My boyhood was spent under the cloud of the Anti-Japanese War.
My hometown is Ducun, Pinglu County, Shanxi Province. It is now called Dumacun together with Macun. In 1938, the Japanese occupied my hometown. I was 6 years old and old enough to remember. At that time, my father was working as a postman at the Yuncheng Post Office. There were grandfather, grandmother and several uncles at home. My mother took me and my two-year-old brother to live with my grandfather. The Japanese came, and the peaceful mountain village was no longer peaceful. The Japanese soldiers burned, killed, raped and robbed, committing all kinds of evil. They went to the countryside from time to time to "clean up", snatching food, arresting men and women. Some of the young men in Murakami went out to serve as soldiers in the National Army, and some in the Eighth Route Army. Most of them went out to escape, which is commonly known as "escape from Japan" among the people. The remaining old and weak women, and the most pitiful ones are young women, usually use pot ash to smear their faces to make them dirty to avoid accidents. Whenever Japanese soldiers went to the countryside, the villagers would put on their pre-branded pot helmets, run into the ravines, and hide in pigeon holes in the mountains. The Pigeon Cave is a large cave in the mountains where countless wild pigeons live. The villagers call this cave the Pigeon Cave. Some of the uncles were driving their own cows and donkeys, and some were carrying things on their backs. My mother had to hold my brother and take care of me. I was small and couldn't run fast, so my mother asked me to hold her by the back of her lap, but she still fell behind the crowd. When I was anxious, thanks to my fourth uncle who came in time, picked me up and ran into the mountains.
My uncle’s home is in Macun, which is very close to my village, about a mile away. The second uncle was the leader of the underground party. He secretly organized the people to resist Japan and delivered intelligence to the Eighth Route Army. Unfortunately, he was betrayed by a traitor. The Japanese soldiers asked the second uncle to hand over the local Communist Party list. He allowed the enemy to torture him severely, but the second uncle refused to spit out his words. , the cruel Japanese soldiers tied him up and threw him into a deep well to drown him alive. My fourth uncle was just seventeen years old at the time. He was tall and strong. Later, every time we escaped from the war, he came to help us. Otherwise, it would be difficult for my mother alone to protect us siblings during the war. This kind of torturous and dangerous thing happens every ten days or eight days. Grandpa is too old to run away. He thinks that the Japanese will not do anything to him, an old man in his sixties, so he keeps him at home. Unexpectedly, the Japanese soldiers didn't care about this at all. They tied him to a tree, beat him with a riding crop, and forced him to tell where the villagers were hiding. Our old Yang family is a big family, and my grandfather is highly respected in the village. It was he who discussed with the village elders that the villagers should hide in pigeon holes. He knew that once the Japanese found the Pigeon Cave, the villagers would suffer a great disaster. No matter how the Japanese tortured them, he refused to tell the villagers where they were hiding. The Japanese soldiers were so angry that they held his head and poured soapy water into his mouth. The torture made the old man faint several times. After the Japanese soldiers left, people returned to the village and rushed to rescue their unconscious grandfather. There was no medical treatment at that time, so I took the most primitive method, catching a fly and putting it in my grandfather's mouth, which made him feel nauseated and vomited soapy water.
During the years of war and chaos, my mother felt like she was sitting on a mountain of sorrow every day, and her days were like years. Suddenly, good news came to my father. He was temporarily transferred to the military post office by the National Army during the war. He was treated like a soldier and much better than at the local post office. He took us three ladies to Yuncheng. When we arrived in Yuncheng, there was another kind of tension and danger. We had to avoid bombing by Japanese aircraft all day long. Every family dug air-raid shelters. When the sirens sounded, they got into their own air-raid shelters. We stayed in Yuncheng for about a year, and the army was about to move to Luoyang. We followed the military mail team and were protected by army soldiers, but we had to walk on our own. My father held my three-year-old brother in his arms, and my mother led me behind. At the end of the day, my father’s arms were swollen and he was in so much pain that he couldn’t lift them up. Once, he placed his younger brother in front of the Earth Temple in a village and wanted some kindhearted people to take him away. After walking a few dozen steps, he felt that he couldn't bear it anymore, so he turned back and took his younger brother away. Fortunately, his younger brother did not leave.
During the transfer, I often didn’t have enough to eat. Whenever I went to a place, I would always go to the local people’s homes first to beg for food. I didn’t care about the thickness of the food. We are protected by soldiers, and we also know some knowledge about air defense. When we hear the siren, we can obey the commands of the defending soldiers and lie down in the farmland beside the road. It was May day, so I lay down in the pea field and took the opportunity to break off the pea corners and eat them. The Japanese planes came, flying so low that they could almost brush the treetops. The sound was deafening. They dropped bombs and strafed. The fleeing people following the military mail convoy did not know how to avoid the Japanese planes and suffered heavy losses. After the Japanese plane flew away, there was a lot of crying. I saw that the road was full of broken limbs, blood stains and broken meat. The intestines and stomachs of the victims were hanging on the branches. Some were bombed to the point of being reduced to human form. The air was filled with blood. The smell is really terrifying! This tragic scene is engraved in my mind like a brand, and it is still unforgettable. When I arrived in Luoyang, I had constant nightmares for several days, and I was frightened and woke up several times.
After five or six days, we finally arrived in Luoyang. Life finally settled down and we no longer had to "escape from Japan." After staying in Luoyang for three years, my father was transferred to Taiyi Palace at the foot of Zhongnan Mountain in Xi'an. When the Anti-Japanese War was won, I was already 14 years old. On August 15th, it was even more lively than the Chinese New Year. I saw many people crying and running to tell each other. There were celebratory firecrackers and gongs and drums everywhere. My mother happily hugged me and said, "We no longer have to fearfully 'escape from Japan.'"
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, my father returned to the local post office, and we moved from Taiyi Palace to Xi'an. From then on, he lived here for a long time and became a native of Xi'an.