Introduction
This article is excerpted from the fifth volume of "Anyang Literary and Historical Materials", dictated by 缑 (gōu) Yuming and compiled by Chunxi.
Most of the reasons why monks are ordained is because they have to do it (don't talk about the bullshit and fake monks in the scenic spots). I have posted a few articles about ordination before, and sometimes I can't help but think of how different there is between a monk or nun and a person in a green house. To ** are driven by people, and the so-called Buddhism Pure Land is nothing more than that.
Life is like duckweed, and the torrent is agitated.
Body
I became a monk at the age of 5 and became a monk at the age of 25 at the Guangji Temple in Beijing. At the age of 33 (1947), he was arrested by the 40th Army of the Kuomintang and enlisted in the army. In 1949, the Xinxiang Army was incorporated into the 47th Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, joined the volunteer army to fight in Korea in 1950, and was demobilized and returned to his hometown in 1952. In the past 40 years, from monks to soldiers, they have gone through ups and downs.
My ancestral home was originally in Sifuchang Village, Wadian Township, Anyang County, in my father's generation, because the family was poor and unable to live, my father and mother helped the old and the young to flee to Xilu Village, relying on long-term work to make a living.
When I was 5 years old (1919), there was social turmoil, poverty everywhere, my father couldn't even find a long job, and my parents were sad all day long, and they had no way to make a living, so they could only lead us out to flee the famine and ask for food. One day, we were begging for food in Yongding Village, more than 20 miles west of Anyang, and heard that there was a Huguo Temple in Jiadeng Village, and there was a lot of land on the temple and many monks living there.
In order to let me escape for my life, my parents sent me to Huguo Temple to be a little monk. People thought I was too young to take me in. My father asked someone to intercede and signed a contract to sell me, so he reluctantly left me behind. When our mother and son parted, we cried a lot, my mother held my head, I dragged my mother's clothes, and my mother said with tears: "Child, your father and your mother have no ability to support you." You can slowly boil people in this temple. ”
The temple is very large, located in the west of Barrierng Village, with a total of more than 40 halls and rooms; The mountain gate faces the south gate and is engraved with four big characters of "protecting the country and Zen forest". There are three layers of halls to enter the mountain gate, and the first hall is dedicated to Veda and Maitreya Buddha; The second hall is Shakyamuni and the eighteen arhats, and the third hall is the Buddha with a thousand hands and a thousand eyes. All the halls are blue bricks and tiles, Zhu Liang painted the building, the Buddha statues are all carved out of wood, the magic work is ghostly, solemn and solemn, and the pilgrims and donors are endless.
Huguo Temple, it is estimated that the rebuilt temple has a total land of more than 170 acres, in addition to more than 20 monks, there are also 6 long-term workers. When I arrived at the monastery, the monk in charge of the house gave me the Dharma name "Xin Wang" and gave me to a monk named Shanzhao as an apprentice. The master has a very rough temperament, he scolds when he opens his mouth, beats when he raises his hand, and is not allowed to cry when he is beaten, the more he cries, the more he is beaten, I am very afraid of him, and I have to obey him in everything. I was not allowed to eat every night, saying that I was afraid that I would wet the bed, my stomach would rumble with hunger, and I couldn't go out to beg for a bowl of rice, which was really harder than going to prison, I couldn't return home, and I couldn't see my mother. I stayed up until I was eight years old before I was allowed to go to school. The school is in the monastery, the teacher's surname is Meng, he cares about me very much, during the day in the school to read the "Hundred Family Names", "Three Character Classic" and other enlightenment books, at night in the temple to learn to read the scriptures and learn blowing, playing, playing and other acrobatics, life is also a little fun.
After learning a few words, I became interested in the things in the temple. There are two couplets at the entrance of the temple, the upper couplet is: the square robe garden leader must abide by the rules", the lower couplet is "the people and things must be harmonious with the upper and lower", I asked the old monk to explain to me, he told me a lot of Buddhist rules, what do not kill, do not lewd, do not steal, do not drink, do not apply grease powder, do not wear brocade scarf crowns, do not watch and listen to songs and dances, and so on. He also said that if he left the monastery on an incident, when he returned, he would bow down to all the elders of the monks, and if he was rude, he would be punished by kneeling or beating.
