Women's Emancipation: A BloodStained Monument

1. Price Paid in Breaking through the Darkness

On the night of Dec. 13th, 1927, the reports of gunfire of the Guangzhou Uprising gradually became sporadic. Yet a sickle-and-axe red flag was still fluttering in the smoke of gunpowder in front of the Tianzi dock at the northern bank of the Zhujiang River. Standing under the flag was a squad of servicewomen who had lost contact with the headquarters.A 19-year-old woman soldier, holding high a bent bayonet, said to her wounded comrades-in-arms: "We will fight to the last person to protect this red flag!" The enemy discovered finally that it were a few young women who were defending the last fort. "Catch them alive!"They thronged forward while shouting. Yet what they had not expected was that this was a group servicewomen who would die rather than surrender. The squad leader You Xi, who was a cadet of the Women's Group in the Huangpu Military Academy, was commanding the fighting. They tried to withdraw while wrestling with the enemy. Gradually, however, with the dying out of the sound of wrestling, all the soldiers of the women's squad laid down their lives heroically. Yu Xi's body was cut into several pieces by the enemy who put them on the dock for "public exposure."

While looking about on the former battlefield, we felt as if we could still hear the delicate voice of the pubescent leader of the servicewomen's squad.

The Chinese servicewomen kindled the holy flames of destroying the feudal system with their flesh and blood. For the first time in the long history of China, they revealed most firmly Chinese women's independent human dignity. We can't count the exact number of women who died in the long course of the harsh revolutionary struggle because of the limited conditions at that time. According to the record of modem Chinese history. nearly 30 million people died for the new China's independence and liberation, among whom, there were thousands upon thousands of servicewomen who died a most tragic death in Chinese history. Up to now, the slogans"Overthrrow the Local Tyrants, Allot Fields to Peasants "and" All Rights Should Be Turned Over to the Peasants' Union "can still be seen on photos or in museums. They could be found anywhere on the Jing gang shan Mountains at that time. But we are seldom aware that many of the slogans were written by a servicewomen of the Red army.

She was Wu Ruolan, who was once in charge of the Women's Federation in Leiyang County, Hunan Province and who joined the Communist Party in 1926. She was an important criminal listed as wanted by the Leiyang

government for the crimes of taking the lead in resisting against Japanese goods, expressing support for the general strike by workers in Shanghai, organizing the propaganda team in support of the Northern Expedition and leading the struggle against the local tyrants and evilgentry. In Feb. 1928, after the First Division of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' revolutionary army led by Zhu De and Chen Yi arrived in hunan, Wu Ruolan took part in the armed uprising led by the Communist Party Committee of Leiyang County, After that, she led a group of young students in joining the Red Army. Later she got married with Zhu De.

She was not respected merely for being Zhu De's wife. She was known throughout the Jing gang shan areas for being a calligrapher of the Red Army and for being able to shoot with both hands. she would often carry two pistols and hold one writing brush, displaying very much the graceful bearing of a learned general. One an aryl morning in Feb. 1929, Wu Ruolan, who had just got up and didn't have time to clean up yet, suddenly heard some unusual sounds from the nearby jungles. "Too bad! We have been surrounded by the enemy." After reporting to Zhu De, the army commander, She threw herself into the fighting together with a few soldiers at her side. Many of the enemies fell at the sound of her two pistols. Then they aimed their machine-gun at this "focus." Wu Ruolan was seriously wounded. But she continued shooting at the enemy with her two pistols. The enemy did not realize that this unique opponent of their was a woman until they rushed forward from behind the position and pressed her down to the ground. Wu Ruolan fought had-to-hand with the enemy....When she regained consciousness, she found herself in the enemy's prison.

Informed that she was Zhu De's wife, the enemy complled her to confess the internal organizations of the Red Army and its military operations and the local members of the Communist party. But Wu Ruolan scolded them severely and exposed them relentlessly. In return, she received doubly harsh torture. On Feb. 12th, Wu Ruolan, beaten black and blue, was put to death on the execution ground in Gan zhou. The last words people heard her utter from her feeble chestwere: "Long live the Red army!" The folks looking on all shed tears. After her death, her head was cut off by the enemy who had it hang on a frame with the words" Wu Ruolan, wife of Zhu De, chieftain of the Communist bandits" and then put it on a bamboo raft floating down along Gan River for "public exposure along the river."

