Chapter 4 Chapter Four

This is the year 1978, which was warm and cold. The spring breeze of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee has not yet blown into the frozen land of China. The shadow of "class struggle as the key link" and "two whatevers" is like the sword of Damocles in Greek mythology, always hanging over the heads of the strike educated youth and all those who dare to doubt and resist the ultra-left line.No one dares to ignore the fact that collective resistance (strikes) of any kind is a crime against the revolution, regardless of your subjective motives.The incident that occurred on August 28, 1974 in Ruili County, the gateway to western Yunnan, can serve as a lesson for the past.

That summer, there was a flood.However, what is even more disturbing is the news that the active-duty soldiers are about to withdraw from the Corps. "You can demobilize, change jobs, and transfer jobs. Why can we only be educated youths in the frontier for the rest of our lives?" In addition, the news that an earthquake measuring 6 on the Richter scale will occur in the near future makes the educated youths' hearts fluctuate even more.In just a few days, thousands of educated youths flocked to the county seat, and began to move in large numbers to the Ruili River Bridge and the Burma Highway when their request to return to the city was not answered.

At 2:00 a.m. on the 28th, station chief Chen of the border inspection station guarding the Ruili River Bridge received a stern order from his superiors.The superior ordered him to defend the bridge at all costs within 24 hours, and never let a fugitive educated youth cross the bridge.But the only restriction is that you are not allowed to shoot at the crowd. At 7:50, the morning fog gradually cleared, and the first group of dark educated youths appeared.The phalanx marched in silence.There was no human voice on the gravel road, and the two phalanxes that were hostile to each other quickly shortened the distance.One hundred meters, eighty meters, fifty meters... Suddenly the alarm at the bridge head sounded.The phalanx moved on. "Bang bang bang", the soldiers fired into the sky.The policy is repeatedly preached on the tweeter, disintegrating the fighting spirit of the invaders.The educated youth solemnly and solemnly held their arms tightly, and some took the lead in singing "The Internationale".

The well-trained army and militia defense lines are like black rocks that remain motionless.Strong determination and strict discipline enabled them to successfully hold back the waves of educated youths.At this moment, a group of educated youths with larger numbers and more aggressive behavior appeared. The situation is extremely urgent.Warning shots fired into the air were ineffective, and the three militia lines of defense were overwhelmed one after another.Because his superiors ordered him to stick to it, Stationmaster Chen had no choice but to retreat the last batch of soldiers and militiamen to the entrance of the bridge in the chaos. He formed a human wall arm in arm, and shouted the tragic slogan "Swear to live and die with Jiangqiao".

This is a majestic and thrilling grand scene that took place in the southwestern border of China in the summer of 1974 AD.Hundreds of heavily armed soldiers and militiamen were ordered to stick to the river bridge. They had no choice but to use their bodies as obstacles to block the only way for the fugitives to pass.Thousands of educated young people eager to return to their hearts risked their lives to hit and shake this line of defense. The fighting continued until noon.The educated youths drove a herd of water buffaloes from a nearby farm, and many male educated youths who were not afraid of death rode on the backs of the cattle and kicked and hacked.Jiangqiao's line of defense finally couldn't withstand the powerful impact of the menacing herd of cattle, and it was smashed to pieces for a while.Some soldiers were trampled, and others were dragged more than ten meters away.Amid deafening cheers, thousands of educated youths marched across the river bridge and set foot on the Yunnan-Burma Highway, a broad avenue leading to the mainland of China and also to their hometown.The flood broke its bank.

The lawless actions of the educated youth finally alarmed Kunming and Beijing.The Revolutionary Committee of Yunnan Province and the Kunming Military Region followed the instructions of their superiors and sent a large number of troops to chase and intercept them along the way, persuading, mobilizing and forcibly sending educated youth back to the frontier.At the same time, hundreds of thousands of poor and lower-middle peasants and commune militias were mobilized along the highway, promised to double the work-point subsidy, and set up a net to round up the fugitives on the thousands of miles of Burma highway.The instructions of the leaders of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee are very clear: "No one is allowed to slip through the net."

So in just one week, the fugitive educated youth who suffered from self-sufficiency inevitably fell into the vast ocean of the people's war.Thousands of peasants are armed with old-fashioned weapons: bronze cannons, shotguns, hoes, and shoulder poles. Men, women, children, and children all go to battle, and even cattle herding children have bright eyes, watching all suspicious pedestrians on the road day and night.Once the fugitive educated youth appeared on the road or on the hillside, with the sound of clappers, the spectacular scenes that we have seen countless times in "Tunnel Warfare" and "Mine Warfare" were vividly repeated: the peasants held up their swords and spears, waved With hoes and poles, shouting excitedly, all of them rushed towards the educated youth instead of the enemy regardless of their own safety.The superiors stipulated that one more educated youth could be rewarded with a certain amount of work points, so the poor and lower-middle peasants showed great enthusiasm, and many people beat each other to the point of death in order to compete for the captives.

The work of repatriating the educated youths took more than half a month, and the local governments dispatched hundreds of vehicles to send the captured educated youths back to the frontier one after another.Only four years later, that is, at the end of 1978 AD, will the educated youth petition group face the same embarrassing failure as the "August 28" educated youth?