The Three Thousand and First Peak Is a Bronze Statue
The Three Thousand and First Peak Is a Bronze Statue by Luo Changjiang. I will never forget that dusk when the mountain colors deepened toward evening. The sinking sun dyed the summits and cliff faces of hundreds upon thousands of rock peaks around Shentang Bay, Ten-Mile Gallery, and Xihai in reddish ochre, while infinite red light overflowed and scattered across the whole sky. Above the crowd of peaks, the bronze statue of He Long standing against the backlight seemed to be embraced, lifted, and raised by the infinite red light. His huge figure towering against the vast sky, black and iron-dark, was burning with passion in fiery red...
The Three Thousand and First Peak Is a Bronze Statue
Luo Changjiang
I will never forget that dusk when the mountain colors deepened toward evening. The sinking sun painted the summits and cliff faces of the hundreds upon hundreds of rock peaks around Shentang Bay, Ten-Mile Gallery, and Xihai in shades of reddish ochre, while boundless red light spilled and scattered across the entire sky. Above the peaks, the bronze statue of He Long, standing against the backlight, seemed to be surrounded, lifted, and elevated by that infinite red radiance. The giant figure towering against the heavens, dark and iron-blue, glowed with soul-stirring power in the fiery, blazing glory of the passionate sunset, full of magnificence, grandeur, solemnity, and sanctity.
This statue, currently the largest bronze statue in China, is the painstaking work of a famous sculptor renowned at home and abroad. The founding hero of peasant origin wears a military greatcoat and stands before three thousand wondrous peaks, the great pipe that once commanded the winds and clouds held in his hand, the great white horse that once neighed toward the sky resting beside his knee, the wind of heaven blowing his garments, his gaze like a torch. The entire form, color, and spirit are seamlessly integrated with the scenery of the great peak forest. Seen from afar, it resembles a wondrous sandstone peak of “how majestic, glaring like a tiger”, enduring wind and rain together with the great peak forest, rising from the earth and touching the sky.
Wulingyuan has long been known as having “three thousand peaks and eight hundred waters.” Then the bronze statue of He Long, towering on Tianzi Mountain, must be the three thousand and first peak!?
The marshal was a native of Sangzhi. Tianzi Mountain originally fell under Sangzhi’s jurisdiction. Historically, a Tujia rebel leader named Xiang Dakun rose up here and called himself King Tianzi, hence the name. King Tianzi ultimately failed and died because he could not withstand the court’s suppression, yet in people’s hearts he remained a remarkable hero. As for Marshal He Long, who after countless hardships and battles finally became a founding hero of the Republic, he was of course even more the pride of his hometown. The bronze statue of a great commander standing before the wondrous mountains and waters of his native place both comforts the marshal’s spirit in heaven and perhaps also embodies the common people’s simple wish for the marshal’s heroic spirit to protect this land and its waters?
I have come here more than once to mourn and pay homage. The bronze statue stands on a huge cliffside boulder named “Yunqing Rock,” 6.5 meters tall and weighing 9.3 tons. Behind the statue lies a vast expanse of rock peaks arrayed in formation, lower than the statue. People naturally associate the marshal with thousands upon thousands of troops; with the military life of “drunk, I trim the lamp and look at my sword; dreaming, I return to the camps where horns resound,” and “reviewing troops on the autumn battlefield”; with the years of beacon fire of “thinking back then, with golden spears and iron horses, swallowing ten thousand miles like a tiger.”
In the decades before the marshal became a “marshal,” beginning with the first uprising of splitting open the salt bureau with two kitchen knives, he led wave after wave of sons of the Lishui region to attack cities, seize passes, and fight for the realm, victory after victory and defeat after defeat, again and again running back to his hometown to raise troops and rally once more. “Killing intent forms battle clouds in three seasons; cold sounds carry the watchman’s clapper through the night. Looking at one another, white blades and blood in profusion; for death and honor, who ever cared for rewards?” From the 1920s to the 1930s, in Sangzhi County, whose population was then only somewhat more than 100,000, the number of fallen workers’ and peasants’ revolutionary army and Red Army officers and soldiers reached tens of thousands. A glance at the thousands upon thousands of troops behind the bronze statue, and suddenly countless faces of fallen soldiers leap before my eyes…… O statue, O statue, it not only tells people that a towering figure emerged here, but also embodies people’s deep remembrance of and longing for that era, those years, and the mighty spirit and vast energy that nourished that era and those years.
