Southern guerrilla warfare: I led the Red Seventh Army Corps to amassed a million troops.

Liu Shengmu and Zhou Zeyuan walked side by side on the road. Liu Shengmu held the speech outline in his hand, and his expression still showed a hint of unfinished business.

"Comrade Zeyuan, your method is truly ingenious. The 'complaints' campaign has only been underway for a few days, but the response has been far greater than I imagined."

"Not only were the prisoners deeply moved, but many of our own soldiers also shed tears."

"Some soldiers I used to think were like taciturn guys, never speaking up in meetings. But yesterday at the grievance meeting, he was the first to stand up and speak. He even cried and couldn't continue. The people next to him tried to pull him down to sit, but he refused, insisting on finishing what he had to say."

Zhou Zeyuan struck his signature pose of being unfathomable!

To be honest, while it might feel good to directly use the wisdom of future generations, there's still a sense of shame in doing so.

To prevent Director Liu from continuing to praise it, he quickly changed the subject: "This method is still in the trial stage. Some problems will definitely be exposed later."

"For example, some cadres don't know how to handle things properly and turn grievance meetings into denunciation meetings; or some people take the opportunity to vent their personal grievances and make baseless accusations. You need to pay more attention to this, summarize the experience in a timely manner, and establish rules."

He stopped and turned to look at Liu Shengmu: "I have a lot to do, so the political work is all up to you."

Liu Shengmu nodded solemnly: "Don't worry."

The two continued walking, passing through a small grove of trees, when suddenly the view opened up before them.

A large crowd of people gathered on the playground, forming a semicircle in layers.

A young instructor stood in the center of the crowd, surrounded by everyone:

"...Therefore, if everyone wants to live a good life, we must overthrow those high and mighty landlords. We all come from poor backgrounds, so why not share our experiences with everyone? You can tell us anything."

The crowd remained silent.

Some of them were simply wary and didn't want to integrate into the group.

But many more people are unwilling to look back on that painful past, and do not want to expose the shameful things about being oppressed to the public.

After all, people have a sense of shame, and poor people are often more prone to feeling inferior.

After waiting a while and seeing that no one spoke, the instructor smiled and said, "Then let me share my own experience with you first."

"I am from Ruijin, Jiangxi. When I was nine years old, my father's leg was broken by the landlord's henchmen because he couldn't pay the rent, and he was dragged to the entrance of the ancestral hall for public shaming."

"That night, my mother and I knelt at the entrance of the ancestral hall all night. My father lay on the ground next to us, groaning in pain, with a rag stuffed in his mouth to keep him from making a sound and disturbing the neighbors."

His voice was calm, as if he were talking about someone else's story.

"When I was eleven years old, there was a famine in the village. The landlord had grain, but he refused to lend a single grain, saying, 'You poor wretch can't pay it back.'"

"My sister was starving, so she ran to his field and dug up a few sweet potatoes. She was caught and beaten, and that night she developed a high fever. We didn't have money to call a doctor, and she died three days later. She was only seven years old that year."

In the crowd, some people sniffed, while others closed their eyes and turned their heads away, not wanting others to see their moist eyes.

"I used to hate, I hated the landlords, I hated the Kuomintang, I hated the world. But I didn't know what to do."

"It wasn't until the Red Army came that I realized that hatred alone was useless. To turn this cannibalistic world upside down, we had to band together, take up arms, and fight the reactionaries to the end."

Just then, a soldier next to the instructor suddenly stood up.

"Instructor, I'd like to say a few words."

He turned around, facing the dark mass of people.

"I used to serve in the Nationalist Army."

A slight commotion arose in the crowd. A prisoner squatting in the front row looked at him with obvious suspicion in his eyes:

"You're not lying to us, are you? Judging by your appearance, you don't look like someone who was just captured."

The soldier wasn't annoyed; he simply reached out and rolled up his trouser leg. He rolled up his left trouser leg above his knee, revealing a scar.

"My name is Zhao Changgen. I was a new recruit in the Kuomintang 54th Division. During the Datian Campaign, we were ambushed by the Red Army. I was shot in the leg and fell to the ground unable to move."

"I thought my life was over. I was wounded on the battlefield and no one cared. I was just waiting to die."

He pulled down his trouser leg and stood up straight: "I never expected that the Red Army would carry me down and bandage my wounds."

The crowd fell completely silent.

Zhao Changgen looked at their expressions and shook his head: "I know what you're thinking. You think I'm speaking up for the Red Army, right?"

"Let me tell you the truth, I'm not trying to say that the Red Army treated us prisoners of war very well. You've all seen it yourselves, I don't need to say it."

"We eat the same food, live the same lodging, and treat any injuries we sustain. We don't beat, scold, or search your pockets. Anyone with eyes should be able to see that."

"Let me tell you about my past. My family is from Hunan. My father farmed for a landlord for twenty years."

"I remember one thing from when I was little: my dad would leave home before dawn every morning and wouldn't come back until it was completely dark at night."

"But he never saw a single grain of rice all year round—it wasn't enough even after paying all the rent. He owed money every year, and the debt kept piling up."

"When I was eight years old, the landlord's family was building a new house. They thought the wages were too high, so they dragged the tenant farmers from the village to work for free. My father was asked to carry stones. He carried stones for a month and didn't get paid a single penny."

"One day he came home late, and I asked him what happened. He said he'd hurt his foot while moving a stone. I told him to take off his shoe so I could see it..."

As he said this, his voice suddenly hardened, "He had no toes left; they were all smashed by stones. He found a rag and wrapped it up himself, not daring to tell anyone."

Someone in the crowd swallowed.

"Later, when I grew a bit older, I was able to work in the fields. One summer, the landlord was going out to visit relatives, and his horse happened to be sick, so he hired a few tenant farmers to pull his cart. My father was among them."

"I only heard about it from my father later. They would put a rope over their shoulders and pull the cart like a mule. The landlord would sit in the cart with a whip in his hand, and if he thought it was going too slowly, he would whip it."

"These damned local lords would always say, 'You poor wretches, you'll starve to death if you leave my land.' At the time, I thought they were right. It wasn't until I joined the Red Army that I understood something."

He raised his voice: "Where did the landlords' land come from? It was cultivated by our ancestors!"

"We grow food to feed them, and they turn around and whip us. Why should we?"

Someone in the crowd suddenly raised their head, their eyes flashing with overwhelming rage.

"My hometown is also in Hunan... Our family's land was seized by a landlord. When my father went to ask for it back, he was beaten up and died not long after..."

Another person spoke up: "My family is from Jiangxi... The young master of the landlord's family fell down in front of my father and was beaten up without saying a word. He couldn't take it when he got back."

The third, the fourth, the fifth—more and more people spoke up.

The sounds on the playground gradually rose in volume, eventually merging into a single chorus.

Some people were talking, some were listening, some were wiping away tears, and some were clenching their fists.