Chapter 10 Chapter 2 Savage Mountain
Zhu Xichun——Second Lieutenant of the Political Department of the Newly Formed 22nd Division of the Fifth Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army
Yan Tingchun - a soldier of the 66th Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Force
Li Wanfang——a soldier of the 200th Division of the Fifth Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army
Zou De'an——At that time, he was the combat staff officer of the Fifth Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army
Yang Cenfeng——At that time, he was a soldier of the 96th Division of the Fifth Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army
This is the only one of the six episodes of the "Burma Series" that does not tell a battle story.War seems to have become a supporting role in this episode, replaced by another enemy that can never be defeated-Savage Mountain.
Strictly speaking, Savage Mountain is actually limited to the virgin forest in the Hukang River Valley in northern Myanmar, with a radius of nearly 300 kilometers.
From this point of view, when the Chinese Expeditionary Force retreated in northern Burma in 1942, only the main force of the expeditionary force led by Du Yuming was the only one that really crossed the Savage Mountain.Many of the remaining units, such as the 200th Division, actually returned home via another route.
When we started working on this episode, the biggest challenge was finding actual survivors of Savage Mountain.The flames of war and time have taken away too many witnesses.I even once doubted whether it was necessary to strictly limit the scope of Savage Mountain from the perspective of making films.But this question finally disappeared with the appearance of old man Zhu Xichun.
The first time I saw old man Zhu Xichun was at noon after a rain.Several hours of bumpy rides brought us to a small village that looked like a paradise.As I expected, the old man was very excited to see us.But what I didn't expect was that the reason for the old man's excitement was that there were too many printing errors in his previously published autobiography.In the dim farmhouse, Mr. Zhu pointed out the mistakes in the printed text one by one according to his own manuscript.Although these mistakes have nothing to do with us, I can understand the feelings of the old man when faced with these mistakes-the most unforgettable memory in life, of course, there is no room for misinterpretation.
I don’t want to repeat too much about the experience of the old man Zhu Xichun in the Savage Mountain, because it is difficult for any language to accurately describe the journey of death in that wild land.Through the old man's narration, I knew for the first time what it was like to sleep on the head of a dead body, and for the first time that I knew that leeches could get into the testicles.
Before leaving for Zhu Xichun's residence, I deliberately watched a video of the old man being interviewed by the media.In the screen, the old man mentioned his comrade-in-arms Li Guoliang.When it came to the emotional part, Zhu Xichun, who was nearly ninety years old, cried bitterly in front of the camera, repeating "Don't blame me, don't blame me...".For a director, such material is nothing short of wonderful.But I have always felt that it is too cruel to let the interviewee open the wound again and again in front of the public.At least, I can't.
At the end of the interview, the old man finally brought up Li Guoliang.Maybe it was because of my casual attitude, this time, Mr. Zhu did not cry, but calmly told about the past that made him feel guilty all his life.After that, there was a long silence.
Perhaps, after knowing all the historical plots, only silence is the best memorial to that tragic history - the 40,000 Chinese soldiers who died in the Savage Mountain are the witnesses.
At the beginning of May 1942, in a village south of the Hukang River Valley in northern Myanmar, Zhu Xichun, the Second Lieutenant of the Political Department of the New 22nd Division of the Fifth Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army on the way to retreat, and his comrades made the final preparations before entering the mountain. .
"It was blown up, food, weapons, everything was blown up, and there was nothing. At that time, I followed the division headquarters, and then I went to the village to get a jar of salt and picked up a knife. Weapons." Zhu Xichun recalled the embarrassing situation at that time.
Zhu Xichun was born in Pingjiang, Hunan, and was drafted into the army in 1939.At this time, the troops he was in had already traveled hundreds of kilometers for several days under the pursuit of the Japanese army. Although they still maintained the integrity of the organizational structure, their morale was low and their discipline was lax.He recalled: "The soldiers also bought a lot of food at that time. The so-called buying means looting. When they went to the temple, they didn't say anything. They just robbed the food and the Golden Buddha. There was no rule at all. Killing the Burmese cattle, taking A bamboo stick should be sharpened like a knife for killing an ox, and once it is stabbed at the ox, it will be killed like that. In a word, if you win a battle, you don’t do random things, but when you lose a battle, you do random things.”