The three-story hall of the temple, the hall door and the hall have wooden plaques, and the words on the plaques are Wang Hongren's book, so I asked the old monk what kind of person Wang Hongren was, and the master told me a very bizarre story. He said that there are 20 schools of monks in the temple according to their generations, namely: "The ancestral precepts are loyal, the light is positive, the grass is practical, and the vacuum of virtue and enlightenment." "The earliest ancestor of the temple was named Zhencong. After Zhencong's death, he was reincarnated into a family of eunuchs, and after that, he was excellent in learning and talent, and was sent by the emperor to Anyang County as a county official. After he took office, he had a dream one day, and an immortal said to him that he had been an ancestor in the Huguo Temple in his previous life. After waking up, he also vaguely remembered that there seemed to be such a thing, and the next day he led the head of the team to Huguo Temple to look for old relics. Seeing the temple in a dilapidated depression, very sad, after returning to the government, he selected skilled craftsmen to rebuild the temple, and the wooden plaque of each hall was inscribed by the county official himself. This county official is called Wang Hongren. This is purely a rumor of the monastery, and of course no one believes it now, but at that time I believed it.
The life of the monastery is very hard and monotonous, at the age of 15, he no longer goes to school, and he is bored in the monastery all day long, in addition to reading scriptures in the monastery and learning to blow, play, play, and play acrobatics, it is to go out to entertain the Buddha. When a large family has lost someone, they all send invitations to our temple to recite the scriptures. Some recite for one day, some for three days, five days, and some for seven days. There is a lot of variety.
The main way to chant the scriptures is to walk the golden bridge and cross the silver bridge during the day, that is, the monks wear robes and play the sheng flute to chant ** around the circle. Set up an altar to chant scriptures at night, the masses call "sitting", that is, on the street with a table to build a platform, the monk sits on the platform, the monk headed by the monk sits in the middle, wearing a robe, wearing a Buddha crown, other monks sit on both sides, while knocking on the wooden fish while chanting**. The monk in the middle also kept throwing buns or copper coins to the audience, and whoever could pick up the buns or copper coins was given the gift of the Buddha, so every time he threw it, the audience had to rob it once. Buddhism has a rule that only formal monks who have received ordination can sit in the middle, and monks who have not been ordained are not eligible.
In addition to chanting scriptures, they also have to play acrobatics at the beginning, mainly playing with mallets, knives, three-section whips, water meteors, spinning plates, etc. At that time, I was more proficient in playing with knives and mallets. Whenever the spirit is out of the funeral, we still have to walk and play in front of the funeral, so many people know me and know that I can play with knives and sticks. When you make a lot of money from a Buddhist event, you are all the monks in charge of settling accounts, and those of us who are not good people don't even ask, and of course we don't get anything. Because this is the rule of the temple, we have no complaints.
One day after breakfast, I had a quarrel with my master, and the master wanted to beat me, so I ran out of the temple gate. The master also drove out of the temple gate, scolding me and threatening to beat me severely. At this time, I met Mr. Meng, who used to teach at the school, and he persuaded the master to take me to his residence. At that time, I was very angry, but there was nothing I could do, I went back to the monastery for fear of being beaten, and when I went home, I was afraid of causing trouble for the adults. I often hear people say that if you are ordained or not, you will never have a status in the monastery, and only after receiving the ordination can you obtain the qualification to be treated as a formal monk, and you can travel all over the world to eat a bowl of rice. The monks in the Anyang area have nowhere to be ordained locally, and they all go to Beijing to be ordained, and it just so happens that I have a senior brother Xin Chun who stayed in the Jinhua Temple after being ordained, so I want to go to Beijing to be ordained. After I told Master Meng Kaoshi about my idea, he didn't approve of it at first, thinking that I was still young and panicked, and he was afraid that something would go out alone, but when he saw that I insisted on going to Ben, he would no longer stop me, and also helped me raise 20 yuan to send me to Beijing for ordination.
