On the Jiaodong Land, There Appeared a "Mountain Fierce Tiger" Whose Roar Was Thunder and Whose Name Struck Terror into the Enemy's Guts

Thunder Over Mountain and Sea ■ Jia Yong

Yu Huahu (1914–2004) was awarded the title "National Militia Hero" in 1950 and was selected in 2009 as one of the "100 National Heroes and Model Figures Who Made Outstanding Contributions to the Founding of New China."

In the fires of the War of Resistance Against Japan, a young stonemason from Haiyang, Shandong, used chisels and steel drills as his weapons, transforming hard rock into land mines to defend his home and country.

He is one of the primary real-life inspirations for "Zhao Hu," the resourceful and courageous militia captain in the film "Land Mine Warfare," and his self-invented stone land mines struck terror into the Japanese invaders. He was also the village Party secretary of Wenshanhoucun in Haiyang City, who returned to his hometown in peacetime and led his fellow villagers in blasting through mountains, quarrying stone, and building water conservancy projects. His name once resounded across the Jiaodong land — Yu Huahu: a stonemason of consummate skill, a combat hero who struck terror into the enemy's guts, and a Communist Party member loyal to the people.

— The Editors

On July 1, 1943, at the Heroes and Models Conference of the Jiaodong Military Region, Commander Xu Shiyou strode up to a lean, dark-skinned man and asked with a smile: "Jinsheng, how old are you? What's your zodiac sign?"

"Twenty-nine. The Tiger."

"Well done, you demolition hero! I hear one mine wasn't enough for you after it took out two and a half enemy soldiers — quite an appetite!" Yu Jinsheng grinned. "The Bohai has produced a dragon" — referring to another anti-Japanese hero, Lin Hualong — "and the East Sea must produce a tiger," Xu Shiyou said. "You might as well be called Yu Huahu!"

From that day on, Yu Jinsheng took the name Yu Huahu. The Jiaodong land lost a craftsman who chiseled stone for a living, and gained a "mountain fierce tiger" whose roar was thunder and whose name struck terror into the enemy's guts.

Mountain and Sea Forge a Craftsman

Haiyang, Shandong: the Yellow Sea to the south, ranges of mountains to the north. In the early morning, sea fog rolls in from the direction of the Yellow Sea, drifting over the hills, over the villages, over those blue-gray stone mountains. When the fog lifts and the sun falls on the rock faces, it casts a cold, clear light.

There is none of the gentle softness of the Jiangnan waterways here, none of the abundance of the fertile plains. The very texture of the land is laid out entirely in blue-gray granite. In spring, wildflowers adorn the rocks; in summer, dense shade covers the valleys; in autumn, layered forests dye the mountains; in winter, cold stone holds the frost. The seasons turn, but they never change the hard underlying color of the rock.

For a thousand years and more, this rugged, imposing landscape of mountain and sea has nurtured a character unique to the people of Haiyang: they endure hardship without complaint, they do not retreat in the face of difficulty, and beneath their plain simplicity lies a fierce spirit, and beneath their honest thickness lies backbone. They trust only the hammer and the drill in their own hands — one blow, and the stone cracks; ten blows, and the stone shatters; a hundred blows, a thousand blows, ten thousand blows — even the hardest stone must yield.

With little farmland and many mountains, generations of Haiyang people could only live off the mountains. They quarried stone to build their livelihoods, earned their keep from stone; every village rang with the sound of hammers and drills, every household had its craftsmen. Generation after generation of stonemasons entered the mountains at dawn and returned to the village at dusk, chiseling open mountain paths, stacking up houses, reinforcing field embankments — one hammer blow, one drill stroke at a time. Day after day, year after year, this collision of hammer and stone not only honed the consummate skill of reading stone grain and striking with precision, but also tempered a character of settled attentiveness, patient endurance, and tenacious resilience. That character, like the mountain stone itself, is silent and unassuming, yet contains inexhaustible strength.

Yu Huahu's boyhood years were spent amid the ringing of hammers and the swirling of stone dust. While still in his teens, he was already following the village stonemasons deep into the ravines, shouldering hammers and gripping drills, beginning his contest with the rock.

