Chapter 11 7. "March 31" coffin-carrying parade

In February 1936, the Nanjing government of the Kuomintang promulgated the "Emergency Measures for Maintaining Public Security".The Beiping authorities set off a vicious wave of suppression of students. Many patriotic students in schools were arrested or expelled.The authorities of the Hebei Provincial No. 17 Middle School (hebei high school for short) established outside Di'anmen, Beiping City, forcibly reorganized the student union and expelled 10 students including Kang Shien, an activist who participated in the student movement.Throw their luggage out the gate and force them to leave the school.The students at the school asked the principal to withdraw his order, but were refused.The 60 students in the second and third classes of senior high school were so indignant that they left the school together with the expelled classmates and lived on the streets with nowhere to go.In the evening, stay at the student dormitory of the Third Hospital of Peking University.Our students at Peking University express our deep sympathy to these comrades in arms on the anti-Japanese and national salvation front.On behalf of the Peking University Student Union, I and the other two executive members extended our warm condolences.Peking University students who lived in the dormitory of the Third Hospital volunteered to vacate their berths and let them live there.

According to the arrangement of the Peking Students' Federation, more than 300 student representatives from each school escorted the expelled students from Hebei High School back to school on February 13.The school closed its doors and no one received them.The students entered over the wall and clashed with some staff members of the school.Soon, the foreign school students who came to leave.The principal of the school, who had already heard the news and hid outside the school, returned to the school together with the military and police at 6 pm.Guo Qing, a student in Class C, Grade 2, was arrested, tied up, and escorted to prison.Guo Qing is an ordinary patriotic student, but the reactionaries regard him as a leading figure in the student movement and the "mastermind" of "provoking" Hebei High School.So he tortured him to extract a confession and tortured him cruelly.But they didn't get what they wanted from Guo Qing.

On March 9, patriotic student Guo Qing was tortured to death in prison!When the bad news came, the students from all schools were very sad and indignant, and they asked the Peking Student Union to take action against Guo Qing's death.The student union party group decided to hold a memorial meeting for the martyr Guo Qing at 9:00 am on March 31 in the auditorium of the Third Academy of Peking University. On the night of the 30th, the Peking University Student Union received the notice from the Student Union. Several other executive members and I secretly informed some progressive students about the memorial service overnight.

On the morning of March 31, a student from another school brought an empty coffin from the coffin shop by bus and placed it in the auditorium of the Third Hospital of Peking University.At 8 o'clock in the morning, I came to the auditorium and saw a sketched portrait of Guo Qing hanging on the front of the coffin, and around the coffin were many elegiac couplets and wreaths sent by students from various schools.Some students who participated in the memorial service thought that the body of the martyr Guo Qing was really contained in the coffin, and they immediately felt sad!Especially some female students, wept so hard!

Around 9 a.m., more than 1,000 student representatives from various schools gathered in the auditorium of the Third Hospital of Peking University, and were preparing to hold a memorial service.Peking University President Jiang Menglin came to the venue, severely reprimanded the students and ordered the meeting to be stopped.The students ignored it.He called Han Tianshi, the general affairs officer of the Peking University Student Union (equivalent to the chairman) and one of the hosts of the meeting, to the principal's office.He must dissolve the memorial service; if not, he must be punished.At that time, Hu Shi, the deans of Peking University, and others were all in the principal's office;

Student Han Tianshi returned to the venue and reported the situation.The student union party group research decision: the memorial service will continue.At this time, the Beiping City authorities had sent military police to surround the gate of the Third Hospital of Peking University.The student picket team guarding the gate is ready.At 11 a.m., the memorial service began.After the chairman's speech, student representatives from various schools spoke one after another, impassioned and full of grief and indignation.A representative said in his speech: We don't even have the freedom to hold a memorial service.The gate has been blocked, and the military and police want to arrest us, what should we do?A "coffin-bearer procession" was proposed.Most students agree.But the door can no longer go out.The students opened a gap in the partition wall between Peking University Third Hospital and Kongde Middle School, carried the coffin out, walked through the gate of Kongde Middle School to the street, and started the coffin-carrying parade.The parade passed through Donghuamen Street and turned to Beichizi Street. When they were marching neatly, they were overtaken by military and police motorcycle teams.They rampaged towards the parade, beating and arresting indiscriminately.The students put up a determined resistance.

As a result, some students were injured, and more than 50 students were arrested, put in police cars, and sent to army prisons.Among the students arrested, there were 5 male students and 4 female students from Peking University. On the afternoon of the 31st, the Peking University authorities posted two notices.One announced: "This year's Student Union will immediately stop all activities."Another one announced: "Students Wu Shengsan, Wu Peicang, Han Tianshi, and Ye Jilin of Zha's school should be expelled immediately because they disrupted order and endangered the peace of the whole school."