Toward mid-January, I was sent by the Government on a short-term mission to the South. To defend our newly-established power, the Party Central Committee deemed it necessary to step up the anti-French resistance in Nam Bo and Southern Trung Bo so as to win significant successes. At the same time, people in the whole country were to make very active preparations for a long war of resistance in case the enemy should extend the war. I was to impart the Party Central Committee’s great determination to our people there.
The Hanoi newspapers had just issued special numbers marking the hundredth day of resistance.
Before September 2, old colonial administrators in Saigon had affirmed that once they opened fire, the “natives”, whom they knew well, would disperse like a flock of sparrows. The colonial troops had the same idea and as soon as they were released from Japanese prisoners’ camps they would shoot wildly at our people. Some colonial generals believed that operations in the Indochinese peninsula would be a mere military parade.
It was a testing period.
On one side was the professional army of an old imperialist power, under the command of one of France’s most famous generals. They were armed with all kinds of modern weapons: aircraft, warships, armoured cars, big guns, machine guns. This “fine expeditionary force”, to use d’Argenlieu’s words, was assisted by the British interventionists and tens of thousands of Japanese troops.
On the other side, ordinary people armed only with rudimentary weapons were determined to fight to the bitter end to defend their country.
After one hundred days of fighting, Nam Bo and Southern Trung Bo still stood firm. The pointed bamboo spears of our people under a democratic republican regime had proved to be much more effective than the cannon of the former kings and mandarins of the Nguyen dynasty.
In their past war of conquest, the French had only to lob a few shells on the walls of some citadels to conquer large areas of land. But this time, they were knocking their heads against the impregnable iron wall of a people who refused to fall back into slavery.
By using columns of armoured vehicles, they could advance into some of the provinces in Nam Bo and Southern Trung Bo. But the important things was that the resistance was never stamped out. It kept on surging up vigorously everywhere, and was alive in those very cities and towns which the enemy believed they had conquered.
In those critical hours which would decide the life or death of the Fatherland, our people soon found out the way to fight. The enemy was baffled by new ways of combat. Cities and towns were destroyed by the same people who had built them. Villages were deserted wholly by their populations who refused all cooperation; everywhere the enemy went, he saw only empty houses, uncared for gardens, destroyed bridges and cut roads. “Death braving” fighters made use of every weapon at hand to defend every street corner, every trench, under shells and bombs. What troubled the enemy most was the fact that his adversaries seemed at once nowhere and everywhere and could attack him at any time.
The large rural areas in Nam Bo were still under our control. Many guerilla bases were built up. We had large base areas in the Plain of Reeds and the U Minh forests. Some bases were quite close to the cities.
The enemy landed in Nha Trang in late November, but was encircled in the city by the local troops and people assisted by a number of army detachments from the North. His scheme to attack Khanh Hoa was also frustrated.
The people from various ethnic groups fought alongside our army to dispute every village and hamlet with the enemy in the central Highlands. Our troops recaptured Buon Me Thuot town from the French and controlled it for ten days in mid-December.
The guerilla war was everywhere, in every village, along strategic highways, even in the cities and towns under enemy occupation.
Some colonialist military men had been over-optimistic about the outcome of the war of aggression. They had believed in a simple arithmetic: “The resistance fighters have few guns. They have still less ammunition. When they have used up their ammunition — probably pretty soon — all resistance will come to an end”. After three months of fighting by our people, the prospects looked gloomy to the aggressors. They began to realize the strength of a whole nation rising up in arms for the survival of the country.
The aggressors saw the danger of a protracted war. They urgently asked for reinforcement from France. From early 1946, they launched repeated violent mopping-up operations into our base areas in Nam Bo. They tried hard to occupy some more provinces in Southern Trung Bo and prepared new schemes of attack.
I left Hanoi on the 18th of January, a warm sunny afternoon. Before we started off, Uncle Ho once again asked us to convey his greetings to the people, fighters and cadres in the South and tell them that he would go and see them when the occasion arose. He told us to be vigilant and keep things secret. That was what he used to remind us of before we started on any mission.
As we drove out of Hanoi, we found a somewhat different atmosphere. In the absence of the Chiang troops’ bayonets, the land appeared clear and pure, splendidly bathed in the light of independence and freedom. Everywhere there were banners and slogans urging the people to “Support the Heroic Resistance of our Southern Compatriots”. Though it was not a festive day, we could see the gold-starred flags flying everywhere in the villages, the streets and even the fields. Militia posts had been set up at various crossroads and towns on our way.
It was a long time since we had been to the south of our fatherland. This trip of ours was different from those we had made when working underground. Like the rest of the country the South had undergone many changes, and was now fighting. Our car drove fast along Highway No 1. The smell of petrol and the hooting reminded us of past travels. Our hearts palpitated as we thought of our fellow-countrymen and fighters engaged in fierce struggles with the enemy at the front.
On our way, we saw many army detachments going south. More and more sons of the North and the Centre were leaving for the front. Cadres and fighters were of different ages, but most of the soldiers were quite young. For most of them, it was the first time they had ever gone to fight in a war, and perhaps the first time they had ever gone to the far regions of the country. Those important hours would certainly leave unforgettable memories in the minds of all. On the way to railway stations, the fighters were singing while marching, carrying rucksacks, guns and ammunition. Express trains full of soldiers rumbled toward the South, carrying with them songs, laughter and waving hands. The excitement of going to war was being revived in the national life. Many a time, I had the car stopped along the road so that I could have a chat with soldiers going south.