A story about Chinese forgetfulness shocked me deeply. A few years ago, American pilots of the China-U.S. Air Force who had rendered special service to China during the War of Resistance Against Japan voluntarily formed a sightseeing group to visit mainland China. As soon as they got off the plane, the group leader Thomas was about to warmly embrace the Chinese officials who had come to welcome them, but unexpectedly was politely blocked by the officials’ attendants; they had come to welcome a Japanese business delegation. Those who received Thomas and his group were only the person in charge of a branch of the “Whampoa Military Academy Alumni Association” under the provincial CPPCC. That evening, a banquet was held at the Spring City Restaurant in Kunming to welcome the sightseeing group. The banquet had long been booked, but unexpectedly a Japanese businessman wanted to hold a thank-you banquet there and offered a much higher price, so the restaurant manager asked the alumni association to change the location or the time. Enraged, Thomas immediately threw a stack of U.S. dollars at the manager and told him to book it at the highest standard. In the days that followed, the sightseeing group found that the Chinese officials and ordinary people they came into contact with knew almost nothing about the history of the China-U.S. Air Force on the anti-fascist battlefield. Hurt in his self-esteem, Thomas hung all the commemorative medals he had received for participating in China’s War of Resistance Against Japan on his chest and walked into the streets to see whether anyone recognized them. Unfortunately, after walking a full circle around the busy downtown of Kunming, no one paid him any attention, let alone welcomed him as a hero. Only a few young people, speaking “pidgin” English, asked this old American whether he had U.S. dollars to exchange. In short, before even half a century had passed, the monument forged by the China-U.S. Air Force together with blood and battle achievements had already been forgotten.
Walking on the tourist path not far from the bronze statue, I told this story to a friend traveling with me with a feeling of deep pain and indignation. Just then a group of Japanese tourists caught up from behind. One of them, a lean and wiry short old man, gestured and jabbered. At first I thought he was asking me about someone named “Li Bingren,” but later I realized he was saying they were “Japanese” and asking where the Tianzi Mountain Resort was. Following the direction of my finger, the old man said “thank you” in stiff Chinese and left with his companions. Yet I kept feeling that I had seen those eyes somewhere before……
Oh, I remember now. It was in Mr. Yu Qiuyu’s essay “It Is So Quiet Here.” In the 1940s, the news of the death of Terauchi Hisaichi, Japanese field marshal and commander-in-chief of the Japanese Southern Expeditionary Army, who had once plunged the ancient Yellow River basin entirely into a pool of blood, shook a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Singapore. A group of Japanese prisoners of war, then being condemned by the whole world and undergoing public trial, set about building a grave befitting a marshal for Terauchi Hisaichi, and decided that the tombstone must use stone from a stone mountain in southern Johor (now part of Malaysia), because the Japanese army had once fought a fierce battle there with British and Australian allied forces, and many stones were stained with the blood of Japanese soldiers. So, under the pretext of building prisoner-of-war camp dormitories, they obtained the consent of the British officers guarding them and began large-scale quarrying and transport of stone. As for that blood-stained giant rock far away in Johor, it could only be secretly smuggled in by night; on mountain paths, under coconut groves, low calls, wounded arms, ropes biting into flesh, swaying footsteps, alert ears, and especially those pairs of eyes under starlight and moonlight that refused to admit guilt or defeat, made one touch the most terrifying part of the human spirit…… From the materials I learned that this group of prisoners of war also built graves and erected steles one by one for other Japanese soldiers who died in battle. Even for war criminals publicly tried and executed by the International Military Tribunal, they tried every possible means to obtain the soil stained with blood when each war criminal was executed, collect it, and “bury” it in this graveyard. In the gloomy graveyard, the tombstones were arranged neatly, as if still awaiting some command.
Including the humiliation and suffering of the half century ago when the homeland was ravaged by Japanese invaders, modern Chinese history has been full of tragedies of every kind. Our nation, once deeply afflicted, nevertheless seems to lack a sense of tragedy and to have too much forgetfulness. This is not to dwell on old historical scores, nor to carry the accumulated cases of history on our backs as we move forward. But surely a nation’s shame and glory, a nation’s spirit and soul, must not be forgotten? Surely the condition of having suffered shame yet lacking a sense of shame, and having experienced tragedy yet lacking a sense of tragedy, must fundamentally change?
Again and again, I linger before Yunqing Cliff, gazing at what seems like pillars, towers, halberds, swords, and steles—what a “sound of slaughter”! What an “undispersed heroic soul”! For a brave man, a thousand generous promises are worth less than one courageous sacrifice. The spirit shown in “National Mourning,” in which before a strong enemy the warriors still hold certain victory, the living vie to be first and the dead do not regret, is precisely a vivid portrayal of this land and the sons it has nurtured. Thus you can understand why the folk custom of drinking blood-oath wine beside blazing fire, killing enemies and being killed by enemies with equal indifference, has continued for thousands of years without decline; thus you can understand why He Long’s troops sang, “If you want to eat chilies, do not fear the heat; if you want to be a Red Army soldier, do not fear death. Put a knife to your neck, and a chopped-off head is only a bowl-sized scar!” and indeed advanced wave after wave like cutting leeks, and after one crop was cut down another sprang up……
Descending Zhangjiajie, crossing the Lishui River, and walking a few more steps forward brings you to the place where Huandou, a minister of Emperor Yao who was exiled by Emperor Shun in ancient times and later called one of the four great evildoers, lived. It is called Chongshan. According to legend, from then on this area became a “barbarian wilderness beyond the Nine Provinces, where sages let things take their course, did not exert themselves over distant places, and did not receive tribute.” The court, seeing that mountain people here rebelled in every generation, thought Huandou’s ghost was un dispersed, so it sent men to split the mountains and dig trenches to cut off its “dragon vein.” This shows that the tradition of fierce warriors who are heroes in life and ghosts in death has deep roots. In fact, besides Huandou, who later became an ancestor of the Miao people, there was also Xingtian, whose head was cut off but who used his navel as a mouth and his nipples as eyes and still brandished twin axes and shouted as he went into battle; there was also Gonggong, who struck Buzhou Mountain with his head and, though his brains were dashed out, still raged unceasingly and made heaven and earth lose color; there was also Chiyou, who had horns on his head, ate iron beans, and after being dismembered still had his blood turn into crimson maple leaves; and there was also Kuafu, who in racing with the sun left behind not far from here the stone tripod he used for cooking, and later actually drank an entire river dry…… Flowing
through the blood of these defeated heroes, is there not all a most precious spirit? In the undispersed heroic soul of King Tianzi Xiang, one can certainly feel this same lineage; even Marshal He Long, who ultimately achieved decisive success, and his troops were likewise benefited by the nurturing and inspiration of this spirit——
Coming from the mud of the years,
Coming from the pools of blood of history,
Coming from the tragic heroism of “the brave man gone and never to return,”
Coming from the undispersed heroic soul of “after all, give me back the valor of ten thousand men”!