The Hukang River Valley that Zhu Xichun and his comrades will enter is located in the north of Myitkyina, Myanmar. It means "the residence of the devil" in Burmese. Because there were savages, it was called the savage mountain by the locals.Crossing this virgin forest to the China-Myanmar border, the straight-line distance is 138 kilometers.
According to research by Ge Shuya, an expert on the history of the War of Resistance Against Japan: more than 30,000 people from the Fifth Army Headquarters of the Chinese Expeditionary Army, the newly organized 22nd Division, and the 96th Division, led by Du Yuming, the deputy commander of the Expeditionary Army, retreated via Savage Mountain ( On the way, the 96th Division changed to another route, and the remaining 15,000 people crossed Savage Mountain for the entire journey).
Ge Shuya wrote about the situation before the troops entered the mountain: "In mid-May, the troops reached a small village called Modi in Mansi, a small town more than 500 kilometers north of Mandalay, and there was no road anymore. The army commander He ordered that all heavy equipment such as cannons, cars, and armored vehicles be destroyed in a centralized manner, and the 1,500 seriously injured and sick people who were originally on the vehicles were resettled on the spot (these wounded and sick people all died in the end).”
According to Liu Guiying, who was the health worker of the newly created 22nd Division at the time, recalled: "At this time, gather the wounded soldiers and tell them that now we have nowhere to go, and if you follow us, it is also a dead end. Things have reached this point. Come on, think of a way to deal with it yourself. The wounded soldiers said, save some gasoline, and you go! They set the gasoline on fire and set themselves on fire. More than a thousand wounded and sick couldn’t be brought out, so we all lay on the ground crying.”
Regarding the shocking story of 1,500 wounded and sick people setting themselves on fire, Ge Shuya found through investigation that there are still doubts and the truth is a mystery.Nevertheless, the death of so many wounded and sick had foreshadowed the unprecedented misery of the retreat at Savage Mountain.In Ge Shuya's words, "This is a dark page in the history of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and China's military history."
The officers and soldiers of the expeditionary army walked into the primeval forest with light clothing and 5 days of food on their shoulders.
"The day I entered the mountain was about May 7. Once I entered the mountain, there was no road. The engineering battalion opened the way in front, and we followed behind. The trees were so tall and dense that we couldn't see the sun at all. It’s like night. No one wears a watch, and no one wears leather shoes. They all wear straw sandals, even the teacher.” Zhu Xichun recalled.
Savage Mountain in May is sultry and hot.The officers and soldiers of the expeditionary force who had never been trained in wild survival and jungle combat could only rely on a few inaccurate maps and a few compass to grope forward.
For Zhu Xichun, who was 18 years old at the time, the beginning of this trip was a bit of fun. "It was about four or five days into the mountain, and it hadn't rained yet. There was a flat ground in a mountain nest, and a bunch of monkeys, big and small, came down slowly, not far from us. The smallest monkey came to pick our Helmet, and then grabbed the wild fruit and hit us with a bang bang on the helmet. I didn’t wear a helmet at the time, and the wild fruit hit me directly on the head, which hurt a lot.”
Saying goodbye to the naughty monkeys, an elephant suddenly appeared in front of Zhu Xichun. "There are elephants in our army, which are used to carry guns, food and other supplies. Elephants are so strong that we can put everything on their backs. At that time, we Chinese did not know how to raise elephants. When the elephant saw Basho, he thought Eat, its nose reached for the plantain like a hand, and when it reached it, it broke free from the iron chain that tied it." Zhu Xichun heard that there were two elephants in the army, "I only saw one, and they said that one fell to death. Then the other end fell to his death. Not only the elephant, but also the radio station.”
On May 13, shortly after Du Yuming issued the order to "break out of the encirclement on his own" to the 96th Division, which was in charge of the post-break mission, the military transmitter who had been following him accidentally fell off a cliff and died, and the only radio station was damaged.The officers and soldiers of the expeditionary force who entered Savage Mountain lost all contact with the outside world.