An old stonemason told him: stone has grain; chisel with the grain and you save effort; find the grain, and one blow will make the stone obey you.

Yu Huahu liked to crouch before a stone, studying its texture carefully, quietly pondering its composition. Over time, he came to understand the "temperament" of the local granite: where the grain runs smooth, you can cut deep; where the material is brittle, you should chisel lightly; where the strata are dense, it can bear pressure. After a long while, just by looking at a stone's color and grain, he could tell without striking whether to use a heavy blow or a light one. In time, he developed a pair of "stone eyes" and a pair of "iron hands." No matter how hard the stubborn rock, once he set to work on it, it could be shaped into proper form. The neighbors said: this boy looks quiet and slow, but inside he harbors a ferocity and a tenacity. The hard stone others cannot bite through, he can grind away at slowly; the fine work others cannot finish, he can pick at with care.

This settled focus, attentiveness, perseverance, and tenacity, tempered through labor with mountain stone, lay like seeds buried deep in the earth, waiting for wind and rain to water them.

Yu Huahu's ancestral home was called Wenshanhoucun, tucked in a mountain hollow in the northern part of Haiyang. In those years, life was hard, but the mountains and sea were quiet. Yu Huahu moved through the mountains every day. He once thought that his whole life would be spent in the company of mountain stone, working as a stonemason, guarding his land and living in peace until old age.

But in the autumn of 1940, a sky full of war flames suddenly tore apart the tranquility of mountain and sea.

Japanese troops invaded Haiyang. Gray blockhouses jutted abruptly against the sky, and cold gun barrels were trained on the quiet mountain villages. Wherever the Japanese went, they burned villages and houses, looted grain and livestock, seized able-bodied men, and massacred civilians. Mountain villages that had once been wreathed in cooking smoke became rubble and broken walls. The mountain paths no longer saw villagers going to market — only Japanese patrol units, with bayonets on their rifles glinting coldly in the sunlight.

What filled Yu Huahu with grief and fury was that the dressed stone blocks he and his fellow villagers had quarried from the mountains had been used by the Japanese invaders to build the gun towers used to suppress the Chinese people.

The great cause of home and country thundered awake. The craftsman who had always been reticent and restrained felt the hot blood and rage in his heart boil over completely.

Defend home and country! Yu Huahu joined the local militia. But the militia was poorly equipped, short of rifles and artillery; to resist the well-armed Japanese invaders, they had to adapt to local conditions and find another way.

That night, he sat alone in the courtyard, grinding a piece of stone by moonlight. His wife asked what he was doing. He said: "Making a mine." His wife was startled: "You can make a mine out of stone?" He did not answer, and kept chiseling.

The sound of the hammer carried far in the night. The villagers did not know what he was doing; they only heard the clinking and clanking, one blow after another…

In 1944, Yu Huahu (far left) led the demolition team of the Wenshanhoucun militia in laying mines outside the village.

With no standard explosives, he led the militia over mountains and ridges to collect saltpeter and sulfur, combined them with charcoal, and used ancient methods to produce homemade gunpowder. With no standard mine casings, he selected granite of tight composition, carefully chiseled out a cavity following the stone grain, then packed in the explosive and set the fuse.

Every step of making a land mine was fraught with danger. Haiyang granite is hard, but it fractures easily under force. The slightest imbalance in hammer weight or misalignment of grain, and the entire piece of stone would be ruined, days of effort wasted. Homemade explosives were even harder to control: uneven purity of raw materials, the slightest error in proportions — either the charge would be too weak and fail to detonate, or the explosive force would be too violent and go off prematurely.

In the early days of testing, the sound of trial detonations was often heard in the mountains. Stone shattered, fragments flew in all directions, and on several occasions Yu Huahu was nearly injured by the blasts. His wife was so frightened her face went white, and she urged him to stop. Yu Huahu said nothing, and kept his mind settled, patiently working through his failures.

During the day he went into the mountains to select stone and work out chiseling methods; at night he worked under lamplight to proportion the explosive materials and record the measurements. Yu Huahu adjusted the force of his chiseling again and again, corrected the proportions of the explosive mixture, fine-tuned the length of the fuse. When he failed, he started over. When he failed again, he started over again.

