Liu Hulan was only 15 years old when she died, and her eldest sister witnessed the scene of her execution, and did not return to the village for 70 years.
Liu Hulan, formerly known as Liu Fulan, was born in 1932 in a poor peasant family in Yunzhou West Village, Wenshui County, Shanxi Province. Her father, Liu Jingqian, owned more than 40 acres of land, which was quite a wealthy family at the time.
However, in the war-torn years, the land in Liu Jingqian's hands could not support his family. Despite his hard work, most of the grain was requisitioned by the local landlords' armed forces and Yan Xishan's army, and life was still difficult.
In September 1937, Liu Hulan's mother died of illness, she was only 5 years old, and her sister Liu Ailan was only 2 years old.
Figure |The room where Liu Hulan lived in her childhood, the Japanese war of aggression against China had broken out in full swing that year, and the local grain collection was more frequent, and the people's lives became more miserable.
In the second year, the Communist Party organized guerrilla troops in Wenshui County and established an anti-Japanese democracy**, and Gu Yongtian, as the county magistrate, began to respond to the call of the organization and organized the masses to carry out a revolutionary movement in Wenshui County to reduce rents and interest rates and crack down on landlords.
Because of this agrarian revolution, the burden of life on the local people began to lighten. Here, I would like to popularize our party's land reform movement in the years of the Anti-Japanese War. The core of the agrarian reform movement is land, which is the lifeblood and an important economic pillar on which every regime depends.
In China's more than 2,000 years of feudal society, the land economy has affected the development, rise and fall of a dynasty, and also affected its political life. Nowadays, although the land in the whole country seems to be less important, but this is because it is an industrial society today, and the most essential difference between industrial society and agricultural society is that land does not become a vital thing, and the value generated by industry on the land replaces the value of land.
This means that if you have an acre of land, the scope of this land does not matter whether it is rural or urban. In the ancient feudal period, because the industrial system had not yet been formed, or was almost negligible, the agricultural economy was actually a dynastic economy.
However, in modern society, because of the maturity of the industrial system, except for the land in the countryside, most of the land in the city has to serve the industrial system. Because of this, most of the land value in the current society can only produce some basic economic value, and when the land reaches the modern industrial society, its value is invisibly transferred to the attachments of the land.
For example, the social industrial system formed by industrial facilities such as real estate and factories.
In a society without industrialization, the value of land is immeasurable,** which is why land reform is advocated. However, agrarian reform involves social strata and is particularly necessary to challenge entrenched institutions that have existed for more than 2,000 years.
In order to redistribute the land resources, we must first seize the resources from the landlords, which means that we have to confront the landlord class and the armed forces it has formed.
During the land reform in Wenshui County, the landlords united their military forces to form a powerful resistance force. In response to this situation, the Chinese Communist Party established the "Armed Task Force", also known as the "Armed Workers' Team".
These teams are made up of members who can be civil and martial, and they can work together to carry out various struggles. With the cooperation of the Wugong team and the local villagers, the land reform work went relatively smoothly.
However, this also left a certain hidden danger, because Liu Hulan died heroically while carrying out the revolution, which was related to the retaliation of the landlords' armed forces. Liu Hulan joined the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Children's League at the age of 8, and she actively participated in activities such as condolences and food delivery, and later became the head of the Children's League.
Figure |Film and television drama Liu Hulan stills This children's regiment can be said to be the eyes of the Eighth Route Army in the countryside, they are responsible for standing guard around the village, intelligence transmission and other work.
In June 1946, after the conclusion of the Chongqing negotiations, Chiang Kai-shek suddenly launched an attack on the liberated areas. The local landlords' armed forces responded positively, first attacking their respective villages, and the organization decided to evacuate, leaving a small number of guerrilla troops to persist in the struggle.
As a grassroots cadre in the region, Liu Hulan resolutely refused to leave, she felt that she was still young, and this age would not be suspected of being a Communist Party. However, a local landlord armed force called the "Struggle for Revenge Self-Defense Force" has been eyeing the village.
Listening to the name, we can probably also imagine how much the local landlord class hated the agrarian revolution. With the counterattack of the ** forces, the local landlord armed forces began to become rampant again.
Shi Peihuai, the head of Yunzhou West Village, where Liu Hulan is located, not only intensified the collection of grain, bullied the local people, but also sent the collected money and grain to Yan Jun. Yan Xishan can be called a person dancing on eggs in Shanxi, and although the Yan army under his control belongs to the ** sequence, it is independent in Shanxi.
Yan Xishan's orders to Chiang Kai-shek were often to cooperate or not to cooperate. Because of this, the order of the Yan army's army is not good, and as for the combat effectiveness, there is no need to boast.
Shi Peihuai was deeply disgusted by the local people because of the collection of money and grain and the oppression of the people. In the end, Liu Hulan cooperated with the local martial arts team to secretly execute Shi Peihuai.
Liu Hulan's actions deeply encouraged the local people, but also attracted cruel retaliation from the local landlords. On January 8, 1947, Ai Ziqian, commander of the 12th Division under Yan Xishan, led a company to cooperate with the landlords' armed forces in Elephant Town to launch a surprise attack on Yunzhou West Village.