Liberation of the conquered and occupied Nianhua Temple, a common phenomenon in the whole country, after the vast majority of them were demolished to Beijing, first went to the Rolling (Nianhua) Temple to find the senior brother Xin Chun, and lived in the temple Shifang Hall, at this time it was July 1937, on July 7, there was the Lugou Bridge Incident, the war occurred, the gunshots were everywhere, the Japanese army approached Beijing, social turmoil, people were panicked, I heard that Song Zheyuan, the commander of the 29th Kuomintang Army guarding Beijing, led the officers and soldiers to resist the enemy bravely, and the Japanese army could not resist the night battle during the day, and the soldiers wrapped their arms around towels, Holding a ghost head knife in his hand, he touched the enemy camp at night and hacked many devils to death. However, due to Chiang Kai-shek's efforts to save the country, not only did he not reinforce Beijing, but ordered the withdrawal of troops in order to preserve his strength, and Beijing fell. Many monasteries have stopped preaching. I thought that my life was really bitter, I ran so far to receive the ordination, but it happened that there was a war, and I really cried without tears.
Guangji Temple during this period, I heard that Guangji Temple in the West Fourth Archway recruited monks to be ordained, and after discussing with the senior brother, he decided to go to Guangzi Temple to be ordained, and the senior brother said that the ordination was very painful. I think I can bear the hardships no matter how hard I am, as long as I take the precepts, and have the "precepts" and certificates, everything will be easy to do in the future.
The ordination of ordination in monasteries is a major event in Buddhism, and it is necessary to post advertisements in the local area and outside in advance, send monks to various alms, and receive alms from donors, so as to provide food and drink for all those who participate in the ordination. This is called "fasting." Guangji Temple was ordained this time, there are monks and nuns who have been ordained at home, as well as male laymen who have been ordained at home, and there are more than 1,300 people in the four congregations, which shows the large scale.
I came to Guangji Temple on October 5, 1937, and received the three altars for more than 50 days. After the first arrival at the monastery, the monastery arranged a place for the four people, and the monks and nuns who were monks and nuns arranged the residence in a unified manner, and we monks all lived in Yunshui Hall. The residence of male and female lay men who are not at home is arranged freely and more casually. The first 10 days are not ordination, they are preparations for ordination, and the main activity is the practice of etiquette. But the jurisdiction is also very strict, and the slightest violation of the rules will be severely beaten. The monks who performed in the outer hall all hid a rattan in their robes, named Yang Zhi, and when they found that the new disciples did not know how to practice etiquette, they beat them with rattan. Once, a new disciple did not know what rules he had violated, and the monk ordered him to strip naked, kneel on the ground, and beat him with a five-foot-long rattan until his skin was open and his breath was dying.
We officially entered the ordination period on October 15th, starting with the eighteen-day novice ordination. The monk of the outer hall led the people to enter, entered the inner hall, and handed over to the monks of the inner hall to take over, and more than 100 monks were responsible for karma, professors, supervisors, pickets, and other affairs. The first thing to do when entering the inner hall is the "acting team", that is, all the new disciples are lined up according to their gender, height and shortness. There were 20 classes for monks and nuns, each class.
Forty or fifty people. Then the ordination monks will name whoever is named, and only the three words "Buddha Buddha" are allowed to be said. This was followed by the joint election of the "novices" and "novices", called elections, which were actually predetermined. Whoever can become a "novice" or "novice" is a high honor for the temple where he is located, so he wants to stay in this honor.
Then he entered the daily repetition of the precepts. Every day at the beginning of the day (2 o'clock in the morning), the night patrol monks play the board once, they have to get up and wash, and then they have to line up to enter the big Buddha hall to recite the scriptures. He was not allowed to leave the temple for three hours, and there were often people urinating on warm pants. During the novice vows, the so-called chanting of sutras is to recite the "Ten Precepts", that is, not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to drink alcohol, not to wear incense, not to apply fat powder, not to wear brocade scarves and crowns, not to wear gold treasure makeup, not to sing, not to dance, not to sit on a high bed, not to eat out of time, not to eat at noon, not to carry Jinbao, etc.