In the end, Yu Huahu worked out a complete set of mine-chiseling techniques: chisel lightly with the grain, expand the cavity in layers, strike at a steady pace, seal and pack the charge.

Then one day, at the foot of the mountain, he successfully detonated a mine in a test. With a thunderous boom, the stone exploded, and rock fragments flew dozens of meters. He crouched at the blast point, ran his hand over the blasted earth, and smiled.

The stone had not spoken, but in the end it had obeyed.

With his techniques mature, Yu Huahu stepped forward and led the stonemasons of the whole township and the villagers of the whole village to make mines together to resist the enemy. Between mountain and sea, the unbroken symphony of hammers and drills rang out. Stonemasons swung hammers and chiseled stone, hollowing out casings for mines; women carefully sifted explosive powder, proportioning and sealing it; children kept watch and scouted paths, passing messages; old people guarded the village and guided the neighbors. One after another, quiet mountain paths and silent mountain ridges were laid with mine fields of varied density. The craftsman's skill that had once been used to earn a living was transformed into a battle-winning method to defend home and country; the silent, unremarkable mountain stones were transformed into iron-blooded weapons concealing lethal force to guard the homeland. The entire range of mountains around Haiyang still appeared lush with vegetation and majestic in its peaks, but in reality a net had been woven across the sky and the earth, waiting only for the invading enemy to step into the minefield — and then, with the crack of thunder and the force of a thunderbolt, to strike the enemy a devastating blow.

Stone Shatters, Heaven Shakes

In May 1943, the trees and grasses of the Jiaodong land were thick and lush, the shade dense and sun-blocking. The stone mine field that Yu Huahu had led the militia in laying was about to face its first real combat test.

At that time, a column of Japanese and puppet troops, fully armed, swaggered along the mountain dirt road toward Wenshanhoucun. The sun blazed overhead, the mountain wind was hot and dry, and the enemy, confident in their superior equipment, paid no attention whatsoever to the villagers in cloth clothes and straw sandals who carried hammers and drills.

Drawing on his intimate knowledge of his homeland, Yu Huahu had already taken advantage of the cool, heavy-dewed early morning to lead the militia in taking up positions and laying defenses along the mountain path in advance. Using the natural barriers of bends in the mountain road, steep slopes, rock piles, and thickets, he cleverly laid more than 70 stone mines. These stone mines were spaced with varying density, mixing real and false, forming an ambush minefield where every step held danger and every inch concealed death.

On the eve of battle, Yu Huahu dispersed the surrounding civilians, concealed the militia members, and himself hid alone in a rock crevice halfway up the mountain. He pressed his body against the stone, lay perfectly still, his gaze fixed like a tiger's, locked onto the winding mountain path below, waiting for the moment to strike.

When the Japanese and puppet troops had fully entered the heart of the valley minefield, with both the vanguard and rear elements entirely within the ambush circle, Yu Huahu suddenly exerted himself and decisively pulled the cord.

In an instant, the valley erupted in thunderous explosions, the earth shook and the mountains trembled. Muffled blasts burst forth in succession, shaking the branches and leaves across the mountain, sending rocks tumbling. The stone mines buried in the ground detonated one after another; the hard granite was blasted into countless sharp fragments that swept through the enemy formation like a sky full of flying blades.

The completely unprepared Japanese and puppet troops fell into chaos, wailing and screaming, fleeing in all directions; some were struck down by rock fragments, some were knocked over by the blast wave, and the smell of blood spread across the mountain wilderness. The enemy, fleeing in panic, had already lost all formation, and kept triggering the land mines hidden in the roadside thickets and beneath the road surface.

In this engagement, 17 Japanese and puppet troops were killed or wounded. The remaining enemy soldiers who managed to escape fled in disorder, not daring to look back.

When the news spread, the Jiaodong region was shaken. The people ran to tell each other: "The stonemason from Wenshanhoucun blew up the Japanese devils with stone!"

