JINAN, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Jingxian has sent out some 1,000 letters in the past six years, but most were returned.
The intended recipients were 86 soldiers who died in 1947 during the War of Liberation. The youngest was only 17 years old, and the oldest 40.
Since 2014, Zhang, a veteran and Party chief of the Zhanghezhuang Community in east China's Shandong Province, has started helping tell the families of the dead soldiers exactly where their beloved ones are buried -- in a martyr cemetery in the community, which was used to be a field hospital in the war.
The letters have piled up on Zhang's desk and now he is sending typed letters instead of hand-written ones. So far, he has helped the families of 15 martyrs, with the address of another martyr just found Tuesday.
"I feel honored and responsible for doing this because we can't live our peaceful and happy life without the sacrifice of each and every hero," Zhang said.
When he visited the martyrs' tombs on Tomb Sweeping Day in 2008, Zhang made up his mind to do whatever he could to find out who these brave soldiers were.
As a veteran, he knows well the hardship of soldiers and their families, which gives him every reason to help the families find their tombs.
After five years research and visiting veterans who used to fight in the region, Zhang finally figured out 86 out of 136 soldiers' regiments in the cemetery and got a muster roll, including their names, ages and addresses.
"Helping martyrs find home is like racing time," he said, adding that as time passes, less and less will be known about these soldiers.
Under one of the simple square-shaped tombs lies a young man, Gong Jianhou, whose family would have never known where he was buried without Zhang's help.
At the start, letters kept being returned for reasons such as wrong recipient or non-existent addresses. Zhang didn't give up and started to add a note on every envelope.
It was the second time that postman Wang Dejian saw the letter to Gong in 2016. This time he saw the note on the envelope, reading "This is a letter to martyr Gong Jianhou, who died at the age of 29 in December 1947 in the city of Heze. Please help him find his way home."
Wang realized it must be important and decided to take on responsibility from the sender who he had never met.
He visited village after village and asked for information about Gong while delivering letters and parcels.
Wang eventually found out some characters in the name and address might be wrong though they had the same pronunciation with the right one, and he decided to try his luck in a village two km away from the original address.
When Gong Deying, nephew of Gong Jianhou, received the letter from the postman in 2016, he couldn't believe it.
"The family never expected to hear from my uncle again," Gong Deying said. "My grandma can now rest in peace."
Gong Jianhou's mother, who died in the 1970s, had never stopped searching for her son when she was alive.
"With their tombs over 320 km apart, they can reunite in heaven now," Gong Deying said.