For a period of time in the morning, it is the content of the examination morning hall, reciting it one by one, if you read it wrong, you have to "offer to the public", the so-called "offering to the public" is to be beaten, there are two kinds of tools for beating people, one is rattan, the other is a precept. And said that being beaten is to remove evil spirits. Therefore, those who read it incorrectly will be beaten, and those who do not pronounce it wrong should also be beaten a few times, which is called the future of the precept. Therefore, as soon as the new disciples heard that so-and-so had a new vow for the public, their bodies trembled. As soon as I heard the word "for the public", I felt like talking about the tiger's color change.
In the afternoon, except for the morning activities, everyone has to take a bath, and in the evening they go to the Great Buddha Hall to kowtow to the Buddha, and all the new disciples kneel on the ground, presided over by the monks. Every time the monks struck a wooden fish, everyone bowed to one head, sometimes forty-eight bows, most of them one hundred and eight bows.
And there are picket monks shuttling around and correcting the prostration. Because the interval between each prostrations is very long, the prostrations to the Buddha are often as long as two or three hours, and some support can't help but steal shoes under the knees, some kneel to sleep, and some have internal urgency. If it is found by the picket monks, it is necessary to receive an "offering to the public", and after worshipping the Buddha, sit still in place, take off the socks, and touch the soles of the feet with your hands. After about 10 o'clock, I can go back to the new ring hall and go to bed. If you don't take it, you can fall asleep cross-legged back-to-back. At this time, there are also night patrol monks who go to the new ordination hall to correct their sleeping posture, and if they find that they are sleeping upside down, gritting their teeth and dreaming or snoring, they will wake up from their dreams. In this way, day after day, the novice ordination period was passed over and over again.
At the end of the novice ordination period on the eighteenth day, the monks who opened the altar scattered clothes to the new ordained disciples, each of whom had a "five-strip robe", a "seven-strip robe", and a "nine-strip robe", which were collectively called robes. The ceremony is also very solemn, who reads the name, who respectfully holds the monk's robe with his hands on his chest, and then the monk who opens the altar teaches the monk the way of "tie the clothes" (dress) and "draw clothes". It is also stipulated that these clothes can only be worn in places such as eating and worshipping Buddha, and other places must be taken off. From this day on, the new vows are no longer called "new vows", but are called "novices".
After the eighteen-day novice ordination, the seventeen-day "bhikshu ordination" is resumed, and in addition to the daily repetition of the activities during the "novice reduction" period, the subjects of how to answer questions when ascending the bhikshu altar, how to use the monk's bowl, and how the monk "reveals", that is, the confession of one's mistakes and mistakes without concealment. A few days later, after the teaching, the monks led the crowd to bathe in the street, shaved their hair, cut their nails, and put on new clothes and shoes, preparing to ascend the bhikshu altar and receive the "bhikshu ordination". Before ascending the altar, each person "revealed" and repented, and then the 900 ordination disciples were divided into 300 altars, and three people from each altar were ordained separately for a day and night. The method of ordination is: first of all, the presiding monk of the monastery, the master who has obtained the ordination, the karma who has passed on the karma, and the monks who have passed on the scriptures and ordination monks sit on the stage in turn, and the monk who opens the altar presides over the ceremony. He replied, "Yes." Again, "Is there a theft?" He replied, "None." After asking a series of formulaic questions according to the precepts, the ordained novice's "five clothes" are removed, and then the "seven clothes" are put on and a porcelain bowl with a small brush, two pieces of white cloth, a bowl cover, and a bowl cushion. He also warned the novices, "With this bowl, you can travel all over the world, and treat the bowl as life, the bowl is in the people, and the bowl is dead." "If you break the bowl, you will be bound to an iron chair and burned to death. Therefore, we cherish and love Bo Meng very much. Originally, it was used for eating, but generally no one uses it easily.