The first battle was a great victory, and the morale of the Haiyang military and civilians soared. The smoke of battle cleared, and the valley grew quiet again. But Yu Huahu knew the Japanese army would never let the matter rest. Sure enough, a few days later, another column of Japanese and puppet troops — larger in number, carrying professional mine-detection equipment and heavy weapons — came swarming back in force. This time the enemy was especially cautious; mine-clearing soldiers moved along the road bent over, probing and clearing obstacles section by section, hoping to use their advanced equipment to neutralize all the stone mines.

Yu Huahu, who had long since seen through the enemy's psychology, laid a chain minefield of real and false mines in response. In conspicuous spots on the road surface, he placed dummy mines with no explosive charge, deliberately exposing apparent weaknesses; beneath the dummy mines, in the dead angles around them, and deep among the rocks, he buried a chain of real mines. He told the militia: "Let them look. Once they find them, they'll think they're safe. When they relax, the real mines will go off."

The Japanese mine-clearing soldiers probed their way along, discovered the dummy mines on the road surface, and, convinced they had figured out the militia's mine-laying pattern, triumphantly dismantled the dummy mines, relaxed their vigilance, and called the main force to advance quickly.

At the very moment the enemy's main force closed in densely, the chain of stone mines was detonated. Crack after crack of thunder split the valley; earth and stone flew; smoke and dust blotted out the sun.

In this engagement, more than 70 Japanese and puppet troops were annihilated, and large quantities of rifles and ammunition were captured. The name "Living Mine Huahu" resounded across the Jiaodong region.

The most legendary engagement took place on a summer night in 1944.

That night, the moonlight was hazy and the mountain shadows lay deep and dark. In the distance, the Japanese strongpoint showed scattered lights, with sentries posted everywhere. More than 30 Japanese troops were garrisoned in the strongpoint. They had committed many crimes, and the villagers hated them bitterly, but the strongpoint's fortifications were solid and could not be taken by direct assault.

Yu Huahu said to his comrades: "I'll go pay them a visit. You provide support from outside."

Dressed all in black, his face smeared with mud, using the shadows of rocks and the hidden paths of ravines to avoid the patrol sentries and evade the searchlights, he carried four massive stone mines weighing 25 jin each and eight hand grenades, and silently infiltrated the Japanese strongpoint.

The center of the drill ground, the main gate passage, the blind spots of the sentry posts — Yu Huahu laid the massive stone mines one by one, carefully covered them with earth for camouflage, and smoothed away all traces. He remembered clearly exactly where each mine was buried. After completing all the deployments, Yu Huahu again used the cover of darkness to withdraw without anyone knowing.

The next morning, at the first light of dawn, the Japanese troops lined up for morning drill as usual, without any precaution.

With a deep, thunderous blast, the massive stone mine at the center of the drill ground detonated first, shaking the ground violently. Immediately after, the other three massive mines detonated in succession, and smoke and dust instantly billowed in all directions. Japanese troops in the compound fell in swaths, with heavy casualties. Within just a few minutes, the majority of the Japanese troops in the strongpoint had been annihilated.

Defeat after defeat made the Japanese army hate Yu Huahu to the bone. They posted notices in the county seat offering a large reward for his head. But the several times the Japanese sent men to infiltrate Wenshanhoucun, they suffered heavy losses, and in the end they completely lost the nerve to take the initiative in "mopping up" operations. During the day they dared not leave their nests, and could only huddle inside their gun towers, fearful day and night, seeing enemies in every bush and tree. According to the testimony of captured Japanese soldiers, for a long period afterward, the garrison troops in the gun towers doubled the number of personnel on night watch, and at the slightest sound of wind or grass they would fire their guns wildly to bolster their own courage.

Yu Huahu, holding nothing back, passed on the complete set of techniques — selecting stone, chiseling the cavity, preparing the charge, making the mine, camouflaging it, and laying the field — hand by hand to the villagers of the surrounding villages. He stood on the threshing ground, holding a piece of stone in his hand, and said to the villagers: "Watch carefully. This is not a stone — it's a mine, it's a death warrant for the enemy!" He chiseled, blow by blow, explaining as he went.