Seeing that the food they brought when they entered the mountain was getting less and less, a sense of uneasiness began to spread among the officers and soldiers.
At this time, Li Guoliang, Zhu Xichun's comrade-in-arms, thought of a way to boost morale. "Li Guoliang just told me, let's sing tonight to cheer up. I said, what's the use of singing? Li Guoliang said, you don't know, singing some anti-Japanese songs, such as "China Will Not Die", can improve everyone's morale." Morale." Zhu Xichun said that that night, the comrades sang songs, and the first song was "Song of the Guerrillas".
In mid-May, in the jungle west of Lashio, Myanmar, a group of ragged Chinese soldiers marched hard along a forest path.It has been more than half a month since they lost contact with the main force.Since all the roads leading to Yeren Mountain in northern Myanmar have been cut off by the Japanese army, a large number of expeditionary officers and soldiers who were left behind had to be broken up into pieces. Taking advantage of the opportunity of the Japanese army's unstable foothold, they quietly infiltrated the eastern section of the China-Myanmar border. Yan Tingchun, a soldier of the Sixty-sixth Army of the sentinel, was also among them.
"At that time, many stragglers followed us, and refugees also followed us." Yan Tingchun said that later the soldiers found a small wooden shed built by locals, which was specially used to store water for pedestrians to drink.He drank water and lay down comfortably on the roof of the wooden shed to rest.At this time, a Japanese aircraft suddenly appeared in the sky and began to straf. "I quickly jumped down from the roof of the shed. As soon as I jumped down, the roof was knocked off. At that time, I called my mother in my heart, thinking: 'Can I go back alive and return to my mother? ?'"
After the enemy plane flew away, the soldiers continued to move forward and encountered a small river.Yan Tingchun recalled that a two-foot-long wooden bridge was built on the river. "A horse was about to cross the bridge, but it staggered and fell into the river. At that time, four or five people were pulling the horse's reins. Someone said, I went down to help, but when he was about to go down, the rein broke, and he was smashed there and died."
In late May, the remaining thousands of officers and soldiers of the 200th Division, which broke out from Lashio, were marching towards the China-Myanmar border with the ashes of the division commander Dai Anlan, together with a large number of remnants of the expeditionary force who had fallen behind.Most of them did not carry enough food with them.Li Wanfang, who was a soldier of the 200th Division at the time, recalled the scene at that time: "It was too difficult, I couldn't get food on the way, and I was very hungry. When crossing a river, some people took bamboo rafts, and I hugged a big bamboo Floating on the water, they dragged me across the river."
In addition to enduring the hostile attitude of the local aborigines, the officers and soldiers also have to face a big trouble-savages.Li Wanfang said: "The savages have red skin, and they want to steal our guns. After fighting for a day, a comrade in Guizhou broke his leg. We also threw grenades to bomb those savages. Many people were killed along the way." .”
Yan Tingchun and his comrades also encountered robbers. "The battalion commander issued an order: If there are robbers, they should be surrounded and fought. We fought with the robbers on the hilltop of a stockade. It didn't take long and we caught the one who snatched the gun. Our people have no losses, and I guess they have no losses. , because the battalion commander said that we must fight, but the muzzle of the gun should be raised a bit, so as not to kill people." Yan Tingchun said.
Finally approaching the border, the motherland is in sight, but Yan Tingchun fell ill.
"That night I had diarrhea, vomiting and diarrhea, and I had to pick the hunchback." Yan Tingchun recalled that a cook was executed at the foot of the mountain, and someone had to pick the hunchback. No one can walk you, why can't you walk today? I said I had diarrhea. He said, diarrhea, I'm afraid you want to die. I said to him, just give me a bullet, I can't walk anymore .”
The bullets of the platoon leader did not shoot at their own soldiers in the end.Yan Tingchun stayed in a local farm to recuperate, and luckily recovered and returned to the team.
On June 17, the remnant of the 200th Division arrived at the China-Myanmar border under the leadership of infantry commander Zheng Tingji after more than a month of difficult trek; on June 25, they joined the supporting troops in Baoshan, Yunnan.The mechanized ace division with nearly 10,000 people on the expedition, together with a large number of stragglers from neighboring troops taken in along the way, returned to the country with a total of less than 4,000 people.
