He said in Shanghai - at the age of 60 and 20, he stuffed his flying eyeballs back into his eyes, the night in Shanghai on the old mountain battlefield... | Liberation Daily | Shanghai

"Shanghai is the second turning point in my life," said Shi Guangzhu in front of the reporter, his sunglasses covering his eyes. Handing over a glass of water, the reporter lightly pressed his hand and told him that "the drinking port is here.".

On July 28, 2023, the Shanghai Disabled Reading Series Activity "Reading History in a Red Land, Engraved with the Spirit of Steel in the Heart" red themed reading salon was held at the 1925 Bookstore on Sichuan North Road. Old Mountain's "Battle Hero" Shi Guangzhu returned to Shanghai once again, and he once wrote about this city like this——

The night in Shanghai is gentle/nurturing the red lotus in Beijing/Asian yellow chrysanthemums/European white roses/African black peonies

The night in Shanghai is sweet and intoxicating/a starry sky spreading on the horizon/many hopeful stars/smiling

Crashing into factories, schools, Sino foreign joint venture buildings, and people's dreams

Shanghai's nights are mysterious/the cradle of love's openness/the cave of knowledge explosion/the port of economic prosperity

The night in Shanghai is like a beautiful/skillful girl

Wearing a hopeful skirt/putting on combat shoes

There is still a silver ribbon tied around my head to revitalize China

The poem "Night in Shanghai..." published in the Chaohua supplement on July 6, 1986 was the third poem by Shi Guangzhu published in the Liberation Daily.

"Young people nowadays may not know me well, but they may remember these two songs," said Shi Guangzhu.

One is "Little Grass". "Without the fragrance of flowers or the height of trees, I am a small grass that no one knows..."

Another song based on him, "Bloody Charm," sings: Perhaps my eyes can no longer open, do you understand my silent feelings?

Shi Guangzhu once thought that his right eye could be preserved.

In April 1984, during the battle to recapture Laoshan, Shi Guangzhu, as the acting platoon leader, suffered serious injuries four times and eight times, with nearly 100 shrapnel wounds to his body. His left eyeball was blasted out by a shell, and he stuffed the shattered left eyeball back into his eye socket, continuing to command the battle until he led the entire platoon to recapture two highlands.

Why is it a "proxy platoon leader"? The battle was exceptionally difficult, and the platoon leader had already fallen.

Shi Guangzhu enlisted in 1981 and participated in this battle, in his early twenties.

He woke up from the stretcher knowing very well that his left eye was gone, but he always thought that his right eye had only been filled with a few grains of sand, and there was still hope for his recovery. The gauze that was wrapped around your right eye was removed and replaced, and as he counted up to the tenth day, the ophthalmologist told him, "Xiao Shi, your right eye can't be saved either. The shrapnel shattered the cornea."

In September 1984, Shi Guangzhu was awarded the title of "Battle Hero" by the Central Military Commission. He underwent nine surgeries on his head, eyes, throat, back, chest, and legs, removing over a hundred shrapnel fragments. In order to remove shrapnel from the face, almost a layer of skin was scraped off, and there were a small handful of fragments.

At that time, Shi Guangzhu and several comrades were treated for injuries at the Shanghai Long March Hospital. Surgery one after another.

"I can't see it with my eyes, and training with injuries is impossible. I definitely need to transition and master new knowledge and skills. I am a junior high school graduate with low education, and I have read very few military books except for those in the military." Shi Guangzhu considered how to start a new business, and more simply, how to support my family in the future.

For Shi Guangzhu, what he lost in battle was not just his eyes. My father came to the hospital to see him, but he had a heart attack and passed away. My mother couldn't withstand the blow and became crazy. There was also a young brother at home.

"We must learn to support our family," said Shi Guangzhu. He considered not being able to see with his eyes, not being able to walk far, and even looking at a few acres of orchards near the house, which should still be possible. Therefore, he wanted to learn how to plant. At that time, television was not widely available, so he borrowed a radio from doctors and nurses. "Unfortunately, there was very little content in this area on the radio," he said. He gradually fell in love with literature through the introduction of novels, storytelling, and literary works in the radio waves.

"Listening to poetry on the radio, learning to write on my own, and reading it to my comrades in the hospital room, they laughed heartily and said, 'What you write is just slogans, using limericks and parallelism.' So, publishing my first poem in Liberation Daily gave me great encouragement and gave me hope - from not being able to write, being laughed at, to being able to publish, it shows that my emotions and thoughts can be turned into written expressions."

Shi Guangzhu accepts an exclusive interview with Shi Chenlu on the Liberation Daily News

What Shi Guangzhu said was "I Love..." published in the Chaohua Supplement of the Liberation Daily on July 7, 1985:

I love the emerald green of spring - a symbol of life,

I love the fiery red of summer - the unrestrained enthusiasm,

I love the golden autumn - fruitful,

I love the whiteness of winter - purity and steadfastness

Because I am passionate about beautiful days,

I have only been fiercely attacking the enemy on the battlefield filled with gunpowder.

……

Because I am passionate about a colorful life,

I am willing to endure the dampness and hardship of a cat's ear hole.

……

Because of my passionate love for the sacred motherland,

I am willing to shed my blood and sacrifice my precious youth!

Shi Guangzhu's first poem "I Love..." was published in the Liberation Daily with materials and pictures

"I Love..." later became the name of Shi Guangzhu's first poetry collection. Half a month after his debut work was published, his other song "Hand" was published in Shanghai Youth Newspaper.

