So it was until spring came and brought renewal and awakening. They began to stir, they looked at one another in a daze, they went out to find green weeds for vegetables, and to mix with the millet which was their chief food. And Yul-chun was the first to come to himself. By luck he had found shelter with a Chinese farm family, as poor as any; the house had two small rooms shared with the ox, two pigs, and a few hens. Poor as they were, they had a lively interest in Yul-chun because he came from another country and he whiled away the long dark days when snow fell by telling them stories of his people and telling them, too, of all that had taken place here in their own country, of which events they were altogether ignorant, since they could not read, nor, had they been able to read, were there any newspapers.
Yet Yul-chun was amazed by their wit and intelligence, and it seemed unjust that they were compelled to remain ignorant. He conceived a purpose then to teach them to read. Out of this came a people’s school, for once he taught the one family, many others clamored to learn, men, women and children, until he found himself the head of a school, a lowly one, for there were no books and he wrote his lessons in the dust of a threshing floor. Their eagerness was such that many soon could read simple words. Then he found there was nothing for them to read. He was compelled to write small books for them, a few pages in each, and through these little books he was able to teach them the doctrines of better ways of living, and how to govern themselves according to the revolution.
The joy of the people when they found they could read and even write a little became the source of new inspiration for Yul-chun and all his companions. New policies were made, new plans, based upon the people and their cooperation with the revolutionary army. And the people were ready and eager.
“You have opened our eyes,” the elder in a village declared. “Whereas we were blind, now we see. The wisdom in books is now our possession.”
By this means a strong unifying interest in the villagers took hold and the leaders of the revolution learned how to win the people, who in turn fed and supported them.
“We help you,” an ardent farmer had shouted. “We help you for you are the only ones who have ever helped us.” Then he cursed and swore against the rulers they had had, and spat into the dust to show how he despised them.
In this way time passed swiftly for Yul-chun. One year followed another, until one day he knew he must find his way home.
“We must travel alone,” he told Yak-san that day. They left the friendly village that night and the next day they went on, by foot and by horseback, until they came to a railroad where, by following the tracks, they came to a station and so entrained for Peking.
The scent of pines hot in the August sun mingled with the scent of incense in the small room where Yul-chun sat at a table, writing. A cicada burst into rasping song, mounted to a crisis of midsummer frenzy and exhausted sank into quiet. From some distant place in the temple the monotonous chanting of Buddhist priests provided an atmosphere of peace in contrast to the statistics which Yul-chun was compiling for record. The Korean exiles, what were left of them, lived here while they waited out the years and watched for the hour when they might return to their own country. This was Yul-chun’s room in which he slept and worked. Yak-san shared a room with three other young men, but Yul-chun, because he was now considered among the elders, had this cell to himself, a pleasant place opening upon a narrow court on the edge of the mountain. Beyond the pine tree tops the mountains rolled down to the plains and in the distance were the walls of Peking.
He returned to the counting of the dead, their names, the places where they came from in Korea. He counted not only these who had died in China but the many who had been exiled in the long struggle for independence since the Japanese came to Korea: in the Christian year 1907, seventy thousand men of the Korean army scattered and forced into exile; in 1910 more than a million Koreans driven across the Yalu River and wandering to Siberia and China and Manchuria, and countless others in Europe and the Americas; in Korea itself in 1919 after the Mansei Demonstration, fifty thousand prisoners and seven thousand killed; in Japan after the great earthquake of 1923, five thousand Koreans, one thousand of them students, massacred because some had said that the earthquake was punishment on Japan by the gods for the crimes committed in Korea; in Manchuria in 1920 more than six thousand Korean exiles killed by Japanese troops there; and three hundred Korean terrorists killed by Japanese in Shanghai; of the eight hundred young Koreans who joined the Chinese revolutionaries in Canton, almost all were now dead, two hundred in Canton alone, and in 1928 in Korea, the Japanese killed one thousand young men in Korea as Communists, although less than half of them were Communists. Yet who could count or even know how many Korean exiles had been killed in Siberia under the Czars, in China under war lords, in Japan, and even by the French and British in Shanghai! And who could know how many had died in prison cells under torture or with minds deranged! Who knew, who could ever know, the loss Korea had suffered in these, her best and most brilliant young men, who only asked that their country be their own!
Yul-chun put down his pen. Yak-san was at the door with his noonday meal of vegetables and rice, for in the Buddhist temple no meat was eaten.
“I have news,” Yak-san said, putting the tray on the table. He leaned to whisper. “The Japanese will seize Manchuria within ten days!”
Yul-chun dropped the chopsticks he had taken into his right hand.
“We must leave here tomorrow,” he exclaimed. “We must be out of Manchuria before it belongs to Japan. I must know what will happen to our own country if—”
He broke off and went to the door and stood gazing across the mountains and the plain.
“Elder Brother, your food is growing cold,” Yak-san reminded him after a few minutes.
Yul-chun did not turn. “Take it away,” he said. “I have no appetite. The entire world will be at war once more before long, if the news you have brought is to be trusted.”
They left as soon as Yul-chun could prepare others to take his place. Kim, the ex-monk, had long been his aide and to Kim he entrusted all that had been his own responsibility. The few Koreans who still remained gathered around him as he prepared to leave. All were homesick and yearned to go with him, but they would not.
“It would be unthankful if we were all to desert our Chinese comrades now,” Kim said, “before their war is won. Remember that we said we would stay until they entered Peking in triumph. Alas, the world war must be won before we can hope for that victory.”
“I will go home first,” Yul-chun said, “and I will tell you when you must follow. I will find out how matters are in our country and, if war comes, what we must do.”
With these words, Yul-chun bade them farewell and took up his knapsack and went down the mountain, Yak-san following.
On the long journey toward the north, which they made on foot or horseback since Japanese had seized all trains, Yul-chun had many days and nights in which to review these years during which he had lived among Communists, had known them well, had believed in their honesty of purpose and in their devotion, and many he still thought of as friends. He had not regretted leaving the Chinese Communists, but he wished now to distinguish between Communist and Chinese. The Chinese could be very cruel and for that reason he had left them. But need Communists be cruel? In the coming divisions of a world war, Japan and Russia would become even more bitter enemies than in the past, and if Japan were on the losing side, Communists would be on the winning side, and they would become strong in his country. He trusted no one, but must he distrust Communists? Evil men there were among them, yet these were punished and cast out when found. Some were even killed. In Canton he had sat in tribunal more than once to try a comrade who had betrayed them by dishonesty or by personal cruelty and oppressive behavior. He had more than once raised his hand to signify his approval of the death sentence and though he had never fired the last shot, he had stood by to see it done. Nor had he refused to take part in the judgment of greedy landlords and evil magistrates and conniving tax gatherers. These, too, he had judged worthy of death and he had seen them killed and he had remained silent. He had even shouted the slogans of the Party, LAND FOR THE PEASANTS, FOOD FOR THE POOR AND THE WORKERS, PEACE FOR THE SOLDIERS, and he had helped to write the principles agreed upon by the Sixth Congress of the Comintern to establish a government to be called a Workers’ and Peasants’ Democratic Dictatorship.