多維社記者紀群編譯報導/這部名為《八千湘女上天山》的電影表明，當它預定於今秋在全國上映時，各地的觀眾將會看到一部充滿苦澀的革命浪漫主義歡樂的傳說。

電影戲劇化地講述了在上世紀50年代期間，數千名年紀在13到19歲的少女，隨着軍隊的足跡，來到中國遙遠西部的穆斯林地區定居的故事。


《八千湘女上天山》劇照（資料圖片）

隨着這部電影在政府密切監視下在北京開拍，一個欺騙大眾、強迫婚姻和自殺的故事，一段鮮為人知的歷史，將被公布於眾。

英國泰晤士報近日刊登了該報駐遠東記者謝瑞丹（Michael Sheridan）的一篇題為“毛澤東時代奴隸少女新娘的隱藏痛苦”（Hidden misery of Mao’s slave teenage brides）的報導。報導說，一批老年婦女出面講述，當年她們是如何被虛假的培訓和教育承諾引誘去中國的新邊疆，結果發現自己被關在軍營里，被強制與軍人結婚。

中國記者還發現，毛澤東曾批准派遣了900名原上海妓女到軍隊中接受“思想改造”。

數千名戰爭中留下的寡婦也被徵召到西部大荒原，與人民解放軍指戰員的新丈夫孕育後代。


在“進俄文學校、可以當紡織女工、當拖拉機手”的吸引下，數千名年紀在13到19歲的少女，隨着軍隊的足跡，來到中國遙遠西部的穆斯林地區當軍嫂定居和養兒育女（資料圖片）

這些，讓人們對上世紀50年代初期，中國領導層占領和移民新疆的決心，有了一種新的認識。也是自那以後，中國漢人和穆斯林維吾爾人之間的民族衝突的火種就開始埋下了。最近，人們目睹了新疆1997年暴動以來最血腥的暴亂。

在成千上萬名移民西部的中國人中，很少有人的故事，像作家盧一萍所記述的這八千名來自湖南的女孩這麼的悲涼。盧一萍花了5年時間，追蹤採訪當年湘女中倖存者，這些人當年大都是清純的農村女孩，對“新中國”充滿理想。


解放軍藝術學院文學系畢業的軍旅作家盧一萍寫作的紀實文學《八千湘女上天山》2006年出版（資料圖片）

1949年到1954年，軍方上層在隱瞞徵召女兵的真實目的的情況下，從中國各地徵召了4萬婦女進疆，”她說。

“她們被告知說，到新疆後可以進俄文學校、可以當紡織女工、當拖拉機手，而絕口未提“婚配”的事，而且在招兵條件里寫着“家庭條件不限”，對一些家庭成分高的女青年來說有較大的吸引力，她們普遍把這看作參加革命、融入新生活的一個途徑。從1951年開始招收到的十多批湖南女兵，多數都是有文化的湖南妹子，”盧一萍在百度網上發表的採訪中說。

而在湘女們在長途跋涉，剛到達西部時，就得到了當頭一棒：她們被立即上了一堂“軍事”課，其內容與蘇聯式的理想，或者建設工程毫無關聯，而是“革命婚姻”。

然後，她們被送到遍布各地的軍營。一組20名的湘女發現她們被送到一個有1,000多人的軍營，幾天內，就馬上與20名資格最老的軍官結婚了。

當年15歲的肖葉群拒絕與一名26歲的部隊政委王富民結婚。“當時我發現他比我大9歲，我不願意當他的妻子，哭哭啼啼，”她回憶說。

“他就拿出了槍，將子彈推上了槍膛，好像要開槍打死自己的樣子。後來我再也不敢說不願意了。一年後，我們結婚了。”(

幾十年後，就在中國準備慶祝解放60周年之時，肖葉群和其他湘女的故事在媒體上發表了。包括一個倔強的長沙女兵拒絕了一個營長的求愛，後者被激怒，拔槍殺死了女兵。該軍官後被軍事法庭處以極刑。還有一個高中畢業非常漂亮的長沙女兵，因為被“包辦”給一個死了老婆有3個孩子的比她大近20歲的老幹部，在結婚當天就瘋了。

當年的湘女戴慶媛回憶說，“軍區的司令官王震來迎接我們，他對我們說，‘同志們，你們要做好思想準備，把你們招聘來，是建設新疆，保衛新疆的，是為各族人民辦好事的，湖湘子弟滿天山，這還不夠，你們要把忠骨埋在天山下······’”。將軍的話還沒有講完，下面的秩序就亂了，因為大家原以為參軍3年後就可以轉業回湖南老家的，這時從將軍的話里才知道自己再也回不去了。許多人就哭了。


