Smiling Faces in the Years of War and Fire — An Old Photograph That Cannot Help but Warm the Heart

Smiling Faces in the Years of War and Fire

■ Sun Weishuai

Looking at this old photograph involving children, one cannot help but smile knowingly——

A young Eighth Route Army soldier is tightly surrounded by more than ten children. Some are tugging at his arms or pressing their fists into the small of his back; others are bent at the waist, straining with all their might, arms locked firmly around his legs. The soldier's head is half lowered, his face not clearly visible, yet from the corners of his open mouth one can still make out his expression — he is smiling, smiling with an unaffected and warm simplicity. The children are smiling even more, with a guileless, carefree joy. Their laughter seems to pierce through the hazy distant mountains, to travel across boundless time and space, and to linger long in our ears.

Were it not for the soldier's gray cotton military uniform, the scene might be mistaken for an older boy from next door playing with the young companions of his village. That lively and joyful scene moved war photographer Sha Fei to raise his camera instinctively and capture this touching moment in a candid shot.

And yet it is precisely that gray cotton military uniform that silently reminds us: this is not a scene from a peaceful and prosperous age. Behind those radiant smiles, the Chinese nation was enduring its most profound suffering, and the broad masses of soldiers and civilians were uniting in fierce struggle against the Japanese invaders.

What kind of era was that?

After the War of Resistance Against Japan entered the stage of strategic stalemate, the Japanese invaders implemented the "cage policy" (囚笼政策) and the brutal "three-all policy" (三光政策) in North China, attempting to strangle the military and civilian population of the base areas through blockhouses, blockade ditches, and frenzied mopping-up campaigns. The Eighth Route Army lacked clothing and food and was short of ammunition, yet it fought the enemy with unflinching, iron-willed courage at all times. From August 20, 1940, to January 24 of the following year, Eighth Route Army headquarters directed and launched the Hundred Regiments Offensive, with the destruction of the Zhengding–Taiyuan Railway as its primary focus, initiating the largest-scale and longest-sustained offensive campaign on the enemy's rear battlefield, and dealing a devastating blow to the arrogance of the aggressors.

The soldier in the photograph had perhaps just come through a brutal battle not long before, his leg wrappings still bearing the gunpowder smoke and mud of the battlefield. Yet at this moment he is composed and at ease, his face brimming with smiles, letting pair after pair of small hands grab at him in playful laughter.

Such smiles were not uncommon in the base areas: Eighth Route Army soldiers always wore smiles as they helped fellow villagers carry water, chop fodder, and push stone mills; and the villagers always smiled back as they stuffed what little grain remained in their homes into the soldiers' pockets……

These smiles, welling up from the depths of the soul, are a vivid portrait of the people's army under the Party's leadership and the people sharing life and death, their very bloodlines intertwined.

During the War of Resistance, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, led by our Party, penetrated deep behind enemy lines, fought bloody battles, and established vast anti-Japanese base areas including the Jin-Cha-Ji, Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu, and Jin-Sui base areas. Statistics show that in the North China base areas alone, millions of militia members and civilians enlisted and took part in combat; children's corps (儿童团) were also widely established throughout the base areas, with children standing guard, passing on intelligence, and publicizing the cause of resistance against Japan. With their own flesh and blood, the officers and soldiers of the Eighth Route Army held up a relatively peaceful sky for the common people amid the cannon fire and gunpowder smoke; and without quite intending to, they also became the enlighteners of revolutionary thought (革命思想) and the guides along the path of growth for the children of the base areas.

And so, when we gaze at this old photograph and watch the scene of children playing intimately and without reserve with the Eighth Route Army soldier, what we see is an emotion arising from the very bottom of the children's hearts — they had decided that this person in the gray cotton military uniform was their own kin, a "big companion" (大伙伴) with whom they could draw close and play.

On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its unconditional surrender.

One wonders whether the Eighth Route Army soldier in the photograph lived to see the final victory. One also wonders whether the children who laughed and played around him ever lit celebratory firecrackers in their village. Perhaps those among them who had shot up fastest in height had, like the Eighth Route Army soldier who once played with them, already put on gray cotton military uniforms and followed the troops on campaigns to the south and the north……

(Photograph provided by the archive room of PLA Pictorial)

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