After receiving the bhikshu vows, the seventeen-day bodhisattva vows began, which was the last vow of the "Three Great Altar Precepts", at this time the ordained people were already familiar with the monastery's rules and precepts, and the inside story gradually became clear, and the relationship had been formed, so there were very few people who were beaten. Therefore, there is a saying among the monks, "Tight novice, slow bhikshu, living bodhisattva who saves life." ”
After entering the bodhisattva stage, the first thing is to diverge the "nine strips of clothing", and ask the ordained person to put three monastic robes together, which is called the "three-ring set of moons". This is followed by the study of Buddhist precepts and chanting day after day**. Ten precepts are studied during the novice ordination, 250 precepts are studied during the bhikshu ordination, and 500 precepts are studied during the bodhisattva vows, so they are recited every day. Because the whole ordination period is about to end, the monastery in order to reward the donors who support the temple, almost every day to reward the donors for the Buddha's deeds, all the monks, nuns and male and female laymen gather in the big Buddha hall, chant Pudu**, remember the donor's long life in the present life, and the bliss of life after death.
In the last three days of the bodhisattva vows, activities such as touching tin sticks and burning incense are held. Touching the tin rod means that the monks holding the tin rod hold the ordination altar, and the ordained monks line up in a single row to enter, and recite the mantra to the front of the battle and take turns to climb it.
It is not clear why the search map shows that the last day of the twelve ordination scars is to burn incense, shave off a piece of hair on the top of the ordained monk's head in advance, and the ordained monk takes the burning coarse incense and burns nine large fire marks on the top of the ordained monk's head, and seals the fire seal with jujube mud. Because of the unbearable pain during the hot stamping, there are many cryers. After this pass, it is much easier, all the monks go to the Guangji Temple tower courtyard to worship the ancestors and sweep the tower, and go to the tomb for the ancestors. In the end, the monk who opened the altar gave a lecture and distributed the precepts, and by this time, the ordained person had gone through so many tribulations, and his head was as hot as a colander, so that he could be regarded as obtaining a diploma to travel all over the world.
After receiving the ordination, I wanted to return to my hometown, but it was during the Anti-Japanese War, Japanese planes were flying all over the sky, and every day I heard gunshots and cannons, social turmoil, traffic interruptions, and all kinds of atrocities committed by devils, so I didn't dare to come back, and I couldn't come back. Fortunately, the Japanese believed in Buddhism and did not destroy the temple, so I stayed in Beijing and successively became a monk in Deshengmenli Berlin Temple and Jinyu Hudong Xianliang Temple. Entertain the Buddha every day, and endure the sun and the moon. Living the life of a slave in exile.
It wasn't until the thirty-third year of ** (1944) that I took the train back to Anyang, and as soon as I got off the train, I was stopped by a few Japanese devils, who checked my luggage inside and out, and saw that it was all things used by monks, and they also believed in Buddhism, so they let me go. As I walked, I thought, how can we Chinese people let the Japanese devils and pee on our heads, and I feel good in my heart, and I leave the station with Amitabha Buddha in my mouth. I wanted to go back to Xilu Village to visit the two old parents first, but I heard that bandits were rampant in the east of the railway, and they were careless about people's lives. So I went straight back to Deng Huguo Temple.
When I went to the temple, the temple was depressed, the Buddha was cold, and there were few Buddhists left, all of whom made a living from farming, because I had studied a little bit of culture after a few years, so I set up a school for me to teach in the school. What is taught is enlightenment books such as "Hundred Family Names" and "Three Character Classics". Later, the Eighth Route Army liberated the western area of Anyang, merged my school with the other two schools in Jiadeng Village, hung a portrait in the classroom, changed to new teaching materials, and became a people's teacher in the Communist Party school.