At this moment, Myanmar has entered the rainy season, and there is still no news from the expeditionary force that lost contact with the outside world at Savage Mountain.Du Yuming and the tens of thousands of soldiers he led disappeared in the heavy rain and fog of Savage Mountain, as if the world had evaporated.
The day after Zhu Xichun and his comrades sang "The Song of the Guerrillas", the rainy season came.
"How heavy is the rain? When it was the heaviest, the raindrops shot at me like arrows. I was wearing a raincoat, and the clothes inside were soaked. The sky was covered with dark clouds, and I couldn't see anything on the ground." Zhu Xichun said, "When the rain comes, The mountain torrent broke out. The depression that was originally 40 to 50 meters wide was usually said to pass, and it became a river when the rainy season came. Everyone, you hold me, I will lead you, and we will pass together. When there are more people, the buoyancy will be greater. .Everyone is soaked through, and there is no time to warm up by the fire, so we are on our way dripping wet."
The rainy season in Myanmar starts from mid-May every year and ends in October. During this period, Savage Mountain is shrouded in torrential rain all day long.Terrifying lightning flashed in the air, and the devil in the "Devil's Habitat" began to wake up.
According to Li Minghua, an officer of the Political Department of the Fifth Army at the time, "People were soaked in rain all day long. Everyone was so hungry and exhausted that they couldn't even remember what day it was. Many officers and soldiers ate poisonous wild vegetables because of hunger. and died."
Zhu Xichun remembers that the food ran out about 18 days after entering the mountain, and all the food grabbed before entering the mountain was eaten up, and there was nothing left to eat. "I looked for wild plantains everywhere to eat. After eating wild plantains, my stomach gurgled, and I couldn't pull them out, and I couldn't spit them out. Some people ended up swollen to death."
According to Zhu Xichun's recollection: With the depletion of food, the organizational system of the army gradually disintegrated. "One day there is no food and thousands of soldiers are scattered. That's how it is. There is no food to eat. Who else do I listen to? Who else listens to you? Some sick people can't walk, and they are slowly thrown away. , It’s over if you fall out of the team.”
Savage Mountain in the rainy season gives people a sense of the end of the world.According to Chen Qiluan, the battalion commander of the 288th Regiment of the 96th Division of the Fifth Army at the time, recalled: "We went deep into the primeval forest, where the ancient trees were towering, and the sun could not be seen. It was hazy and humid, and a rotten smell made people feel sick and suffocated. The mountains and plains were everywhere. The cry of the green-skinned monkey seems to be singing a dirge for us."
The swamp is one of the many dangers of Savage Hill.Zhu Xichun saw a person who wanted to take a shortcut, but accidentally got stuck in the swamp. "He yelled, 'Brothers, help'. He was already sinking, and someone held out a gun to him, but he was sinking himself and shouted for help. The brothers behind twisted their leggings into a rope and threw them over. , pulled it, and it broke. Finally, someone cut a tree vine and threw it over, and seven or eight people pulled it up, and finally pulled these two people up."
What's more deadly is the poisonous insects everywhere. "Centipedes, leeches, snakes, and many other insects that can't be named. Leeches are the most powerful. When they bite people, people don't feel it. Once they get in, they can't be pulled out. I don't know how many people have been killed by leeches. After death, there are small leeches in the testicles. I am 88 years old, and I have 7 eyes on my body, one eye was bombed, and the other 6 eyes were bitten by leeches, and the eye that was bombed was also bitten by leeches In the end, it became very large, and it is still there, but I still don’t feel it.” Zhu Xichun said.
Once a person with a high fever becomes unconscious, coupled with blood-sucking by leeches, gnawing by ants, and erosion and washing by heavy rain, they will turn into bones within a few hours. "When people die, they are eaten up, leaving only skeletons." Zhu Xichun sighed.
Heavy rain, hunger, swamps, poisonous insects, the officers and soldiers trapped in the Savage Mountain quickly lost their sense of direction and often circled back and forth in the same place.Savage Mountain has become a maze of horror that can never be exited.
