3.A Red Army Woman Division Commander Knowing Five Languages

Forward, forward. The soldiers' responsibility is high and the women's rancour deep. In the past Hua Mulan enlisted in place of her father; today the Women's Detachment bears arms for the sake of the people.

This Company Anthem of the Red Detachment of Women is about the story of an armed force of women which existed only for two years in the history of Chinese armed struggles. Still people cannot forget the company commander who died a martyr's death and the force that fought to the last person. When the story was made into a film, the Women's Detachment, "brought back to life" again, became widely known.

In narrating the story of the servicewomen one must write about this Women's Detachment on an island, which became symbolic of the pride and glory of the Chinese women. After the liberation of the whole country, Chairman Mao Zedong personally presented a submachine gun to Feng Zengmin, second Party representative of the Women's Detachment. When I got to the birthplace of the Women's Detachment, I could still feel the ptimiyibr dimplivity and vigour of Qiongya in the South Seas titled "the ends of the earth." Today this southernmost part of the vast expanse of he country has become a province and a special free trade Zone of economic development.Though Hainan of today and that of the past cannot be mentioned in the same breath, yet when I first landed on the island 7 years ago, I was deeply impressed by the residential cottages, put up with the barks of coconut trees and without electricity, among the coconut forests exclusive to subtropical zones. Poverty and beauty are two discordant extremes of the island. Looking further back into history, we can see that the place was once an out-of-way wild beach and riprap where the court sent the enlisted and the banished. Su Shi, a great poet of the Song Dynasty and a demoted official, was once banished here and left a famous poem. By the beginning of this century, modern industries had already landed in China, and yet the wind of human civilization became a spent force when it blew here across the inland. Though the island had become an assembling place for the Han, Li, Miao, Hui and other nationalities, there wasn't much change in the primitive mode of production of slash-and-burn cultivation whereby they lived. The sea called for the men of Qiongya and survival forced them to travel across the high seas.

The majority of the early Chinese labor came from here.

Life was extremely hard for the women folks on this impoverished island. On their weak shoulders fell the heavy labour of seed-sowing and harvesting of three crops a year and all the household chores. Yet the industrious and independent women of Hainan didn't enjoy any

special honor for all this. On the contrary, evil forces of dealing in women, drug taking and whore going as well as poverty and backwardness combined to make them feel terribly suppressed. Maybe herein lies the reason of the blooming and quick fading of the forces of servicewomen, representative of the progressive women of China. When the CPC established Soviet power in Qiongya, it won support from the island people. The naturally bold and unsophisticated Hainan women joined one after another the Red Guards, the Young Pioneers, and asked to join the Red Army. To encourage the Qiongyawomen's enthusiasm for participation in war, the special committee of Qiongya of the CPC and the Second Independent Division of the Red Army chose in 1930 120 young women from 6 to 7 hundred women and formed the Women's Special Task Company, with three platoons under its command and called the Women's Detachment. This force was not divorced from production. In addition to military drilling,they had to till the land, harvest and cooperate with the main forces in military operations in times of war. In June 1931, together the main forces of the Red Army, they succeeded in an ambush, capturing alive Chen Zeyuan, commander in chief of the communist-suppressing troops of the Kuomintang in Yuehui County, killing and capturing a hundred or so enemies, and seizing a batch of fire arms and ammunition, with not a single member of the Women's Detachment being wounded or killed. Their fame was greatly enhanced. By 1932, the Women's Detachment developed into two companies. In August of the same year, Chen Jitang, a warlord in Guangdong, mounted a large-scale offensive on the Soviet areas of Qiongya to support Chiang Kaishek's fourth counter-revolutionary encirclement and suppression. The special committee and organization of Qiongya, covered by the main forces of the Red Army, transferred towards Muruishan. The enemy troops caught up when they retreated to Ma'anling, and the first company of the Women's Detachment and the first battalion of the Red Army were ordered to check the enemies. They fought a fierce battle with the enemies for three days and nights and won. The first company of the Women's Detachment then received orders to retreat. The 8 servicewomen who left behind to bring up the rear all laid down their lives after running out of ammunition and food supplies. When the first company of the Women's Detachment retreated to Muruishan, they were surrounded by the massive forces of the enemy. A few days of fierce fighting left most of the soldiers dead or scattered, and Feng Zengmin, the commander, and 8 others were caught and imprisoned. The second company of the Women's Detachment originally intended to retreat to Liulianling with the third regiment of the Red Army, but was scattered in Huiyue County due to dire circumstances. Thus the Women's Detachment

disintegrated.

