In 1937, Li Shougen was a boy who tended cattle by the Wen River. The Japanese killed his father and threw his body into the river.
Taking the brass cowbell his father had left behind, he became an underground courier for the Central Shandong Military Region.
Over the next eight years, he traveled across all 72 hill forts of Central Shandong, wore through 17 pairs of cloth shoes, delivered more than 300 top-secret messages, and escorted over 100 officials and wounded soldiers to safety.
He witnessed the bloodshed at Daqing Mountain and defended the summit alongside the soldiers of the Daigu Company.
He watched with his own eyes as 30 soldiers fired their last bullets at Taohua Ridge, then linked arms and leaped from a cliff.
He watched with his own eyes as an ordinary village woman was drenched in scalding porridge, yet never revealed where the wounded were hiding, even as she died.
In 1945, Japan surrendered. He took off his uniform and returned to his hometown, waiting for the organization to call on him again.
But he waited for the rest of his life.
Many called him a hero, but he only shook his head:
“I'm no hero. I'm just a messenger.
But I know every message means a chance to live for thousands of people.
And peace was the last wordless message I ever received.”