Du Yuming once wrote in his memoir "A Summary of the Chinese Expeditionary Force's Entry into Burma and the Battle against Japan" that he retreated from Savage Mountain: "...the flood was raging, and it was impossible to wade or build a bridge to ferry. The countless rafts made by our engineers were all destroyed by the flood. They were washed away, and some people were also washed away... Tetanus was bitten by leeches, and malaria, relapsing fever and other infectious diseases were also very popular... Officers and soldiers died one after another, and bones were scattered along the way. "
Du Yuming almost died of illness in Savage Mountain.According to Zou De'an, who was the combat staff officer of the Fifth Army at the time, recalled: "In order to carry the commander away, no less than 20 people died, including the commander of the secret service company."
The ubiquitous germs in the jungle ruthlessly devoured the lives of officers and soldiers of the expeditionary force.
"Dysentery, malaria, relapsing fever, cholera, etc. The local unboiled water is undrinkable at all. After drinking it, the feet lose feeling, walk more and more slowly, and finally die." Zhu Xichun said, "Many people die after death. , the teeth were protruding, and the eyes were bulging. The weather was hot, and white maggots were born on the body, which later turned into flies. The flies were much bigger than we usually see, and their stomachs were very big. There were clumps here and there. Walking all the way, there are dead bodies on both sides, and flies block the way."
Li Guoliang, who once organized everyone to sing, suffered from dysentery, and stayed in Savage Mountain forever at the last moment when he was about to walk out of the jungle.
Zhu Xichun recalled:
One day when I saw him, I asked him to give me the backpack and said that I would carry it for him, so he carried it for me.He didn't speak during the day, and he said he was going to have diarrhea every now and then.I cook alone.At night, he told me: "I can't do it anymore." He said: "I'm not stupid. I only found out when I had diarrhea today, and my intestines were perforated."
He wrote me an address, he is his lover, and he is studying at Southwest Associated University in Kunming.He asked me to send her his salary, which we called salary at that time, and a few months of allowance for going abroad.I put the address in my pocket.When I was hospitalized (later in India), my clothes burned.
Speaking of this matter now, I feel that I have been sorry for him for the rest of my life.I only had to look at it at that time, and I remembered the address, but I didn't even look at it, so I stuffed it in my pocket, because I had to take care of him in a hurry.Li Guoliang is a very nice person, he is very kind to me, he teaches me English, math and poker when he is free, and treats me like a little brother.In the end, I failed to do what he asked me to do. Now when I talk about him, I feel very sad.
Many Li Guoliangs eventually became bones on the side of the road.According to Luo Youlun, then chief of staff of the Fifth Army, recalled: “On both sides of the road, some soldiers were covered with leeches, and tens of thousands gnawed on their corpses. One soldier’s eyes and mouth could move. , he said, Commander, Chief of Staff, help me. But there is nothing we can do.”
People say that "life" is a great process, so "death" is also a great process, at least in my opinion.
"Death" and "corpse" are living things with great mysterious power.
There are dead bodies everywhere.Sometimes in the middle of the night, I climbed to sleep in a shack by the side of the road, and when I woke up in the morning, I found myself sleeping among neat rows of dead people.
The corpse fermented and swelled, the military uniform was torn open one by one, and there were countless maggots, flies, and ants wriggling on the corpse, which were also surprisingly large.When stepping over corpses, I saw people I knew, and sometimes I found some leaves to cover their faces.My best friend, Staff Officer Xie Zhuting, was like this, "sleeping" by a big tree.His fiancée is Guo Ping, a member of the military and political engineering team. She is not to mention how beautiful she is, and everyone envies him.There is also a military draftsman, whose name I can't remember, from Guangxi, who graduated from a military academy.His family was very rich, and the jackets he wore since he was a child were all black satin with dark patterns.Along the way, he told me countless times about the good things he had eaten since childhood.As a result, he was lying there now, holding a handful of grass in his hand, and his leather shoes were taken off.
