of the victory of the counterattack against Vietnam, the veterans of the 149th Division made an appointment to visit Pingbian, Yunnan to visit the tombs of the sacrificed comrades. But Zhou Yongju did not officially marry Shi Qingcai, so she was not a real military wife. She could not enjoy the transportation and food and accommodation subsidies for the martyrs' tomb sweeping, and could only go to Yunnan at his own expense.
What is sad is that Zhou Yongju, who has worked hard all his life, can't even get a few thousand yuan, and the plan to sweep the grave is about to be ruined. At this time, a group of veterans extended a helping hand, paid enough money for Zhou Yongju, and took her to the Yunnan screen.
In March 2014, surrounded by veterans, Zhou Yongju, with silver hair, came to Shi Qingcai's tomb. She stroked the extremely familiar photo on the tombstone, and tears fell like rain in an instant, and grief and grievance gushed out, crying at the top of her lungs: "Qingcai, Qingcai..."
Seeing such a shocking scene, more than 3,500 veterans and new soldiers of the 149th Division were moved by it. At the commemorative meeting, everyone solemnly invited Zhou Yongju to the stage and saluted her a standard military salute.
At that moment, Zhou Yongju had suffered over the years and was wiped out. She used 35 years of perseverance to win everyone's respect and courtesy. No one cares whether she is a military wife or not, because she does not have to be short of anyone for her contributions to the heroes and martyrs. She deserves all the applause!
