Old Photographs · Red Lens | Tilling the Earth Is Itself a Hero's Work

Tilling the Earth Is Itself a Hero's Work

■ Zheng Shuyan

From the way they swing their picks and hoes, you see the sons of farming families — callused hands, laboring through cold springs and scorching summers. Yet the military uniforms and puttees they wear make clear that they are well-trained soldiers.

That is exactly right. They are ordinary people who grew up on this land, yet they are also Eighth Route Army fighters who bravely took up rifles to defend their homes and villages from violation. From the fierce battlefield where "a hundred battles wear through golden armor in yellow sands" to the land-clearing toil where "sweat drips onto the soil beneath the grain" — behind this old photograph lies a chapter of history that strikes straight to the heart.

This was between 1941 and 1943, when the Japanese invaders implemented their brutal "Three Alls" policy (三光政策) against the anti-Japanese base areas in North China. Combined with frequent natural disasters, the land was laid waste for a thousand li, and the soldiers and civilians of the base areas faced their most desperate hour. A folk rhyme of the time went: "Spring tree leaves are half a year's food" — words that said everything about the hardship of life.

In 1942, a situation report landed on the desk of Nie Rongzhen, Commander of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region. It stated that in some villages, because the troops had been picking tree leaves, the local people had "no leaves left to pick." Comrade Nie Rongzhen read it and was silent for a long while. Then a distinctive order was issued to all units: no tree leaves were to be picked within a 15-li radius of any village; the leaves were to be left for the common people. This became known as the famous "Tree Leaf Order" (树叶训令).

Better to go hungry oneself than to compete with the people for food. This deep bond between the army and the people — a bond rooted in concern for the masses and anxiety over their livelihoods — is profoundly moving. At the same time, we see that even tree leaves had become a rare commodity for sustaining life, which tells us just how grave the difficulties facing the base areas were at that time.

In order to overcome these difficulties and persist in the War of Resistance, the Party Central Committee and Comrade Mao Zedong called on the soldiers and civilians of all base areas to practice self-reliance and launch the Great Production Movement (大生产运动). Commander-in-Chief Zhu De issued a special order to the troops: "Fight when the enemy comes; produce when the enemy does not come."

One hand holding a rifle, the other swinging a hoe. Following the instructions of the Party Central Committee, the base areas successively launched the Great Production Movement on a grand scale. To avoid competing with the people for land, Eighth Route Army units on one hand opened up wasteland, and on the other hand — under armed cover — cultivated fields around the enemy's blockade trenches and strongpoints. The dangers involved can well be imagined.

Marx said: "Men make history under given material conditions." In conditions of extreme hardship, the soldiers and civilians of the base areas created the magnificent achievement of "feeding and clothing themselves through their own efforts" (自己动手、丰衣足食). In 1944 alone, the troops and masses of the Taihang region opened up 330,000 mu of wasteland and increased grain production by more than 12 million kilograms……

As Comrade Deng Xiaoping incisively summarized: "Whoever has grain has everything." The Great Production Movement bore abundant fruit. It not only improved the living conditions of the soldiers and civilians in the base areas and accumulated large quantities of vital supplies — grain, oil, cotton, salt — but also forged a soaring fighting spirit and laid a solid foundation for the strategic counteroffensive of the War of Resistance Against Japan.

History is a mirror; the years are a monument. Looking back at the "Tree Leaf Order," what we see is decidedly not merely a simple command, but a choice of values made by our army's officers and soldiers at a moment of life and death — a manifestation of the People's Army's founding commitment to "putting the people first" (人民至上).

How small a single tree, a single leaf — yet when it is connected to the questions of "who we are, for whom we exist, and on whom we rely" (我是谁、为了谁、依靠谁), it becomes a spiritual emblem, illuminating the distinctive spiritual character and value pursuits of the People's Army.

How great a single tree, a single leaf — each leaf not only bears the history of soldiers and civilians overcoming hardship together, but also bears witness to the People's Army's dauntless spirit of surmounting every difficulty and hardship, "overwhelming all enemies without being subdued by them."

Gazing at this old photograph, I am reminded of a line from Lu You's poetry: "Tilling the earth is itself a hero's work." Yes — the soldier who charges into battle amid the flames and smoke of war is a hero; but the soldier who, facing the extremity of survival, labors with sweat-drenched effort, practices self-reliance, and with his own hands sustains the great cause of the War of Resistance, is equally a hero who stands tall between heaven and earth.

Photographs provided by the archive of PLA Pictorial (《解放军画报》)

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