It could be termed"carry on the revolution with the head in the hands."

At that time, the revolutionary strength strength of the Red Army was called "fire of single sparks." The Red Armywomen were even smaller in number and weaker in strength. On the Jing gang shan Mountains there

were only a hundred-odd Red Armywomen like Wu Ruolan. They were a group of solitary revolutionaries as well as heroic martyrs. More often than not, they died a more heroic death than men. however, for various reasons, the blood they shed and the sacrifices they made were long buried in the depth of history.

In the summer of 1933, Liu Zhen hua, appointed by Chiang Kai-shek as commander in chief of the communist-suppressing troops in the three provinces of Hubei, Henan and Anhui, mustered forces to eliminate the 25th Division of the Red Army. Numerous people in the Dabieshan Mountains areas were killed or starved to death. An area of several dozen li, ranging from Yangtianwo to Maocaojian, was turned into a "No man's land." The 25th Division's hospital had to be transferred into the remote and thickly forested mountains in the vicinity of Yangtianwo bordering Hubei and Henan. Red Armywoman Zhou Dongping and her comrades-in-arms hid a dozen or so wounded soldiers separately in the nearby caves. A 17-year-old woman nurse was caught by the enemy when she was looking for edible wild herbs.

The skinny servicewoman was bound tightly on a dead tree, a bayonet being aimed at her throat.

"Tell the truth. Where have the wounded been hidden?"

"Tell them that the Red Army has been surrounded and ask them to get out to surrender voluntarily."

Then young girl kept silent. She fainted as a result of being lashed again and again by the enemy with a leather belt, but when she recovered, she still kept silent. Even when the enemy threatened to burn her to death by setting fire to the tree branches put up in front of her, she still said nothing. The branches burst into flames and she was relentlessly swallowed by the raging fire. What the enemy could hear was only her extremely tragic shriek. Although over half a century had passed, Zhou Dongping could still clearly remember what had happened outside the cave. She said: "My heart was al most broken. You know, she was only 17 years old. To her life had just begun! "The young girl was not required to choose such a way of living by the accepted moral standard at that time.

Again on the Dabieshan Mountains, Red Armywoman Zhou shuying was leading the masses n hiding grain from the enemy when the latter arrived. She was betrayed by a traitor before she could transfer and was caught by the enemy. She was told that she could be setfree if she would confess where the grain was. She refused, knowing that the grain meant life to her comrades-in-arms. Then the enemy cut off her breasts and cut her corpse into several pieces, exposing them in the broad daylight.

Like other females, the servicewomen took the roles as women, mothers and wives, What made them different from other females was that they were soldiers and for some, even commanders on battlefields. On

an evening in July 1929, more than 4,000 enemy launched an attack on the guerrilla forces led by Hu Jun, a woman commander. Just when the mountain top was shrouded in the smoke of gunpowder and lashed by the pouring of hullets, an infant's crying was heard from the command post. Hu Jun's daughter came into the world on the battlefield. When the enemy launched the 5th attack, Hu kept commanding the battle by sitting in a large bamboo basket carried by her comrades-in-arms. The enemy were defeated and fled the battlefield. But who still remembers this woman commander today? In talking about the Pingjiang Uprising, people will probably mention marshal peng Dehuai, but not Hu Jun, the woman commander. However, the victory of the Pingjiang Uprising was ensured thanks to her cooperative operations with peng Dehuai in 1928. She also used to be one of the most active woman cadets in the Huangpu Military academy as well as one of the few woman commanders on the battlefields. The enemy had constantly threatened to catch her alive, putting up her photos everywhere and offering a great reward for the capture of her. In the eyes of ordinary men, she much exceeded what was proper. She not only violated the ancient teaching of "covering her face when going out and hiding herself when looking around outside, "but also commanded an armed force which was predominately male. She was doomed to fall a victim to the Chinese feudal society. She died in Jan. 1933 at the age of 37 only.