Later on, there were suicides in the ranks, at first putting the muzzle of the gun under the chin, and pulling the trigger of the rifle with the big toe... This is a precursor to the collapse of the army.Later, he was hanged because the guns were all thrown away.The dead body was hanging on the tree and fluttering in the wind, it was terrifying.
The above are Zou De'an's memories of Savage Mountain.
In Savage Mountain, life is worthless and noble. As Zou De'an said, "death" is also a great process.
In the endless death, the light of life of the female soldiers also dried up.
Zhu Xichun said that these female soldiers are nurses in field hospitals. "I don't even know their names, and they died very badly. After they died, they smelled bad, and their skin was bluish, as if they hadn't bathed, and their clothes were all torn."
A body of a female soldier lying on the side of the road caught Zhu Xichun's attention: in front of the body, a haggard-faced expeditionary soldier could not kneel down.
"That female soldier is really not easy. During the battle, this soldier was injured on his left shoulder. There were many wounded soldiers and there were not enough bandages. The female soldier had no choice but to tear off the sleeve of her military uniform and use it as a bandage. One side of the trousers was torn off. After the wound was wrapped up, the soldier went to the front again, but the female soldier died. Her forehead was bombed with a mark, which was very recognizable. When the soldier found her, he used a banana leaf to wipe her After the corpse was covered, he knelt down on one knee and said, "Little sister, I would rather die than let you suffer this kind of torture." In the end, the soldier also died of illness."
The golden Bodhisattva that some people snatched from the local temple before entering the mountain has become a burden for survival.Zhu Xichun remembered that after some people died, there was cloth and a golden Buddha in their backpacks.Nobody cares about them anymore.
Zhu Xichun sleeps and squats every day. "Find a stone and squat down to sleep. What if there is no stone? Just sit on the dead man's head and sleep, not for a day or two, but for nearly two months. Just sleep and squat like this."
At this time, living is the greatest respect for death.
At the end of June, the climate in the mountainous areas of northern Myanmar improved, and the Yeren Mountain, which had been shrouded in heavy rain for nearly two months, finally had sunshine.Allied reconnaissance planes began circling the area, looking for the mysteriously disappeared Chinese Expeditionary Force.One morning, an Allied reconnaissance plane spotted a plume of smoke rising from the forest in the mountains north of Savage Mountain.
According to Zhu Xichun's recollection, the column of smoke originated from the fires made by comrades in arms to repel mosquitoes.The Allied planes that found the target dropped a lot of food on the Chinese officers and soldiers in trouble.For the first time, cheers sounded in the dark and dead Savage Mountain.
"For two days in a row, a lot of food was thrown. The first day was rice, and the second day was flatbread, beef, and canned food. Someone tried to grab it. When the airdropped sack hit the ground, it fell on him. His mouth bled and he died. "Zhu Xichun sighed, "If it weren't for the plane dropping food, none of them would be able to get out."
In addition to food, the Allied planes also dropped radio stations to the Chinese soldiers who had been isolated for many days.It was only then that people discovered that Du Yuming and his officers and soldiers had walked to the edge of Savage Mountain at least twice, but they all turned back by mistake. "The reason why I walked in such a hurry was because I wanted to get out of the predicament. I walked just by the compass without any clear goal. Now I seem to be very blind." Zhu Xichun sighed sadly.
Due to the extreme fatigue of the troops and the disintegration of the establishment, Chiang Kai-shek gave up the plan to let the troops return to China, and instead ordered the entire army to transfer to Ledo, India.Relying on the days of airdrops by Allied aircraft, the food supply of the officers and soldiers was finally guaranteed.
In early August, the last survivors of Savage Mountain arrived in the British defense zone in India.According to Ge Shuya's research: the evacuation of Savage Mountain lasted approximately 114 days, and only 2,000 of the 15,000 people survived, with a mortality rate as high as 86%.
Mu Dan, the poet who was the translator of the Fifth Army at that time, was lucky enough to walk out of Savage Mountain.He once went without food for 8 days, his horse fell down and never got up again, and the orderly died.After passing through the gate of hell, Mu Dan didn't want to mention Savage Mountain again. He who was once passionate became silent, and even seldom wrote poems. Friends could only imagine what happened to him at that time through his drunken words.