When Japan surrendered in 1945, the people of the whole country were overjoyed, and our school held a meeting to celebrate. However, not long after, Chiang Kai-shek provoked a civil war, the Japanese devils were driven away, and the Kuomintang 40th Army returned to the west of Anyang. The monks of the monastery fled in all directions, leaving only an old monk who was over the age of old. As soon as I came and had nowhere to run, and thinking that I was a monk, they would not help me, so I went back to the monastery and lived with the old monks. All day long, planes, machine guns, and grenades were ringing indiscriminately, and I was worried. One day, he suddenly broke into the monastery, and several soldiers pointed bayonets to my chest, insisting that I was a secret agent of the Eighth Route Army, and dragged me to the back street of Jideng. There were many elderly women who did not run away, and they all knew me, and they all pleaded with the soldiers, saying, "This is a monk, what are you doing with them?" The soldier asked me, "Since you are a monk, you will definitely recite sutras, and if you can recite a mantra of death, I will let you go." "I recited the mantra and let me go back to the monastery. When he returned to the temple to discuss with the old monk, he felt that Huguo Temple was no longer a place to stay for a long time, so he locked the temple door and walked straight to the east, until he walked into Anyang City.
There is a small temple on the bridge of Xiying Street in Anyang City, there are only three north houses, and there are two small houses in the north of the bridge. There is also a lot of unrest in the city, with gunshots here and murder tomorrow, and soldiers in uniforms searching the streets all day long. It's a lot of trouble.
In the spring of 1947, Liu Deng's army besieged Anyang City and fought for more than 20 days, during which the Kuomintang 40th Army and some local recalcitrant forces in the city, in order to facilitate the battle, demolished all the houses in the four passes outside the city, and used the removed wood to shed trenches, and caught people everywhere in the city. After a few days of hard work, some of our young people were gathered in the southeast camp and examined one by one. After the physical examination, one of the officials left some people by name and announced: "Because there is a shortage of soldiers in the city, everyone needs to serve the party and the state now." From today onwards, you are all soldiers. "I was stripped of my monk's robe and put on a military uniform, and from then on I changed from a monk to a soldier.
By the autumn of 1948, most of China had been occupied by the People's Liberation Army, and the area around Anyang had become liberated. In order to preserve his strength, Chiang Kai-shek transferred the 40th Army by air, leaving Anyang City to local bandits Xiang Kang. We first took a plane to Kaifeng, and then took a train back to Xinxiang, and we couldn't figure out what it was for. When I went to Xinxiang, like Anyang, it was also a lonely city, embattled. At first, the troops had food to eat and were paid a monthly salary. However, by the end of 1948, they could not pay their salaries or even eat, so they had to go to the liberated areas to grab grain to eat. On the 24th day of the lunar month of that year, our 315th regiment went to Weihedong to grab grain, and set off in the middle of the night. But as long as they say let it be robbed, who cares whether it is food or things, oil, salt, cloth and everything, some cut the unwoven cloth of the peasant women from the loom and snatch it, and some pour out the cotton oil in the lamps lit by others. I'm a monk, and I do good deeds, so I don't do that, but I have to follow them. The grain that was snatched back was handed over to the group, and the fine grain was kept in the company and the platoon to eat it secretly. The stolen things are bought and the money is divided. What is it**, it has become a bandit army.
In the spring of 1949, when the grass in Xinxiang City ran out of food, and the soldiers "deserted" and fled into the common practice, more than 50 people in our search company "deserted", and catching the deserters was a severe beating. One day, when a deserter was caught, the company commander was red-eyed, and at night he gathered all the officers and men of the company, declared that he would beat him to death, ordered him to kneel on the ground, and asked each soldier to beat three sticks, each squad leader to beat 10 sticks, each platoon commander to beat 30, and the company commander to beat 300. He fought for half the night, but fortunately, people's hearts were flesh and blood, and no one could bear to beat his brother to death, because of the difference in the weight of the stick, he did not die, but left his life, but he was scarred and unconscious, so he was pitiful.