Shi Sanhuai, an underground traffic officer, Shi Liu'er, a militiaman, and Shi Wu, secretary of the village peasant association, were arrested red-handed. Shi Wu could not endure the torture and confessed to the members of the revolutionary cadres in Yunzhou West Village.
The organization immediately sent a message to Liu Hulan, telling her to quickly evacuate the village and go up the mountain. After Liu Hulan received the letter, before she had time to evacuate, the Yan army had already surrounded the entire village.
All the inhabitants of the village were gathered at the Guanyin Temple, and Liu Hulan was among them.
Figure |Wu Jinchuan in Liu Hulan's oil painting "Struggle for Revenge Self-Defense Force" recognized Liu Hulan at a glance, and Liu Hulan was caught red-handed. Outside the Guanyin Temple, there were a lot of wooden sticks on the ground, and Yan Jun was ready to force the people in the village to beat the revolutionaries to death with wooden sticks, but the people resolutely refused to come forward.
The soldiers of the Yan army rushed forward with wooden sticks and began to beat Shi Sanhuai, Shi Liu'er, Zhang Niancheng, Shi Shihui, Chen Shurong, and Liu Shushan. These six men were brave and tenacious, did not say a word, and were beaten to death on the spot.
Under the temple, rivers of blood flowed. Zhang Quanbao, the instructor of the Yan Army's machine gun company who was in charge of interrogating Liu Hulan, made Liu Hulan confess again and again, and as long as she was willing to tell the truth, she could be released directly.
Zhang Quanbao continued to ask Liu Hulan, if he told the truth, he would not only let you go, but also give you a piece of land. Liu Hulan glared at him and replied, "If you bring me a golden man, I won't confess."
Liu Hulan, who had just finished saying this, lay down directly under the guillotine.
On that day, Liu Hulan died heroically. In February 1947, General ** led the 359th Brigade to successfully capture Wenshui County. Those who once created a siege of the village** and killed seven martyrs** were also punished by the law.
Xu Desheng was shot in Wuxiang, Qi County, Zhang Quanbao and Hou Yuyin were executed at Guanyin Temple, and Shi Wu was shot. When Liu Hulan died, her story was only published in the local newspaper "Jin Sui**", and she didn't know about the heroic deeds of this young girl.
It wasn't until the ** Northwest Bureau condolence group visited the surrounding situation that Liu Hulan's deeds were discovered. In March 1947, ** heard the news and was deeply shocked, he softly read Liu Hulan's name twice, couldn't help but burst into tears, and sighed deeply.
With a heavy heart, he wrote eight big characters on a blank piece of paper: "The greatness of life, the glory of death." Sadly, the manuscript was lost during the war years.
In December 1956, the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League planned to carry out activities to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Liu Hulan's death, and they hoped that *** could re-inscribe those eight words for the young heroine.
On January 12, 1957, the 10th anniversary of Liu Hulan's sacrifice, the eight characters of "the greatness of life, the glory of death" re-inscribed were also sent to the Liu Hulan Martyrs Cemetery in Yunzhou West Village.
When Liu Hulan died, a key person witnessed this scene, she was Liu Hulan's eldest sister Liu Ailan. At that time, Liu Ailan, who was only 12 years old, experienced this tragic event.
Figure |Liu Ailan's old photo (taken at the age of 16) saw her sister die heroically under the guillotine, Liu Ailan was so frightened that she cried on the spot, she hugged her mother tightly, and her body was trembling all the time.
Liu Ailan, who returned home, did not eat for seven days and seven nights, still immersed in the grief of her sister's death. An ignorant teenager who witnessed the tragedy. This memory has caused irreparable scars for the rest of her life.
After the death of her sister, Liu Ailan joined the First Field Army Combat Drama Club of the People's Liberation Army.
In the drama club, she often plays Liu Hulan. Although Liu Hulan's life was short and she couldn't stay, people who have seen her think that she and her eldest sister Liu Ailan look very similar.
People once described Liu Hulan's appearance as follows: "Liu Hulan is tall, wearing a sesame leaf pattern homespun cloth jacket on the upper body, black cloth pants underneath, a capable and dignified girl, short black hair covered with a white towel, delicate and lovely, a pair of bright eyes, and the tenacity between the eyebrows."
Among a group of girls, she stands out. Once, after the performance in Shaanxi, Liu Ailan, who was standing on the stage, suddenly shouted to the audience: "Comrades, my sister was killed by the enemy, and I ask you comrades to avenge my sister!."
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Liu Ailan starred in dramas in Beijing, and later studied junior high school in Chongqing Bashu Middle School and high school in Shanxi Workers and Peasants Accelerated Middle School. After graduating from high school, Liu Ailan chose to get married and joined the workforce.
Liu Ailan, accompanied by her daughter Si Chengzhi, returned to her long-lost hometown on January 6, 2017. She is 82 years old, and in the cold winter, she circled around the white marble tablet in the square of Liu Hulan Memorial Hall.
Memories flooded in, and her eyes watered down. Holding the published copy of "My Sister Liu Hulan" in her hand, she carefully placed it in front of her sister's tombstone.
The Chinese people have always insisted on self-affirmation.