When Korea will be liberated?—this was the greatest matter of concern to all the Korean people before the country’s liberation. Among them were the inhabitants at Jiapigou, Wangqing County, China. They had immigrated to this alien land after they were deprived of their country by the Japanese imperialists. They would often chat about this matter when they got together. But none of them had an exact idea.
It was the summer of 1941. Around this time unhappy news fell upon the village one after another. The news was about the peace treaty concluded between the Soviet Union and Japan in spring that year and Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union followed by successive occupation of Soviet cities by German troops.
The oldest man in the village was worried that he would not come back home again. The villagers asked a young man who had taken part in a social movement in Russia if he knew about the period of liberation. He came back to this village and was enlightening the villagers. But, he also failed to give a correct answer.
The villagers waited eagerly for Commander Kim Il Sung to visit their village, convinced that no one but he could answer their question.
One of those days a small unit of the Korean People’s Army led by Kim Il Sung dropped in at their village. The unit was active in the area around Wangqing.
The villagers unanimously asked him when Korea would be liberated.
Reading their minds, he said in a confident voice: Wait for more three or four years with patience, and you will surely greet the bright day of liberation.
He made short remarks but the villagers were excited with boundless joy. Since then they anxiously waited for the day to arrive. As he predicted, the news that the Japanese imperialists were defeated in August 1945 was conveyed to the village.
To the villagers who were admiring Kim Il Sung’s foresight, the oldest man said: Our commander is really a great man sent from the Heaven. No one else could foretell the today’s event in the dark days.