Driven by Yu Huahu, Zhao Tuan village militia captain Zhao Shoufu, and others, a mass movement to make mines swept across the Haiyang land. The sound of hammers in the mountains never ceased; the villages were alive with activity; every household made and stockpiled mines. The wisdom of war latent among the people erupted like a volcano.

The Hero Returns to the Mountain

In the 1950s, Yu Huahu (right) and Zhao Tuan village militia captain Zhao Shoufu discussing marksmanship techniques.

In September 1950, at Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai, Beijing, the National Combat Heroes Representatives Conference convened. Yu Huahu, wearing a faded old military uniform, a large red flower pinned to his chest, sat among the many battle-hardened commanders of the People's Liberation Army, looking somewhat ill at ease, but with his back ramrod straight.

When the host announced "National Militia Hero Yu Huahu," he stood up and gave a standard military salute. He was then introduced to Comrade Mao Zedong.

Looking at the dark-skinned man before him, Mao Zedong took hold of his callus-covered hands…

During the years of the War of Resistance, Yu Huahu had trained more than 1,400 militia demolition cadres, of whom 120 received the title of demolition model, and he led the militia in annihilating 171 Japanese and puppet troops.

Returning home from Beijing, the organization, taking into account that Yu Huahu had been wounded four times and still carried shrapnel in multiple parts of his body, planned to arrange for him to work in the city. But Yu Huahu politely declined: "I have to go back and build up our village."

He took off his military uniform, put on coarse cloth clothes, put the "National Militia Hero" medal away in a wooden box, and became a mountain village stonemason once again.

Later, Yu Huahu was elected village Party secretary of Wenshanhoucun, and channeled all the energy of the wartime years into building his hometown. The village lacked water, so he led the villagers up the mountain to find water sources, chiseling irrigation channels into sheer cliffs. He often said: "Back then we could chisel stone to make mines and blow up the Japanese devils — now we can chisel stone to build channels and water our crops!"

Under Yu Huahu's leadership, Wenshanhoucun built one reservoir pond after another and opened up terrace after terrace of farmland. He also set up a brick and tile kiln, a flour mill, and a livestock breeding station in the village. Seeing the village connected to water and electricity, and every household building a new home, Yu Huahu's weathered face broke into a smile.

In 1963, the film "Land Mine Warfare" was released and caused a sensation across the country. The resourceful and courageous militia captain "Zhao Hu" on screen was based on Zhao Shoufu and Yu Huahu. That day, the film was screened at the village's outdoor cinema. Yu Huahu watched "Zhao Hu" on the screen tricking the enemy with real and fake mines, and his eyes grew moist.

In 1997, Yu Huahu (left) talking with a visiting journalist while receiving treatment in hospital.

In his later years, Yu Huahu liked to sit under the old locust tree at the village entrance, gazing at this land he had guarded for a lifetime. At sunset, golden light spread across the rolling hills, and those mountain paths that had once been covered with land mines were now thick with green grass and wildflowers.

The village children liked to gather around him, pestering him to tell stories of fighting the Japanese devils. When he got to the exciting parts, he would pull out a black stone and let the children feel it. It was the remains of an unexploded stone mine from those years; its edges had been worn smooth by time, and it lay heavy in the palm of the hand.

On July 20, 2004, Yu Huahu, past ninety years of age, completed his legendary life. Before he died, he left a final wish: to be buried on Penzi Mountain in Wenshanhoucun.

A simple blue-gray stone stele stands quietly at the foot of the green mountain: Tomb of Militia Hero Yu Huahu.

His spirit has long since merged into every rock and every inch of soil of this land.

The stones on the mountain are still there. The stones he chiseled are stacked in the embankments of the terraced fields, set into the banks of the irrigation channels, laid beneath the road surface at the village entrance. He left nothing for himself, but every inch of land he walked over remembers the sound of his hammer.

The wind blows in from the direction of the Yellow Sea, over the hills, over the village, over that simple gravestone.

The stone does not speak, but it knows everything.

Academic support: Chu Yin

Layout design: Zhou Yonghao

Images provided by the Haiyang Land Mine Warfare Memorial Hall, Shandong Province

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