A PLA soldier tells students stories about war hero Qiu Shaoyun in front of his statue at a memorial in Gansu Province. Photo: CFP

When 82-year-old veteran Wang Jingzhong heard that some online celebrities were expressing skepticism about the stories told of the exploits of Chinese war heroes, he felt angry and sad.

"We were in the same battlefields with these war heroes and saw the sacrifices they made for the country with our own eyes. We picked up our lives from the battlefields, but they died. How can people question the truth of their sacrifice?" Wang said.

Wang, who joined the army at the age of 15, served alongside Huang Jiguang during the Korean War (1950-53). He also met Qiu Shaoyun during the war. Huang and Qiu's heroic stories have appeared in school textbooks for decades and are well known among many Chinese.

Huang used his body to block machine gun fire and protect his comrades in the battle on Shangganling Mountain, North Korea in 1952. Several days earlier, Qiu chose to burn to death rather than reveal his unit's location after an incendiary bomb went off by his side during an ambush attempt in the Korean War, according to official records.

Eyewitness testimony

In the past few years, posts questioning the authenticity of these stories have been surfacing on social media. Some said that Qiu's ability to remain silent while burning to death defies their understanding of human physiology. Others said that they did not understand how Huang's body could block bullets fired by a machine gun.

Some wrote online doubting the truth of the deeds of Lei Feng, a young soldier who has been held up as a moral model for his thrift and willingness to help others since the 1960s. The posts said the photos showing Lei helping other people were set up, and he was also a young man who liked smart clothes and other material luxuries.

The discussion over these figures escalated when online celebrity Sun Jie, known as "Zuoyeben" or "Notebook," who has 8 million followers on the Sina Weibo microblogging website, crudely described Qiu as "roasted meat," a comment which enraged many people.

Yuan Jingcheng, an 84-year-old veteran who was in the same unit as Qiu during the Korean War, told the Global Times that Qiu did choose not to move under the fire to protect more than 500 other soldiers from being exposed in the ambush attempt.

"His fingers were deeply thrust into the soil when we found him after the battle, and it told us how much pain he had endured in the fire," Yuan said.

Some said Qiu had already been choked to death due to heavy smoke before the fire engulfed him, and that is why he did not move while on fire.

Wang Chengjin, curator of the Chongqing-based Qiu Shaoyun Museum, has attempted to verify Qiu's story by interviewing men who fought with Qiu. He wrote in an open letter that Qiu was alive and conscious before the fire engulfed him after the firebomb landed from two meters away, according to witness accounts. "He must have endured the extreme pains with his strong mind," Wang wrote.

Huang Jiguang's fellow soldier Wang Jingzhong said his other comrades who came back from the battle told him that after seeing his comrades die one after another, Huang, who had been shot in the leg, threw his body onto the machine gun.

Li Jide, a soldier who fought alongside Huang at the frontline, told the PLA Daily on May 7 that he witnessed how Huang heroically blocked enemy gunfire.

Huang's sacrifice earned others time and they quickly occupied the strongpoint, according to Wang. "We saw that his chest was full of bullet holes when we helped clean his body before carrying him back for burial in our country," said Wang.

Questioning the questioners

Questioning these stories has not only disappointed some veterans but has made analysts reflect on how to better communicate these accounts to skeptical netizens.

"Some people, especially the young, just cannot understand our beliefs and our willingness to make sacrifices for the country at that time. Anyone who participated in that kind of battle would do anything to protect their comrades and to defeat their enemies," Yuan said.

In response to the rampant online skepticism, the PLA Daily also argued in an article on April 10 that such heroes were "born to fight" and their acts during the war could well be beyond one's normal reasoning.

"While other nations pay tribute to their war heroes in many different ways, some of us are questioning and humiliating our own ones like this. How could we expect people to join the army and fight for our country if we do such thing?" Major General Luo Yuan, standing vice-president of China Strategic Culture Promotion Association, told the Global Times.

 "No matter what the motives these people might have, destroying the image of these heroes is an attempt to deny our national spirit," said Luo.

"After hearing the online discussions, I felt angry as well as worried. We should not follow the path of the Soviet Union whose collapse began with denying of the merits and achievements of some great soldiers," Wang said.

Jia Yuanliang, head of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression Culture Foundation, said the authorities should also reflect on the past publicity methods, which were prone to exaggeration and often didn't show the complexity of a person's full personality when describing a hero.

"Only by telling the whole truth of these heroes' background, the battle environment they were faced with at the time and what people were thinking about in those days, can people be convinced in the Internet era," said Jia.

Jia added that it was good to see veterans stand up and speak of their own experiences and verify the stories of these heroes, which is a good way for the public to better understand their sacrifice.

"We need to record interviews with the veterans because they saw what really happened in those years. We should also use the law to safeguard the images of these heroes when someone attempted to tarnish them," Luo said.

"Just as a Chinese writer said that a nation without a hero is unfortunate. It is hopeless situation when a nation has heroes but shows no respect to them. We should pay tribute to those who made contributions to our country," Luo said.