History did not arrange this moment on purpose. In the second year

of the moving and tragic disappearance of the Women's Detachment of Hainan, the Chinese interior basin of Sichuan saw the rise of another red force of women, which belonged to the Fourth Front Red Army in the Chuan-Shan bases. Later it evolved into a force with the largest number of servicewomen and the most complete establishments in the Red Army.

In March 1933, on the sports ground of a school in Tongjiang County of Sichuan Province was held an inaugural meeting of a Women's Independent Battalion directly under the general headquarters of the Fourth Front Army. More than 300 Red Armywomen, wearing uniforms and five-star army caps and armed with longbarreled guns and handguns and broadswords, lined up on the sports ground in good order and high spirits. Almost the whole county town of Tongjiang was stirred and the sports ground was packed with lookers-on. Sichuan was the most populous province in China and in every 10 Chinese there was one Sichuanese. So the Sichuanese didn't pay much attention to people. But having never before seen any servicewomen, they gazed in surprise at these girl soldiers. Two months later these girl soldiers won a battle and seized most of the war trophies of the battle. Then a year later, the Women's Independent Battalion was expanded to a Women's Independent Regiment with more than 2,000 people.

In Feb. 1935, the Women's Independent Regiment was expanded to a Women's Independent Division with two trgiments under its command. Who was the division commander? Naturally people tend to associate this person with the male Party representative of the Women's Detachment as shown in the film. This is mot due to the view that men are sperior to women. The force of Chinese servicewomen was after all too young then. Could there be someone as well versed in both polite letters and martial arts as Hong Changqing (the Party representative

in the film)?

The times produce their heroes. The woman commanding this women's force was indeed well versed in both ancient and modern learning and widely known for leading 500 peasant women in capturing a regiment of the White Army. Her name was Zhang Qiuqin.

This is a name rather unfamiliar to our age.

With the help of Directory Inquiries 114, I called up the Textile Industry where Zhang Qiuqin worked after liberation, and inquired about her from the General Office to the Old Cadres Bureau, and from there to the Personnel Department, but the answer was the same: "Sorry, on one knows."

When I was about to give up all hope, I read in a book of a woman cadre who, victimized as a Rightist in 1957,once worked in the Ministry of Textile Industry. Thus I called up the Old Cadres Bureau of the Ministry of the Textile Industry again and inquired cautiously whether this "Rightist" of those years was still alive. As a result I was

indirectly but luckily given the material on Zhang Qiuqin.

Let's read the experience of the 31-year-old woman division commander and concurrently commander of the first regiment.

Born in a scholarly family in Shimen Town of Chongde County, Zhejiang Province, Zhang Qiuqin, from childhood on, benefited from directions from her father, editor of a daily newspaper in Jiaxing. She was a top student of Shimen Primary School. From 1921 on, she studied successively in Hangzhou Women's NormalUniversity in Zhejiang, Shanghai Patriotic Girls' School and Nanjing Art Training School. In the spring of 1924, Zhang Qiuqin entered Shanghai University. Here her fate made a definite turn. In April 1923, Deng Zhongxia took up the post of dean of studies in this university and started a reform in the school system and a reshuffle of teachers, engaging Qu Qiubai as dean of the Sociological Department and Chen Wangdao as dean of the Chinese Literature Department. A number of communists and progressive scholars like Cai Heshen, Zhang Tailei, Yun Daiying, Shen Yanbing, Tian Han, Zheng Zhenze and Feng Zikai came to teach here one after another. Zhang Qiuqin embraced Marxism here and joined the Socialist Youth League. At that time Xiang Jingyu, a CPC member, was in charge of the Women's Movement in Shanghai and often came to Shanghai University to discuss with the girl students the current situation and issues concerning women. She held that the politically awakened women intellectuals should go and work among the working women. With her mobilization, Zhang Qiuqin as well as some others organized the girl students of Shanghai University and other colleges in setting up with worn-out straw mats and thin bamboo strips, Zhang Qiuqin made the acquaintance of women workers who had to do hard labour. She taught them to learn to read, write and sing and helped them to manage household affairs and take care of the sick and disabled. She came to tie more and more closely the tragic lot of the Chinese women with that of her own. To seek revolutionary truths, she and more than 100 other progressive young people embarked, in Oct. 1925, on a Soviet freighter for Yat-sen University of Moscow where they started a 5-year study. In addition to learning political and military sciences, she established a long-term contact with a textile and learned textile techniques and management know-how.

