Chapter 130 10. Journalists expose big lies

The Kuomintang boasted about its "record" in conquering Yan'an, but some foreign journalists were skeptical about it.A reporter from the United Press suggested to Deng Wenyi, Chiang Kai-shek's news director: "Mr. Deng, we appreciate the opinions of your government's military critics. The conquest of Yan'an has extremely important military and political value. The quick decision of the war should be written in a special way. However, in addition to the discussion, the more important thing is the facts, presenting the real situation, and allowing readers to identify it for themselves. We believe that foreign journalists who go to the battlefield to interview will have a better understanding of your government, The army has everything to gain and nothing to lose."

Deng Wenyi was "generalized" into the army and could not refuse, so it was decided that he would personally lead a delegation of Chinese and foreign journalists to fly to Yan'an. When Hu Zongnan learned that Nanjing was about to come to visit the reporter group, he panicked and immediately called relevant personnel to hold an emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures.In the end, it was decided that Liu Qingzeng, Director of Intelligence, and Wang Chaofan, Director of Information, would be in charge of preparing for the establishment of a "record showroom" in Yan'an.

After Liu Qingzeng and Wang Chaofan took orders, their headache was the issue of prisoners of war.Because there are no communist prisoners of war.They and the relevant personnel racked their brains and came up with such an idea: set up 10 prisoner-of-war management offices within 20 li around Yan'an.1,500 soldiers were selected from the 27th Division of the City Defense Force, plus 500 young men captured in the countryside to form a youth training team, mixed into several captive teams, all wearing variegated clothes, as prisoners.And forced these people to follow the pre-edited words to cope with the reporter's visit.During the visit, each person is paid one yuan per day.Since the number of fake prisoners of war teams is too far from the number announced in the battle report, when visiting, the prisoner-of-war management office temporarily transfers each other to fill up the number.

As for the seized weapons, the rifles were adjusted and reorganized from the 17th Division's 38-style and two types made in Hanyang to make up for it. The insufficient rifles and light and heavy machine guns were dispatched by the Yan'an garrison, and the guns were sent to the "record showroom" during the day , The method of returning at night, all weapons are labeled, indicating the time and place of seizure. Because the battle report said that the PLA had more than 10,000 casualties, Liu Qingzeng and Wang Chaofan also mobilized some people to build many fake graves on both sides of Yanshui overnight, falsely claiming that they were the tombs of the PLA who died in battle.

However, the false ones are not true. Some careful foreign reporters found many American-style armed forces during the visit, and asked the commentators: Where did the Communist army get these American-style light and heavy machine guns and rifles?The explainer was tongue-tied and didn't know what to answer.When visiting the fake prisoners of war, some reporters asked the prisoners again: "Didn't I see you in another place yesterday, why did you come here again today?" The people who were asked were not taught to answer such questions beforehand. , I was speechless for a while, so I had to touch my heels, stand at attention in a well-behaved manner, and said, "Yes, sir!" Liu Qingzeng and Wang Chaofan, who accompanied the reporter on the tour, saw that the stuff was revealed, and their faces turned purple eggplants .

The big lie had been exposed, and the reporters had no point in staying any longer, so they flew back to Nanjing on the third day.