That Hu Jun, after giving birth to a child, could still command the battle by sitting in a bamboo basket is hard to imagine for most people of today, but it was counted as "happiness" in the period of the Red Army. For most servicewomen, they were confronted with the painful departure from their own flesh and blood upon hearing the first cry of their babies. in the winter of 1936, there fell a rarely seen heavy snow in the areas of the Dabieshan Mountains. Crotches as thick as bowls were broken by the heavy snow . The ground was iced over and everywhere one could hear the cracking of tree branches. Several dozen servicewomen of a women's platoon of the Red Arm were besieged by the enemy in the icy and snowy world. Servicewoman Zhang Min was delivered of a girl baby here.

her comrades-in-arms felt happy for her, but worried about the infant at the same time. They had got nothing to eat for day. The infant, crying piteously for food, was so hungry that she kept crying day and night, which might attract the attention of the enemy.

On the early morning of the 6th day after the baby's birth, the servicewomen beard Zhang Myin's call for help. They came and found that she was tightly holding her daughter, leaning herself against the cane wall. The baby lay quietly in her arms.

The baby was suffocated to death.

They were not discovered by the enemy.

The platoon leader Yuan Cuiming lost her temper: "Are you crazy, Comrade Zhang Min?"

Zhang Min, hanging her head, whispered: "The child is my own flesh, but at the moment. "

For the past 6 days, she had kept silent the whole time, shedding tears upon hearing the baby's crying for food. She found a cave nearby and crawled inside, thinking that once discovered by the enemy, her comrades-in-arms wouldn't be affected. The servicewomen took care of her in turn, feeding the lovely baby with what they could find. They said jokingly that the child belonged go the whole platoon.

Amidst the wind and snow of the Dabieshan Mountains, the servicewomen dug a grave and held a "funeral" for their child. All the servicewomen shed tears.

Several decades passed. Comrade Zhang Min also died of ill nests later. Few could remember the 6-day-old girl baby and her mother. But they once lived in this world.

It was not an unusual thing for the servicewomen to "get rid of "their own babies in the war period.

The human history witnessed for the first time the Long march, which proved to the world that the Red Armymen were brave warriors. However, few people knew what the Red Armywonmen had experienced in climbing over the bridles snow-covered mountains and plodding through the marshlands unmarked by human traces. Cai Chang, a well-known Red Armywoman, who served as chairwoman of the All-China Women's Federation after liberation, wrote with deep feeling in recalling the Long March: "Although our servicewomen were endowed with an iron will, they were after all human beings made of blood and flesh. Long expeditions, hunger, cold, exhaustion, wind and immersion in water and what not left many healthy servcewomen with gynaecological diseases. The majority of them did not have menstruation any longer and some were unable to have children for the rest of their lives. There were 4 servcewomen who started out on the long journey in pregnancy and gave birth to babies upon arriving at Guizhou. In order to catch up with the troops, they had to give their newborn infants to others. In the poor and remote villages of Guizhou, It was even difficult to find a family that could afford to adopt the offsprings of the Red armywomen. Comrade He Zizhen gave her baby to a lonely blind old woman; Comrade Zeng Yu left her baby in an empty room with a note on it ; and Comrade Chen Huiqing put her baby at the foot of an anonymous hill. The

lying-in mothers couldn't get any rest or enough nutrition. They even couldn't stay long with their babies. The hearts of these mothers couldn't be more grieved." How many mother servicewomen died in the war and how many children of the servicewomen's diedin the war?

On Sept. 15th, 1943, Japanese troops and traitors called out an

army of 40 thousand strong and carried out for three months the so-called "burning, killing and robbing" devastating mopping-up operations on the anti Japanese base near the border area of Shenxi, Chahaer and Hebei Provinces. More than 8 thousand people were killed. Zhang Li, and Eighth Route Army servicewoman, was captured with a 3-month-old baby in her arms. She was stark naked and the blood on her bayonet-stabbed body coagulated when her comrades-in-arms found her Following pieces of clothes and blood stains on the pround, they found her baby in a folks' caldron. The little being bad already been boiled to death by the Japanese troops. zhang Li had been a college student who took part in the Anti-Japanese War in Beijing.

