Guide for the future – the memory of Yuan Wen party branch’s visit to New Fourth Army Taihu Guerrillas Memorial Hall

     Guide for the future – the memory of Yuan Wen party branch’s visit to New Fourth Army Taihu Guerrillas Memorial Hall

     After the Wannan Incident broke out in 1941, the National Revolutionary Army New Fourth Army (hereinafter as "the New Fourth Army") was disbanded Kuomintang reactionaries, the commander Ye Ting were detained and the deputy commander Xiang Ying was killed. CPC Central Committee gave tit for tat and decided to rebuild the New Fourth Army, with Chen Yi as the commander, Zhang Yunyi as the deputy commander and Liu Shaoqi as the political commissar. After reconstruction, the New Fourth Army went deep behind enemy lines to carry out guerrilla warfare against the Jananese.

     New Fourth Army Taihu Guerrillas carry out anti-Japanese movement with the base of Taihu Lake region, Guangfu town in Suzhou was close to Taihu Lake, with various hills and trees, winding stretches of lakeshore, lush reeds and islands, which provided favorable conditions to the guerrilla warfare. Chongshan was a small island in the west Taihu Lake in Guangfu Town, with the area of less than 3km2, where lived a hundred households of farmers and fishermen, the isolated geography and lush reeds surrounded made it become of the main guerrilla camps in Taihu. In 1944, the New Fourth Army Taihu Guerrillas was trapped in this small island Chongshan in Guangfu Town by the Japanese army, and the guerrillas safely escaped with the local people's full support for 20 days, which was the famous "Chongshan Breakthrough". To commemorate this hard-won victory and soldiers who died in this breakthrough, the Suzhou municipal government locally built this New Fourth Army Taihu Guerrillas Memorial Hall free to the public.

      On September 27, 2014, 20 people of the party branch in Yuan Wen(Shanghai)Law Firm drove to Guangfu town in Suzhou to visit this “New Fourth Army Taihu Guerrillas Memorial Hall”. This hall consisted of three chapters to show the tortuous course of the initial construction, reconstruction and expansion of New Fourth Army Taihu Anti-Japanese Guerrillas Branch. The hall not only displayed the household goods, operational tools and letters from the New Fourth Army soldiers, but reproduced the reed ditch, communication boats and stations during the war, which made people immersive to return to the war times that New Fourth Army fought in Chongshan.

      Even with a small area, this memorial hall had a profound meaning, Chongshan Breakthrough lasted 20 days involving 55 our members and more than 300 Japanese troop members, in a view of the national resistance scope, it was not eye-catching no matter for the time-consuming or the scale. However, it was a microcosm of the national resistance from the army and common people in China, even with traitor betraying, being outnumbered and poorly equipped, Chinese army gained support for justice, the army and common people of the nation together fought with foreign aggression and smashed the enemy’s attempts once again, thus achieved a complete victory of Anti-Japanese War.

      Even Chongshan Breakthrough had a small scale, the soldiers having died in this breakthrough were the sons of their parents, the husbands of their wives and fathers of their children. Statistically, they were just the insignificant part among the tens of millions of soldiers and civilians having died in the Japanese invasion, while they were irreplaceable in the hearts of their beloved. For this country and nation and fighting with invaders, they decided to take up arms and defend the motherland, they used their own blood and lives in exchange for the national revival and glory, they failed to see the day of victory, while they’d never doubted that this day will eventually come.

     We should not forget them, and should not forget each one who had fought lost their lives, and to set up a memorial hall for this small battle also reflects the party and the government’s concept of governance in "people oriented", this just a half-day study and tour also gave us mixed feelings, and made us deep believe that only the growing prosperity of the country would never disappoint those who had died for the independence and liberation of the Chinese nation in the beginning.

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