Cui Zengqi: Trip to Yunnan (V)

Cui Zengqi: Trip to Yunnan (V) When I returned to Kunming from Dali, I took the high-speed highway built on the basis of the Burma Highway built during the Anti-Japanese War. The tour guide will go back with everyone...

Returning to Kunming from Dali, we took the high-speed highway built on the basis of the Burma Highway built during the Anti-Japanese War. The tour guide reviewed with everyone the stories that happened on this lifeline that maintained the survival of the Chinese nation during the Anti-Japanese War. At that time, the Japanese occupied most of China and Hong Kong, and China's direct sea and land routes to the outside world had been cut off. Then, Japan occupied Pennan and cut off all access to China. Needless to say, there was no foreign aid for guns and weapons, and living materials were also very scarce. At that time, the Nationalist Government decided to build the Burma Highway from Kunming to Myanmar to open up a way out. The terrain here is steep, with high mountains and jungles and crisscrossed rivers. This highway has a total length of 1,453 kilometers, 959 kilometers in China. Except for 452 kilometers of rural roads from Kunming to Xiaguan, the remaining sections have to open new roads along the mountain trails of caravans. Along the way, it has to pass through the Nushan Mountains and the Gaoligong Mountains, and cross major rivers such as the Lancang River and the Nujiang River. The difficulty of the project is evident. At that time, international bidding was invited, and the minimum construction period was three years, with many additional conditions. It is said that at this critical moment of national crisis, the then governor of Yunnan Province, Long Yunxia, ​​issued an order for the Yunnanese to build this highway themselves, and gave Chairman Chiang Kai-shek of the Nationalist Government a guarantee that it would be completed within one year or else he would come forward to meet him. Long Yun's warrant was in the form of a chicken-feather letter, a handwritten warrant and a box containing handcuffs, which meant that if it could not be completed as scheduled, it would be strictly dealt with according to the law. So, 200,000 ethnic minorities prepared their own dry food and slept in the open. They carried hoes, iron mills and sledgehammers, used backpacks and stones to grind them, and used ants to chew bones. They just dug out the most rugged road in the world in less than a year. Countless people sacrificed their precious lives. County Magistrate Wang, who led the road construction army, was blinded by exhaustion. When he saw some of these documentary clips, he couldn't help but shed tears. He was deeply moved by the patriotic enthusiasm of our country's ethnic minorities in this moment of national crisis. This is the power of people mobilizing. When the then US President Roosevelt sent a commissioner to investigate, he praised it as the third wonder of the world after the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall.

>The Burma Highway passing through the Bao Mountains

Historical photos of migrant workers building the road. The completion of this highway shattered the dream of Japanese militarism to kill China in a short time. China relied on the favorable terrain of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River and the Guizhou mountains to launch a protracted war with the Japanese; The soldiers and civilians in the occupied areas launched guerrilla warfare and tunnel warfare to fight against the Japanese army. The Burma Highway is like a new blood vessel formed by a by-pass, maintaining the anti-Japanese war all over the country. What is also unforgettable is the patriotic fervor of the overseas Chinese compatriots. After the highway was completed, a large number of transportation tools were needed. Mr. Tan Kah Kee, an overseas Chinese living in Nanyang, initiated a huge donation to support the Anti-Japanese War and raised more than 13,000 vehicles. With cars, there is a lack of drivers. As a result, another group of overseas Chinese young people gave up their stable and prosperous life abroad and formed a mechanical service group of 3,192 people to return to China to support the Anti-Japanese War. When the Japanese army bombed this lifeline again, it was the local ethnic minorities who used their lives and blood to maintain the smooth flow of the line. In 1940, the Japanese army blew up the Lancang River Bridge. Just as little Japan was trumpeting to the world that it had completely cut off China's supply lines, transport convoys full of supplies were passing continuously on the pontoon bridge set up on seventy empty gasoline barrels, which became a good story during the war. Nie Er described in the lyrics of "March of the Volunteers": "When the Chinese nation is at its most dangerous, everyone roars in anger and builds our new Great Wall with our flesh and blood." This is a true portrayal of this period of history. Walking on this road stained red with the blood of the ancestors and martyrs, listening to the heroic stories told by the guide, I deeply felt the great power of the people. A country will radiate infinite power as long as its people are of the same mind and united as one. Yes, the people, and only the people, are the real driving force of history. However, if the power of the people is misused, it will cause catastrophe. In 1958, we personally experienced the nation-wide steelmaking campaign. Every household smashed pots and doors and windows to make steel in order to achieve an annual output of 10.8 million tons of steel and catch up with Britain. The subsequent "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" that took place in the 1960s and 1970s incited ignorant children and young people to ransack homes, beat people, and criticize people "for the proletarian regime." In the end, it was the fighting between a few of them that harmed the common people across the country, harmed the entire country and nation, and made the entire society restless and stagnant for thirty years. This period of history must be summed up carefully. The people are not guilty. The proletarian revolutionaries who are under the influence of evil should always do some introspection and self-criticism!