Servicewoman Li Lin, coming all the way across the ocean from Indonesia, threw herself into the Anti-Japanese War. she was the head of the anti-Japanese guerrilla forces in Yanbei and then took the role as the political instructor of the cavalry battalion of the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army. She was well-known for her bravery in the rear areas of the enemy, who once offered a huge sum of 5 thousand yuan for getting her head. When the enemy mopped up the border area of He bei and Suiyuan in 1940, she led the troops in smashing 8 Japanese mopping-up operations. As luck would have it, she was injured in the 9th anti-mopping-up operation. While the enemy shouted "Catch her alive," Li Lin, with a pistol in each hand, kept pressing the triggers until she ran out of ammunition. Then she died a heroic death, shooting the last bullet into her own throat. At that time she was already a mother with 3-month pregnancy. The Japanese troops dismembered her remains with bayonets.

In the war years, even though some servicewomen became mothers after a narrow escape from death, deep in their minds there was a dark shadow concerning child bearing which was hard to wipe away.

The eldest son of Yin Zhi, an anti-Japanese servicewoman, was born on the eve of New China's liberation. There were 7 other infants who were born almost at the same time as he was. But none of them survived. One of the young mothers went mad. Wherever the troops arrived, she would crazily dig the earth with her hands, all the while calling her baby's name. No one could stop her. She was convinced that she could see her baby underground. Her hands were drenched with blood. For those who were about to give birth to babies, they, holding their abdomens in their hands, did not know what would happen to them. Never could Yin Zhi forget how the comrades-in-arms delivered their babies in dilapidated temples with wind blowing in from all sides or in tree pits during their long march and how they buried in tears the babies whose life ended the moment they came into the world. Never could she forget the blood-stained hands of the crazy young mother who kept digging the earth. The mentioning of the experience was always like a nightmare

to her. She said: "It is over 40 years since liberation. My son is about 50 years old. But I have never taken him to visit my comrades-in-arms of those years. I simply dare not. I am afraid they will be grimed upon seeing my son. My son survived. But their children died. Such pain I can never face!"

Red Armywoman Chen Zongying was of "high rank" in that she was the wife of Ren Bishi, one of the five important secretaries of the Central Committee and head of the Second Front Red Army. But her life was constantly accompanied by the looking for and missing of her lost sons. When Ren Bishi was put into prison in 1928, Chen Zongying took a coal-carrying train with her little daughter Sumin for Changsha for the rescue of her husband. it was cold and windy all the way. Coal ash and lumps fell constantly upon them. Little Sumin was seized with pneumonia and had a high fever. Hardly had she rescued her husband when her daughter died. When the Red Army was breaking through on a western expedition in 1931, the couple entrusted their newborn son called Xiang Gan to the local folks. His whereabouts is unknown up to now. Their second son, like his brother, was also entrusted to the folks soon after birth. Whether he is alive or dead is still unknown. Yuanzhi, their fourth child, was thrown into Longhua Prison in Shanghai together with her mother fewer than one hundred days after her birth. When rescued from prison by the Central Committee, Yuanzhi was over one year old. Not long after she came out of prison, Chen Zongying received a telegram from Zhou Enlai who asked her to go to the Soviet areas as soon as possible. Chen Zongying had no choice but to entrust Yuanzhi, just set free from prison and only a little over one year old, to the folks in Ren Bishi's native place. Yuanzhi was already 15 years old when she finally united with her parents in Yan'an after overcoming lots of difficulties. it was the first time that she saw her own father, who called her " my eldest daughter." Many uncles in Yan'an, including MaoZedong, Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi, also followed her father in calling her "the eldest daughter." It was many years before Yuanzhi learned from her parents that she was not their eldest daughter. Not only did she have two elder brothers and an elder sister whom she had never met, she also had two younger brother whom she could never see. As to her mother, she had experienced five painful departures with her own flesh and blood. In 1950, Ren Bishi, on his deathbed, still exhorted Chen Zongying to "continue inquiring about Xiang Gan."

years upon years have passed by since liberation. Chen Zongying, like many other servicewomen who had lost their children in the war years, returned again and again to the old haunt of was, looking for her lost children. How she and the others expected to reunite with their own children, but each time they were disappointed, leaving ceaseless tears on the uneven rut. Eventually Chen Zongying found the folks who

had adopted one of her sons. But what she saw was only a sweater worn by her son in his childhood. Tears dropped from her eyes when she held in both hands the sweater that still seemed to keep the temperature of her son. She