I arrived the next day in Nghe An, province of the picturesque River Lam and Hong Linh Mountains. Everywhere in the city of Vinh, we saw people undergoing military training, learning the use of scimitars, grenades and rifles. Old and young, men and women, they were learning to march in step with wooden guns on their shoulders. Some of the older ones might be former Red Guards in the Nghe Tinh Soviets of fifteen years before. They were now standing in the same ranks with their younger brothers and sons.
All the comrades I met in Nghe An asked me when Uncle Ho would come.
Uncle Ho had a very deep feeling toward his native land. He loved everything connected with it, from the leaf fans to the hibiscus hedges at his home. We could measure how deep this love was when he visited his native village Sen. After fifty-two long years of absence from home he was able to find the old path right away and the old porch in the middle of the hamlet in spite of all the changes. He remembered well where the columns had stood that had supported the hammock in which his mother used to lie and where every lemon tree and grapefruit tree had stood in the garden.
None of us thought then that it would be twelve years before another opportunity would come to him to visit his home.
The next day, we started early. After crossing the Deo Ngang pass, we again saw the familiar ricefields, narrow and long, the white sandhills of Quang Binh, that beautiful characteristic sight of the Centre.
The little, pretty town of Dong Hoi, full of remembrance, lying on the shore of the Nhat Le river, was busy receiving the southbound troops and seeing off its own sons to the front. There, I met again many friends and relatives. We chatted about country and family affairs during the whole afternoon and evening.
On the 20th, we arrived in Hue.
On the outskirts were pretty houses and lush tea gardens. The car drove between two lines of regular and straight sycamores on either side of the asphalt road.
Driving past the outer wall of the West Gate, we could see the quiet Perfume River in the evening sun. The Ngu Mountain stood behind the former European residential quarters. The river and the mountain had become ours. The gold-starred flag was fluttering on top of the high flagtower in the city. Behind the Phu Van pavilion National Defence guards were on sentry duty at the city gate.
In the city, the palaces and residences of former mandarins of the imperial court had become Government and Front offices. I met Comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh at the office of the Viet Minh Front. I told him the decisions of Uncle Ho and the Party Bureau. We exchanged views and discussed various matters, and told each other what had happened in the country since we first met at the Tan Trao Conference.
Feudal Hue had become a thing of the past. Green moss was still visible on the walls of the ministries but the revolution had brought about so many changes. Corruption and stagnation had made room for newness and progress. Independent Hue was pretty and bright.
There, we could feel the heat of the resistance war. Hue was now the immediate rear base of various fronts. Cadres came here from battlefields in Nam Bo, Southern Trung Bo and Laos. Some were on missions. Others were on sick leave. Wounded soldiers had also been brought here. Many of them, hardly recovered from their wounds, insisted on being sent back to the front. The troops were training day and night, making the most of every hour and minute before going to the front. In every office, every house, every individual, we found the same solicitude for the resistance. Here, the reactionary parties had not been able to find a favourable ground for their activities. The Chiang officers and troops also appeared to be more reasonable and did not dare to commit any provocations.
We were assailed with questions about Uncle Ho’s health, the situation in the North, the provocations engineered by the Chiang troops and the reactionaries in the capital. Many told us how happy the Hue people had been when they heard that Uncle Ho polled the largest number of votes in Hanoi.
Hue was the place where Uncle Ho had spent his childhood and adolescence.
Late in the last century, when he was still a young child, he came to Hue with his family. His father had been successful in a competitive examination and was called to the imperial city. Here, in 1900, in a small house facing the censor’s Office, young Cung — Uncle Ho’s name in his childhood — witnessed the last minutes of his mother. After his mother’s death, Cung returned to Nam Lien.
Five years later as a young man, he came back to Hue with the name Nguyen Tat Thanh.
There was a strong movement of struggle in Hue at that time. The French had forced Thanh Thai to abdicate in favour of his son Duy Tan, who was only eight years old. People from various regions came to Hue and for several days on end there were demonstrations for the reduction of taxes. French troops were brought in from Mang Ca fortress and opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators. Many were pushed into the river. Trang Tien Bridge was reddened with blood.
From this city, Nguyen Tat Thanh began his “ten-thousand-mile” tour of the world.
One month before I arrived in Hue, Comrade Le Van Hien had also come to Hue on his way to the South on a mission. On Uncle Ho’s instruction, he had visited the wives of Thanh Thai and Duy Tan, the deposed kings.
They were surprised and moved by such solicitude on the part of President Ho. The wife of Thanh Thai said that since our Government came to power, she had been praying daily for the Government and President Ho instead of the royal family. Her daughter-in-law, the wife of King Duy Tan, said that since her husband was deported by the French, she had been completely neglected by the royal faimily.
I stayed for two days in Hue and discussed with the comrades there the Party Central Committee’s directives — resolutely to step up the resistance in Nam Bo and Southern Trung Bo, make urgent preparations for a protracted war and guard against the French extending the war to the whole of Central Viet Nam.