Xinhua News Agency, Guiyang, September 25th. Title: Leap on Kunniu Mountain
Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Fan
In autumn, Kunniu Mountain is full of green mountains and gurgling clear water. In front of the monument to the feats of the Red Army in Kunniushan, there is an endless stream of red research teams who come here to pay their respects. At the foot of the mountain, a wide asphalt road leads directly to the entrance of the village, where new houses are scattered in an orderly manner.
This beautiful red village that is now famous far and wide has a tragic past more than 90 years ago. In October 1934, the Sixth Red Army Corps, as the vanguard of the Long March, marched to Shiqian County, Guizhou Province and was surrounded by heavy enemy troops. In order to cover the main breakout of the legion, Long Yun, commander of the 18th Red Division, and Tian Haiqing, commander of the 52nd Regiment, led hundreds of Red Army soldiers to cut off the rear and contain the enemy in the steep Kuniushan Mountain.
Unable to attack for a long time, the enemy forced the local people to serve as human shields and pushed the Red Army to the edge of the cliff. When they ran out of ammunition and food, the Red Army soldiers smashed their guns, walked towards the cliff, and jumped off in groups.
This tragic battle at Kunniushan has been shrouded in dust for more than half a century due to various reasons such as the long-term lack of historical data.
"In the old materials, we only found the clue that the Red Army soldiers 'jumped off a cliff collectively and sacrificed heroically.'" In 2001, Yang Youzhu, then deputy director of the Party History Research Office of the Shiqian County Party Committee, and his colleagues were deeply stung: "It has been so many years since the Long March was victorious, why are there only a few records? This is the debt our party history workers owe them."
With this persistence, Yang Youzhu and his colleagues searched for information, took root in mountain villages, and visited a large number of descendants of the lost Red Army, witnesses, and insiders. It took more than 20 years to restore this tragic history bit by bit.
During the visit, many elderly witnesses recalled the unforgettable battle at Kunniu Mountain: that day, they heard "gunshots ringing in the Heitan River ditch" and "the leader (regiment leader Tian Haiqing) was killed, and the sound of Red Army soldiers crying loudly." They saw only fifteen-year-old babies jumping off the cliff.
In the Kunniushan Red Army Feats Exhibition Center in Shiqian County, there is a bugle that was preserved by Chen Shirong, the 52nd Regiment's bugler, when he participated in the battle. As an important witness to the Kunniushan battle, it is commemorated by the world...
The smoke has cleared, but the monument will last forever. With the promotion of many parties, in 2022, a special seminar on "The Eternal Feat of the Kunniu Mountain Red Army Collective Jumping off a Cliff" was held in Shiqian County; in recent years, the Kunniu Mountain battle site has been selected as a key project of the Long March National Cultural Park, a national martyrs memorial facility, and a national patriotic education demonstration base.
Today, this hot land is constantly radiating new vitality under the influence of red history. Spacious classrooms, brand-new plastic runways, rich teaching equipment... Not far from the north of Kunniushan, the Kunniushan Red Army School was built here. Yang Yong, the principal of the school, said: “The school focuses on developing red education courses and cultivating a team of ‘Little Red Star Interpreters’ of red stories to help children understand the revolutionary history and let the red gene be integrated into the blood and passed on from generation to generation.”
Wang Wenjun, the first village secretary of Kunniushan Village, Longtang Town, Shiqian County, said that in recent years, Kunniushan Village has integrated red resources into village planning and construction, promoted red tourism, developed agricultural products such as native honey, Taiqiu persimmon, and rapeseed oil, and also opened 7 farmhouses and 4 B&Bs. "Last year, the village received nearly 40,000 tourists, the village's collective economic income reached 770,000 yuan, and the per capita disposable income of villagers exceeded 20,000 yuan. Life is getting better and better." Wang Wenjun said.
More than ninety years of spring and autumn have passed, and every time the breeze blows over the hills of Kunniu Mountain, it seems to be whispering the tragedy of blood and fire. The martyrs' leap made the mountains and rivers safe and the fireworks normal. Happy life is continuing here.