According to Wang Zuoliang, Mu Dan’s friend and translator: “It was the retreat from Yunnan and Burma in 1942. His horse fell to the ground, and the messenger died. For an unknown number of days, he was chased by the staring eyes of his dead comrades. His legs were swollen in the poisonous rain of the tropics. The gloom and deadness of the forests of the Hukang Valley grew heavier and more unsupportable every day, with a deadly dysentery that made leeches and mosquitoes monstrously large Biting. And on top of it all, a maddening hunger..."
Three years later, when the whole of China could finally emerge from the gloom of eight years, Mu Dan, who had been silent for a long time, finally wrote a poem: "The Charm of the Forest-Sacrifice to the Bones on the Hukang River".
Not long after Mu Dan escaped from the pile of bones, in mid-August 1942, in Gaoligong Mountain, Yunnan, Yang Cenfeng, a soldier from the 96th Division of the Fifth Army of the Expeditionary Army, was trudging through the valley with his comrades against the wind. "Break it into pieces. There is no way for the division, nor can the regiment. Let's separate. We can't march in large groups, because it is the Hengduan Mountains." Yang Cenfeng recalled.
Gaoligong Mountain is located in the Nujiang Grand Canyon in western Yunnan, on the west bank of the Nujiang River. It is the westernmost mountain range in the Hengduan Mountains. It connects to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the north, with an average altitude of 3,500 meters. It is a natural barrier on the border between China and Myanmar.
On May 18, 1942, the broken 96th Division began to enter the Hukang River Valley on foot.Since they had been in radio contact with the rear, in mid-August, officers and soldiers of the 96th Division, supported by Allied airdrops, arrived at Gaoligong Mountain one after another, becoming the only expeditionary force to return to China via Savage Mountain.
Yang Cenfeng talked about the general fear among officers and soldiers during the retreat: "I am afraid that I will die in a foreign country, what to do, fear. At that time, it felt so far away from the road, and I wished that the heavenly soldiers and generals would pick us up immediately."
According to Ge Shuya's textual research: when the 96th Division entered Myanmar, there were 9,863 people, 4,081 were killed or injured, 2,182 were missing, and 3,600 people returned home. "Just came back, came back, I remember that two-fifths of our regiment didn't come back." Yang Cenfeng said.
At the end of August 1942, the last batch of remnants of the 96th Division crossed Gaoligong Mountain and arrived in Jianchuan, Yunnan.This concludes the Chinese Expeditionary Force's first entry into Burma. "According to General Du Yuming's rough calculation, the Chinese Expeditionary Force had 100,000 soldiers, only 40,000 survived, and more than 10,000 died in battle. In other words, more than 40,000 soldiers died in non-combat during the retreat."
Gaoligong Mountain, known as the Pearl of the Hengduan Mountains, has since become a boundary marker for the confrontation between the Chinese and Japanese armies.
A U.S. military battle report at the time said: "On the west bank of the Nujiang Canyon, there are the Gaoligong Mountains with their heads held high. The steepness here is indescribable. When the tenacious Japanese guarded those strategically important mountain passes, anyone It is very doubtful to try to pass this mountain. Perhaps, only the Chinese can do it..."
I'm going to have a look at that section of the road where many soldiers from the Chinese 22nd Division were killed... Early the next morning, we started the hard climb up to MuBum Mountain.The road conditions are still very good, gradually rising.At first we saw no more than 50 or 60 Chinese skeletons, but now we find 10-30 skeletons piled up every 100 yards. (1 yard = 3 feet = 0.9144 meters)
Didididol, Didididol... This is the sound of raindrops hitting the leaves of banana trees during the retreat in Myanmar. This sound has been in my mind endlessly like tinnitus for decades, and it has never disappeared.In the middle of the night, I often screamed because I touched the corpse of my comrade-in-arms, but when I woke up, I saw my wife sleeping next to me...
When they traveled long distances to find their division headquarters, they showed the best qualities of the Chinese army, that is, hard work and hard work, just as they showed the bad qualities of Chinese soldiers (referring to robbing ordinary people) before.
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