Novel Monthly Report - Works Selected for the 3rd Baihua Award

Author: Novel Monthly Editorial Department
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-02-01
Features: It was already known that there was a Xuzhou Committee. In our camp, there was a tall company commander from Xuzhou who often talked about the city with me, even reciting poems: "Before the ancient battlefield of Jiuli Mountain, a shepherd boy found old swords and spears." He said that Xuzhou had always been a place of contention for military strategists. Unexpectedly, it really became a battleground! A battle against the Japanese. In March of the 27th year of the Republic of China, the supreme command issued an order, and our half a million troops mobilized swiftly. We first fought a battle outside Tai'erzhuang in the suburbs of Xuzhou, defeating the Japanese army by tens of thousands. Oh, this was the famous "Tai'erzhuang Great Victory."
Next, things went wrong. We were surrounded by nine Japanese divisions. The Xuzhou defense line collapsed, and tens of thousands of our brothers became prisoners of the Japanese. I don’t know the details of most of the prisoners, but I know that a thousand or so of them were taken by the Japanese to a coal mine for labor. That coal mine was located at the border of Shandong and Jiangsu, about a hundred or so "li" away from Xuzhou City! That year, I was twenty-nine years old, and my military rank at the time of capture was the company commander of the machine gun company of the 27th Division of the Second Group, with the prisoner number "Xi Zi No. 1012."