The hundreds of rock peaks like phalanxes, under sunlight and with mist and clouds rising, always seem to have a martial air and masculine spirit flowing and echoing through them. Yet I would rather not imagine them as a silent and stern group of pottery figurines leading famous steeds and clad in iron armor. That “seventh wonder of the world” buried deep beneath the thick soil of the years and not yet rotted belongs to northern China, to three thousand years of yellow earth and eight hundred li of the Qin plains. This place, located in southern China and called by history a land of barbarians, should be the descendants of the Yan Emperor’s tribe, the defeated side in the great war between Yan and Huang, who carried the upright corpses of their ancestors, bore wounds and blood all over their bodies, and also carried desolate and distant imaginings and a generation-by-generation belief in revenge, migrating from north to south and hiding among these towering mountains and ridges, bearing Wu halberds and clad in rhino armor in the “National Mourning” of the Three-Lü Grand Master.
Many places in Wulingyuan, such as Baizhang Gorge, Cha Qi Peak, Xiejia Valley, Luogu Tower, Luanchuan Slope, Zhima Tower, and so on, have one by one left imprints of ancient battlefields, making one think back to scenes of arrows crossing in hundreds, killing until heaven and earth grew dark. Indeed it matches the words in “National Mourning”: “Truly both brave and martial, ever strong and never to be insulted. Though the body has died, the spirit becomes divine; the resolute soul is a hero among ghosts!” King Tianzi, who finally could not withstand the suppressing government troops, leaped with man and horse into the unfathomable Shentang Bay before his eyes. Local people say that even now one can still hear within it the sounds of slaughter—golden drums, jade mallets, and neighing warhorses—and that King Xiang’s soldiers and horses have never dispersed their heroic souls. Near the bronze statue of He Long grows a large patch of reeds, flourishing and luxuriant. By common sense, why would a wild plant that grows only in rivers and lakes flourish on a high mountain more than a thousand meters above sea level? There must be a scientific explanation, but people would rather believe this saying: the marshal once established a base area in Honghu, Hubei, and had a special affection for reeds, which possess especially tenacious vitality. On the day the bronze statue was installed, the marshal sent a dream, and clusters of snow-like reed flowers floated up to Tianzi Mountain amid the song “Waves Lap Wave in Honghu Lake.”
The marshal, in whose bones heroic blood always flowed, later died harboring injustice and grievance. Fortunately, history restored the marshal’s true face and cast a bronze statue on Tianzi Mountain to proclaim his monumental achievements, which abide with the mountains. From then on, hundreds of sandstone peaks were endowed with a brand-new meaning. The atmosphere of pieces like “The General’s Command” and “Ambush from Ten Sides” still remains. The formation of “before the imperial carriage the six armies in embroidered brocade, autumn winds and drum horns filling the sky” still remains. Between heaven and earth, a soul-stirring masculine spirit steams and surges endlessly……
That old Japanese man who asked me for directions was not necessarily a prisoner of war from those years (of course this does not prevent him from also having such a pair of eyes). Whether he was or not, he and his group, facing this bronze statue of a Chinese marshal, I wonder what thoughts they had? Thinking back to the marshal in his day, heroic and brilliant, how many grand dramas of “strong foes flying into ashes and smoke” he directed on the battlefield, striking terror into opponents including the Japanese invading army. Half a century has passed, and I wonder how the streams of tourists coming and going read the bronze statue. Can they read a sense of history from it? Can they read something called national soul and spirit from it?
Just as the earth needs wondrous peaks rising from the ground like those before our eyes, the world needs extraordinary men and an undying spirit of fierce warriors through the ages. Years may pass, wars may disappear, but memory must not be forgotten, and spirit must not wither. For a nation to endure and grow strong, it must possess the spiritual pillar of “fierce resolve ever constant.” Just as people come from thousands of miles away and feel sincere astonishment and excited aesthetic emotion before this land of peaks rising from the ground, including the bronze statue.