09年7月30日，大型舞蹈詩劇《天山芙蓉》在湖南大劇院上演，再現了上個世紀50年代8000多名湖南女子應招入伍，參加新疆建設的那段重大歷史（資料圖片）

戴慶嬡還回憶說，當時對我們這些女兵來說，覺得結婚像包辦又不是包辦，自願又不是自願，既幸福又不幸福。可以說，絕大多數人都覺得婚姻生活沒有多少愛，十分壓抑。這是當時的歷史條件造成的。包括在有意或者無意當中，我們對情感的選擇，都不是從個人的需要出發，而是從集體利益出發，那就是繁殖生育，讓兵團的人口增加，壯大力量，固守疆土，紮根邊疆。我認為那種婚姻是道德婚姻。過去是媒妁之言、父母之命，在家靠父母，出門靠組織，我們的組織就是我們的當家人，不敢說不服從命令，所以那個時候都服從了。


2006年1月20日，長沙。曾經在新疆奮鬥過的湘女們深情相聚。（資料照片）


From The Sunday Times

August 2, 2009

Hidden misery of Mao’s slave teenage brides

Michael Sheridan

THE film’s title, 8,000 Girls Ascend the Heavenly Mountain, suggests that Chinese audiences will see a tale of joy when it is aired on television this autumn.

It dramatises the lives of thousands of girls aged 13 to 19 who went to China’s remote far west in the 1950s to follow soldiers sent to colonise the turbulent Muslim region.

In real life it was a trip to purgatory. As shooting for the film unfolds in Beijing under the watchful gaze of party censors, an astonishing story of mass deception, forced marriages and suicides has come to light.

Elderly women have come forward to tell how they were lured to China’s new frontier by false promises of training and education - only to find themselves locked in barracks and coerced into marrying soldiers.

Chinese journalists have also discovered that Chairman Mao Tse-tung approved the dispatch of 900 prostitutes from the brothels of Shanghai to undergo “thought reform” at the hands of the troops.

Thousands of war widows were also conscripted to go forth and multiply in the desert with new husbands from the People’s Liberation Army.

It casts new light on the leadership’s determination to occupy and populate the far west, known as Xinjiang, in the early 1950s. Ethnic conflict between Chinese and the Uighur Muslim population has flared ever since. The area recently witnessed its worst riots since an insurrection in 1997.

The stoical endurance of hundreds of thousands of Chinese settlers has rarely been described in such bleak terms as in the accounts of the 8,000 women from Hunan province collected by Lu Yiping, an author. He spent five years tracing the survivors of that naive pilgrimage, simple rural girls infused with the idealism of the “new China”.

“There were 200,000 soldiers in Xinjiang and only a handful had wives. So from 1949 to 1954 the military authorities, hushing up their real motive, recruited 40,000 women from all over China,” he said.

“They were told that they would go to Russian-language schools, work in factories or drive tractors on farms. Marriage was never mentioned,” said Lu in an interview published on the Baidu.com website.

The first shock for the Hunan girls came after a long journey to the west by lorry. They received a military lecture which was not about Soviet studies or engineering but “revolutionary marriage”.

Then they were sent to barracks scattered across the region. One group of 20 girls, who found themselves with a regiment of 1,000 men, hastily married the 20 most senior officers within days of their arrival.

Xiao Yequn, who was 15 at the time, refused to marry a 26-year-old political commissar named Wang Fumin. “When I found out he was nine years older than me I was unwilling to be his wife,” she recalled.

“He immediately took out his pistol and put a bullet in the chamber. I dared not resist and the next year we got married.”

Xiao’s story is among several published by the state media this year as the nation prepares to celebrate 60 years since “liberation” on October 1, 1949.

“We were greeted by the military commander, Wang Zhen, who told us, ‘Comrades, you must prepare to bury your bones in Xinjiang’,” remembered Dai Qingyuan.

“Before he finished, all the girls broke down weeping because we realised we would never be able to go home.”

Dai married a veteran “hero” eight years older than herself. “Most of the girls were so depressed because there was no love in their marriages, only obedience. At home we obeyed our parents. In the army we obeyed the party,” she said.

“Nobody dared do otherwise because our job was to increase the population for the army corps.”

The army corps evolved into big military and business conglomerates called bingtuan which built the economy of Xinjiang and remain its most powerful interest groups. And the fertility of the army wives helped to change the population balance in Xinjiang so that Chinese now outnumber the Muslims.

“The prettier you were, the worse your plight because you would be picked by the older, senior officers,” said Jiang Lihua.

Among the soldiers, however, the arrival of women came like the discovery of an oasis in the desert.

“I knew a battalion commander called Zhao who went mad because he couldn’t find a wife and roamed around waving a gun,” recalled a political officer in an interview with Chinanews, an official agency. “His superior officer locked him up in a room where he committed suicide.”

A colonel named Hu forced a girl into marriage and within days she also killed herself, the political officer said.

One woman, who was due to marry a widowed officer 20 years her senior with three children, went mad on the eve of her wedding.

The number of female suicides is unknown. According to Lu, girls who refused to wed were victimised in political campaigns. A few held out to marry for love, finding the handsome younger soldiers of their dreams.

It remains to be seen how Chinese censors will allow the film to treat its subject, given the unrest in Xinjiang and the emergence of these accounts.

At present the script indicates that it will tell a tale of wholesome adventure in which “girls bring vital dawn to Xinjiang and with the soldiers they write a revolutionary page of blossoming and faith”.

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