In the autumn of 1930, Zhang Qiuqin left Moscow and returned to Shanghai after passing through many different places. She became a member of the Eastern Hu District Committee of Shanghai and was in charge of work on women. In 1931 she was dispatched to the then E- Yu-Wan revolutionary base and started her career as a servicewoman. In this remote and backward place where Hubei, Henan and Anhui shared a common boundary, her identity was rather noticeable. At first, she served as dean of the Political Department in the Peng (Pai)-Yang (Yin)

Military and Political College where the main task was to train cadres at the basic levels for the Red Army. Each day, with the first rays of the morning sun, she would get to the drill ground before anyone else. With an army cap on her head, a leather belt around her waist, and a handgun tilted on one side, she would drill together with the cadets. She was also in charge of offering lectures on Marxist-Leninist theories, conducting education concerning the current situation and tasks and teaching revolutionary songs. In addition, together with the cadets, she participated in the construction of defense works and trenches as well as in shooting and field maneuvers. In 1932 , she was appointed director of the Political Department of the 73rd Division of the Fourth Front Red Army. In Dec. of the same year she was appointed director of the General Political Department of the Fourth Front Army. In 1935, the Women's Independent Division of the Fourth Front Army came into being and she served as division commander and concurrently commander of the First Regiment.

The soldiers were all aware that this woman commander, with a slender figure and delicate features, was adept in both polite letters and martial arts. In 1933, the 500-people Red Guards led by her ran into a regiment of the enemy's Independent Division under Liu Hanxiong's command. Discovering that their opponents were numerous Red Armywomen wearing signs of red cloth, the enemy officer immediately ordered an attack. But the soldiers, seeing the situation, were reluctant to open fire. Zhang Qiuqin seized the opportunity and led the armywomen in launching a political offensive. All of a sudden, shouts of slogans by the women soldiers echoed in the valley: "Revolutionary soldier brothers, you are welcome to the Red Army! " "The Red Army is the vanguard in fighting with the Japanese devils!" The enemy officer flew into a rage and forced the soldiers to open fire. But one of the soldiers said to the enemy's regiment commander with anger: "I've never before seen troops that protect the nation and the people. Why should we fight with people on our own side rather than the Japanese devils? And now we have to fight with our women folks. It's really outrageous!" The enemy officer shot the soldier to death at once. By this time the enemy troops were filled with indignation and there was an outburst of shouts: "Let's kill the reactionary officer and join the Red Army!" They turned their guns and arrested the enemy's regiment commander and battalion commander. While shouting propaganda at the enemy troops, Zhang Qiuqin and the women soldiers quickly rushed to the enemy's position, captured all their equipment, and disposed of the reactionary officers. Part of the enemy troops joined the Red Army whereas others were given traveling expenses to go back home. The news of "500 peasant women capturing a regiment of the White Army" spread throughout Sichuan and was published in a couple

of well-known newspapers. Zhang Qiuqin, both brave and resourceful, received increased respect.

In 1936, the Women's Independent Division led by Zhang Qiuqin took part in the Long March together with the Fourth Front Army. Among the troops of the Red Army that participated in the Long March, this division covered the greatest distance and walked for the longest of time. Together with more than 10'000 servicemen, they plodded through the marshlands for three times and twice scaled snow-topped mountains.The scale of their force as well as their sacrifices was rare in the history of the Red Army.After the War of Resistance Against Japan broke out, the Women's Independent Division was redesignated as Women's Anti-Japanese Vanguard and follow the Western Route Army in crossing the Yellow River and starting a western expedition.In March 1937, Zhang Qiuqin was captured in a battle after running out of ammunition and food supplies and was escorted as a principal criminal from the Northwest to Nanjing.Rescued by Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying and others, she was then set free.At the end of the same year, she went to Yan'an via Xi'an and entered the Central Party School to study.After graduation, she served as commander of the Women's Group in the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College of Yan'an.In 1939 the Chinese Women's University was founded and she served as dean of studies.The post she assumed is up to now the highest in the independent establishments of servicewomen.All her comrades-in-arms miss this learned leader.The then 16-year-old armywoman Li Kaifen, recalling the movement of suppressing counter-revolutionaries in the Soviet areas, said that it was Zhang Qiuqin who pulled her out from the grave pit where " counter-revolutionaries " were buried alive." Won't you let go of a 16-year -old child? " said Zhang Qinqiu. When obstructed and accused of undermining the movement, she spoke sternly out of a sense of justice: " Go to the Political Department and ask for me, Zhang Qiuqin! " This " little red devil " who was thus rescued later took the office of associate political commissar of the Logistics Department of Beijing Military Command.

After the liberation of the whole nation, this servicewoman who was closely bound up with workers from youth onwards and studied assiduously textile techniques and management know-how in the Soviet Union, eventually took up her specialized post as she had long wished and became vice-minister of the country's Ministry of Textile Industry.She spared no effort in the performance of her duty for the sake of the prosperity of the country's textile industry. The technique of degumming bast fibre spinning, which has brought innumerable economic benefits for the state, was developed as a result of her concern.