No matter what punishment is to no avail, there are still people running away, and I heard that the deputy commander Li Chenxi is in tears. Later, I heard that the commander of the 317th Regiment led the whole regiment to revolt collectively and surrendered to the People's Liberation Army, which caused a great shock in the 40th Army, and the whole army began to rectify military discipline, stepped up preparations for war, dug three trenches outside Xinxiang City, added a barbed wire, and laid mines and bamboo drills, and there was a great momentum of fighting to the death. One day, the whole army urgently ordered a meeting of cadres above the squad leader level, and we all pinched it in our hearts, thinking that we were going to fight a big battle, and we didn't know how many days we could live. However, when the cadres returned and the order of the military headquarters was conveyed, we breathed a sigh of relief, because it turned out that the military headquarters had reached an agreement with the People's Liberation Army, and the whole army had collectively surrendered. And announced that we are no longer the 40th Army, which has been reorganized into the People's Liberation Army. That night, all the officers and men were in a hurry. There were those who drank and drank, those who lay down to sleep, and some who shot indiscriminately into the air. In the early morning of the next day, the military headquarters urgently ordered that "if anyone fires guns and bullets indiscriminately, they will be shot on the spot." This calmed down.
In late April 1949, the follow-up troops of the Fourth Field Army in the south arrived near Xinxiang and Anyang under the command of Cheng Zihua. The higher authorities ordered that the 10th Column of Dongye was responsible for liberating Xinxiang. Xinxiang had been besieged for half a year at this time. Before arriving in Xinxiang, the Fourth Field Army was renamed the 47th Army, and the 47th Army had 60,000 men and was equipped with heavy firearms. After the 47th Army arrived at the front line in Xinxiang, Liang Xingchu, the commander of the army, had already received an order to be transferred to the commander of the 38th Army, and because of the task of liberating Xinxiang, he still stayed in the 47th Army to work. Immediately, he studied the battle situation with Gan Weihan, the former political commissar of the 14th Column, who had been renamed the political commissar of the 70th Army, and decided to surround Xinxiang on all sides, and informed the Kuomintang defenders that there were two roads to choose from, one was the Beiping Road, which was resolved peacefully; The second is the Tianjin road, which is self-defeating. From 1 to 3 May, Li Chenxi sent Zhao Tianxing, the newly promoted deputy commander, out of the city and arrived at Chenbao Village, where the headquarters of the 47th Army was stationed, to formally request the PLA for peaceful reorganization, and signed an agreement on surrender and peaceful reorganization on 5 May. The signatories of the two sides are: On the PLA side, Liu Daosheng, director of the Political Department of the 12th Corps, Liang Xingchu, commander of the 47th Army, and Gan Weihan, political commissar of the 70th Army; On the Kuomintang side were Li Chenxi and Ying Boren of the 40th Army.
Later, our 315th Regiment was accepted for reorganization by Tiaohui County. On the way to Huixian, I suddenly heard a "boom" **, and after checking person by person, it turned out that a soldier at the regiment headquarters threw out a grenade, and the regiment commander was furious and shot the soldier on the spot.
After arriving in Huixian, the officers and men of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) lined up to welcome us and made thoughtful arrangements for food and accommodation. During the meal, there were 12 sets of dishes and chopsticks and two rice bowls per class, and since I joined the army, that meal was the most sweet and peaceful. At night, after going to bed, the grass and mats were clean, and we were specially prepared for washing our feet, and I said in my heart, "The People's Liberation Army is so good." ”
Since then, I have become an artillery soldier of the 47th Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Fly across the Yangtze River, liberate Yichang, march to Sichuan, liberate Chongqing, go east to Hunan, liberate Changsha, and suppress bandits in the mountains.
Eliminate local recalcitrant and run all over half of China in the south of the Yangtze River. In 1950, he joined the Volunteer Army, crossed the Yalu River, and participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. I returned to China in 1952 and was demobilized in the same year, returning to my hometown where I had been absent for more than 30 years.
Looking back on my life experience, from a monk to a soldier, from a monastery to a frontier, I am really full of ups and downs and full of emotion.
Source**: Anyang Cultural and Historical Materials, Volume 5.