"I write notes with poetry, and poetry is the ups and downs in my heart." More than 30 years later, Shi Guangzhu still remembers the time he was pushed out of the operating room. Zhang Chuan, the leader of the "Old Mountain Hero Company" sharp knife platoon, stepped forward to shake his hand. "The four fingers of the old platoon leader's right hand were cut off. He wanted to comfort me, but the war injury was not a big deal. He shook me with his severed palm. The first one, I grabbed it empty, and the second one only caught his remaining thumb..."

In Shanghai, Shi Guangzhu and his comrades were invited to give presentations to various units while undergoing treatment. He wrote "Little Grass". "When I was giving a report, I tried singing this song and sang it more than 40 times in Shanghai, even to the Great Hall of the People and the Spring Festival Gala. At that time, there was a program on CCTV called" Song Every Monday ", and" Little Grass "was broadcasted continuously for five weeks." Shi Guangzhu said, "Back then, we were willing to defend our country and thought that our future was in national defense. After being injured, we had to choose again." He, like many comrades in arms, relearned and started over, only to choose a different direction and profession. "I was just crookedly turning onto the path of literature.".

Shanghai is the starting point of this turning point in life.

In the second year, Shi Guangzhu studied Braille for another 4 months at Shanghai Blind School. Later, Shenzhen University made an exception and admitted him as a student in the Chinese Department. Entering the university of a discerning person, Braille is no longer useful and he has to start learning from scratch. Record the key points taught by the teacher using a tape recorder, take notes organized by classmates, and carefully correspond them to form my own notes. Learning ancient Chinese is the most difficult because the foundation is weak, and one often does not know which character corresponds to ancient Chinese. "For example, if you repeat the word 'ji' or 'ji', which one? Only by asking others to write about the palm of their hand, what radicals or structures, while speaking and feeling, can you recognize each character one by one."

During his four years at Shenzhen University, Shi Guangzhu studied over 90 courses. "In the first semester, I couldn't keep up and those who had fought could endure hardship. I studied until one or two o'clock in the morning every day, and I have been used to sleeping at this time until now. Listening to classes in the classroom, because my head was injured, I felt a headache while listening. I didn't have enough painkillers, so I resorted to local methods and pinched my index and middle fingers. If it didn't work, I twisted my thighs. Over the years, my index and middle fingers had developed thick calluses. As soon as the exam came, my hair turned white, and after the exam, I recovered. My classmates gave me a nickname - chameleon."

"As long as it is something that others can do, strive for me to do it too." This is the determination made by Shi Guangzhu. He studies cultural courses hard; In physical education class, as long as one can reach the pole and find the direction, he is stronger than his classmates in horizontal bars, parallel bars, and running. "After graduating from university, I must not fail any courses. In the first semester, I almost failed two courses. In the second semester, I started receiving scholarships, and in the third semester, I received top scholarships. Although I feel a bit embarrassed to compete with my classmates, scholarships are only based on grades..."

In 1990, Shi Guangzhu graduated from Shenzhen University and became the first blind person in China to obtain a bachelor's degree. He said that during his four years in university, he was taught the method of looking at problems from multiple perspectives. "Originally, it was a binary system, such as right and wrong, right and wrong, we and the enemy, failure and victory... I studied different courses such as philosophy, psychology, aesthetics, etc., which can explain and understand problems from different perspectives such as positive, lateral, back, inside, and outside."

After graduating from university, Shi Guangzhu returned to the military and retired early with the rank of Deputy Political Commissar and Colonel. "There are still shortcomings in his eyes," he admitted.

Coming down from the battlefield of Laoshan and then starting from Shanghai, Shi Guangzhu divided his later career into literature, public speaking, and charity. He has published over 1400 poems, essays, and songs both domestically and internationally, and has won more than 30 awards such as the Asian Music Award, Lu Xun Literature Award, and the Top Ten National Art Achievement Awards. He has also published more than 10 literary works and music albums, including "I Love", "Star Tree", "A Little Sunshine", "Spring, My Spring", and "Great Love Travels for Thousands of Miles". He is the director of the Literature Expert Committee of the China Blind Association, dedicated to training visually impaired writers, providing them with both a platform for learning and a stage for display. He gave more than 3200 speeches, hoping to help more people, especially teenagers, understand China, understand combat, and understand "the rewards and benefits in our hearts.".

He founded the Beijing Disabled Charity Promotion Association. Why do we need to do charity? He said that during the war, there was a promise that "the living should be filial to the dead.". The main work of the Promotion Association is to provide vocational training through a combination of online and offline methods, from helping martyrs and elderly soldiers in need to assisting the disabled. It has directly assisted over 21000 people. In May of this year, Shi Guangzhu and a group of young entrepreneurs jointly prepared to establish Guangzhu Media and establish the "Guangzhu Public Welfare Brand" to make charity have a hematopoietic function and continue.

Since 1990, Shi Guangzhu has been selected as a national model for self-improvement, an outstanding writer, and one of the 100 most influential people's heroes. In 2009, he was named a "Touching Chinese Figure", and in 2019, he was named the "Most Beautiful Struggler of New China".

This year, Shi Guangzhu is 60 years old. He always remembers a long report published on the front page of the Liberation Daily during his recovery in Shanghai, titled "Facing a Life of Twenty Years Old".

Jiefang Daily published a report on "Facing the Life of Twenty Years Old" with pictures and materials

Journalist's question: At the age of 20 on the battlefield, what power makes you sacrifice your life and forget death?

Shi Guangzhu replied: Firstly, one must aspire to life and death, and honor and disgrace are more important. It is honorable to repay one's family and serve the motherland, and the social atmosphere at that time recognized this honor; 2、 What is home? What is a country? Not letting parents and loved ones be harmed by war, millions of family members are our country. Loving our family and motherland is an expression of love from our generation. Thirdly, on the battlefield, one can only win. If they don't win, they will retreat and die.

"Finally, whether you are a hero or not, you must start and create again."